I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional

"Dysfunctional" seems to be quite a catch word in our modern society. From marriages, to families, to churches...everybody and everything seems to be, to one degree or another, "dysfunctional." In light of this, I wanted to share with you a devotional by Elisabeth Elliot taken from her book "All That Was Ever Ours." It was eyeopening to me. I hope it is to you.

"P. T. Barnum knew what he was talking about when he said there's a sucker born every minute. He made money on it and so have thousands before and since. It isn't difficult to convince insecure people (who isn't insecure?) that they've been shabbily treated and deserved better. In fact they've been horribly treated and mistreated, misunderstood, misused, abused. Their families were dysfunctional (whose wasn't? whose parents did a perfect job?). No wonder they can't feel good about themselves. But here, folks, I can make you see that you're wonderful, really WONDERFUL. It's bad to feel bad about yourself, and it's the fault of all those awful people who wounded you. You can just walk away from them.

As always, we must hold up whatever the world is saying to the straightedge of Scripture in order to see if it's crooked. The "gospel" according to the self-gurus, by which many will testify to having been helped, is very simple and, I believe, very crooked. The pathway to fulfillment is straight and narrow, and it begins at the cross where (as in Pilgrim's Progress) Christian drops his burden: the burden of sin, deep-rooted, infectious, malignant, death-dealing sin, the terrible root of all those "bad feelings." "Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said, with a merry heart, 'He hath given me rest by His sorrow and life by His death.' Then he stood still a while to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him, that the sight of the Cross should thus ease him of his burden."

Surprising it will always be to those who come to that Cross, and foolishness it will always be to those who don't. Rest comes by His sorrow, life by His death? Yes. "His purpose in dying for all was that men, while still in life, should cease to live for themselves and should live for him who for their sakes died and was raised to life. With us therefore worldly standards have ceased to count in our estimate of any man.... When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world (or a new act of creation); the old order has gone, and a new order has already begun" (2 Corinthians 5:15-17, NEB).

That new order is a far cry from the notion of self-acceptance which has taken hold of the minds of many Christians. Any message which makes the Cross redundant is anti-Christian. The original sin, pride, is behind my "poor self-image," for I felt that I deserved better than I got, which is exactly what Eve felt! So it was pride, not poor self-image, that had to go. If I'm so beautiful and lovable, what was Jesus doing up there, nailed to the cross and crowned with thorns? Why all that hideous suffering for the pure Son of God? Here's why: There was no other way to deliver us from the hell of our own proud self-loving selves, no other way out of the bondage of self-pity and self-congratulation. How shall we take our stand beneath the cross of Jesus and continue to love the selves that put Him there? How can we survey the wondrous cross and at the same time feed our pride? No. It won't work. Jesus put it simply: If you want to be My disciple, you must leave self behind, take up the cross, and follow Me. George MacDonald writes, "Right gladly would He free them from their misery, but He knows only one way: He will teach them to be like Himself, meek and lowly, bearing with gladness the yoke of His Father's will. This is the one, the only right, the only possible way of freeing them from their sin, the cause of their unrest."

~by Elisabeth Elliot