A Phone Call…

…was all it took.

Well…It began with a text and then a phone call. Nevertheless, I spoke with a friend yesterday about a matter that bothered us both. He was somewhat upset with me and I was disappointed with him. As it usually goes, though, there was more going on than I knew. The great thing was that we talked about it, and now I’m informed and he feels better.

We know in our heart of hearts that there is a lot going on under the surface of our lives. The situation with my friend is just a single example. The same rings true with me, you, and whomever else for that matter. The tension underneath the surface can only be suppressed for so long. It is going to surface. And when it does, it can be for good or ill.

For the third time now, each instance starting all over from the beginning, I’ve set out to read Ruth Haley Barton’s, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership. Last night, as I read chapter 2 for the third time, I made an instant connection between what happened earlier in the day with my phone call to a friend and the Barton text. Chapter 2 is entitled, “What Lies Beneath.” Barton discusses Moses’s first 40 years and how it must have produced a significant identity crisis for him. He’s a Hebrew given up by his mother and raised as an Egyptian prince. In defense of his people, he kills an Egyptian and buries him in the sand in an effort to cover up his actions. The next day he visits the Hebrew people again. An effort to prevent two Hebrews from fighting proved futile. In fact, they want to know if Moses is going to do to them what he did to the Egyptian (Exodus 2:14). To this Barton states,

And Moses was afraid, as well he should have been. He was afraid that he would be found out, that he would be seen for who he really was. What had been present under the surface of his life was now on the surface, and it could no longer be ignored.

So Moses flees to Midian. And in solitude and silence he finds himself. Later, after another 40 years of living in the purgative way, God would find him in the midst of solitude. And through Moses, God would do great things.

Barton tells a story about a trip she took to Florida. One day, while swimming in the ocean, she heard the scream of a man running along the beach telling her to get out of the water. She did. But why? There was a saltwater alligator patrolling the coast, just under the surface.

To this, with Moses also in mind, Barton states,

The moral of the story as it relates to leadership is this: what lies beneath the surface- of the ocean of our lives- really matters. Whether I know something is there or not is in some ways irrelevant. My awareness of it or lack of awareness doesn’t make it any less real. It doesn’t much matter whether I have ever heard of what is lurking beneath the surface, and it could even be that others are seeing these things though I am not. If, by God’s grace, we become aware of the dark creatures lurking below, the best thing we can do is to get out of the water- fast!

This is exactly what Moses did when he got a glimpse of the dark thing that had been lurking under the surface of his consciousness and was starting to surface so powerfully. That one glimpse of the destructive power of his raw and unrefined leadership was so frightening to Moses that he fled into solitude. He did not walk. He did not jog. He did not take time to figure out what it was or put his affairs in order. He fled into solitude. He said, in effect, “This part of me, if left as it is, will be no good for anyone.” Yes, he ran because he was afraid of Pharaoh, but oftentimes it is the fear of being found out or the actual experience of being found out that alerts us to what lies beneath. It actually places us on the path of self-discovery and (hopefully) forces us to do whatever work we need to do to take more responsibility for the dark forces that have propelled our bad behavior.

I don’t think it was simply coincidental that I found myself entrenched in this aspect of Barton’s book after having talked things through with my friend earlier in the day. His point was that there were things under the surface that compelled him distance himself for a bit. Once I was apprised of this, I actually found myself appreciating what  he had done.

I’ve been way too quick to formulate opinions about people and why they do the things they do. Because of such, I’m inclined to equate myself with Bildad, Zophar and Eliphaz from the book of Job. They were Job’s friends. They engaged Job in his plight, but they spoke without gathering the facts. Much of what they told Job about the wicked not prospering was principally true, but they erred in presuming that Job had done something to bring his pain upon himself. In the end, they were wrong about Job, because they didn’t take into account what was under the surface. God wasn’t punishing Job; he was showing the devil that the devil himself was wrong about Job. Bildad, Zophar and Eliphaz learned the hard way.

My hope is that we’ll keep in mind that things are always lurking beneath the surface. Actions are often a response to unseen stimuli. We need to remember this at all times.