When I was a child of three my family moved to a different part of San Diego. Soon after we settled into our new home I decided to go on a mission to explore my new surroundings. It never occurred to me to inform my mother of my intention. I just went.
Several blocks from my home, I heard some interesting noises coming from a back yard. Climbing a brick wall, I perched myself at the top. Perhaps fifteen feet from where I sat were about fifty chattering parakeets in a cage. Fascinating. I sat on that wall for maybe fifteen minutes, lost in fantasy, until my stomach told me that it was time to go home. I climbed down from the wall and returned to the sidewalk.
Which way was home? I walked one way for a while and saw nothing familiar. I changed directions and still could not get my bearings. An overwhelming sense of despair overcame me. Tears forced their way into my eyes. I simply did not know my way home. I thought that I would never see my parents again.
I was walking slowly along the sidewalk, sobbing in utter despair, when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned to see my mother coming to get me, her face filled with compassion. Her child’s pain was clearly evident.
But then I did the strangest thing. I ran away from my mother. She caught up to me and hoisted me into her arms. “Put me down,” I yelled, fighting her loving embrace. But she held me tight and carried her lost little boy home.
For many years my behavior in that event puzzled me. The logical response would have been to run into my mother’s arms. Why did I run away?
At the age of twenty-five another incident occurred in my life that finally unlocked the mystery. I was the college age leader of a group that included seven other collegians and forty-some high school kids in an intense eight-week discipleship program at my church. One of our weeks was a back-packing trip in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California.
We set up camp late one evening at a place called “The Devil’s Postpile.” The next morning one of the ladies who came along to cook for us handed me two large buckets and asked me to fetch some water from a nearby stream. I filled them to the top and headed back. Instead of going the longer, safer way, I decided to take a shortcut that involved climbing over some large rocks. One rock was particularly tall. To gain the top while carrying two full buckets of water, I needed a running start. But there wasn’t enough clearing in front of it to get the necessary momentum. I tried anyway and fell back into the rocks below. Searing pain shot through my right knee as it struck hard into a large boulder. How bad was it? I re-filled the buckets and took them back the right way, delivering them without a word about my fall.
Then began the inner debate. Could I complete a four-day backpack on my damaged right knee? If I stayed behind, I wouldn’t be with the kids and someone would have to assume my responsibilities. But if I went, I might wind up helpless in the remote wilderness, forcing my friends to carry me out. I elected to go, keeping secret my plight.
That first morning we climbed 2,000 feet to a place called Morrow Pass, which was over 12,000 feet in elevation. I was one of the first to the top. There we rested, waiting for the slower climbers to join us. While I rested my knee stiffened up.
When it came time to resume our trek, I knew that I was in trouble. The trail traversed a steep, slippery slope of glaciated snow. If I fell on that ice, I might be unable to regain my feet with all my heavy gear. Fall I did, and though I struggled mightily, I could not rise. Several of the high school kids noticed.
“Can you make it if I take your canteen, sleeping bag, and jacket?” said one of the boys.
When I failed to respond, he simply took them, adding them to his already considerable load. Now all I had to carry was my backpack. Suddenly, I broke into uncontrollable sobbing.
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t like needing help.”
“We’re all here to help each other. It’s okay.”
With that two other boys helped me to my feet. Enough weight had been removed so that I could make it to our evening destination, another four hours away.
I walked mostly alone those hours—contemplating my humiliation. I was supposed to be the strong one, helping out the weaker high school kids. Charles Wesley’s great hymn And Can it Be? entered my mind, especially the second stanza.
He left His Father’s throne above,
So free, so infinite His grace,
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race.
Jesus bled for Adam’s helpless race. A high school kid bore the burden of a helpless college leader. And then it came to me. I had known that helplessness before, as a hopelessly lost three-year-old. I could not save myself then. Neither could the grown man save himself on the glaciated snow at Morrow Pass. And finally, I knew why I had run from my mother.
“Mother, I’m not lost. I don’t need you. I’m doing fine all by myself.” Who was I fooling? I wonder how many people would rather spend an eternity in hell than admit their need?
Something broke in me that day. The pain of humiliation gave way to an exhilarating sense of freedom. It’s okay to be in need. Without Christ, who came into this world to save us from our sins, we are indeed Adam’s helpless race. I wonder too, how intimate can be any human relationship without that sense of acknowledged vulnerability.
