As I am going through this process of recognizing and healing from the effects of growing up with IBLP/ATI, I find that daily life can often draw parallels to what I am feeling internally. I was washing a window in my kitchen today and realized that one of them is broken. It is pointless to clean it because if I wanted people to think of me as a good housekeeper then I should just replace it, right? Yet, I continue to clean it until we have the time to replace it.
In ATI we had all the cleaning supplies. We were promised that we had the power and the desire (Bill Gothard’s definition of grace) to clean up our lives. If we didn’t have our lives clean then we were simply resisting God’s grace. We were promised many different successes if we applied all of the rules. Such as, if we committed to courtship our marriages would be a success and we would remain pure emotionally and physically. If we dumped all of our rock music then we would be clean and free from that horrible addiction allowing the light of our eyes to shine. We learned that by memorizing and meditating on Scriptures we would find God’s purpose for our lives. This would bring us our Life Purpose enabling us to make wise decisions. We longed for the day, as did our parents, when we would be so clean we could look like all those perfect young people that Bill Gothard paraded across the Knoxville stage. The list was endless–memorize more, memorize the right verses (Song of Solomon is out), memorize the 49 character qualities and their definitions. Display these in your life (especially “gratefulness”), meditate on the verses, wake up earlier, wake up in the middle of the night, serve more, have a better attitude, have a testimony (written in four parts), have perfect clothes, perfect hair, etc. The list continues as you “stay under the protection of your parents authority” because they have things we must follow too.
There was one problem–we were all broken! We didn’t like the blue neckties, we had crushes on boys, and we craved music that moved us. We were never memorizing enough Scripture or remembering to meditate on verses. We were too busy doing Wisdom Booklets and our Journals of Faith or washing the dishes. We fell asleep during Wisdom Searches or couldn’t find a Scripture that gave us a Rhema. When we found an obvious verse that disagreed with some of the teachings of Mr. Gothard we were dishonoring to our parents by questioning their choices in our lives. We loved clothes that made us feel pretty and found that we were immodest because they didn’t hang lifeless on us.
But more important than all these things–our brokenness was that we could not be good enough to get God’s approval. Even when we were at our best, serving at a Training Center, wearing approved clothes, keeping our eyes from looking at those of the opposite gender, we were failing. At what, we did not know, but surely someone would find out what it was. The guilt and continuous struggle were staggering. Since we had learned in the Wisdom Booklets that grinding our teeth was a sign of deeper rooted problems, we wouldn’t let anyone know. This could mean we had a problem with our servant spirit and an attitude towards our authority.
Because the truth is ". . . all our righteousness are as filthy rags." He loves us because He made us. He made us perfect through forgiveness through Jesus and not through any efforts of our own. He only asks us to have faith in His salvation.
We all said that we were saved through faith alone and yet all the rules pointed to gaining God’s approval through our own efforts. If what Jesus did wasn’t enough for us, then nothing ever will be enough. And we will be chasing rules forever. That is no way to live life!
Jesus said that the whole of the law was to love the Lord with all your heart, mind, and soul; and to love your neighbor as yourself. Love is the opposite of rules. When we live our lives as an outpouring of love, we end up pleasing God. But when we live a life of following the rules, we end up living opposite of love. Instead, we become consumed with being perfect, leading to frustration and shame. We judge others for not following the “lists” as we do or are jealous of those who seem to follow more closely than us.
The problem: We need to stop cleaning the broken glass. When Jesus died on the cross, He did it so we could be made perfect in God’s eyes. When we believe that all our sins were on His shoulders and that He died to take that punishment from us, then we can see that His whole life was one of love for us.
The solution: Living love!!! When I focus on loving you, I take my eyes off of myself and my silly rules and put them on meeting your needs. As a mom, I know what it means to sacrifice myself for someone else because you love them more than anything. That is what God did for us in a much more extreme way. When I get out of my own way, stop focusing on my shallow rules, and love others, then I am being that beautiful, sparkly replaced window that He made me when I accepted Him as my Savior!!!
Very good word picture! Only Jesus can make us new.
Wendy, thank you for this great picture. I'm going to remember this. Washing the broken window does not fix the problem. It's like wearing fig leaves in Eden or rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Yet we invested so much effort into it.
Loving God and other people from a place of being a new creation, that's where it's at!
precious.
So sweet!!! Thanks guys! I am so excited because as I read this again this morning, I learned new stuff about myself in it!!! Such as my drive to make my son exceed in school... it is all about cleaning the broken glass!!! In other words, my past still haunting me. LOL What I would like is for him to love learning. He has such a great teacher this year that is showing me the difference between drilling students (the law) and showing them exciting books and helping them write their ideas (love). I think most of life can be seen as a correlation between the law and grace/love.
Wow! Thank you so much for writing this article. I can totally relate to how you interact with your son and his schooling. I just had my "ah-ha moment" remembering all the times that I have been feverishly trying to cram education down my oldest son's throat and forgetting to help him learn to enjoy gaining new knowledge.
It is just crazy how someone else can write about an exact feeling or moment in your life and up to that point it never made sense why you do or did what you did. Thank you for unabashedly putting your thoughts on "cyber paper".....reading this has been better than having another cup of java this fine am!!!!!
This is so, so beautiful, Wendy, and so true. This is just what I needed. Thank you.
Wendy,
This was a fantastic article. I found myself identifying with everything in it (minus the crushes on boys and the clothes that made me feel pretty :)
"But more important than all these things–our brokenness was that we could not be good enough to get God’s approval. Even when we were at our best, serving at a Training Center, wearing approved clothes, keeping our eyes from looking at those of the opposite gender, we were failing. At what, we did not know, but surely someone would find out what it was. The guilt and continuous struggle were staggering."
Boy that resonated with me. I think the lasting legacy of ATI for me was feeling like God had it out for me because I never measured up. What I didn't realize was that that is WHY he sent Jesus - because I couldn't. No one could. All of these activities (while not wrong in and of themselves) just exacerbated the problem.
At church this past Sunday, we sang a song where the chorus says:
And oh, how He loves us so,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all
Yeah, He loves us,
Oh! how He loves us,
Oh! how He loves us,
Oh! how He loves.
As we sang the chorus over and over, the truth of it fell on me like a ton of bricks and I completely broke, and weeping gave way to sobs. Yes, we are broken. Yes, we fail. No, we will never get it completely right. No, our lives will never look completely clean on the outside. But, He loves us. OH, how He loves us!!!!!
Blessings to you, Wendy!
Thank you for this word picture. A very good read.
"Jesus said that the whole of the law was to love the Lord with all your heart, mind, and soul; and to love your neighbor as yourself. Love is the opposite of rules" LOVE- Definately something that is lacking in ATI/IBLP and sadly in some Christians.
Love is patient; love is kind. Love does not envy; is not boastful; is not conceited; does not act improperly; is not selfish; is not provoked; does not keep a record of wrongs; finds no joy in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth; .....faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. I Cor. 13:4-6,13b
Another thing about broken glass. It's dangerous. Sliced my hand wide open on a piece hidden in the front flowerbed today. Got me thinking. Broken people trying to polish themselves up always end up hurting people. Because they live on a knife-edge themselves, they are sharp and wounding to anyone who tries to be --- or get them to be --- vulnerable and open.
It all resonates because it's what I lived - thank you!
Absolutely LOVED your comments on Scripture memorization - "(Song of Solomon was out)." Thanks for the laugh this morning.
So grateful to have found Recovering Grace...
Wow!!! Wendy!! It's been a long time since I visited this article but your comment is PERFECT!!! HUGS to everyone!!!
Thanks so much for your support!!!
Hi, Elizabeth! I'm just wondering if you're the Elizabeth Cook I knew..from IA, involved with BL, etc...
I am not. Sorry.