"I Saw The Old You Back There"

Few words can hold the power of, "I saw the 'old you' back there." "Old you." I remember old me. Old me isn't that old.

When I was in elementary school, my school had its fair share of bullies. Big kids in groups who tormented the other kids in the school. Safe to say, I was a common target coming home from school. I never received anything too traumatic, but I can remember the constant cruelty of a few kids. Let's be honest, I am never going to be confused for biggest kid in the class. The same was true in elementary school. With a heavy backpack on, I knew that I could not run. My size made it challenging to fight. But I was smarter than my bullies. A lot smarter. I had a way with words and a skill in crafting them together. And so when the bullies would make fun of something, I would turn it back on them. The first few times just embarrassed me as they had pre-thought out insults printed from the computer or from a book. I did not.

But eventually, I grew in my skills and turned it around. By middle school, people wouldn't make fun of me because they knew that once I got rolling, I could embarrass them to the point of having their own friends laughing at my jokes. It's how I protected myself from the bullies. And it had the hidden consequence of getting others to approve of me. They thought I was funny. They laughed when I laughed. They complimented my way with words. I was accepted.

By the end of high school, when I told people I wanted to become a pastor, I got two responses. One was "Oh, how wonderful!" and the other was "Wait... you?" People who had been on the receiving end of my jokes were often the first to question my choice of profession.

Over the course of college and seminary, I worked really hard to tame the tongue. And I saw some victory there.

Then, a few nights ago, I heard those words: "I saw the 'old you' back there." My wife recognized the Mr. Hyde to my Dr. Jekyll. For those who don't know the story, Dr. Jekyll was a scientist who tried to a way to isolate human evil, but instead created a way for his dark impulses to take center stage in the form of diminutive Mr. Hyde. But Dr. Jekyll finds himself changing into Mr. Hyde without his fancy chemicals. Soon, he finds himself changing into Mr. Hyde and not realizing it. The end of the story is dark and tragic. I had slipped into "old me" without realizing, embracing the fact that my words were gaining approval at the expense of a friend.

Through a process called FaithWalking, I am learning to see myself more clearly and to recognize when the various Mr. Hyde's show up. What most people don't recognize from the story, because they are used to the Incredible Hulk image, is that Mr. Hyde is actually smaller than Dr. Jekyll. In many ways, Hyde represents a child more than a monster. And the same thing was true then. I was in a crowd of people I didn't know, and felt scared. And when I am afraid, there is an 8-year old saying "Remember how you handled this? Remember when people laughed with you and didn't ignore you?" And the 8-year old won out.

1 Corinthians 13 may be one of the most famous passages in the Bible, but it is also one of the most challenging. It ends with these words: "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me." That 8 year old voice of fear may have helped me get to this point in life. It gave me the feeling of confidence, a belief that I could stand up to people more powerful than me and helped me work on my use of words. All of those are skills I use today. But that voice also makes me see people like things to be used for my own ease and safety. So it is a voice that needs to be put behind me.

It's too bad, really. Dr. Jekyll could never rid himself of the Hyde voice. And maybe I won't either. But through the grace of God, perhaps that voice of fear can come face to face with the voice of God's perfect love.