How many licks does it take...

Can you finish the question? If you grew up in the 70’s and 80’s you would remember this commercial. If you completed the question with, “…to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?” then you answered correctly.

If you want to see the classic commercial and read the scientific studies, go to the Tootsie Roll site for more.

The reason I brought all of this up is that I just got back from a men’s retreat a week ago and I had to ask myself a very similar question. How many months does it take for God to get Jim to the end of himself?

Apparently, seven.

Seven months to strip him of everything he considers as a strength of his; his creativity, his ability to provide for his family, his self reliance, his talent for fixing things, his job, his self worth. It takes seven months to clean him out and lay him bare. Seven months and a gut wrenching men’s retreat that helped him face his inadequacies head on.

To fully understand the depth of the above paragraph, one must to go back to the men’s retreat and see what took place.

On Saturday night toward the end of the retreat, we did an exercise where we roll played significant failures in our lives. As if that weren’t bad enough, it was done in a way that exponentially amplified each of them simultaneously. Needless to say, I became completely overwhelmed and emotionally crushed. As I sat sobbing my guts out having come face to face with reality, I discovered that apart from Christ, I can do nothing. Forty four years of experience, education and training and I can’t do it. I thought I could do marriage, parenting, ministry and friendships. I fail at all of them.

So I am sitting there wrenching over my imperfections and feeling like a complete failure and the leader of the retreat comes up and gives me a big hug. And I loose it even more. I didn’t feel particularly huggable at the time. I was feeling less than a man at a men’s retreat.

After about 15 minutes of uncontrollable sobbing, it finally began to subside to a few quick inhales every couple of seconds. You know the type. Small children do it after they have had a good cry, usually after a discipline.

As I sat there, snot dripping from my nose and my eyes stinging from salty tears and rubbing, I here God speak as clearly as if He were standing right behind me. As if He weren’t? He said, “You are Peter, the Rock, and upon this rock I will build my church.”

My first thought was, “WTF?” followed by thoughts of mental instability for hearing it. After a long pause, I decided to venture out and ask a question. “Are you saying you are changing my name to Peter?” Long pause. “No.” Oh good, cause I really don’t like the name for me. I don’t feel like a Peter; a Dick, sometimes, but not a Peter.

“So, if I’m not Peter, what are you trying to say?” I thought it; I guess I had to ask. I sure as heck didn’t feel like a Rock either. I felt more like a puddle of a man; a soggy ghost of masculinity. Take a rock, pulverize it, mix it with water and I resembled that muddy mess. God could not have been talking to me in that moment when He said those things.

When I stopped telling God that He was talking to the wrong guy and shut up, He was happy to fill in the gaps. “Now that you have come to the end of your resources, now that you have nothing to lean on, now that you realize that you can’t do it…Now I have something to work with. Where you are at right now is exactly the kind of ground I can build my church on. Your life was too unstable with you standing. I needed you flat; foundations are horizontal, not vertical.”

Really long pause. Confused look. Wide open mouth. Great big, “ooohhh.” And then frustration.

It took God seven months to say that. Couldn’t He have said it seven months ago, even six? Long pause. We both knew the answer to that question. I wasn’t waiting for Him, He was waiting for me. Damn, I hate it when He’s right.

This isn’t the first time He’s brought me here…and it won’t be the last. Crap! But it’s right where he wants me to be; completely dependent on Him…for everything. Sometimes I feel like Eric Liddell. “God made me fast for a purpose.” I know He equipped me well. My problem is that I tend to try to do it on my own. I focus on the “me fast” rather than the “God made.” God’s resources are not meant for us to use on our own, but in His power.

Seven months seems like an eternity when it seems like there is no progress. It’s just a moment for God.

It takes, on average, anywhere from 144 to 411 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. I am sure that it can take anywhere from months to years for us to come to our end to find God. I am hoping beyond hope that the lesser is true for any future lessons God wants to teach me. In the mean time, I am getting a Tootsie Pop to put in my office as a remembrance alert. Maybe I’ll get two so I can have my Tootsie and eat it too.