Vinegar and Oil
Sunday, March 26, 2017
I'm learning to cook. I'm pretty good at following recipes and can make good meals but slowly I'm learning to cook. I like following recipes; it's safe, I'm told what to do, I know it'll turn out right, someone has been there before... but I'm learning to experiment, to create, to find out what flavours work well together and how to use ingredients. I'm learning to understand.
When you understand cooking, you know what things work together and what things don't. You learn what you need to do in order to create something beautiful.
Oil and vinegar. They are usually served separately, or if poured together, they separate; one sits on top of the other.
Often, they're mixed together in our lives – the good co-existing with the bad. But we've been taught to hide the vinegar. I think we need to learn that both are good but they are designed to be separated.
One way I've been taught to pray is to start by thanking God, to acknowledge his goodness, sovereignty and grace. And this is good – in fact it's how Jesus taught us to pray – but it's not always right. I was taught: Thank You. Sorry. Please. But in that, there's no room there for: Life Is Hard!
I've been (slowly) reading Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist and the chapter, Vinegar and Oil, has been stirring in me.
"When you pray, pour out the vinegar first – the acid, whatever's troubling you, whatever hurt you, whatever is harsh and jangling your nerves or spirit. You pour that out first – I'm worried about this child, or I'm hurt from this conversation. I'm lonely, I'm scared. I don't know how this thing will even get fixed. Pour out all the vinegar until it's gone.
Then what you find underneath is the oil, glistening and thick: We're going to be fine. God is real and good and present and working. ... This is the grounding truth of life with God, that we're connected, that we're not alone, that life is not all vinegar – pucker and acidic. It is also oil, luscious, thick, heavy with history and flavor.
But you have to start with the vinegar or you'll never experience the oil. Many of us learned along the way to ignore the vinegar – the hot tears banging on our eyelids, the hurt feelings, the fear. Ignore them. Stuff them. Make yourself numb. And then pray dutiful, happy prayers. But this is what I'm learning about prayer: you don't get the oil until you pour out the vinegar."
God wants us to be real, to pour out whatever is on our hearts. Sometimes that starts with praise and thankfulness and adoration... but more often than not – for me, at least – what is on my heart is heavy and it hurts, I'm fragile and scared, and I wonder if God wants to know. He wants to know so much, he's waiting for us to tell him, and when we pour it out to him, he creates something beautiful.
But we can't have the beauty without the pain. The oil doesn't come unless the vinegar is first poured out. It's beautiful. And it's freeing.
When we're real and raw and recognise the vinegar, that's where connection actually begins. He wants to see me: "my whole-fragile-strong-weak-good-bad self." Because then we are truly seen. And we are truly known. And there's nothing more freeing than that.
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