What Thanks?

With deepest regards to Ann Voskamp.

 

Gratitude in the midst of suffering. Eucharisteo. Choosing to accept the bad as well as the good, seeing them as parts of the same whole.

Shadows teach us to appreciate the light. Rain make us grow. Winter bids us rest. Pain wakes us up. “Thank God for the dirty dishes/ They have a tale to tell/ While others may go hungry/ We’re eating very well.”

I repeat Scripture and truisms, but my heart wears heavy pain. I speak praises and affirm faith from a node of agony. I endure; I do not thrive. I do not count this joy. I hate the gifts and shove them from me. I would rather lie numb and shocky than wake up to recovery. I do not want pain or anything that comes from it.

Healing comes after admitted injury. Healing requires playing the deal. I left the cards on the table abandoned without backward glancing. I so nearly fell off the edge of the world.

To be thankful for all that? All this? To lift drenched eyes and clenching-bruised hands and say, “God’s grace!” To feel the sliced-edged beating heart and proclaim, “He is good!” To wrap empty arms around empty self and declare, “Love everlasting!” Can I do such a thing? Can I not and live?

How dare God require smiles and cheer from shattering? How dare the surgeon require movement from the broken limb? Healing requires movement. Gratitude propels us out of our misery. We would coddle our pains until natural healing leaves us warped and unable to use. Divine healing realigns the edges for stronger repair and restoration.

We see the whole when we lift our eyes away from anguish and turn to gratitude’s dawn.

Fast Dreams

Just had an interesting thought. Have you ever tried fasting from something that you don’t have? We hear about fasting from food or TV or shopping or video games, which tend to be things we have access to (too much access, in most cases). But what about those things we don’t have … but really wish we did have?

We all have dreams of “someday” when we will have certain possessions, jobs, relationships, status, etc. And we all, at some point or another, have spent way too much time wishing we had all that right now. Sometimes, our longing had a physical impact such as depression, over-spending, over-eating, or some other destructive manifestation. We made ourselves sick because we didn’t have something we wanted.

Fasting is a kind of mourning, a sorrow for an absence in our lives. We put something away from ourselves and then feel sad for not having it. The reason for doing this is because we seek something greater than what we give up; in the midst of grieving for what we willingly lose, we rejoice in what we resultantly gain. For those who follow Christ, fasting is a way to put off distractions and focus on the glory of God.

Some kinds of fasting are easier than others; when you have an object that you can physically separate yourself from, you can easily tell if you completed the fast. Did I eat during this fast time, yes or no? But fasting from a heart-longing is not so simple to measure, and it is far more slippery a stand to make. Yet I daresay it is a better fast.

The purpose of fasting is to remove a distraction in order to focus on something greater. Yet how many of us have made a food-fast only to spend the whole time dreaming of burgers or candy or soup? We become more distracted than before the fast. And even if we keep food from out lips, we have not kept it from our hearts; we have failed the fast as surely as if we had snuck a bag of chips. Therefore, I propose a fast of dreams.

What do you think about in your spare time? What do you wish you had? What do you worry about? Fast from those things. Each time that thought comes to your mind, every time you realize that you’re fretting again, turn your mind to God. In the same way that you declare, no food shall pass my lips, declare that no worry shall cross your mind. How do you get through a traditional fast? Use the same techniques to get through a heart-fast.

Jesus made it very clear that where you put the focus of your heart is where your ultimate treasure is. Whatever you spend the most mental energy on is what you value the most. If you spend most of your time _worrying_ about paying the bills, then money is your god. Note that I used the term _worrying_ about it. Taking prudent action is a fine thing; obsessing about how it will happen is not. Think about that.

We have the example of the elderly widow who put her last two pennies in the tithe box. She did not have money to spare. She did not have a savings account or a stipend. She probably didn’t have a full cupboard at home or the next month’s rent. Jesus went out of His way to mention that she gave out of her lack, not out of her abundance. Why would she do that? Why would she be so reckless and foolish with her money? I take my cue from Christ: she knew what in life has true value.

If that widow had held onto her last coins, she might have eaten for another day. She might have been able to invest it and earn some interest. She could have held onto it. But what was she actually holding on to? Money promises us security, a peace that no matter what happens, if you have enough money you can get through it. But how much is enough? All of us can probably think of a bill we needed to pay but couldn’t. We sweated and wrung our hands and had ulcers until somehow that bill got paid, and then we collapsed with relief for a whole day. That doesn’t sound very peaceful to me.

The widow had the same choice to make. She could put her faith in anything she wanted, and she chose to put her faith in God, not what humanity declared was sensible. She looked at the coins in her hand and weighed their value. How much were they worth? A biscuit? A cup of coffee? “Peace of mind?” That woman decided that she would only have peace of mind if she invested her heart in God. She demonstrated her faith by letting go of the physical representation of “security” in order to gain a deeper security. She believed that God would take care of her, no matter what.

So when you fast, why do you fast? Do you give something up to show how strong you are? How nothing is your master? If those are your reasons, you’re missing the point (and the benefit) of fasting. Fasting is all about declaring your weaknesses. It is a proclamation that you need something that you don’t have. It is a line in the sand that keeps you from the worse fate you were hurtling toward. Fasting is the heart’s scream of, “God!! I need You! And I will get rid of everything that keeps me from You!”

We think that the grass is greener somewhere else, so we fantasize about it and whine because we don’t have it. We worry ourselves sick and chew our fingers bloody. It is often money, but it could be a job, a spouse, a child, a pants size, a car, or so many other things. Yet when we say things like, “If only I had more money,” we put our faith, worship, and dependence in that thing. How many times has money (or whatever) let you down? Are you comforted by your bank balance or wondering how much longer it will last? Where is your heart?

And so, I propose that we attempt to fast from the things that we don’t have. Put aside those desires for a time and focus instead on God. Deliberately divorce yourself from that idea, that wish, even for just five minutes. For those five minutes, turn the affections of your heart to God. Instead of wailing over what you have lost, have deprived yourself of, rejoice in what you are gaining.

Close Enough for … What?

The other day, I was making up my bed with freshly washed sheets, and I decided to take care of a small detail that had been bothering me for a while. The box spring under my mattress lay at an angle on the bedframe, which made it difficult to settle the comforter over the foot of the bed.

My bedframe is an antique; four generations of my family have rested on it over the decades. A bit creaky when you lay down or roll over, but still in great shape. Occasionally, however, I would roll over and the box and mattress would fall out. Not the best way to wake up, I assure you, and another reason to straighten things out.

I took hold of that misaligned box spring and shoved. It didn’t budge. I went to the other side of the bed. Still no luck. I pulled the mattress off and tugged. Why was this silly thing not cooperating?

After a few more attempts, I stepped back to take a look at the problem, and that’s when I truly saw it. The box spring was not off-center. The bedframe was. A tug on the frame settled the box right into place, and now my comforter drapes very nicely and the mattress stays in place.

You may have noticed something in your inner self that feels a little bit off. Maybe it’s a habit. Maybe it’s an attitude. There’s something not quite right about it, but it’s small enough that you’ve never taken the time to address it. “It’s not that big a deal.”

Or maybe you have tried to do something about it, and you find yourself frustrated every time. “I just can’t fix it. It’s just the way I am. I can’t change.”

We each have an inner framework, a structure upon which we build our lives. When that is out of alignment, everything else will be off. We can cover up smaller issues with bedskirts and shams, but those don’t make the problem go away. Eventually, the bottom will fall out from under us.

I suggest that perhaps the issue is not the issue. Maybe it’s something underlying that “mattress” that is the real problem.

Take a few moments to consider those things within yourself that bother you. Pull off the covers, set aside the trappings. Take a long look at the framework of your heart and mind and see if perhaps something there needs to change before any other effort will work.

A few years ago, a movie came out that explored one of the fears we humans have of artificial intelligence: what if robots turn against us? Worse, what if they decide to protect us from ourselves? One of the lines the main AI repeated was: “My logic is infallible.”

The AI’s logic was correct. It put the pieces together in the right order. However, the premises upon which it based that logic were flawed (or perhaps incomplete). Its framework was off. Humanity must not be protected from itself because only in struggling and striving do we thickheaded creatures develop and grow. In trying to protect humanity from stubbed toes, the robots would actually destroy it through stagnation. The AI would not reexamine its premises, and so it had to be destroyed.

In another, older, movie about an AI that might have destroyed the world, the day was saved when the characters got the computer to play tic-tac-toe. The AI extrapolated a child’s game to the war game and turned off the nukes on its own. Why? Because it realized that pursuing its previous course of action would not achieve the results it was programmed for. It had been operating under misunderstanding, which it corrected.

You may have correct logic regarding that “thing” in your life. I challenge you to look at your premises. Is that “just natural” or is that something you can willfully affect? Are you really “doomed” to be like that forever?

What have you built your life on, and is it true?

I sleep more soundly these days, knowing that my bed is set right. If I’d used a carpenter’s square when I last moved the bed, I would have avoided this whole mess. There are many areas of life where, if we would only use the standard of the Carpenter, we would avoid fear, suffering, or discomfort. And many times, what seems an unfixable problem when confronted with pure logic becomes simple when we look at the foundation we’ve built it on.

Worst Advice Ever

We’ve all had someone give us advice with the best of intentions, I’m sure. And at least once, that advice made us think negative thoughts toward the giver. “Honestly,” we might think, “does this person have the tiniest clue what I’m going through?”

We know that the person meant well. We may even believe that the person genuinely cares for us. But we have to wonder about the connection to reality this person has, since what she’s telling us to do completely misses the point of the situation.

Interestingly, I have found myself in this very position of late. Not on the receiving end; I have been the giver of this “bad” advice. Click here for a witty pop culture reference. (Note: due to recent changes in laws, I can no longer link to interesting movie clips to illustrate my points.)

So what went through my mind as I spoke these unhelpful words to my hurting friends? I knew that what I was telling them wasn’t relevant to their situation; after all, they needed concrete, actionable things to do in order to resolve the issues at hand. So why in the world did I fob off esoteric, spiritualized answers on them?

Like any other well-meaning rhapsodizer, I truly think that what I offered was what they needed to hear. Without giving away sensitive details, allow me to illustrate.

Sally McFriend has a  boss who’s barely out of high school, in his first management job, and doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing. Boss Boy orders everyone around, nit-picks over every detail, and gets upset because Sally made a sale using a method other than his. He threatens to take away her new prospects (for which she receives next to no commission anyway) and vaguely hints that her job might be in jeopardy. Sally is frustrated, furious, and about two minutes from smacking him.

So I tell her to get closer to God.

If I may use a popular slang term, WTH? Sally needs tips on not doing something that would cost her the job or land her assault charges, not some hyper-spiritualized claptrap that has absolutely no bearing on keeping her out of trouble. I mean, come on. Everybody knows that religious answers are cop outs.

May I explain why I told her that? I’m guessing that if you’re still reading this, then you are at least curious.

How is “getting closer to God” going to help Sally keep her cool and her job? It’s not the zen thing where you become one with the universe and petty mortal concerns don’t affect you. Honestly, that doesn’t go deep enough to get to the root of the issue. It’s not avoiding the issue or pretending it doesn’t exist; that builds a bottleneck that usually makes a messy explosion later on.

I base my advice on several assumptions. Here are a few:

1. God is real.
2. God has the power to do what He wants to do.
3. God is purposely active in our lives.
4. God loves each one of us and wants to make our lives better.

It’s popular to say that if God really loved us and really wanted to make our lives better that He would make all the bad stuff go away and give us tons of money and no diseases or jerk bosses, etc. However, that is a Band-Aid approach that does not address what’s really going on.

I won’t get into the “fallen world” doctrine at this time, but I will say that we live in a world where bad stuff happens to good people and good stuff happens to bad people. We can all see this, every day. Sally is making real effort to do well at her job and earn an honest living. So why is she under a supervisor who plays power games with her? Why do babies starve and murderers live well?  Because the world is broken.

Rather than grouse about the whys and wherefores, I propose that we look at what we can do to remedy the matter at hand. By the time social reform makes bad bosses a thing of the past, we, too, will be things of the past. By the time world hunger and global crime get eliminated, the people currently affected by it won’t have had any relief. So what can we do?

And how in the world does drawing near to God make any of that better?

Each of us can make the greatest impact on ourselves. It’s our hearts and attitudes that we can change first and most thoroughly. Yet even that has limited effect; just ask anyone with an addiction. You know it’s bad but you do it anyway. You know you need to change or die, but you just can’t. We each hit a wall in our self-improvement that just doesn’t have a weak spot.

This is where God comes in and comes through. It’s my experience that God, while considerate of our physical needs, is far more concerned with our character. It’s the teach-them-to-fish concept. A starving person needs food, so it makes sense to just hand over a fish the first time. But after that, does it make more sense to continue handing over fish or to teach the person how to fish?

In this example, we see that hunger is a continual experience and need in life. No matter how much you eat, eventually you will be hungry again. So is it kindness, is it love, to never let a person figure out how to feed herself? Or is it love to teach that person what to do when hunger returns, as it inevitably will?

God wants for us to overcome the circumstances that we all face, that this broken world throws at us. If God took away everything that ever challenged us, smoothed over every bump in the road and took all responsibility away from us, we’d go from this to this in a hurry. It might look great at first, but life would lose all meaning.

God does not cause suffering,  but He does use it to make us better, to make us all that we’re supposed to be. When we let our bad times turn us toward God, we learn how to conquer the problems rather than ignore them, pretend they aren’t so bad, or let them beat us down.

So for Sally McFriend, Boss Boy’s behavior isn’t the problem. The problem is her response to him. By drawing closer to God and learning the things He wants to teach her, she will figure out how to get past that wall in her personal development that usually lands her in trouble. In choosing God over the anger/pain/fear/humiliation/hunger, she will gain the skill she needs to overcome.

And that is why I will continue to dole out “bad” advice. Life will continue to throw hard times at you. It will continue to be unfair. How are you going to respond to that? We all have the initial gut-response, but after that, what will you do? Will you live in fear and anger or hunger or pain? Will you slam into that metaphorical wall time and time again? Or will you go to the source of life, sit at His feet, and learn all His fishing tips?

Resistance is …

According to Dictionary.com, the word submit means:

1. to give over or yield to the power or authority of another (often used reflexively).
2. to subject to some kind of treatment or influence.
3. to present for the approval, consideration, or decision of another or others: to submit a plan; to submit an application.
4. to state or urge with deference; suggest or propose (usually followed by a clause): I submit that full proof should be required.
5. to yield oneself to the power or authority of another: to submit to a conqueror.
6. to allow oneself to be subjected to some kind of treatment: to submit to chemotherapy.
7. to defer to another’s judgment, opinion, decision, etc.: I submit to your superior judgment.

My personal experience adds:

8. To be required to yield control to another

But then, I seldom checked the dictionary when formulating my personal lexicon. Ask my mom about the “public hair” sometime.

So, what in your personal dictionary might benefit from a cross-reference?

Submission is not one of my favorite topics (no sniggering, please).  As mentioned above, I did not have the best understanding of the term. Yet as a disciple of Christ, I need to have a good understanding. As you might expect, life has not been fun on this front.

One of my difficulties stemmed from not understanding why I needed to submit to anyone or anything. After all, this is the 21st century! Submission is outdated and barbaric, a holdover from primitive days and patriarchal societies that have no place in modern life.

Well, as I’ve recently discovered, that’s not entirely true. Yes, the acts of suppression and repression we stereotype are not good, but that’s not what submission is and it doesn’t address the matter at all. One key element of the definition and application of “submission” that we (and I) overlook all too frequently is that it is a purposeful act, not a passive reception.

Let’s look at this another way. In current events, there are many political uprisings against governing regimes. Those in power exerted influence over the people and required obedience. In effect, they demand submission. For a long time, the people obeyed, but they did not submit. Do you see the difference?

Here’s another illustration: how many of us submit to the authority of gravity? When was the last time you deliberately challenged your dependency on oxygen? Anyone successfully overthrow inertia?

There are many natural laws that govern our lives, and most of them, believe it or not, are beneficial to not only our survival but our quality of living. Accepting the boundaries that gravity places around our lives is a good thing. Keeps you healthy. So does allowing oxygen to play its part in sustaining your life. Shoot, even inertia has some value. Since we recognize that operating within the rules of these natural laws has value, we submit to them.

What if other things also have positive value when we submit to them?

You may have heard the cliche: “Too many cooks spoil the soup” or “All chiefs and no Indians”. Both of these sayings show that someone has to be in charge and make the final decision. When there is no one person or means of making the ultimate call, you get anarchy. Disarray. A really snarled ball of yarn. You don’t have order, you don’t have completed tasks, and you don’t have a pleasant existence. It could be argued that a leader is a natural requirement.

My issue has always been the poor quality of leadership that I witnessed. I saw power-mad dictators crushing people. I saw societies regress and individuals vanish. I saw well-intentioned people attempt to bring order from chaos and end with blood in the streets. If that’s leadership, if that’s submitting to authority, thought I, then I want no part of it.

Weeeeeeelllllll …. no. That’s not submitting to authority. That’s abused power. I’ve had to drag my mind away from those tragic events and refocus on the core of the matter. For one thing, does one person’s abuse of oxygen (such as using it to blow up a building full of people) mean that all uses of oxygen should be set aside? Does the invention of aircraft invalidate gravity? Does the gross injustice perpetrated by a dictator require that all government be brought down?

Ok, so those are really big-picture questions and concepts. They’re great and wonderful, but my subconscious is rather self-centered and wants more relevant examples. Why should I submit to a boss who’s a jerk? Why should I, being female, submit to my spouse (if/when I get one)? Why should I give a flying flip about what my parents think and submit to their ideas of conduct and appearance?

We’ve covered a lot of the downsides of forced obedience, so now let’s look at the upsides of properly-done submission. In the big picture questions, submission to government allows that government to do what it’s supposed to do: take care of us. Make and enforce laws, create and maintain public roads and such, defend the town and country, etc. In the personal arena, submission to bosses, spouses, parents, teachers, etc., allows those people to play the role they need to in our lives.

Parents are given to us for life and upbringing; it’s their job to set us on the right path. If I spend all my time fighting them, I will never learn from them. Maybe what I learn is all the things not to do, but if I’m not submitting, I won’t learn that. And I certainly won’t pick up many good things!

Bosses are given to us to ensure that the work gets done. Having had a small amount of management experience, I can verify that needing to drag along employees who refuse to cooperate does not get the job done. When I stop fighting my boss, I free her to do what she’s supposed to do. Maybe she’s still a jerk, but at least I’m not contributing to the problem. And by being properly submissive, I may have the chance to improve things.

As for submitting in a romantic relationship … gah, this is a hard one for me. Honestly, I’m afraid of losing myself if I were to submit. All those negative things mentioned above run through my mind. I’ve seen so many relationships go badly, so many abuses of power on both sides, that the very idea is anathema to me.

And in far too many ways, I have the same trouble submitting to God. Will I lose my identity, my free will, if I submit to God? There are a lot of crazy people out there doing things in the name of God; what happens if …

Alright brain, step back from the paranoia. We’ve already established that abuses (even multiple) don’t negate the value or necessity of an authority. Also, just because one person (or many) in a position screw it up doesn’t mean that the position is bad. Just because people claim to be acting for God doesn’t mean that God is that way.

So Who is God and why should I submit to Him? Well, to start with, I am promised that if I make God my top priority, then everything else will fall in line. I’m also promised that I won’t ever be ditched. And that God has good plans for me. And that His way of doing things isn’t back-breaking. And my life is supposed to be full and fulfilling. And God wants to give me stuff.

Believe it or not, God created us because He wanted to. He wants to enjoy having us around. It’s like when I write a story: I write it because I want to see it, to experience it, to enjoy it. It’s like when you get to do a hobby or spend time with your children. It’s a deeply satisfying and meaningful time that you look forward to and long to savor. And in order to enjoy those things, there are certain rules that must be followed. If I don’t park myself in the chair and write, then the story will never unfold. If you don’t clear out your schedule, you’ll never have time for your hobby. If no one agrees to cooperate, then parent/child time will be very frustrating.

God considers Himself our Father. My Father. He set the rules, like gravity, oxygen, inertia, and submission. When I fight those rules, I wind up tripping, gasping, stuck, and frustrated. When I willingly and purposefully submit to those rules, I get to enjoy the life I was made to have.

Pride tells me that I have to be in charge. Fear tells me that I will be let down by others. Hate tells me that I should pay in kind.

The Voice of truth tells me something else. And I’m reminded that resistance is futile. But seriously, when you look at it this way, why would I not want to submit?