I Work; God Builds

Monday 1/16/2012 5:16 AM

Over the past few days I have been reflecting on my life and the frustration I experience when I can’t determine the will of God for myself or, when I think I am being obedient to his call, there are no results from my efforts to build the kingdom of God.

Today I turned my devotional book to the new week and the opening prayer includes these fitting words, “Help us, we pray, to know the duty you have assigned us and to so live our lives that the world may be a better place for all your creatures.”  I pray the same prayer regularly and earnestly seek to obey and perform my assigned duty when it becomes clear to me what it is.  My psalm for the week is Psalm 32.  Verse 8 reads, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.”  In the past I have received instruction, guidance and counsel from God.  I have tried to follow his leading but lately it seems that there are either no results from my obedience or the ministry to which I’m called simply evaporates.  That is the biggest source of my frustration.

The next part of my devotional time is spent reflecting on the writing of others and today it includes an excerpt from Howard Thurman’s book The Inward Journey.  In commenting about those who work for the kingdom of God he writes, “We are never under obligation to achieve results. … The task of men who work for the Kingdom of God, is to Work for the kingdom of God.  The result beyond this demand is not in their hands.  He who keeps his eyes on results cannot give himself wholeheartedly to his task, however simple or complex that task may be.”  Now that is a message I needed to hear.  I have been too focused on the results of my work rather than focusing on the work itself.  Ultimately God has the responsibility to build his kingdom; the results are his alone.  Whether he uses my efforts to further the progress or not is up to him, not up to me.  My job is to faithfully work.

The final portion of my devotional time is spent reflecting on a hymn.  The assigned hymn for the week is Lord, Whose Love through Humble Service by Albert Frederick Bayly.  The last two stanzas of this hymn are my prayer today.

As we worship, grant us vision,

Till your love’s revealing light

In its height and depth and greatness

Dawns upon our quickened sight,

Making known the needs and burdens

Your compassion bids us bear,

Stirring us to tireless striving

Your abundant life to share.

Called by worship to your service,

Forth in your dear name we go

To the child, the youth, the aged,

Love in living deeds to show;

Hope and health, good will and comfort,

Counsel, aid, and peace we give,

That your servants, Lord, in freedom

May your mercy know, and live.

Anger, Frustration and Failure

Sunday 1/15/2012 4:56 AM

Friday night Jaci was going through a pile of papers and receipts that have accumulated over the past few months, trying to determine if they needed to be kept or if they could be thrown away.  At one point she came across the recall notice for my motorcycle and she asked me if it needed to be kept.  I told her I didn’t think it was necessary and then she asked if I was sure, not wanting to discard something that might be needed in the future.  For some reason I snapped and responded inappropriately.

I spent most of yesterday trying to figure out what made me respond in such a harsh manner but I had a hard time putting my finger on it.  My best guess is that I have had a sense of frustration over the past few months in trying to determine God’s direction for my life.  It seems that each time I move in the direction in which I believe God is leading, a door closes and I have to go back to the drawing board.  I have a feeling that this accumulated frustration, coupled with dissatisfaction in other areas of my life, precipitated my inappropriate outburst.

Last night Jaci and I went out for dinner and I apologized for my harsh words.  I explained to her my best guess as to the reason for my behavior and told her I would try to keep it from happening again.  On the way home she asked if I would help her put the seat on a chair that she had recently painted and reupholstered.  She said it was a simple matter of attaching it with four screws.  When we arrived home I got out four wood screws and my screwdriver to do the job only to find that it required one-quarter inch bolts, not screws.  I measured the frame through which the bolts had to pass and determined that a two-inch length would be best.  Since I didn’t have any in my garage I went to Lowe’s to pick some up.  I came home, eager to finish the project only to find that the seat did not fit snugly onto the frame, but left a gap.  So I had to return the two-inch bolts and I got some three-inch bolts instead.  I came home and began to turn in the first bolt only to discover that the bolt was too long.  Of course, I needed a two and one half-inch bolt instead.  My frustration level climaxed, I felt my anger rising and I went to the bedroom quickly before I said or did something I might regret.  As I sat in my room I felt like a complete failure and my internal voice began to proclaim it boldly.

Over the course of the last few days I have been reading John Ortberg’s book The Me I Want to Be.  I am leading a small group discussion on the book at my church for the next few weeks and in preparation I have watched a DVD and read through the first six chapters of the book and various scriptures.  The me I am right now is definitely not the me I want to be.  In my devotions this week my psalm has been Psalm 29 and today when I read it I was drawn to the last verse.  “The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace.”  Lately my internal life has experienced little or no peace but I long for it to return.  I was also assigned Psalm 37:8 as part of my reading, “Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret – it leads only to evil.”  I want to refrain from anger but when I feel like a failure, like I did last night, it seems like anger is the first emotion to surface.

It seems that the feelings of inadequacy and failure are always rearing their heads no matter what circumstances arise in my life.  I want to feel competent and successful but, on the rare occasion when I experience them, those feelings are fleeting at best.  My reading also included these words from 1 Corinthians 1:27-29, “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.”  Those words are comforting for me this morning as I sit here feeling weak, foolish and lowly.  I must be really special to God today.

Healing Paralytics

Thursday 1/12/2012 5:18 AM

Today I read Matthew 9, an account of Jesus healing a paralyzed man, which resulted in the crowd around him praising God.  As I contemplated the story I thought about a conversation I had with a student in the tutoring center on Monday.  Since it was the first day of class and early in the morning she was the only student who was there.  She asked a couple of questions about her math assignment and then she began sharing her story with me.

She said that she had been a good student and an athlete in high school but she became pregnant at age seventeen and had to quit the swim team.  She managed to graduate with her class but then had to care for her baby.  Her baby’s father was abusive, and has since fathered another child with a different woman, so she has nothing to do with him and has sole custody of her daughter.   She has a fifteen year-old sister who is rebelling against her parents and she wants to warn her sister about making the same mistakes that she made but her sister will not listen to her.  She is starting back to school after a three-year hiatus and wants to be an example for her daughter.  I encouraged her to keep on her current path and told her I was proud of her for pursuing her education.

The paralyzed man in the Bible story couldn’t walk because of his disability but the young woman I spoke with Monday is also paralyzed, unable to move on her intended path because of the circumstances of her life that were generated, in part, by her poor choices.  As I listened to her talk I longed to be able to help her to achieve her goals and I longed for her to experience wholeness in her life.  In effect, I wanted to be able to heal her from the paralyzing effects of her circumstances.

Sometimes the stories in the Bible are disheartening to me because Jesus solves people’s problems with a simple word and suddenly everyone around is praising God.  When I meet people, see their problems, and attempt to enter their lives to help, their problems persist and I find that I am shaking my fist at God, questioning his love, rather than praising him.  I want a magic wand that makes things right but usually end up with a wand that stirs up more and more muck.  The Bible says that, in the end, things will be made whole but I am too impatient; I want the young woman with whom I spoke to experience it now.

Relationships

Thursday 1/5/2012 5:52 AM

I’m sure it is because I am getting older but it seems to me that relationships today are much different than they were a generation ago.  In our modern age of instant communication it seems we are more distracted, disconnected and disjointed than ever when it comes to meaningful relationships.  A face-to-face conversation is interrupted by calls or text messages from friends and family, updates to my smartphone alerting me of the latest sports score or shopping deal or Googling a topic to prove the veracity of a statement I made in my conversation.  Conversations about meaningful topics are often avoided because it seems that civil discourse can no longer occur between two people with differing views without it degenerating into a shouting match or name-calling.  These forces, acting within our society, result in relationships that are shallow and transitory.  There is little or no commitment to the other person and one party will bail out of a relationship at the first sign of any kind of conflict.  In 1 Peter 3, Peter suggests that we treat each other with gentleness and respect, something that seems absent in our modern, Western world.

In his book Mutual Ministry, James Fenhagen stresses the importance of meaningful relationships.  He writes, “… who I am and who I will become is tied up with my capacity to live with integrity and compassion in relation to the human family of which I am a part.  It is a sense that who I am is intimately connected with my capacity for relationships of depth, which, at the deepest level, I both yearn for and resist.”  From my perspective it seems that integrity, compassion and relationships of depth are waning in modern society.  Fenhagen would argue that this hinders people from reaching their full potential.  I would agree.

Calling and Contentment

Monday 1/2/2012 5:37 AM

Yesterday I called my mom to wish her a Happy New Year.  She was experiencing some anxiety because one of her stepdaughters was recently diagnosed with ovarian cancer and needs to have surgery this week.  For Mom, the anxiety evidenced itself as a flare up of her colitis.  She has spent much of her life worrying but it seems to me that it has intensified as she has aged.

Today I read Psalm 131 as part of my devotional reading and it seems like good advice for my mom.  “I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.  But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content.”  When I talk with Mom I usually suggest that she should trust God to deal with matters over which she has no control and simply live contently, knowing God will walk with her through whatever circumstances come her way.  As I contemplated the verses I began to consider my own contentment in life.

My first thought was that of the contentment I feel having all of my children and grandchildren around for the holidays, enjoying each other’s company.  I thought about how easy it is to be content when things are going smoothly and everyone is healthy and gainfully employed.  But as I reflected further I remembered my struggle last year when I longed to be a person of notoriety or someone who did something noteworthy.  I didn’t want to live my life in obscurity; I wanted to be someone who made a difference.  I was not content to be the person God made me to be in the place in which he had placed me.

An excerpt from Carlo Carretto’s book, Letters from the Desert, addresses this issue.  He writes,

Whether you are on the sand worshiping, or at the teacher’s desk in a classroom, what does it matter as long as you are doing the will of God?  And if the will of God urges you to seek out the poor, to give up all you possess, or to leave for distant lands, what does the rest matter.  Or if it calls you to found a family, or take on a job in a city, why should you have any doubts?

Somehow it seems like giving up all I possess, going to distant lands, seeking out the poor and living and worshiping in the desert is more “spiritual” and of more use to God than founding a family while taking a job working at a teacher’s desk in the city.  The latter calling is the one to which God has called me.  I pray that I can be both effective in carrying out his calling and content while doing so.

Pedro's Story

Sunday 1/1/2012 6:05 AM

I went for my customary run this morning and on the way I came to the place where I found $11.22 worth of change last year on New Year’s morning.  It seems that someone celebrated the coming of the new year by hurling the contents of their piggy bank into the air.  This year again there was loose change strewn across the street so I stopped and began to pick up coins.  I’m not sure if it is a sign of a weak economy but this year there were fewer quarters, dimes and nickels; the vast majority of the coins were pennies.  After I had spent a couple of minutes collecting coins a man came by on the sidewalk and, after greeting me and wishing me Happy New Year, he asked if I needed help looking for something.  I explained that I was picking up the loose change that someone had thrown out and invited him to join me in picking the change off of the street.  As he started picking up coins I asked him if he was out early for exercise or if he was on the way to work.  He explained that he has been unemployed for over two years and that he often wakes early in the morning, worried about how to provide for his family, so he goes for a walk to pray and to relieve some of his anxiety.  When we finished picking up the coins he offered his coins to me but I insisted he take all the coins and we continued our conversation.  He spoke of the frustrations he experiences being unemployed.  He spoke of the indignity of having to accept welfare.  He spoke of his embarrassment of not working while his wife must continue to work.  He spoke of the pain he experienced when the bank foreclosed on his house without even considering his offer to negotiate a lower interest rate.   He spoke of the concern he has over providing necessary medical care for his family without insurance and the disbelief he experiences as he watches some people pay a ten or twenty dollar copay and he is told to pay five hundred dollars for the exact same services.  He spoke of the many applications he filled out and job interviews he has gone to in order to gain employment, all to no avail.

We finally ended our conversation and, after wishing him God’s blessing and my hope that he find a job in the coming year, I continued on my run.  I prayed for Pedro and for his family as I ran and, in the process, I began to reflect on God’s goodness to me over the past years.  I thanked God for his grace in my life: for Jaci, for my job, for healthy family relationships, for the addition of my grandchildren to my family and many other things.  But as I prayed I felt the familiar anger well up within my heart as I voiced my frustrations, perhaps better described as accusations, to God, questioning why it seems that some people have to deal with extreme adversity while others, like me, skate along without nary a problem.  While I am grateful for my life, I experience anger against God because it seems he allows undo adversity to be piled upon some people while others prosper without a bump in their path.

My devotional material contains a poem by the Wild Goose of Iona that expresses my feelings well.

Inspired by Love and Anger

When trouble strikes and fear takes root

and dreams are dry and sense unsound

when hope becomes a barren waste,

then doubts like mountains soar around.

Our wandering minds believe the worst

and ask, as faith and fervor fade,

‘Has God now turned his back on us,

forsaking those he loved and made?’

God says, ‘See how a woman cares,

can she forget the child she bore?

Even if she did, I shan’t forget.

Though feeling lost, I love you more.

‘My dearest daughter, fondest son,

my weary folk in every land,

your souls are cradled in my heart,

your names are written on my hand.’

Then praise the Lord through faith and fear,

in holy and in hopeless place,

for height and depth and heaven and hell

can’t keep us far from his embrace.

It is easy for me to believe the words of Isaiah 49:14-16, to which the author of the poem alludes, when things are smoothly sailing along in my life.  But when I see injustice, disparity and unchecked evil in the world, then my doubts of God’s watchful care and cradling love for his people soar like Mt. Everest.  I pray that I will be able to praise God through both faithful holiness and fearful hopelessness, trusting God to work his will in either circumstance in spite of my doubts.