I have one of those books where you are given a brief writing every day, meant to perhaps encourage, challenge, inspire, whatever the case may be. You may have the same, and what I am finding rather unique in reading from books with specific dates in them is that you will ultimately, so long as the book is read again, circle back to that same writing, but of course one year later. The words you resonated with one year ago may have a completely different meaning to you. Or you might find yourself still grappling with the words on the page, even though you have not necessarily read them aloud for an entire year. Yet the thoughts have milled around in your mind and have become a part of your perspective.
I was so struck by these words one year ago that I took a moment to accompany them with thoughts of my own:
“The nature of spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty, consequently we do not make our nests anywhere… To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should rather be an expression of breathless expectation.” -Oswald Chambers
This life is so deep to me, it’s overwhelming. I know in God is rest, but I ache often these days for a permanency that walking with Jesus does not afford. To be faithful to the uncomfortable is hard to exchange for “breathless expectation”, although asking for courage for the journey, because better unsettled and faithful than comfortable and complacent. (May 1, 2019)
So here I am, one year later, in what feels like a completely different set of circumstances and yet certain familiarities have remained. The burdens I felt in my work role at the time would soon, yet unexpectedly, vanish. The conversations I would unknowingly have were wrought with both confidence and discouragement, and yet all raveled up into a knotted ball of perpetual insecurity. The uncertainty I felt in one area came to rest, and yet that simply made way for new uncertainty. I wondered “how long?”, and even posed to God that very question. Some resolve came. Yet along with that resolution came more questions. How long never ceased, it just became subject to replacement.
I can recall a conversation with a dear friend well into our family’s first bout of change, although there has been much of it these last six months, and as she graciously listened to my story as it had unraveled in recent months, she responded with these words: “You sound free of burden.” She was right. I was. Yet how easily it became of me to simply find a replacement for my burden. Lesser perhaps, but burden nonetheless.
We do that often, don’t we? As if we yearn more deeply for a reason to be discontent than we do to find satisfaction. As if sighs of sadness are more familiar to us than breathless expectation. Perhaps because we have made them so. Circumstances will always shake us, but they do not have the power to diminish a joyous expectation. We have simply given them that power.
I was given some much coveted me time yesterday, which simply meant a trip to the grocery store. But hey, given our need to remain at home, I will absolutely take the 20 undistracted minutes to listen to a podcast. Jordan has offered to pick up groceries before, but these days, I won’t let him.
It was there that I heard these words from John Ortberg, and the weight of them brought me to tears as he expounded upon the ridiculous words of Paul, a proponent for the way of Jesus and accessible to us through the letters he wrote, as he stated “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation.” Who could write such a thing?
“His secret is the grand paradox of life. His unconquerable independence is in fact complete dependance on another. His apparent self-sufficiency comes from his union with the one who is all sufficient- Jesus. Paul’s life is not about the mastery of suffering or the escaping from inner pain. Not at all. His life is about being a part of the triumph of love.
Paul, that tricky little man, has not renounced desire at all. He’s redirected it. He’s refocused it. He transformed it. In fact his desire is larger and deeper and hungrier and faster than ever.
People sometimes confuse Christianity with stoicism. They think Christianity teaches self denial for its own sake. That the virtuous person, the mature Christian, is somebody who has no desire. Just some weak-appetited little person. But with Jesus, every call for death to self comes only so that another self can be born, that is more noble, that is more glorious beyond your wildest imaginings. To be part of a redeemed world, and a flourishing life so wonderful that it can only be hinted at in pictures, in images, and poetry. Streets of gold and robes of white linen … and feasts that will never end. And mountain streams that course with chardonnay for crying out loud. And trees that clap their hands. And swords beating into plow shares. And God the tear-wiper. And Jesus the death slayer. I love these words from C.S. Lewis.
‘Indeed if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.’”
Far too easily pleased, and simultaneously so quick to cry out ‘how long?’ To have access to a life of which his first followers had the audacity to claim as being ‘immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine’, and yet to still fall prey to sighs of sadness over breathless expectation.
I know the secret. Now you do too. Let’s live – no, let’s flourish in it.
EXPOSITION: We are rather keen on stirring up uncertainty given our own, everyday circumstances, but now we find ourselves where uncertainty is being experienced by all- neighbors, friends, even our children. What perspective are you taking, and to those with children, what are you modeling- sighs of sadness or breathless expectation? Where you could easily identify with discontentment, have you instead traded that for the secret that is now yours?
RISE: Read these words every day this week. (Not mine- the italicized ones. They are much more profound, I can assure you.) Sit on them. Wrestle with them. Consider them. Let this premise direct your perspective, and once it becomes a part of your thinking, let it transform every other thought. Live in the secret of contentment. Live in breathless expectation.
DENOUEMENT: A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. -a proverb of Solomon, one really wise guy