a drop of water

No, I’m not talking about sadness :)

John Calvin, preaching to his congregation in Geneva, Switzerland, pointed out that we must develop better and deeper concepts of happiness than those held by the world, which makes a happy life to consist on “ease, honours, and great wealth”  Too much of the world’s happiness depends on taking from one to satisfy another.  To increase my standard of living, people in another part of the world must lower theirs. The worldwide crisis of hunger that we face today is a result of that method of pursuing happiness.”

This was a sobering quote from Eugene Peterson’s, A Long Obedience In the Same Direction.  We like to quantify what will make us happy by what we can receive (what can I get out of life), completely ignoring the form of happiness found in what we can give.  Happiness has an inherent power to be passed on; truly happy people are empowered to do what it takes to make those around them happy as well.  Happinesses’ longevity is stifled when it stops at consumption before it is passed on.  The mark of a joyful person is their ability to bring joy into someone elses life.

Johannes Pederson words it like this: ”Life consists in the constant meeting of souls, which must share their contents with each other.  The blessed gives to the others, because the strength instinctively pours from him and up around him . . . . The characteristic of blessing is to multiply.”

Black Friday (Black Saturday, Cyber Monday, etc), when retailers pull the hood over as many people as they can, turning the once thankful-for-what-they-already-have-thanksgiving-celebrators into crazed-employee-trampling-door-busting-ready-to-buy-stuff-they-already-have-consumers in a span of 24hrs (or less), so that they [the retailers] can get a jump on holiday revenue, seems a little silly [stronger word needed here] as they try to inject people with the fleeting idea that buying more stuff that they already have, for only slightly reduced prices, will bring them happiness.  What if, instead, we had a Free Friday where the massive institution of retailers tried to make a difference by giving to the people who couldn’t normally afford to be their customers?

Maybe not the “happiest” business model from a bottom line point of view, but maybe thats the point.  That the success, the happiness, etc of a business can not just be limited to an inward bottom line focus just like our own individual happiness can not be fully realized by an inward focus on what happens to us as individuals. The missing aspect of our happiness is the relational giving and passing on act that is rooted in the thanksgiving that we have in God’s provision.  So today, my challenge is, not just to be thankful for what I have, but to see if I can give a bit of that happiness to someone else.

“Joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship, it is a consequence.”
Eugene Peterson – p.96, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

Those who I look up to are always joyful.  Even with the greeting in passing, their joy is contagious.  That is something I wish I could give to people, a contagious joy.  It is not just a contagious joy rooted in their innate ability to hope for the best, but in their belief in God and humility to see the good that is happening.  Peterson notes that “joy is not a moral requirement for Christian living” since we will “experience events that are full of sadness and pain” and that we should never conclude that “I’m not joyful, therefore I must not be christian.”

That truth in evidenced by those who I look up to who are seemingly always joyful.  Their life circumstances are not any different that mine, often much harder and more trying when you get to know what they face daily.  Peterson emphasizes that joy (and other christian ways of living) is not something “we have to acquire in order to experience life in Christ; it is what comes to us when we are walking in the way of faith and obedience.”

So often I find myself chasing after fruits of faith and obedience, only to realize that I’ve tried to play without reading the directions.  It is when I focus on the simplest things in life, God’s presence, his leading, and trying to be his hands and feet in the here and now that joy comes, because it puts the complexity and the overwhelming issue and problems in their place, in Gods hand.  That is where I want my joy to come from; any other source else is shortlived.

Any work done faithfully and well is difficult.  It is not harder for me to do my job well than for any other person, and no less.  There are no easy tasks in the Christian way; there are only tasks that can be done faithfully or erratically, with joy or with resentment.  And there is no room for any of us, pastors or grocers, accountants or engineers, word processors or gardeners, physicians or teamsters, to speak in tones of self-pity of the terrible burdens of our work.

p. 76-77, Eugene Peterson, The Long Obedience in the Same Direction

Reading this was like being doused with a bucket of cold water because I am very guilty of speaking in tones of self-pity towards my work tasks that I do erratically and with resentment.  But God is reminding me that he has given each of us no more than we can handle.  I have to realize that the spiritual qualities of those I look up to is not merely a result of them doing a specific type of work, but them doing the difficult work they have been given, faithfully and with joy.  Often times I see those who I look up to for just their spiritual leadership, discernment or wisdom, when that is really the tip of the iceberg of God’s work in them.  The tasks that are difficult for them are of no less and no more relative difficulty than the tasks that I see as difficult in my life.  It is the finding of God in those difficult times that deeply instructs us about him, how to trust him, and how to love him.

“…Everyday I put faith on the line.  I have never seen God.  In a world where nearly everything can be weighted, explained, quantified, subjected to psychological analysis and scientific control, I persist in making the center of my life a God whom no eye hath seen, nor ear heard, whose will no one can probe…

Everyday I put hope on the line.  I don’t know one thing about the future.  I don’t know what the next hour will hold.  There may be sickness, accident, personal or world catastrophe.  Before this day is over I may have to deal with death, pain, loss, rejection.  I don’t know what the future holds for me, for those I love, for my nation, for this world.  Still, despite my ignorance and surrounded by tinny optimists and cowardly pessimists, I say that God will accomplish his will, and I cheerfully persist in living in the hope that nothing will separate me from Christ’s love…

Everyday I put love on the line.  There is nothing I am less good at than love.  I am far better in competition that in love.  I am far better at responding to my instincts and ambitions to get ahead and make my mark mark than I am at figuring out how to love another.  I am schooled and trained in acquisitive skills, in getting my own way.  And yet I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily–open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better that succeeding in pride…”

p. 76-77, Eugene Peterson, The Long Obedience in the Same Direction

According to Peterson, these are some of the risks and costs (or hazards as he puts it) that are apart of our lives as Christians.  He concludes this chapter on Psalm 124 with the idea that faith develops out of the most difficult aspects of our existence instead of the easiest, and that “it is the help we experience, not the hazards we risk, that shape our days.”  His power is made perfect [realized, tangible] in our weakness.  We put our faith in God, our hope in God, and our love for God on the line not as the ends, but as the means, because God’s nature, God’s provision and God’s love shape our days.

“…But if I accept any of these assignments I misunderstand my proper work, for God doesn’t need me to defend him.  He doesn’t need me for a press secretary, explaining to the world that he didn’t really say what everyone thought they heard in that interview with Job, or that the quotation of his word by Paul was taken out of context and needs to be understood against the background paper that Isaiah wrote.

The proper work for the Christian is witness, not apology, and Psalm 124 is an excellent model.  It does not argue God’s help;  it does not explain God’s help; it is a testimony of God’s help in the form of a song.  The song is so vigorous, so confident, so bursting with what can only be called reality that it fundamentally changes our approach and our questions.  No longer does it seem of the highest priority to ask, “Why did this happen to me?  Why do I feel left in the lurch?”  Instead we ask, ” How does it happen that there are people who sing with such confidence, ‘God’s strong name is our help’?”  The psalm is data that must be accounted for, and the data are so solid, so vital, have so much more substance and are so much more interesting…”

p. 72-73, Eugene Peterson, The Long Obedience in the Same Direction

Witness, not apology is our proper work as Christians according to Peterson.  This is an encouragement for me because the qualification of our witness is based on the kind of people we are, instead of apologetics which is qualified by the knowledge that we have learned.  Anyone who is willing can give witness, but only those who gained expertise in particular disciplines can be effective apologists.  Witness (our testimony) speaks directly to the hearts of people, where as apology speaks to the minds of people and a blocked mind often is just an impregnable shield for a blocked heart.