a drop of water

Congratulations Lars and Bethany!

Congratulations Jess and Antony!

“To accept, with confidence in God, that I do not immediately have to have my way, releases me from the great pressure that anger, unforgiveness and the “need” to retaliate imposes upon my life.”

p. 74, Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard

The above quote (out of context from the main point) made me realize, that I often inaccurately use the idea of free will to justify my will.  I fall into thinking, because I have free will, then my actions to implement, ensure, and get my will are justified.  But what this line of prideful thought really says is that I am glorifying my own will as the righteous purest and most valuable expression of life and existence and that any infringment upon my will can only be wrong (evil).  When my will is not met, it is not just that “I have been wronged” but that I have the opportunity to acknowledge and embrace God’s will as a response inplace of the “anger, unforgiveness and the ‘need’ to retaliate.’”  Free will is not a justification for my own will; it is a freedom to consciously and intentionally choose, discover, and align my heart with God’s will.

This morning I was doing dishes and thinking about thanksgiving.  I was trying to start the day with the right attitude and not get overwhelmed with the days responsibilities and pressures.  In light of building rythym and habits into my life that engage and acknowledge God, in order to be more sensitive to his guiding, I realized that everytime I open up a chat window or send an email, I could take some time out to pray some thanksgiving for my relationship for that person.  It doesn’t need to be an hour long prayer (though it could if you feel its needed).  It is just a conscious acknowledgement that “God, you are in charge of this relationship, give me the words that will build up and not tear down, will encourage and edify, will be meaningful and not just passing.”  I send emails and open up chat windows with people all day, its a normal part of my life.  Redeeming, infusing and empowering that normal, pragmatic, part of my life with God is exciting!  It is not meant to just include God in the act, like fries is included with your burger.  More like replacing the frozen processed burger with a steak.

Praying with thanksgiving everytime I open up a compose email window or a chat window takes me out of the GTD mentality (definitely a good gesture, but maybe not the best posture) and puts me in a position to realize that my relationship with this person is an opportunity to be God’s hand and feet which is a blessing in and of itself!  It keeps me from writing or chatting retaliatory words, words that do no good and maybe just flail in an attempt to prove my own rightness, and reminds me that I need to build people up in a loving way.  It reminds me that I need to be sensitive both to God’s leading in how I communicate with everyone, and sensitive to what those people are trying to communicate to me.  It keeps me mindful that everything I do is an opportunity to respond consciously to God’s provision in my life.

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.