To Will and to Act

There seems to always be some sort of struggle in the Christian walk when it comes to trying harder. Or maybe "tension" is the right word. It is easy to find yourself striving to be better, without ever seeking the heart of God. I'm sure most of you have seen this, legalism in church or maybe a misguided, but honest pursuit of holiness. But without God, it is nothing more than striving, right? You may make some headway or develop some good habits, but is your heart changed? Are you free from sins that bind you?

The other side to that tension can also be dangerous: depending so much on freedom in grace that holiness is not really a factor or a pursuit, though it is something God is certainly concerned with. So where does the balance lie between these two pendulum swings? According to scripture, it seems that God does way more work than we do, but tonight I came across a verse that gives us a good clue of what our parameters may be in this realm.

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"...continue to work our your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe." (Philippians 2:12b-15)

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There is a total humility here when we realize that it is God who works in us, not only to be blameless, but even to want to be blameless. That is crazy to me. Even the will to want to be better is from God. To me this really takes a lot of pressure off of us, not so we can say, "Well, I don't want to do this right now, so I guess I don't have to;" but rather because when we don't want to do what's right, we just need to ask God to inject our lives with that desire. If it is something we are ready for, and a place God wants to take us, why wouldn't he answer such a prayer?

But then right after that, Paul gives us some very reasonable actions that we can employ in our daily lives: in everything you do, don't complain or argue. Okay, that's pretty simple. I'm kind of bad at not complaining sometimes, but that is something I can probably quit whenever the Holy Spirit nudges me. And not arguing can be easy, particularly when we respect each other and realize that the unity of the church is one of God's top priorities.

I love the simplicity of scripture sometimes. Of course it can be complicated, humans are complicated, life is complicated. But then there are verses like these, that give us something to focus on, while also reminding us that the bulk of the work is God's. And what a gracious God we serve that he would even want to make us better and freer people in the first place.

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Toddler Racism?

It was a rainy Tuesday when I took the kids to the local mall indoor play area. This thing is a lifesaver when your kids are filled with energy, but the elements aren't exactly cooperating. There are usually a few moms there with more than a few kids, and this particular day was no exception. The kids were playing pretty well together until I noticed a girl denying a boy access to a certain tunnel with a raccoon on top -- a highly desired location at this park. Not too unusual though, except this girl had let my daughters in the same tunnel several times, and at that moment they sat just behind her, oblivious to the turmoil at the other end.

Maybe she treated this kid badly because he was a boy, but I couldn't help but notice that he was the only black kid in the play place. I watched as she denied him entry with a harsh nastiness in her voice. Then, when she left a few minutes later, he tried again. She saw the attempt and hurried over to shoo him out again. Later, he was playing in a boat toy that she apparently had also laid claim to, and went out of her way to kick him out of there with the same angry tone.

I could be simply riding the tide of current cultural problems, possibly reading into things too much -- it could after all be a boy vs. girl situation -- but I couldn't help but wonder if racism could start at such an early age. It is a learned thing, right? Is 3-4 years long enough to observe the rejection of another people group and adopt it as your own habit? Or maybe it's not learned and we are just born disliking that which is different than us. I don't know.

On the other hand, my wife has often taught in inner city schools and noticed that her first and second graders usually didn't even realize that race existed until that age, or even later. Her kids would play happily, color aside, and were even confused when someone did notice the difference in skin color. It is encouraging to see such a thing, and brings to mind Jesus' claim about children and the kingdom of God.

I am mostly writing this to note an observation and see what others think of it. Have you ever noticed anything like this going on? At what age does racism become an adopted belief? Am I way off here?

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Do-Gooder

I think in most circumstances of life there is a "do-gooder" around, you know...doing good. I remember my middle school French class where a kid raised his hand to tell our spacey teacher that the answers to a test we were about to take were on a poster on the wall -- to the chagrin and collective moans of the class. Right now I work with a do-gooder, and I've noticed a couple results from working in proximity to him.

Being a skateboarder, there comes a tendency to break rules. I mean, I was born with a guilty conscious, so this doesn't go too far for me, but if there is a rule I think is dumb or unnecessary, I will likely break it. But when I'm working with this guy at work, he calls me out on it. When it is late and we are about to finish work and most of my coworkers are flying through their tasks to get home sooner, he takes his time and does the same good job no matter what. And what I am noticing is that, when he is around, I try to act more like him. And what is even more interesting is that after a few times of this, when he is not around, I am more apt to do the same thing. Acting right is contagious if you respect the do-gooder in your life, which leads me to believe it can be a powerful role to play.

Like I mentioned, I was born with a guilty conscious, and so for much of my life I have been the do-gooder. For example, I spent most of my life never saying curse words, mostly because of this verse:

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. (Ephesians 4:29)

I figured that if the world (or the culture I am in right now) sees certain words as "unwholesome," then I should refrain. But as the years went by, I found that friends would clean up their language around me, or stop themselves from saying certain words, even though I never made a comment towards their own language. In a way that was good, but bothered me that they were hiding a part of themselves from me, or wearing a mask of sorts. I want people to feel that they can be honest around me, and so, in an effort to be more relatable, I started letting a curse word slip here or there. Whether or not this was the right choice, I still can't say, but it's what I did. But then when I was describing this transformation to an old friend, he said he always appreciated that I acted and spoke a little different than everyone else, and commented that it made him want to be better himself. But is that what we are supposed to be doing in this life? Making people want to be better, to clean up their acts?

The "sinners" of Jesus' day liked hanging out with him, which often baffles me. The most spiritual people I know usually don't relate well to the rough-necks and vagabonds of our current culture, so I have to wonder what Jesus was like that made drunkards and prostitutes want to be around him. Maybe he made them want to be better, but I would like to think they wanted to be near him because he made their souls come alive. But they must have felt comfortable enough around him to be themselves, right? Otherwise, I don't think they would have flocked to him as they did. But he was also perfect, and so there must have been an obvious contrast between his life and theirs.

This concept has been on my mind for the past several years, and I can't say I have come to any conclusion as of yet. I will say that you should do the right thing always, and that this can be infectious, as the example of the do-gooder proves. But there has to be some aspect of love amongst the non-do-gooders that eliminates judgement that we need to include in our behavior. Where the line between these two is, I am not sure, but if we can find it, we can be that much closer to bringing Heaven down to earth.

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The Spoon You Have

My daughter has an annoying habit of switching spoons with her sister whenever you give her a meal. It's harmless really, so I let it go on. But it has turned into an almost mealy routine (is "mealy" a word? Every meal). Today, her sister was still sleeping so we ate breakfast together and she asked to switch spoons with me. I wouldn't let her, mostly because my spoon was too big for her mouth and I didn't want her little plastic one, but also because I think it could be the beginnings of a contentment problem.

Call me an extremist, but I guess I'm always thinking things are a bigger deal than they really are (just ask my wife). But the idea that whatever I give her is not enough tells me that this could be an issue later on. I know this because I have the same problem, struggling with contentment even in the best of circumstances.

"Use the spoon you have," I told her, to her dismay. She tried to talk me out of it, but I was resolute. Then she asked for a fork to eat her cereal, which I denied. Next, she started using her spoon upside down (or "upseedown" as they call it) to eat her cereal. I do applaud creative use of whatever you are given, so this was allowed. But the whole thing has me thinking about how to raise kids who are happy with what they have. That feels lofty even just writing it...

They often say things like, "I wish I was ______." Fill in the blank with whatever we are watching or near others doing: riding a horse, eating pizza, wearing a Disney princess dress. I always reply with, "Be happy where you are, doing what you're doing." Sometimes it is even more involved, delving into the realm of identity or personal effects: "I wish I was five years old," or "I wish I had curly hair." And I say, "Be happy at the age you are," or "God gave you straight hair, enjoy it." I guess we're fighting against human nature here, so maybe I shouldn't get so down about it. But really I think I just want to be proactive about instilling contentment in my children, because I don't want them to struggle with the same things I do.

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 4:1-3)

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Relapse

If you are an avid reader of this blog (hi, Mom), then you may be tired of reading about poison ivy. Well, I'm tried of writing about it; but this rash has really defined my last couple of months in a terrible way, and I typically write about whatever I'm going through as a way of processing, so here's one more for you (hopefully the last).

The ivy was all but gone. I had begun to wash the clothes I wore and the blanket I used during the peak of it all (a friend suggested washing these separately and in warm water). I felt like the worst was over and I thought I was in the clear. I even returned for a yard work session and made my way out unscathed. Of course I was extra cautious, and wore dish gloves underneath my work gloves, with long sleeves. But the following week during another yard work day, I was a little more brazen and skipped the dish glove step, exposing my vulnerable wrists in a blatant disregard for the recent past. And of course, the night after all the work, I tossed and turned as the slow itch showed up again, as if someone was holding a lighter an inch away from my arms all night long.

I woke up the next day determined not to go through the same painful, irritable cycle I had just traversed a couple weeks prior, so I took drastic measures. My dad had suggested using Clorox bleach on fresh poison ivy, which I had initially rejected because it just sounds bad for you. He swore it worked, and his mountain-man of a father was the one who had shared this tip, so I gave it a try. Of course I combined this was my previous routine of cleaning the rash, Benadryl, calamine lotion, anti-biotic ointment and some prescription-strength cream Waverly got when she had some serious diaper rash. By that evening the healing process had accelerated so much farther than it had before, and though it is still incredibly annoying and irritating -- like little ants crawling over an isolated patch of my wrists all day -- I have hope that it will not spread like the last one and certainly won't last as long.

This is the less-severe of the two arms. It's a fist because I'm angry...

And so as I internalized all of what has been going on, I had a few thoughts. First, something gnawing at your arm will indeed make you irritable, and so my outbursts towards my children were likely mostly due to the rash. On the way out today I found myself similarly short with the kids, confirming my suspicion I wrote about previously.

Second, similar to my thoughts on leprosy before, it brought to mind people who are actually going through major health crisis, such as cancer, who often have old problems come back. Of course, I am in no way saying my poison ivy is anywhere near what they go through, but it does create a little more empathy in me, as that sinking feeling when something you thought you were done with starts to rear its ugly head again -- my heart goes out to them and I pray for strength and resolution in the face of a difficult road already traveled.

Third -- and again, another unequal comparison -- I thought about people who relapse from mental illnesses and addictions. This could be anything major to a minor itch, like eating chocolate every night and wanting to stop. Maybe you cut it out for a week but then find yourself so tempted you fall back into it. I can say that this second go-around with the ivy has been better, as I know more of what to do, and I can imagine it's the same with true relapse. I write that as an encouragement of sorts -- if you do find yourself repeating mistakes, take courage. Each time the recovery can be shorter and eventually it will stop.

So there is more to be learned from this stupid rash. Why it exists, I do not know; but one thing I can take away from it all is that in every bit of pain there is a little bit of redemption. Mine is a stronger resolution, more empathy and better knowledge. Whether or not these little take aways are just something we conjure up to make our struggles seem better, I also do not know; but I will hang on to the thought, if for nothing else, to make the annoyance and the pain all seem more worthwhile.

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