image by Timon Studler from Unsplash It is no secret that one of my besetting sins throughout my life has been impatience. I grew up listening to my mom constantly telling me that my personality traits of being independent, organized, and task-oriented also fed my weakness of impatience. When my mind is fixed on finishing a task, clearing my to-do list or squeezing in one last item before I wrap up, everything else takes a back seat, and anything which threatens to get in the way becomes Public Enemy Number One. I get short-tempered and snap easily at those who are too slow for my pace, since I work (and talk--and read--and move, apparently) at a rapid pace. With a sigh, I wrote patience down on my prayer journal as one of my goals for 2018--and 2019--and here I am, seemingly without any obvious improvement, still working at cultivating this elusive virtue. Why is it I wasn't getting anywhere? I would think I was fine for a stint, then something would happen--some situation would catch me off guard, or some person would just be "too much!!"--and it would happen. As when dealing with any other habitual sin, it's not a straightforward master-this-level-and-move-on-without-having-to-deal-with-it-again matter, handy as that would be. You think you've overcome this besetting sin, broken this habit; then a few weeks--days--hours--later when you least expect, it hits you. And we get discouraged, when our self-control and discipline eventually prove insufficient. This was where Walter Henegar's advice from his little booklet on procrastination came in handy. All along, I had been focusing on the actions themselves--the isolated incidents of impatience. I lost my temper just now; I spoke sharply and dismissed someone who I felt was taking too long; and so on. However, this meant reinforcing a pattern of guilt, of examining myself when it was already too late. Henegar describes how he too used this approach at first when dealing with his own habitual sin--procrastination. Like me, he quickly got discouraged, tempted to blame external situations for his regular lapses, and struggling with guilt yet without any real sense of hope in breaking out of this cycle. Eventually he realized that the right approach was to examine the sinful attitudes in his heart which were the root of the problem, rather than fire-fighting the manifestations. Though our respective habitual sins seem polar opposite, I came to the same conclusion as Henegar when I tried examining the root issues at heart of my impatience: pride. Pride in prioritizing my own agenda before people, before opportunities God had put before me. Pride in assuming my methods were better and others inferior if they took up more time. Pride in relying on that sense of achievement and success as my fulfilment and self-identity, rather than what I had in Christ. Pride in being unwilling to accept and trust in God's plan and God's timing for my life, and instead steamrollering my own plan and own timings. Realizing this transformed the way I prayed about my struggle to be patient. Instead of the well-intentioned but vague Lord help me to be more patient today (which I often forgot by the time I finished praying, and which definitely did not come to mind in time when needed later on in the day!), I found myself praying about the attitudes and priorities in my heart. Lord, help me to love others more than I love the adrenaline rush and sense of gratification I get from clearing my to-do list. Help me not to be blinded by my agenda to Your hand directing me to Your work. Help me to seek Your purpose and Your timing today, rather than mine. Help me to change the sinful attitudes I accept so unthinkingly, and to be transformed heart, soul, mind--and to-do-list! Instead of a guilt-driven pattern of sin spiraling into despair, this enables a grace-driven, humbled, yet hopeful understanding of our hearts, empowered for true change as we work at overcoming our habitual sins, and more deeply than ever aware of the grace and power of God, and where we stand before Him.
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image by Arif Riyanto from Unsplash Sometimes life seems too much to bear. We want to give up. Hide. Escape. A great weariness fills us--weary of struggling, persevering, labouring on. I dreaded these times because that weariness itself often made me feel worse about myself. Was this proof that I was a wimp, that I was weak, fragile, and incapable of dealing with life like everyone else seemed to be? Proof that I was a feeble Christian, lacking the peace and assurance that we ought to have in Christ. That my faith was a flimsy thing, wilting at the first breath of trouble. Why was I so easily plunged into despair? In 2 Corinthians 1:8, Paul talks about this exact same feeling: "burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life." However, he goes on to identify what this feeling is--the "sentence of death," or sin, in us: "Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us." (verse 9-10) Times like these remind us that this body--and this earth--are mortal ones. Sickness. Damaged relationships. Failures. Disappointments, in ourselves or others. They make us see the pervasive effects of sin everywhere, and teach us to long for things as they should be; for Heaven. But more than that, they teach us not to trust in ourselves, not to think that the outcome of our lives depends wholly on ourselves. Which leads to enormous pressure to ensure that every decision is the right one and that no mistakes can be afforded, feeling that failure is always lurking around the corner; a crippling and intimidating mindset to approach life with. Instead, we learn to trust in God, Who in sending Christ delivered us from the ultimate death, and since then ceaselessly, tirelessly, continues to deliver us daily from the power of sin, from the sentence of death that continues to plague us in the old man. Since His power over sin and death was proven once and for all in Christ, we are enabled to hope that this is not a losing battle, as much as it may feel like it at times. image by Drew Coffman from Unsplash continued from part 2 "How much of our busyness is really an effort to prove our worth and escape the sense that there is something very wrong with us?" Smith goes back to Genesis, to the garden of Eden. He compares Adam and Eve's frantic attempts to cover their nakedness (i.e the consequences of their sin) with leaves, to our attempts to use work as a means of covering up our inadequacy; "one of our most basic inclinations as sinners." God's subsequent curse on labor, the dual labor of work and raising a family, was a curse on "the very things in which men and women would seek to find their worth." In Smith's words, "the very things we would hope to give us meaning and worth have been cursed so that to be 'fruitful' in them will require extreme effort. You may try to take pride in your work; you may try to find life and meaning in your children, but God isn't going to make it easy for you." And why so, not out of a sadistic desire to punish and thwart us, but in order to help us realize that our rest cannot be found in these things. True rest--resolving the consequences of our sin--dealing with the sense of inadequacy--can only be found in Christ. "The problem of being morally corrupt and sinful can't be solved by working harder." Like how Christ's death was the ultimate and final sacrifice needed for sins, making all the Old Testament laws about priests and sacrificing animals void. Once and for all, the sacrifice was made. As Smith points out, (yay for analyzing diction! literary techniques strike again) Christ sitting at the right hand of God the Father (Hebrews 10:11-14)--not standing, not pacing, not marching--is significant because "His labor for us is perfect and complete." What a beautiful conclusion. I would have been happy ending on this note but the epilogue--Practical Strategies for Change--was a much-needed discussion of practical application. Now what? Before the hype of feeling you're so enlightened and edified dies off, what are we actually going to do to help ourselves rest more, to work in a more God-fearing way?
Learning to rest enables us to enjoy life and work more, not to mention experience the transformative and comprehensive power of God in our lives. It is not laziness, but learning how to make both our work and rest "acts of faith and worship." image by Christian Erfurt from Unsplash (continued from part 1) What then, are possible reasons why we find it so hard to rest? Smith discusses a few insightful possibilities: 1. Are we functional atheists--living in fear and anxiety due to a lack of faith in God's sovereignty and control? Often, the fear and anxiety that makes us feel unable to rest stems from a sense that without our direct, constant involvement/labour, our world will come crashing down around us. That the church will collapse if we don't shoulder every burden (this, of course, with qualifications; not to be taken out of context.) Though this might be successful at driving us to constantly work harder and better, it's neither healthy nor godly. Needless to say, this is a huge self-imposed burden of responsibility on our own shoulders, as well as a toxic sense of guilt and insecurity whenever we try to rest. Like the typical rat-race, we're ceaselessly toiling, afraid to lose out. Without mincing any words about it, Smith identifies "if I don't do it, who will?" as a prideful claim of self-sufficiency which is unhealthy. It reflects a lack of understanding that in God's providence, His will is accomplished without needing us. Whether He chooses to do so through us, or not, it is part of His plan. We tend to place too much emphasis on the contribution our hands make, forgetting that all things are in His hands; those "hands that flung stars into space" are not depending on us to achieve His purposes. 2. People-pleasing. We may think that we're concerned for others, that we serve out of love for them, but if we do so because we want to make them like us, or we want them to think well of us, it's really just a perverted form of self-love. We do not manipulate people by doing things for them, or labour under the delusion that we can only love them if we constantly give them whatever they ask of us or whatever makes them happy. "Decisions based on love are about the welfare of the other person, not what they think of you." So we shouldn't say yes merely because we want to make the person asking us happy. This is something I struggled massively with as a teenager; I couldn't bear to disappoint anyone, be it taking on a new task, helping them out with wedding prep, or joining them for dinner. Even if I knew it was not a wise decision based on my schedule. At that moment, I just really wanted to please them, not to spoil the mood with a refusal. Similarly, Smith notes that constantly leaping to shoulder every need that arises may also deprive others of opportunities to grow. Do we encourage them to trust us instead of God? 3. Motivated by insecurity, do we keep ourselves busy to distract ourselves from a unhealthy shame and inadequacy? Perhaps there are areas in our life that we know we need to face, yet--like productive procrastinators--we distract ourselves instead with busyness. Or perhaps we rely desperately on the fleeting sense of achievement, success, or praise from others for our work, to boost our sense of self-worth and identity. "How much of our busyness is really an effort to prove our worth and escape from the sense that there is something very wrong with us?" In contrast, Christ is the only way to acknowledge our sinfulness and flaws, with truth and yet also with hope and empowerment. As Smith points out, Christ is "our Sabbath rest;" having attributed to us His perfection and holiness, and taken the full punishment for our sins, we can experience true freedom from the otherwise relentless drive to prove our worth, to make up for our failures. (continued in part 3) |
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