http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/26/AR2010082605232.html

I did a series on thankfulness some time ago… probably my favorite posts - look them up in the archives if you missed them.  I can’t remember how many posts were in that series, but wherever we are in the count, this is a delayed addition.

After watching this, I was struck by the question; “How can we, of all people - with God’s own spirit living in us, not be thankful regardless of our circumstances?”  But we are discontent and unthankful to the extent that we often think of our Christianity only in light of what it can bring us that we don’t currently have.  Let’s change that focus to a focus on what we can do for others.  That doesn’t mean just write a check.  It means change our entire outlook on the meaning of our lives.  Frankl had it right.  Happines naturally ensures from living for a casue greater than ourselves, for others.  God is so good.  We change our way of life and impact the lives of others for the better and who really benefits?  We do.  The ones who made the “sacrifice”.

We are equipped with SO MUCH.  More than we need, and there is such a need for the excess that we have - not just money - love, peace, joy, wisdom, compassion…

I’m sure you’ve heard the story.  Medical aid workers from a Christian charity murdered one by one, each seeing their fate, having accepted the possibility long since, now knowing they would be leaving those they love as their turn at the muzzle of the gun arrived.  The recent example in Afghanistan is only one of countless examples since Jesus promised that His burden is easy, his yoke light.  And truly, it is today for those aid workers.  But how… how is it easy and light for their wives, husbands, children?  Don’t think I’m going to answer that one.  I’m not even going to try.

But He said it.  If He is God, what is the difficulty?  In this life, our pain only represents birth pangs as we enter our real life in eternity.  I don’t know, maybe that’s it.  Maybe He really makes it easy and light in this world in ways we can’t understand without experiencing it.  I read an account of a Romanian minister, imprisoned and tortured daily.  Jesus would come to him physically and hold him after the torture sessions.  Now, in freedom in the U.S, this man said in many ways he longs for those days of torture to relive those moments with Jesus.  I don’t know.  I just don’t.  And I can’t fathom how His burden could be easy if I lost those I love.  I only know He said it and I have to accept it by faith and walk on with a complete disregard for saving my own life - because that’s precisely how I will lose it.  That I have to allow my wife and kids to do the same, knowing that we might face great loss and suffering in this world.

It is naive, unscriuptural, and leads only to disillusionment to pretend that such sacrifice and loss is not a part of many of our walks in this world.  Today I’ll borrow from The Choir’s song, The Chicken (in some eastern societies chickens are believed to channel evil, thus the imagery).  I have to agree with this song.  That doesn’t mean that God’s promises are not true.  It means we need an unshakable faith that God’s promises are true even when we suffer, and that we should not be surprised if and when we do suffer - nor should we doubt our ultimate deliverance.  The Gospel MUST BE as true for those watching their chidlren die of starvation and dehydration tonight as it is for me.  Knowing pain and suffering here must not shake our faith.  Real faith believes in the face of suffering that is a natural part of a battleground.

I could tell you there is no troll in the valley,
No tricky ghoul behind the trees.
Yeah, I could tell you there is no molester in the alley,
To take a lead pipe to your knee.

But you won’t believe it ‘cause it ain’t true.
You won’t believe it ‘cause it ain’t true.
Rivers flowing through your precious body blue,
Trickle crimson when the chicken claws you.
Trickle crimson when the chicken claws you.

I was recently asked, “How can you do a series of posts borrowing from other thinkers and writers and not include a Pensee from Blaise Pascal?”.  I was, of course, ashamed at my glaring omission - even if the person who asked me was me (I often have discussions with myself).  So, here goes:

“How I hate this nonsense of not believing in the truth and reality of God’s presence in the Eucharist.  If He is God, what is the difficulty?”

Whenever I am daunted by the immensity of suffering in the world (or even by day-to-day struggles), by my seeming inability to make any difference, I remember that He has a plan.  He will make a way.  If His Word makes it clear what we are to do, and He is God… what is the difficulty?  It is only logical that if we believe He is God - then the apparent immensity of any challenge is irrelevant.  If He is God, what is the difficulty?  The logic is so simple that it exposes the real question:  do I believe He is God?  Answer that with real certainty and we can rest assured as to the outcome.

Here’s the great thing about scripture, following Christ, and God’s promises.  It all fits together.  It has to.  Lest my last post be interpreted as me being a prosperity message-basher… at its heart - where it has its base in scripture, I think I beleive in God’s promises of prosperity more than most who follow the “popular” version of the prosperity message.

The concept of happiness and success ensuing from a devotion to a cause larger than oneself rings true on a spiritual level.  It does because it is consistent with scripture.  We have a job to do, much is expected of us.  Why?  I beleive that is clear as well.  Because in doing what is expected of us - truly following Christ - happines and success (i.e. prosperity) will naturally ensue.  God promised that it would.  That He would do His job - protect, bless, prosper our every step.  Here’s where I think I believe that more than the name-it-and-claim-it proponents.

I don’t have to name it.  I don’t have to claim it.  God promised it.  And He never told me I have to go out and grab it.  That I have to somehow wrestle it out of him by demanding it long enough and loudly enough.  I believe He’s true to His Word.  He said He’d do it for me.  That’s good enough for me.  I can let go of what I want and trust Him for the desires of my heart and meeting of all my needs because I really believe He’s all powerful, He loves me, and He promised it.  So I trust Him to provide all of that.

I have a teenage son (almost - will be this December, but trust me - he’s already got the emotional swing thing down).  Let’s just put out a hypothetical that I want him to be succesful, content, happy, and blessed more than anything else.  So I tell him that, and promise that I’ll put everything I have into an effort to get him there.  So the next day he presents me with a list:  a new car, $100,000 to start his savings account, 60” flat screen for his room, big career at my firm… and yeah, he’d like it all tomorrow.  Then he demands that list of items every day… after day… after day.  How would I feel about that?  For those of you who know me, you know the answer.  I’d open a can of you-know-what on him.  That attitude is self-centered, ungrateful, and lacks a core trust in me - a trust that I know better than he does what is really good for him, and that I will actually follow through on my promise without being badgered… we would all recognize the flawed heart behind that attitude in our kids.

Ok, live and let live, right?  Why be upset by the other mindframe in the prosperity message?  First, I believe that Frankl is right.  The more we set our minds on grasping at what you want, the more it will elude us - particularly if we want contentment and happiness.  And I want Christians to live in contentment, happiness, and true prosperity.  I really, really want that.  For us to be at peace, content, living life in a way that clearly - clearly - shows the world they need and are searching for what we already have.  So I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, because we not only should be - we must be - blessed, content, and full of real prosperity to fulfill our calling.  But I think we really need to get this right or it will do more harm than good.  I think God’s promises of prosperity are among the most beautiful and true (as all scripture is) revelations of God’s tenderhearted love for us.  I love them, and I love what they tell me about Him.  I just think our response should be to respect and trust Him to follow through, while we focus on doing what He told us to do.

”...Success, like happiness, cannot be pursured; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.  Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.”

-Victor Frankl, from the preface to the 1984 edition of Man’s Search For Meaning

Despite his deep insights into spiritual truths, my understanding is that Frankl is not a Christian.  I find it both embarrasing and enlighteing as to the state of western “Christian” throught that one of the most popular teachings of the past several decades is that we should, and must, demand and claim what we want - posessions, happiness, etc.  All of those things are promised to us, and I expect to (and do) receive them.  But God’s promise is that these blessings will naturally ensue from a life surrendered to His will and spent in following Him.  I personally believe that it is insulting to demand that He do what He promised He would do.  I trust Him to do what He promised - His promise is good enough for me.  When I grasped at success and happines, it eluded me.  My job is to follow Him - to submit my life to a cause - THE cause - greater than myself.  Success, and happines, will ensue (and is, in fact ensuing in my life as I never imagined it could. 

We’ve got a lot going on here, what with adjusting to 8 kids and all… all good.  It’s amazing how much joy there is in this.  It’s not easy - nothing worth having is easy.  But it has been full of joy for us, so much so that I can’t express it and I tear up even trying.  But, anyway, not a lot of time for independent thought.  So, with so many good thoughts already out there, I’ll continue my theme of borrowing from others:

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked throug the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.  They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing:  the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.  And there were always choices to make.  Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision which determined whether you would or would not sbumit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.”

-Victor Frankl, Auswitz survivor, as written in his autobiographical account of his concentration camp experience - Man’s Search For Meaning  In case you’re wondering, yes - you should read it.

I’m convinced that I lived most of the last twenty years imprisoned by my own numb paralysis - a paralysis that prevented me from “shaking off those golden shackles” (image from classic Choir song that I find so appropriate).  The Nazi death camps were designed to strip every shred of individuality and choice - inmates were stripped naked and shaved of every hair on their body.  The use of names was forbidden - inmates became naked, unrecognizable numbers, without hope of any fate other than they saw around them.  Yet some shone in those circumstances, making full use of Frakl’s “last of the human freedoms”. 

I have to wonder if we’re really in all that different a state of living here and now.  I know I was imprisoned by “normalcy”, leading a normal, respectable life, but in reality imprisoned in conformity to the world’s model of family, success, financial/life goals.  But I’m now free of that.  I’ve shaken off those golden shackles that I accepted for so long.  I’m nowhere near perfect - in fact, I’m no closer to that than I ever was.  It’s not about being good, it’s about being free.  Truly living.  Accepting real risk, rejecting the path of least resistance.  Making actual use of the last of the human freedoms.  It’s not easy, but I can’t begin to describe the joy.