Content Under Pressure

It was one of those weeks last week.

You know, I find stress to be a real downer, and lately I’ve had my fair share of it.   Whether it’s work stress or personal issues, life has made it hard to follow through with my resolutions this year.  Ministry is hard a lot of times.  There have been many days lately where I feel like I have nothing left when I get home.  Nothing for my wife.  Nothing for any friends.

Nothing.

Musically-speaking, I often find comfort in the words of the Robbie Seay Band. I’ve been listening to them for years now, and their stuff keeps getting better and better.  Check out their site for some information on a new album/tour.

This particular song has always been a go-to when I’m feeling down.  It’s the title track of one of their earlier albums, Better Days.  I think the lyrics are worth a look…

Better Days by Robbie Seay

vs-1: First of all, thanks for listening to our song;
we hope this finds you driving in your car
or wherever you are, breathe out and breathe again;
and know that life is hard but it’s worth the breathing
oh listen to me now, the love of loves is waiting for you just to say…

chorus: here come better days, here come better days
better days in a better place i know

vs-2: secondly, i’m all messed up so royally
and i stumbled my way here, but wait oh wait
grace has found me and shaken up my soul
and grace will follow wherever you go
listen to me now, the grace of grace is calling for you just to say….

bridge:  green grass and I am laying in the sunlight of You
and the wind is moving through the trees, ushing You
and the better days You bring; the better places found
feasting at Your table I am overwhelmed
I lift my glass, drink to love that never gave up
clouds pass, fading into memories gone
and all I have to show for life is life and love and peace
what else could there be?

Grace.  How quickly I forget about it.

See, the truth is that I’m a mess.  I always have been.  Whenever life’s problems come my way, I am often paralyzed by fear and a ‘whoa is me’ attitude.  These are a few of the things in my life that need to die.

But the good news is that grace found me somewhere along the way and has followed me from place to place. I don’t deserve it, but that’s why it’s called grace, after all.

God loves us, and he calls us by names that you or I could never call ourselves.  Names like righteous and saints.  And he loves us without requirements.  Scripture says that we should only worry about today, for tomorrow brings enough trouble of its own. So, what are we to do when it feels like three months of tomorrows show up at once? I think the answer is to listen to the grace of grace calling us, just to say….

It’s worth the breathing.

image: sam

My wife and I were talking yesterday about Lent after part one of my toast to death.  She asked a common question:

So, what are you giving up for Lent?

I’ve been asked that question for as long as I’ve known about Lent.  But, I don’t think that I’ve thought about it in such a way as I have this particular season.  As I said yesterday, things just don’t need to be given up.

Things in us need to die.

I long thought of Lent in the past as a progress report of sorts for the first quarter of the year, charting out one’s progress of their New Year’s resolutions.   You know, sort of a “how are you doing so far?” kind of deal.  Are you still working out a month later?  Are you eating better?  Sure, it led to Easter, which provided more clarity.  But, I think I heard more about what people were sacrificing than of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

But, the season of Lent is about death, and ultimately new life.  You see, we cannot raise things from the dead.  Only God can.  But, as long as we just put off certain behaviors and tendencies we can revive them at a later date.  These things need to die, and that can only happen if we ourselves die to them.  And, when we do that it hurts.  The layers go deep, and when they’re peeled away it’s devastating.  It kills us.  But, God raises dead things.  With the same power that raised Jesus on the third day, we are raised again into a new life with him.  Sure, it’s not free from temptation or trials.

But, a free life it is.

Well, the season of Lent has officially started.   Christians will, for the next forty days, follow Jesus through his suffering and ultimately his death.  We do this in order to truly have something to rejoice in this Easter.  Lent gives us the opportunity to do some things that we’re normally horrendous at:  grieving and remembering.

Henri Nouwen has this to say about it:

A Prayer for Lent, by Henri Nouwen

How often have I lived through these weeks without paying much attention to penance, fasting, and prayer? How often have I missed the spiritual fruits of the season without even being aware of it?  But how can I ever really celebrate Easter without observing Lent?  How can I rejoice fully in your Resurrection when I have avoided participating in your death?  Yes, Lord, I have to die – with you, through you, and in you – and thus become ready to recognize you when you appear to me in your Resurrection.  There is so much in me that needs to die: false attachments, greed and anger, impatience and stinginess…I see clearly now how little I have died with you, really gone your way and been faithful to it.  O Lord, make this Lenten season different from the other ones.  Let me find you again.  Amen.

A Cry for Mercy:  Prayers from the Genesee; Image Books, 2002

Let this season be different than others.  Perhaps you’re like me and there needs to be a lot of death in your life.  Death from pride, selfishness, fear, anger.  Ask God to peel away the layers that cloud your vision of him.  Really, ask him.  When he does (and he will), ask him to do it every day.  You and I both need it, there’s no question.

But, do we really want it?

This post is inspired by Donald Miller’s book-
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
You should read it, pronto.

So, what’s your story? This is something that’s asked of us quite often.  And I dare say that the answer is always pretty shallow.  “Oh you know, white middle-class family, parents divorced, didn’t party in college, yada yada yada…”  But we all know that the real story goes so much deeper.  Perhaps we feel it’s not safe to tell it.

Everyone wants to say that they have lived a good story.  I know I sure do.  But, if it’s just left up to me to write a good story, then it’s sure to be mediocre at best.  I would omit all of the very things that give life to my story.  That sets my story apart from yours, and yours from mine.  Sure, we’d have points of intersection, but the route is almost always different.

My character would not want to change.  As a matter of fact most characters, in their very nature, are that way.  Change tends to only happen when a person is forced.  My grandfather, who had smoked two cartons of cigarrettes a week for thirty-plus years quit cold-turkey, only after one lung was removed.  I’ve focused more on my relationship with my wife, after leading worship at a funeral for a guy my exact age, and married for the same amount of time.

So, remember the events– good, bad and in-between.  They are a part of your story.  These have come for a reason.    Remember that joy costs pain.  I don’t really appreciate that it’s that way, but I believe it to be true.  Our stories are uniquely part of the much larger story of God, and they have meaning and purpose when He is allowed to write a good story.  And in trusting Him to pen it out, we have to take a look at those things that tend to bring about change, no matter how good (or bad) they are.

I want to write a better story….guess I better start living it.

What would you need to respond with if you were asked the question —-

So, what’s your story?

Have any of you ever heard/said, “it just wasn’t in the cards”?

Of course, the “cards” being mentioned are circumstances in our lives. We try to work with the ones dealt to us, or the ones that we dealt ourselves. We eventually come to accept these cards as being a situation or circumstance that we are meant to be in.

I know that I’ve said it a time or two.  Or, how about “this is just the hand I’ve been dealt”? 

Spiritually, I think that we see our hand working against us more often than not.  But oh how quickly we forget who is dealing!  God is in control, and whether we’ve been deal with tough circumstances of life or consequences of our bad decisions, God will work them together.

One question I try to ask myself when I feel my circumstances have no potential for change is, “What am I grateful for?”  Most often I come up with a few things, and ultimately end with a prayer that can, on some days, be as sarcastic as it can be serious, and that’s “God, thank you for at least waking me up today.”

That gets me thinking…What about that statement, “thank you for where you have me”? Is that it?  Just being grateful for the cards that were dealt?  Or, can we choose to fold and ask for a new hand?

Either way, what are we to do with them? 

Are we just happy and thankful where we are, or are we to look deeper and see what God has in the deck?  I want to remember first and foremost that I’ve been given life and grace upon grace.

Besides…anything else is really a bonus.