Tag: perspective

Two Paths to Walk

I think there are two paths that each of us walk. I think we travel on these at the same time but are often unaware of one while we focus the greater part of our attention and effort on the other.

  1. We are all going about the daily busy-ness of our lives.
  2. At the very same moments, each one of us is traveling toward our end of life here on earth.

Americans now experience so much control over our lives (the Vikings aren’t going to come and plunder our village in the Spring) and we have such marvelous health and healthcare – we don’t have to face end-of-life issues as our ancestors once did (fearing the plague each time a stranger visited).

It is possible to become so caught up in the here and now, and our control over it, that we lose our perspective on the eternal. Even though you’ve heard that topic a hundred ways a hundred times before, it’s still worth thinking about. So that when you are sitting there in the middle of the disaster it’s possible to begin to see things finally as they really are. I’m reminded of the story of Lot. He faced a number of terrible tragedies.

While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived with this news: “Your sons and daughters were feasting in their oldest brother’s home. Suddenly, a powerful wind swept in from the wilderness and hit the house on all sides. The house collapsed, and all your children are dead. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”  – Job 1:18-19

How does anyone move on after hearing this horrible news? But when it happens there’s no escape, no denial, no easy fix. It’s possible that something dreadful will happen in this lifetime to you or someone you love. During disasters, people start thinking about eternity. But why wait for the roof to fall in to awaken to these two paths you’re walking right now? Why not look for opportunities now, when you’re not in panic mode, to start putting this present life into a much larger perspective.

Remember…

  1.  None of us are in as much control as we and our bank account think we are.
  2. A walk with God that’s only (barely) a hobby will not carry anyone far when the worst news arrives.
  3. God’s concerns for us are usually different than our own self concerns – that can be alarming.
  4. When your life falls apart – for whatever reason – you will hear all sorts of religious explanations from well meaning loved ones (and strangers). Don’t let this common phenomenon change your own search for answers from God himself.
  5. Sometimes, maybe most of the time, just the presence of God is all we really need to take us down whatever road we’re forced to walk.

“Beware of trying to patch up a present refusal to walk in the light by recalling past experiences when you did walk in the light.” ― Oswald Chambers

John Muir (1838-1914) was one of America’s great naturalists. He co-founded the Sierra Club and was instrumental in helping to establish many of our national parks. I like this quote about how to walk through the world while remaining conscious of where you are really going and what’s happening all around you. Is this what we are now calling being mindful?

“I don’t like either the word [hike] or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains – not ‘hike!’ Do you know the origin of that word saunter? It’s a beautiful word. Away back in the middle ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going they would reply, ‘A la sainte terre’, ‘To the Holy Land.’ And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not ‘hike’ through them.” ― John Muir

What would it take for you to saunter through your day tomorrow, or the rest of your life?

 

Where’s the Dentist When You Need One?

And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. – I Peter 3:15

I’ve returned today from my third visit to the dentist. I still have my problem. I’m going to have to go back next week and hope it gets resolved. I had no idea that I would have to go through this sort of long and drawn out (month long) ordeal to just get a simple problem resolved. I went in today and was moved through a number of “stations” (not of the cross) thinking I was going to find relief. It wasn’t until I was led out into the office and charged a fee that I realized I not only didn’t get any fries, there was nothing even approaching a happy meal in my hands as I walked out of the building.

Once I stop being mad and frustrated, I try to put this all in perspective. I water the flowers and fix dinner. Think about it some more. After cleaning up and loading the dishwasher it gets a little easier to find that important alignment between everyday experience and some eternal truth.

I’m trying to get the dentist to solve a problem, how many visits is it going to take? I think there are people all around me who are looking for solutions to all kinds of problems. Some of these problems and really big and even eternal. I wonder if anyone looking for some truth has felt like I have trying to get a dentist to solve one little problem? Frustrated and considering just living with it.

“Ah, Misha, he has a stormy spirit. His mind is in bondage. He is haunted by a great, unsolved doubt. He is one of those who don’t want millions, but an answer to their questions.”  ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

My wife has cancer. I’ve watched from across the room as she has interacted with total strangers she hasn’t even met. A clerk, healthcare worker, someone at the restaurant. They talk a little about her situation. She tells a little of her story, seasoned with faith, and then I can see eyes begin to fill with tears. I don’t think it’s always sympathy. I think many of these strangers have their own personal story with cancer that somehow relates. My wife has been able to deliver a little hope from out of nowhere.

Just like me, searching for a dentist and experiencing a great deal of frustration, there are people everywhere who can’t find satisfying answers to big questions.

Just like everyone else, there are believers who are in the middle of life with all of its triumph and tragedy. People everywhere, waiting for a kindness from a stranger who will share their life and a word of truth.

“You cannot do a kindness too soon,
for you never know how soon it will be too late.”  ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Homesickness

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For here we do not have a lasting city,
but we are seeking the city which is to come. – Hebrews 13:14 (NASB)

Sometimes our suffering is made worse because we are too attached to this world. The poet Wordsworth wrote “this world is too much with us…” He was in anguish about civilization all around that had created such a deep chasm between mankind and the natural world.

The ditch that that I typically fall into when suffering arrives is the one between my earthly and heavenly perspectives. It even now seems to plague my travel through these recent days. I fall into it and my eyes are averted, panic and worry set in, I quickly forget to keep my sights set on what is eternal.

There’s always going to be something here and now that will distract us from our eternal beliefs. Then when suffering arrives, our attachments are made even more urgent. They seem to weigh us down and keep our sight too short.

  • Our health and freedom
  • The mortgage and our debt
  • Family and friendships
  • That all important career
  • The future of our children
  • Those big plans for retirement

When we suffer (or someone close to us suffers) we face an existential fork in the road. We can run down the path of panic and fear – filling our pockets with worry about the here and now as if it was all that really mattered. Or, we can take the path that leads us toward that vast horizon of eternity. Things that only mattered, now seem to matter just enough, only after drawing near to God.

“We lead our lives so poorly because we arrive in the present always unprepared, incapable, and too distracted for everything.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters on Life

When we spend so much of our life worrying we haven’t anything left to spend on seeking what will matter forever. When suffering raises it’s ugly snout, our worries multiply through the roof. Fear drives us into the dark woods and we lose sight of home.

I DON’T WANT TO GET ADJUSTED

In this world we have our trials
sometimes lonesome, sometimes blue
but the hope of life eternal
Makes all old hopes brand new

And I don’t want to get adjusted to this world, to this world
I’ve got a home so much better
and I’m gonna go there sooner or later
And I don’t want to get adjusted to this world, to this world

Lord, I’m growing old and weary
and there’s no place that feels like home
Saviour come, my soul to ferry
to where I never more will roam

And I don’t want to get adjusted to this world, to this world
I’ve got a home so much better
and I’m gonna go there sooner or later
And I don’t want to get adjusted to this world, to this world

Iris Dement

Jesus’ parting words to his disciples… Don’t get lost in despair; believe in God, and keep on believing in Me. My Father’s home is designed to accommodate all of you. If there were not room for everyone, I would have told you that. I am going to make arrangements for your arrival.  I will be there to greet you personally and welcome you home, where we will be together. 

– John 14:1-3  (The Voice)