Gifts and Brussel Sprouts

One of the interesting things about serving the Lord is the seeming delight He takes in surprising us.  Sometimes these are sweet surprises, unexpected blessings or gifts that we are eager to unwrap.  However, there are times when these “gifts” don’t feel quite as much like presents, but more like someone stuck some brussel sprouts onto our plate when we weren’t looking.  I remember as a kid sometimes reaching over and skewering an olive or other attractive morsel from my brother’s plate when he was distracted, but I’m certain I never swiped a brussel sprout.

It is interesting how quick we are to name gifts and trials, blessings and curses.  I know that I label them based on my most immediate experience of them.  If the thing feels good or I experience it as fun then it must be a gift, a blessing, God is smiling down on me.  If the thing is painful or I feel anxious or afraid then it is a trial or even a curse, God is distant or frowning at me.   Of course, hindsight often changes our perspective on things.  After the immediate has passed, we can view the results with more objectivity.  Sometimes in those moments we have a sort of epiphany and realize that the thing we called as curse was really a blessing in disguise.  A gift wrapped in pain or frustration.

I wonder what my experience of life would be if I really believed that everything, absolutely everything, was really under the control, the absolute control, of a being that loves me and cares for me even more and better than I love and care for my kids?  I am not saying that pain and suffering would cease.  These things will be with us until the end of the world.  But if I really believed that God was in charge of pain and suffering, perhaps I could endure them as a necessary part of my training.  I remember a coach in high school who pushed us to run until it hurt and then to run some more.  He knew that we were capable of more than we thought we were able to do.  He pushed us past the end of ourselves and we discovered something beyond the last frontier of endurance.

If everything really comes from my loving Father God, then perhaps the suffering is not simply meaningless pain, but is redemptive.  Perhaps there is a redeeming value, a redeeming purpose in it.  Perhaps God, like the coach, knows something that I don't know.  One of the miracles of the incarnation is that God actually knows our pain.  He learned through His own suffering.  So, when He sovereignly surprises us with suffering He knows what it means; He has been there and done that.  Somehow viewing it from this perspective makes it more bearable even if it is still unpalatable. I won't be looking for pain any more than I'll be surreptitiously skewering brussel sprouts, but perhaps I can stop muttering against the chef.

What's up with Saul!?

Today, as I was reading, I found myself asking this question.  "What is up with Saul!?"  Don't you find yourself asking that sort of question of biblical characters from time to time?  "What could have been going through his head when he did some of the things that he did!?!"  Today, for me, it was Saul.  But then I went back and re-read the story.  I put myself in Saul's place.  As I did that, I found myself giving him a much more sympathetic reading.

Saul faced real problems.  Things often didn't go the way that he planned.  God repeatedly spoke to him and worked in and around him, but he was often in way over his head.  He was thrust forward into an incredibly challenging leadership situation that he neither desired nor sought.  He actually started out pretty well.  He led with humility and obeyed the Lord.  He felt God's anointing on Him and was empowered by God.  He refused to avenge himself unrighteously on those who mocked his leadership.  Not a bad start.

Then, Samuel was late.  Samuel had promised to show up and didn't.  The enemy, however, did show up on time.  Saul's men were deserting him, the enemy host was swelling, and Samuel was nowhere to be seen.  Saul waited as long as he dared.  He knew that the battle would be starting soon, with or without Samuel.  He knew that he dare not go into battle without seeking the Lord's blessing.  So, he looked as his situation, planned a strategy, and executed a perfectly reasonable leadership decision.  He was compelled to do something!  Just then, Samuel arrived and brought a stinging rebuke with him. 

It is easy for me to sit comfortably in my office and render judgment on an Iron Age king.  I am so far removed from armies and battles, the pressures and daily realities of Saul's life.  I also have the benefit of supernatural hindsight.  I can see Saul's whole life neatly summed up in a few chapters f divinely inspired text.  Saul had none of my distant objectivity.  Saul was living the life that God had given him as best as he knew how.  His life was made up of one natural and reasonable decision after another.He started out well, but ended badly.  The real problem with Saul was that he made each decision without calculating God into the equation.  He was a real man, but a man who failed to involve God in the details of his life.  He relied on common sense but failed to heed the uncommon graces and revelations of God. 

Now that is something I can understand.  How often do I fail to view my life through heaven's eyes?  How often do I examine situations and analyze solutions without taking the wisdom and power of God into account?  How often do I feel compelled to do something, the thing that comes most naturally perhaps, when God's will is clearly something else?  Or how often do I find myself sailing through a whole day as a practical atheist, simply failing to invite His input?  I can't be too hard on Saul because Saul looks an awful lot like the man in the mirror.  On the other hand, I can choose to learn the lessons the Saul had to learn the hard way.  May God have mercy and draw me near to Himself!

Digital vs. Analog

In the digital world every thing is pixels.  The pictures on the screen are composed of tiny dots.  When you zoom in far enough everything is just dots.  In the real world, the analog world, things are solid, tangible, and connected.  The real things are much more complicated and connected than the simplified and imperfect digital representation.

I find myself reflecting on other differences between the real world and the digital one.  Electronic technology is integrated into virtually every aspect of our lives.  This brings myriad advantages, but perhaps there are some drawbacks as well.  For example, I enjoy playing FIFA on my Playstation, but when comparing playing soccer alone in a room with a console and a controller to getting together with a group of friends to kick the ball around, the inadequacies of the digital version become readily apparent.

Much has been made of the ability of digital technologies to keep us connected.  But I wonder if perhaps the digital world doesn't bring us together as much as it claims to.  I don't deny that in the context of a real relationship digital tools can help.  For example, my kids can talk with my grandparents for free using video and audio like something out of the Jetsons.  I admit that technologies like twitter, blogs, and facebook make us feel more connected, but are we really?  These tools create pixilated relationships rather than real relationships.  On facebook you see certain image of my life, but you are only getting the pixels that I choose to reveal.  You're not seeing the whole picture, just the disconnected dots that I choose to post.  We get the digital version of the person, not the real thing, a digital version of relationship, not the real thing.

In a real, analog, relationship, there is no photoshop.  There is no airbrushing or retouching, no perfecting the image before you post it.  We are who we are, warts and all.  We are much more complicated than the digital versions of ourselves.  In a face to face conversation the words only make up 7% of the communication that is happening.  The other 93% of communication is non-verbal everything from tone and volume to facial expressions and posture.  Obviously, real communication can take place through writing, but real relationships take more than the communication of information.  I wonder if we settle for digital communication because it allows for the illusion of relationship while allowing us to keep a safe distance to create feelings of connectedness while remaining isolated. 

We were designed by our creator for real relationship; specifically for a real relationship with Him.  I wonder if we settle for a digital relationship with God rather than a real one?  God desires a real relationship.  He did not just give us a book about Himself.  He wanted to give us more than mere information.  The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  He dwells among us still.  He stands at the door and knocks.  If anyone will open the door He will come in and eat with us.  He is inviting Himself to dinner at your place.  He wants to interact with us in more analog ways, solid, tangible, and even complicated ways.