Waiting for the Big Moment

As I finish up Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts,  I've been sifting through my own lack of gratitude and establishing intentional ways to build gratitude and a lifestyle of miracles and thanks (eucharisteo).

From a broader, less personal perspective, I've also been thinking through our culture and the ways that ingratitude is cultivated all around us each and every day. Simple politeness and manners aren't taught or demanded as they have been in the past, communication is scattered, and verbal and non-verbal ingratitude nearly reigns in the American mindset.
We have an entitlement complex like no other: we deserve extra, free, better, more! Always. It never stops, we are never satisfied... and we are unthankful for what we have because it's not enough. But what is enough? Is there not joy in the everyday, in the simplicities of life, in the common ? We're so busy looking for the extraordinary and the unique in our ideal realities that we miss the extraordinary miracles of our actual realities.

This is highly reflected by our culture's revolution around our ideal [false] realities that we create on Pinterest, Tumblr, facebook, Instagram, and even our blogs, literature, and other media. Isn't it harder to embrace real life when I have such "better" things online? We find ourselves in constant states of discontent, covetousness, and depression. Yet, God has given us every good and perfect gift (James 1:17), has not withheld anything good from us (Psalm 84:11), and is working all things in our lives together for good according to His purpose of making us more like Christ (Romans 8:28-29). The goal, as I've said before, is not happiness, but holiness.

For me, it's time for a reality check. If I'm not living fully in each moment, is my life really full? Our lives are more like leaky buckets, always running out, unable to satisfy and quench, than the overflowing fountains of blessings that God is really giving us. These holes aren't from our circumstances, but from our attitudes.

Marli Tague, a friend of mine, shared this quote over at Cause for Joy:

“I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away. In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself, the one my mind could see so clearly. In college, the post-college “adult” person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized. Then the married person, then the person I’d become when we have kids. For twenty years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin.

And through all that waiting, here I am. My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start. I am waiting for that time, that person, that event when my life will finally begin.

Mere Mortals?

"All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other [eternal] destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities. . .that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people.  You have never talked to a mere mortal.  Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals  whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment."

--C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

(emphasis mine)

At my church, we have a chance on Sunday nights to go different 10-week classes which focus on one subject.  The class I’ve been going to is called The Truth Project.  It is a series of videos that explain the foundation of the Bible.  It’s been amazing, and I’ve learned so much!

Last night, the lesson discussed the Biblical sphere of community.  I wasn’t expecting much, but wow, was I caught off guard!  One of our jobs as Christians is to help the needy and the poor.  If you’re anything like me, initially you say to yourself, “Yep, got this one done,” and then just turn off your brain.  Thankfully, this time the speaker, Del Tackett, caught me before I turned off my brain.  He began to explain that the poor and needy are not only  people who are low on cash or unhealthy… they are also the left-out, the unpopular, the ignored, the shunned, and the outcasts.

As the speaker went on explaining who is included in the "outcast" group, I was hit hard.  I immediately thought of three girls in my school that I know I could have befriended, but I chose not to because--in my mind-- they were not worth it.

Hoaxed

A physics professor at Adelaide University in Australia, Sir Kerr Grant used to illustrate the time of descent of a free-falling body by allowing a heavy ball suspended from the lecture-theater roof trusses to fall some 30 feet and be caught in a sand bucket. Each year the bucket was lined up meticulously to catch the ball -- and each year students secretly moved the bucket to one side, so that the ball crashed thunderously to the floor.

Tiring of this rather stale joke, the professor traced a chalk line around the bucket. The students moved the bucket as usual, traced a chalk mark around the new position, rubbed it out and replaced the bucket in its original spot. "Aha!" the professor explained, seeing the faint outline of the erased chalk mark. He moved the bucket over it and released the ball -- which thundered to the floor as usual.

D.G. Dewar, Reader's Digest.

It's so easy to be fooled. In 2007  I received these e-mail pictures that reportedly showed the inside of the home of Tiger Woods. They were beautiful photographs, but according to www.snopes.com, the home is not owned by Tiger Woods. It is actually owed by a Maui beachfront rental company called The Golden Conch. Rental: $4000-and-up per night. Yikes!

  

According to golfonline.com, Tiger Woods was soon to own another home but not the one in Maui. He owns a home in Southern California and a lot at Three Creeks Ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. His 10-acre estate on Florida’s Jupiter Island comes complete with four homes, two docks for his $22 million yacht, a golf hole, and courts for volleyball and tennis. He was living (2007) in a home at Isleworth in Orlando that he reportedly purchased for $54 million. With PGA and international events taking up most Thursdays through Sundays, I can’t imagine that he spends very much time enjoying any of them. The aerial views of his homes (not pictured) are breathtaking.

Two thoughts:

1. Many have been hoaxed by the pictures of Tiger’s home. The pictures and the value associated with them do not belong to him. A Christian can also be hoaxed. He buys into this world’s picture of success. He spends his whole life working hard to get ahead and then spends his remaining years holding tightly to what he has earned. But that picture of success and the values associated with them never really belonged to him either. He won’t take them with him when he is gone. They were always on loan from God. Christians should not invest in this life alone because the return is in the life to come.

2. God has given man the ability to build marvelous works. We see colors, styles, architecture, and settings that give pleasure to the eyes. It’s okay that you and I may never own such places. John 14:2 declares that Jesus is preparing a place for us. It will be a place made by His handiwork. In this life we see beauty that man makes. In the next life we will witness the wonders that Christ creates. There will be no comparison.

For neither man nor angel can discern hypocrisy, 

the only evil that walks invisible, 

except to God alone.

JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost