Fullness of Time

Some days it feels like I’m supposed to be a cheerleader at a funeral.

Some days it feels like I am doing hospice work

with a patient who is unaware of their own impending death.

Fighting Loving Feeling Stealing

This week I’ve been writing about the tension between forging ahead with life and waiting for the right time and the right set of circumstances before moving forward. The impetus for this has been a spiritually torturous span of time where I have been trying to discern what the next chapter of my life will be. It’s not that I have to know all the details beforehand, it’s just that I want to be sure that I’m headed in the right direction.

To be honest, I’m not sure where I get the sense that there is one, right direction or why I want to be so sure that I am heading that way. If life is a gift to explore and enjoy then there really is no one way in which to do that. The fact that everyone experiences life differently is a testament to the idea that there is no one, right way. So why I am so concerned that I should know the right direction before I move?

One reason is that I am pretty sure that there are some wrong ways to explore and enjoy life. I want to avoid those ways because they tend to cause me pain and anxiety. I know that it’s not always possible to avoid these things and that wisdom and understanding often come from times of suffering. I also know that trying to avoid suffering often leads to more of it for myself or for others. Yet I go to great lengths to keep suffering at arm’s length from me and escape from it when I can't.

Yesterday, as I wrestled with these thoughts for the umpteenth time I was happily distracted by the news that my favorite band released a new single in preparation for the release of a new album in June. I watched the video and found myself connecting to it immediately which I don't usually do with their songs. The song played right into my thoughts about the way we go through life and learn from our joys and sorrows. It laments and celebrates the fullness of life. I have to share it.

Headlong Flight by Rush

All the journeys of this great adventure

It didn’t always feel that way

I wouldn’t trade them because I made them

The best I could and that’s enough to say

Some days were dark

I wish that I could live it all again

Some nights were bright

I wish that I could live it all again

All the highlights of that headlong flight

Holding on with all my might

To what I felt back then

I wish that I could live it all again

I have stroked the fire of the big steel wheels

Steered the airship right across the stars

I learned to fight

I learned to love

and learned to feel

Oh I wish that I could live it all again.

All the treasures, the gold and glory

It didn’t always feel that way

I don’t regret it

I’ll never forget it

I wouldn’t trade tomorrow for today

Some days were dark

I wish that I could live it all again

Some nights were bright

I wish that I could live it all again

I have stroked the fire of the big steel wheels

Steered the airship right across the stars

I learned to fight

I learned to love

and learned to steal

Oh I wish that I could live it all again.

The song is even more poignant when you realize that the man who wrote these words, Neil Peart, lost his 19 year-old daughter in a car accident and then, ten months later, lost his wife to cancer. To be able to write that you would live it all again is an incredible testimony to the power of life.

There is an African proverb that says that we back into the future. Perhaps by looking at where I’ve been I can more easily see where I am going. By exploring the paths that have brought me to the place in life that I inhabit now, maybe I can make sense of where I am and where I am going.

You’re welcome to come along if you like. Whether you do or don’t consider this video by one of the world’s greatest bands as my gift to you. (And if you want to contribute to a fund that will help me see them in concert in the fall, I will consider that your gift to me.)

Waiting & Suffering

Yesterday I wrote about blazing trails through life and about not waiting for a clearly outlined path to appear before moving forward. But there many places in the Bible that exhort us to “Wait upon the Lord.” (Job 14, Psalms 27, 33, 37, 38, 40, 119, 130, Isaiah 8, 26, 30, 64, Lamentations 3, and Romans 8 for a quick list) So what does that mean? When are we supposed to wait and when are we supposed to forge ahead?

In the English language we use the word “wait” in a few different ways. First, we use it to mean anticipation or a looking forward to some event. We wait for the light to turn green at an intersection. We wait for the food in the microwave to be heated. We can be doing other things while we wait but when we wait we are acknowledging that time has to pass before the event happens.

A second way we use the word “wait” is when we talk about predator and prey. An animal lies in wait for the prey to come close enough to attack. A mugger lies in wait for a victim to pass by. Still, there is a sense that time has to pass and certain conditions need to be met before the event happens.

The third way we use the “wait” in English is when we talk about serving tables. While there are places in the Bible that talk about waiting tables, the original Hebrew and Greek use different words to indicate this action. The passages that tell us to “wait upon the Lord” are not telling us to serve a meal to God.

Most of the passages in scripture that exhort us to “wait upon the Lord” are found in the wisdom literature (Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Lamentations). We also see it a few times in some of the prophets (Isaiah, Hosea and Micah). And in the New Testament it is fairly uncommon, appearing only in Romans 8 and Hebrews 6.

The exhortations to “wait upon the Lord” seem to serve as advice in situations in which a person or a community is ready to give up. On the verge of despair they are ready to give up any hope that their situation will get better. Every admonition to “wait upon the Lord” is an encouragement to hold on to hope and to keep looking for the way out of the suffering that God will provide.

But there is another thing that this exhortation does. It discourages me from seeking vengeance and blazing a trail for my own salvation. “Waiting upon the Lord” means that I will not become the one who lies in wait. It means that I refuse to become the predator or the perpetrator making those who oppress me into the prey or the victims.

One of the things that my wife and children have been good about keeping private is that I suffer from occasional bouts of road rage couple with Situational Tourette’s Syndrome (a self-diagnosed condition where I find myself using publicly inappropriate language to vent frustration due to external circumstances).  Sometimes I find myself frustrated beyond belief at being stuck in the lane that isn’t moving on the expressway. I envision pulling onto the shoulder and speeding forward with complete disregard to the safety of everyone on the road. I can also find myself on the verge of losing it when someone else is driving like a maniac, swerving in and out of traffic, tailgating and being a hazard to everyone on the road. Sometimes I catch myself driving like it's my responsibility to teach that person a lesson by blocking the road or giving them a taste of their own medicine.

Most of the time, however, I let such drivers go past while delivering a stern lecture to them from inside my vehicle. I call them names that I won't repeat here. This is a form of waiting. Certainly not the patient and calm waiting that I imagine that I am "supposed" to do, but it is a form of waiting nonetheless. I wait on the Lord to deliver me from this frustrating, anxiety producing experience. Once or twice I have had the pleasure of finding the idiot driver pulled over by the police farther up the road. Even though I had nothing to do with them being pulled over I feel vindicated and exultant. But even when they aren't punished for their actions I know that by waiting, the moment passed and I did not participate in making the situation worse.

When the Bible tells us to “wait upon the Lord” it’s almost always in connection to finding relief from suffering. (Admittedly, thinking that traffic delays and unsafe drivers are a form of suffering is relative but all suffering is relative to the person it affects.) Waiting is an admonition to avoid becoming a vigilante justice system to those who are responsible for my suffering. It is a reminder that I can actually endure more suffering than I ever want to go through. Waiting upon the Lord is a way to adjust my mental framework from within my suffering so that I can continue forward and not add to the suffering already in the world. Waiting is hoping and having faith that things will change.

Perhaps waiting is simply a way to be reminded that it’s not all up to me. Maybe the admonition to “wait upon the Lord” is to get me into the right frame of mind to watch for the signs that tell me the time is right to take action. What if “waiting on the Lord” is about moving us out of the anxiety and panic that comes with suffering and places us in a more reflective and reasonable state of mind so that we can clearly see the way out of our suffering when the time and conditions are right? Isn't that better than causing more suffering?

Blazing Trails

In my third through eighth grade years my family lived on a 40 acre farm in Michigan. We raised some chickens, occasionally some ducks and a pile of barn cats. My mom insisted on having a garden in which to torture her sons with the spirit-breaking task of pulling weeds 45 minutes a few days each summer while paying five cents for each ice cream bucket that we filled. That was the extent of our farming. Two fields were rented out to a neighbor who planted corn in them and there were two fields that had been hay fields for the previous owner. Since we didn’t raise livestock we let the grass grow tall in those fields.

We called these two unfenced hay fields of tall grass “the weeds” to distinguish them from the areas of cut grass around the house that we called the lawn. My brothers and I spent hours playing in the weeds every summer. There were no trails so we would blaze our own, carrying our bare arms at shoulder height so they wouldn’t be cut by the slicing blades of grass. Sometimes we would turn around and follow our new trail back out and sometimes we would make a new trail through to the other side of the field.

Standing on the edge of the field I could see where we had been. I don’t remember any of the trails ever being straight. Each one meandered and twisted through the tall grass. Sometimes they went around patches of nettles or around a rock but most of the time the crooked path was simply due to the fact that something inside us told us to step over this way or follow the slope of the land that way. Or, more likely, there was nothing inside of us that insisted that we travel a straight line.

 As a kid it would have made no sense to stand at the edge of the field and wait for a path to appear so that I knew where to go. I knew that playing in the field was fun and a large part of the fun was creating our own trails. We learned painful and irritating lessons about nettles and cockleburs by walking through them. We would be startled and excited by a noisy pheasant taking flight being flushed from its hiding place in the weeds. We would avoid the corner of the field where we could smell that a skunk den had been built. We were scared out of the field for days when a ground hog bull rushed its way past us low in the grass.

Had we stood on the side of the field waiting for a path to appear we would have missed all of this.

That’s the problem with waiting for God to reveal each new step in our lives. It completely ignores the fact that we learn through our experiences. It actually disengages us from the fullness of life that is given to us as a gift. But the biggest problem is that it immobilizes us with fear. When we wait to be absolutely sure of God’s next step for us we become anxious that we will miss it. We hesitate, afraid that it is too soon to move. We fret that we may have missed our opportunity and now it is too late.

The Plan

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

-Jeremiah 29:11

I believe that God does have a plan for us. However, it is not as specific as we sometimes wish that it would be. Instead, what if God’s plan for us is to set us free from fear (fear of harm, destruction, death etc…) so that we can live in the fullness of this life? What if God’s deepest desire isn’t to create a world full of obedient people but is to see the gift of this life experienced in all of its glory and tragedy? What if the point is to be blazing trails through the field of life instead of standing where we are in hopes that a straight and narrow trail with fences on both sides appears to lead us to the other side?

So then, if we are truly engaged and are blazing trails through this field of life, what does it mean to “wait upon the Lord?” What exactly are we waiting for?

A bit more about that tomorrow…

Two Kinds of Waiting

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

                                                                                                Psalm 27:14

A Confession

I hate waiting.

I know that’s not the kind of confession that makes for juicy gossip but it’s a confession that I don’t like to make. I like to think of myself as someone who is patient. After all, that’s one of the fruits of the Spirit right?

But to be patient means “to be long suffering.” Who wants to be long suffering? I don’t want to be suffering at all let alone suffering for a long time. I want relief from my suffering. I want to be saved from my suffering. And waiting is its own kind of suffering.

There are times when I don’t mind waiting so much. When I know that I’m waiting for something good I look forward to it with anticipation. If my wife tells me in the morning that she is planning on making a special meal for supper I don’t want to eat it for breakfast. I actually like to think about it during the day and anticipate how wonderful it’s going to be. Waiting makes it even better.

However, it doesn’t seem to work that way when I’m sick. When I have a cold or am stricken with the flu I know that I will gradually get healthy over time.  Thinking about being healthy and imagining the day when I won’t feel congested and tired only makes me more impatient to get over my illness.

The difference between these two types of waiting boils down to this: In the first example I am waiting for something that is a pure gift. My wife wants to make something special for me. If I refuse to wait and take the initiative to cook the meal myself I will ruin the gift. It just wouldn’t be the same as letting her do something nice for me.

In the example of waiting for my health to return I can actually take steps that will make it come sooner without ruining the end result. I can eat and drink in healthy ways and I can get extra rest instead of going full-speed through every day. In these ways I am an active participant in making the future that I eagerly wait for become a reality.

So What Am I Doing?

There are dozens of passages in the Bible that exhort us to “wait for the Lord.” What I want to know is which kind of waiting I am doing: The kind in which I simply look forward to the gift that is coming or the kind in which I take an active role in creating that hoped-for future?  

Throughout this week I want to explore the issues behind waiting. I think that some of them are directly related to the two ways of imagining heaven that I wrote about last week (Two Heavens: One Kingdom). I think some of the issues have to do with the way the predominant culture shapes us. Waiting also has to do with our desire to be in control and to take matters into our own hands. I imagine I will discover more issues as I write about them.

If there are issues related to waiting that you would like to see me address leave a comment or send an email to zukey.jones@gmail.com and put “waiting” in the subject line. I’ll see what I can do.