Lesson from a Fly

Moments ago, I was sitting on my stoop drinking a most delicious smoothie when a fly took interest. Can you blame it? It landed on the lid of my cup, but when I swatted at it, it flew away.

This fly's instantaneous response to my hand was, I think, a grand life-choice. It rejected something temporary for something lasting. It risked starving for a chance to live through this moment. This may seem normal and perfectly sane, but humans are rarely so wise!

Oh, the god of instant pleasure and gratification! Married to the goddess of quick fixes. How we worship them.

A basic example: choosing cake over salad. If all we eat for the rest of our lives is cake, we will surely die much sooner than if all we eat for the rest of our lives is salad (or at least I assume...I have never tried).

Another example: We choose sin over eternal life.

It's that simple.

Be like the fly. Fly away from that smoothie instead of getting the smack-down.

God bless.

Misplaced

I suppose it makes sense that it is on my worst days that I long most achingly for my best days.

If you have known me for any length of time, you probably know about my 2013 and 2014 summer adventures in Juneau, Alaska. As time passes, I talk about it less, but nary a day goes by that it does not cross my mind.

Sure, I went to Alaska on Juneau Summer Project with Cru. It was the absolute time of my life, and sometimes I miss summer project more than anything else: the people, the relationships, the community.

But days like today, I ache for Alaska itself most of all: the terrain, the miserably wet weather, the water, the chill remedied only by a campfire, the wildlife, the glacier, the trees. I could go on.

Today was a rough day at work for me. It was very stressful and I felt like my arms were being pulled in multiple directions at once all day. I put 116 miles on my truck just from driving clients around town. I love my job but today it was just not easy and the whole day I felt like I was failing. I left the office with a stack of work to finish tomorrow, which I hate to do to my future self, but I just couldn't stay late today; eight hours was enough to do me in.

Days like this make me wonder about the meaning of home. I love my city. I love, love, love it. I love my living situation. I love my job. I love all the people here. I love the busyness and vibrancy. I adore my church. I love seeing God move in a city that I have become invested in. I love the fruits that are starting to grow because I have decided to root myself here.

I love this place like it is my home. But somehow I do not feel entirely at home here.

My citizenship is in Heaven. I recognize that and I long for it desperately. I can't wait to brush off my hands from the work of this life and rest in Paradise. But I've never been there. I don't really know what it's like.

What I do know is the one and only: Juneau, Alaska.

I will never forget the first time I saw snow-covered mountains. I was flying from Seattle to Juneau in May 2013. I was listening to "Sometimes" by David Crowder Band on my iPod. My breath was taken away. My jaw dropped.

It was my first glimpse of the magnificence I would be immersed in for the next two months and for another six weeks a year later.

Can I really only have spent three and a half months in Juneau over the duration of my life? How can a place I have spent so little time in inhabit such a large portion of my heart?

Last Sunday, my pastor talked about being in the world but not of it (based on John 17:10-19). I can feel it. I feel my other-worldliness. I can feel how misplaced I am here. I can feel that I am home, but only sort of.

This is why my aching love for Juneau makes such a great metaphor for Heaven. I love it so much more than where I am. I love it for selfish reasons: I love what it does for my soul. I have never felt closer to God than in the Alaskan wilderness. He is surely here in my city. He surely resides in my heart wherever I go. But his might is so tender in Juneau. His intimacy is so near.

I have had a foretaste of the feast to come.

I can't go back to Juneau right now, as much as I wish I could, just as I can't go to Heaven right now, as much as I would love to.

I am "stuck" in this city, on this planet.

But it's coming. I will go back to Juneau. And I will reach Heaven, and when I get there I am never coming back. How could I? I will finally be home. For now, I will rooten* myself where God wants me to be rooted.


God bless.



* "Rooten" is a word I made up a couple blog posts ago. I'm keeping and recycling it.

Comfort

Two and a half weeks ago, I slammed my middle finger in the door as I was leaving the house.

I can't remember if I cried out or not, but my instant reaction was to shove my finger in my mouth. I ran back inside and ran cold water over it. I knew I needed to get ice but I couldn't bear to pull my finger out from under the water long enough to get an ice cube from the freezer.  My fingernail was a dark purple instantly.

Now the swelling has gone down and my dead, black fingernail is curling in on the sides, getting ready to fall off. For about a week I had to keep icing it because the pain was so persistent and the swelling so extreme.

When it became clear to me that I was wallowing in self-pity about my poor fingernail, I couldn't help but remember the post I wrote a couple months ago in response to the book I was reading, Tortured for Christ. I couldn't help but remember the story from that book of a pastor persecuted for his faith in Communist Russia. One of his particular punishments was having all his fingernails and toenails torn off.

How could I feel sorry for myself when he faced this pain so bravely? How could I be so miserable because of one smashed finger, in pain but so very far from death, when others, even today, stand on the brink of death and find joy in their suffering because they suffer for Christ?

I knew that I must find joy in my suffering. I spent about an hour journaling about this, talking to my Lord about the hope I have in the joy of Heaven and how my current pain is brief and endurable if I must suffer it as a prerequisite to such everlasting treasure.

Still, it became clear to me that I have an idolatry problem: the idol of comfort.

What do I want so very badly?
I want rest. I want to be warm. I want to be well-fed. I want to be happy. I want to live in a nice house with nice furnishings. I want sexual comfort (as opposed to the sexual tension and sexual destitution that comes with singleness). I want nice smells. I want tasty food. I want to have free time. I want to read pleasant novels. I want to be free from pain. I want to have money to spare. I want a new car. I want a full closet of clothes. I want the freedom to travel and do as I please. I want nice weather every day, all year round. I want to be healthy. I want constant emotional support. I want nice friends with comfortable lives like mine. I want fast internet and considerate drivers. I want to be spared from any and all awkward situations. I want to be lazy and have someone to do my work for me. I want to be a brat and not feel guilty about it. I want to be smarter/prettier/more talented/better than other people so that I can have plenty of confidence (or cockiness, whatever). Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera.

I want to be comfortable.

Now, find me a single Bible passage that says this is God's desire for me.

...No? Nothing?

And yet, when I remember that God certainly does not call me to these things (even though I have lived in the luxury of many of them for most if not all of my life), I despair. I remember that what God might call me to is pain. What if my smashed fingernail is just the beginning?

This is where I discover yet another lie that I am believing: the lie that if I reject my idol of comfort and embrace a life of following Christ, I will be miserable. The lie that I will not only be sacrificing wealth, physical well-being, and general comfort, I will be sacrificing joy.

I don't have a solution to this problem. I can't wrap up this particular blog post in a nice bow, because I am still fighting this idol and still fighting these lies. And although I may and hope to make great progress in this area as the years of my life pass, I suspect I will struggle with it my whole life.

After all, as I write this post I have been going back up to the list of things I want and adding things to it. This is my sin. I'm not saying I should have the things I want. I'm not saying there is anything good (or inherently wrong, in most cases) about my having them. But I am saying that I have a problem. And I am saying that this problem is quite extensive.

So far my progress (thanks to the Holy Spirit) amounts to recognizing the idol and recognizing the lie and beginning the process of conversing with God about it.

We'll see how far I've come in fifty or so years.


God bless.