What I'm Thinking When I See You

Tomorrow I will walk into school after an absence of 4 days. A friend of mine will probably be one of the first in my classroom after I arrive, seeking a cup of coffee and good conversation. He will ask about my weekend, I'll respond, we'll talk, we'll laugh, and we'll wish each other well for the day. He will be a welcome guest.

Soon after, I will likely face an unwelcome guest. An administrator perhaps, or a student. Some well-meaning individual will walk in with a problem of some sort, seeking my input or looking for me to do something about whatever it is they are coming in for. They will walk in and disrupt my rhythm, my rush to prepare for 1st hour. They will expect to interrupt me, and they will succeed. I will resent them, most likely.

Later in the day I'll see another friend who will make me laugh. We'll share an inside joke, exchange weekend details, and move on in our day. A student who I don't teach will invariably walk past my room, looking for nothing more than a greeting and a quick smile. They will say something humorous, and I'll respond in kind. They will validate my existence as an instructor, my value to students and humankind in general. I will like seeing them.

I will check my email accounts several times throughout the day. Parents will want answers. Co-workers and bosses will demand my presence at meetings or my reaction or two cents. Friends and family may chime in - a picture of my new niece, perhaps; a request for my presence at an event; a humorous story retold; an interesting article shared; a favor requested.

My day tomorrow will move along with various people exactly like those mentioned above moving in and out of my bubble of consciousness. And if I'm not careful, if I merely behave as I usually do, I'll view each of these people in through the exact lens through which they are described above: How will you affect my day? Are you going to make my day better or worse? Easier or more difficult? More fun or more work? In what way might you benefit or cause harm to me?

Every day I will run across hundreds of people. I will make hundreds of decisions about how to interact with them. And for all of them, I will have some sort of effect on their day. I will improve or harm their time, make them better or worse, help or hinder. Some will choose to come in contact with me, others I will seek out, still others will stumble across me by mere chance. But tomorrow there will be hundreds. And for the next day. And the next. And the next.

If I view all encounters through the lens of their possible effect on myself, the percentage of people I send away better will be much smaller. And every encounter will produce a ripple effect. The point I'm trying to make here is that before I ever do anything or behave in any manner with someone else, I come to that interaction with a mindset. That mindset, more than the actions themselves, will mean something to likely thousands of people this week. Whether I want to or not, I will affect them. And so will you.

How will you view your thousands this week?

Is God Still Awesome?

There are several words and phrases that I don't allow my 10th grade students to use in their essays because the words themselves have become so overused as to not mean anything specific any more; they are mere cliches. Cool, for instance. Or hang out. I've recently had to add the word awesome to the list as well, and that addition is painful to me.

The word used to mean something significant. It meant something awe-inspiring or an object or event that could fill one with awe or wonder. To be awesome, the object being described needed to essentially be so complex, so fascinating, so fearfully-made that it was beyond description. It had to make the viewer pause and just stare, mystified, trying to take it all in while knowing it could never be fully taken in.

Now it means neat, or something I enjoyed, or (to get to the heart of it) cool. It is used to describe video games or a football tackle or a song or the fact that we got out of work early. Meals, movies, commercials, and jokes are all totally, repeatedly, all-together awesome. And if everything can be awesome, then awesome can't mean what it meant once upon a time.

This bothers me most because churches have been heavy contributors to its overuse and abuse. It gets said about youth trips or worship songs or major events. We say that people did an awesome job, or the turnout was awesome, or we had awesome weather for what the church was doing, or we're going to have just an awesome, awesome time. And then, in the next breath, we say or sing about how awesome God is.

So which awesome do we mean? Fascinatingly, marvelously, all-encompassingly complex and wonderful and fearful? Or neat and convenient? I fear the latter. For it is the latter aspect of Christianity that gets much more play. But God is much, much more than a cool guy we can hang out with on a Sunday morning, have an awesome time with, and then move on.

To simplify God and describe Him using cliche is to risk completely missing who God is. C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity that, "God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror; the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies. Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion."

Is awesome a word we would use to describe "the supreme terror, the thing we most want to hide from"? If the answer is no, then perhaps we need a better understanding of who God is, or a different word with which to honor Him.

(***Obviously the fact that I'm currently leading a class on Lewis is contributing to a great deal of my thinking. Expect to see many Lewis quotes on the blog in the next month or so. That should be good news to my readers: he's way smarter than me.)

Living Real Life at 3 AM

I'm in the middle of a frustrating stage of parenting. Leah, my two year old, is, well, two. I love her and melt when she giggles and can't wait to see her at the end of every day, but she is two. She is stubborn, crafty, deceptive, and a veritable roller coaster of emotions. She loves to wander the house nightly between 2 and 4 AM for no reason in particular. I keep hearing from others that this is a stage, and I keep telling myself the same thing. Yet I find myself frustrated on a daily basis while in this stage, and routinely find myself counting down the days until we're done with it so we can get back to real life with more peace, less drama, and more sleep. 

I realized this week how wrong-headed this approach is when I read this from C.S. Lewis: 

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's "own," or "real" life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life - the life God is sending one day by day: what  one calls on'e "real life" is a phantom of one's own imagination.

I've allowed myself to get frustrated because I saw many of the natural tendencies of an average two-year-old as some sort of obstacle to living my life. In reality, this is my real life. This is what I am called to take care of right now. Real life is taking her to her room 3 times a night, dealing with potty training, and watching tantrums on days she doesn't sleep. If I am at my worst during these types of trials, then I am at my worst during the essential times of my real life. 

We like to pretend that being tired and frustrated give us a reason to act in a certain way or give us a "Get out of Sin Free" card. I did that because I was frustrated, or I didn't mean it, I'm just tired. But it is exactly in the interruptions, in the frustrations, in the fatigue that we really show who we are. Another Lewis quote from Mere Christianity:

When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard. . . Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is?

The interruptions, the obstacles, the irritants that we all face - they are not going anywhere. There are here today, will be here tomorrow, and will always exist. Whatever stage of life we face today may pass, but another one with new challenges awaits. To wait for them to go away, looking forward to what one calls "my life" (which simply means time uninterrupted), is a formula for constant frustration. And it's a self-inflicted mood.

My life will be no easier when I am out of this parenting stage. Nor will I be a better person or father. How I respond now is how I respond to life and reveals who I am. I can not wait for it to get easier for me to be better.

Worshiping Weakness

As evidenced by this blog, I'm someone who tries to look carefully and purposefully at how I'm living in order to find a way to live better. It's the coach in me, wanting to look at more film and break down more stats in order to create the best practice or workout plan to win now, tomorrow, and in the future. I believe in it for my players, and I believe in it for me. God commands, "Consider your ways!" in Haggai, and it is a command that I take to heart.

I don't think that I'm special or in any way alone because of this. The market is flooded by books, videos, lectures, etc. offering advice and information to make us better and attack the weaknesses that keep us from our potential. That is all well and good. I think we must be careful in this pursuit of the perfect "me," however.

While the motivation of living a better life is important, the potential actions that it creates are dangerous. There is no other way to see it than to understand that the more I focus on myself, the less I focus on God. And all of a sudden, the perfect me becomes my god.

I've spent a great deal of the last decade and a half constantly asking what God's will for my life is. The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that God's will for me isn't to be in a certain job in a certain city with certain people doing certain ministries. More than anything, His will is for me to focus on Him. To want to focus on the possibilities in my life more than to focus on the grandeur of God is mere idol worship.

I haven't accomplished nearly as much as I'd like. I watch too much late night TV. I don't pray enough or read enough. I weigh 5 pounds more than I'd like, but I still consume Nutty Bars; and every day I wake up and say I'll have less coffee and then fail. I get crabby when I'm tired, and sometimes when I'm not. I run my mouth when I shouldn't, stay quiet when I shouldn't, and worry about my image.

And God is God.

It shouldn't be a tough decision to figure out where to place my focus.

I cannot, and should not ignore my own weaknesses. I can't be okay to stay as I am. But I will be much more effective at living better if I'm looking at the Holy One. Staring at the Source of all true joy will bring much more of it than will putting a microscope on my flaws.

"Other" Relationships

The minor prophets seem mostly concerned with the inability of God's people to spend any concerted attention towards God, instead making a god of themselves and dealing with the pain and shame of that choice. However, another reason a focus on self is so dangerous is because it ignores or sacrifices others around us.

God instead demands that we see what we can do for others. Read the following calls to action from Zechariah:
"Execute true justice,
Show mercy and compassion
Everyone to his brother.
Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless,
The alien or the poor.
Let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother." (7:9-10)

"'Speak each man the truth to his neighbor;
Give judgment in your gates for truth, justice, and peace;
Let none of you think evil in your heart against your neighbor;
And do not love a false oath.
For all these are things that I hate,'
Says the Lord.'" (8:16-17)

Every line here speaks of a way to behave around others. Carefully, line by line, the prophet indicates that a true focus on God will lead to a desire to do good to others. Our natural inclination is not this way. But the command is there.

The other statement about other people made in the minor prophets, however, is much different. While we are called to do what we can and focus on others, we must not rely on them. They are not perfect, they will let us down, and they cannot save our souls. They improve our life; they do not fulfill it. Writes Micah:

"Do not trust in a friend;
Do not put your confidence in a companion;
Guard the doors of your mouth
From her who lies in your bosom.
For son dishonors father,
Daughter rises against her mother,
Daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
A man's enemies are the men of his own household.
Therefore I will look to the Lord;
I will wait for the God of my salvation;
My God will hear me." (7:5-7)

This is not a fun passage to read, but it rings true. Once I finally finished grad school, I spent much of my victory lap on spending time with people because I know how much better my life is with good people in it. However, every good person in my life that I can think of has at one time or another let me down in some way. Somewhere along the line I either expected them to be perfect, expected them to fulfill my every desire, or expected them to love me flawlessly and unconditionally. In short, I expected them to be God. And they're not. None of them. I love them and am thrilled to be readjusting my time and my priorities to break more bread with people. But they will not save me.

Be careful what you ask of others. Build relationships, do what you can for them, and live life well with them. Fulfill God's commands. But there is only one place to look for salvation, truth, and fulfillment. If you don't look there, your "other" relationships will suffer as well.

Out of Respect

Throughout my youth, one of the people I respected the most was my grandfather. Because of that, I acted differently around him than I would have otherwise; I wanted to be better around him. I talked less and listened more, becoming less self-centered, less self-righteous, less likely to screw around or act foolishly. Don't get me wrong, we had a ton of fun together. I just deferred to him and his wishes, especially in his house. Out of respect, I put my best foot forward.

The same is true for many other people I've held in a high regard throughout my lifetime, as I'm sure is the case for many of you. This isn't a shocking revelation; in fact, it's downright commonplace. It's what people do. To show respect and gain some back from others, we dress well, speak well, and act well. We behave better than we actually are, often because we believe we are better when we're in their presence. That's why they have our respect.

Is the same true about God?

I ask this question as the "Come as you are" culture seems to be sweeping churches of all denominations. In my own church, I hear the phrase, "God loves you just the way you are" seemingly several times each Sunday. And it's true, God does love me and you and our neighbor just the way we are, and it's true that we can worship God whenever, dressed however, in whatever manner we deem appropriate. Those are all true. But should we want to continue to be "just as you are" for very long?

God addressed this issue in Malachi:

"A son honors his father,

And a servant his master.

If then I am the Father,

Where is My honor?

And if I am a Master,

Where is My reverence?" (1:6)

Where indeed? If we act better around our parents and grandparents and bosses and future employers and in-laws because we respect them and because they deserve it, shouldn't we want to do the same for God? Shouldn't I want to be better with God than what I was yesterday?

Yes, come as you are. Come hip and trendy and comfortable. But don't stay that way. If not for yourself, then out of respect.

CS Lewis Study

Friends, family, and former students: Starting next week, I am leading an online discussion group studying C.S. Lewis books that will last until Christmas. The three books we’ll be studying are Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Great Divorce. If you want to join the group, I’d love to have you. Email me at shannondykstra@gmail.com to get started. We’ll read a little each week and dig in to the texts, discussing through Google Groups. While the discussion prompts will have a Christian bent (as this is originating as on online Sunday School class), atheists and Christians are both welcome and encouraged to throw in their two cents. If you’re looking for challenging discussion over classic literature, I’d love to have you join the group.