My son-in-law has a distinct sense of humor. Some years back
he started a tradition that both amuses and puzzles me. When our families are
together, either on a trip somewhere or just celebrating one of many birthdays,
he brings me gifts. Not just any gifts
but gifts of strange, weird, health-food cures in unusual bottles, with unusual
names. First let me start off, these unique gifts are not cheap, they’re spendy
little tokens of his unique humor. On the colorful labels are promises of new
beginnings, refreshing, renewal, memory enhancement, energy boosting restorative
powers. The most recent boasted of
containing billions, (yes billions) of live cultures of several micro-organisms
renowned for their almost magical powers of creating, a new a better me.
It amazes me how many different products he finds, and how
unusual the packaging, bottle shapes, colorful fluids, and unending rhetoric
about how useful, necessary, and powerful these substances are. Often, the
liquids have murky, floating substances that look rather daunting. Quite frankly, I fear drinking them will induce
some sort of psychotic break where he can say, “See I told you she was nuts.”
With a slight sense of guilt that maybe he might have finally sent his
“monster-in-law” around the bend. Before I have you thinking he’s a bad
son-in-law let me affirm he’s a good, young man. Responsible, hard-working,
good husband, father, but….. he doesn’t always agree with my viewpoint, and
these gifts of cures in a bottle are his humorous ways of pointing out, maybe I
could use a little help in my mental faculties. (Puns intended).
Anyhow, you only have to watch a few TV specials to realize,
“cures” are no means limited to health foods in bottles. There are books,
tapes, CD’s, pod casts, web sites, courses, potions, creams, lotions, vitamin
supplements, mineral supplements, exercise routines, exercise equipment,
religions, mystic beliefs, all promising
to help make you more this, more that, and just more, more, more.
I am part and parcel of this culture and I’ve had the unique
life experience that I’ve taken in much of this mind-set via University
flavored education. Having gone through enough class time to be officially
“smart”, culturally correct, and still wondering why I feel the need to do
more, be more, and achieve more at age 62 where I should be slowing down.
Having lived through the sixties, where the zeitgeist of the time was to just
“be” who you were, where in the world did this become-being what you are not?
Part of the answer to this enigma lies in the fact I am a
Christian. I believe that when I
accepted Jesus as my personal Savior that He gave me a new life. This new God-life is in the process of
regenerating me to become a new creature in Him. This war between the ‘natural
man’ and the renewed spiritual man constitutes a continual process of choices
about what is right and wrong. I read my Bible daily, because I’m finding even
with the desire of my heart to be God-like, myself, my will fight against
becoming a person who forgives, loves the unlovely, and lets go of attachment
to worldly things. I’m reading through the Gospels presently. I started with
John, and now I’m in Luke. Yesterday I read Chapter 6 of Luke. Today, realizing
that this chapter is so jam-packed with nuggets of truth I re-read it during my
devotionals.
Without God in me, there is no way I can even approach doing
what this chapter says. Be kind to those people who hurt you. Do good to those
who despise you. Hmm…. So much of me gets tired of people who hurt others
purposely than lie about it. I suppose it doesn’t help that I work all day with
criminals, and used to be criminals. Why should I suppose they would act any
way else?
I like the verse, “Study to show yourself approved of God, rightly
understanding the Word of truth.” This verse tells me that some sort of effort
is required on my part. Yes, I’m saved by grace, (undeserved favor from God),
but I play a part in renewing my mind, heart and life to live the life God
wants me to live. I can’t get my “God
fix” from a bottle, a pill, a book, a course, a speaker, a training…. I have to
work out daily the fine tunings of becoming a person who reflects Jesus.
What I’ve found is that the more resistant I am to allowing
the changes to my personality that I know need to happen, the more
circumstances place me in places where the very virtue I’m struggling with is
required. Changing isn’t always easy or
pleasant, sometimes it’s painful. Sometimes the people placed in my pathways
are people I’d just as soon not deal with. It’s as if I have an internal people
sorter where I say, “O.K, I like this one God; this one’s not too bad; this one
over here, well they’re ok; but God this person here, ahhh, not so much.”
What I’ve also found is that I can only handle so much
enforced contact with people I really don’t like and then I have to get away
for my own sanity. It makes me feel
better to read that Jesus often went to the mountains and seashore to be alone
and pray. If Jesus needed to get away from people, it’s ok, if I feel that way
too.
So today, a holiday from work, I am luxuriating in being able
to choose who I will be with. A blessing
of a vacation from the must do’s, must see’s, must talk with. Already 10 am, a
few hours have slipped away but I so enjoyed my quiet moments with coffee and
Bible. A chance to eat my eggs and toast and know for once, I don’t have to
rush to get ready to go to work.
In my heart of heart, I want to drive to the ocean, to breathe
in the fresh salt-sea air and realize this ocean has been here since the
beginning of time. It’s 11 now and I
realize my window of opportunity is shrinking. I’m not sure if resting would be
a better use of my time. It’s another choice, one of many that make up the
fabric of my life.
Some of you reading this may relate to struggling to love the
unlovely in your own lives. Perhaps you’ve experienced your own sense of
urgency to be more, do more, and come up against the walls of reality that say,
“There is only so much time. You only have so much energy.” If so, hello and
welcome to my world. If you haven’t
had that experience, well wait a while, life has its own way of taking us down
paths where we learn new lessons.
Today, while there is still time, seek to know God, without
God life is just too hard. With God, life is easier now, and (bonus!) with
Jesus we will have eternity! Note: with
no bills! Yeah!
Well, I’m off to my day, leaving my son-in-law’s gift of the
bottle of organic raw Komucha on the counter. I guess the
billions of several live cultures will have to wait, for now I’m good. Be happy, be blessed and have a wonderful
day!
No comments:
Post a Comment