An addendum to "My Ultimate Goal"

Today in my morning devotion, I was reading in Experiencing God about how God pursues a love relationship with us. One thing I have enjoyed about the spiritual journey I've been on the last five or six months is that I have on more than one occasion had a scripture or a song or an idea given to me, and then how God continues to reinforce and confirm what He is speaking to me with other sources, even when I'm not looking for it. Which helps to validate in my (skeptical) heart that this idea/thought/etc is actually something God is saying to me.

Today during my reading, Blackaby makes the point that our present should be molded and shaped not by our past, but by our future -- i.e. who we will be eternally in Christ. After all, we weren't created for just time, but for eternity. In his explanation of this concept, he uses Phillipians 3:4-14, the scripture I recently eluded to in "My Ultimate Goal" post.

Paul says: 

"I once had confidence in the flesh too. If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised the eighth day; of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, persecuting the church; as to the righteousness that is in the law, blameless. (For a Jewish man, Paul could have said his "deck was stacked"! He had it all going for him! And so he lists all the things that would have been seen as favorable, so many that he says he had more grounds for boasting or confidence in such matters as anyone. But he uses the past tense, "once". As if he's a different person now. As if, he no longer as such confidence.)

So I paused. I certainly have put a lot of weight on own past accomplishments. The family I came from. The kind of "pure" life I lived as a teen. My accomplishments in school. The career I pursued. The age by which I attained these goals. etc. etc. But according to Paul, these things are not worth anything. They don't really matter. They should be of such insignificance to me that I could say, "these once belonged to me, but as of now, they do not even exist in my memory..."

And Paul continues:

"But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ. More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in a view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of Him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but that is through faith in Christ - the righteousness from God based on faith. MY GOAL IS TO KNOW HIM and the power of His resurrection and the FELLOWSHIP of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.

So I paused again: 

Paul looks at these former "positives' in his life and in comparison to knowing Christ he sees them as so invaluable and insignificant that they could be considered a loss. So the past successes and achievements are trash. The past doesn't matter. It's not who I am. The goal is to know Christ more. That's all that matters. And because that's the goal I can even find peace in the fellowship of His sufferings. 

And then he continues:

"Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully mature, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus. 

And again I paused:

If Paul did not consider himself having reached this goal or fully mature in Christ, then I certainly know I am not! But like Him, I can pursue perfection - continually striving to forget what has been my past. Allowing my eternal relationship with Christ to mold my present state. 

The one thing that I was impressed with while concentrating on this verse today was the fact that Paul had done everything "right". In my post "My Ultimate Goal" I mentioned how that Paul's later circumstances while serving as a missionary of Christ would most likely have been seen by anyone else as "setbacks" (i.e. the shipwrecks, the imprisonments, the beatings). Paul did not allow those circumstances to define his "success" in Christ, because his "goal" had changed. It wasn't success, but rather simply to know Christ more -- even in His sufferings. And so Paul embraced the "setbacks". 

But today, in keeping with the former thoughts of success vs. setbacks, it seemed more apparent to me that after considering Paul's past that it would have been even more challenging to have accepted the "setbacks" that he faced as a follower of Christ. He had had it all going for Him... he'd done it all right... lived by the book... walked the line...how much HARDER would this have actually made it to accept the "setbacks" and frustrations that came later? How much would he have been tempted to have focused his thoughts on his past glories?  Living with his thoughts on the past? How easy it would have been to have accused God of having taken all of Paul's promise and just thrown it down the toilet: and asked, "What was it all worth? My talent, my achievements, my efforts?"

Aren't we tempted to do that in our own lives? To define what makes us "worthwhile" by our past... what we accomplished... what we have done... what we still do? Those of us who feel like we "did it right" can easily find ourselves being disillusioned when we aren't given "favor" in our present life. But none of it matters. We first have to realize that the goal has changed so that we can properly adjust our priorities. 

I'm not trying to say that God doesn't give us success or bless us. Paul also had success as a missionary in Christ. Despite the imprisonments, shipwrecks, beatings, etc. he was a powerful minister, writing a huge part of the Bible, successfully evangelizing to millions with his ministry that outlasted his life by thousands of years.  I don't think a life in Christ is a life that is full of tragedy and sadness. But I don't think it necessarily lacks it either (as some ministers seem to preach). I just think the point isn't what we often think it is. 

It's not about what we have done. It's not about what we will do. It's not about us at all. And until we realize that, we will never understand our circumstances - positive or negative. We will never live in the fulfillment that we could potentially know. And we will never be what we were intended to be : our best in Christ. 

So with that thought, I want to agree with Paul. I press forward, forgetting what is my past. And I accept that "my best in Christ" may not look even as successful as "my best in my past", but it really is so much more. 

Today I lived.

February 7, 2013

Yesterday I got the rare chance to walk outside in the middle of my work day. Often times, because we have no windows in the OR or even our break room, I never even know what the day looks like. But yesterday, my last case in the cath lab (an area we only occasionally service with anesthesia) got cancelled around 2 p.m. I knew there would not be any other cases in the cath lab and I also knew I would not be asked to relieve anyone until about 15 till 3 p.m. So I had about 45 minutes of uninterrupted, indulgent time!

So I walked outside. It was so nice that I just kept walking, through our parking lot, just past the parking garage, and over to this little area that had a grassy hill in front of one of the medical school buildings. There was a brick wall that I could sit behind so patient's wouldn't see me, and so I sat there just soaking in a little bit of the sunshine that I had missed out on that day.

It had been a hectic day. Nothing too stressful, but just some small annoying stuff. Being in this area where they aren't use to having anesthesia services, they don't really know how to involve us so it always seems it's a lot of "hurry up and wait" for us. But in reality, it was just another, typical day. One I was just trying to get through. One that wouldn't go down in the record books as a bad day or a good day. Just a day.

As I was sitting in the grass, I looked at my Facebook newsfeed on my phone and saw one of my old highschool friends from Oregon had posted this question, "What has made you happy so far today?"

Almost instantaneously a little smile tugged on the corner of my mouth and I thought, "probably this question!" To be honest, until that very second, I hadn't even taken the time to think about "THIS DAY". I hadn't really paid attention to the fact that this was a day, separate from all others, one that would never be repeated. For me, it had just been another snippet of my life that existed without emotion. A day, like thousands of others, that I would never remember again... and in some ways felt had no particular importance or meaning. But the question had made me think about the seconds that had compiled the hours that had compiled what was my life for the last eight hours. I had lived. Nothing grand or exciting. But I had breathed. I had worked. I had earned money. I had taken care of patients. I had done what I trained and dreamed of doing years ago. It was like this, "ah ha" moment. Sometimes it's nice to be reminded that THIS IS REAL LIFE. This is where my years are going, and so much of the time, I'm inattentive to the very seconds of time I have been blessed with. These "mundane" days are what my patient's would give anything for. The ability to have gotten up and to have had energy to come into work... it's a good thing.

I think most days we can't see anything special about it at all. Life that is. It's just full of the seconds that become the hours that pass without any great achievement or memory made. It's full of moments that we will never even remember. But this day, while I was thinking about it, I realized that this is what makes life good. Cancer patients, for example, remember lots of stuff. They would love a mundane, just normal kind of day... one filled with boring tasks. The boring is where our years go. But that shouldn't make us sad. It should make us grateful that we get to have normal lives. :)

My ultimate goal

When I was in the 9^th grade, my youth group did a study called, “Experiencing God” by Henery Blackaby. My Dad, the senior pastor of the church, actually lead us through this study, as it was one he had really enjoyed. Through the years, I’ve often heard him mention that he had repeated that same study and how powerful it was. Personally, I had not found it to be all that amazing. I had not been really able to relate to a lot of the concepts, not because they were over my head spiritually or intellectually, but because I had not experienced life. Recently, while looking for a book that would be a good morning devotional book, this study came to my mind, and I decided to try it again. And this time around, I am loving it. It has so many nuggets, just in the first couple of chapters, that I am sure I won’t be able to withhold discussing it, but today it’s just the preface to the rest of my story.

A few days ago, I was talking on the phone with my Dad about where I was at emotionally. I was sharing how that I felt that I had sort of been on an emotional roller coaster, with big highs and big lows. As a result of the lows, I found myself often lashing out at people who I love most and are closest to (in particularly my sweet Mom). Like a wounded dog who bites the master trying to love it, I had allowed my truest hurts to only be visible to the ones that I felt I could be most vulnerable with… and my truest colors have often been a bit ugly. I’ve regretted this, and I was sharing with my Dad some about my previous post… how that I have through reflection and prayer on this experience of my life come to realize that this process has been good for me. As hard as it has been, I see how that I am growing and changing… and I think it’s all for the better. It’s almost like a detox-purge kind of diet. Except spiritually. I’m detoxing my heart and soul of doubts and angers and entitlements and superiority feelings. I’ve seen, like Peter who was sure HE could never deny the Lord but did not only once but three times, that I in fact, had it within myself to ACCUSE my God of not loving me. My God who died for me. I have seen that I had it within me to see my life as the center of my universe. MY hopes and dreams and ideas and plans were the center around which I revolved. Oh yes, I believed (and thought I tried) to make it ALL revolve around God… and at points, I think I succeeded… but I have realized how imperfect my attempts have been… how selfishly ego centered I have been. So I am thankful for our infertility challenges.

My Dad shared a great point with me that I had never thought about. He said that if Paul, who was obviously one of the most influential Christians with both his teachings and his writings had been trying to establish a large church or a grand ministry, all of his shipwrecks, imprisonments, beatings, etc. would have been seen as “setbacks”. Especially in our day in time. When we read his writings in the Bible, we take for granted that it must have been easy for him to follow… must have been easy for him to understand.. must have been easy for him to hear the direction of the Lord. But, if you look at it from our viewpoint today, we must realize how trying those “setbacks” could have been. How trying it must have been to have prayed three times for the Lord to remove his “thorn in his flesh”– his burden. And yet, because Paul’s goal was not to build a massive church or the most popular ministry, but rather his only goal was TO KNOW HIM MORE, these were not setbacks at al. They, in fact, were helping Him to accomplish that goal. (Phil. 3:4-14)

As much as I want to have children someday, I have come through prayer to the belief that the only thing in my life that really matters is to know Christ more. And to allow Him to use me to do His will in my world. I believe that He will bless me with children someday, but if I am wrong about that, I pray that I will continue to remember my ultimate goal, and find it within myself to embrace the calling that He chooses to put on my life.

My sweet and awesome brother-in-law, Christopher, called me the other day to tell me he had been doing a study through the book of James. He said that I had been on his heart a lot during this study and he just wanted to share with me a little bit about it. After his call, which meant so much to me, I decided to also read a little out of James in some of my morning devotions.  As I have mentioned earlier, I am really loving “the Message” version by Eugene Peterson, so I want to finish with a few verses from it, as they sort of correlated with everything else I have been thinking and reading.

“Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believing, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all of your options open…..

Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.”

May I always be able to apply these new concepts to my life. Because there is always something some temptation to make us doubt.. to draw us away. My struggle has been my infertility, but there are a billion other things it could be. But the answer should always be the same. Our one goal should be to KNOW HIM MORE. When that is truly our goal, our perspective can change, and we can embrace anything that comes our way.