LETTING GO OF THE EGOS

We men, or perhaps I should speak only for myself but I sincerely doubt that I do, have this seemingly innate need to want to fix everything that goes wrong or at least believe we can do so with just a little help from our friends. We think that there is simply no problem that is beyond our ability to resolve or solve. And even if we cannot resolve the issue at hand because it is beyond our own or combined capabilities, we will give it our very best shot.

If we take the time to look at some of the messes we have gotten ourselves into, we will discover that what we did sometimes was head down the road where no sane person would venture, where even angels themselves would not dare to tread. We knew this beforehand, of course, yet we foolishly placed ourselves in positions we should have avoided with the proverbial ten-foot pole. But we did not.

Perhaps this daring-do attitude stems from a macho gene that we men seem to be born with or at least somehow think we should possess even if we know deep within our head and heart that a wide yellow streak runs up and down our spines – speaking only for myself here, of course. Sometimes that yellow streak does save me from myself, but not always and not often enough.

This foolishness to act all on our own may be understandable and even forgivable, men being men, humanity itself being what it is. And what it is, and we men have no claim to it simply because we are men, women are just as guilty – what it is is our inability, certainly our unwillingness as human beings to trust in God rather than in ourselves alone.

The truth is that we will never fully place our trust in God until and unless we let go of our egos. Yes, we trust, even believe that God walks with us in our journey through this life, that the Holy Spirit guides us and that Jesus gives us the strength for the journey; but there is something in us that wants to believe that we can solve and resolve everything that comes our way. When we cannot, and it seems only when we cannot, do we hand the situation over to God.

None of this means that we do not do our very best to solve the problems that come our way, that come to every human being, problems like sickness, disease, loss of any kind: physical, mental, material. We do try to do our very best. What it does mean is that we often take too long to trust that God will help us, wait too long to put the situation in God’s hands, to acknowledge that we are not God. Doing so, we somehow believe, would be a blow to our ego.

Yet the fact is that we have to let go of our egos if we want God to do what only God can do. That does not mean that we do not do our part. God will not do for us what we can do for ourselves. It simply means that we sometimes have to realize that we cannot resolve the problem at hand without God being part of the solution from the get go. And for that to happen, we have let go of our ego from the get go.                                             

CAN’T BUY ME LOVE

In 1964 The Beatles recorded Can’t Buy Me love. It was a mega seller. When pressed by American journalists in 1966 to reveal the song's "true" meaning, Paul McCartney said, "The idea behind it was that all these material possessions are all very well, but they won't buy me what I really want." There are lots of things money can buy, and that is well and good. But there is much more that money cannot buy, as McCartney said.

We all know what money can buy. All we have to do is look around at all our possessions. We worked long and hard to pay for them; and if some of them have been given to us as gifts, those who gave them worked long and hard to earn the money to purchase them so that they could give those gifts to us. Material possessions all come at a financial cost and we know it.

So it is good that, at least every once in a while, we do take pause to admire what our hard work and dedication has enabled us to purchase. We can be justly proud of our possessions while at the same time giving thanks to God for whatever gifts and talents with which we have been blessed that enabled us to achieve what we have. Even more, we need to remember while we are rejoicing in all that we have that we will take none of it with us when we die. All possessions are temporary and temporal.

On the other hand, as McCartney’s song reminds, there are some things money cannot buy, love being first and foremost. Sometimes we have been seduced into believing that we can buy another’s love and affection if we simply bestow on the other gift after gift, the more expensive the better. What we have painfully learned in the process is that that love was not only fleeting but was not real.

The danger in our pursuit of more and more is that we can lose that which money cannot buy. Marriages have been broken apart because one or both have spent so much time climbing the corporate ladder that they have grown apart. The bigger house and better cars and all the possessions their increased income enabled them to buy did not bring them closer together. The time apart only drove them apart.

Money can’t buy love. Money can’t buy happiness. Money can’t buy peace of mind. A member of our family was so obsessed with accumulating money that he truly never found happiness and drove away all those who could bring joy and certainly could bring some love into his life. I don’t think he ever knew until the very end of his life what he was missing, if he even did then, and then it was too late.

His was and is a very sad story and it is one that, in this material world of ours, is easy to repeat. We can all fall victim, as he did, to the belief that material wealth can purchase what we truly want and need the most: the love of others. It can’t. It never could and it never will. His story and McCartney’s song are reminders to me, and I hope to you, that while it is good and important to recognize how materially blessed we are, we must, at the same time, take time to make sure we have not lost, in our pursuit and accumulation of the material, the things that are most important and that money can’t buy.

PROOF POSITIVE

Juries want proof, usually beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt, that a person is guilty before they will come to such a verdict. Yet we do not have to serve on a jury to demand proof that something is true. When there is doubt on our mind, we want that doubt erased before we will believe that what we are asked to so believe is, in fact, true. Otherwise we will hold onto our doubts.

Sometimes, of course, we will never know for certain whether what is said is actually the truth or only partially true or simple a lie. We give the person asking us to believe in him or believe her a little and sometimes a lot of slack. Life would be too complicated and we would be stuck in a rut if we had to know for certain that everything and everyone we are asked to believe is true and truthful.

Who we believe and what we believe are always open to challenge until proof is proffered. That is a fact of life. We can give deep and profound explanations and reasons why something is so and that is often enough. Not always, however. T. S. Eliot, in commenting on how we prove our faith not only to others but, more importantly, to ourselves said this: “The greatest proof of Christianity for others is not how far a man can logically analyze his reasons for believing but how far in practice he will stake his life on his belief.”

We can all talk a good fight and we sometimes do and we sometimes even win. There are others times when our words fool no one. There are times when they do not even fool ourselves. We know we are bluffing even if our bluff sounds so logical, so believable, so true. There are other times, however, when we have so convinced ourselves that what we claim to be true is true that we deny the truth when confronted with the facts.

As Eliot noted, simply asserting that “I am a Christian” does not make one a Christian. Simply being convinced that following Jesus is the absolute right way to live does not mean that we will in fact actually follow Jesus in the way Jesus would want us to follow. We are known and convicted not by the words that come from our mouths but the deeds that come from our lives – when confronted with the fact that we are unable or unwilling to put into practice what we profess.

That is often a hard and very harsh lesson to learn especially when it comes to our faith. Again, sometimes it is only when what we profess to believe, even knowing deep in our hearts and heads that it is true, is challenged in a real-life situation that we learn whether or not we are indeed true believers or have simply deceived ourselves because we are good at professing such a belief.

Faith is an intellectual assent to be sure. What we profess to believe has to make sense, a whole lot of sense, even if some of what we believe cannot be proved, like the existence of God, for instance. But what we believe is put to the test, is proved, by the way we do or do not live out that profession. What is important here is not so much that we prove our faith to others as we prove it to ourselves. That is accomplished by the way we live.

BELIEVING WHEN IT’S ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE

Sometimes things happen to us that make us, force us, to step back and examine our beliefs. Those events can be both good and bad. For the unbeliever, the agnostic, the atheist, the unexpected observance of the magnificence of creation can force one to stop and think: is this all by chance? Is there not, might there not be a creative intelligence behind what I am observing?

One would think one would think such thoughts. Maybe not. Perhaps the unbeliever is so secure in his ways that nothing and no one will ever convince him that there is a God, a personal God, a loving God. Perhaps the evils of this world, man’s inhumanity to man, the unjust sufferings that innocent people undergo when an all-powerful God could put a stop to it – perhaps that is what inures some to any thought of God, any temptation to actually believe in God.

While the wonders and goodness of creation may not convince a person to think thoughts of a personal God, certainly the opposite is true. When one is suffering unjustly, when nature wreaks havoc on the innocent, when it seems that the world is going to hell in a handcart, one’s belief in God can be sorely tried and tested. In fact, if it is not tested, one has to wonder how strongly one’s faith really is.

When World War II ended in Europe and the Allies were combing through the rubble of what was left in the war zones, they came across an inscription on the wall of a cellar in Cologne where Jews hid from the Nazis. It read: “I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in love even when not feeling it. I believe in God even when he is silent.” If anyone’s, any people’s faith was tested, it was that of the Jewish people during that war.

Perhaps there were some, but I have never read or heard an interview where the Jewish people gave up their deep faith in God because of what happened to them during that War. Of course, that is also the story of the Old Testament. The faith of the people was tried and tested over and over again, And while they moaned and groaned to God when things were not going well – as we all do, they never lost their faith, never believed that God had abandoned them much less that God never existed in the first place, such was their faith.

The reality is that it is easy to point out examples of people who remained steadfast in their belief and trust in God while, at the same time, also had serious doubts as to why they should keep believing. The truth is that everyone’s faith is tested, sometimes very seriously tested. Only those who have immunized themselves to the horrors of life in this world ask no questions.

We are not of that sort. Thus, there are times in our lives when the suffering of others and especially when our own suffering forces us to ask the God question. Sometimes we wonder why we still believe when what is happening screams at us that there is no God. But we hold on, thanks be to…well, thanks be to God!

JUST BECAUSE

My father-in-law was a quiet, unassuming man. Now my mother-in-law, well, let’s not go there. As I said, my father-in-law never spoke much; but when he did, he spoke quietly, quickly and to the point. He once told my wonderful wife when she was a little girl and making a nuisance of herself and everyone else in the car that if she did not clam down, he would stop the car and throw her off the bridge. She got the message.

A few years later when the siblings were teenagers and the electric bill came in, he lined them up, held the bill up and said, “We will never have a bill like this again. Turn out the lights when you leave the room!” They got the message.

My favorite was the time when My Beloved, teen-age driver at the time, came home, red hair on fire (Been there. Experienced that!) and told her Dad, “Some man wouldn’t turn off his high beams when I signaled him, so I turned on mine!” Wise Dad replied, “Arlena, just because someone else acts like a dummy doesn’t mean you have to.” A message we all need to remember.

Well, I don’t know about you, but there have been times in my life, not many but enough, when I have done something in reaction, actually in retaliation, to what someone had done to me. I did so knowingly and willingly and it made me feel good. It did not accomplish anything, of course. And in the end, it only made me look like what Arlena’s Dad said I would look like: a dummy.

Sometimes just the threat of punishment works to get the message across and the lesson learned and sometimes it does not and then we have to find ways to earn the money to pay the electric bill. Sometimes life’s lessons are indeed learned the hard way. But most assuredly and most embarrassingly they are learned the way of the foolish. In truth that is also the most painful way to learn a lesson.

Payback, as we have learned, does not work because it cannot undo what has already been done. My retaliating does not undo the pain I felt when that for which I am paying back was inflicted. I was hurt and then I hurt the one who hurt me. But that did not and does not take away my pain. It can even make it worse. He blinds me with his headlights. I blind him to get even and we both go blind. The foolishness of it all!

The temptation to hurt another just because the other has hurt us will always be there. Perhaps it is because of the “survival of the fittest” syndrome that is part of the human condition. Perhaps it is because we sometimes need to learn life’s lessons the hard way or else we will not learn them at all. And even if we really knew why we sometimes do unto others just because they have done unto us, that, in and of itself, would neither justify our retaliation nor make us look less foolish.

Hopefully we grow less foolish as we grow older. Our parents’ words of wisdom do sink in, after we have learned the hard way, and we then share our hard-earned and hard-learned wisdom with our own children. We hope they listen and learn.

FACING CHALLENGES

There are many problems in our world today. That is not to say that there ever was a time when the world was free from problems or had less of them than we have today. After all, give the instantaneous ability we have to communicate any problem, any issue, any triumph – anything! – to the rest of the world, the problems of this world almost seem both overwhelming and insurmountable.

Part of our problem today is that we can communicate so quickly. The headlines are rife with stories about politicians, pundits and ordinary people who have sent off thoughts, criticisms and even pictures without having taken the time to reflect upon what they were doing and now are paying the price for their indiscretions, their foolishness and even their criminal activity.

Concomitant with our ability today to communicate something instantly and worldwide is that a quick response is demanded. The one who sends the message wants a response right now simply because an instant response is available. Not too long ago one would send a letter by mail that took several days to reach its addressee. Then the one who received the letter had the opportunity to reflect on its contents and then write a reply. By the time the reply was received, several weeks could pass and no one was upset that it took so long to receive a response. Not so any longer.

None of this is to assert that we should do away with computers and email and cell phones. It is simply to say that sometimes the problems we face today are of our own making because we do not take time to reflect on the issue at hand that so often needs a reflective response which is impossible when an instant response is expected.

The point is not that we have so many problems both as a person and as a world, nor is it to bemoan the fact that we seem to be overwhelmed by them so many are they and so few resources there are at our disposal to deal with them. We know that we cannot solve all the problems in the world no matter how much money or how many resources we have. That is a given.

What we need to remind ourselves in the face of such that not everything that is faced can be changed; however, nothing can be changed until it is faced. In the face of any problem, especially a difficult one, often our first response is to turn and run, hoping either it will go away if we can get away or that someone else will deal with it while we are away.

The other response when made aware of a problem is to assert that “it’s not my problem.” But of course it is. Once we are made aware of a problem, once faced with it, it now becomes our problem as well. In this world we are all in it together whether we like it or not. It goes with the territory, as they say. Thus, each of us individually and all of us collectively are challenged to do whatever we can to resolve it. Often what we can do is very little, but at least we can do something. The problem may not be resolved no matter what we do. But doing nothing only makes the problem worse.

TRIAL BY JURY

We’ve all been told that someday, that being upon our death, we will have to stand before the judgment seat of God and face our Maker. We have been told that all the sins we committed in this life will be laid out before us and we will have to make some kind of defense for them. None will be forthcoming, of course, as sin has no defense. It is always a deliberate act that we know at the time of its commission is wrong but we still go ahead and do it anyway knowing all the while we have no excuse.

At the same time we will want to lay out before God all the good we have done hoping that those good works will somehow make up for all our bad deeds. They won’t. They never do. But that, too, is no excuse for not doing the very best we can whenever we can, which is all the time.

Whether or not this scene really plays out upon our death only time and death will tell. It does not matter anyway because eternity is out of our hands. What God has in store for us when that time comes is left to our imaginations. If we want to believe it will be a time for judgment or a time for forgiveness or whatever crosses our mind, it will be, as Paul says in one of his letters, beyond our wildest imaginations. This does bode well.

What is important and what I think really concerns God and what should be our own main concern is not what will happen in the hereafter but we are doing and what is happening in the here-and-now. We know that to be true and, for the most part, we are quite aware of such and act on such awareness, but not always and perhaps not often enough, or not often enough to make a difference in the way we live.

George Bernard Shaw, who enjoyed the fruits of a successful life and who understood that to whom much is given, much is demanded in return and who did not observe this to be happening opined: “Every person who owes his life to civilized society, and who has since childhood enjoyed its very costly protections and advantages, should appear at reasonable intervals before a properly constituted jury to justify his existence.”

It might be less intimidating to appear before a jury of our peers than before our God, but not by much, if at all. Public confessions, which such would be, are humbling and frightening. They are humbling because we have to stand naked, as it were, before our peers and admit that we have failed to live up to our responsibilities as citizens and, even more importantly, as Christians, and deliberately so in the process.

On the other hand, such confessions are frightening not because we are afraid of the punishment that would be meted out because there would be none. Rather, what frightens us is that in facing our deliberate failures we would have to change the way we act so that we do not repeat them between now and the time we appear before that jury again.

The truth is that we are both the judge and the jury of our own actions. We know what is expected of us. We know that we have failed. We know what has to be done. All we have to do now is do it.