Moments

So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. — Matthew 6:31-33

This is one of the harder Jesus things for me, and it comes in the midst of a larger teaching on anxiety and worry in general (things I’m very good at) during his Sermon on the Mount.

Maslow taught me that food, shelter, and clothing ARE our first concerns, and after having procured them, then maybe we can worry about existential things like religion. Our whole cultural upbringing implicitly teaches that money, security, food, and position are first things and prioritized giving us the tools to secure them. But Jesus gives the opposite argument. Focus on God, and those things will come to you.

It’s a revolutionary realignment of self. And when I still my heart, and listen, I know it’s true.

Happiness, or an overall feeling of satisfaction continues to decline in America. This seems to have accelerated post pandemic, but it has been trending since the 1990’s (and likely well before).¹

While I realize that happiness and satisfaction are more ephemeral, and subjective to many transient factors beyond our control², their trend can be indicators of deeper spiritual realities. To live without hope or direction for a long time will bring down the trend line for overall happiness and satisfaction. Trying to draw meaning from things that do not give us meaning, or continuing to subject our consciences to our whims, will decline our sense of self-satisfaction. To know you are loved by God and that your life is both valuable and has significance will bring it up in the long term. Living and saying what you know to be true, without pretending for fear of repercussions, will lead to an increase in happiness and life satisfaction.³

Interesting to me was that in the bookstore on New Year’s Day, the aisle for “Personal Transformation” was packed, while the aisle for “Religion” was completely empty. People are hungry, but uncertain about where to look to solve the condition in which they find themselves. It would be too simplistic to assume that none know of Jesus, or that those struggling with the need for transformation aren’t themselves often already Christians.

Ever met a Christian struggling with their weight, or with grief, or with relational issues? Perhaps, in part, our churches are not sharing the virtues that the Saints are invited to live into, or that they are so preoccupied with getting people into heaven, they’ve abandoned the Saints to live in hell on Earth.

1. Many studies indicate this. Here is one: Americans are less happy than previous years, report finds | Here & Now ↩︎
2. I’m fairly certain that Jesus was not happy on the cross. He did however, offer peace. ↩︎
3. “Let your yes be yes, and your no be no.” Matthew 5:37 ↩︎

• Seek the Lord first thing (Isaiah 63:1)
• Do kindness, love mercy (Micah 6:8)
• Be slow to speak and quick to listen (James 1:19)
• Take pleasure in his creation (Genesis 2)

After the shock of the initial disconnection from God, Adam and Eve felt incredibly vulnerable. So vulnerable, that their self-consciousness led them to anxiously hide when he called their name¹. Having been so deeply connected this sudden over-exposure overwhelmed them with fear. How quickly intimacy shifts to terror.

Moses was said to be the most humble man on the planet.² He was so humble and anxious that he was unwilling to speak to pharaoh for fear of his voice failing, despite God’s promises to lift him up.³ Interestingly enough, his anxiety didn’t prevent Moses from arguing with God. Somehow, that connection inspired more confidence, even with God’s fury. Due, in part, to his humility, it was Moses alone who was able to meet with God face to face, while everyone else met vicariously. ⁴

David was so emotional that his general had to be the bad guy for him. After David’s son Absalom was killed, while revolting against him mind you, instead of celebrating with his supporters David only wanted to cry. Joab had to come into the room and force him to get out and thank those who supported him, so that they wouldn’t feel betrayed.⁵ Yet, it was this sensitivity that God loved so much, calling him a man after his own heart.⁶ It was his sensitivity that led to the poetry of the Psalms, his thoughtfulness with his enemies, and his carefree dancing before the Ark of the Covenant.⁷

Peter was prone to emotional and impulsive, and likely terrible at administration, and yet to him Jesus left the Church.⁸

Paul had a mental health breakdown.⁹ He argues it was of great value because it he was taught not to rely on himself, but on God as his source of strength.¹⁰

I imagine Jesus, in his final moments, felt similar to the agony of Adam and Eve, feeling the separation necessary to complete the act. In his pain, he cried out David’s poem in great anguish, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?!”¹¹

All that to say that, as Paul talks about different giftings of the Spirit¹², in my experience, the gift of Faith seems to always correlate with a greater temperaments of sensitivity, emotionalism, and anxiety. I’m not talking about the certainty masquerading as faith, but rather that true gift, where one feels a connection with God. I often think it’s related to the curse of Adam and Eve, that, until our connections are whole, the same open wound that is able to feel God also makes one far more aware of the sin that surrounds us. It’s no wonder that the most pronounced thing in Scripture is “do not be afraid!” as the ones most likely to be listening are the ones most in need of hearing the soothing sounds of the Spirit.

1. Genesis 3:8 ↩︎
2. Numbers 12:3 ↩︎
3. Exodus 3:10 ↩︎
4. Exodus 33:11 ↩︎
5. 2 Samuel 19:5-7 ↩︎
6. 1 Samuel 13:14 ↩︎
7. 2 Samuel 6:14-22 ↩︎
8. Matthew 16:18 ↩︎
9. 2 Corinthians 1:8 ↩︎
10. verse 9 ↩︎
11. Matthew 27:56 & Psalm 22:1 ↩︎
12. I Corinthians 12 ↩︎

Hope and Joy are muscles of surrender not well used.
There is no magic. There is a choice.
I will rise today and hope.
I will rise today and give glory.

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
    his understanding is unsearchable.
 He gives power to the faint,
    and to him who has no might he increases strength.
 Even youths shall faint and be weary,
    and young men shall fall exhausted;
 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
    they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:28-31)

After nearly 17 years, this noble creature walked out the door. Without so much as a look or a cry, he left. Presumably to die. Farewell and peace little friend. Thank you for our years.

The brain is like a filing cabinet: The more it takes in, the more it needs to file, store, and assess for importance. When it is not able to deal with information, stress increases in the individual

A new study¹ shows(overwhelmingly) that mental health started to break down among young people around the year 2014. This shocked researchers. What was formerly taken to be a given — so much so that the evidence was present in the animal world as well — that happiness and joy follows a u-curve in life, with the youngest and oldest being the happiest, has shifted. For the first time in observable history, young people are experiencing chronic distress at the beginning of their lives. The only thing noted to have changed was the amount of information readily available to young people via smartphones. Always on, always connected, means the brain is always stressed, always processing. While a single copy of a daily newspaper in the 1980’s contained a lifetime worth of information that most individual’s would learn in the 19th century, smartphones have created a neverending informational loop (as did email, texting, social media, etc.)

The solution, of course, is not simply better informational management as is being sold to us in the form of AI, but rather, less information, period.

1. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4794387 ↩︎

I find joy frustratingly elusive. There are moments, rare and ethereal, when I feel it just within my grasp. Beautiful moments. Here a front pulls through, and a line of geese fly past an old boat house.

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