Skip to main content

In Everything?

             in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. (I Thessalonians 5:18)

Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mocking and flogging, and further, chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented (people of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts, on mountains, and sheltering in caves and holes in the ground. (Hebrews 11:35-38)

In everything? Give thanks in everything? Deaths of loved ones? Lingering illnesses? Injustice? Mental illness? Persecution? Pandemics? Political upheavals?  Everything?

I’ve said many times that 2020 was one of the best years of my life. I published two novels. I expanded my gardens, learned to make jams, jellies, salves, sauces, and simples, and to hot-water bath can. I learned about plants in my neighborhood that could be used for food or personal care. I learned to remove the glaze from windows and reglaze them. I worked in a food pantry.  I can’t say that 2021 has been quite as good, mostly because I don’t think I learned as much, or that I did as much good for others. It wasn’t a bad year. I actually found a seasonal job I liked, but it’s not 2020.

That doesn’t mean either year was without struggle. I can’t say that the pandemic raged, but it simmered. I cracked a tooth and had to have it crowned. I got plant-based contact dermatitis (the doctor said it wasn’t poison ivy, but close enough.) I caught the Delta Variant (in spite of vaccination.) My books haven’t sold meaning that I’m successful as a writer (I have written books) but I’m a failure at marketing.

I’m re-reading my third Dallas Willard book this year, Renovation of the Heart. The focus of the professor’s books is spiritual formation, which means that it’s all about becoming the sort of person who does the things that a good person does. That seems to me to be the difference between 2020 and 2021. In 2020, I was determined to not let my circumstances control me but to use the pandemic as motivation to become more resourceful and competent. In 2021, it seems that I was more focused on having a better year than 2020. In other words, I’m more focused on the end than on the opportunities, and on the external results rather than on the internal results. As I look at those results and the fact that I see 2020 as a better year than 2021, I must conclude that the external results aren’t what make a year a good year. It’s the internal results that make a year good. And external difficulties can lead to good internal results. So, yes, in everything – even the bad things – give thanks because those things are the things that will lead you to become more and more one of the people of whom the world is not worthy.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more