Wednesday, January 21, 2015

The joy of duty: when you don't feel like it.

Sometimes the pace of life is sluggish and you just don't feel like it. 

Can you relate? 

In these times I guilt trip myself. As a a big feeler (like capital F in the ENFP), someone who confidently wears my feelings on my sleeve and feels relatively in touch with the day-to-day emotions a woman typically experiences, these times scare me. Apathy is not a regular thing. Yet as I get older, apathy pays me a visit more regularly and I have to choose what to do with it. 

Here's what I'm learning to do when I just don't feel like it. 

First, I examine. Apathy is usually a secondary emotion, a symptom of a greater issue that needs treating. What's happening in my heart, between me and the Lord, between me and my husband, between me and my other relationships? What's the state of my soul? Sometimes there is a festering wound, growing in dark solitude, untended to and in need of healing. Sometimes it's just an attitude adjustment. Do I need to seek resolution with someone? Confess sin? Maybe even just have a frank, truth-filled, kick-in-the-butt pep talk to get back on my feet? 

Next, I choose the joy that accompanies duty . Not feeling like it can manipulate you into believing that you are at the mercy of your emotions. Not true. You have more of an influence than you think. Sometimes apathy is present because a decision needs to be made in your heart. The decision to just be faithful with what's in front of you. 

Duty gets a bad rap. Our entitled culture communicates that we have the right to only do what we want when we feel like it. This is all well and good, some of my best work is done when I am passionately engulfed in what's in front of me. But sometimes I'm just not. It's time to dust off duty, reexamine its usefulness and employ it. Not because it's good to be fake, but because it's good to be committed. It's good to be faithful. Duty brings an uncommon joy- something different, rich and meaningful. It does something in my spirit. What's funny about duty is that when I choose it and the feelings aren't there, oftentimes the feelings come...later. But they do come. And my heart, the little entitled girl inside, starts to grow up. I am no longer dragged around by feelings, they start to yield to my decision to just be faithful. 

Don't give up on duty. Don't put too much stock in feelings. Life's a dance of juggling both. And next time you just don't feel like it, it's okay. You're not alone. Choose faithful and those feelings may follow. 

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Pilgrimage: Don't get too comfortable.

I realized something for perhaps the first time today. 

Can I be really honest? I've been really disappointed in humanity lately. The bandwagons people jump on about things they know very little about. Poor choices without little or no remorse- choices with consequences that wound community. TRUE injustices and world crises that are ignored by media. Friends I once shared life with are spiritually apathetic, completely unfazed. Mediocrity, relativity, passivity. 

It's worried me that I've been so disappointed. Am I just cynical? Am I judgmental? 

This is what I've realized: my disappointment comes from a deep sadness. Sadness that we have forgotten our pilgrimage. We have simply accepted what is, this temporary tent of a home, this shadow of what is to come. We've accepted it and stopped longing for more. We've let go of the promise of eternity handed down to us from our forefathers, shrugging it off because it's something reason doesn't readily keep in our short-sighted view. So we keep our heads down, trudging onward with heavy baggage, fickle feelings as the captain. And this temporary land that will pass away keeps shocking us. But why? 

Maybe we're tired of waiting for fulfillment of that promise of eternity? Maybe it just seems too far-fetched? Maybe this earthly tent is just too comfortable? 

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. ~C.S. Lewis

What if we embraced life as a holy pilgrimage, a journey with a destination of glory? What if we accepted that 
1. The journey will be hard, we will ache as we wait and anticipate.  
2. We are promised the presence of our Savior. He will provide joy, sustenance, and peace along the way. 
3. This journey will be misunderstood. To blend into our surroundings would be to discredit the Almighty One, like insisting on making mud pies when offered a holiday at the sea. 
4. Instant gratification feels good now but neglects the soul. A pilgrim knows that longings are not met instantly. His eyes are fixed on the permanent, heavenly dwelling ahead and waits in quiet trust. 


As a pilgrim I have something that others don't. 

I have hope of what is to come. Hope that doesn't come from the president we vote into office, the laws legislators pass, or the state of our nation. Hope that's an anchor for my soul (Hebrews 6:19)

I have an unconventional, misunderstood life. It's going to look different. As easy as it would be to build my life around the cultural norms and opinions of others, I align my decisions with a different standard. The standard set by the Creator who transforms my mind and heart (Romans 12:2)

I have a guarantee. There's little in this life that you can bank on, but I bank on this truth. While I live in a makeshift tent, longing and groaning for my Lord's return, I never have to question His promise. The Spirit, His gift to me, instructs my heart to wait in full confidence. 
(2 Corinthians 5) 

May we remember our pilgrimage, linking arms with our fellow travelers. May our eyes be fixed on future glory. May we long deeply for more than this world can offer and remember that it will at last be met in Jesus Christ.