February 23, 2011
Break It Down Again
© Tudor Stanica | Dreamstime.com
Sometimes when I look at the horizon, I have no idea if I am looking at a sunset – as if my whole world is coming to an end… many of the plans and ambitions that my life has created for myself have never come to light. I spent twelve years preparing for two different professions I never got a chance to advance and practice in my life. Even in my current profession, I am earning half the salary I originally was at over a decade ago. I have been skipped over for raises and promotions despite a diligent work ethic. Even attempts at self-promotion through tireless job hunting has lead to several years of fruitless and disappointing dead ends.
Lord, I give up.
Everything I have tried to do and achieve in this life has led me to here: sad, frustrated and broken. I am tired of struggling at work to do good work… then to only have a coworker or my boss snatch up my labors to take the credit. I am tired of being overlooked for promotions, awards or raises because despite my hard work these things seem totally out of my control.
Most of all, I am tired. I am weary because I have lost my way. I always thought that working hard, achieving and tireless ambition would bring to me success and prosperity in my life. I thought by now I would be living in a large house with my family, be an executive or some high ranking official in my original chosen area of work. Instead, I am here – at a crossroads – thunder and steam gone and the gleam in my eyes have faded away to a dull gray.
Then this morning, I turn to the First Book of Corinthians and started to read this:
Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. (1 Corinthians 1:26)
I thought I was destined for nobility and influence in my life. But that is where I have made my mistake. Paul reminds us of the folly of pride and human achievement when he writes:
For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intlligent I will frustrate.” (1 Corinthians 1:19)
And now it all makes better sense. Perfect grades and test scores in school, countless awards and personal achievements all spelled a recipe for success in my eyes… except God’s. God chooses the opposite of the things that mankind elevates and admires.
He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him. (1 Corinthians 1:28)
Even Paul, a shining figure of Christianity came from a humble heart when he says
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness and in fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that you faith might not rest on mens’ wisdom, but on God’s power. (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)
When God chose his messengers of the Gospel, he did not pick from the rich and the haughty or the wise and the scholarly. Human knowledge and wisdom falls short of comprehension of God. I realize now that my ambitions or life plans were not the way God had planned for me. Every time I build myself up, He breaks it down with a crushing blow.
But God is a loving God.
I firmly believe that these crushing blows are God’s attempt to remove me from my ingrained, scholarly approach to life. These beliefs in human constructs an achievements were leading me away from Him. The moment I realized that my human failures were simply the result of God breaking through to my heart, it all made sense.
True, I am broken, tired and disappointed (in myself). True, I might not be achieving at the level that I believe I have earned through my labors. The life God calls us to isn’t about that. When life is over, God despises the man who is boastful before Him. For the “foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength” (1 Corinthians 1:25) It’s about time that I settle down amongst my failures and take a large dose of humility.
I am at a crossroads in my professional life and there again, I have found God waiting for me; asking me to leave it all behind. It is not through my achievement that I have come this far. It is through His grace and guidance that has taken me here today.
This morning, as I look at the horizon. For certain it is a sunrise. It is a beginning. “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:31) I am letting go of my self-promotion and have further resolve to promoting Christ the Lord, through whom we receive our righteousness, holiness and redemption.
May 4, 2008
The Unmerciful Servant
Today, while chatting with my wife and after an extended rant about my rough career experiences, she remarked: Why do you keep bringing up what happened in the past? It’s like you can’t let go of what happened to you, no matter how negative it was… and THAT is what may be keeping you from moving ahead with what God has planned for you now.
Very wise indeed. All I wanted to do was vent, but perhaps this was one of my more well-used soap-box speeches. In the past, indiscretions at the hands of past managers have made it difficult for me to do my work and in one case, it unjustly had cost me my job. For some reason, my anger and desire for justice (or revenge) would lead me back to retell and relive the experiences that had cost me so dearly.
My excuse: I simply wanted to remind myself of my past mistakes (in letting my guard down) and I didn’t want to let myself become a victim again.
My wife later added: Leave it up to God. If they have harmed you, they will have their day where they will have to answer for their actions. It isn’t up to you to handle that.
What she didn’t add was the most important lesson that Jesus Christ wishes to deliver to people everywhere: forgive.
Here I am, praying fervently each day for blessings, forgiveness and guidance from God and yet I still have a grudge in my heart against my neighbor. I tell myself time and again that they are forgiven, but that is easier said than done. If that was the case, there would be no need to bring up their name or their “crimes” in conversation or thought for any reason. Forgiven means also forgotten.
In Jesus’s parable of the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18:21-35), a servant begs of his master for mercy and forgiveness of an enormous debt he had owed to him. The master magnanimously forgives the debt only to witness later that same servant unmercifully punish and harass his neighbor for a debt owed to him. The master was enraged and he had his unmerciful servant thrown into prison and punished for his outstanding debt. In Matthew’s gospel, we see that we cannot expect to experience the blessing of God’s grace and forgiveness until we also forgive the ways our neighbors have sinned against us.
“Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you not seven times but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:21-22)
I pray today for the presence of mind and the strength to show mercy towards my neighbors and fellow humans. For whatever ways I have been harmed, I must release myself from holding a grudge and likewise from the desire for revenge or blind justice. Such incidents are totally in the hands of the Father, from whom Jesus Christ delivers a message of peace and forgiveness in response.
A Touch of Insomnia
Well, it’s slightly past midnight on an early, Sunday morning and I just happened to be up again. My wife and baby are fast asleep and I pause for a moment to look across at them. My daughter is now just past her first year and these times have been rewarding, yet tough on my wife and me.
Even with a little help from my parents, it’s been a challenge; Child rearing has been my wife’s full-time occupation with me filling in the small gaps in between work and sleep. People ask us when the “next one” is on his/her way and I find myself dumbfounded at the notion. One has been enough for us to handle! Still, we marvel at the small miracle of our daughter, who has grown beyond any level we could have imagined since that day when she was born into this world.
In the silence, I say a small prayer of thanks for the gift of this past year – we made it! I browse through the many pictures we have taken to date and eagerly trace the growth and development of our child through the thread of thumbnails on my computer screen. The memories are all good to me, and some even bring, through the darkness of night, a light chuckle to my throat.
My thoughts wander to a short, anecdotal story about motherhood entitled “You Will Call Her Mom“. It talks about a dialogue between a child in heaven talking to God and about his/her assignment to come down to earth to be born. Indeed I feel that the child in our care is a gift from God. He has entrusted my daughter into the hands of my wife and myself. I pray a little harder for a blessing and for guidance in raising, protecting and nurturing our child towards a responsible, hard-working, God-fearing life.
