After The Work

There are many reasons to look around us and strive to achieve more and more. Bigger house, better car, more money in the bank, being independently wealthy, not needing to work, and having free time on a Tuesday. Perhaps we have been told to put our head down and grind away and eventually with hard work and dedication it will all work out. Many people succeed with that formula, putting their talents to work for them. Some of them even achieve greatness despite odds against them like, poverty, trauma, or a disability. Many people post this on their social media, smiles from ear to ear.

Whether or not someone is happy or satisfied is another matter all together. We can put forward the illusion that life is perfect, carefully craft our image and our futures. Families make silent agreements to put our best feet forward, pushing and hiding the feelings of dissatisfaction, jealously, fear, and feeling all together empty. It is as if we arrange our outsides to order our insides, at least that is the hope. “If we can only get here”, or “If I only had this or that” then I can be happy. It doesn’t have to be material gains either. Many people wait for the perfect house, the family, the perfect scenario, settled and accomplished only to get there and find total emptiness.

The issue is that we live for the voices of our past. Those who we need to show. Those voices compelling us from our shadows to achieve because we will not be validated otherwise. Our ego’s conceal our wounds that push us forward rather than simply living freely. We are bound to our past wounds and our past mistakes until we acknowledge them and deal with them. Bring the darkness into the Light so that the Great Physician can heal us with his love in prayer. Discussing with trusted friends and family our hurts and our mistakes can reveal motives that bind us and drag us further and further into self validation. There is no end because we cannot fix the issue on our own. In the end it is a selfish motive to drag ourselves and everyone along just to show others we are not stupid or not a failure. It may seem right, even noble to work so hard, but eventually it comes at the cost of our relationships and our souls.

Is success wrong? Is hard work idolatry? Absolutely not. Yet anything can become and idol when it becomes more important than God and family. We work to please others, seek to be recognized, and finally “arrive” at happiness. We expect others to give us serenity. By the time we hit middle age, we tend to crash and burn. It is a terrible burden to carry our futures, our pasts, and our hopes and dreams all the while pleasing others or stepping on their necks to get to a place that never comes.

Then the darkness settles in when confronted with our worst fears that emerge from the shadows. We failed, we collapse, we are not as smart as we hoped, we didn’t earn what we thought we were worth or owed to us. There was a pastor who had back surgery in his early 30’s. He was already a people-pleaser, already working very hard on career. He knew once his career was established and doctorate earned he could focus on really living and being with his family. They moved to a new church with all the promise of a nice opportunity, nice house provided, big yard for the family. The church grew.

He relaxed a little and began to feel fulfilled until his past caught up with him. Past traumas, isolation, and pressure to achieve sent him into late nights in the office. He carried too much because he couldn’t say no. He had to get ahead. He preached acceptance and God’s grace being sufficient but had no idea how to live that. One day in a packed youth event, he collapsed into his chair in the study and he felt like he was having a heart attack. A trip to the ER and he discovered what a panic attack was. Eventually he turned to marijuana, isolation, and things fell apart. His fears of failure and never establishing himself like a man came to a head. His marriage decayed and the family entered very hard times. He stepped down from the ministry feeling like a hypocrite could not preach the gospel.

I wish I could say things were fixed quickly, took 6 years later and things are ever evolving. Life does not get better or worse with time, they just get different. It is us who decides in the moment if we have peace or not. It becomes a question, “Are we willing to deal with ourselves before the throne of God?” Past trauma requires healing, past sins require confession, acknowledging our past is the beginning. Then we pivot to the moment and live with the intention that we seek to make a better future. Ego’s serve their purpose for a time protecting our hurts, but eventually people expect them to fall aside. We cannot assume that others share the burden of our egos and hurts they cover. Our self-centered appeals to our virtues and assurances to others of our capabilities eventually come off as childish. We have to grow up and face facts before we can find peace.

Our shadows, our weaknesses of character are like beacons in the darkness that bring us to God. The Apostle Paul had a “thorn in the flesh” that kept him from being conceited. He asked God three times to have it removed, but he could not run from himself nor did his problems just vanish. God works his purpose in all things, even our hurts for the expressed purpose of bringing us closer to God. Paul reasons, “He [Jesus] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

God’s power is made perfect in our weakness because it is not our strengths that save us. We don’t earn salvation be it through good works nor through suffering. There already was one Martyr, and we are not him. We have salvation in Christ by our brokenness, by our admission we “cannot” so he “can”. Thus we can find healing light and expose our shadowy places. We can use the Balm of Gilead upon our our traumas. The fact God loves us so much that he would die for us is a sign that the love available to us is everlasting and more than sufficient for us.

The grace we receive is proportionate to our faith. Do we really think God can heal our traumas? Will God restore to us the fruit the locusts ate years ago? We can ask for the faith and wait on the Lord to show us. I cannot explain how or when, it is something very personal that only a man or woman can find for themselves. Being available to God in prayer, surrender, and hope remain. We live in the moment and find what He would have us do in the Now. Who can we love today? How can I live for God today? What will I get or what blessings await? I don’t know. We only know once it comes to us. The bottom line is God’s grace is sufficient to us when we acknowledge we are not sufficient without Christ and his Gospel. It is not easy, nor a path easily walked. It requires us to feel pain, right wrongs, deny ourselves and take up our cross to follow him.