SeanDareOnline.com

Have you ever watched a cat toying with a mouse? Have you looked on as the cat batted the mouse around with his paws, while the mouse tries to escape every chance he gets, only to be held down by the tail and then batted around again? I can empathize with the mouse. This past weekend I felt like I was being toyed with spiritually. It all started on…

Friday

Friday my father retired after 28 years with McDonnell Douglas/Boeing, and as is the custom, there was a small retirement party held in a Boeing conference room where cake and soda were served.

Aside from the large number of Dad’s coworkers, around 40 or so, there were Dad’s two brothers, my aunt and cousin, my brother and his wife, my nephew and my mom in attendance. We were all seated in a large conference room in Boeing’s St. Charles campus where Dad’s boss and a couple of co-workers said a few words. Then, my Father stood up and spoke to the group. I have always viewed my Dad’s public speaking abilities as…er…shall we say “sub par”? So I was especially interested to see this part of the festivities.

Guys, I will tell you I was never more proud of my Dad. Not only was his speech funny and entertaining, it was peppered with references to great projects and achievements that he accomplished during his career. You had to know my Dad to know he was bragging, to an untrained ear it would have just sounded like a list of projects, but seeing Dad’s face, and seeing him command the other engineers attention, along with the response he garnered from them, told me that he was in his element. Dad was, and is, an incredible thinker and teacher. He left a mark on Boeing that will be there for some time, as well as a mark on his coworkers that they will never forget.

My Dad has left his mark on me too. In his humble and quiet yet persistent way my Dad has proven to be effective at changing the world around him. There are times when instead of yelling or pushing for what I know is right, I become quiet and patient, just like my Dad. More often than not I find that an argument will resolve itself with the person seeking my advice instead of me pushing it down his throat.

Amidst the joy of watching my Dad sum up a remarkable career, and the adulation bestowed upon him by his co-workers, I found myself feeling troubled about the events I was witnessing. Upon reflection I can point to a number of painful feelings that surfaced on Friday, many of which wouldn’t reveal themselves until Sunday, but I could tell immediately what bothered me the most was realizing how long I had taken my father for granted. As if I needed another reminder of how his patience and humility can overcome. Friday I learned that I have an incredibly smart and wise Father, and I thank God I realized that before I ran out of time to spend with him. My goal now is to try and get to know him better while he enjoys his retirement.

Later Friday evening, while I was still sorting out the emotions that bubbled up during Dad’s retirement party, I had a chance to spend some quality time playing with my nephew Hollis. Hollis is a charmer. When he laughs the whole world and all it’s problems melt away. I consider it a real joy to spend time with Hollis. However after I spend time with him I am reminded, often painfully, that I don’t have any children of my own. My wife and I have been trying for some time, but God has not decided to bless us with children. Both Jenn and I would like to have children, and the pain of that desire can be overwhelming at times.

I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I am glad I was there for my Dad’s retirement, and I am glad I got to spend time with Hollis, it is just that both of those events served up some painful emotions that take a while to dissolve away. The Devil had plans for that pain, although I didn’t know it at the time.

Saturday

I woke up excited about something new in my life, my first attendance at the Saturday Writers monthly meeting. I had been looking forward to attending for weeks, and wondered what new and exciting information I would learn. (more on that in another post) My excitement quickly dissipated as I got ready and took care of a couple of tasks before leaving, such as starting laundry and running my shirts through the dryer to get rid of some of the wrinkles. Jenn spent the time I was getting ready sitting on the couch watching TV. I began to worry that she was going to spend all day there, and the long list of things we had to do that day would become my responsibility. Not the least of which was to prepare slides for the Sunday service of Redeemer. I didn’t have time to discuss the frustration I felt with Jenn before I left, and I didn’t get a chance to cool down, so I left for the writers meeting angry.

Fortunately God touched me in the car on the way to the meeting and reminded me that all things are under his control. I prayed about, and forgot about, my frustration with Jenn. I turned it over to God. He was faithful to my prayer. When I came home Jenn was busy cleaning house and doing more laundry. She even prepared the slides for Sunday! (Thank you Jenn)

My emotions were still out of whack, however, and even though Jenn was helping out with the list of things we needed to get done, I found myself sliding deeper and deeper into a funk as Saturday progressed. I couldn’t explain it, nor could I figure a way out of it. I was just upset. I found myself snapping at simple questions and getting angry about the small things. I took a nap Saturday afternoon, thinking maybe I was just tired, but that didn’t’ help. I woke up in a worse mood than before I took the nap. Saturday night ended with me feeling bad, both physically and emotionally. I hoped, but didn’t pray (yep, I am that kind of fool) that I would be in a better mood Sunday.

Sunday

It is amazing how your mind works. Even though I woke up in a worse mood than I was in when I went to bed the night before, my mind had been working on the problem of “why” I was in a bad mood while I slept.

I woke up, showered, and prepared to leave for Church Sunday morning, all without loosing my temper, but the anger was there just under the surface, waiting for the wrong comment or action to release it. As Jenn and I got into the car to head to church Jenn asked if I was “okay”. In a flash of brilliance I decided to be honest instead of saying “I’m fine”. My honest answer was,”No, I’m not…and I don’t know what is wrong with me.” After backing the car out of the garage I started to elaborate. I told her that I had this urge to hurt people, emotionally not physically, and that I was angry with everybody. Then I told her how I didn’t feel like doing anything, not even going to church. All I wanted to do was go back to bed. After that I went on a long diatribe about how our lives suck! I told her how frustrated I am that I dont’ make more money, and that I haven’t done anything great with my life, and how I know it is all supposed to be about Jesus, and yet I can’t seem to get into a quite time routine. I told her how I felt that I was a mediocre failure, and a worthless waste of space.

I continued by telling her how useless my writing had become. How I found myself cringing at the thought of posting a blog entry, or working on my novel. I yelled and cursed and fumed most of the way to church. Jenn, I can’t tell you how great it is to have Jenn in my life, sat quietly and let me vent. After 10 minutes of non stop complaining I asked Jenn, “So what do you think?”

Jenn said, “Wow, the Devil is really hitting you hard today.”

Poof. I had nothing to say. I had no rebuttal, no remark, no comment. All I said was, “Yeah, well” which is not one of my better come backs. You see, in that one sentence Jenn did two things. 1. She pointed out that this was an attack by the Devil 2. She pointed out how selfish I was acting.

And boy was I acting selfish. Every complaint that came out of my mouth Sunday morning was about me, and my goals. My desires, my career, my family. Ugh! When I look back over the weekend I realized that the Devil had started working on me weeks before. He was pointing out my failures, compared to an arbitrary standard called the world, which in turn took my focus off Jesus and what he did for me, and important to this discussion, what his plan is for my life. It all came to a boil on Friday when I saw what a gifted man my Dad is, and in my selfishness I was jealous of his success. Later, after playing with Hollis, I became jealous because we don’t have kids. Saturday, when I was at my weakest, I was jealous of all the accomplished writers at the Missouri Writers meeting!

What a fool I was! God loves me, Jesus loves me, and they want the best for me. In this case the best for me is not going to be the best for you! What Jesus and God have planned for me is tailored to the personality and gifts God gave me. Your own “best” will be different than mine. Not to mention, if I care to look at my life objectively, I have a really great wife, and great friends, and a great church. In short I have a pretty great life. I had forgotten that over the previous week, and really forgot it over the weekend.

This wasn’t all obvious at first. While I was still reeling from Jenn’s first statement in the car she hit me with another one. She said, “God must have something really important for you to do if you are being hit this hard.”

If I was a volley ball, and the first of Jenn’s statement’s set me, then the second one spiked me over the net for a point. It took me completely by surprise. I had heard the phrases before. Ones like, “you know you are over the target when you are under attack”. They made sense to me, but they didn’t really make sense to me until Sunday.

Of course it takes a while for our humble human brains to grasp all of this, and mine is no exception. I walked into church still angry and frustrated. I was there, I was serving, but I wasn’t happy. Jenn, did I mention how lucky I am to have her, set up the laptop with the slides while I gathered the projector and it’s associated hardware used to project the slides on our screen. Before I left to set up the projector I gave Jenn a couple of instructions about the startup sequence for the laptop and projector. Chris, our pastor, was near the table where Jenn and I were talking and on seeing/hearing us he turned to ask how we were doing. In another flash of brilliance I told him the truth. “Pretty crappy” was my answer. Then I worked my way past him to the other end of the gym where we set up the projection equipment.

Chris wasn’t having any part of that. He queried Jenn as to the source of my bad mood. I don’t know exactly what Jenn told him, later she said it was something about being down on myself and down on life in general, but whatever it was it spurred Chris into action. He called me to the back of the gym/sanctuary (we meet in a school) where he and a couple of other brothers in Christ were waiting, and asked if he could pray over me. I accepted their invitation.

I am not going to say that I felt anything immediately, I am not even going to say I felt something by the end of the service, but I can tell you that the prayer of those three men took away my foul mood. Gone. When I got home that afternoon I was back to “normal’ (how normal is normal?) with the exception that I had a headache. My outlook had taken a 180 degree turn around.

You see, it’s not about me. It’s not about Redeemer or Chris or Jenn. It is about God. It is about Jesus. What is “it”? Life. If you are living your life for you, or for your wife, or even for your church, then you have mixed up priorities. Your life should be lived for Jesus. If you can master that one basic principle then everything else will take care of itself. If you are struggling to understand how this works then join the crowd. I am still trying to figure it out myself.

- Sean

P.S. Special thanks to J.D., Ken and Chris for praying over me, and of course to Jenn for caring about me. Very special thanks goes to God for answering our prayers and keeping me close to him even when I was being stubborn and selfish.

Tags: Christianity //