Reflections on 2010 Part Two
...and perhaps the biggest theme that has permeated the year?
A change of circumstance does not change anything on your inside.
Like any of you reading this, I have two lists. The list of things I really don't like about life, and the list of “If only I had...”, and in my head on some level, I'm convinced that if I get the second list, it will fix the first list. The first list contains things like “I'm incredibly bad with money,” “I tend to freak out when I realize I've done something wrong and then lie to cover my tracks,” “I value peoples opinions of me more than I value people themselves, so I don't say hard things to people sometimes when they need it,” “I'm pretty awkward socially, but don't like being alone much either” - incidentally, this means I'm that frustrating guy who complains about being lonely but then gets invited to something and bails because it will involve me being in a room where there's a high chance that the only other person I know there will be in a conversation with somebody else, and I'll end up picking different things in the room to lean on, one of which will be in the way of someone else carrying food, and one of which will collapse under my weight.
You know, that list.
Then the second list contained things like “If I had a bit more money, if I get a job that doesn't make me get up at 3am, if I start again in a new town with a new community....” And perhaps on some level there is some sort of psychological benefit to a fresh start. But it's mainly a lie. With a bit more money you don't stop believing the lie that toys will make you happy, it just starts taking fancier toys to make you happy. Being around a bunch of new people doesn't change your propensity to say things just to make them like you, and it definitely doesn't mean you get a chance to try being socially “normal.” It's fascinating really, I would guess it doesn't even take a whole 60 seconds before you've sold yourself and suddenly getting these people to laugh will pretty consistently define a good day vs a bad one. I'm not sure why I slipped into second person there – if an English major is reading, it's cowardice more than it's bad grammar.
So that's me, a year later. New – well, bigger - clothes, and still sort of a mess. Why? Because at the end of the day, none of the things that make the life the way it is are external. I can't point my finger at anything and say “stupid universe! Always ruining everything!”, because even if you would change the whole universe I'd be the same person in a different universe. So what? Are we all stuck to be miserable and pointless, like a broken pencil whose owner just bought a laptop? Not exactly. All of the petty things that I find to be unhappy about are, at the end of the day, issues of worship. I know, that word sounds all churchy and weird – humor me for a minute and assume it's a shorter way of saying “looking to something for meaning, purpose, and satisfaction in life”. I handle money badly because at least partly I worship - look to for meaning, purpose and satisfaction in life - the things it can buy. I lie and mistreat people for their approval because at least in part I look to their approval for meaning, purpose, and satisfaction in life. And a change of job, a change of house, a change of city – more of what didn't work before still doesn't work.
There is, instead, one who we were made to worship. One who is more stable than our shifting useless ideas about what life is about. One who we can look to for meaning, purpose, and satisfaction, because the point of the whole universe for all of eternity is Him. One who, even though we rejected Him again and again, came to our level, as a human, born in a stable, into poverty, lived a life of perfect trust in God, like we were all meant to, and then died on cross to pay the penalty for every moment you and I have spent finding meaning, purpose, and satisfaction somewhere other than in Him. This one is Jesus, and He calls us to admit that finding joy and satisfaction here is useless. We weren't meant to! We were made for Christ's sake, and anything else just ends up chasing false dream after false dream, into hopelessness.
So maybe a better way to say the thing that has proven itself true over and over again this year, is this:
Jesus is everything.
Even when, and perhaps especially when, I'm bad at remembering it.
Merry Christmas.
T
