Hold on to your shorts millennials and iGens, this is gonna go against everything your TikToks and Instagram have ever told you.
I’ve always been passionate about selflessness, but I suck at it. In the last 7 years that I have been in school, I have bought the lies of entitlement that our society screams at us. I felt that taking extra time out of my day, as a student who was taking 7 to 8 classes per semester, to focus on others was something I was excused from since I was taking this time to “focus on me.” I always figured I would start “fulfilling my purpose” once I started my “real life” after graduation. What the heck?? Why did I feel I was so important that I needed 7 years of my life to focus on myself and myself only? Especially when that time mostly involved very unproductive methods of existing that didn’t benefit me anyways.
I often use(d) introversion as an excuse to not love people well. Convincing myself I was the queen of being alone, taking pride in my isolation, I put very little effort into loving people in my life and building relationships. This was a really cool mask I used, but there were times when I felt so alone and that I had no one to turn to. I felt I did not deserve any support because I wasn’t there for my friends/family in the ways I should have been. The introverted corner I painted myself into came back to bite me. This is not to say that we should be there for others with the expectation that they’ll be there for us, but building healthy and Godly relationships (community), is what God calls us to. He can and will use those relationships for your benefit. So maybe sometimes you need to skip that candle-lit bubble bath and meet with a friend for coffee.
Don’t get me wrong, there is something to be said for taking time to yourself. In my time of grieving and processing this past month, time to myself has been both my best friend and worst enemy. When I choose to “wallow,” believing the lies I’ve been told that I’m entitled to a time of self-pity, my mind goes berserk and I do things that aren’t beneficial, or even destructive in the long run. When I choose to do things that I believe should help me- reading Scripture, listening to podcasts, praying, playing or listening to worship music- that also doesn’t necessarily give me the comfort that I expect it to. So how do I justify it? If watching Netflix and eating chocolate sometimes makes me feel better than spending time with Jesus, why would I do the latter? It’s a lot of work to have to grapple with questions of identity and purpose.
Our modern version of Christianity sells our faith as a transactional relationship- have spiritual discipline and increase your faith, then you will experience all the joys of God and He will make it all better. He’ll give you joy and comfort and peace, He’ll take away the pain… What a millennial way of looking at God. We feel if we exercise spiritual discipline and put in the work, we are entitled to earthly blessings. Instant gratification. As if the assurance of Salvation is not enough.
I’ve been learning that introspection (not wallowing or numbing) is the key to taking time to yourself. God wants us to understand ourselves- what it is that we truly desire, our inherently selfish motives behind anything we ask of Him, our sinful nature, a humble realization of the strengths He has given us. He wants us to know these things so that we can fully understand our need for His grace. Our deepest desires cannot and will not be fulfilled on this Earth, that’s the beauty of Salvation. We cannot experience perfect peace (no matter how close we think we are when we conjure up the American dream) until we are truly washed white as snow in the true presence of Jesus. Christians should not be comfortable. How can we, with the acknowledgement of our sinful nature and the corruption in the world, both love Jesus/desire what He desires and live a comfortable life? I’m more often than not guilty of living this comfortable modern Christian life, and I’m calling myself out on it.
[Side note: I believe the North American church, from the most orthodox to the most progressive denominations, have mastered the art of comfortable Christianity. In some form or another, we justify our comfortability. We feel we can serve God and live the comfortable American dream and be perfectly content. It’s no wonder the global church is dwindling in numbers. There is virtually no difference between us and the rest of the world at this point. In fact, the rest of the world is often better at loving people than the church because the church is scared to be uncomfortable and love people who don’t fit into the small box we have created around Christianity. We have to go beyond the comfort of tithing, church events, devotional times, etc.]
This is not to say that our time on Earth is to be miserable. When we realize how much we are in need of grace, we can be filled with so much hope because of the assurance of Salvation. The hope we have in Jesus’s grace is what sustains us on this earth. Also, it should be noted that being consistently comfortable and experiencing joy are two different things. God is so cool and gives us joy in our earthly experiences on the regular. It sounds silly, but it is obviously not a bad thing that the sun beams warming me through my sweater right now are making me feel good inside, despite the fact that I am stained by sin. I, in all of my sin and lack of wisdom, can experience joy and hope because I know Jesus and I know that He will save us from ourselves in the end. At the same time, I can have an aching in my heart that I do not fully understand, with endless desires for ‘worldly’ things, things that will make me feel better in the moment (e.g. alcohol, sex, junk food, etc.). I can be deeply heartbroken at my own sinful nature and the sin that permeates this world, knowing this ache will never be satisfied on earth. Until Jesus comes, the world is going to continue to disappoint us, and that’s the territory that comes with the free will God gave us. However, with an increasing understanding of ourselves and of God, we can live well through the heartache and can be so grateful for the joyful experiences we are given. We can also learn to more efficiently serve God and show His love well to the world around us.
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
Romans 5:1-5
This weekend I read a book called “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry” by Neil DeGrasse Tyson (that’s right, I read a whole book, a scientific book at that, in 4 days! This is impressive for me). There is a lot of scientific mumble-jumble that I would never even be able to attempt to understand. A lot of theories that I have a hard time understanding, and scientists themselves don’t even understand. However, with all of the inconclusiveness of scientific research, there is one conclusion we can make- the universe is ridiculously complex and we will never fully be able to understand it. It’s absurd to look up at the star-filled night sky and realize that the Earth is only a tiny portion of the universe. Yet, I do the same thing with God and limit Him to my small little world in southern Manitoba. I simplify faith in Christ to be a transactional process, which can exist in my comfortable little box. God is so much greater and complex than we can imagine. It’s both overwhelming and exciting to think how much I have yet to learn about God and about how He has created me.
Christians, let’s not think we have figured God out, let’s keep pressing into deeper knowledge of who He is and who He has created us to be. Let’s do this so we can be efficient and effective in how we show the world the love of Jesus and lead them into this hope of Salvation.
Take time for yourself in introspection. Ask yourself hard questions, keep digging deeper. Have wise people help you with figuring this out. Do not be content with just going through the motions and living a comfortable “Christian” life. Be content in the gift of grace, because Lord knows we need it!
Doxology
33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
Romans 11:33-36
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?”
36 For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
Jody Talkin' 