| Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane |
"Mommy, I wish Daddy didn't get so stressed when you're gone. He isn't nice at all when you're at the store."
How do I tell him, an eleven-year-old boy, my main philosophy of life? It's a hard sell.
Son, don't wish things were different.
This wishing things were different...I believe it's Satan's ploy. It's the first step toward ungratefulness, toward self-involvement, toward insensitivity, toward discontent, even toward divorce.
Pray for spiritual progress, Son, but don't wish things were different.
God doesn't always want things to be different, but he does always want spiritual progress.
Sometimes, like when the Apostle Paul was converted suddenly on the road to Damascus, spiritual growth is all God and nothing of us. But most of the time we must use our free will to accept and embrace the Spirit's voice, and obey it. The more worldly we live, the harder it is to obey that voice. The closer we stay to God, the easier obedience is, because Satan has less room to work on us.
How old does a child have to be before he can swallow this sobering truth: that God isn't interested in making our lives easy? I've told Peter this many times before in different ways, but wishing your own father was different is something familiar to me. All my life I've wished that about my own father, but each year, I wish it less, trusting God that it had to be this way to get me where I am today.
My husband has ADHD, undiagnosed all his life. Many things begin to make sense for me as a wife, when I learned more about this disorder in my son, and then recognized it in my husband. I certainly spent some years of my marriage wishing things were different, but after I recognized the problem, the Holy Spirit spoke loudly, forcefully..."You are called to a life of grace. Accept grace, extend grace, teach grace."
After this turning point the Spirit taught me to embrace the wonderful things about my husband, and extend grace regarding the not-so-wonderful things. I still slip at times when I'm too tired to care, but spiritual progress has occurred. My husband can't make a serotonin problem go away, but by grace I can make the serotonin problem null and void.
Jesus tells me he has overcome this world.
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
What does this verse actually mean? It can't be interpreted that all my problems will go away, but it does mean they are temporary...as a vapor. True perfection will come later, in eternity.
Revelation 21:4
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
What Christ refers to when he says I have overcome "the world"? It's Satan. Satan's been overcome. The deed that the serpent did unto Eve and Adam, leading to all our tribulation? It's been overcome by the cross...by Christ's accepting the will of His Father and suffering and experiencing His Father's rejection for a time on that cross.
God loved us and sent his Son. He didn't have to remedy the Adam-and-Eve tragedy at all, but he choose to. First he spent centuries of time showing us our need (the Old Testament books), and promising a solution (the Messiah). Then at the appointed time a child was born in Bethlehem. A child who would be called Emmanuel..."God with us".
And again at the appointed time, they came for him and crucified him.
Punishment is in order for all of us...eternal suffering. But instead we get out of the punishment (mercy) and receive a gift on top of that (grace)...a relationship with God here on earth, and later, heaven.
Without grace we're stuck in the Adam-and-Eve cycle of believing Satan and rejecting God.
When grace is lacking in our own hearts, what's the result?
We always wish things were different. We get stuck. God didn't get stuck after he sent Adam and Eve out of the garden. Just as he made a covering for their bodies, he'd already conceived a covering for their sin. Grace.
How do I help my son understand all these things, so he stops wishing his father were different? I don't want their relationship to have this dysfunctional foundation; I don't want Peter to get stuck. Instead, I want him to extend the grace that our Father conceived and Jesus achieved.
I want him to have the peace Jesus promises us in this verse: "that in me you may have peace".Yet I know that's only possible for any of us, when we stop wishing things were different.
He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” 39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Jesus did not want the suffering; he did not want the cross. Yet he didn't get stuck in that feeling. Along with uttering his desire to get out of it, he said, "Yet not as I will, but as you will."
Everything Jesus said was significant. But these words? They are perhaps the most significant. When we learn to live by these words, we learn to live by grace.
Grace, extended by my son toward his father, is how their dysfunctional foundation will be overcome. Pharmaceuticals can't do it. Time can't do it. Only grace.
My task is to teach my son to pray..."My Father, if it is possible, may my father be healed. Yet not as I will, but as you will."
I know in my heart that when Peter gets there, his thoughts will be transformed by the Spirit. He will think frequently..."I'm so blessed. My father loves me, he loves Jesus, he gives sacrificially of his time. He does the hard work of love, in Jesus' name."
Because when you take away the annoyances of a serotonin problem, my husband is all these wonderful things. I have to put on my "grace glasses" and see my husband the way Jesus sees him... as a sinner in need of grace.
And my husband? He graciously sees me this same way. I know he does because he loves me with an unfailing love. With a sacrificial love. With a love that is as good as it gets here on earth.
I am blessed.
In your own life the circumstances are different; it probably isn't a serotonin problem. But there's someone in your life--someone very close to you--who you wish were different.
Grace is that difference, my friend. And it comes from the Spirit, through you, when you learn to utter:
"Yet not as I will, but as you will."
2 comments:
"Don't wish that things were different." Wow...I am really awed by the simple thought. How much time do *I* spend wishing that things were different, all the while telling my children to be content. Thanks for this...i needed it today. And every day.
So good to hear from you, dear Terri!
Always love your comments.
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