When Extras Morph into Expectations

shameless picture of Dave & I at our friends' wedding

I have one of the most thoughtful, caring, and and devoted boyfriends imaginable. (sidebar: I hate the word boyfriend it makes me seem like a love-struck teenager when the truth is I am in a committed adult relationship heading in the direction of marriage, so from here on out I will be referring to him by his proper label-Dave.)  Dave started out our relationship with thoughtful text messages or facebook messages almost every morning.  Ones that say "good morning beautiful" or when I was away for a year "I miss <insert something> or his most recent "how has your morning been?" or when I sleep in on the weekends "wake up!" He has showered me with unexpected surprises, unforgettable dates, and loving compliments--anyways in winning my affections, he has been all but unpleasant.

Then there are those days when he unintentionally hurts me because those little blessings don't come.  On these days I start to wonder "why is he ignoring me?" or "did he forget about me?" or "why isn't he like that girl's husband who posted on facebook about the flowers he bought her 'just because.'"  So by the time I spiral my thoughts into a dark abyss filled with questioning, rejection, unintentional confusion, and self-loathing that will only result in the end of our relationship, He sends me an even MORE unexpected text or gives me a call or picks me up and plants a sweet kiss on me.

Do any of these behaviors sound familiar?  As Christ followers, not only in our horizontal relationships, but in the vertical relationship that all of us tend to muck up on a daily basis--we tend to morph the blessings into expectations.  The funny thing of it all is the God doesn't need us.  He could go all day without a loving text message or prayer from us--and He'd be just fine.  He doesn't need our sacrificial and sometimes prideful servanthood and devotion.  He is completely ok and content on His own--I mean He should be.  He is the Creator of the Universe and all.

He created everything.  All things, but not only did He choose to be glorified by these things--He chose to let us, a mere creation, be blessed by them as well.  Recently a dear friend shared one of her favorite quotes from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes when Holmes, in his misunderstood reason, is poetically speaking to Watson saying:

"What a lovely thing a rose is." He walked past the couch to the open window and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects.
"There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion," said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. "But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers."

What a great reason-based argument for the existence of God there from Sherlock, who in his above average intelligence is clearly unmistaken that only goodness gives extras.  To be more Biblical in my reasoning here, God didn't HAVE to make anything for us other than the simple "glass of water, crust of bread then off to bed" (Beauty and the Beast reference). But He wants us to "Be His Guest" and enjoy the little blessings of the world around us.  Whether tangible or intangible--God blesses us on a daily basis.

So why is it that we don't always feel like He is blessing us?  Thats the point! We should always feel like we are being blessed.  Sometimes we have to try harder to feel this way, but no matter what--in everything we should be giving thanks because it is His will (1 Thess 5:18).  Did you hear that last part? It is His will for us to worship Him; not because He gives us extras,  but because He demands it of us!  Its what we are meant to do; its what we were CREATED to do.

But there's one thing Sherlock didn't mention in his speech about the rose--the thorns.  How poetically creative is God that even through the change of earth due to the corruption of sin--the arguably most beautiful flower is still accessible, with a price.  Scientists have actually tried to develop a truly thornless rose, and after five years of research they have, but all of the bushes are not guaranteed to have absolutely no thorns (source).  It is so easy to admire the beauty of the rose: to smell it, to look at it, to touch the beautiful crimson petals.  But God put a barrier there--the thorns are such a subtle reminder of that block from the extras that we try to bulldoze out of the way with our God-shadowing belief in our own entitlement.  The thorns are a harsh reminder that we don't deserve to experience those extras, but He allows us to, through His grace.  Even when the thorns are there, we are still able to enjoy those precious extras of life.

The beauty of the flower outweighs the fear of being pricked.  Its a simple shift of mind.  Dale Carnegie said in his book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living "two men looked out from prison bars.  One saw the mud, the other saw stars."  How often are we looking at thorns and mud?  How often are we allowing or circumstances dictate the way we worship?

I think I get caught up in the conditional love that we all say is so wrong and SO easy to do.  I always love God--no matter what I follow Him.  Even when its hard I follow Him.  But why is He doing this to me?  Why is He not giving me what I want?  What if he had made this part of my life different?  Why can't I be like...?  And the dark abyss of questioning the Creator of the Universe continues so far that when I start to look in the mirror all I see staring back at me is the Creator of the Universe.  Did you catch that?  When the extras turn into expectations, that is when we start to see ourselves as the Creator of the extras.  The center of the universe--everything that life revolves around.

Wow.  how humbling.  It is when we demand unnecessary things of God that we become our own God--that we get pricked by the thorns.  Maybe it is time to go back to thanking Him for the blessings that I have turned into demands.  Maybe its time to stop trying to handle the roses of my life, but to take a step back and simply start smelling the roses.  Then maybe I can start to embrace and imagine the hope of the true home: a place with unending thornless roses.

My Ice Cream Puddle

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Cup or cone? Sprinkles?  Cookie crumbs?  Dipped in chocolate?  What is the combination that just makes your mouth water when you order it from the Drive-in--the one you always order?  For me its simple: soft-serve vanilla ice cream with rainbow sprinkles in a waffle cone.  Yum.  

Well imagine ordering it--with a perfect triple-swirl and the sprinkles of every color covering every surface of frigid ice cream that patiently sits on the fresh waffle cone waiting to be devoured.  Mouth watering?  Well now imagine tripping over a rock and watching, in slow motion, that perfect ice cream cone crashing to the ground and immediately becoming a swirling and melting rainbow puddle.  Now imagine a small dog coming up and licking that puddle.  To add a little irony to this unfortunate insult, add some pouring down rain.

That was my week.

I was born a natural pessimist.  Can you tell?  I simply enjoy wallowing in the negative aspects of life.  This skill raised to an artform throughout my teen years when I, like most teens in the world, was convinced that my parents and everyone else in the world, who couldn't possibly understand what I was going through, had one goal: to ruin my life.  I remember countless arguments with my parents over the silliest things that seemed to be the most important things in the world at the time--its funny that I don't remember any of the actual topics of the arguments, just that they took place.

As I have slowly grown in maturity, those optimists that I once loathed, because they ruined my pity parties and made me feel this size of a bean whenever I would wallow in the negative, became intriguing to me.  You know the people I'm talking about: the ones who could find sunbeams during a thunderstorm, or could find something positive to say about a tone-deaf person singing an Aretha Franklin song, or could be excited for the dog who gets to lick their just-spilled-not-yet-eaten puddle of ice cream with sprinkles off the ground.  Those people are so amazing to me--when I WANT to climb on board of their happy train.  When I don't feel so positive, I want to ring there necks with their sunbeams and compliments, scoop up the ice cream puddle and throw it their face.

Over time, though, I have seen that optimism is such an attractive quality to have.  Biblically the word is joy.  As an English teacher, I like to find synonyms for simple words.  My favorite is "rapture" to be "in rapture" would be to have overwhelming felicity or pleasure.  I don't think that dictionary.com does a great job of defining the word joy, though, because the first word was "happiness."  The Oxford English dictionary does a better job by defining it as "a vivid emotion of pleasure arising from a sense of well-being or satisfaction; the feeling or state of being highly pleased or delighted."

Joy is the second fruit of the spirit mentioned in Galatians 5, preceeded solely by love.  John Mayer says "love is a verb" theology that I definitely agree with, and I'd like to argue maybe that joy is a verb as well.  James 1 says "consider it pure joy to face trials of many kinds."  That means joy is an action--its a choice.  To be joyous, one must be in complete contentment and confidence that her needs are met--whether they want to or not.  Its a concious state of mind that takes work--even for optimists.

As a pessimist, the state of being joyful is not something that happens with ease.  Its hard work for me.  I have to conciously remind myself of my identity in Christ, of what side I am on, and of my expectations and purposes.  Sometimes it comes much easier that other times.  When I find myself in a state of prosperity, I can be thankful for a whole lot of things.  But catch me in a moment of adversity and forget it. I wallow.  I'm such a selfish sinner.  When God finds it in His pleasure and will to bless me--its really easy to look at the positive sides of things and have the shallow ice-cream-with-sprinkles-on-it joy, but when that ice cream with sprinkles falls off the cone and crashes on the ground, its really hard to think of something to be thankful for.

This was an ice-cream-on-the-ground kind of week and all I wanted to do was kick the dog.  It was a challenge to find the positive things throughout my week.  My mind has been in the US for the past month, and I have been counting down the days until my flight (70 days).  Every time something would go wrong this week, I'd just repeat the amount of days I have left in my mind which left me even more depressed because I just wanted to go home.  I tried so hard to find blessings of this week that I conciously had to sit down and write them in my journal.

He managed to help me think of an abundance (more than 40) of blessings that I have in my life right now.  In this season--not just things to look forward to in the next.  He brought me a type of contentment that I haven't had in a long time, and for that I am overwhelmingly blessed.  The week that started with the Hope of the Resurrection is what made me see that He is a Just God of grace--the greatest contradiction known to man, and I am privileged to know him.

Here are some of the blessings I wrote about this week:

Parsons, Bennets, Reeds, and Smith families to share Easter dinner with when mine is far away (picture below)

Disney movies that are perfect watch while grading mountains of papers (picture below)

Music that plants itself in my head giving me a soundtrack to life (though annoying its better than silence)

Rain & cool enough weather to wear scarves and long sleeves (!!!!)

Coke and Popcorn (the website with free viewing of US tv shows)

Overseeing detention with kids who decided they wanted to discuss the Bible

THE PHILLIES!!! (opening day was yesterday...can't wait for summer games)

When toddlers run to me with their arms stretched out (best moment ever)

Being able to cook for other people..perhaps my favorite act of worship (picture below)

Fireworks to ring in the Resurrection of Christ...ask me for a video of the sunrise service

A new yellow dress and the seamstress who made it for me..and the low cost for it to be done :)

When my students actually quote things I say back to me and I realize they actually listen (BIG deal)

Birthdays!! Two of my students and a fellow missionary had birthday parties today...lots of fun!!

Godly conversations with other single women here in Bolivia.

Dave's ability to patiently listen to my venting fits and still respond in wisdom and love.

That moment when a student applies something we are learning in class OUTSIDE of class!!! :)

the Psalms...reading a Psalm a day forces me to praise God :)

TERRIBLE jokes that still make me laugh

Embracing one of my 8th graders right after she made a decision to follow Christ (BEST MOMENT)

Photos like the ones below:

These are all missionary kids that I have babysat, discipled, taught, or ministered to throughout this year.  They are my out-of-school ministry, and I love them all dearly.  We took these pictures after Easter dinner.

These are my seventh graders on theme-day.  Our theme was Disney characters.  I got a little bit into it.

I baked this pizza last night and shared it with a couple neighbors.  It was a pick-me-up ending to a hard week.

As God has challenged me this week, I hope he challenges you to look for those blessings in your life that you are just NOT entitled to.  I pray that you choose joy this week as you are in the thick of life and tempted to kick the dog eating your puddle of ice cream.

Thanks for your prayers and support!  You are all a huge blessing in my life...what are some blessings you have experienced this week that you might want to share as a COMMENT below?

--

Rachel