Contentment vs. Complacency

Sometimes there is a hard line to walk between contentment and complacency, I think.

As I mentioned a couple posts ago, I was recently offered a job with that organization I applied to last fall, and I declined it.  I'm confident I made the right decision.  The timing just wasn't quite right.

It was an odd decision to make, though, because--once again--I found my life being directed towards, well, nothing that looks like anything "exciting".  It's basically more of the same of what I do now.  So I found myself wondering whether I was choosing to pass up the new job because keeping my current one is just simpler.  And it made me start second-guessing whether all those past things I had interpreted as "closed doors" were actually just my own lack of initiative, my own unwillingness to face the challenges of something new.

As I wrestled with these questions, it became clear to me that the two options--the new job vs. moving back to Oregon--were becoming a secondary dichotomy in my mind: the "responsible" choice (consistency, benefits, room for career growth) vs. the "fun" choice (flexibility, people I already know and love, travel plans).

For, weird as it may seem to some people, including myself some days, I'm really liking my life--job included--right now.  Which is where the fine line between contentment and complacency becomes relevant.  Surely being happy in a job I'm overqualified for, outside my obvious "gifting", with no real opportunity to advance, is a sign I'm settling, right?  I often find I don't give myself full permission to relax and enjoy right now for what it is, because relaxing is too much like giving up.

But recently, I have been considering the difference between "giving up on" and "letting go of", and find the distinction to be monumental.  Releasing my own expectations of how God should use me--complete with its rather over-inflated sense of personal destiny--does not require me to give up my loves or gifts or desires.  It just means I give them back to God, to do with as He will.  And with that release comes an immense freedom to be where I am and love where I am.  I can eagerly expect God to do great things and to bring me to a "better fit" for myself and my gifts while also recognizing that God's idea of "great things" and a "good fit" may be radically different than my own in this moment.  And I can know that that's okay, too, because He's God.  And I'm not.

It's interesting: I had always thought I was making myself available to God because I was willing to travel far and live in difficult conditions and sacrifice many luxuries.  But I’m coming to see that I was still making myself as unavailable as the rich man who says “I’ll follow you if you don’t make me sell my stuff,” or the comfortable guy who says “I’ll follow you if you don’t make me do something dangerous.”  My ultimatum was just nobler in my own eyes: “I’ll follow you if you don’t make me do something boring, or unimportant.

I tell God, “Here I am, send me anywhere!” but squirm as I hear Him say, “Anywhere?  Even where you already are?”  I tell Him, “Here I am, I’ll do anything!” and hear Him say, “Anything?  Even this job that seems so insignificant?  Even these things that look like ‘nothing’ to the world, and to yourself?"

And those questions are hard for me to answer.

Obviously, stretching situations are important, and to be sought.  But, in many ways, this "not doing anything exciting" is stretching for me.  I am having firmly to declare the object of my worship: my own adventurous plans to serve God, or God Himself.  And I think my faith--in Him, in His plans, in His goodness, in His all-sufficiency--is in some ways being tested and grown more through this period of stillness than it would be if the heavens opened and He told me to sell all my possessions and move to Bangladesh tomorrow.

And there is such rest when we release our plans to Him.  Whatever inconsistencies and false motivations and sins clog our decision-making, God in His crazy grace remembers that we are dust and honors our efforts to serve and obey Him.  And we don’t have to have perfect motives for God to use us (or else He never could).  And even if we make the “wrong” choice, God will not abandon us in our foolishness, but will still work it into something beautiful, to His glory.

That's pretty darn fantastic.

Indeed, perhaps the prize of contentment and the risk of complacency are not related in the way I first proposed.  Perhaps the only place to fear complacency is in our pursuit of God, because--when we seek Him first, and live within His will--we are free to be deeply contented regardless of whether the world recognizes our efforts as valid or not.

So, here's to the adventure of life in Christ.  ...Even when it looks like it's leading us to where we already are.

The Cube (or more accurately, The Rectangular Prism)

All packed!

Hopefully, it's now in storage somewhere in Bel Air, Maryland, until I tell them where to send it...

Changes

So, a lot has happened since my last post: the house I'm living in has sold, I received (and declined) a job opportunity with the same organization I applied to last fall, and I am now packed and ready to head back to the West Coast for a bit.

It all happened quite fast.  But it's good.  I'm excited.  Crazy fun things await me on my home coast.

I'll miss this quirky, eclectic city, though.  The distinctive neighborhoods, the wicked thunderstorms, the rowhouses, the fireflies, the way everything is so crammed together out here.

Mostly the people, though.  I found me good people here.

So, it's good, but it's a little sad, too.

I guess moving is like that.

Swallow Falls

My first camping trip of the year!  My friends and I headed out to Swallow Falls State Park in western Maryland.  There we are, at the top of Maryland's tallest waterfall:

Okay, yes, all of us on the trip are from the west coast, so it wasn't all that spectacular as a "tallest" waterfall.  To us, it was more of a waterstep.  But that didn't prevent its being quite beautiful.  And you could clamber around on rocks and even go behind the falls a bit, which was obviously fun.

We also encountered an army of tiny frogs at our campsite.  I mean, tiny:

They were everywhere.  Some were as small as my pinky nail.  It was impressive.

Add campfires, star-watching, a resounding thunderstorm, tarp forts, canoeing, more hiking, good conversation, freakishly large (beautiful) moths, and an almost continuous bout of hysterical laughter (it happens when Stephanie and I get together...what can I say?), and you have good times.

Skywatching

Every clear Friday, Johns Hopkins opens it's observatory to normal folk like myself.  Last night, I got to see Saturn and two of its moons, various stars, and a few globular clusters through their crazy-big telescope (although it's not as crazy-big as these are).  It was gorgeous.  And it didn't hurt that there was this little kid up there with his parents, who gasped with delighted excitement every time he saw something through the eyepiece.

There are so many things to be excited about seeing in this world of ours.  I hope I don't ever outgrow delighted gasping.

Floccinaucinihilipilification

flɒksəˌnɔsəˌnaɪhɪləˌpɪləfɪˈkeɪʃən/
-noun

Definition: The estimation of something as valueless or trivial.

My friend Lauren taught me this word this week.  It makes me very happy just knowing it exists.

Relativity

It is amazing how gloriously cool and refreshing 75˚ feels after a 99˚ day...

The Present

For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity… [I]n it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. [God] would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present - either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

- C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Waiting. 

I know that has been a recurring theme in this blog these last couple years. 

Right now, as I struggle with envy and wounded pride and frustration as people around me have these crazy life adventures—graduations, weddings, babies, world travel, new jobs—while I seem to be left behind, the concept of waiting seems, well…relevant.  Important to grapple with, and figure out, and accept.

So often, when I voice my confusion to people, they respond with encouragement along these lines: “It is good to be waiting on the Lord.  He is preparing you for something.  He has plans for you, a place for you, and He’ll show them to you in His timing.  Take heart, and be patient.”

Those words show up again and again: “waiting”, “preparing”, “timing”, “patience”.

But lately I find myself wondering at so much focus (my own as well as others') being placed on the unrealized aspect of God’s work in my life.  Like this is a stretch of time “to endure” until He shows me what He actually has planned.   Like I’m in limbo, sitting around in some metaphysical waiting room, idly flipping through magazines in a mostly-meaningless state until I am called up to fulfill the appointment that will give my existence significance.

...Does that not fail to recognize that God is at work even now? 

I am told to be patient; that this period is not wasted.  But I find myself thinking, “Of course it isn’t wasted.  Why do we have to assume that it is?”

I am told that this season of my life will be shown to matter in the future.  But I find myself asking, “Why can’t it matter in the present?”

To say that I am only “waiting on God’s time and place for me” is to cheapen—or even miss altogether—the glorious reality that, in this moment—the only moment I can experience—God's time for me is now, and his place for me is here.

This is the day that the Lord has made. 

We are free to "bear the present cross, receive the present grace, and give thanks for the present pleasure."

The smell of the thunderstorm outside.  Seeing my little garden patch grow.  Conversations with neighbors.  Tears of frustration and confusion and comfort as I seek the will of God.  Reading books and writing birthday cards and sharing meals with my friends.  Whether I am actively engaged in a spiritual battle or merely going cross-eyed proofreading documents at work, God is present, and there is glory to be given Him.

Now.  Right this second.

The people God has placed around me have been a tremendous means of encouragement, and solace, and truth-bearing in this sometimes discouraging season: God’s timing is best.  He does have plans.  He doesn’t waste our experiences.  His plans don’t always (usually) make sense in our limited vision. 

We can indeed look forward to the future with anticipation of great things to come and great works to be done. 

But we live here.  We live now. 

Even as we eagerly wait for God’s plans to unfold, let us never forget that we are already in the midst of them.