The fact that you can recognize wisdom in others, means that those same insights already exist within you. If they didn’t, you would have no reference to recognize it in others. All the realizations that we find by exploring the world can also be found by exploring within.
It’s not uncommon to wish that the people in our lives would treat us better than they do, even that they would treat us as well as we know we ought to treat them. We wish our friends would be the ones to reach out instead of us, that our spouse would say “sorry” first, and that our enemies would forgive us before we forgive them. But we know that we’re supposed to do the right things on our own, regardless of what the people around us do. This can seem unfair, as it might see us always being the bigger person first, always doing for others the things that we wish were done for us.
But really this is only a limited view. If we widen our perspective, we realize that before we ever showed unreciprocated good to someone else, Jesus did so first to us. Jesus was the bigger person who fought for our hearts when we didn’t deserve it. Jesus was the one that took the high road when we were selfish and sinful. Jesus was the one who loved us before we loved him. Thus, any lopsided good that we now put out into the world is only paying it forward.
Some might say that maturity is being willing to do what’s right even when there isn’t any reward, but deeper wisdom is recognizing the reward was already given long before.
Once you’ve decided that you don’t like someone, then however they are is the wrong way for someone to be. And if they were the opposite, that would be the wrong way to be, too. It must be the wrong way, because you don’t like them, so how they are must deserve that disliking.
But, of course, then it isn’t really something about them at all. You don’t like them because of something in you, not them.
And the opposite is also true. People can give their love to another person, and then still love that person, even when given absolutely no reason to do so. They love because of something inside of them, not in the other person.
So, whether you look at God’s children and see much to despise, or much to love, is a reflection of what is going on inside of you.
John F. Kennedy famously said, “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” With those words, he accurately identified one of the great problems we have in our modern Western culture: we invert who ought to be in service of whom. We get into painful situations because we constantly put ourselves above things when we are rightly beneath them.
Is my marriage serving my needs? Does this community match my preferences? Is my church supporting my beliefs? Does my conception of God align with my interests?
All of these are backward. Marriages languish because couples don’t submit themselves to the betterment of it. Society’s fracture because households don’t contribute to the whole. Churches go astray because parishioners rewrite its doctrine. God is lost because His children try to make Him in their own image.
Yes, the individual is important but never forget that some things are bigger than you, and you should be serving them, not the other way around.
Sometimes, it isn’t the greatness of the task that you do
It’s the greatness of the opposition you overcame to do it
Some might look at the foundation of the building and say:
“Look, it’s forced to sit there beneath everything else, subservient and in the dirt! That’s a fact that it is under everything else, you can’t deny it! That’s wrong, and we have to change it. We have to pull the foundation above the level of the ground, even put it at the top of the building!”
Of course, doing that would make the entire thing topple.
Some look at the foundation of the building and say:
“No, it is supporting the entire building! It’s really the most important part of it all! Better than all the rest. We should all aspire to be steady foundations like that.”
Both views have a claim to some fact, and by that each assumes that they are in the right and are incredulous at anyone with a different perspective. “I see a fact,” they say, “and that means that I am right.” But narrow-minded facts lacking context can lead us astray, just as surely as total ignorance.
There is also a third group of people, who are able to back up and take in a fuller perspective. They might say:
“Foundation, top floor, elevator shafts, facade…they are all building. They all serve an essential and beautiful purpose. The foundation is good, the first floor is good, and the top floor is good. They are different, but that is by design. No part is better, no part is worse, they’re just different. A foundation without a top is useless. A top without a foundation is ruinous. So, appreciate them for what they are and embrace them all.”
All too often we limit our perspective when trying to remedy’s society’s ills. We see what appears to be immediately wrong around us and we try to implement what we see as the immediate solution to that problem. But this is like staring down at our feet while hiking on a trail. We may find the path of least resistance, but it may very well lead us off the edge of a cliff!
To navigate uncertain terrain, you must raise your view and fix it upon your ultimate destination. Only by focusing on our highest ideals, even the standard of heaven, can we make the right societal changes, both in the short and long term.
God is the standard to strive for, but He is also the activating agent that makes the striving possible. God lives outside of us, but also part of Him lives inside of us. Thus, it is God that reaches for God and God that raises God, and we simply are pulled along by the part of Him that is inside us.
If you live every day with a level of physical comfort, security, wealth, and peace that almost no one in history has ever enjoyed, yet every day is filled with anger, anxiety, and despair, then perhaps it is time to consider that your hell comes from within.
Because I believe that God can do anything, I believe that He can make any desired miracle come true for me! But even more impressive, because He can do anything, He can also make things work out without the miracle. Indeed, it requires less faith to believe that God can change the world to match my heart, than to believe that God can change my heart to survive in spite of the world.
Believe in the bigger God. Believe in the God who can make you whole, with or without the thing you most desire.
Spiritual Wanderings 