Grin and bear it?
I bought a house a few months back!
When we were looking for the right house to live in we went to visit some nicely decorated small flats and some less nice big houses. It was almost like we had a little checklist of everything we wanted in a house. Once we decided that a certain house was too small, too derelict or just plain odd we would leave that house and move on to another.
I think we approach life like that - bringing our expectations to our partner, our job, our family, our church... Sometimes we decide that they just don't make the grade and leave - but mostly that's rare.
What's more common is that we just get on with it. Grin and bear it. Think to yourself - 'it could be worse', or imagine sort of martyrdom - 'let's do it for the kids'.
In all this, the person who genuinely believes that things can be better is mocked and the one who believes nothing can get worse because it's so bad already is shunned for fear of breaking the pretense. The optimist is ridiculed and the pessimist is reviled.
Christianity demands of us not to live at one end of this spectrum nor the other and it certainly commands us never to live in the 'grin and bear it' place. Christianity demands that we live simultaneously as a fanatical optimist and a fanatical pessimist. Both infinitely reviled and ridiculed.
Christianity involves recognising everyone has sinned - there is no one perfect. It involves recognising everyone was made in the image of God - everyone is infinitely valuable. This is so counter-intuitive. Everything in this world is given value because of how close it is to perfection. A perfectly clear diamond with colour 'A' is of massive value, and the value decreases as you go down the scale of perfection.
The Christian value system says that things have value - not because of their perfection - but because of the worth that God places in them. The old teddy-bear is worth more to the child than the big shiny new one.
Our role in our world is to live as it's citizens - seeing the image of God in the world that we would gladly die for it. Being the fanatical optimist that believes everything can be great because of Jesus. We have to be optimists when it comes to our marriage, optimists in our church, optimists about our family (because of the value God places in them) and we have to live our lives to bring about this good.
But being a citizen of our world means hating the imperfections we see. We have God's eyes to see the world - and this makes us the ultimate pessimists because we will always see that everything is not as it should be.
Being a Christian, having the spirit of Jesus, knowing the mind of God. The one place this will never ever leave us is 'Grin and bear it'. More like: 'weep and love it'.
God has put you in your own little world for a reason. Weep and love it. God does.
When we were looking for the right house to live in we went to visit some nicely decorated small flats and some less nice big houses. It was almost like we had a little checklist of everything we wanted in a house. Once we decided that a certain house was too small, too derelict or just plain odd we would leave that house and move on to another.
I think we approach life like that - bringing our expectations to our partner, our job, our family, our church... Sometimes we decide that they just don't make the grade and leave - but mostly that's rare.
What's more common is that we just get on with it. Grin and bear it. Think to yourself - 'it could be worse', or imagine sort of martyrdom - 'let's do it for the kids'.
In all this, the person who genuinely believes that things can be better is mocked and the one who believes nothing can get worse because it's so bad already is shunned for fear of breaking the pretense. The optimist is ridiculed and the pessimist is reviled.
Christianity demands of us not to live at one end of this spectrum nor the other and it certainly commands us never to live in the 'grin and bear it' place. Christianity demands that we live simultaneously as a fanatical optimist and a fanatical pessimist. Both infinitely reviled and ridiculed.
Christianity involves recognising everyone has sinned - there is no one perfect. It involves recognising everyone was made in the image of God - everyone is infinitely valuable. This is so counter-intuitive. Everything in this world is given value because of how close it is to perfection. A perfectly clear diamond with colour 'A' is of massive value, and the value decreases as you go down the scale of perfection.
The Christian value system says that things have value - not because of their perfection - but because of the worth that God places in them. The old teddy-bear is worth more to the child than the big shiny new one.
Our role in our world is to live as it's citizens - seeing the image of God in the world that we would gladly die for it. Being the fanatical optimist that believes everything can be great because of Jesus. We have to be optimists when it comes to our marriage, optimists in our church, optimists about our family (because of the value God places in them) and we have to live our lives to bring about this good.
But being a citizen of our world means hating the imperfections we see. We have God's eyes to see the world - and this makes us the ultimate pessimists because we will always see that everything is not as it should be.
Being a Christian, having the spirit of Jesus, knowing the mind of God. The one place this will never ever leave us is 'Grin and bear it'. More like: 'weep and love it'.
God has put you in your own little world for a reason. Weep and love it. God does.
posted by Dan | 2:29 PM
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