Daniel left an almost full pot of a delicious locally roasted brew this morning. Oh, how I wanted a cup. In my mind I screamed, "How unfair!" But how can you tell one part of yourself that the other part is unfair? Doesn't really work. A house divided falls. Had to pull my wimpy self up by the bootstraps and tell myself to suck it up.
Then, there is free coffee at the Y. So when I went to the gym, a free cup of coffee wafted in front of me to tempt me. Agh! In my coat pocket there is a not yet used starbucks gift card! Oh, how I would love to rush to the nearest starbucks and grab a latte. Should have used it up the week between Christmas and New Years, but time moves too quickly for me to think that far ahead. It's okay, I can stay strong, I'm a thirtieth of the way there. I can do it!
Or I can't. As a lot of modern day preachers would say, we can't, only God can. We can't break addictions, we can't overcome sin, we can't live rightly. And that's true to a point, without Jesus, without repentance and grace, we can't, but... we have grace and when we turn towards God, doesn't that mean we now can?
One of my critiques of modern christianity sometimes is that it can be so defeatist. There are messages that you can't do anything, only God can do it. Humans are inherently evil and sinful and nothing good can come out of man, yaddayaddayadda. I often struggle with those the messages, and I think I get what they are saying because(besides horribly misconstruing them here to make a point), i really think are more warnings against pride than any messages that humans are failures. Yet, at the same time, I don't a hundred percent agree the idea that humans are failures and we should grovel as lowly, terrible beings. Yes, there is an awful side of us that needs to be checked, but there are other sides of us where can do great and wonderful things. Humans have amazing abilities, god given and endowed ( think tower of babel, even God admittedly there could be little we could not do...if we were united and spoke the same language...). When I hear those messages of failure failure failure, I sometimes roll my eyes and think to myself: don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes we need to recognize the sinful parts of our natures and repent of them, but I think we also need to recognize that we were created and labeled GOOD and that the Good found in our nature has much more power and ability than our sinful natures. If we only tapped into more often... or were encouraged to.
My phrasing, my nuanced approach to this dilemma of dwelling too much on the negative:
We can do things, but they will only be good and helpful, holy and delightful things, if we make space for the mystical, supernatural, grace-filled movings of God and the holy spirit. Fight sin. Fight temptations. But don't fight by yourself and on your terms. Leave room for God to work some of his magic, but for heaven's sake, keep praying! Keep up spiritual disciplines. Keep striving and struggling for God's blessing. Keep working out salvation with fear and trembling to keep your election assured. Keep trying to find the holiness in your life and God will do, too. Somewhere in there, I think is my interpretation of the parable of the talents. Do something, make room for God to do some things, too, and let the talents multiply. Understand that you have a sinful nature and you will mess up and need to cry, "Woe is me." But also know you were created for GOOD and get onto living that life, in partnership with God.
That's my "feminist" approach to it. Sometimes i don't connect with "anti-pride"/defeatist/grind the human heart into dirt" messages because I think they are geared to what is in men's hearts more than what is in women's hearts. I'm not saying that women do not struggle with pride, but studies show that women respond better to positive messages than to negative ones while it doesn't matter as much to men. Okay, the study i am basing it off of was the basketball team study and coach "blame" placing; where women think if the coach says someone isn't pulling their weight, the women think the coach is talking about them, while men think they are talking about someone else. Somehow I interpret that as women hear things differently and if the message is always: you're messing up, you're failing; you're an awful person, the results are not going to be as fruitful as a message that acknowledges the bad, but exhorts to be better and to do good. The Gospel is that yeah, bad stuff happens, you do bad stuff, but God still works and wants you to partner with him for his glory and your salvation. You can do things, with God's help. It's not all God, it's not all you, it's the relationship between God and man, that gets stuff done, in my opinion. And I think that is a much better, life giving message to hear. God and I were working out this no coffee thing. It's not all me, it's probably a lot of God, but we're working on it together. And I like that.
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