Thursday, January 30, 2014

When Doing Good Doesn't Feel Good

Yes. This is a really good question to think about. :: Art by Amanda Catherine Designs

I don't know about you (no, I'm not going to quote Taylor Swift), but these awesome graphics with inspiring quotes from great people really motivate me.  I am not being sarcastic. I will scroll through Pinterest, see one of these quotes, and legitimately be inspired to "do something good today" or "be the change I want to see in the world" or "love like there's no tomorrow." Sometimes, that will be enough to encourage me to write encouraging notes or make more of an effort to call my Grandpa or give someone a gift. Sometimes, my "good deed" for the day is telling one of my friends how much they mean to me, and the way that I "love like there's no tomorrow" is by texting the girl who lives by herself and doesn't seem to have many friends to ask her to dinner. After I do these deeds, I feel that I have done my good deed, and I have loved, and I get this warm, fuzzy, fulfilled feeling that I did something today to show someone else Jesus. 

Sometimes, though, this warm, fuzzy, fulfilled feeling does not fulfill because those "nice" things are not the only thing that I am called to do. I am not in any way downplaying good deeds. They are needed.

But Jesus calls us to do some things that don't necessarily provide that warm, fuzzy, fulfilled feeling. 

He showed us how to be humble and selfless (Philippians 2). Those words sound so pretty until you're faced with a situation with your relentlessly argumentative brother or your nagging wife or your needy friend or your ungrateful daughter.  Being humble and selfless doesn't feel warm and fuzzy. It is draining and exhausting; it brings you to your knees and forces you to rely on your muscle-giving Savior for strength.

I know that, in my life, I will be "selfless" in ways that don't require too much of me. I will do "good" for other people when it's something that I enjoy, or when I know that I will receive a "thank you so much, you're so sweet!"  

But when it's hard, when I don't want to, when I'm not recognized, when I've just had a hard day, and just need to focus on myself....

....WHEN I HAVE THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO SERVE SELFLESSLY...

...I don't. 
I think about MYself and MY problems and MY relationships, and I just don't have time for you if I'm not going to get something in return. 

WRONG.

That is when I can honor and glorify my God. When I've hit rock bottom, when I don't know where I'm going, when I see no way out, when I feel downright exhausted and run-down and hurt, and I do what I don't want to do for God's glory and someone else's benefit. 

When my "good deed" doesn't feel good at all, when I don't receive anything in return...
When I remember the cross and the agony and tears and rejection and hurt that Jesus experienced because of the love that He had for us...
When I remember that the pride, the gossip, the self-righteousness, the sin that began in my heart and trickled into my veins and controlled my every breath, every step, every word, is now being replaced by injected grace...

...it is then that I remember that the grace and love that Jesus gives isn't cheap, which means that the grace and love I give to others isn't cheap. It's hard, it can be monotonous, it can feel "bad." 

But it definitely brings joy.
And forces us to remember the price - the rejection of the Father and the pain of suffering an undeserved death - that Jesus paid for us.
This price was infinitely more than the choice to not respond in anger, or to stay up late doing the dishes that aren't yours when you have an 8 AM, or not buying 3 cups a coffee a month so that you can give that money to someone else, or even giving up our lives as missionaries, living simply, suffering persecution for our faith, admitting a wrong when the other person's wrong was bigger.

ISAIAH 53:2-10

He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,    
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Surely he took up our pain
  and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
 stricken by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.


We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted,

    yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.



By oppression[a] and judgment he was taken away.
    Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
    for the transgression of my people he was punished.[b]



He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
    and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
    nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer
  and though the Lord makes[c] his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
  and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.

He paid the ultimate price.
The prices we pay to love and to serve and to do good are small.




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