The Room of False Associations

    Hello, friend. Step into my mind.

    AAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

         Just kidding, it’s fine. We’re all fine. But let’s be honest, here in this complexly (and female) analytical mind of mine, it can all feel a little overwhelming. Let me be your tour guide.

            Over here to your right is where I store everything I know about geography, history, politics, where I put my belongings, and how to catch flying objects. Oh look, a tumbleweed. Over to your left is my hippocampus, which seems to be eternally under construction and watch your head!... Phew, you almost got hit by a flying rogue Chemistry equation. But all is well; up ahead you can see the door that leads to where I hold all my emotions, but it’s kind of a neglected mess right now so we’ll save that for another day, shall we? Right across the hall you’ll find a room filled with a giant netted web… I like to call this the room of False Associations. Let’s camp out here for a while.

            Lately I’ve been realizing that some of the schemas I’ve created for moral concepts are a little sloppy. And I think these false understandings were much of the cause of frustration and exhaustion in which I found myself entangled last semester. To explain, here’s a little piece of my web:

            Selfless Acts à Difficult and draining

            Selfish Acts à Easy and help me to control my life

            Easy Things à Save up energy to do more difficult things later

            The Most Difficult Thing à The Right Thing

            So basically, all semester I’ve been thinking that if I do a whole bunch of easy, selfish acts I can control my life and save up my energy to do all the good, difficult, sacrificial things later. Right? Take care of me and then I can take care of everyone else.

            No! This is bad advice!

            First off, taking care of myself is not truly taking care of myself if it neglects Jesus, who is my identity. But more on that in a moment. Otherwise, selfless acts often turn out to be simple, far-reaching, and enjoyable whereas selfish acts turn out to be draining dead ends. Plus, doing easy things that I thought I could handle did not give me any more energy to be selfless and heroic later, they just cluttered my life with easy, controllable acts. I have also discovered that sometimes the right thing to do is the thing I most want to do. It might not always be easy, but at least it’s desirable!

            But ultimately, the unsatisfactions (that’s not a real word but whatever) and falsities I find in life always have the same heart-issue root. Sometimes irritatingly so. My overall joy in life is not resultant of my life situations—when my life has looked objectively sad, I was not sad; when my life has looked objectively fine, I was not fine.

            So what exactly is the affecting variable?

            Over break I realized something equal parts obvious and mind-blowing: joy is a fruit of the Spirit. See, all my life I’ve been thinking that fruit is this product I have to muster up with all my effort as some sort of certificate of achievement, proving that I have the Spirit living in me. The words of Christian speakers haunted me: "Do you see fruit in your life?" But all this mustering business has felt a little like spiritual constipation.

            But apple trees don’t have to freaking squeeze out apples!

            They just poof! have apples and it’s very, very natural. In fact, if apple trees started running around panicking or twisting themselves into knots in order to produce apples it would seem rather unnatural. And so joy is just something we get to grow—naturally—when we are walking in the Spirit.

            How wonderfully refreshing is that? When we spend time reading Jesus’ words and reflecting on Him in our daily lives, the result is effortless joy! And I’m not just telling you this because it’s a theological truth; it has been the story of my life for the last three weeks. God has just plopped joy like dollops of whipped cream into my life and I haven’t even done anything!

            So the only thing directly affecting my feelings about life is how closely I’m walking with the Spirit. When I’m being honest with myself and inviting Jesus in on it, I get joy. I get energy to be selfless and I find my desires focused on noble things. When I spend my time punching holes in the Christian faith, doubting God’s existence and character and capacity to make my life less oblivious, I am drained of joy. I walk around bouncing between narcissism and self-loathing and everything everything everything ever is turned in toward myself. I did kind of have to take care of myself before I took care of others, but that involved giving up some of my time to hang out with Jesus.

            So Jesus, it turns out, is yet again the answer. Funny how that always seems to happen.

            Thus, I have constructed a new web:

            Time spent reading Scripture à expanded energy and time

            Knowing how loved I am à the capacity to love out of pure overflow!

            Prayer à God’s desires become mine

            Walking in the Spirit à Joy and spiritual regularity

           Let's stop trying to squeeze out fruit.