Getting Frustrated, Gaining Some Perspective, and Starting Over in Life

Since I work in the Public Defender’s Office and in a church, I am regularly involved with people who are looking for help in the midst of their troubles in life. Whether the person is “in trouble” with the law or having trouble with finances, alcohol or their family, there is a certain amount of frustration or even despair that clouds their efforts to live freely and joyfully.

A person begins to feel like they don’t have any leverage over against the pressures that keep him or her down. Even though it is that person’s own decisions that keep stoking the fires of destruction, there is an experience of helplessless that becomes part of life. How does this happen?

On one hand, if you isolate any particular issue with which a person struggles, there doesn’t seem much reason for that person to continue their negative pattern of behavior or relationships. For example, a criminal defendant returns to court to show whether he has gotten into an outpatient treatment program and whether they have made any payments on court costs and fines owed in the case. And, though the judge has allowed them 10 weeks to get something done on these two issues, my client has nothing to show: not a cent paid, and no proof that he has gotten into a program or even tried to. Now, as my client tries to explain why he has done nothing, his excuses don’t seem too good. But, if there was time enough to really review what is going on in his life, and what his pattern of living really is, we might begin to understand that he has lost control of his life.

What I mean is that it may be a struggle for this person to even get up and out of the apartment (if he even has one to live in). It may be that this man is living with friends or family or in a motel or all of the above. It may be that he is using drugs on occasion, getting drunk when he gets the chance. He may also have an untreated sickness. He may not be able to find a job (may not even know how to look for one at this point), and he may not be able to pay the child support he owes. And, he may know that it is only a matter of time until they serve a warrant on him for unpaid costs and fines in Knox County or for being behind on child support. He may also have not had a driver’s license for two or three years because of unpaid tickets. What has happened is that one mistake leads to another, until a pattern of neglect has formed a virtual prison around this man’s life. Frustration becomes the continual experience, and the only joy in life is to find some escape from the realities of life. Not being able to afford a real vacation, this man takes regular ‘chemical vacations’ that leave him progressively worse off as his physical and mental health suffer from alcohol and drug abuse.

As I see people caught in this web of their lives, I recognize in myself a similar pattern of avoidance and neglect and desire for joy in life. Now, with me, I have learned ways to cope with frustration and ways to seek understanding over against my frustration; and, because I have had good people in my life to remind me what life is all about and to remind me of God’s grace, I tend to move from frustration to a point where I gain some perspective on my struggle in life, and then experience the gracious feeling that I really can “start over” each day before I allow things to fall apart (allowing mistakes to cumulate). Sometimes we can take our lives too seriously. Sometimes we can consider our lives as if they are too determined.

In many ways we would do well to see and accept the impermancy of our lives. Our lives are like sand castles we build on the beach. We have to learn to enjoy building these sand castles, even though the waves will come and wash them away. We have to learn the joy of building, even as we know the waves will come and wash what we have done away. But, why keep working at things if they aren’t permanent? Why work so hard to build up what cannot last? I can only answer that our lives are not the sand castles, but are found in the work of building, in the joy we have together in that work, and in the determination we have to get up the next day and continue the work for nothing more than the satisfaction we get in working and working together. And, there is one other thing. There is something very wonderful about the washing away of our efforts: not only do our achievements not last; our failures don’t either. That’s why as I wake up tomorrow morning, I will feel a movement in my heart “this is the day that the Lord has made . . . let us be glad and rejoice in it.” In the end, my life is not in my achievements or in my failures, but in the receiving of new life from the hand of the living God. Learning to receive life from the Creator is the source of all joy and happiness and renewal and understanding. We spend so much of our lives looking for life, love, meaning, renewal in all the wrong places. Like the country song goes: “I was looking for love in all the wrong places,” so our lives go as we fill ourselves with things that not only don’t satisfy the longing of our hearts but actually deaden our hearts.

It may be “more blessed to give than to receive,” but it is more important to learn to receive the gift of life from the Creator. Because until we learn how to open ourselves to this source of life and renewal and hope, we really have nothing to give. At the basic core of our lives, we are just like the plants in my garden outside who are nourished by the soil of the earth, who are awakened by the rising of the sun and who are refreshed and given new vitality by the rains from above. Problem is: somehow we humans have found ways to cut ourselves off from the Creator’s gifts; we have found ways to become “unnatural,” to withdraw from the natural relationship of creature to Creator. That natural relationship is one of receiving life from the Creator’s hand, receiving the nourishment of life from the Creator’s hand, and sharing and celebrating that life with each other.

The words of Psalm 100 are striking: “It is God that made us and not we ourselves.” Why would the ancient Israelites have felt the need to remind themselves of that? Wasn’t that obvious: that they had not created themselves ? Apparently not then; and apparently not now. I will close with this Psalm and one other and few comments about these holy words.

“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with singing. Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him; O, bless his name! For the Lord is good. His steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.”

And, then the 23rd Psalm expresses the basic experience of receiving life from the Creator’s hand, receiving life from the Creator’s heart.

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the quiet waters. He stills my soul. He makes me to walk in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. And, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me. Your rod and your staff they comfort me. You prepare a table for me in the midst of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

I notice that this Psalm begins in the third person: “He makes me to lie down,” but then slips into the more intimate second person: “you are with me . . . you prepare a table for me.” It starts out talking about God, and slips into talking with God. That’s how real prayer is; that’s how real preaching is; that might even be how real conversation is. This Psalm starts out talking about “the source of life,” and ends up being nourished by that source. From frustration, to getting some perspective by talking about God, to receiving new life by experiencing the presence of God. This is the movement of life in this world. It is the natural movement of life for human beings. It is a shame that we have cut ourselves off from this natural movement. It is wonderful, though, that God continues to give, continues to draw us back into the flow of life from him. “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us be glad and rejoice in it.”