A User’s Guide to Rejoicing With Those Who Rejoice

1: Stop thinking about yourself for a hot second.

2: Think about life from the perspective of some other person.

3: Rejoice with them.

This might seem overly simplistic. It’s not. Rejoicing with others is very simple, even though it might not be very easy. An exciting job. The perfect grad program. A wonderful relationship. When the people around you are getting things that you want but don’t have, it may seem difficult to truly rejoice with them, but I want to encourage you that deep down, its not really that complicated. Mostly, you and I just need empathy.

For me, one of the biggest barriers to rejoicing with others is my own selfishness. Luckily, there is good news*. For one thing, you don’t have to cease thinking about yourself FOREVER and suddenly become some superhuman in order to rejoice with others. If you can manage it for even a little bit, you are well on your way! My problem is that I usually make it to step three and am in the middle of rejoicing when all of a sudden thoughts of myself come crashing back in, and I remember all the reasons why whatever I am rejoicing over in someone else's life makes my life seem sad or negatively affects me. At this point, you can choose to remain focused on yourself, or you can choose to focus on the other person. I’m not suggesting that you choose emotions (if you can control how you feel, please teach me how!) but it is much more doable to choose where you continue to focus. More good news… your emotions come naturally depending on where you are focusing.

Real life example: my best friend recently got engaged! I am so happy for her! Really, it’s super exciting. Now, does her exciting relationship make me feel more single? I don’t understand how it is possible for one to be more single… but yes. ;) Realistically, does her upcoming marriage mean that I won’t be able to spend as much time with her, and that our relationship will change as she makes a promise to be someone else’s best friend? Yeah, and that’s sad, because I love her a lot and it will be hard to share her. So if I only ever look at circumstances from my perspective—how things make me feel, how they affect my life—it might be hard to rejoice sometimes. But I love my friend! And if I choose to look at things from her perspective, I know that this is super awesome, amazing, exciting, and worth rejoicing over!

The trick is to choose whether you WANT to rejoice with someone else in the moment or not. You don't have to be a captive to your emotions. I am not saying that you can’t feel your own emotions… you totally can! The great thing about rejoicing with others even if it’s hard is that you don’t have to do it continuously. In the moment, when you are with that other person, you can rejoice with them in love. There will be another time and place for you to reflect and feel and process, and it will be valuable to work out your own feelings then. But at the moment when you are at step three and your own feelings start to creep in, you can decide that now is not that time, and continue to…

Step 4: repeat steps 1-3**.

P.S. In case you should need proposal ideas...

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* Yes, I completely intended to make that double entendre. There is some good news in the fact that it is not impossible to overcome the barrier of your own selfishness and love those around you. There is better news that in a greater sense, it is impossible for you by yourself to overcome your selfishness... But God sent his son to live the sinless life that you couldn’t and die so that your sins are forgiven, which frees us love like him. And that, my friends, is the gospel, which literally means “good news.”

** To be completely honest, once I have veered off of step three, I usually need to take a stop back at the cross and remind myself that Christ died for my sins (including the selfishness that just got me off track) so that I might be righteous instead of condemned for my failures. And he does that because he loves me, which motivates me to love others, which takes me back to step one condemnation-free and with extra motivation. It’s a more complete cycle :) 

Why Fear Is (Mostly) Not Adaptive But Comes So Naturally

Things that scare my cats:

Things that slightly scare me:

-Since I have gotten home, I have had an inexplicable desire to listen to country music in my car. I can’t explain it, and I can’t resist it.

-The other day my Mom left me a note in which she said she was going to “have chats” with someone. She is picking up my weird language quirks. What will be next?

-I have transitioned from calling the girl I lived with for the past four years “my roommate” to “my college roommate.” It is slightly devastating that I will (presumably) never live with her again.

-I don’t have a job, or know when I’m going to have a job. I’m in this weird in-between phase in my life and I don’t know when it’s going to end.

-I miss my church family at Gettysburg, and I have no idea how long it will be before I feel like I am ‘in community’ again. I know it’s time to find a new church but the thought of actually going out and finding one? Ahhh.  

I can’t actually say that fear isn’t adaptive, because every evolutionary psychologist in the world will freak out. Also, my cats’ tendency to run away from dogs (and some of my cousins) could potentially increase their lifespans. We fear things that we think might hurt us—whether that fear is realistic or not—and our fear makes us recoil from those things. However, after studying child anxiety for a year, living life, and reading the bible, its clear that fear is more harmful than helpful. Being cautious and not stepping out in front of a bus will keep you alive; being fearful of buses is just going to make it difficult to use public transportation.

Why is fear unhelpful? Because so often, fear is a false message that the worst is going to happen, combined with a desire to keep that from happening even though it is out of your control. Being afraid that I am going to be jobless forever and have no future does not help me enjoy the gifts and talents I have—it doesn’t make biology or psychology any more fun—nor does it help me to find a job. Oh, it might motivate me slightly more to look for a job, but it’s more of a pressure than a motivation, and it leaves me tired and discouraged at the end of each day. Fear makes me wants to control things that I can’t. Ultimately, God is the one who is sovereign, not me. He will provide; he always has in my past, and he says in his word that he knows what is good for us and will give us good things. This doesn’t mean I get to be lazy and take no responsibility for my life, but it means that God will bring what I need—whether that is a job, a grad program, or a bible-believing, vibrant church—into my life at the right time, either through me or despite me.

You and I will fear things… fear is a natural cue when we are in danger of missing something that is important to us, or when we are in danger of having something we have been trying to avoid. These fears can be totally rational, or maybe not. Sometimes we are afraid of fire. Sometimes we are afraid of the smoke detector. In either case, if we hold on to fear, we live a life of debilitating anxiety, constant vigilance, and overwhelming pressure. And that doesn’t sound much like living to me.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”   -Matthew 6: 25 & 27

First World Cat Problems

Have any dire, first world problems of your own?

I can’t use the internet on my laptop when I am at home,

My cats have claimed my chair and it is covered in their fur,

The AC in my room doesn’t work, so it’s hotter than the rest of my house,

And I get really grumpy after a few hours of job searching.

There is always something small—or not so small—around to make your day less than ideal. Maybe it’s your relationship with the people you live with. Maybe you miss friends or community that aren’t nearby anymore. Maybe your job (or lack of one) is frustrating you.

I found an unexpected and yet unsurprising remedy for some of my first world problems at the Convoy of Hope event that happened in Frederick this weekend. Convoy of Hope is a national organization that partners with local nonprofits and volunteers to do community outreach events for people who are food-insecure (who don’t know where their next meal is coming from). I volunteered with my Mom and some women from our church who have volunteered for the past few years at the yearly event in our city. It’s a day for guests and their families to come and get free groceries, shoes, haircuts, family portraits, medical attention and much more.

I was really impacted by the rally the night before for the several hundred people volunteering for the event. As they were getting everybody pumped and giving them a more realistic picture of the people we were serving, my mind was racing and “critically analyzing” the way my college taught me. Of the 17,100 people in Frederick county who are food-insecure, 54% do not qualify for any kind of assistance… Immediately, I’m back to the “Homelessness in America” seminar I took at school. Implications for system reform? What do we need to fix to address holes in the safety net? Should we be addressing the safety net, or focus on the economic and education systems that are such big contributors to the high poverty rate in our country? Shouldn’t I be focusing my efforts on more long term effectors than a one-day event?

As my mind was busy being critical, my attention was drawn back in by the leaders, who were talking about the ways in which a day sparks a movement, how hope changes lives, and how Jesus is the ultimate hope that people need regardless of income. …Poverty is the absence of hope, the absence of desire for change or the expectation that change will happen. And I realized how silly I was being! Not only had I been getting caught on all of my first world problems, forgetting about the people in my community who literally have eaten cat food when they had no food to eat, but when I was reminded about them, I was too busy critically examining whether this was the best use of my “helping others” time. Meanwhile, hundreds of people from different churches all around my community had gathered together because they have a heart for the people Jesus told us to serve and care for, and I was missing the opportunity to praise him for it! Thankfully, I managed to ditch my elitist, educated at a liberal arts private college brain in time to pray and sing with the people there preparing their hearts to serve the next day and praying for God to move in the people in our city.

It was a good weekend… although between Convoy of Hope and preaching at church on Sunday it felt kind of like walking down humility lane and thankfulness road at the same time. In case you weren’t aware, this tends to make your ego—and your knee—sore :) 

What about you? Are there areas in your life where you are being taught humility? Thankfulness? 

P.S. If there are not enough kittens in this post for you, I recently found ANOTHER CAT BLOG! This one is in Japanese, which I think makes it that much better.