This isn’t going to be a typical post. I’ve been thinking about something I thought I would put down on “paper” so I can kind of think it out.
I woke up yesterday morning earlier than I should have. I was experiencing something I don’t normally face–anxiety. As I lie there in bed, I was anxious about everything. From work and different challenges there, to my children as they are now both living away from home as young adults, to my and my wife’s families of origin and different hurdles they are facing, to my own bank account (which doesn’t make sense because it’s probably in the best position it’s ever been in).
I tried to let go. I tried to rationally talk my way out of the issues. But I was locked up. I was anxious. I couldn’t go back to sleep. I got up and did my prayer journal. It was about Ruth and how God provided for her and Naomi through Boaz. I tried to consider that Ruth had faced more trials than I am facing now. Anyone living in the Houston area today (and I know people who live there) would probably trade places with me in a second. Nothing was helping.
As I finished getting dressed for work, the idea occurred to me that some things can only come out through prayer and fasting. So just after I decided I should probably fast for the day my wife came in and told me that she had decided to go to a 7:30 Friday morning worship service at our church. I’ve never gone with her to one of these before, but I decided that sounded like a great idea. I had prayed. I was listening to Christian music. But some corporate worship sounded like a great idea.
Our small town in Texas was founded in 1849. Our church has two sanctuaries. The “Old Church” was built in 1861. The “New Church” was built in 1908. Friday morning services are apparently done in the Old Church. My wife had to tell me that when I tried to go into the New Church. Here’s a picture of the church when it was new in 1863.
I was kneeling in church and praying through my anxiety (much of it foolish anxiety) when I looked up to the ceiling. I looked around the room. I thought of the early settlers. I thought about their daily lives and how hard they must have been. Their vulnerability to drought, hostile Native Americans, disease, etc. They had no means of accumulating a lot of money. They were a community of Germans, here less than 15 years, struggling to start a new life, and in the midst of their struggle they had not only come together to build a church, but they had built a big, beautiful church. The rock and other materials were not easy to find and gather. I imagine that it wasn’t easy to build given the technology of the day and the fact that their numbers were in the hundreds and not thousands. How did they face their challenges? Would any of them have been in bed early in the morning, lie there and just worried about things, or would they have gotten up, put their face to the wind, and gone to work? Is there one of them that wouldn’t look at my situation (the job I have, the house where I live, the car I drive, the money I have in the bank, etc.) and laugh at the idea that I am anxious about anything?
I left that service completely refreshed and renewed. The Holy Spirit had spoken to me and inspired me, not by the sermon or the contents of the service, but by introducing me in a new way to a remarkable group of people who lived by faith, hard work, and perseverance 150 years ago. Not one of them ever imagined that they would inspire someone sitting in that room in the year 2017.
Later that evening, my wife told me about a podcast she had heard where a sociologist described the generalized characteristics of the different generations (e.g. Baby Boomers have these traits, Generation X these traits, Generation Y, Millennials, etc.). They apparently don’t have a good label for the current teens, but they have some interesting observations (and these are all broad generalizations so there are many exceptions to these descriptions). Here is a list of what she told me:
- For reasons I still don’t understand, a larger percentage of them do not have a driver’s license by spring of their senior year in high school (70% now vs. 90% in previous generations).
- Politically, they tend to be more Libertarian in their desire to get the government out of their lives. “Don’t tell me who I can marry, what I can smoke, etc.”
- They are hardworking, with the feeling that the world isn’t going to take care of them so they are going to have to go out and take care of themselves.
- They avoid joining groups. Religiously, this means that they are skeptical of organized religion. But they love small community with just a few friends.
- They are more prone to interacting with their community through technology rather than face-to-face. They will sit isolated in a room and visit with people through devices rather than in person.
- They experience a lot of anxiety.
I thought that last one was interesting. Psychologically, I think there is something about our current society and how we are now entering the world through social media and what the electronic news shows us that is leading us to more anxiety. Here are some thoughts I have as to why, but they are only my opinion:
- When we look at social media, we only see the best of our friends’ lives, but when we compare ourselves to them, we use our reality, not theirs. And this isn’t a criticism of only putting the good parts of your life on social media. It’s not appropriate to air your dirty laundry out there like that. I’m just saying that as readers we need to remember that there is more to each life than we read about on a computer/phone screen.
- When we look at news (regardless of your source), we are seeing articles that were written as “click bait” and not what someone thinks we need to know. This makes the stories more opinionated (usually negative opinions) than fact-relating.
- When we argue or disagree with people, our disagreements are more vitriolic because it is easier to be confrontational typing our anger than it was in the old days when our only option was face-to-face.
- More money means more problems. Money brings all kinds of unexpected problems that are too numerous to list here, but there is a belief among those who struggle month to month that having more money would solve all of their problems. It would solve some of them, to be sure, but it wouldn’t solve all of them. In fact, it creates problems that would surprise you.
- When we are physically isolated from people and have too much time left alone with our own thoughts, we rarely lead ourselves in a healthy direction. We were not built to be alone.
If you were to go to any one of the Germans in the picture above and tell them you are anxious about your life, they would be surprised. They surely would have been surprised at me yesterday morning. And I don’t have some great prescription for our society to follow so that we can leave anxiety behind. But I can tell you that I found a path out yesterday by praying to my God, taking the day to fast and pray (confession: I broke the fast after 6 p.m.), and then tapping into the inspiration that a bunch of German immigrants left for me 150 years ago.
Emails to God 