christianity

Being upset on behalf of others only makes matters worse

Something I have noticed over the past year or so is that a lot of my spiritual and emotional unrest occurs on behalf of others. I have porous emotional boundaries and, when someone around me is upset about something, I find myself getting upset about it as well. It’s not even that they are asking me to be upset. I just take it upon myself. 

Ever since I can remember, even if I don’t act like it, I’ve been extremely sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of those around me. I can feel what others are feeling and it affects me deeply. While this sensitivity may be useful at times, it is also a hindrance to my own peace and emotional integrity. 

I don’t know how or why I developed this sensitivity to the feelings of others. At some point in my life, I’m sure it served as a defense mechanism of some sort. If I could sense what others were feeling before they acted on it, if I could anticipate their needs, I could then either defuse a potentially volatile situation or protect myself from whatever was coming my way. 

The problem is that I can’t shut this sensitivity off. It’s like my emotional feelers are turned up to ten all of the time and it’s exhausting. If I’m around people who are happy, it makes me happier. If I’m around people who are at peace, I’m more peaceful. If I’m around people who are hurt or angry, I’m also hurt or angry.

For this reason, I often crave solitude in order to recharge. If I’m going to be around others, I prefer the intimate company of one or two people at a time. Or, if I have to be around a lot of people, I need to know that there is a way out in case I get overwhelmed or overstimulated. 

Where I run into trouble, however, is when someone close to me is angry, hurt, or disturbed by something. Whatever they feel, I feel it too. If they are mad about something or at someone, I find myself feeling the same way, even if I wasn’t mad before. If they are hurt or saddened, I become hurt or saddened as well. It’s not even helpful. In fact, it tends to make things worse. 

My being upset on someone else’s behalf, when they didn’t even ask me to be, has caused me way more grief than gain. It has gotten me into arguments and fights I had no business in and it has cost me a lot of joy and peace. This is not something I’m proud of, but I used to be. 

I used to think that I was doing other people a favor by getting upset on their behalf. I was their ally and I was fighting for them so they should be grateful. As it turns out, however, amplifying negativity doesn’t improve anyone’s life, least of all my own. 

I’m not entirely sure what the solution is, but I know that I’m not solving any problems by getting upset. In fact, I have made many situations and relationships much worse by adding to the conflict instead of being an example of peace and harmony amidst it. In some circumstances, it has cost me or nearly cost me important friendships. 

I know that Jesus expects more from me than this. Being sensitive, being empathetic, is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. In fact, it is kind of a superpower. Like all superpowers, however, it can either be used for good or for evil. Jesus loves me exactly as I am, but he also commands that I “be perfect, therefore, as [my] heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48, NIV)” which means that if this trait is causing me problems, I must be willing to “cut it off (Matt 5:30).” 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Going to the source for joy and peace

During breakfast, my daughter asked, “Daddy, why is the water auntie’s house different than the water at our house?”

“It comes from a different source,” I told her. 

Sources matter. This is especially true when it comes to prayer and who we rely on for inspiration, guidance, and salvation. There are many different sources, but they don’t all promise the same end product. 

As the saying goes, “Your mileage may vary.” 

For many years, partly in rebellion against my Christian upbringing and partly out of a genuine curiosity, I was deeply attracted to the religions of the East, particularly Buddhism. I took classes, attended workshops, read books, listened to talks, and visited monasteries. I even married a woman from a predominantly Buddhist country. 

Buddhism was attractive to me because it offered something I didn’t think Christianity did. It offered a method by which to practice. Christianity had prayer, Scripture, and church, but Buddhism had meditation and the promises of meditation were what really drew me into the religion, and it worked for a while. 

Then one day, I had a crisis, a spiritual crisis. A series of events and personal choices threw my life completely out of balance and I started to experience anxiety attacks, severe depression, and what felt like the beginning of a nervous breakdown. 

Among other things, I tried to recenter myself by returning to my Buddhist books, lectures, and meditation, but something was missing. It felt like I was hitting my head on a spiritual ceiling and I just couldn’t break through. I was almost there, but not quite and I couldn’t figure out why. 

In hindsight, I can now see that God was allowing me to struggle so that I would learn a lesson only pain was going to teach me. In my desperation, I cried out to God for help. I prayed for guidance and wisdom, and, as divine providence would have it, I stumbled upon a book called The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind – A New Perspective on Christ and His Message by Cynthia Bourgeault (2008). 

Upon reading The Wisdom Jesus, I discovered what was missing from my practice and that was God. Bourgeault’s book not only helped me bridge the gap between Buddhism and the teachings of Jesus, but it also reminded me of who I was and am, and that is a Christian. This book clarified why Buddhism no longer spoke to my heart as it once did. Buddhism had not changed. I had. 

This realization restarted my journey in Christ and reignited the fire in my heart for the Lord. Through Bourgeault’s work, I was introduced to Thomas Keating and through Keating I was introduced to centering prayer. In centering prayer, I found a method for meditating which, instead of focusing on me and my attempts at enlightenment, focused on God and inviting him into my heart to do his work. 

Both meditation and centering prayer are similar in many ways and they both promise transformative results. The difference between meditation and centering prayer, however, is the source of those results. In meditation, the results come from the practice itself and these results can be amazing and life-changing. The results from centering prayer, however, come from God. 

Simply by changing the focus of my practicing an tapping into a different source, by tapping into God, my whole life changed. I stopped having anxiety attacks, my depression subsided, and my relationships started to balance out. I firmly believe that is because God was doing for me what I couldn’t do for myself. 

None of this is to criticize Buddhism or to put down meditation as a practice. On the contrary, both Buddhism and meditation helped me out immensely as far as they could go, but for whatever reason, I needed to go deeper and I needed God’s help to get there. I needed to tap into a different source than Buddhism or meditation had to offer. I needed to tap into God and I needed to go through Jesus to do so. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

God calls us to stillness in a unique way meant just for us

In spite of my best efforts to remain present and prayerful, I spend a lot of time either working to make things happen faster than they should or waiting in anticipation for them to come to pass. That is to say, I spend a lot of time with my mind and emotions in the future. God does not exist in the future, however. God exists here and now, in this moment. 

Faith is not an easy thing. It requires us not only to trust that God loves us and is sustaining us, but also to act like it. That means we must learn to be still and this takes practice. 

I posed the question, “What practice(s) do you use to get and/or stay in the moment?” to a couple of friends the other day. Their answers were enlightening, especially in how varied they were.

One friend said that he prays the rosary and also self-administers reiki. We have always had both God and reiki in common and it pleases me to know that, after all these years, he is still practicing reiki. Praying the rosary, on the other hand, is new to me and is something I am just now learning how to do. 

The other friend said that he reminds himself to focus on only one task at a time, which is something I have read the late Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh write about a lot. “If while washing dishes,” Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not ‘washing the dishes to wash the dishes.'” In addition to focusing on only one task at a time, this second friend also utilizes a breath practice and prayer to stay in the moment. 

Aside from my morning (and sometimes afternoon) contemplative prayer, one practice I have been using recently is The Jesus Prayer, a prayer that can be traced back to 4th or 5th century Christian desert monks. When distracted, anxious, or agitated, I repeat, “Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” over and over again until I’m recentered. I also use The Jesus Prayer as a breath meditation by breathing in “Jesus Christ, son of God,” and breathing out “Have mercy on me, a sinner,” which is a practice I picked up from a talk by Bishop Robert Barron. 

What is most fascinating to me about all of this, aside from the fact that I have checked my social media feed several times while writing this in anticipation of likes or comments, is that each of us is essentially seeking the same end goal, but by very different, if overlapping, means. This, to me, is a sign of how loving and personal God truly is. He calls each and every one of us to him, to be perfectly still and present in his presence in this moment, but he calls each of us in a unique way that is meant just for us. That’s how much he loves and is interested in us. What an amazing God we have!

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Some days God reminds us how much we need him

Some days, God likes to remind us how much we need him. He lets us get just far enough away from him that we fall and have to return to him for forgiveness and guidance. Today was one of those days for me. 

The morning started out normal enough. I woke up a few minutes later than I would like, but it didn’t seem like a big deal. I went downstairs to make my daughter breakfast and, while doing so, I listened to a podcast about Thomas Aquinas. 

As I made my daughter’s ham, egg, and cheese sandwich, I remembered my wife telling me the night before that there were chicken quesadillas prepped in the refrigerator for my daughter’s lunch. All I needed to do was to heat one up, put it in a container, and put it in her lunchbox. But this is where things went sideways.

My next thought after I remembered what my wife said was, “She can take care of that. I’m making breakfast. She can get up and make lunch. It’s time for my prayer hour and I have an appointment later.” 

I finished making my daughter’s breakfast, set it on the table for her, and then sat down to for prayer. I started by reading a little bit about the history of Saint Patrick. After that, I read the Catholic Mass readings for the day. Then, holding the rosary my friend gave me, I said one Our Father and three Hail Marys and then sat in silent prayer for twenty minutes. 

While I was in silent prayer, I heard my daughter’s first alarm go off and then I brought my mind back to God. A few minutes passed and I heard her second alarm go off and then I brought my mind back to God. Then she came downstairs and I brought my mind back to God. I heard her sit down to eat, open a book, and thought, “That book is going to make her eat slowly and she’s going to be late,” and then I turned my mind back to God. 

When I was done with silent prayer, I opened my eyes and started to write my Meditations of a Gentle Warrior blog post for the day. While I was doing this, my wife came down and made my daughter’s lunch. She then told my daughter to close her book and finish eating because she was taking too long and was going to be late. 

After my daughter finished her breakfast and my wife packed her lunch, we all started scurrying to get my daughter out the door on time. She went upstairs to brush her teeth and, when she came down, it was time to go, but her hair still wasn’t brushed or tied up and her agenda book wasn’t signed. Her mother was starting to get irritated and I could feel the tension building. 

As my wife helped my daughter with her hair, I grabbed my daughter’s agenda book to sign it for her. I was getting flustered because it was time to go and all of this should have been done earlier. I also knew in the back of my mind that, if I had only been a little bit less selfish and prepped my daughter’s lunch for her while I was in the kitchen, my wife could have done her hair while she was eating, and we’d all be less frustrated. 

After I signed her agenda book, I struggled to get it closed and, in my frustration, I lost my cool and tossed the agenda book on the couch in my daughter’s direction. I then grumbled at both of them that if they woke up earlier we wouldn’t all be in such a hurry. 

The truth is, however, that I woke up late this morning, not them. It wasn’t too late, but it was late enough that I had to do my silent prayer while my daughter was getting ready and eating breakfast which, while doable, is not ideal. And then there was the selfish attitude I had about my daughter’s lunch. 

I got my daughter out to the bus stop and she made it in time to catch the bus. After the bus drove away, I started on my morning walk. I was about a half a mile down the road when my wife called to talk about what happened earlier. We agreed that we need to do better and came up with some strategies for doing so, and then went on about our respective days. 

I should say that I am extremely grateful for the fact that my wife and I talk through these things the way we do. Even when it’s hard or we don’t know how to be, we both want to be better spouses and better parents. These little five minute talks after a less than perfect morning where mistakes were made goes a long way to that end. 

After I got home from my walk, a friend of mine who is struggling with some personal issues texted me and we shared back and forth about forgiveness and the process by which God expects us to do so, even when we have been truly hurt by someone. Somewhere in that text thread, I explained how I am constantly reminded of how imperfect I am and that these reminders help me to be more forgiving of others. I went on to say, “I threw my daughter’s school notebook in her direction today RIGHT AFTER I FINISHED MY MORNING MEDITATION. My God do I need God’s help!” 

With this awareness of my own sinful nature, that even around my morning prayers I can be selfish toward my wife and impatient toward my daughter, how can I possibly hold a grudge against someone else for hurting my feelings or living in an ungodly way? Without God, I am nothing. Without him, I refuse to make my daughter lunch because, “That’s my wife’s problem and I already made her breakfast.” Without the Lord, I am selfish, I lose my temper over stupid things, and I throw notebooks. 

Clearly, there is more work to do and more praying to be done. What a blessing it is to see these things today though. By God allowing our flaws to come to light, we are afforded the opportunity to turn back to him for help, forgiveness, and a better way forward. Just like distractions in meditation are an opportunity to turn our mind back to God, mistakes are an opportunity to turn our hearts back to God. 

Later in the day, when my daughter got off the bus, we talked about what happened in the morning. I apologized to her for throwing her agenda book on the couch and told her the strategies her mother and I discussed for doing better in the morning. Unprompted, when my wife got home from work, she had the same conversation with our daughter but apologizing for her side of things and explaining how we can do better tomorrow. 

I don’t know if these little talks are necessary or if my daughter “gets it,” but as far as I can recall, I never had them as a kid that and they feel like healing. It’s important for her to know that we make mistakes and when we do, that we own up to them, apologize, and try to make things right. It’s even more important, however, for my daughter to know that her parents are working together on her behalf and that God is helping us to do so because we can’t do it without him. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Work is good, creation is good, and rest is good also

This Saturday, my daughter competed in a jiu-jitsu tournament in Pennsylvania, about two and a half hours away from where we live. She had some really tough matches, but came away with a silver medal in one division and a bronze medal in the other. It was a submission-only tournament, so there was no way to win by points. Someone has to tap. 

In this particular tournament, if no one submitted in regulation time, the match goes into an overtime cycle. The overtime cycle consists of several positions intended to put one competitor in an advantageous position from which to submit the other. For the kids, if no one wins in the overtime positional rounds, the match goes to a sudden-death takedown round where the first takedown to a pin wins. 

Of the four matches my daughter had, two in the gi and two in nogi, all four matches went into overtime. Her and her opponents truly battled it out and showed immense amounts of heart. Their grit and determination was so impressive that there were multiple spectators unrelated to either child watching their matches and cheering on the kids. 

After a long day of competing about two and a half hours away from home, we drove back and stopped for dinner. We let our daughter choose where she wanted to eat and she chose Ethiopian food. So we stopped at our favorite Ethiopian spot in Baltimore, had dinner, and then went home to unpack, shower, and go to bed. 

This morning, before church, we went to the jiu-jitsu academy so that my daughter could work with a couple of the coaches and one of her friends on the weaknesses the tournament exposed in her game. This was her choice. She wanted to go and, with the help of a good training partner and several generous coaches, she got a lot done in the hour and a half we were there while still having fun. 

After church, we went to my wife’s sister’s house to have lunch and relax for a while. On the way home, my daughter asked if we could go for a bike ride when we got back to the house. Even though my wife and I both agreed it was better to rest, my daughter continued to ask if we could go for a bike ride and told us, in spite of her physically, mentally, and emotionally draining Saturday, she wasn’t tired. 

I explained to her that, even if she doesn’t feel tired, it’s important to rest. “But resting is boring,” she said. 

“Maybe,” I replied, “but resting is necessary and resting is good for you. Do you know what God did after creating the heavens and the earth?”

“He rested,” she said begrudgingly. 

“That’s right,” I said. “From the creation story in Genesis, God teaches us three things: work is good, creation is good, and rest is good. Yesterday and even this morning, you worked really hard and that is good. You also got to enjoy creation by doing jiu-jitsu and using the body and mind God gave you, and that is also good. But now it’s time to rest because God tells us that rest is good as well, and it is good for you. God willing, there will be other days to ride our bikes.” “Okay, daddy,” she replied. 

After this, we went home to curl up on the couch, hang out, and watch a movie as a family. Moments like these are as important for her as they are for me. Through her, I learn how to do better because I want the best for her and have a bad habit of accepting less than the best for myself. Together and with the help of God, we make each other better. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

That sounds like something a talking serpent would say

I recently saw a Facebook post that said something like, “If you are going to quote principles from Genesis in the Old Testament, keep in mind that it also contains a talking snake, a boat filled with every type of animal, a man wanting to sacrifice his son to God, a woman turned into a pillar of salt, and a father impregnating his two daughters. So when you are going to quote the Bible, instead of quoting Genesis, maybe you should be quoting the Gospels instead.” 

My first thought upon reading this was, “That sounds like something a talking serpent would say.” After all isn’t the devil’s main trick to get us to question God’s word, to get us to doubt him, to stop trusting him and to do what we want instead of what he says? Doesn’t the devil want us to pick and choose which parts of the Bible best suit our desires, our will, and our selfish motives? 

The Bible exists to tell us who God is and who we are in relation to him. This means there will be things we don’t like or with which we disagree entirely. It is not a choose-your-own-adventure book, nor is it a self-help book or a text book. The Bible is either the divinely inspired word of God or it’s not, but we don’t get to hang out in the middle of the road and still consider ourselves Christians. 

That said, the Bible should be taken in context. What happens in Genesis or Exodus informs what happens in the Gospels, but there are thousands of years in between. The world changes, God’s people change, and God’s covenants change. This doesn’t give us a license to simply disregard the Old Testament, however. There are some principles and laws in the Old Testament that are situational or specific to that time or those people and there are some that are universal and applicable for all people for eternity. 

After all, in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus himself says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17).” 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Resentment is an attempt to deny someone else salvation

Resentments are like a wedge in our hearts. They separate us from God and our fellows. In fact, resentments are an attempt to play God by not accepting what has happened as being in accordance with his will. By holding onto a resentment against someone else, we are essentially saying that we have the right to withhold love from them, that we have the power to withhold mercy from them, and that we have the desire to withhold salvation from them. 

In this way, holding onto a resentment against someone is an attempt to cut them off from God. It is to deny them love, mercy, and forgiveness. And this, according to Jesus is tantamount to murder. “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’” he said, “But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to [the same] judgment [as one who has actually committed murder] (Matt 5:21-22).” 

When we are angry, we forget that only God has the power to withhold salvation. Only God has the authority to withhold mercy. And no matter what a person does, God never stops loving them. These are his gifts to give and we can do nothing to deserve or to earn them. They are freely given and we are free to accept or deny them. What we are not free to do, however, is to deny love, mercy, or for someone else, for we are not God. 

On the contrary, Jesus said, “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:43-44, NIV).” He commands that, no matter the harm and no matter how many times we are hurt or offended, we are to forgive “not seven times, but seventy-seven times (Matt 18:21-22).” To hold a resentment, therefore, is not only to play God, but also to reject his teachings and deny his authority. 

Tragically, in our imperfection, in our flaws and brokenness, we are going to fall short of Jesus’s commandments. We will not always “Love the Lord God with all our heart… soul and… mind.” Nor will we always “Love [our] neighbor[s] as [ourselves] (Matt 22:37-39).” But we can pray. 

When we find ourselves being resentful toward someone, we can confess it to God and another person. We can pray and ask God to forgive us and help us show this person forgiveness, love, and mercy. And we can “go and be reconciled with them (Matt 5:23)” so that we can approach God with a open heart and a clean conscience. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

The cave the fear and the treasure

The thing about fear is that no one can walk through it for us. In fact, they can’t even really walk through it with us, at least not our truest, deepest fears, the fears that define us and hold us back from becoming who we are destined to be. We must take the walk alone. 

Well, we aren’t really alone. God is always with us. But we often cannot feel his presence as we do the work of faith. We have to trust that he is there while we make the walk into darkness. 

Joseph Campbell said, “The cave [we] fear to enter holds the treasure [we] seek.” The challenge is that, not only is the fear ours, but the cave is ours also, and so is the treasure. It all exists inside of us. All anyone else can do is to point the way. 

And God knows all of this. He can see our hearts and he knows our needs. He is calling us into our cave of fear, promising that he will will not abandon us, telling us it will be okay. The challenge is that we have no way of knowing without doing the work, without facing our fears and taking the walk. 

God’s love and faithfulness is proven to us as we step out on the other side of the darkness. He is there to greet us and to assure us that we need only to trust him, that the treasure always belonged to us. It was and is ours to take any time we want. 

And yet, even as we know this, even as God proves his loyalty to us time and time again, we forget or we don’t believe it. Every new fear and every new trial feels like we are experiencing it for the first time, like this will be the time God forgets us and abandons us. 

The Lord is always faithful, though. It is we who are fickle and unreliable. We attribute to God our worst characteristics, forgetting that our brokenness is not God’s doing, nor is it a reflection of his nature. God gave us Eden and a life without fear or shame. 

It was our lack of faith, our inability to trust his word, that separated us from him and expelled us from the garden. He is constantly trying to draw us back there with him though. We need only believe we are worthy of the divine treasure that awaits us. It is not far off. In fact, the cave, the fear, and the treasure are actually one in the same. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Let us lean on Mary’s faith and faithfulness

It is not always easy to know where God is leading us. Sometimes he gives us clear signs and guidance, but other times we have to discern our course with little to no clarity at all. We must always rely on faith to bring us through whatever decisions we are making, but in these latter instances, where the path ahead is dark and confusing, we must rely upon it entirely. 

I often think about the story of the angel Gabriel visiting Mary in Luke 1:26-38. Imagine what Mary must have thought and felt during and after this encounter. Gabriel shows up out of nowhere and tells her not to be afraid, and that she, a virgin, has found favor with God, is going to be impregnated by the Holy Spirit, will give birth to a son whom she will name Jesus, and that Jesus will be the Son of God whose kingdom will never end. 

If that encounter wasn’t confusing or shocking enough, after Mary says (paraphrasing), “Okay. I’ll do whatever God wants me to do,” Gabriel just vanishes. He gives her no further instructions. He tells her nothing of what to expect or how to handle any of the trials and tribulations she will face, and he doesn’t say a word about what Jesus’s life or his death will be like. He simply disappears and is never seen or heard from by Mary again. 

With only that to work with, Mary has to figure out how to raise the Son of God. Of course, God is there through all of it and he provides her what she needs to do his work, but all she really had to go on was her faith, and it was enough. Our Heavenly Father tells and shows us over and over again that our faith is always enough. Like Gabriel said to Mary, “[We need] not be afraid… [for we] have found favor with God (Luke 1:30, NIV).”

The Lord will always guide us through fear, confusion, and darkness, but, like Mary, we must first put our faith in his word. While at first she is frightened by Gabriel’s greeting and questions how she is going to give birth to a son when she is a virgin, Mary never protests further (Luke 1:29 & 34). She simply trusts the will of God and, after hearing what Gabriel has to say, responds by saying, “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled (Luke 1:38).”

We should all pray to have faith as strong and steadfast as Mary’s. It isn’t easy. Life is full of all sorts of obstacles, trials, and difficult decisions. But if we are honest with ourselves, is God ever really asking more from us than he asked from Mary? Are our trials greater than hers? Is our cross heavier than the one she carried or the one she watched her son carry and die on? Likely not. 

So we can use Mary as an example of what our faith should look like. In times of trouble, confusion, or darkness, we can lean on Mary’s faith and her faithfulness, and know that God is with us, that even if we cannot hear his voice or see his face, that he has a plan for us and that it is good.

When we stand at the precipice, too afraid or uncertain to go forward, let us use Mary as inspiration and say, “I am your servant, Lord. Not my will, but yours be done,” and then let us step forth into the darkness, for we know that the Lord our God “rewards those who earnestly seek him (Hebrews 11:6).” 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Sabbath rest by choice or by force

Days like today make me realize how human I am. Once again, I have found myself overcommitted and overtrained which means that I was exhausted to the point of a migraine. Some ibuprofen, a hot shower, and an unusually long nap later, and I am still feeling the after-effects of the physical and emotional drain that a migraine can cause. 

My friend and jiu-jitsu mentor came in to teach this morning and, since he was coming down specifically to see and train with me, I didn’t want to miss it. As a result, what is normally a morning of rest and spiritual renewal for me turned into a morning of work, fun work, but work nonetheless. 

This isn’t a bad thing and I’m not complaining, mind you. I love jiu-jitsu and I’m glad I got to see my friend and learn some of his new strategies and techniques, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, and I paid the price after class. 

The older I get, the more I understand why God gave us the Sabbath rest. We only have so much physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual energy we can give to the world before we are drained. Once we are drained, if we keep going, instead of our labors making us stronger, sharper, and more useful, they make us weaker, sicker, and less effective for God and those around us. 

Each of us has a certain capacity for work, whether it be physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual, and that capacity is limited by the limited nature of our humanity. If we attempt to exceed this capacity, if we try to draw more from the well than the well has to give, we start taking from our health. Much like with finances, overdrawing from our well of health is an unsustainable way to live. 

In the past, I would have simply popped some ibuprofen, downed a cup of coffee or two, and kept going. Lacking the sense to see that my body was trying to tell me something, I have medicated my way through many a migraine over the years. While it made me relatively successful, this drive eventually led me to panic attacks and a near ruined marriage.

After several years of therapy, prayer, meditation, spiritual work, and a lot of soul searching, I have begun to see things from a different perspective than I was capable of in my younger years. The push forward is not as important as my health and longevity. And as I have gotten older and more sensitive to what God is trying to tell me, I’ve begun to see that sickness, in whatever form it takes, is my body or mind’s way of telling me to slow down, rest, and recover. 

So today, after I crashed from exhaustion and a migraine, I took a couple of ibuprofen, a hot shower, and a long nap. When I woke up, thinking about the rest of the week ahead and realizing that a decision to rest and recover now would mean that I will be more capable of doing the things that are required of me later, I rescheduled a private lesson I had set up for this afternoon and took some time for Sabbath rest. 

“The Sabbath was made for man,” as Jesus said in Mark 2:27 (NIV). It is a gift from God for us and it’s free. We need only accept it. And Sabbath rest is not only available to us on Sundays (or Saturdays depending on your belief). Sabbath rest is available to us any time we decide to set aside time for God and rest. My friend who is a pastor takes Monday as his Sabbath because, even though Sunday is a day of worship for him, it’s also a work day because he works at the church. 

Having a whole day each week for God and rest is obviously desirable. God gave it to us for us to take advantage of. But that doesn’t mean we must limit ourselves to only that day for Sabbath rest. God is happy to spend as much time with us as we are willing to spend with him, whenever and wherever we are willing and able to do so. We don’t have to wait until we crash before we rest in God, like I often do. His arms are open for us now and forever. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

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