I concluded my last post with the idea that Jesus’ wisdom in dealing with difficult people was the result of filtering their actions and His responses through love–what I termed a “love filter.”

I should note here that a love filter isn’t rose-colored glasses; choosing to filter people and the world through love is not choosing to ignore problems or act as if none exist. We saw last time that Jesus didn’t ignore problems; rather, He had the wisdom to know when to confront and when to overlook.

So the question becomes, “How do we love as Jesus loved? How do we develop that wisdom?” This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are two things that are helping me.

See people from an eternal perspective: I touched on this in my first post about annoying people. Reminding myself that the lost are lost and need my compassion helps me to filter out some annoying behavior. My pastor said recently that we will never lock eyes with anyone who doesn’t matter to God. While I might write off someone as beyond redemption or beneath my notice, God never does that. To return to my current “problem person,” Alan matters to God. Let me say that more emphatically: Alan matters deeply to God, and God’s dearest desire is to see Alan restored to relationship with Him. How can I show disdain for that which God values so highly?

Pray blessings on them: Years ago, I heard a preacher say that loving our enemies was very hard to do, but we could turn Jesus’ teaching around and find a path to that place of love. Here’s what Jesus said:

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” (Luke 6)

This wise man said start at the end of the list: pray first, then bless, then do good, and eventually you’ll find yourself actually loving the person that seems like an enemy.

What to pray? We might be tempted to pray with David that God would strike the heads of His enemies, but that would be the wrong approach–no matter how satisfying it might be in the moment! Me, I have trained myself to go beyond, “God, deal with this person” to “Father, I don’t know what this person needs, but You do. Bless him.” And then I add, “Bless not so he’ll be easier to deal with, but bless him because You love him.”

It’s hard to stay angry with anyone for whom we are regularly praying in love; those prayers bless not only those we name but also ourselves. Praying for God to bless someone helps us to get and keep that eternal perspective.

Filtering people’s behavior through God’s eternal perspective and praying blessings on them can–will–change our hearts toward the annoying people in the world. It helps us see them differently. Next time, we’ll tackle another part of this process: how we see ourselves.

Till then, add a comment that tells us how you deal with annoying people.

Getting an eternal perspective on annoying people helped some, but it didn’t solve the problem. For the last few days, I’ve been having fantasies of telling this person–let’s call him Alan–of telling Alan off: kindly and gently, but still telling him off.

Why? Because my last interaction with him was unpleasant; I saw that arrogance again, and I also saw the insecurity, and I was actually rather surprised, because there was more of the bluster that the insecure use than I had expected. What changed this time is the knowledge that Alan is going on a retreat of sorts for personal introspection and evaluation. He likes to do a mental accounting once a year and settle up, and this settling up does involve making amends for wrongs. I should add here that Alan is very ethical; he is not the stereotypical atheist without a conscience. He has pretty high standards for himself.

But back to me: I immediately thought, “I’d like an apology! How about making some amends towards me!” And within a few hours, as I turned this over in my mind, I came up with the brilliant idea that now would be the ideal time to confront him. He’s headed off to consider his life; wouldn’t I be helping him by giving him something to consider? And to make it less confrontational, I would do it as a letter; slip it under his door on Friday on my way out and avoid any direct contact.

As I’ve turned this over in my mind–obsessed about it, really–I’ve known that A) this isn’t the solution, and B) I’m not helping myself any with such thinking. So last night, as I lay in bed, I prayed (which should have occurred much sooner in this process!). I said, “God, I clearly don’t know what to do here; I need help. What would Jesus do?”

It’s amazing the clarity that comes when we give up on our own ideas, acknowledge our own cluelessness, and give God permission to speak!

Immediately I thought of Jesus and his confrontations. Jesus knew how to put someone in his place. He called the pharisees whitewashed tombs, and he called Peter "Satan." Ouch!

I then I wondered: how many stupid, arrogant things did Jesus not address? How much did He overlook? Peter seems pretty adept at putting his foot in his mouth; he must have given Jesus a lot of opportunities for rebuke.

Then I thought, “The Bible says that Jesus knew people's thoughts; He had a divine understanding of when to speak and when not to.” Here’s the reasoning: Jesus could safely rebuke people, throw out the money changers, call people names because He had a divine sense that we don’t have.

But then I realized: that doesn’t work. How can Jesus be tempted in all things and sympathize with my weakness if He has something I don’t? The reason for Jesus’ people skills can’t be a divine advantage exclusive to Him; if that’s the case, He is no longer the great high priest described in Hebrews.

So I thought: what did Jesus have that I lack? What did Jesus have that I can have too? Immediately I knew. Jesus filtered everything through love. How did Jesus put up with Peter, James, and John (to name just a few)? He loved them.

Love defined and refined Jesus’ motives. Love allowed Jesus to know when to overlook an offense and when to confront. Jesus had a thought process, a filter, that continually said, “I love Peter; I want to bless Peter; what is best for Peter at this moment?”

In contrast, my thinking is more often, “I love Dan; I want to make Dan feel better; what will make Dan feel best at this moment?”

All this went through my head in less time than it has taken you to read it. And I immediately knew: I cannot confront Alan until I love him and the confrontation is motivated by a true desire to bless him rather than make myself feel better. Only then, when I’ve filtered the situation and my responses through love, can I be certain that my actions are the best for both me and Alan.

Next time, I’ll share some of my strategies for developing a love filter. In the meantime, use the comments to tell us how you deal with difficult people.

I was writing in my journal yesterday about my frustration–my anger, really–with a coworker, using ink on paper as a way to vent and perhaps to find some perspective. I wrote,

“I feel like he is often–always!–judging me. And he is arrogant–and insecure, and well-intentioned. But he doesn’t extend grace to others. Should I expect an atheist to be grace-full? I suppose not.”

It occurs to me as I read this that perhaps it says a lot more about me, that possibly I’m the insecure one who is often–always?–judging this coworker, and that perhaps I’m not extending enough grace in his direction. I’m not sure. I do know that I generally bite my tongue, keep my thoughts and anger to myself, and try to overlook this person’s behavior in a desire to be Christ-like. I believe God has given me interaction with this person for two reasons: to refine me, and to offer an example of Christian kindness to someone who has had pretty negative experiences with those wearing the name of Christ. And I don’t say this as an attempt to pat myself on the back; it’s only by the grace of God that I have worked with this individual for years and not told him off. God gets all the credit for whatever I have accomplished in this situation.

But all that kindness has cost me a good bit internally, as I have regularly directed rants toward this person in my thoughts and found myself really angry. Yesterday morning, I woke up angry, and recognizing that’s not a good thing, I decided to write and move the rant outside my brain.

So back to perspective: as I paused to consider that I shouldn’t expect godly behavior from a godless person, I was reminded of Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of my favorite poets. In “I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day,” Hopkins describes his experience of darkness, what a number of scholars have identified as depression. As Hopkins considers his “black hours” and his seemingly unheard “cries countless” for help, he arrives at a startling and profound conclusion:

I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.

There’s a lot I could say about these lines, but I’ll confine myself to what’s relevant to this post: the lost suffer as believers do, “but worse” because they suffer without God.

That made all the difference for me yesterday morning: my problems, even my problems with this person, are slight compared to his problem, that he is separated from God. As a result, I was able to be graceful with this person, and not a begrudging, “I’m doing this because it’s right but I’m not happy about it and God owes me for putting up with this person” sort of grace (that is no grace at all).

What perspectives allow you to love the annoying?

In honor of Mary Magdalene’s feast day, I reviewed what the Bible actually says about this most controversial of Jesus’ disciples. As I noted, this Mary has enough to recommend her to our consideration without the speculations of prostitution or marriage to Jesus.

Perhaps the most obvious lesson from her life is that God heals and restores. Both Mark and Luke note that Jesus healed Mary of seven demons. Some scholars take this literally, while others suggest that seven is used to symbolize the severity of her physical, non-demonic illness. Whatever your view of demonic activity, Mary had a serious problem and Jesus solved it. Completely.

That strikes me as worth repeating: this woman had a serious problem, and Jesus Christ solved it completely. Unfortunately, too many of us (myself definitely included) give lip service to this idea that God can heal and deliver without actually believing that it happens to regular people like us. We know it in theory but don’t believe it as fact. Perhaps the appropriate response is, "I believe. Help my unbelief!"

I could stop here and have plenty to ponder. I see something else, though. Mary Magdalene is an example of passion and witness. I use the word passion with some hesitation, given her reputation as Jesus’ secret wife/girlfriend/lover. I’m talking about passion as commitment, not passion as feeling.

Mary (among other women) traveled with Jesus and supported His ministry financially. Some translations use contributing rather than contributed to indicate that these women provided on-going support, not a one-time donation; they joined Jesus not long after He chose the twelve, so they were there almost from the beginning. As many (all?) churches and ministries will tell you, it’s easy enough to get some money in the collection plate once; finding consistent, persistent, long-term givers is much more difficult. Mary Magdalene was a giver.

We don’t know if Mary was always with Jesus, but we do know that she made the trip with him to Jerusalem and witnessed the crucifixion, along with the other women. They were the first to go to the tomb after the Sabbath, but John singles out Mary Magdalene, telling us she “came to the tomb early, while it was still dark.” John had reason to know when Mary got there, because he went to the tomb with Peter when she came back to say that Jesus’ body was gone.

The men left, but Mary stayed behind. I see her actions as evidence of a passionate commitment to her Lord and Savior. And this passionate commitment, her persistence in serving, was rewarded: Mary speaks to the angels; Mary speaks to the risen Jesus; Mary is given the privilege of sharing this good news, the miracle of miracles, with the men. Mark indicates that Mary was met with unbelief when she returned full of joy at seeing and touching Jesus. Regardless, Mary spoke up as a witness of what she had seen and heard, and I imagine that their poor response did not shake her.

Christian tradition says that Mary Magdalene moved to Ephesus with Mary, Jesus’ mother, to care for her, and that she was a faithful witness of the gospel. Some traditions say that she also gained access to the Emperor Tiberius and proclaimed the news of the Savior to him. Though we can’t be certain what happened to her beyond the biblical narrative, it’s interesting that the traditions of the early church see this woman as continuing a life of passion and witness.

I’ll close with this from the Book of Common Prayer:

Almighty God, whose blessed Son restored Mary Magdalene to health of body and of mind, and called her to be a witness of his resurrection: Mercifully grant that by your grace I may be healed from all my infirmities and know you in the power of his unending life; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Okay, I couldn’t not write about this week's prayer, specifically the first part:

Lord, make me have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name

While I respect the desire expressed in this prayer, I confess that I’m troubled by make me each time I read it. We recently sang a song at church that expressed a similar sentiment: “Please wipe away the part of me that gets in the way.” I had a hard time singing these words, though I totally understand where the writer is coming from.

Here’s the problem: is it appropriate to ask God to make us do something? It seems to me that if I desire greater love and reverence for God, my prayer should be “Lord, help me to grow into perpetual love and reverence for your Holy Name.”

It’s about responsibility–that is, who’s job is it to ensure that I grow and change? Mine or God’s? Clearly, God desires my growth, and I believe that He honors my efforts to grow. And equally important, He is pleased by my desire to grow.

I’m reminded of something Gwen Shamblin (Weigh Down Workshop) used to say: “When you ask God to make you thin as you stand with your head in the refrigerator looking for more food to eat, you’re asking Him to perform a suction-assisted lipectomy.” In other words, we’re saying “change me without me having to do any work.” While I don’t agree with everything Shamblin teaches (her doctrine has apparently become a little wonky in the last few years), I very much appreciate her focus on personal responsibility; real change requires not only my desire but also my effort.

That’s where I stumble with the lyrics. Have I thought–and even prayed–something like “wipe away the part of me that gets in the way”? Absolutely! I suspect most of us have at one time or another. But is that the right (best?) prayer? I don’t think so. Let’s make it more specific: “Lord, I’m arrogant and that gets in the way; make me humble in one easy step.” We’ve got the desire for growth or change here, but not the effort, not the responsibility. [I should note that I don’t mean to dis the writer of this song; I respect the desire that’s being expressed. I question, though, what these words teach us, the attitude that they promote.]

In Psalm 25, David says, “Make me to know your ways, O Lord.” At first glance, this might seem to validate the appointed prayer and the lyrics. But look at where David goes with this:

Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all the day long.

David repeats his plea with “teach me” twice in these two verses. What I take from this is “show me how, Father”:

• teach me to love You more;
• show me how to get rid of hindrances;
• help me learn what my role is in changing and growing.

Other translations support this idea; most render “Make me to know your ways” as “Show me your ways.” There’s no sense of God compelling us here.

So, what do you think? It occurs to me that perhaps I’m going all English teacher and getting caught up in semantics, splitting hairs. That is a possibility, because I know that it’s easy for me to make too much of language and so miss the point. Tell me your thoughts about this prayer–and my take on it–in the comments.

The prayer for the week offers all sorts of things to meditate on, but minister justice catches my attention. I’ve never had a good grasp of justice from a biblical perspective, in part because I’m not certain that what we mean by the word is always exactly what God means when He uses it.

Word geek that I am, I usually start with the dictionary when I have questions like this. Both just and justice have to do with right and moral behavior and fairness; the root comes from the Latin for law. And that’s where I get hung up: part of the good news of the gospel is that we don’t receive what the law demands for our sins–we don’t get justice; we instead receive mercy. And fairness doesn’t seem to be part of God’s plan. Yes, God is fair in that His standard is applied equally: all who come to Him for salvation receive it; He doesn’t apply it willy-nilly or according to whim. But fairness in the way that children mean it–“Mom, she got more than me! That’s not fair!” or “Dad, all my friends get to go. Why can’t I? You’re so unfair!”–the sense of fairness our kids desire (and if we are honest, we want it too) is rarely at work in the world.

And we’ve only scratched the surface of a complex issue of God’s justice and sovereignty, why evil people prosper, why bad things to happen to good people–it can quickly become overwhelming. Perhaps like Job, I should end here saying, “I am of small account; I lay my hand over my mouth.”

Perhaps. Or perhaps I can say, “I can’t figure out everything, but I can figure out something.” For me, the place to go when my head starts swirling with questions and objections and uncertainties is Scripture. What do I find when I look for the word justice?

First, I see that God values justice. Moses describes God as impartial, saying, “He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.” God the Father is adamant that those in precarious positions receive justice and that they are adequately cared for, and just in case we miss this aspect of His nature, the Holy Spirit brings it out a number of times in the Old Testament.

But look more closely at what Moses says. “Execute justice” sounds rather cold, but then he tells us that God “loves the sojourner.” This, for me, is unexpected–justice and love together take me by surprise. And the next verse makes clear that this is not a verbal slip on Moses’ part. He immediately tells–commands, actually–the Israelites: “Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.”

I love the flow of thought in this passage; it’s full of surprises. Let’s get the context:

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:17–19)

Moses has been telling the Israelites that they need to get their act together and serve God. Here he reminds them of God’s majesty and power. But this “awesome God” isn’t capricious; He is just. You don’t have to read much mythology to know that consistency and fairness were not hallmarks of ancient deities. God, however, is different; we have incredible power coupled with justice. And then Moses gives a specific: God’s justice extends to those who could least expect it. In a male-dominated culture, widows and orphans lacked an advocate; thus David tells us that God is “father to the fatherless.” God goes beyond serving as lawyer or representative for those in need–He acts based on a relationship of love.

Moses emphasizes love here in Deuteronomy, telling us that God “loves the sojourner.” Other translations use the word alien or stranger–that is, those from outside the culture. Like orphans and widows, foreigners could expect to be taken advantage of. But not with God; He loves them, and He shows that love in tangible ways by meeting physical needs. And lest we want to somehow minimize the impact of this word love, it’s the same one we find when we are commanded to “love the Lord your God” and when Moses tells the Israelites that God “set His heart in love on their forefathers” just a few verses before our passage.

Moses extends God’s example of justice and love to the Israelites, telling them to “love the sojourner.” Surprise! Don’t just tolerate them; love them. And he provides them a reason: you were in the same position once. Long before Jesus gives us the Golden Rule, God through Moses gives us the principle: put yourself in the other person’s place and act accordingly.

Who would have thought that we would get from God’s justice to loving our neighbors as ourselves? Back to the prayer for the week, we ask God to give us grace so that we may “minister His justice with compassion.” I understand why the authors of this prayer added “with compassion”–our experience of the world tells us that justice and compassion are not natural companions. If we truly understand justice, however, we know that compassion will be right there. As I said at the beginning, God sometimes (often?) has something different in mind, even when He uses the same word. It seems clear to me that in God’s dictionary, justice and compassion go together; I would venture to say that they are in fact so intimately connected as to be inseparable. For me, then, this prayer is not just asking God to help me minister justice; I’m asking God to give me His perspective that colors that justice with love.

Solomon tells us that “a happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing” (Proverbs 17:22, AMP). God undoubtedly has a sense of humor; we need only look at some of the animals He created (it’s hard not to smile at the sight of a hippo, a monkey, or a puppy). Or think of some of the married couples you know: don’t you think God was smiling at the wedding as He looked ahead to the interaction of the wildly different personalities that will be living together?

And as if often the case, medical science is proving the wisdom of Solomon’s Spirit-inspired words. This video at WebMD says that “laughing heartily 100 times a day gives the same cardio results as working out for 20 minutes!” That works for me! And a 2007 study at the University of Maryland School of Medicine has found that laughter and a sense of humor protects your heart. Dr. Michael Miller says that “people with heart disease responded less humorously to everyday life situations.” He goes on to explain that “they generally laughed less, even in positive situations, and they displayed more anger and hostility.” Note here that it’s not only laughter that counts; it’s also a perspective that can find humor in everyday situations. That means the couple that exemplifies “opposites attract” will do better–and be healthier–if they can step back and find the humor in their differences instead of the more typical response of frustration or anger. Note, too, that finding the humor in difficulty is often about the ability to laugh at yourself–and not at your spouse.

I try to bring humor into my life in a number of ways. Reading is important to me. This ability to find humor in difficulty is one of the reasons that I enjoy Southern fiction. Writers like Lee Smith and Kaye Gibbons are able to take tragedy and family dysfunction and make it both heart-wrenching and amusing. For instance, Gibbons’ novel Sights Unseen opens with this painful but funny statement from the narrator: “Had I known my mother was being given electroconvulsive therapy while I was dressing for school on eight consecutive Monday mornings, I do not think I could have buttoned my blouses or tied my shoes.” Of course, such humor is not for everyone, as I discovered when I was reading Sights Unseen at a restaurant several years ago. The waitress asked me about the book, and I told her it was a sad and funny novel; I then read her this opening sentence as an example of the humor. The waitress didn’t smile; she just looked at me rather oddly. So it goes. For a different kind of humor, no one can match Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice. Besides being a truly happy story, the characters are delightful and witty. And for laugh-out-loud reading, I love Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next and Nursery Crimes series.

I enjoy watching SpongBob with my kids; stupid humor, yes, but it makes me laugh. I like taking the kids to Disney movies; I enjoy many of the sitcoms on Disney and Nickelodeon. Not only are they clean (it’s hard to find adult sitcoms that don’t contain sex and profanity), but the humor is often silly and guaranteed to make me laugh. And it’s a great way to spend time with the kids. We’ve also got a growing collection of movies for the family; just last night we all watch RV. It was great to see everyone laughing.

I also like to have photos around that make me smile. The photo at the top of the post, taken last year, shows Isaac (9), Anna (7), and Haley, the newest addition to our family. Haley’s a miniature schnauzer that we got last summer. In both photos, she’s wearing a Santa suit that all three kids were photographed in as infants. The photo of Isaac, Anna, and Haley sits in a frame opposite my reading chair in my office so I can look at it all the time; the one of Haley chewing on her foot hangs in the hallway with a few other pictures of her. They both make me smile, and I never get tired of seeing them. And just so you know that I can laugh, here’s a photo of me and Isaac that we have in the living room:

Finally, I must share what prompted this post to begin with: I Can Has Cheezburger. This site is nothing but photos, mostly of cats, with captions written in Lolspeak (see photos for examples). I’ve subscribed to the feed for this site, and I check it several times a day, because it never fails to make me laugh out loud. It’s hard to choose a favorite from among the many photos, but these three have to be among my top choices:

more cat pictures

What makes you laugh? How do you bring humor into your day? Share your ideas and links in the comments below.

I’m still mulling how to be satisfied with God, so in the meantime I thought I would share this powerful passage from Facing East, by Frederica Mathewes-Green. She explains that life usually seems full of uncertainty,

But, oh, how sweet is anger. When I’m angry, I’m not in the wrong. Somebody else is in the wrong, and for once I have peace. A delicious peace that gnaws over the wrong like a lion with a ragged bone. It is delicious and compelling enough that it urges me to accumulate other wrongs and hold them greedily close. I love to be wronged; only then, for that brief moment, can I be sure I’m right. It is intoxicating in its sweetness, this brief joy in being right. It is good to be a victim, because victims are sinless.

As someone with significant and lasting “anger issues,” I can completely relate to this; anger, along with its cousins bitterness and resentment, is indeed intoxicating. And that is undoubtedly why Paul urges us not to let the sun go down on our anger. As anyone who has struggled with addictions knows, allowing such a thing into our lives does indeed give the devil a foothold or opportunity. The intoxication keeps drawing us back for more.

This reminded me of something Margaret Lobenstine wrote about resentment in her latest newsletter; she explained that a friend had recently told her that resentment was like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die; it only kills us. I’ve heard this before, but it never really helped me beyond “That’s a good image to use if I ever teach on anger.” Lobenstine, however, found a practical way to apply it. She tells of being on the phone with tech support for five hours (five hours!) and becoming very frustrated. She says,

Prior to having heard the resentment-poison quote, I would have been beside myself, and my voice would probably have been injured by five hours of frustrated yelling. Holding on to the quote for dear life, however, I really was “beside” myself saying, “Is this poor phone company employee really worth drinking poison over?”

Lobenstine’s self-talk is really useful for all kinds of intoxicants and addictions besides anger. For those of us who tend to reach for sugar when the going gets rough, we can ask, “Is this situation really worth more pounds and the associated guilt that comes when I eat the entire package of Oreos?”

I’ve become fairly adept at telling myself “Stop it!” (and I do say it out loud) when I find myself drinking the poison and accumulating those angry thoughts, but it never hurts to have another weapon in the arsenal. What’s your tactic for putting an end to anger or other thoughts that poison your life? Share it in the comments.

For Easter, I received Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality, and so far I am very much enjoying it. It’s organized into topical chapters, and each chapter is a collection of sayings from Mother Angelica. Some are several paragraphs, but most that I have read so far have been fairly short, only a few sentences. Take this one, from the second chapter, “Your Mission, Your Purpose”:

Like the apostles, we Christians are arguing among ourselves when we should be out changing the world. We let filth proliferate and the darkness move in. Who do you think is going to change it? What are you waiting for? You are that somebody! The Lord God has no one else but you. You’d better get off your lead bottoms and go out there and change this pagan world.

And then there’s, “You have been chose twice: first to be, then to know Jesus. What are you doing with that fantastic mission? You have been created by God and know Jesus for one reason: to witness to faith, and hope, and love before an unbelieving world.”

I like this one very much: a “fantastic mission”! When was the last time you considered your life a mission? Depending on your church background, that might come to mind pretty often. But how often have you told yourself that your mission is fantastic? I was listening to a podcast by Brian Houston the other day as I walked at the Rec Center, and he was talking about the attitudes of a leader. Included on his list was the idea that leaders count it an honor to serve. Houston presented this in the context of the local church, that those who lead and serve within a congregation should never have the attitude that they are doing anyone a favor by serving; rather, the opportunity to serve is always an honor.

I know for myself, it can be a challenge to keep that mindset, whether about serving God or my church. It’s easy to think, “God sure is lucky to have me here doing…” or “What would the pastor do if I decided to stop…” We might not articulate it quite so bluntly, but the thought still crosses our minds from time to time, especially when we feel that no one appreciates our effort.

A “fantastic mission” mindset serves as an effective antidote to “no one appreciates what I do.” We think, “I have to be nice to Jane–again!–because I serve God”; this is a sure path to irritation and resentment. But imagine if we told ourselves, “God has specially called me to love Jane and be a witness of His love, His mercy, and His grace. Being a witness to her is the highest calling I could have because it allows God to be seen in action; being a witness gives my time at work eternal meaning and purpose. I’m blessed to have this mission.”

That’s a different approach; it takes the focus off me and the irritants that come from dealing with people and puts it on God–puts the focus in the proper place, I might add. It truly is marvelous, awesome, and humbling to consider that God Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, chooses to work with and through us. That truly is a fantastic mission.

I’ve been listening to and teaching with Gregory Dickow's 2-lesson series Absolute Freedom from Anger for the last few weeks in our marriage small group. It’s a great teaching for a number of reasons. Dickow provides strong, clear, biblical instruction on how to deal with anger, and he also highlights the many reasons we need to confront our anger and master it. For those who need motivation beyond Paul’s injunction to “put off anger” (Colossians 3:5), Dickow discusses the physical and emotional toll that anger can exact from us and those who become the objects of our anger.

He finishes with a discussion of Matthew 5:5, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” I’ve never heard a good explanation of meekness, and I confess that when I heard the word in the past, I thought of “Jesus, meek and mild” and the wimpy-looking figure presented as Jesus in children’s Sunday school handouts. Dickow is quick to confront the stereotype of meekness as weakness. He says,

It is an inner strength that manifests itself through kindness and self-control. Being meek does not mean being weak. The ability to turn the other cheek takes more strength than retaliating. That’s meekness: when you have the strength to do something, but you choose not to because you understand that self-control is greater than the mighty.

He goes on to give a picture of meekness that I find exciting and empowering: a race horse. Dickow explains that a broken and trained horse is “meek”; the horse is not any less powerful or strong, but it has learned to channel that strength and power toward a productive, positive goal–winning the race. That’s something I can understand, appreciate, and aspire to: taking control of what could threaten my well-being (my emotions, my responses) and directing them toward my goals.

As I researched meekness, I found this great explanation from an article in Discipleship Journal; Matt Friedeman writes:

If we are to understand this beatitude, it is crucial to examine it against the backdrop of Jesus’ culture. The Greek word for meek was commonly used to describe wild animals that had been domesticated–trained, tamed, and otherwise harnessed–so that the savage beast became capable of working profitably alongside man. The image that presents itself in this definition is not lack of energy or strength; rather, power under control.

This photo, by Andy Hare, perfectly capture this: we don’t have to look very hard to see the tremendous power in them that could burst forth–but these horses have learned control.

Friedeman goes on to explain what he learned about meekness from a horse trainer (the whole article is worth reading and pondering), and he concludes:

What does it mean, then, for us to become truly meek? My friend’s description of a meek horse could well define the characteristics of a dynamic Christian. Willing to undergo a lifetime of training so that no coercion to obedience is required; just a gentle tug from the Holy Spirit. A special relationship with the Master that gives him the ability to sense the false and confusing direction of the Evil One. Working with the Master in tandem–even when His immediate presence is not felt. Unshakable commitment and loyalty.

I love that: willing to undergo a lifetime of training so that no coercion to obedience is required; just a gentle tug from the Holy Spirit. That’s what I want–and I suspect its what all of us who serve Christ really want, for obedience to come easily. But we only get to that place through training and being broken, through learning to yield ourselves to God. Friedeman’s article concludes with this thought: for those who learn meekness, “Instead of spending their energy in frivolous pursuits, their lives will reach their full potential–and they will inherit the earth.” I want to reach my full potential.