The Warrior's Will
Ready as we are to resent or fear philosophy, Spinoza will not become click bait. Our loss. He compounds much that could soothe our angry age into a tweet-sized reflection. As an interesting expansion of a mentor's advice, I posted this week to, "Respond. Don't react, "Spinoza explains, "An emotion becomes a passion when through our confused and inadequate ideas of origin and experience, it's external cause dictates our feeling in response."
That is, what we believe about the source of an event determines whether we will get angry about it. A friend of mine we will dub Daniel is struggling with this. Daniel has a huge, compassionate heart which bubbles over in eagerness to help before most people even notice a problem. The response tends to be cooler, I've noticed, if an opportunity to help comes in the form of another person's request rather than Daniel's astute observation. If that request comes from someone to whom Daniel feels an obligation, the temperature of the response drops. If others are at least equally obliged to respond but don't, and Daniel has to pick up the slack, his normally soft heart freezes. If someone with power over Daniel asks, the same action he might yield willingly brings stuffed, and later vocalized and consistent, joy-killing resentment.
Daniel would attest to the sovereignty of God, more than Spinoza who was dubious about His involvement in office affairs. Yet, this pervasive, joy-infusing theology is isolated willfully from interacting with the right to resentment Daniel so zealously maintains over a job task that might represent 10% of his day. It's true, Daniel would concede when spun out over this particular irritant, that God is the Source of the planets and their continuing alignment. He is the Source of my job and of the strength to do it. In his more reflective moments, Daniel would even rejoice individually on this point, thankful that He arranged for a referral from a friend after prolonged unemployment. God is the Source of all this, Daniel would begrudge, but these people not doing their jobs as diligently as I would, they are the source of this hour of my day spent other than I would spend it.
Spinoza is much less likely to change Daniel's heart than God is more directly through His Word. Perhaps the change will come in something as unlikely as the glimpse I got of His initial dealings with Gideon in Judges 6:12. Gideon is trying to do his job, even if it means depending on the scant breezes that reach him down in a winepress in order to help him separate wheat from the chaff without his work being obvious to occupying armies. Christ, the Angel of the Lord, calls Gideon a mighty warrior and affirms that the Lord IS with him.
I've played this for irony, as when slaveholders would name their human chattel after some powerful figure of antiquity, but that sort of rimshot is not befitting the heart of the Lord. I've pushed its implications into the future, as A.W. Tozer says Christians are in the habit of doing with anything we don't want to deal with in the present. Maybe He is referring to the obvious, victorious, literal military warrior Gideon is going to become as the book of Judges unfolds.
I think either predisposition siphons off significance from which Daniel and I could benefit. As hard as the day's work is for Gideon because of enemy oppression, he is undertaking it. He got the harvest in. There is faith in that task, even incubating might, as differentiating from gloomy fatalism. He is doing what he can, even when his world little resembles God most glorious. In response, the Lord is affirming that He sees the warrior will necessary for faithfulness even before more prominent battles are undertaken.
In this, Christ says to Gideon, to Daniel, and to me, I AM with you. When others don't notice, He resounds, I do. When others shirk, I reward. Tasks they slough off, I connect to the work I am doing in My own warriors for the next chapter, and into Eternity. If an office assistant on The West Wing can be jealous to do scut work because it is, she discovers, presidential scut work, how much more can Christians find the zeal to follow instructions if we genuinely believe God, rather than a boss or the laziness of coworkers, is the Source of them?
I need at least as much warrior cunning to get that across to Daniel, and to my own injured sense of pride. At the wrong time, in the wrong way, it could be delivered as exposition in place of compassion, rebellion against God's equal instructions to weep with those who weep. But the Holy Spirit Who brings to life that ancient text in current struggles can also grant the power to plant a timely Word. Here's hoping.
That is, what we believe about the source of an event determines whether we will get angry about it. A friend of mine we will dub Daniel is struggling with this. Daniel has a huge, compassionate heart which bubbles over in eagerness to help before most people even notice a problem. The response tends to be cooler, I've noticed, if an opportunity to help comes in the form of another person's request rather than Daniel's astute observation. If that request comes from someone to whom Daniel feels an obligation, the temperature of the response drops. If others are at least equally obliged to respond but don't, and Daniel has to pick up the slack, his normally soft heart freezes. If someone with power over Daniel asks, the same action he might yield willingly brings stuffed, and later vocalized and consistent, joy-killing resentment.
Daniel would attest to the sovereignty of God, more than Spinoza who was dubious about His involvement in office affairs. Yet, this pervasive, joy-infusing theology is isolated willfully from interacting with the right to resentment Daniel so zealously maintains over a job task that might represent 10% of his day. It's true, Daniel would concede when spun out over this particular irritant, that God is the Source of the planets and their continuing alignment. He is the Source of my job and of the strength to do it. In his more reflective moments, Daniel would even rejoice individually on this point, thankful that He arranged for a referral from a friend after prolonged unemployment. God is the Source of all this, Daniel would begrudge, but these people not doing their jobs as diligently as I would, they are the source of this hour of my day spent other than I would spend it.
Spinoza is much less likely to change Daniel's heart than God is more directly through His Word. Perhaps the change will come in something as unlikely as the glimpse I got of His initial dealings with Gideon in Judges 6:12. Gideon is trying to do his job, even if it means depending on the scant breezes that reach him down in a winepress in order to help him separate wheat from the chaff without his work being obvious to occupying armies. Christ, the Angel of the Lord, calls Gideon a mighty warrior and affirms that the Lord IS with him.
I've played this for irony, as when slaveholders would name their human chattel after some powerful figure of antiquity, but that sort of rimshot is not befitting the heart of the Lord. I've pushed its implications into the future, as A.W. Tozer says Christians are in the habit of doing with anything we don't want to deal with in the present. Maybe He is referring to the obvious, victorious, literal military warrior Gideon is going to become as the book of Judges unfolds.
I think either predisposition siphons off significance from which Daniel and I could benefit. As hard as the day's work is for Gideon because of enemy oppression, he is undertaking it. He got the harvest in. There is faith in that task, even incubating might, as differentiating from gloomy fatalism. He is doing what he can, even when his world little resembles God most glorious. In response, the Lord is affirming that He sees the warrior will necessary for faithfulness even before more prominent battles are undertaken.
In this, Christ says to Gideon, to Daniel, and to me, I AM with you. When others don't notice, He resounds, I do. When others shirk, I reward. Tasks they slough off, I connect to the work I am doing in My own warriors for the next chapter, and into Eternity. If an office assistant on The West Wing can be jealous to do scut work because it is, she discovers, presidential scut work, how much more can Christians find the zeal to follow instructions if we genuinely believe God, rather than a boss or the laziness of coworkers, is the Source of them?
I need at least as much warrior cunning to get that across to Daniel, and to my own injured sense of pride. At the wrong time, in the wrong way, it could be delivered as exposition in place of compassion, rebellion against God's equal instructions to weep with those who weep. But the Holy Spirit Who brings to life that ancient text in current struggles can also grant the power to plant a timely Word. Here's hoping.
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