Don’t Make It Worse
Hating the present might make the future worse.
Hi. Last weekend I was talking with Carrie about how people seem to expect the course of their lives to travel directly toward fulfillment of their goals and desires. Aaand you already know where this is going. Rarely do we go in a straight line from A to B, and that’s a cause of much shock and discouragement.
It’s funny that we’ve all heard the stories (including some of our own) of people who have gone through difficulty but became grateful for it on the other side, yet we can still be so dismayed when things don’t go our way. Even when things do go our way, the path is often a bit more winding than we’d hoped. The job didn’t come when you wanted, or the way you thought it would. You feel like you have to work too hard at that certain relationship. Your body seems to have declared war on you. Though you’ve worked on it over and over, your spiritual life just can’t stay on track. These are just the kinds of things that fill up the now. And it’s hard for us to love the now when we’re trying to get someplace else.
This is the point where you might think I’m going into the “it’s not the destination; it’s the journey” bit. Well, that’s a good bit, but it’s not precisely what I’m thinking about just now.
I’m actually thinking about the risks of hating the now. It’s understandable. You have goals and you’re not where you want to be yet. You’re not in the right job, house, or relationship. Your country or church isn’t living up to what it could be. You’re so frustrated with the state of things that you just can’t wait for them to change. But what can you do about it? You might dislike the present a lot, but hating the present could make the future even worse.
“How?” you ask. Well, I think that hatred of present circumstances, institutions, and people (ourselves included) leads us to a crisis. The more intense the hatred, the more intense the crisis. And the more intense the crisis, the easier it is to justify almost any action to remedy it. When you feel like you have to do something NOW, then you’re more likely to act like the usual rules don’t apply.
Sometimes that might be true. If you’re driving your wife through a less-than-reassuring downtown to the hospital in the middle of the night because she’s about to deliver a baby, so you don’t precisely stop at every stop sign (or red light), is that justified? You can decide.
Sometimes it might not be true. If you don’t like the ideas of other people and you’re sure they will lead to bad outcomes, so you attack not just their arguments but also their character, is that justified? Again, you can decide. But if right now, you’re thinking, “if they actually believe what they say, they must have bad character,” then you’re telling on yourself. Trust me, I’m familiar with that one.
Outcome vs. Process
When your desired outcomes become more important than the processes you take to get there, you give yourself permission to become a different kind of person: someone who cheats, lies, spreads rumors, leaps before looking, holds grudges, rationalizes your own faults while raging at those of others, doesn’t pay what you owe, or makes empty promises. This is common when the goal is more important than the character of person who is reaching for it.
Overemphasizing the need to change the present, then, becomes a denial of a future that matters. If only the present matters and you hate it so much that you’re willing to do anything, or become anyone, to change it, then you’re well on your way to making the future even worse. It’s not worth your integrity. Your future self will not thank you for turning your back on him or her.
I believe when Jesus returns, he’ll be looking for the wise and faithful servants among us (Matt. 24:45-25:30). So, let’s set good goals and pair them with good, wise, and character-supporting ways to achieve them. Let’s be at least as concerned for the who as we are for the what. Let’s not fall for any guarantees of outcomes that God Himself did not promise. And let’s not get so wrapped up in hating the present that we make the future even worse.