Ice Queen

Yesterday morning I felt like the Ice Queen.

No, not a figure skater.

The Ice Queen, as opposed to how I usually feel as The Wolf Queen (as some are known to call me).

Whatever the situation was, I woke up feeling a little, “Meh.” Hard in the heart, if you will.
It also looked like this outside of my house, which is beautiful, and I did think it was quite interesting that “my kingdom” and I had something in common that morning: Ice. Ha.
Hahahaha.

 

As the day went on it got better. Better because I was proactive about it.

Let’s be honest, nobody wants to be around an Ice Queen. She is hard, cold, and above all, not very moveable. Blah. Those are not good qualities. So how does one said Wolf Queen get herself out of this frozen state, supposing that it is just a bad day and not something more serious?

I think the obvious answers go without saying, but I will say them here:

1 & 2. Read your Bible and pray, ice-cold Wolfies. Why? Because it helps us remind ourselves that, get this—the thought is revolutionary—life is not about us.

Ah yes. What I seem to forget from time to time.

There also could be a very strong spiritual battle going on. The devil might really be attacking you with Despair, and we need to stop him in his tracks on that one. You are no longer territory he has any right to claim.

3. Something else I have found to be true about me is that I am better if I am making something. I tend to lean towards the creative side of life, so give me some fabric and give me some buttons and, inevitably, seeing that there IS still beauty in the world is a huge mood-improver. What things about life make you recognize good? Do that.

4. Go on a walk. Or a run. Or a bike ride. Or do something, and pray while doing it! On numerous occasions have I gone exercising with people and we just pray together the whole time. Rather than get together to complain, get together to praise. It’s a part of the Body-life we need to do more of, I am convinced. And do not downplay the fact that your emotions and your body and your mind are all connected. Make the whole of you healthy. Bring Jesus into ALL of it.

5. Go get involved in a ministry. Help somebody. I volunteer with the youth group at my church and…well…I think middle schoolers are like the greatest thing on the earth. There is nothing like seeing 4 teenagers race to see who can drink a smoothie of Thanksgiving leftovers the fastest (Yes, ‘tis true. Mashed Potatoes, Cranberries, Green Bean casserole, and pasta salad all blended together---with ice and milk. It happened. And it was hilarious) to make you laugh. And laughter is medicine for the soul--it's in the Bible. It's also in the Bible to serve others. Let's take this stuff seriously.

6. Practice thankfulness. I just moved earlier this year and haven’t been here much since I did move, so it is finally as if I have JUST moved, because I am finally now here full-time. And I hate moving. I hate going somewhere where you know no one and have to start over. I have done that enough in my life and don’t find it fun anymore. All that to say is lately I have felt a little—dare I say it—lonely. I have bucket loads of friends but almost none of them live where I live now, though. But distance and circumstances are not something we should let get us totally down. Thank the Lord for the people you DO have, whether near or far! Thank the Lord for whatever you do have, and I’m going to be bold and say this: thank the Lord for what you don’t have.

Psalm 84:11 says “No good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.” What that means then is, if you can be counted in the blameless category (i.e. saved by Christ, repenting of sin, RUNNING from sin, following Christ, etc) then you not having something is not a bad thing: It’s a good thing. Because if it is not what God wants you to have, and you have it, that’s bad-news-bears. Not good. Not good.

Remember, you not having something, if God has withheld it, is a good thing. Don’t ever forget how wrong we can be about these things we think we want (For more on this thought read Never Be Convinced Of Your Own Desires).

There’s that, kids.

Let us be Ice Queens no more (or Ice Kings, too, I suppose:).

Recommend.

 I have never recommended other blogs on this one, but if you are ever looking for another one to read (and this is definitely more for my women readers), check out Resolved2Worship.

Read Resolved2Worship here.

Why am I telling you this? Because I decided this morning that I just want all of you to be more in love with Christ, and if this Alyssa can reach some of you where you are better than I can, I think it’s fabulous. There are things she has written that have put words to my thoughts and helped me understand things about the Lord better. She doesn’t know me from Eve, and I don’t know her from outside of her blog, but to her I am eternally grateful. And isn’t that what the body of Christ is for? To build others up? To bless others? And most of the time to never know that we had any influence on another (to keep us humble…)? Therefore, here is my recommendation.

Another reason I am telling you this is because the other day, as a friend of mine and I were letting the T-gives bird side effects wear off, I was re-reading through some of her old posts and came across a line that struck my fancy. She was talking about how one particular Christmas she was praying that she could see the season through the eyes her children do and she said she didn’t want to stress out, she just wanted to delight.

It got me thinking, “Isn’t that really how we should live or what?!!?”

Never in my life had I stressed. Never growing up, never in high school, never in college. I NEVER even owned a day planner, a calendar, I never wrote down one single assignment in a schedule yet I never turned in anything late. Never. No stress, never.

But then I got out of college; let the stress begin. Why don’t adults tell you about this when you are a kid? I blame them for all kinds of people who have dashed hopes about being a “grown-up.” If I had known what stress was I never would have graduated high school.

Just kidding.

But seriously.

Anywho, I will never forget the day I told my mom on the phone, as I was driving home from my first “big girl” job, “While I can’t be sure that what I am feeling is stress, I have never felt this before and therefore I think that’s what this is. This very mild, yet very sever anxiety attack every time I have to make a business phone call is what I am now surmising stress feels like.” And ever since then I have found myself, from time to time, feeling again the same said anxiety. Stress, if you will. So to read that little line, “Don’t stress, just delight” (or something like that) was a brilliant little reminder for me in this time of my life….and probably for you, in whatever stage of your life you are in. If this was a little math problem it would look something like this:

Life comes from the Lord

+

He has given us everything we need for life and Godliness (II Peter 1:3)

=

                                    Don't Stress. Just Delight.                                     

 

Yay Jesus. Once again.

~~~~

A few snapshots from my holiday week!

Who doesn't love swinging bridges in the woods?!!? Clearly I do.

Who doesn't love watching big brothers climb trees?!!? Clearly I do.

Who doesn't love shooting clay pigeons?!!? Clearly I do.
(Also note that I am listening to instructions....with ear plugs in.)

Who doesn't love chasing sunsets?!!? Clearly I do.
No joke, Wolfies. I really do.

Remote

Through the years I have envisioned me doing different things with my life. All sorts of different things. But all of them have involved what I would call a “big lifestyle.” I felt at times like my life was even going to be bigger than I would have wanted. I have had some crazy experiences and all roads appeared to keep me on that track. Life has a way of changing, though, and now I find myself with a life unexpected. This is a life I chose, though. The road has a way of wearing a person down. I needed to not be rushing so much. And so my life now looks…smaller….then I always anticipated.
Yet, I love it.

However, every now and again I fear that what I am doing is not big enough for Christ. Am I reaching enough people, is my sphere of influence big enough, is there something more I could be doing, is all of my coming and going really important?

These thoughts plague me sometimes.

I told you a few entries ago that I was reading Nehemiah and the other morning as I was praying through these things I came across a verse. The people of Israel had just rebuilt the wall around Jerusalem and they were praising God for all the acts he had accomplished in their past. It struck me that one of the things the Lord had done for these people was that he “gave them kingdoms and nations, allotting to them even the remotest frontiers.”

Isn’t that interesting? When God was giving his people their inheritance lands I always noted that some of them got….well….less than desirable pieces of property. And yet, it was a good inheritance, because God gave it to them, and what he gives is good. This verse in Nehemiah admits that some of their lands were a little more remote than others.

What do you think of when you think “remote”?

I think of where I live. Not too many people, not too many houses, not too many roads (well, paved roads, that is). Life here is not what most people would call a “big” lifestyle. And to be honest, neither do I.

And I wonder what the Israelites thought. The ones who were given the “remotest frontiers”? Did they ever wonder why they didn’t get the “kingdoms and nations”? Did they ever feel like their existence in those sparse areas wasn’t big enough? Did they ever feel like their coming and going wasn’t as important as those in the “more populated areas”?

Have any of you ever felt like that? Rather than being given a kingdom, full of all kinds of things to do….big things….that you have been given a remote frontier? And how often do we think, “But Lord! I could be doing so much more! Why in the world do you have me in some no-man’s-land?!” And let me say that even if you aren’t in some geographical no-man’s-land, the Lord could have you in some sphere of influence that you feel affects very few people, so “remote frontiers” are way more than just where you live.

I find the greatest comfort in knowing that while we can perceive our lives, our influence, our ministry, whatever, as being small, as being remote, as being something less than the nations and kingdoms, if we have been given them, well….we have been given them. By Him. And that’s enough. That’s big enough.

As my mother would always say to people who were like, “Wow! How are your kids ever going to do anything with their lives? You live like….out in the middle of nowhere,” she would respond, “God knows where we live.”
And he does. God knows where you live, he knows what you do, he sees your heart, whether you have been given a kingdom and nation….or a remotest frontier.

I find myself praying that whatever inheritance I have been given, wherever the boundaries for me fall, wherever I have been placed, whether it was what I envisioned I would be doing or not, I want to be faithful. I want to be a leader, even if those I lead and have influence over are few and far between. Because the groups of not-so-many-people are still equally as important as the groups you find in the nations…and kingdoms. The few are as important as the masses. They need Jesus, they need hope, they need truth, they need examples of how to live rightly.

This thanksgiving I want to be thankful for my “inheritance,” for this remote frontier I seem to be building my life in. Sometimes a big life looks different than we would expect, but remember, it’s no less important. Wherever you are, whatever you have been given, IS where you are, it IS what you have been given.

Take your frontier for Christ, Wolfies. Go lead the masses, or the few-and-far-between.

Thirst {Part II}.

Naturally, since my last post was about thirst and it was titled Part One, then this is another thought on thirst.
Aptly named Part Two.
Ha.

When I was writing the last entry all I could think was, “What are ways that I thirst?”
Most of the time I think I am doing quite well. I am very open with the Lord about what is going on and he does a fabulous job of meeting me where I am, but still the thought lingered that there has to be some areas that I “thirst” in.

Then I sighed.

Because I realized that it’s always the same thing:

The future.

Maybe some of you don’t struggle with this. Maybe it doesn’t make some of you want to hyperventilate, or run and hide, or set your jaw and let nothing get past your door…

Maybe the future isn’t where you thirst. But I would assume that your need is elsewhere then.

Call me a skeptic, I just don’t think there are people out there that, if being honest with themselves, can say they feel no need for more of Jesus SOMEWHERE in their life.
All that to say is I found myself praying that morning. And now I am going to throw a lot of thoughts and information and verses at you and I hope it makes sense. Ok? Good.

So I thirst in the ideas that surround my idea of the future. I don’t thirst so much for things I am dealing with today. Today things seem to be fine, manageable, and when it’s not God seems to provide the grace I need to at least rest in the fact that he knows what he is doing.

With that thought in my head I hear Matthew 6:34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

And I think about other verses that pertain to today, right now. Like where it says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.” (II Cor. 12:9)

Or what about “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23)
Or in thinking about thirst, what about Psalm 23 that says, “My cup overflows…”?

If we are told to not worry about tomorrow, and are told that today his grace is sufficient, his mercy is new every morning, and our cup overflows,  then does it  surprise me at all that my thirst is in the FUTURE?
No.
Why does it not surprise me, you ask? Because, while my eternity is secured (which is future), grace is sufficient for TODAY. Mercy is new TODAY. My cup runs over TODAY.
And I see this, I know this. I know that TODAY there is still food in my house, TODAY I still have money in the bank, TODAY God is good. My fear/the devil will tell me to believe, however, that tomorrow won’t be so fortunate. He wants me to think that tomorrow grace WON’T be sufficient, tomorrow mercy WON’T be new, tomorrow my cup WILL NOT overflow.
What do I try to do then? How does this translate into thirst?

Let me show you a picture that came to my mind.

And I apologize in advance because I am no artist. A designer, yes. An artist, no.

This is the truth of us. There we are today, the cup in our hand is our need/thirst, and what is it doing? It is overflowing. Why? Because his grace for today is sufficient. His mercy was new this morning. Today’s manna is given today, today’s thirst is quenched today.

Because fear wants me to think that grace and mercy won’t be there tomorrow, this is what we try to do, though.

There we are, with today’s overflowing cup, i.e. today’s thirst quenched and needs met, trying to throw all of that overflowing grace and mercy to tomorrow’s problems, issues, fears. But here’s the catch: Tomorrow’s problems, issues and fears don’t exist yet; there is no cup to catch what we are trying to throw there. So we end up trying to throw all of today’s overflowing to tomorrow’s issues making us feel thirst about tomorrow today and still not quenching any thirst of tomorrow.

What a waste.

I remember praying for a house before I moved once. I was a month away from transporting all my stuff and still didn’t have somewhere to live and I said, “But Lord! I need a house there now!” and he replied back to me, “No you don’t. You don’t live there NOW.”

Hmm. He was right. I didn’t need a house in that city at that point because I didn’t LIVE in that city at that point (it all worked out great, btw. That’s how I met Al and Ella).
Do you see my point? Jesus doesn’t give us what we need to get through tomorrow or next week or next month or next year TODAY, he doesn’t quench tomorrow’s thirst TODAY, he gives us what we need for tomorrow and he quenches tomorrow’s thirst TOMORROW.

Now don’t come knocking on my door saying that I believe we shouldn’t plan for the future, and work, and have jobs, and that we should eat all of our food in one night because “God will give tomorrow’s manna tomorrow.” No. I don’t believe that at all.

But all of that stuff is temporal. Do you see that? Food and shelter are things of this world. Thirst, although it might appear like it involves things of this world (worry about future money, etc. whatever), is spiritual
Yes.

Thirst comes in things eternal. Our thirst rests on what we believe.

In the Garden of Eden the serpent got Adam and Eve to believe that God wasn’t who he said he was. “Did God really say that?”

This is the exact same situation. God says that his grace is sufficient, he says that his mercy is new. And this thirst about the future is the devil asking us the age old question, “Did God really say that?”
Because if the enemy can get us to doubt the character or God, or to doubt his word—to doubt what he says—then his job is done. We are done.
And we will be forever thirsty.

Jesus said to those at the feast, “If anyone is thirsty…come to me.”
Whether it’s thirst for today, tomorrow, or eternity, Jesus is the only well we can drink from and be satisfied, because he is the only one sufficient enough to quench.

Thirst {Part One}.

Coffee is good. I love it.

And I love coffee shops. And not just because the word “shop” got added. No, I am not one of those girls. While I don’t make many promises for my writing, I will promise you that this little blog here will never become the Confessions of a Shopaholic.

Moving on.

So coffee. You will find that most coffee drinkers, I believe, start out by drinking the sweet stuff. You know: Mocha, cappuccino (like the kind from those machines in the gas station. Not real cappuccino, mind you. Good heavens, no. That stuff is not sweet in the least. I learned this lesson when I was seven in a very fancy hotel.), macchiato, blah blah blah. You get the picture. It’s all the coffee with all of the cream and sugar of various species. Well I was one of those people. For years and years that was my thing.

But then I started noticing a change in me. All of the sudden my order went from my standby of a turtle mocha (a mocha {espresso, frothed milk, and chocolate} with a shot of caramel), to just a mocha. And then after a while of that it changed again….to a latte {espresso and steamed milk}. While you may think this is crazy talk, let me blow your mind a little more: my drink order now is dark (or medium, I suppose) roast COFFEE, just coffee, with “room for cream.”
Yeah, I know. Talk about “crazy talk” is right!
But one thing I noticed, no matter what level of coffee with sugar I was consuming, was that after a while, after a couple cups, I was done. I couldn’t drink any more.  I wasn’t thirsty anymore. My body couldn’t take any more beverage.

This week my devotions have found me in Nehemia. Good book. It comes right after Ezra, which is also a good book. Both of them are about the same event in history: the exiles returning to Jerusalem and rebuilding its city wall. When the wall got completed they did what every good Jewish community does---they celebrated!! It so happened to be the time of the year when they celebrated the Feast of the Tabernacles (or Booths), which is a festival that commemorates when the Israelites lived in booths in the wilderness.

Curious about said feast, I followed a couple of cross references my Bible gave me and came to John 7:37-38.

“On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”

One thing to note is that this is an 8 day feast. Can you imagine? 8 days of extravagant eating and drinking. Thanksgiving every day for a week. Yikes. Wow.

With that in mind then, I was taken aback at what appears, at face value, to be an obnoxious question or statement from Jesus… “If anyone is thirsty….”
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
Thirsty?
They hadn’t been thirsty in seven and a half days. Talk about too much coffee….

This scene I imagine reminds me of when I was a wedding planner. Sure, there were some really hot outdoor weddings, I live in the Midwest, but none warranted a lot of what I saw. I remember very vividly seeing all of these groomsmen get into the reception hall after the outdoor ceremony, shed their suit coats the minute they could, and literally, rush the bar.

One beer.
Two beer.
Three beer.
Four.

And I would watch these people and all I could think was, “You just downed 8 beers in an hour. Give me a break, boys. You’re not thirsty anymore.”

Say what you want about alcohol, all I will say about this certain situation is this: it could have been soda, it could have wine, it could have been water---after 8 of anything you aren’t thirsty anymore. And I don’t care how hot it is.

I think this is most likely very similar to the Feast that Jesus was at. Whether it was beer, wine, water, or whatever was their soda equivalent in those days, these people weren’t thirsty anymore. This was their eighth day of drinking.

But he still made that statement. He knew what I just told you, he knew their bodies were water-logged, yet that didn’t stop him from saying the most bizarre thing.

“If anyone is thirsty…”

Think about it. Jesus said this to a crowd who has had all of their physical needs met.

They are not people who starve—they gorge. They don’t drink to quench—they’ve probably drank to alter.
I live in the United States of America in the 21^st century. Experts say that people of my generation have known more opulence and luxury than even ancient and historical kings who once ruled the world. Let’s be honest, I have never known hunger. Like these Feast-goers, I have never had a time when I was thirsty and had nothing to quench it with.

 So what could this possibly mean then? This phrase is not just here, but literally all over the Bible. “All who are thirsty…come.” If I can have every physical need met, food, water, shelter, clothing, and be living in a time of continual feasting and opulence, and yet still be referred to by the Bible as one of the “thirsty,” then it has to mean that there are a lot of very well-fed, starving people in the world.

I think back to those receptions I was telling you about. There were a lot of smilers with empty eyes amongst those groups. I think if Jesus had walked in he would have said the same thing he did to those at the Feast. He would have looked to a crowd with glasses in their hands and said, “If any of you are thirsty…”

Sure, there would have been scoffers—for he always had a lot of those (because he was telling people that how they lived was wrong)—but there are probably some who would have “gotten it,” like I think some did back then, too. They would know the emptiness that I saw in their eyes, the dry heart, the parched soul, and they would have understood the message Jesus was saying.

I think about thirst. All the ways I feel I still thirst, and I am brought back to reality, as I look around this kitchen of mine, full of material blessings untold. And all I can think is: This material world does not satisfy. Some of you might have full glasses and empty souls. You might be one of the well-fed starving ones, for don’t ever be deceived that all of the world’s hungry are without food.

However, (don’t you love that there is always an HOWEVER??!?!), the invitation is the same today as it was 2,000 years ago. “If any of you are thirsty, let him come to me and drink…” Jesus says. “Streams of living water will flow…”

Drink deeply tonight, Wolfies, from the only One who can quench.

Captives.

It’s snowing here! You will guess that I am excited. Because I love winter. I was thinking the other day and I am pretty sure that the seasons, and how I rank them in order or liking, goes something like this:
Spring.
Winter.
Fall.
Summer.
Not that you care, of course, but I thought you might be curious. So there it is.

Things can change pretty fast in life, sometimes so fast that you don’t know what hit you.

I was gone again this weekend and when I got into my car to start driving home it was like 60 degrees outside. And then the next time I got out of my car it was like 27 degrees. Now, mind you, I had covered a decent amount of miles, but it was all in the same state.

Wow. Fast. What a change.

But then there are things that change rather slowly, and you don’t notice any change until one day you realize that somewhere along the line you must have flipped a switch.

Those are called slippery slopes.

I saw this picture this summer when I was at that golf tournament. Pretty sure I said outloud, “No Kidding,” and then promptly snapped the picture.

But slippery slopes, they get you every time but I am convinced we usually have no idea we are on one.

Over the weekend I spent a lot of time thinking about this. Having had something brought to my attention, you know, one of those nasty, sinful things in my life, I couldn’t get it off my mind, and I wondered if there had been any red flags I could have seen along the way.

Was I just not paying attention?
Was it choices I made?
Was it choices somebody else made that affected me?

In my particular case, and I think probably the case in all particular slipping cases, it comes down to our choices. Even more so I think it comes down to our thoughts, because don’t all actions proceed from a thought?

As I was praying through said slope, the verse in II Corinthians kept coming to my head.

“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up again the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (10:5)

Wow. I, unfortunately, cannot say that about myself.

Most days my mind is just running wild, taking me with it to who-knows-where. And I fear it’s all of those runnings that lead me down slippery slopes. It’s those thoughts I don’t think about. The un-thought-about thoughts are probably the ones that little by little argue with me about the truth of who God is in my life, who he has been, who he will be. Those thoughts rouse up all my fears. They are the ones who set themselves up against God’s plan. And those are the ones that send me sliding.

Wouldn’t you agree that slopes are entered upon because we have believed something contrary to the truth of God and how we fit into that?

We let the thought run wild that God doesn’t really have our life in his hands and in his plans, so we take matters into our own hands and we start worrying and we start mentally spirally out of control until, at last, we find ourselves in the bottom of some pit.

Or we somehow think that satisfaction can be found in something, someone, some whatever, outside of Chrst.
Or what if we continue down the vein with the thought that somehow we will end up alone? Don’t we then turn into either some kind of control freak or wet-noodle….and find ourselves at the bottom of some slope?

Reality brings any number of thoughts into our mind that set itself up against the knowledge of God. That we cannot stop.

But we can stop following them down whatever hill they are pulling us.

Take every thought captive.  Make it obedient to Christ.
I think the only way we can do this is by listening to another verse:
Pray without ceasing.

If, throughout the day, we are always talking to God, then those thoughts that come into our mind can be dealt with immediately. We can demolish those arguments.

How?
Well, let’s take for instance the fear that you will end up alone. Why don’t we literally tell it, outloud if necessary, the truth of Christ: “I will never be left. I will never be forsaken” (Hebrews 13:5).
Or what about the fear that your life isn’t going the way you thought it should? Tell yourself what God has told us, “His thoughts are not my thoughts. His ways are not my ways. His thoughts are higher than mine. They are better” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
We have to stop believing the lie…even if we feel like it’s true. We must not follow our feelings, they are fickle. We must lead them and correct them.

Maybe this is elementary to some of you, this lipping-off to your fears using scripture, but the older I get the more I see my need to do it. Every single day. When it comes to sin we have no time to play Mr. Nice Guy.

They always say Fight Fire with Fire, but I personally think that’s a little lame. The Bible says the Word of God does not return void and it goes out and accomplishes God’s purposes. Therefore, the power of God’s word considered, wouldn’t you say that confronting our silly, irrational, and not true fears with scripture is really more like fighting fire with a meteorite?

That’s more how I like it. This battle for our mind, this battle for less sin in our life is not one to be taken passively. Be aggressive with your mind, Wolfies. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. And whatever you do, don’t retreat.

Just reload.

Future Thoughts.

My house-phone is exceptionally quiet today.
Which means that the election is over because, let’s be honest, nobody other than those involved in politics and business call me on the house-phone.

Ah, the election.

Sighs all around. We sigh because finally it’s just over, no more political ads, no more getting angry at anyone who doesn’t agree with you. Sigh because of who won, no matter what side of the ticket you voted. Some of you might sigh because you are elated nothing changed with this country’s leadership. Others of you sigh because you are heartbroken nothing changed with our country’s leadership. What-have-you, we clearly saw with the popular vote that it’s six-of-one, half-dozen-of-another: Half of us feel one way, and the other half of us feel the other.

But I asked myself this morning as I got back to work, sighing, “Are both sighs, the elated ones and the devastated ones, really just different sides of the same coin?”
For what are both parties feeling?
The elated ones are breathing a sigh of relief. They are confident things are going to go well, or smooth, or the same, for the next four years.
The heartbroken ones just gasped in. They ponder how bad things are going to get;they tighten their belts, put their boots on and say, “Brace yourself, baby, it’s going to be a doozy.”
While those seem like polar opposites, I’m not so sure.

I love C.S. Lewis, you know this. Gosh we need more Christians who use their brains like he did.
Anyway, he talks about something like this in one of his chapters in The Screwtape Letters (which, sorry about not getting very far in my dissection of that book earlier this year).
Therefore, today, I will let one much more skilled with the pen take it from here.

The Screwtape Letters. Chapter 15.

 MY DEAR WORMWOOD,

  I had noticed, of course, that the humans were having a lull in their European war—what they naïvely call "The War"!—and am not surprised that there is a corresponding lull in the patient's anxieties. Do we want to encourage this, or to keep him worried? Tortured fear and stupid confidence are both desirable states of mind. Our choice between them raises important questions.

 The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present—either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

 Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past and it has a determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity. It is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time—for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays. Hence the encouragement we have given to all those schemes of thought such as Creative Evolution, Scientific Humanism, or Communism, which fix men's affections on the Future, on the very core of temporality. Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead. Do not think lust an exception. When the present pleasure arrives, the sin (which alone interests us) is already over. The pleasure is just the part of the process which we regret and would exclude if we could do so without losing the sin; it is the part contributed by the Enemy, and therefore experienced in a Present. The sin, which is our contribution, looked forward.

 To be sure, the Enemy wants men to think of the Future too—just so much as is necessary for now planning the acts of justice or charity which will probably be their duty tomorrow. The duty of planning the morrow's work is today's duty; though its material is borrowed from the future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present. This is not straw splitting. He does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. We do. His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him. But we want a man hag-ridden by the Future—haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth—ready to break the Enemy's commands in the present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other—dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see. We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.

 It follows then, in general, and other things being equal, that it is better for your patient to be filled with anxiety or hope (it doesn't much matter which) about this war than for him to be living in the present. But the phrase "living in the present" is ambiguous. It may describe a process which is really just as much concerned with the Future as anxiety itself. Your man may be untroubled about the Future, not because he is concerned with the Present, but because he has persuaded himself that the Future is, going to be agreeable. As long as that is the real course of his tranquility, his tranquility will do us good, because it is only piling up more disappointment, and therefore more impatience, for him when his false hopes are dashed. If, on the other hand, he is aware that horrors may be in store for him and is praying for the virtues, wherewith to meet them, and meanwhile concerning himself with the Present because there, and there alone, all duty, all grace, all knowledge, and all pleasure dwell, his state is very undesirable and should be attacked at once. Here again, our Philological Arm has done good work; try the word "complacency" on him. But, of course, it is most likely that he is "living in the Present" for none of these reasons but simply because his health is good and he is enjoying his work. The phenomenon would then be merely natural. All the same, I should break it up if I were you. No natural phenomenon is really in our favor. And anyway, why should the creature be happy?

Your affectionate uncle,

SCREWTAPE

On selfishness.

Just the other day I was thinking about how selfish I am.

My natural self tries to take care of ME. Even in my interactions with others sometimes I feel like I am trying to figure out how I can be the one to get ahead, how I can be the one to be talked to or noticed or made to look important. Call it vanity. Call it conceit. It’s both of those.

I know what all my tactics are, I know how I try to manipulate a situation.
But as I was thinking, feeling terrible (as I should) about how I am sometimes, I wondered, “Is this selfishness thing even necessary? Do all of my strivings get me anywhere anyway?” What a waste of time it sometimes feels like.
Needless to say, I found myself praying, confessing all of the terrible, selfish things about me, when that verse came to mind. You know, the one about thinking about others as better than yourself.
What I had never noticed, really, was the verses just before that one. It’s preface.

Philippians 2:1-4 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Talk about packing a punch. Right in the gut.

What surprised me, though, as I said, was the preface verses.
How many of you have ever had any encouragement from being united with Christ?
I have.
How many of you have ever known any comfort from his love? Any at all?
I am reminded of those times in the grey seasons of life when I would cry myself to sleep. All alone in a big house, but realizing as I drifted off that I wasn’t alone; he was there. And that was enough.
Yes, I can say I know the comfort from his love.
Fellowship with the Spirit? Don’t have to ask me twice. So much. There is so much fellowship to have with that good God of ours. He is a talker, and I am a talker, so we get along capitally. Yeah, he is my favorite fellowship. He is my favorite experience-sharer.

If any of you are like me, or even maybe if you have not felt like you know the comfort and love and fellowship to the extent I say I have, this verse says that if you have ANY. Have you ever known ANY of that?

Then you have reason to not be selfish.
Isn’t this is the craziest thing?

This verse says that if we have ever known any of these things, then we can have that same love, we can be like-minded with Christ, we can have that same spirit.

What is that spirit, though?
Well let me ask you: when you were experiencing all of that love of comfort or fellowship, was that at a time when you needed love or comfort or fellowship?
Probably.
So what in essence was Christ doing? Wasn’t he taking care of your needs?
He was. He was looking out for YOUR interests. THAT is the same mind we can have. A mind that looks out for interests.

But isn’t that what I am trying to do when I am being selfish? Am I not looking out for MY interests?

This says that he already is, though. So that means that my selfishness is a little…redundant. Because, if he is looking out for my interests, then my care about my needs is probably not necessary.

Typically when I am being selfish I have a fear that if I don’t get what I am after at this current moment then eventually I won’t have some kind of comfort. Somewhere down the road I won’t have a certain type of love or fellowship or what-have-you. This claim though, which is pretty large, says that HE gives love and comfort and fellowship, which should therefore lead me to peace. Because no matter what happens in this situation I am trying to manipulate, I will never be without those benefits of knowing Jesus.

All of this makes me realize that the devil is even more of a liar than I had originally thought: even our “need” to be selfish is a lie. He says that we need to look out for ourselves. Makes us think that nobody else will if we don't.

Not so.
You and I have no need to be selfish. We can think of others as better than ourselves; we can look to their interests; we can have the same spirit of Christ (through his power); we can stop trying to manipulate situations to get us ahead. Why? Because Christ’s love and comfort and fellowship is already looking out for our interests.

What freedom! What additional comfort! What security! We are free to now have the attitude of, “Well I can look out for you and your needs, I can give you comfort, I can look out for your interests---because I am already being taken care of.”

For the Believer then, what is selfishness? It’s overkill. Unnecessary.

There is no need for us to be so concerned about our needs because, well, he’s already got that covered.
Yay. Now we can just go love people. What a relief.