getting what we deserve

This is always a goofy week. Two days of classes, with a good 15-20% of students already gone for the holidays. It's only school - why bother having my student show up? Anyway, today was easy - two bells of lab time, two bells of test taking. I even covered for Kurt who fell to the projectile vomiting his offspring passed along to him. The joys of childrearing.

As we enter this holiday season (and notice I said enter, as in not yet - holiday season doesn't start until Thanksgiving, ads and displays in grocery stores be damned), I'm feeling much like one of George Romero's creations - gruesome and slow with a desire to feed off the living. In other words, business as usual around ths blog. Hard to believe only a year ago I was anxiously anticipating the holiday season and the joys it would bring. Of course, this is before it all went spectacularly wrong.

Been pondering the word deserve lately from a multitude of sides. Rob brought this up during Thinspace a couple of weeks ago, how we're paralyzed by this word. Many of us think we haven't gotten what we deserve, that this world, our God, owes us. Health. Love. Wealth. Our hearts' desire. Many of us think we have gotten something we didn't deserve - a broken relationship, a shattered dream, a raw deal. And then there are those of us who believe we don't deserve anything - not comfort, not security, not success, not love. Where do these ideas come from? How is this concept of what we deserve formed within us? How do we come to such differing conclusion on what it is we deserve?

It will come as no surprise to my regular reader that my struggle is with the last of this unholy trinity - I've come to believe that I don't deserve anything. Check that - I don't deserve anything good in my life. My martyr complex is well-documented and this is part of that, I suppose - we are created for suffering, not for pleasure; we should meet suffering with the same joy we meet blessing; we should not be surprised or saddened when disappointment enters our lives. While I know intellectually this is a steaming pile of feces, emotionally it continues to cripple me. It's difficult to live passionately when you not only expect life to suck, but believe that's the way life is supposed to be. It's hard to hold on to the things you love when you don't believe they're truly yours.

Strangely enough, my view on this works the other way for other people. I see my friends suffering through illness and job anxiety and divorce and believe they don't deserve to be going through all that. And even when the suffering comes from their own choices, I find myself wishing the consequences away, asking for God's grace to step in, to bring them joy. Why can I not do this for myself? Why is God's grace good enough for them but not for me?

Too often we reduce grace to this idea of what we deserve - we all deserve to be punished for our sins and shortcomings, but God gives grace and takes away the punishment. He's the great executioner deciding not to drop the axe on our deserving necks. But this makes grace no more than a means to an end - a way to avoid what should happen to us. But I don't believe God desires this utilitarian view of grace. Grace isn't ultimately about us - it's ultimately about how God interacts with His creation, fallen as it may be. God doesn't just extend grace to us - He is grace to us.

I pray I can remember that this holiday season. I pray we all can remember that.
Æ

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Now playing: Neko Case - Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis
via FoxyTunes