Luke 19:26 “He replied, ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what they have will be taken away.’”
Yesterday, I received two emails that should have made me elated. They did make me happy, but I don’t think I held onto that happiness for very long.
First, a student I taught in the spring got a writing gig with his current employer. He was pumped about the opportunity, and since we had spent so much time working on his writing for the freshman writing course he was part of, he wanted to let me know the good news.
Second, my uncle—my dad’s oldest brother—responded to an email I sent him early in the week. We last saw each other about this time a year ago, and he commented on how much that particular vacation—where he had, among other things, gotten to see my dad, Elisha, and me—had meant to him.
These are phenomenal blessings: written records of gratitude and appreciation that show God working in the lives of the people I have been in prayer for.
And yet. And yet.
I know I wasn’t smiling yesterday.
It was Day 1 of Potty Training for our two-year-old daughter (as, kind of, explained here), and I realized some assumptions I’d made about the bank my wife and I are working with on a new house weren’t right, and I’m worried about my middle brother and whether I’ve hurt my relationship with him. And…and…and…
Today’s verse is a bit of a conundrum. How can something be taken away from someone who has nothing? Christ’s words come from the parable of the talents, and the man who has had his talent taken away did have something to cultivate for his lord. However, in the servant’s mind, that talent was never really his, and so the lord fulfills the reality the servant has already been living in: a disposition of scarcity and resentment.
Here’s the thing. What if every one of my larger problems yesterday had been solved, would I have seen these emails from my student and uncle for what they were: blessings that let me know God is working and faithful in bigger ways than just my individual life? Would I have walked around with an actual smile on my face? Or would those emails have gotten lost amidst some other set of problems that I drummed up to have something to worry about? Would my face still have prompted my wife to ask me what’s wrong?
If I can’t be faithful in giving and feeling thanks for (relatively) little things, I will certainly not be prepared to give and feel thanks for the larger things I want God to do in my life.
And this gives me insight into something that will happen once the semester starts. There will be no small victories. Every missed quiz question will be the end of the world or the problems with larger projects will drown out successes on small daily projects. Being faithful in small things will add up. And finding ways to build upon the small things from the semester will be a way to combat the inevitable dread that comes with serious research papers or other fear-inducing work.
It’s my job to model for my students what daily gratitude looks like, and sometimes that means giving thanks for Honey Bunches of Oats (it’s a good cereal!) and seeing that God’s joy is not something I will start feeling once I achieve all the goals the spirit has led me to set but something felt and experienced now because my salvation is secure and God is faithful and at work in my life.