Thankful.

I ran across an old box of letters

While I was bagging up some clothes for Goodwill.

And you know I had to laugh, that the same old struggles

That plagued me then are plaguing me still.

-Derek Webb, "Thankful"

After thinking a bit about what I wrote a couple days ago, I realized again that all the frustrations and problems I deal with are not from me having been dealt a bad hand, or being wronged by somebody else. They're rooted deep within me. Sounds weird and a bit melodramatic, but I know it's the truth.

There's a translation of the Bible written by Eugene Peterson, where he set out to put the Bible into everyday language. I don't enjoy reading all the time in this version, mostly because the language can feel like the longest sermon ever written. However, it offers a fresh and often intriguing look at the Scriptures. In the book of Galatians, Paul is writing about freedom, and encouraging the church he's writing to to live differently. If they believe that Christ has set them free by dying on the cross, then it should show up in how they act towards one another. Mind-blowing, I know. However, when looking at this particular chapter, it stuck out to me how the things that I wrestle with are very much the stuff that Paul is cautioning this church against - the earmarks of selfishness.

For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

That's the kind of stuff these roots in me lead to. The ugliness of what that looks like above the surface is frightening. As I look at the list of all those things that are so familiar, I know that Paul is right when he said that being really free and being selfish are complete opposites. By wanting my own way and trying to do the things that will benefit me most, I'm really only shooting myself in the foot.

So, that's my condition. It's our condition, actually. That's what we're naturally born into. Pretty messed up, if you ask me. Paul isn't done, though - there's a huge contrast following that verse:

But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

The chorus from that song at the beginning of this post is fairly simple, but it offers a profound truth to us in our current situation: "So I am thankful that I'm incapable of doing any good on my own." When I try to work my way out of this state I'm in, it helps to remember that no matter how hard I try, it's no use; solutions that come from me and my own will are completely useless to fix this mess of myself. Furthermore, by trying to always put myself in competition with others, I'm not acknowledging my own originality - the spark of the divine in me. What I'm essentially doing in my selfish ways is making a mockery of what God has put in me for a good reason.

When I was in fifth grade, my parents had taken me to see a child psychologist, because I had a hard time connecting with my peers; that's another thing I've taken with me throughout life thus far. His name was Bill, and he was a pretty good guy from what I remember. Everyone should be so lucky as to have an environment like a psychologist's office: warm, comfortable, with someone who provides you an open environment to talk about whatever you want, and, most importantly, a pretty decent selection of puzzles and toys. Anyway, during one of our sessions, Bill was asking me about the way I looked at life, and I don't exactly remember what I said, but he asked me, "and don't you think that you might be selfish?" I started to cry, not because I was hurt, but because he was right on. It was the type of hurt like he had just ripped off a fake mustache I'd stuck on with spirit gum, exposing me for what I really was. I had never seen myself as being selfish up until that point, but the writing was evidently on the wall.

I think when you go through the normal decision-making process, your initial gut reaction is to choose the selfish way.However, when you look at the end results between selfishness and living in freedom, God's way, it should completely change the way you operate on a daily basis. We don't know from the Bible what actually happened to the church in Galatians after Paul laid it all down for them, but I'm willing to bet they thought much differently once this was made clear for them. My hope is that this realization in my life will bring about that same type of change Paul talks about.