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March 21, 2009
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=========================== TODAY'S ARTICLE ==========================
Emergency?, by Patrick D. Odum
I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have
plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every
situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or
in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength (Philippians
4:12-13).
Emergency. For me, the word brings to mind catastrophes. A fire, an
earthquake, a tornado. A broken dike that floods a city. A terrorist
attack. A violent crime. A terrible accident. To my way of thinking, an
emergency requires the intervention of police, rescue, or medical
personnel. But maybe I'm too narrow in my definition. Maybe I should
broaden my understanding of the word to include, say, a restaurant
running out of delicious chicken products.
Latreasa would apparently say so. Earlier this week, she ordered a
ten-piece Chicken McNuggetsTM meal at a McDonald's in Fort Pierce,
Florida. After she had paid for the food, she was told that they were
out of McNuggets. Latreasa became "irate," especially after the cashier
told her (mistakenly, as it turned out) that she couldn't give Latreasa
a refund. She offered Latreasa another choice from the menu, and that's
when Latreasa decided it was time to let the professionals handle this
emergency.
She called 911.
Three times.
Wouldn't you love to hear those 911 recordings? You can!
* Recording Call 1
* Recording Call 2
* Recording Call 3
No, sorry, Latreasa. I can't buy it. Being hungry and completely
without food, like many people in the world actually are -- that's an
emergency. But a restaurant being out of your favorite item, with a
whole menu full of alternatives? Well, at best, I'd call that an
inconvenience. A minor annoyance.
But, aren't we good at magnifying those minor annoyances into major
catastrophes? I mean, maybe you've never called 911 because of anything
that's happened at the counter of a fast-food restaurant, but I imagine
you've sat fuming in traffic, staring at your watch, thinking about all
the important things that weren't getting done while you sat there. Or
if not that, maybe you've inflated a small setback at work into a
crisis. Perhaps you can relate more to allowing a romantic reversal to
send you spiraling into depression or relate to losing your temper at a
relatively minor spousal misstatement or misdeed. Maybe it's none of
those things specifically, but you get the picture, right? And I'm
guessing that you, like me, have been guilty of breaking the glass and
pulling the "emergency" alarm just a hair too quickly.
Our problem, I think, is that underneath our grown-up exteriors and our
ability, when necessary, to make sacrifices, is still that cosmology we
had in childhood. You know the one I mean. The one where I think the
world revolves around me.
And if the world revolves around me, then everything that goes wrong
for me is potentially an emergency. And, thus, potentially an occasion
for sulking, yelling, lashing out, or striking back.
That's why I'm intrigued when Paul says that he's learned "the secret
of being content in any and every situation." If you know anything at
all about Paul, then you know that he found himself in some fairly
hair-raising situations. He was hungry sometimes -- not in the sense of
wishing he could get some delicious chicken products, but hungry in the
sense of literal starvation. He spent some considerable time in jail.
He narrowly escaped lynch mobs -- or more historically accurate, mobs
that wanted to stone him -- more than once. He had health problems,
relationship problems, and he was even shipwrecked a time or two. And
that doesn't even include the stress of travelling all the time,
dealing with church problems, and putting up with people who went out
of their way to sabotage everything he tried to do.
So when Paul says he's learned to be content, I tend to want to pay
attention.
The secret, though, is a little tough to hear. Paul says that his
ability to be content whatever the situation comes out of replacing
himself as the one around whom the world revolves. With his believe
that Jesus had risen from the dead and his decision to let Jesus call
the shots in his life, the center of gravity in Paul's life changed.
What happened to him mattered not nearly as much as whether or not he
lived a life that was faithful to his new calling. And with that
perspective, things that he once would likely have considered crises --
emergencies -- became non-events.
And WE know who to talk to.
And the serendipity of this change, for Paul, was that Jesus became not
just Lord, but "him who gives me strength." By choosing to trust the
Lord and not hit the panic button when things seemed to go off the
rails in his life, Paul discovered a source of strength to endure and
overcome that he never would have known otherwise. He discovered that
he could not only survive in difficult situations, but that he could
thrive -- because where his strength ended, there Jesus' power began.
That's the problem in not learning to find contentment in Jesus
regardless of circumstances. When we hit the panic button too early, we
invariably lurch into crisis mode and try to come up with our own
solutions to our problems. Trouble is that our own solutions are almost
always about finding a quick way out, with as little personal
discomfort as possible.
Worst of all, when we chase our own solutions, we miss out on what the
Lord would do for us.
So here's what we do, I think. First, we tell God that, with his help,
we're going to find our contentment in him. We're going to trust in his
goodness and generosity, and when times are lean we're going to believe
that in him we'll have all the strength to endure whatever we have to
endure.
Secondly, we tell someone else. We tell other believers that we're
working on being more content in God's power instead of our own
schemes. We ask them to pray with us and for us, and we ask if we can
talk to them about the things we learn about God and ourselves.
Finally, we resist the urge to hit the panic button when things seem to
go bad. When we feel like lashing out at someone, we pray instead. When
you feel like compensating for sadness or anger with sundaes or
substances or sex or shopping, we sing worship songs or read Scripture.
When we feel like hiding or sulking, we seek out people who will bless
us, or who we can bless.
And when we are weak, each of us will seek him out and discover, with
Paul, that we can rely on God, the one who gives us strength.
By the way, McDonald's is sending Latreasa a gift card for a free meal.
A spokesperson said that the cashier was mistaken and should have
refunded her money. Turns out that Latreasa didn't need the 911 call
after all -- she just needed to know who to talk to.
The same goes for us.
And WE know who to talk to.
---------
(c) 2009 Patrick D. Odum <p.d.odum@gmail.com>.
RELATED LINKS:
* View from a Troubled Heart
http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200807/20080722_view.html
* Good Things from a Bad Situation
http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200707/20070713_goodfrombad.html
* Taste Test
http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200902/20090225_taste.html
* Faith Web
http://www.faithwebblog.com/
This article can be found on the web at:
http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200903/20090321_emergency.html
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