2015 will be a year that I will always hold dear in my heart for many reasons, the biggest one being my marriage.
We are prone to look back, at the beginning of a new year, to remember the year that has passed us by. And so, before I look forward to what 2016 has in store for me, I want to look back at the biggest lessons 2015 taught me.
Lesson 1: We are Never Going to be Ready
At the beginning of 2015 I was a newly engaged man. My engagement came with a cocktail of emotions. Amid the highs and enthusiasm of my oncoming marriage, I was pierced by a fear: the fear of not being ready for marriage.
I was afraid of my own immaturity. This fear came with a healthy dose (or unhealthy?) of self-contempt. After many years and efforts of self-growth and character development, why am I still immature?
I hated when people told me something like "you have grown A LOT, but...". I hated it not because I was closed to criticism (at least I hope I wasn't) but because despite the "A LOT" of growth that I've done, I was still nowhere near the elusive goal of maturity.
Not only that, if A LOT is not enough to get me close to where I need to be, what does that say about the place I was to begin with? Was I so incredibly immature, so immensely out of character, so hopelessly far behind that even after many years of A LOT of growth, I was nowhere near to where I was supposed to be?
I resented it, and I felt like crap. Either I haven't grown A LOT and people were just being nice to me, or I started with very poor material to being with.
With this incredible pressure over me, I tried to grow as much as I could. I felt like I was in a time bomb that will explode and destroy everything I wanted to accomplish unless I work my butt off and do some growing before my time is up.
The pressure, unfortunately, was also paralyzing. I started to resent myself and others. I never felt good enough. Many tears were shed in the name of incompetency.
As the months passed by in this state, I came to the conclusion that I was never going to be ready, and that's OK.
A few days before the wedding, my fiancé and I visited the priest who was the pastor of the church where we'd get married. He was guiding us through the last preparations of the ceremony.
As we entered his office, we caught him in the middle of a fascinating conversation with his secretary. "Baptism is no sort of magical thing that instantaneously makes us holy" he was saying to her, "that's bad theology".
"Let me give you an example" he continued. "When I was ordained a priest, did I walk like a priest? Did I talk like a priest? Did I behave like a priest? No I didn't. And yet I was a priest, but I still had to grow in my role as a priest".
When I heard that it reinforced what I learned to accept: It's OK to not be ready.
This beloved priest, even after years of seminary, he still had to spend many years growing into his role as a priest.
And so it is with us. With whatever project, job, ministry, or role that we take, we are never going to be completely ready for it, but it is by going into it with a humble and a beginner's mind that we'll be successful in it. More often than not, the person who is most confident in his readiness is the one who is not.
I'm not saying that preparations are irrelevant. The priest spent probably 5 years in seminary training to be a priest. I spent many years growing before marriage, and those years were necessary.
What I am saying is that after some considerable preparation, we should not be afraid of plunging into situations we may not feel completely ready for, for the situation itself will be the last stage of our preparation.
Marriage is the tool that will transform me into a husband.
Lesson 2: God is More Interesting on Being than on Doing.
What would Jesus do? We ask ourselves, in the pious hope of making the right choices and doing the right things in any given situation.
This apparently simple question seems to make sense. After all, as Christians, Jesus is supposed to be an example.
But Jesus is more than just an example. He is The Way. He is not a simple road sign. He is the road we need to walk on.
At the end of 2015, I became restless. I was entering into my Holiday break, and I intended to take advantage of it.
As the precious days of vacation passed, I became increasingly worried that I wasn't enjoying them enough. I felt like I was wasting time, and that I wasn't doing, or not doing, enough things to make this time meaningful.
The horrible restlessness continued in its merciless rage. I didn't know how to deal with it, or what to do (or not do) to shake off the nagging feeling.
Finally, I prayed. Always a good idea.
I simply asked God to tell me what to do about it. You are too concerned about doing, concentrate on being and the restlessness will go away I heard.
The answer seemed too simple, but maybe this was my way out of this horrible feeling. I started to concentrate more and more on how I could be the person God wanted me to be, despite what I did or did not do.
I noticed that whenever I concentrated on being, my restlessness seemed to disappear, and it would only reappear once I started thinking on what I had to do.
As westerners and achievers, our emphasis is on doing great things. I suspect that God is not too interested in our marvelous deeds.
He seems more interested in who we are. He is interested in relationships, and relationships is more than just doing things for each other.
Relationships is more about being with each other.
That's it for me! What are the biggest lessons you learned in 2015?
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