TOO MUCH DRAMA

This rant came about from a statement made by a good friend of mine.  I love this man with all of my heart.  He is good, a giver, and has helped me in many circumstances that he has no idea of.  However, yesterday after someone broke into one of his businesses, he declared how hard Satan was working against him.  It made me cringe, because I knew the person who was feeding him the lie.  This person loves drama. Actually, they seem to thrive on drama, which isn’t unusual in this day, and age. Drama, disaster, doom, and despair seem to be all the rage in today’s world.  If something terrible isn’t happening directly to us, we’ll search for it in the newsfeeds, the television, or the newspaper.  As an American, my generation, hasn’t known a day without some cataclysmic event that didn’t threaten to destroy life as we know it.  I went to elementary school during the Cold War, and sat huddled, frightened, and unsure of what was happening to me during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  I can still remember the unending images of the carnage of the Vietnam War being the staple of the evening news shows.  The days of my adolescence were marked with unspeakable acts of violence committed by men to enslave, destroy, or subjugate one another. I could make an unending list of conflicts, disasters, and continuing sagas that fill my days.

Still, as Solomon would say, there is nothing new under the sun.

When we grow weary of glorifying our ability to be cruel beyond any monster ever imagined in Hollywood, we turn to the news media so we can become enraptured with our ability to destroy our environment, waste our earth, and ignore the delicate balance of our eco-system.  The media loves to propagate fear, but rarely offers solutions to the source of those fears. Our fascination with gloom, doom, disaster, and mayhem is as old as we are. Some of the oldest surviving communications from our history, consist mostly of calamity.

We love our fears, because they make us feel alive. 

Over the last few months, I’ve been thrust into a ‘drama’ infused environment that caused me to dread doing my job.  I didn’t realize how bad it was, until I had a chance to step out of it for a couple of weeks.  It took me about 2 or 3 days to ‘detox’ from the opiate of the drama, but once I was clean, and sober, I could see I’d allowed myself to become addicted to it. The primary source of the drama has an uncanny ability to make their cataclysm yours.

Once I began to de-tox, I realized how difficult it was to enjoy the presence of God during this time of drama.  I WON’T HAVE THAT!!!!!!   Jesus suffered, and gave up so much to restore my relationship with the Father, I won’t dishonor Him by allowing fear, drama, and despair to rule my life.  Those are the very things Jesus overcame.  He never promised us we wouldn’t go through things that tested our faith, or challenged our commitment.  He did promise He would be with us in them. In that promise, is another unspoken promise; our drama doesn’t have to be someone else’s drama. Unless, of course, you’re one of those people who just have to share your drama.

Hello, Facebook.

 

Through this time, I’ve learned one valuable thing; we are the source of all drama on this earth.  It doesn’t matter whether the conflict is with nature, or with other men, you will always find a human being somewhere in the drama.  Without humans, the cycle of life goes as it always has.  Our obsession with ourselves becomes comical when we place it in the context of eternity. Only humans can put themselves into a state of terror over the stupidity of how we look, talk, or behave.  Without us, those things that seem so disastrous, and devastating on TV would simply be the machinations of a planet in its course through the universe. All great drama has a conflict, and we are that conflict.  With all of our knowledge, we still haven’t observed the course of life around us.  Life comes, life goes, the sun rises, the sun sets, we are born, we die, we either add to the good of others around us, or we take everything we can take.  It is my desire to have left this earth, or just my small part of it, a better place for having consumed so much good.   

To the sparrow, the sparrow’s perch is a place of safety, regardless of the storms of life.  Within the shelter of the Creator, the sparrow knows that it has all it needs because of the creator.  If all that it needs should be taken away, the Creator remains.  This is insulting to most people, who want to believe everything is about them.  They are like little toddlers who believe all things happen for, and to them.  Actually, I’ve come to realize that all our drama is the glorification of ourselves over the love of Jesus our savior. As a Christian, I’m blown away when a Child of God will advertise how the ‘Devil’ (I hate even typing it) is working against them. We give the enemy of our souls the credit for things he had no power to do, and fail to see the evil we inflict upon one another in our search for drama.  

We wallow in self-importance by assuming that ‘Satan’ personally orchestrates every evil or tragedy inflicted upon us. 

If you want to feel self-important, remove your corn-fed butt (Yes, I said butt) from its throne of self-indulgence, and make a difference in the plight of those less fortunate around you.  I personally know of five or six places on this earth (yes, there a thousands more) where $1 a day can feed a family that is really suffering.  I can show you abject poverty on a scale even the homeless in America can’t begin to attain to.  If you want drama, real drama, drama that challenges you, something that will make you feel powerful instead of powerless, find a church that is really feeding the poor, sending doctors to the backwaters of the globe, rescuing orphans in the midst of man’s inhumanity to man, and begin giving to them.   Even better yet, join them on their next ‘love mission,’ and go see what real drama looks like.  You don’t even have to leave the United States.  Donate to “Operation Christmas Child” and send a shoebox to a child who has never seen a toy in their life.  Give $20 dollars, and buy a goat for a family in Africa.  A goat can be an endless supply of milk.  Donate to the numerous Presbyterian charities that are putting in water wells in the most remote places on earth.  Our nation’s economic downturn is a warning of what happens when we forsake the calling to greatness our Creator has called us to.  Our vast wealth, resources, and uncanny ingenuity were meant to bless mankind.  If we waste it on us four and no more, we’ve done nothing. 

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the Sparrow’s Perch, the comfort of my office, the familiar blue glow of my monitor, heat in the winter, air in the summer. At the same time, I can’t even begin to tell you how much I enjoy the pleasure of ministering the love of Jesus to those who face true drama.  I go to work with the joy of knowing that some of what I’m earning is going to lift someone out of hunger, or even better yet, give them the love of Christ.  Find a way to love beyond yourself, your family, and those who can repay you.  Don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.  A joyous life will replace your dramatic one.