One of the things that plagues our lives these days is the idea that we can just "fix it" with the snap of our finger and things will be back to normal. You've all heard the reasons why we think that way--microwaves, email and now instant messaging.
The place our world is in now can't be fixed with the snap of a finger...I don't care who's finger is being snapped. Where we are today isn't just George W Bush's fault any more than we can expect Barak Obama to straighten everything out--in two, four or twenty years. And, as I've said, the heroes who rode in on the white horses in November and took their stands this month aren't going to get it fixed either. We won't be able to vote someone in fast enough to do that.
We have to realize that the place we find ourselves today didn't change yesterday. We have been approaching this day for years. I remember telling my teenaged children that they have no concept how TV had changed since I was a kid watching a black and white with my parents. Now, some 20 years or so later they are making the same statement with just as much shock as I did.
I caught Dr Phil today and he was trying to get the overnight sensation, Ted Williams, to agree to rehab. Ted needs rehab. Ted is going to have to do some hard work emotionally to rid himself of his emotional wounds, the effects of alcoholism and all the other relationship issues that are coming out of the closet. He is not able to come in off the streets and be back on the radio the next week. I believe in miracles and that just ain't gonna happen.
The same is true for us. My relationship issues took me 13 years of focused work to get a handle on. I still need to keep working on them. It is so easy to fall back into old patterns. We can't expect to shake off years of relationships that have affected us adversely. We didn't learn the old patterns overnight and we're not going to be able to shake them off overnight, either. It's not fair to expect ourselves to fix what is wrong with ourselves, our country or our society overnight.
What does it take to repair the broken parts of our lives or our world? A lot of hard work over a long time. The older I get the more I realize that part of the healing, in fact a big part of the healing, is in the process. We just can't absorb the changes that need to take place in our lives in just a few short minutes or years.
I'm fighting that right now. This is the first time in my life that I have been unemployed for this long. I've always found things to do and things to keep me busy. What they kept me from doing was listening long and hard enough to hear what my heart was really saying. I was jumping from job to job to keep the pay checks coming in. I expected in this atmosphere to find the perfect job in 2 days or less. I'm not even sure if the 48 days that an acquaintance of mine suggests is long enough.
I've got to break some old habits. I've gotten to listen carefully. And I've got to make the right choices. I can't just keep bouncing around. I'm almost old enough to retire but far, far from being able to.
I'd like to start fixing our world next week...or tomorrow morning. But it may take longer than that to figure out what obstacles in my life are keeping me from doing that. I hope we don't expect Congress to fix all the problems we have as a government and as a country this week or even in the next 2 years. It's going to take more time than that and more work than we can get done in 2 years.
But don't despair. I can still remember the first time I began to work on my emotional issues with seriousness. It was almost 20 years ago. I'm not where I want to be but I'm not where I was. The grace of God has brought me thus far and will take me as far as I need to go. I can start right now to allow the Holy Spirit to work on another aspect of my life that will contribute to the betterment of my world and those I touch. Join me.
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