Introspection: A Time of Stagnation

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A Time of Stagnation

Hope postponed grieves the heart;

but when a dream comes true, life is full and sweet.

Proverbs 13:12 (The Voice)

Tonight

I'm alive

I've watched you all grow up and so have I

Inside

This isn't really what I had in mind

From "Tonight" by Staind

My previous introspection was a testimony I delivered as part of a talk last weekend during a spiritual retreat.  This year, I have tried really hard to post something every week, but sometimes, when my life is rather busy, I end up posting whatever I have on hand.  That testimony documents a span of roughly five years, starting with my falling into a bad job situation in late 2007 and continuing through a time of radical growth in my life until late 2012.  People who have followed my writing for any significant amount of time might be tired of reading about my experience in the gambling industry, but it is a story I will treasure in my heart for the rest of my life.  It is my story of being delivered from shame and misery and being called to greater purpose in life.

During that time of growth, I thought that my life was going somewhere.  In 2012, I started to think that my life was going somewhere I did not want it to go.  I say this as one who has a tendency to float through life.  Eventually, when the proverbial merry-go-round starting spinning a little too fast, I put my foot down to stop the ride.  2013 was a rather difficult year for me, for I saw some things in myself I didn't particularly want to see.  2014 wasn't much better.

The last two years have been for me a time of frustration and restlessness.  My life is not what I would like it to be: I feel that I ought to be further on my journey than I am right now.  There are times when I wonder if my life is going anywhere at all.  Spinning my wheels is a phrase I have used a lot lately.  I'm not saying that my life is devoid of anything good and meaningful; in fact, sometimes there is so much going on in my life that life seems hectic.  Despite my busyness, something about my life just seems stagnant at times.  I feel that something needs to change, but I'm not quite sure what that something is.

Some people would refer to my time working in the gambling industry as a wilderness experience, comparing it to the ancient Israelites' long journey through the desert from Egypt to the Promised Land or to Jesus' forty days of fasting and struggling against temptation in the desert.  Once I would have agreed, but now I'm not so sure.  In the case of the ancient Israelites, the wilderness experience was the long, arduous journey from a place of oppression and misery to the place God had prepared for them.  That said, I wonder if maybe my "exodus" from the gambling industry actually marked my entry into the wilderness.¹

The wilderness is the seemingly endless wasteland that stretches between the place we were not meant to be and the place we were meant to be.  It is where we are prepared for whatever comes next.  It is the place where we could very well be stripped of everything until we are left with nothing that is not truly part of ourselves.  In the wilderness there is freedom, but there is also great difficulty.  In the wilderness, we receive instruction from God, and we also contend with God.  In the wilderness, we progress toward our destination at times, and we wander aimlessly at times.  In the wilderness there are highs and lows, successes and failures, times of growth and times of stagnation.

Every since I entered into the wilderness, it seems that every supposed sighting of whatever "promised land" awaits me has turned out to be a mirage or an oasis.  Perhaps I have yet to learn whatever lessons the wilderness experience is supposed to teach me.  Several months ago, I agreed to help with the retreat, but, as the weekend drew near, I began to hope that God would give me some great, life-changing epiphany.  I just hoped that something would happen - something that would give me some clarity about my journey ahead.

Unfortunately, I received no such revelation, but I would not say that I was left wanting.  Early in the weekend, I became aware of my negativity and my cynicism - perhaps one could say I was "convicted."  I began to wonder if maybe my pessimistic outlook is contributing to what I perceive as stagnation in my life.  Negativity robs us of hope and joy, and bitterness keeps us trapped in the past, unable to move forward into the future.  I decided to repent of these things.  I will not say that I've suddenly become Mr. Positivity: changing my outlook on life will be an ongoing process.  I will have to choose to be hopeful and optimistic day by day, with each opportunity that comes my way.

A twinge of pain later in the weekend helped me to understand why I had turned to negativity: I have been using negativity to numb myself.  If I choose to be hopeful, I will leave myself vulnerable to pain.  Hope is easily misplaced, and false hope often leads to disappointment and heartache, but despair brings with it a twisted sense of certainty.  If I just assume that life is nothing but a big pile of crap, I will never have to worry about being disappointed.  There are plenty of opportunities for confirmation bias to tell me that I'm right, but I can be pleasantly surprised when life actually goes well.  On the other hand, a negative outlook holds me down and keeps me from reaching out for something better.  By choosing to be hopeful, I run the risk of disappointment or failure, but with greater risks come greater rewards.

I'm beginning to think that facts are overrated.  For example, when I hear somebody say something like "God brought you here for a reason," I typically think to myself, "You don't know that!  You have no idea what God is actually thinking, so stop making such claims for God!"  None of our claims about God can be empirically verified, and our talk about God's will and God's plan can be very problematic when we speak irresponsibly and without humility.  For these reasons, I try to make as few claims about God as possible, allowing God to simply be mysterious.  That said, I'm starting to wonder how my life might be different if I lived as though God brought me where I am for a reason, as if I had some divinely-given purpose wherever I was at any given moment.  Often what we believe actually affects us more than what is factual.

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once mused, "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."  Often we don't understand what is really going on in our lives until we look backward from far into the future.  To reference a certain poem, it is only when we look back that we begin to understand the number of trails of footprints behind us.  My life seems stagnant at the moment, but someday I might look back at this supposed time of stagnation from a different vantage point and see how God was at work in my life the whole time.  Until then, as I continue trudging through the wilderness, I pray for a new outlook and the courage to be hopeful.


Notes:

1. Please note that I'm not trying to compare my bad job experience to actual slavery.

The photograph of the desert canyon was taken by Bob Miles of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and has been released into the public domain.