The Drift into Hopelessness (Gratitude I)
Brandon Cook
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. [1]
― Viktor E. Frankl
God’s mercies are new every morning, but do we have eyes to see them?[2] It’s one thing to be given a present; it’s another to actually receive and unwrap it.
My mind is like a petri dish. Many mornings it’s covered over with dark thoughts, or with sadness from yesterday, or with some foreboding about “what could go wrong.” I am often like the cartoon man with a storm cloud over his head on an otherwise beautiful day. Sometimes the day breaks and I’m still in the nighttime, even though everything around me is calling me to open my eyes. Just as we drift out of awareness of our adoption, or away from rest and into hurry, we can easily drift away from gratitude and into grumbling and complaining.
We see this drift in Scripture, and very early. In Genesis 3, Adam blames Eve and complains that it’s the woman God gave him who caused him to stumble.[3] One of the Bible’s earliest lessons? We humans are never too far from some victim story that justifies our own bad behavior.[4] We certainly see it in the Israelites in the desert; they’re on their way to the land promised by God when they began to moan about how horrible everything is. As we read in Exodus:
There [in the Desert of Sin], the whole community of Israel complained about Moses and Aaron. “If only the LORD had killed us back in Egypt,” they moaned. “There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve us all to death.”[5]
On one level, it’s a bit hard to blame them. They were in a desert, after all, and they had no food. I might throw my hands up in the air as well. But, of course, they had just seen God do ineffable miracles on their behalf! He had just parted a sea for them to pass through. So, for all of its relatability, their lack of belief is also stunning. There was something in the Israelites’ posture of complaint that blinded them to God and what He had just done for them, and to what He would surely do for them. There was something in their grumbling that caused them to drift off of God’s path of provision. There is some urge in the human heart for certainty, stability, and knowledge of how everything’s going to play out that gets in the way of faith and trust. The Pharisees, after all, also saw miracles and yet remained blind, complaining that Jesus’ healings violated their traditions.[6]
Rather than judge them (either the Israelites or the Pharisees), we might see ourselves in them; we are often just as addicted to having the world on our own terms, without the inconvenient need to be open to God—let alone trusting Him (or anyone else, for that matter). But to experience God means taking the desert and not just the miracles, and learning to keep our hearts soft amidst whatever terrain we encounter. You can inhabit the Promised Land long before you cross the Jordan River. That seems to be the message of Scripture and certainly the message of Jesus. Eternal life doesn’t begin when we die; it’s already begun. We are meant to live it here and now. What’s more, eternal life is more than a place. It’s a state of being in deep relationship with God. Many people use God to get to the Promised Land (to “go to heaven when they die”), while missing the point: God is the Promised Land.[7]
This is the reality that Israel remained blind to. We, too, can easily remain blind if we don’t find some way to fill our eyes with light.
For all of these readings in one place, order my book 'Learning to Live and Love Like Jesus.'
[1] Frankl, Viktor. Man's Search For Meaning. Beacon Press. Boston, MA. 2006. Page 66.
[2] Lamentations 3:23.
[3] Genesis 3:12.
[4] Though much of our bad behavior is truly attached to ways in which we were victimized, maturity, nevertheless, ultimately entails taking responsibility for our own behavior no matter what was done to us, which is the only path to freedom.
[5] Exodus 16:-3-4. See also Exodus 17 and Numbers 14, and (below) Psalm 95 and Hebrews 3-4. The parallel to Matthew 4:1-11 cannot be missed.
[6] E.g., Mark 3:1-6.
[7] We must ever be mindful of Jesus’ warning in Matthew 7:22 and 25:31-46. It is transforming relationship with God that saves us (see also John 17:3).