Counting it Joy

“Love is costly.

It always involves some kind of self-denial. It often demands suffering.

But Christian Hedonism insists that the gain outweighs the pain.

It affirms that there are rare and wonderful species of joy that flourish only in the rainy atmosphere of suffering. ‘

The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears.’ “

 

–          Desiring God, by John Piper

 

A journey is all I can describe it as. Not just a journey towards somewhere, or someplace, which is really what it all seems to those watching from the outside, given the crowded mix of painful uncertainty, wild adventure and nervous anticipation…

 

… but a journey within, towards inside.

 

With all the waiting, praying and adjusting to transitions, the past few months have been particularly trying, on some days more than others. You may laugh- after all, we haven’t even travelled yet on this supposed journey, haven’t even stepped foot into a plane or boat to the unknown! But the journey has already begun, this journey within, to uncover our deepest insecurities, our most unconscious expectations and our ugliest fears.

 

One day while clearing our mini library and putting our old books into boxes, in preparation of us leaving this year, I uncovered a book I had read years ago, with fluorescent sticky pads still peeking out of the edges of it. As I leafed through the areas I had highlighted, I read something that gave me added insight to this season I had been struggling through. 

 

Boasting is the response of pride to success.

Self-pity is the response of pride to suffering.

Boasting says, “I deserve admiration because I have achieved so much.”

Boasting is the voice of pride in the heart of the strong.

Self-pity is the voice of pride in the heart of the weak.

Boasting sounds self-sufficient.

Self-pity sounds self-sacrificing.

 

The reason self-pity does not look like pride is that it appears to be needy.

But the need arises from a wounded ego,

and the desire of the self-pitying is not really for others to see them as helpless,

but as heroes.

The need self-pity feels does not come from a sense of unworthiness, but from a sense of unrecognized worthiness.

It is the response of unapplauded pride.

 

–          Desiring God, by John Piper

 

While watching a gripping video by one of the missionary heroes, Jackie Pullinger, who had gone alone to the Forbidden City in Hong Kong in 1966 to share the love of God with gang-chiefs and drug addicts because God told her so, something she said resonated with me- that our present culture has made doing good and modern-day altruism very fashionable and chic, but also to the extent that that it exalts ourselves and strokes our inner egos.

 

We live in a culture where everything is broadcasted- from the instagrammed photo of what we are having for lunch (“ awesome dim-sum at Din Tai Fung!”) to the cartoon icon describing how we are feeling (“feeling important”)  to who we are spending the hour with (“great time with mum”). We are constantly connected to technology, constantly wired up to this great wifi-cosmos-complex that helps us live, breathe, function, as long as the rest of the world knows what we’re doing, clicks “LIKE” on what we’ve posted, and gives a thumbs-up comment for everyone else to read as well.

 

But tear this intricately-built scaffold down, and all you have really, is a rusty skeletal structure of sorry wires, screaming in barren nakedness for attention, starving to be clothed.

 

We have become products of a culture we are immersed and not fully conscious of. Jackie Pullinger says it “isn’t their (our) fault”. But it occurred to me, that this pain that I’ve been struggling with during this time of transition has been made all the worse by this juvenile illness called self-pity, as embarrassing as it might sound.

 

As John Piper puts it, it is a wounded ego, a response of unapplauded pride.

 

On restrospect, I can recall days of tears feeling useless, feeling left behind, feeling strangely nostalgic of the dreadful 36-hour shifts and cramming in for exams in between night shifts. There is a certain pride in living that brutal schedule, day in and day out. Then when we made this decision to go against the grain, and my artificial castle, laid with bricks of academic accolades and filled with crystal chandeliers of bright promise, came crumbling down, little did I realize or expect that some part of me actually expected the whole world to stop as well.

 

But the world kept turning. My unceremonious and dramatic decision didn’t overturn anybody’s universe but my own. And this disillusionment became a pregnant cloud of disappointment that hung over me like a perpetual dark cloud, threatening to rain whenever the lightning of wounded pride or the thunder of insecurity struck. I became angry at myself, and when I couldn’t contain it, I became angry at my best friend, who seemed to want nothing but had everything going on for her academically, materially, socially. I wish I could tell you I was like all the old missionary heroes, enthusiastically taking on pains and losses for God, but I wasn’t at all like them.

 

I seethed at my own loss of specialist training. I burned with envy at the loss of material pleasures I once enjoyed guiltlessly. My face stung at social events.

 

“So what are you specializing in now?”

“I’m not specializing.”

“Huh? So what do you do?”

“Public health.”

“Huh? So you don’t see patients anymore?”

“Yea.”

“Oh.”

Awkward silence drags on until the next person talks about their last residency interview with the most mercilest of interview panellists. In the midst of more well-meaning but not necessarily more sensitive folk, the conversation continues a little longer before it grinds to a stuttering, awkward halt as well.

“So what are your plans?”

“We’re going to do some mission work, maybe for a year or two or longer.”

“Then what about your work?”

“We’ll trust God and take things a step at a time.”

“And what are you going to do there?” Subtext reads: What are you going to do there in some God-forsaken place which would do your years of training  justice?

“We’re not sure, we’ll let God lead.”

 

Awkward silence.

 

“Oh excuse me, I’m going back for seconds.”

 

I came to realize, that I hurt and I suffered from what I perceived to be my own sacrifice, instead of faithful obedience to God. I forgot, that when Jesus died on the cross to be crucified, He didn’t see it as sacrifice. He didn’t walk with the cross on His back telling the crowd to applaud Him for his bravery. He saw it as obedience, and though it was the right thing to do, it did not mitigate the extent of his suffering. He was suffering for obedience, not sacrifice, and that was a good kind of suffering, the kind of suffering the Apostle Paul called “counting it all joy when you suffer”. (James 1:2)

 

This journey taught me that while I was “suffering” from an act of obedience, that suffering became a soulful self-pity as time passed by, when I did not make it a deliberate, conscious effort to “count it all joy”. That soulful self-pity then festered into an all-consuming depression that ate at me every day, mocking and patronizing me.

 

“ I never made a sacrifice,” said Hudson Taylor in later years,

looking over a life in which that element was certainly not lacking.

But what he said was true, for the compensations were so real and lasting

that he came to see that giving up is inevitably receiving,

when one is dealing heart to heart with God…

The sacrifice was great, but the reward far greater.

 

“Unspeakable joy (he tells us) all day long and every day, was my happy experience.

God, even my God, was a living bright reality, and all I had to do was joyful service.”

 

–          Desiring God, John Piper

 

John Piper says, Giving up is inevitably receiving. This is the motto of Christian Hedonism and the demise of self-pity.

 

And so it is.

 

If only the young people in our generation (read: myself included), who are so enthusiastic about making a difference in this world would also realize that love is costly, love is denying oneself, love requires suffering and crucifixion of the flesh, perhaps they would be less disillusioned about their endeavours when they stumble upon the rude realization that the world isn’t all filled with pink daisies, rainbows and purple ponies, like I thought it was.

 

Our  trust and faith in God must always remind us that the ultimate gain outweighs any pain.

 

After all, suffering was central to the cross.

But through it, came great victory, purpose and joy everlasting.

 

 

“Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

 No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs,

but rather tries to please his commanding officer.

Similarly, anyone who competes as an athlete does not receive the victor’s crown except by competing according to the rules.

The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops.

Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this.”

 

–          2 Timothy: 2-7