A Shocking Hope

Consider a psychological experiment done at Maastritch University in the Netherlands. The subjects were split into two groups and hooked up to a device that would deliver an electric shock.  Both groups would receive twenty shocks.  The first group was told that all of them would be severe, while the second group was told that seventeen would be mild and three severe. 

Imagine you could choose which group to be in.  Which would you pick? 

Cue the Jeopardy music.  My logical mind thinks this through very carefully. “Okay, let’s see.  I can choose to be jolted with twenty severe shocks, or three.  Hmmm.  Tough choice.”  Okay, times up.  My decision is made.  I’ll join the second group and take the three shocks.  Final answer.

Seems logical, doesn’t it?  If I’m going to be shocked 20 times either way, why wouldn’t I choose the group with less overall intensity?

It turns out that our reaction to an experiment like this is dictated by more than just the sum of the voltage.  There’s another variable at play that is more powerful than the jolt of electricity.  It’s the variable of uncertainty.  It’s a variable that I didn’t really give thought to while the Jeopardy music was playing.

The results of the experiment showed that those with less chance of receiving a severe shock were more anxious than those guaranteed to be shocked severely.  Their hearts beat faster and they sweat more profusely.  Getting three shocks spread out randomly over twenty was more stressful than getting blasted twenty times in a row.  Ironically, we feel worse when something bad might occur than when something bad will occur. 

Harvard psychologists Dan Gilbert, in reflecting on this finding, summarized by saying, “…when we get bad news we weep for a while, and then get busy making the best of it. We change our behavior, we change our attitudes. We raise our consciousness and lower our standards. We find our bootstraps and tug. But we can’t come to terms with circumstances whose terms we don’t yet know. An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait.”

In my plodding pilgrimage, I recently drifted back into a rut that I believed I had left behind long ago.  It was frustrating to find myself rehashing a pattern that I thought had been broken.  I wanted to believe I was beyond this – wiser, more mature, more disciplined.  But here I was again, revisiting this barren terrain.  When I saw it for what it was, I was discouraged.  The shadow of hopelessness was growing long. 

Then God spoke to me.  Not in audible voice, but in whisper - multiple sources echoing the same theme; converging “coincidences.” He reminded me that hope is what sets me apart as a Christian. Hope is an anchor for the soul (Hebrews 6:19). A certain future infiltrates the present and changes my outlook.  The swells of discouragement cannot pull me from my mooring.

In a previous post I talked about the entangled snare of twists and turns that is the course of my life (A Plodding Pilgrimage).  This rut revisit certainly felt like a pretty significant zig (or maybe a zag).  But hope is the assurance that this course does have a certain destination, and the destination is good.  In 1 Timothy it is described as “the life that is truly life” (I Timothy 6:19).  So this is the hope – that God can use all these twists and turns to get me closer and closer to real life.

And if that’s where I’m heading, all these set backs are surmountable.  With hope I am never stranded in the present.  Even if the electrodes suggest otherwise. 

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Navigator In Focus

I like this picture.  It was taken in our backyard last fall.  It’s a beautiful landscape, a pond surrounded by trees in the late hues of autumn.  It’s a scene I fell in love with the first time we saw this house.  But it’s not a picture of that landscape.  No one would mistake it for such.  In the picture, that landscape is all a blur.  Instead, it is a picture of relationship, of contoured intimacy, my wife affectionately nuzzled into the nape of my neck.  It is a celebration of well-worn love.  We fit together, a metaphor running beneath the image.  Landscape blurred, relationship in focus. 

Early in the gospel of Mark there are three episodes of Jesus calling men to follow him.  The first two are back to back.  He calls Simon (Peter) and Andrew (Mark 1:16-17).  Immediately following he calls James and John (Mark 1:19-20).  The third is separated by a chapter, when he calls Levi (Mark 2:13-14).  In all three episodes, these men are invited to join Jesus on a journey.  He calls them to follow and they accept the invitation. For the next few years they will spend their lives traveling with Jesus, sharing meals, listening to him teach, watching him perform miracles, asking him to explain parables, walking from village to village.  The decision to follow will change the course of their lives.  Each step takes them further from the familiar fishing boats and tax collectors booth. 

But what surprises me most is how little they know at the outset of this journey.  Jesus offers no details of the course they will take.  And he is frustratingly vague about the destination they will arrive at.  To Simon and Andrew, fishermen by trade, he offers the obtuse destination (or goal) of making them fishers of men, whatever that may mean.  James, John, and Matthew don’t even get that.  They get the invite with no mention of where they are going or how they will get there.  But they follow, stepping into a landscape that is blurry. 

There is a focal point.  The blurry landscape is the result a sharp focus elsewhere. That focus is on whom they will follow.  He offers a navigator.  “Follow me.” He will guide them on this journey. First and foremost, they are invited into relationship. They follow a person, not a path. The path is laid out as they follow him.   This is the beginning of discipleship, the conviction that I can trust Christ to be a reliable navigator in spite of the blurry landscape ahead. 

Recently I had a conversation with a friend about the new direction my life is taking. I told him I wasn’t sure what this will look like in 5-10 years, but I do have a pretty good idea of the next two or three steps I need to take.  Seems this is how Jesus navigates.  He tells me what I need to know for the next step or two.  He beckons me into the blur.  He asks me to trust him, to lean into him, to find rest in his well-worn love.  He won’t force me to follow.  But if I do, I’ll find that blurry landscape to be magnificent indeed.   

A Plodding Pilgrimage

In the Old Testament we find a number of depictions of journeys that serve as pictures of the Christian life.  So the story of Abraham, with his journey from Ur to Canaan.  And the story of the Exodus, with the Israelites journey out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and (eventually) into the land of promise.  And the story of the Babylonian captivity and the return to the land 70 years later.  These travel narratives serve as fitting parallels to the Christian life.  So in the New Testament, Peter calls Christians “pilgrims” (1 Peter 2:11).  Life is a pilgrimage, a journey with a specific purpose and destination.  This blog is a like a travelogue.  A journal of reflections in the course of the journey. 

But my pilgrimage has been a bit circuitous at times.  Years ago, Eugene Peterson wrote a book entitled A Long Obedience In the Same Direction.  And while I enjoyed the book, my own experience has not lived up to that billing.  Long – yes; obedience – sometimes; in the same direction – not by a long shot.  Even the more forgiving adage “two steps forward and one step back” is too tidy to depict my journey.  It still suggests a track that allows only for forward and reverse. 

For all my forward progress and backward regress there are many sidesteps. My pilgrimage is (unfortunately) not resolute. Seems I chase my tail sometimes. I distractedly sway to and fro, thinking I have a better route, a short cut, a new idea.  I lack initiative, hesitant to make decisions that I know should be made. I choose entertainment over enrichment, aimlessly surfing the net, browsing a magazine, flipping the channel. I procrastinate.  I make excuses.  I rebel.  I settle for the good rather than pursuing the best.  I wallow in self-pity and get bogged down by regret.

My pilgrimage is a convoluted mess; an entangled snare of twists and turns that I look back on and say, “How in the world did I end up here?”  I never would have projected that this is where I would be at the age of 39.   Never.  And the route I took to get here is still difficult to unravel.  Parts of it are just a jumbled snarl.

So a journey that could have taken a few weeks by the most direct route takes me forty years (well, 39 and change) as if I’m…well, as if I’m an Israelite wandering in the wilderness.  This is a plodding pilgrimage, a slow, heavy-footed progress.  But there is progress, as incremental as it may seem.  It is still a pilgrimage.  I am moving closer toward the goal to win the prize for which Christ has called me heavenward.  So today, in this plodding pilgrimage, I’ll walk resolute…barring distraction.