Daily Proverbial, 7 June 2010

From the fruit of his lips a man is filled with good things, as surely as the work of his hands rewards him. Proverbs 12, verse 14.

I wonder if this verse includes the written word. I suppose a loose translation could include it, so I'll stick with that one because I get great satisfaction out of these daily ramblings. It makes me smile to know that people read what I write and that it does them some kind of good. Years ago, I read a book by Stephen King that talked about the craft of writing, and one of the things he advised was to discipline yourself to do it regularly. Doing these daily columns provides that discipline to me and I find it easier to open up and pen honest output than I did just a few months ago.

There's more to it, though, than just my personal satisfaction. To me, this also speaks of support. The minister at church gave a great sermon yesterday, talking about a visit to the dentist, and why people avoid going (because of guilt over not taking care of themselves, a previous bad experience, and fear). He translated those same qualities into why people struggle with attending churches. Travis really ROCKED with his words, and I was thinking at the time how satisfying it is to say something that makes a great point and to say it well. He certainly did.

That then got me thinking about how I needed to hear just those very words. I'm in the middle of that very struggle, grappling with life-changing decisions from which there's no turning back. Things change, we change, our outlooks change, and we each have baggage we haul around. We all have junk in the trunk. If I put myself in the shoes of someone who feels their junk is just too much to overlook, or that they got burned once before in a church (even when it's something they themselves did), or that they are afraid of what they'll learn if they open up, I don't have to walk very far to know those shoes are pretty comfortable. They're a lot like my own.

Whether you're talking about marital crisis, dealing with your kids, dealing with work, where to worship, how to deal with rejection, or any number of possibilities, I think Travis' point is still valid: that we all carry around guilt, the past, and fear which keep us from moving forward as the people God intends us to be. I'm a lot like you, and I sometimes don't know what to say when someone hits me up with news I'm not prepared to absorb; or when somebody tells me things that are uncomfortable to hear. People we don't expect to are stuck in the middle of divorce; your ideal child tells you she's pregnant; a good kid gets arrested; one of your best friends confesses to you something so off the wall that you wouldn't have thought it possible. The longer I live the more I see that the propensity of people to shock and awe each other is limitless. Usually the shockers hurt. It's difficult to remember, in the moment, that the other guy is dealing with those same three qualities, and the best thing I could do is listen, then maybe walk around in their shoes before ever opening my mouth. Or penning my words.

I suppose this all is trailing from where the proverb originally started. That was talking about what results from what we say and do. Yet, perhaps, what we say and do in these situations, when others need us, is even more relevant here. A real measure of a man is how much he loves the people around him, not just how much he's loved by them. I believe that, in times of others' distress, listening and empathy are just as satisfying (and bear even more righteous fruit) than anything else I could say or do for them. I remember so many times when all I wanted was just for someone to listen, and when they did how it felt like it was just what I needed at the time. That's just as satisfying as sitting back and seeing my words and saying "I'm really proud of that." Or even a sermon that dead-on rocked the house without hammering a point into submission. What's more, that kind of empathetic love is true example of what a Savior wants us to do.