Day 24: Celebrating the Joys of Others
When I have an opportunity to talk with young couples I try not to give a bunch of advice. After all, really, what do I know? I only know my marriage. But one thing I try to always point out is that personal satisfaction and joy are inside jobs.
We appreciate the moments when we have intense feelings of satisfaction and joy. Clearly we experience this internally. Today, I want to ask you to pause and breathe deeply – you’ll need the oxygen. I want you to plunge into the deep end of the pool of consideration. Think about moments of satisfaction and joy…were they really inside jobs? Or were they the by-product of comparing yourself to another and believing that you “won”?
People with prepositional problems (to and for confusion) unconsciously (perhaps) confuse life satisfaction with winning. Only when a winner can be declared, and that winner is self, does a feeling of satisfaction and joy overtake the restless heart of one who is prepositionally perplexed. Paul writes about this in the book of Galatians when he writes that acquiring satisfaction and joy is not a competition – it is the result of living one’s true in-Christ self…figuring out who we are and why we exist. As we experience God and ourselves and others within the framework of love, we discover what we are responsible for and who we are responsible to.
And this is really stunningly great news. When those we are responsible to thrive, we can experience the joy of knowing that we contributed to their experience. Clearly, learning how to live with the burden of caring more about others than our own success is hard work. But think. Think long and hard. If our purpose is loving others well, imagine all the opportunities we have waiting for us – chances to celebrate over the joys of others not just self.
This in no way suggests that we should ignore our own needs. In fact, just the opposite. We must take responsibility FOR ourselves - our care and feeding, education and fitness SO THAT we are filled to the brim with the resilience and stamina required to love others well.
As we calendar our time between now and the New Year, can each of us find some time for self-reflection? Maybe consider how we may show up for others and what it would take to acquire a level of fitness for that work. Or, if we are suffering, maybe our work is allowing others to show up for us.
