Keep it simple. Keep it real.
This week I have been considering the things that we take for granted. The things that we do not have to think about. The things that we forget to acknowledge when they are intact.
Things like getting up easily and without pain when the coffee pot chirps and the dogs begin to get restless. Like the way you connected with your wife before life got so busy. Things like the community you used to feel in the lobby of your church.
When those things are taken from us, even if just for a time, we become acutely aware of how we feel in their absence. And those emotions tend to take on much less complex descriptors than the edges of the Feelings Wheel in your therapist’s office.
Words like Embarrassed, Inferior, or Empty devolve into just Sad.
But, hear me out, maybe that’s not such a horrible thing.
Recently we had pastor Neil Marsh on The Hangar Podcast and he made the statement that simply gaining better self awareness is not the ultimate goal. Sure we want to grow spiritually, mentally, emotionally, etc.
But really, our introspection is also a means by which we are better able to submit to God through prayer and to our community through accountability.
Simply put: the more we learn about ourselves, our story, and even our limitations, the quicker we will be able to entrust those things to God, our wives, and other men who live alongside us.
Maybe the more we grow, the more simple our vocabulary becomes. Maybe if we can get less vague about where we really are, then what we hear in return will be more easily understood.
I’m beginning to believe that’s true in the circle on Tuesday nights, in conversations with loved ones, and especially in our prayer life.
I think of the instruction we receive on prayer in Matthew Chapter 6:
When you pray, do not babble repetitiously like the Gentiles, because they think that by their many words they will be heard. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
Matthew 6:7-8(NET)
Interestingly enough, this seems to line up with what I naturally experience as I am reaching the end of myself. As my thoughts become less frantic, my words become few. I am left with the big truth - that I am not alone.
The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, and rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is near the brokenhearted; he saves those crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:17-18(CSB)
Sometimes like Job, it takes me chapters and chapters worth of words to come to this place. But I tend to hear from God and the people that God has gifted me much better when I am able to simplify my spiel and just tell them where I really am.
But isn’t this how God is able to shape our future story?
At the core of what we believe as Hangarmen is that God is the business of sculpting our stories into something beautiful in the end.
Then why would we try to sand it down ourselves? Doesn’t it make more sense that we instead give it to him to make it what he will?
Stick to simplicity, Hangarman. Share where you are without the need to be eloquent or intricate. We honor the honesty and it seems that God does as well.
