-image-A Theology On Defeat

August 22, 2006 | E.R. News & Such

I will say one thing for “showing” your house - it sure keeps it neat and tidy.  It actually takes me very little time in any given day to sweep through and make it perfect and show worthy again. So, can someone explain to me why I can’t keep it that simple in my regular daily life?

I digress.

I’m reading The Power of Positive Prophecy by Laurie Beth Jones (her Jesus, Life Coach and Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones were the two books I distinctly remember
launching this life journey with) in which she has a chapter called ”The Prophecy of Defeat”.
(I should note that I listed this book in my reading list but it didn’t save it - I’ll have to try again.)  I’ll comment on the book itself after I finish it, but there is one statement in the chapter at hand that’s been swimming in my mind and I feel like commenting on it now (that and I needed something to blog about).

Not too long ago (a few months that is) I was telling Wakizashi that I had a theory about life.  I had discovered that I was truly loving my life; I was truly happy, truly joyful; it seemed nothing could disturb my peace.  Which of course made me wonder, when is the, proverbial, other shoe going to drop.  Wondering that provoked a theory: Maybe all the negative or bad things in life are dependent on our perspective?

(I have to admit - so far the only thing that’s really succeeded in shaking me is stress.  Something going wrong hasn’t caused me to crumble the way I would before, but not having enough time or money - or so it seems - it enough to make me cry like a little girl.  I’m working on it.)

There is a saying, “Whom the gods would destroy, they crown with early success.”  In a society that worships success, this is a hard saying. People who teach that God wants us to be rich overlook the fact that many times God needs us to be poor.  ”Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)  It is through the trials that our good fortune comes.

This is how she opens this particular chapter. The emphasis is mine, because it was this phrase that’s nagging at me.  I don’t want to get into a debate on prosperity theology, but I will say that I disagree with this statement.  My primary reasoning is that if you were to tell this to a random Christian in a pew with no context and no further explanation most of them would conclude: Therefore God wants me to be poor or God doesn’t want to bless (prosper) me.  Which, no matter what side of the “prosperity camp” you sit on, is not what I think anyone who really knows God thinks of him.

I know what she’s trying to say - I just wish there was a better, clearer way to say it.  I know what she’s trying to say because I read the rest of the chapter; the rest of the chapter supports her closing statement “It is through trials that our good fortune comes.”  Which brings me back to my Theory (or Theology) on defeat: it’s a matter of perspective.

Let’s use the story of Job for an example (he may not be the best example because he leaves us open for debate but he’s well known and I won’t have to retell his story).  Say you are Job.  It certainly appears that life has defeated you; suffering and injustice seem to surround you.  It is, frankly, a really bad day (week, month, you know what I mean).  But looking in reverse we see things differently.  In the end Job’s life is better than it was before (something he didn’t even know was possibly): he knew God better than he ever had, he had new sons and daughters (not that you can ever replace the old ones), and he had one hundred times more than he had to begin with.  Take a rich man, multiple his wealth by a hundred and you get a very, very rich man.  (I know I said we wouldn’t debate this, but if Job is an argument against prosperity why does his story both begin and end with him being prosperous?)

From the beginning or the middle it definately seems like a situation to be upset about.  With that perspective you may as well lay around your fireplace and bemoan your life (although, if you have a fireplace you are one up on me so what’s the problem?).  But, and this is the crux of my theory, what if while you stand in the beginning or middle you
could have the perspective of one looking back from the end of the story.

We often say, “God will work it out; he always does.” - which strikes me as a very passive, defeatist sounding statement despite it’s positive intent - but I think this bolster still comes from the wrong perspective.  It implies that it’s not the looking back and seeing the so-much-better ending that was the true perspective of the situation but rather the looking forward and seeing defeat - it just so happens that God worked it out despite the defeat.

What if God didn’t work it out; he rather, and this may be slightly shocking, set out to accomplish that end through that specific beginning.  In which case, no matter how upsetting and devastating that beginning seems from the begining or middle perspective the truth is, that it won’t just be worked out, but it has been orchastrated to take you to new heights and places we couldn’t accomplish the regular, comfy, safe way.  God wasn’t patching a bad day he was blazing a new trail to a great new beginning.

And if you knew this when a “bad day” or “defeat” started to rear it’s head - wouldn’t it then loose it’s power to create a massive valley in your mountain trip and be suddenly unable to steal your daily joy?

A lesson from everyday life:

Last year we tried to sell our house.  We listed at 150,000 and had a set amount we absolutely needed to pay off the house, a few other things, and get the downpayment we needed to move.  We looked at a house we liked and made a conditional offer.

We had, in practicality, “bought” a house - but we couldn’t sell ours.  All the offers were considerably lower than our number and our Realtor kept trying to talk us into taking them.  But, at the same time our “pre-approval” on the new mortgage changed the terms now asking for an unreasonable downpayment and we balked.  Thankfully our offer was conditional on financing and we weren’t trapped.

This year we are relisting our house.  The asking price is 179,900 and it looks like we shouldn’t have a problem getting close to that (with the current market).  Also, the houses we are looking at now are much closer to what we really want to live in.

At the time the fall through was upsetting.  It looked like a defeat.  Turns out it was just God protecting us from our impatient attempt to solve “it” ourselves.  He had a new and better destination and from this side selling this year for that much more is definitly a blessing.  (If we sell our house for as much under our asking as we were offered last year - we would still get more than last year’s asking price!  Which is good, because we want to invest in our Dream Home!)

Like I said, it’s all a matter of Perspective.