This week's Theme: Priorities and Perspective
Day 1: The colors of gratitude
Sharon* was tired. An Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurse for several years, she felt exhausted, and dangerously near burn-out. And, she confessed, she was fighting against becoming cynical and bitter.
“Patients are so ungrateful,” she said, “They have no idea what we go through to save their lives. We bring them through the most intricate, complex procedures—doing everything humanly possible, holding our breath and praying they’d make it—and the moment they “wake up”, they complain about…the color of the hospital gown!” The last few words came out in a torrent of emotion.
Sharon’s colleagues sympathetically concurred that patients sometimes seemed to “major in the minors”, but they quickly shifted to a view of things from the perspective of patients. Sharon joined in the discussion, willing to give grace as she agreed that many patients’ complaints came from their feelings of fear, anxiety, displacement, pain, and helplessness.
“Majoring in the minors”—placing emphasis on something of lesser importance while ignoring something of much greater significance—isn’t confined to hospital ICUs. It seems to be very much a human tendency. Indeed the limitations and distortions of human perspective are a common theme throughout Scripture.
Take the disciples for example. Jesus had sent several of them out on a mission ahead of him... (Luke 10:1). In their eyes, the mission was wildly successful: The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name” (Luke 10:17).
[Jesus] replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to… overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:18-20).
It wasn’t that Jesus was stifling their joy—He was simply redirecting it. They were elated that they had been given power over the emissaries of the dark—Jesus’ joy was in dismantling the entire kingdom of darkness. They were caught up in the thrill of miracles; Jesus wanted them to thrill in the greater joy of eternal salvation. Barnes’ Notes on the Bible explains:
Though it was an honor to work miracles, though it is an honor to be endowed with talents, and influence, and learning, yet it is a subject of "chief" joy that we are numbered among the people of God, and have a title to everlasting life.
Today’s followers of Jesus may be just as prone to “majoring in the minors”. In fact, I thought of Sharon the other day as I realized that over the course of a few days I had been rehearsing a string of complaints. I'm sure colors were in there somewhere...
Again, it isn’t that God dismisses our needs as minor or doesn’t want to hear them—after all, we are clearly invited to come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16).
And of course, there are the psalms. I so appreciate the example of David’s raw honest prayers! From them I learn that I can come to God in unadorned honesty and pour out my complaint (Psalm 142:2). But I also learn from David how to maintain perspective and return to God as the center; as he does in the very next verse (v3).
In the model prayer Jesus taught (Matthew 6:9-13), He begins with Our Father, directing our immediate attention to the person of God—His identity, His character, His esteem His power, His kingdom, and His will. Only after our perspective is centered on God are we instructed to bring our needs.
This by no means suggests that God only hears prayers if we use the right “formula”. Scriptures show us different examples of prayer. Besides, we are assured that even when we struggle, The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans (Romans 8:26).
I am glad for the promised help of the Spirit. And I am glad that God hears even my half-formed thoughts, my wordless distress, my one-word cries, my disjointed, inarticulate prayers, my mumbles and my groans. Yes, and even the complaints that I pour out.
But I continue to ask, as the disciples did, Lord, teach me to pray (Luke 11:1). Because as He teaches me to pray in the Spirit, I will learn how to put my priorities, my successes, my needs, and my honest struggles in perspective.
I will turn my heart towards the defeat of darkness in the heavenlies. I will rejoice that my name is written in heaven. I will grasp with amazement the amazing sacrifice that was made for my life. And I will decorate my hospital gowns in the colors of gratitude.
*Not her real name
