Stay on the Sunny Side

It’s amazing how much a difference of perspective can make. As people, I’m convinced we have an amazing capacity to adapt to whatever situation or way of life where we find ourselves; as Christians, I trust we can stay steady and unshaken in soul and spirit like the Apostle Paul who, despite all the tough confusing times of his life, was able to be content in all things. Often times the thing that matters is the attitude we take and the choices we make when confronting life situations.

I take as two examples circumstances from my life here in Paraguay. Last October, when I was only here a month, a vertical blue line appeared on my laptop screen. I did some research and found the line was a factory defect that came along with my computer when I bought it, replaceable with an extended warranty that ended last March. Since the first line appeared, several dozen more have appeared, making my computer screen into a rainbow of Easter-egg colors with new shades added every week. Thankfully, I can still write and do what I need to do, but the messed-up screen is still a pain.

For me, I have a choice to make about how I think of the lines on my computer. I can complain about how technology is worthless and Dell is a terrible brand and woe is me because I’m a poor missionary with a decomposing computer. Or, I can look at the lines and remember and be thankful. I can look at the lines and see one blue one that appeared right after I was robbed at gunpoint and thank God I still have my life. Or, I can look at a red one that popped up during my cousin’s visit, and thank God I had family and visitors with me for a Christmas away from home. Or I can glance at a green one that showed itself in the days after the first grading period ended, and remember too God’s faithfulness to me as a teacher. The choice, really, is up to me as to how I look at my now-defuncting computer screen. I can complain or use it as reminder of God’s faithfulness to me.

A second illustration comes from my experience in the AC church here. Whenever one lives in community, small things start to bother and quirky eccentricities to chafe. Living in a community with a culture far different than one’s own makes the temptation to complain and be grumpy about the way things are done even much more strong. Customs, even church customs, appear sometimes strange, unbiblical, and perhaps even unchristian. For me and the AC church here, this difference in spiritual practice and opinion has made itself clear many times, but perhaps one of the clearest is in the giving of the tithe.

I was raised, as any good North American ACer, in a church with the donation box at the back of the sanctuary. There was never any passing of the plate or possibility for public demonstration of tithing. We discreetly put our money in the back box at the beginning or end of the service, almost embarrassed by the fact that anyone might see us doing so. Scripturally, Christ’s call to not let our right hand know what our left hand was giving made itself manifest in stealthy donations by way of quick, James Bond style handmaneuvers.

The church here, however, makes the tithe giving a big show. There’s a special worship song when it’s announced that everyone can offer their gift, and then everyone goes up front in a big processional line to deposit their money in an open white box. There is a big and public to-do about giving, undoubtedly cultural but entirely foreign to me.

For me, the temptation is to judge. I can look around at everyone who has their money in hand and think that they must be so prideful to make such a public display of their gift-giving. I want to tell the pastors that the way they donate tithe money is wrong and against what Jesus taught, making people more concerned with what other people think as they go up to the offering box and less concerned with what God thinks as they pridefully do so or stay seated in their shame.

Thankfully, though, there’s a way out for me of this temptation to judge. While Christ speaks of giving alms in secret, the scriptures also speak of celebrations after harvest time and during festivals when the people of God joyfully presented their offerings and sacrifices to God, the first fruits of everything with which He had blessed them. Seen is this light, the communal tithe giving becomes a festive occasion to remember God’s many mercies in providing for basic necessities, a sort of public demonstration and testimony of God’s faithfulness in providing for finances. With this view of things, the people lose their pride and the offering becomes an act of worship towards a good God. The pastors are no longer manipulative and wanting to shame people into giving, but leaders themselves of a congregation joyfully giving back to God what is already His.

I pray that everyday we might look for the best in life: to count the little inconveniences as little blessings and the little differences in the practices and opinions of other people, especially among other Christians, as little manifestations of God’s goodness to all differently displayed. Then, as Christians, we may truly be content in all things and live out the love of God that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”