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I was tempted driving home tonight. I wanted to write about perseverance…work, work, work, work, work…in the belief that there was a good pay off in the end. Every good book of quotes and every good website of quotes has a strong section just about perseverance. We can talk about that, pat each other on the back and send ourselves back into the fray, hoping that whatever product, whatever goal, whatever commodity we wish to have will be there.
There are a lot of good stories about perseverance and they are important to us in life, chiropractic, in our schools and in our faith. We teach our children important stories about perseverance….if the horse bucks you off….what do you do? You get back on the horse! Abe Lincoln ran for office a few times and went out of business even more until he was elected President of the United States. Theodor Geisel was turned down 23 times by publishers until one gave him a chance on his ‘silly little story’ The Cat in the Hat.
I wish we could make the point that if we are consistent, determined and work hard that there is a good pay off. I wish we could prove that we would be richer, thinner, smarter, in better shape, more financially secure, younger, be better singers and better dancers. I tell ya, I could sell that stuff. Slip on about any TV preacher and they are selling that stuff. Buy almost any top selling ‘Christian’ book, and they are selling that stuff. People flock to hear that in hoping that the payoff is significant and that it is secure. We like to quantify what we have to do. How long do I have to do this, how many hours a day, a week….tell me how long I have to do it until I get my payoff, then I will do it. We are product driven, we are commodity driven, and we are payoff driven…tell me what I have to do for as long as I have to do it and I will do it.
Christians did this. They asked Christ, “When will the Kingdom of God come?” They were asking for the time of the payoff. These were people who had been patient as a Hebrew people for thousands of years in slavery in Egypt then in their journey out of slavery, into exile, then returning from exile, they had seen Jerusalem destroyed. These people knew something about persistence. They were beat down by the law and the rule of land and they asked Jesus when the Kingdom would come. We ask that. I ask that, you ask that. When will this end? What’s in store for us, what do you have?
When will the struggles end, when will the battles end, when will we hear that another friend has cancer, when will we stop hearing about the radiation treatments, about another couple, another family is going through a divorce, another man or woman has been arrested for child abuse, when will we not have to build anymore Habitat Houses, when can we cancel our membership to the Christian Children’s Fund, when will people stop dying from nerve interference, oh Lord, when can we drive by a cemetery and not see these green tents out there. When is this going to end? When are we going to get some relief from this? Jesus answered this oddly the next couple of chapters in Luke. He answered once that we should keep on doing what we were asked to do. His answer was ‘Bless the children, for such is the Kingdom of God…” as if to tell us that we must live in a world to make it habitable for children. Then there is the story of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and asked “What do I have to do to enter the Kingdom of God. Tell me what I have to do, is it a 10K run, a marathon…just TELL ME so I will know how long, how far, how hard, how much sweat.” Jesus looked at him after a moment and said it isn’t about DOING….it’s about BEING. Get rid of all your money and let’s see who you are. Get rid of all that is yours and let’s see how you connect with other people. The story says he then walked away.
Jesus gave us a little warning. He warned us not to let the world around us frame the questions of our lives. We don’t let the world frame OUR questions. We frame the questions in our HEARTS to determine success, wholeness and fullness of life, and quality of life. WE frame the questions…NOT the WORLD. If we allow the world to frame the questions…how long, how much….then those will be the questions that we get. The world will ask us, “Are you rich enough, do you have enough?” Well, no I don’t. “Are you young enough and smart enough?” Where did you go on your Honeymoon? Where did you go on your vacation? Was it a good vacation to another country? I hope you went on a flight….you didn’t stay in the Georgia did you? Tell me about your house…what area of town do you live in? Tell me about your subdivision, who’s your neighbors. WOW! Those things start around 850, right? Tell me about your car. Aww, you don’t drive THAT, what do you really drive? Where are your kids going to school? We assume they are all on the Dean’s List. That’s how the WORLD measures us….and none of us can measure up to those standards all the time. It we let the world around us frame the questions it’s always about how far, how much, how deep, how expensive and how exotic. At that point, faith, Scripture, philosophy and chiropracTIC will disappoint you. Those are the questions that we ask around here is it? We don’t use THOSE questions to determine our quality of life.
When they asked Him when it was going to end, when does the Kingdom come, we know what they meant. They meant when do we get guns and uniforms and when do we rise up against Rome and annihilate Caesar and turn the world upside down. What did Christ do? He answered with a lot of relationships…raising children, a rich young ruler who needed to give everything away he had in order to find himself. He needed to get rid of the junk out of his closet and the junk he had in storage and the junk he had in his second or third home or whatever he had. He needed to get rid of the clutter in his life to see what was REALLY there because the real questions, according to Jesus aren’t about how much you had but how involved you are. Somehow I can hear Jesus asking if we know the names of our neighbors, did you celebrate your anniversary, have you had friends over lately, when was the last time you called an older couple and said we want to take you out to dinner, when was the last time you drove over thirty minutes to adjust someone, when was the last time you had a new patient, and you told them to not pay you anything? When was the last time that you cried….about anything or anybody? What’s the last thing you gave away? What is the last thing you gave which no one ever knew? When we talk about our cars, our homes, our vacations we can talk all day, but when we talk about neighbors, our loved ones, what we gave away and when we wept….we often get tongue tied and there’s not a lot to say and one might think God would have something to say about the depth of our lives and of the things in which we are persistent expecting the payoff.
There are still families that need someone. There are still children that need food. There are still people that need adjusting. There are still families that drive around and do not know where to turn. I keep the lights burning at the office at night, and my electric bill is high and that’s not very glamorous until I hear a family one day say they drove by one night and saw the lights on and decided they wanted to come in. I put out old chiropracTIC material in the office…its not very glamorous, a few booklets from the 1950’s and 60’s even have a little mold and mildew on them, but it’s all worth it when a patient says it helped saved their life. Or the couple that comes in and says that we helped save their marriage. None of it is very glamorous, but it is good. The thing about practicing ChiropracTIC is that we can never look back and say it’s over. If you’re a farmer, you can look back and say ‘wow, 40 acres, I plowed that field.’ A painted can say, “Woah! I painted that house.” We don’t ever get to stop and look around and say it’s over. We don’t ever get anything finished do we? There is another family, another subluxation. We as ChiropracTORS are persistent, not in the payoff, not in waiting to hear ‘thank you.’ We don’t wave at someone across the street just to get a wave back and feel liked or popular and we don’t open the doors for our office everyday anticipating the perceived financial rewards.
We do these things because it is who we are. We tell our stories every day, over and over, it never ends. From time to time, we get tired…sometimes we need a break. We must keep on doing it though…not because of the pay off, or because of what “they” say, or because of the increase in numbers, but we do it because that is who we are and that is what’s expected of us.
I'll see you guys at DE. Peace.
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