No More Drama

“Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, ‘The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.’” Genesis 27:41

Jealousy can mess with our attitude so badly that we forget the blessings we may already have. Our next door neighbor buys a brand new SUV and suddenly our well-running minivan looks like a piece of junk in the driveway. Our best buddy gets the newest Xbox 720 gaming system for Christmas and now our Nintendo Wii looks like something out of the Stone Age. A co-worker receives a promotion, we are overlooked for a raise, or someone accuses us of inappropriate behavior when we are innocent.

Life is a huge mixing bowl full of righteously tasty ingredients, wrongly substituted spices and the occasional malignant replacement of a bitter for sweet ingredient while our back was turned. We never know how it is all going to come out until we have slopped the balls onto the cookie sheet and let the oven have at it. It is a bit like the cookies I made for my parents in seventh grade. They came out of the oven golden brown, had the crispy edges with a moist center, and everyone was ready to taste them.

Wanting to let my parents have the first cookie, I had not tasted them. Both my mom and dad betrayed their light-speed thought processes at the first bite. Every parent is obliged by the parental code of conduct to always say something nice about a child’s efforts. Cookies, the first chords on a guitar, the messy scribbles of a family portrait, all are included. “Nice job, son!”

But my parents were silent. Dad sucked both of his lips between his teeth, looking like a mouthless jungle creature. Mom was a bit slower. She actually smiled. But I knew it wasn’t a real smile. Here is how you know: nothing smiled except her mouth. Her eyes didn’t twinkle, the wrinkles around her eyes did not crease, and her head stayed perfectly erect. A real smile includes the eyes, the cheeks and the little bob of the head we all recognize. So, after her “smile on my account”, Mother asked, “What did you put in these?”

I told her I used the recipe. We went into the kitchen where everything was still scattered and open. As she perused the counters and table she noticed the sugar was unopened. She picked it up, looked at me, and we both knew exactly what happened. “Oh no,” I sighed, “I replaced the sugar with salt!” I think I have made three batches of cookies in my entire life since then.

It is not devastating to avoid cookie-baking, but if we allow the unpalatable circumstances of our life to create an emotional response that is determined to set things right, let people know we are better than all that, and consider taking the recipe book publisher to court for not underlining the part about sugar in their sugar cookie recipe, we have written the script for a bitter life. Our bitter experience has turned us into a bitter person who then brings that bitter taste into the life of everyone we come in contact with.

Esau was so spit-fire angry that his brother received the primary blessings of the Elder Brother, he swore himself to murder. In those days, the “blessing” which the oldest brother received was tantamount to receiving the entire inheritance. Esau and Isaac were twins, with Esau seeing the light of day first. But, these two had connived their whole lives, and Isaac, deceiving his blind father that he was Esau, surreptitiously receives the Elder Brother’s blessing from their father.

This haunted Esau (and Isaac, by the way) for their entire adult life. Neither one of them could let it go. I know how that feels. Just like you, I have been mistreated. And more than once the mistreatment was by people who I respected greatly. Mistreatment that was undeserved, and never amended. Being shy and introverted, I rarely could find the courage to sit down and deal with the situations face to face.

It overtook my thinking so much so that, at one church I pastored, I did everything: Preach, teach, evangelize, vacuum, clean the bathrooms, and mow the grass. I didn’t mind. I was young and the income from the extra janitorial work helped out quite a bit. But, in those quiet Saturdays, pushing the vacuum between the pews and up and down the aisles, I had a running conversation. I replayed every mistreatment and talked to the person the way I wish I could have done. I no longer vacuum the church, so those conversations have ceased. Sometimes, though, during a long racquetball volley, the can play through my mind again.

The joy of forgiveness is the ability to throw that load off our back and onto the side of the road. We do not have to answer back every attack. And, the things we wish we would have said, but no longer have the opportunity to do, we must let them rest. My muttering was often something like this: “If I hadn’t been treated this way, and if I would have just been brave enough to either leave, or sit down and say how I felt, I might have ended up in a different place in life.”

All that may be true. But I often forget one thing. Blessings are in God’s hands, not mans’. It doesn’t matter if they were 100% wrong and we were entirely right. Neither does it matter it if was sort of 50/50. Indeed, those are the most difficult for me. It is hard to tell someone, “You were overly harsh to me,” when you know you also contributed to the problem. And, if the person is someone in authority, you run the very real risk that they will use their authority to avoid ‘fessing up their 50%. Life is tough, it really is.

But Jesus made it so easy. Well, not “easy” in the sense of “wow, this won’t ever hurt”. But “easy” in the sense that we know exactly what He expects. “Love your enemy”. “Pray for those who persecute you”. “Bless those who curse you.” If there is one thing I could say to teens who are tired of “all the drama”, it is this: Don’t answer back. “Love…pray…bless”. The curtain falls on the drama quicker than on a kindergarten production of Hamlet.

I want to live like Jesus. I want His inner life to be my blessing, not the things that have happened outside of me. I still struggle with trusting people. I stumble over words now, in a way I never did as a young adult. But, so what? It’s been 50/50 at least, you know. If I can learn, in these last few decades of my life, to deny the murderous impulses, stop the ongoing dialogues with people I knew 10 or 20 or 30 years ago I’ll be doing ok.

Most of all, if I learn that I do enjoy the Elder Brother’s blessing. The New Testament is clear that all those who are “in Christ” already partake in the inheritance along with their Elder Brother, Jesus Himself.