Don't Let the Trivial Drain You

11/15/1989

You put your finger on one thing that I was feeling even while you were talking, and that was that a million years from now it won't matter anyway. If we're really living in eternal life, if we're really seated with Christ in heavenly realms, then a lot of the energy that's drained away on trivial matters just isn't going to happen. It isn't going to consume your emotions, your time, your tears, and your frustrations. It's not going to be something that we're going to have to deal with. If we're really seeing it from having been seated with Christ in heavenly realms, it isn't going to be something that even warrants a lot of discussion at all.

So, it's somewhat meritorious to deal with it, but much higher to say, "Phooey, I just wanted to let y'all know that I wrecked my car, but I'm okay and the other guy's okay and there are some practical matters that have to be dealt with, so pray for me that I'd have wisdom to figure out what to do next." And the whole thing is sixty seconds, because if we're seated with Christ in heavenly realms it isn't a big emotional trauma that we deal with at all. It's just clear and it's to the point. If some animal tore Jesus' only toga, I just don't think that He would have to deal with it for a couple of days. I say that for teaching's sake for all of us, that if we spend a lot of our time "learning about things" that are really meant to be trampled underfoot, then we've really, in the end, done a disservice to what our lives are all to be about.

If it's an internal thing, whether corporately or individually, we've really done damage to what could have been. There's an opportunity cost, as they'd say in the business world. It may not have cost you anything. You may have learned something from it in a valuable way. But the opportunity cost is we spend all of our time learning things and getting all dug in real deep about the deep meaning of why this happened or why that happened, when it's meant to be just trampled underfoot and go on. "Well, why did this happen?" And then we go through gyrations for months questioning this and that and the other, thinking that's a spiritual experience when in fact it's not at all spiritual. Spiritual life is to trample over the things that mean nothing to the end of time and to walk diligently and forcefully with vision and heart towards the things that do matter towards the end of time.

Financial problems and car problems and house problems and roommate challenges and all the tens of thousands of things that happen to us in the course of a lifetime, I'm here to tell you that you're going to regret it immensely if you go through the span of your life having been consumed with learning things about your own personal problems and your own personal experiences and all that kind of stuff. Eternally, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans. So, encouragement would be in light of that, which I think you've already kind of put your finger on a little bit, is "Who cares now?" Not in an uncompassionate way, but let's not get too deep in trying to learn things like, "Why did God allow this to happen?" Those are the first questions that pop up into our mind, but generally they're unproductive questions. You've already said that God is God, and those things are just the way they are and sometimes there are things that we can learn, but if it takes more than five minutes to learn it, I don't have time for it. He'll just have to show me later. I'm just not going to dig myself into a hole trying to figure out everything that comes my way.