What's Worth It? Week 5: Choices

Last week, we distinguished between sacrifice and trials. And we learned to try for a better perspective rather than focusing on the misery of the moment.

James 1:2-4 supports this. Trials of many kinds will come, he says, but whether for spiritual reasons or not, through perseverance, trials help us we become mature and complete.

Not everyone has this kind of reaction to suffering. Consider the differences between Dave Mustaine and Pete Best.

Dave Mustaine was kicked out of Metallica in 1983. Pete Best was kicked out of the Beatles in 1962. Dave Mustaine founded Megadeth; Pete Best played in a few other bands in the 1960s. Dave Mustaine led his new band to great success, but he held onto his anger and frustration for decades, always comparing his success against Metallica’s. He never felt good enough. [Source]

Pete Best attempted suicide in 1968, when the Beatles were at the height of the fame, but came to his senses afterward. He and his wife married in 1962, and they’d had two daughters. He got a job as a civil servant in an employment office, and focused on living a normal life. The Daily Mail described him as “the happiest Beatle.”

“What's the point in saying, ‘I should have been this’, or ‘I could have been that?’ That's yesterday. Forty years ago. What's important is what's happening today and tomorrow. When you realize that, you get on with it,” he said.[The Happiest Beatle]

If something can be “bad” now but “good” later, how can we make any judgements in the moment? Everything in life has its accompanying challenges or costs. Wisdom helps us to focus on the right things.

Ecclesiastes 7:1-14 offers a somewhat sober assessment of wisdom, even saying that frustration is better than laughter. Verse 14 says God has made both good times and bad times, so we should accept both, for “no one can discover anything about their future.” And who’s to say something “good” won’t turn “bad” later? After all, 70 percent of lottery winners go broke.

So then, what should we choose – to look at the proverbial glass as half empty, or half full? Well, maybe we should stop measuring the glass at all, and just be happy we’re not going thirsty.

A woman named Eva Mozes Kor made such a decision in 1995, when she founded the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute, Indiana. About fifty years prior, she and her twin sister Miriam were sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, and subjected to experiments by Josef Mengele.

Up until she passed away in July of this year, Kor spoke frequently about forgiveness.

“Forgiveness is more than just letting go. It is proactive rather than passive. We become victims involuntarily, when a person or entity with power takes away our power to use our mind or body or both. Something was done to us that put us in a position of feeling powerless. Thus, the conscious choice to forgive provides healing, liberation, and reclamation of this lost power.” [Source]

Rather than dwell on the injustices in her life, Kor focused on what she could control – her own power to put the past behind. I’ve had experience with this as well.

James 4:1-10 shows that choosing what we focus on makes a huge difference.

In 2007, soon after getting my MBA, I couldn’t find a job in a field that I’d hoped for, so I moved back to Korea to teach English for the third time. I was depressed to be stuck doing the same thing I was doing before, and looked for something else.

Then, a funny thing happened. A bank offered me a job in investor relations, but for less money than I was getting to teach. So I made a choice. I told the bank no thank you, and continued in the same job. Strangely, even though the situation had not changed at all, I was no longer depressed. Not a single thing was different, but by choosing to stay in the same job I felt happier about it.

The situations we find ourselves in aren’t always our fault, but we do have a responsibility to choose how we’re going to face it. And since our choices reflect our values, maybe it’s a good idea to go back and see if our choices and our values match up. We’ll tackle that next week.

Questions for discussion:

1. In what way do your reactions (angry outbursts, arguments, hurt feelings) show your values? And how can we reconcile what we say we value with what we show we value?
2. What’s one time when chose your suffering? How do you feel about it?
3. What happens when we avoid choosing? (we suffer anyway but not for our values/purpose)
4. How have you gotten “better” (newer, different) problems over time?