Recall override

Cynical people are continually worried - finding it very hard to find anything at all positive in any of life's circumstances. They are also very determined that everyone else in life is after their own interest and have ulterior motives behind everything they do. Their belief that only selfishness motivates human actions significantly limits how they interact with others. Their disbelief in or minimizing of any selfless acts or disinterested points of view usually sets them at odds with others in life. I thought a cynic was perhaps just a nay-sayer - one who just opposed things because they had a genuinely "sour" disposition! Maybe it could be they were just people who had been "burnt" so many times they no longer believed good things to be possible in life. Regardless of their frame of mind at the moment, the cynic cannot see much good in life. It truly would be miserable to face life as a cynic because they have a hard time ever seeing life from the perspective of truth!

Cynics look high and low for wisdom—and never find it; the open-minded find it right on their doorstep! (Proverbs 14:6)

Cynics - those who think human beings are basically motivated by selfish actions - have a hard time finding wisdom. Those who cannot entertain an opposing point of view have a hard time coming to a place of learning from their experiences - therefore, they also have a hard time learning so as to gain any form of personally possessed wisdom. Solomon tells us the cynic looks high and low - they are on a quest, but it is just something they have a hard time finding! This means the cynic is not really "disinterested" totally in finding wisdom, but rather are just having a hard time wrapping their hands, heads, and hearts around it because they have a basic "bent" which causes them to not realize it is right in front of them! Know anyone who fits this type of personality type? Always suspicious of the actions of another - believing they must be doing whatever it is they are doing in order to gain something for themselves. This makes for a miserable view of life. To believe all action - both human and divine - is centered in selfish ambition almost minimizes and undoes any action of love or grace. It also makes for a life in which trust is elusive.

No wonder they struggle with finding wisdom! Wisdom has a basis in trust - you have to experience knowledge in such a manner so as to develop a trust in it. For example, if you open a package of meat, only to be encountered with an odd smell, you might not "trust" this meat is fit for your consumption. What led you to this conclusion? Perhaps it was the "smell" of rotting garbage you experienced on a hot summer day when you lifted the lid of your outside trash receptacle to throw away something. That pungent smell left an impression of something being "rotten" and not good for eating! Now, when you open the package of meat, a little off-color in appearance, the "smell" confirms the suspicion you have formed based on past experience - it is rotten and not good to eat! What happened when you lifted the trash can lid? You developed a memory of the "bad smell" and equated it with "garbage" or "discarded waste". What happened when you opened the package of spoiled meat? You "recalled" the memory of what you came to label as 'garbage'. When you threw the package of spoiled meat in the trash instead of consuming it, you were exercising wisdom (practical application of knowledge obtained at an earlier time).

The cynic has a hard time with wisdom because they stop short of applying the knowledge. Why? Perhaps it is the past experience the cynic has had with "knowledge" of some sort. If they reached out to take a pretty flower into their hand and were stung by a bee the first time they did this, they likely would not "trust" flowers to be safe and enjoyable again! We "filter" all kinds of things through our minds and form memories of them in some fashion - both good and bad; correct and incorrect. Those memories go a long way in helping us interpret new "knowledge" as it comes our way. Right or wrong - we apply what we came to believe by our past experience and interpret all of life through that perspective. The cynic is best served by learning to trust afresh. There is always the hope a cynic will learn to open their mind to a new perspective in life. Not every "memory" of life is a good one to place trust in. We need the wisdom of Christ to help us sort out the ones which actually keep us from experiencing all the good in life God has prepared for his kids. When we come to Christ with open minds, he delights in filling them with "memories" which we can trust! Just sayin!

Recalling our past

Every now and again we just need a reminder to be grateful, don't we?  When I stop to consider some of the stuff others around me are dealing with, my "issues" pale in comparison.  When I stop to consider my "momentary afflictions", the life-long battles some face with disease make my aches and pains look like a vacation.  Sometimes we forget the principle of thanksgiving as the scriptures would teach:  Give thanks IN everything, not necessarily FOR everything.  We don't have to give thanks for the flat tire, but we can give thanks we have roadside service to get it changed!

On your feet now—applaud God! Bring a gift of laughter, sing yourselves into his presence.  Know this: God is God, and God, God. He made us; we didn’t make him.  We’re his people, his well-tended sheep.  Enter with the password: “Thank you!”  Make yourselves at home, talking praise.  Thank him. Worship him.  For God is sheer beauty, all-generous in love, loyal always and ever.  (Psalm 100 MSG)

It probably goes without saying, but God looks at our responses to what life sends our way.  He evaluates these responses - good and bad - because it speaks about what is really in our heart.  How we respond is a direct correlation to what the attitude of our heart is.  When gratitude is our attitude, the heart is probably pretty well connected with the heart and intention of God!  A little gratefulness today actually gets us a stronger connection with God when tomorrow's events will attempt to pull us away! Gratefulness if kind of like a "glue" for our souls - it holds us close to the heart of God in times when everything else would like to pull us away!

Have you ever stopped to consider gratefulness in light of what is in your past?  If we are honest, how we view the events of our past often determine how it is we will face the events of our present.  If we develop an attitude of gratefulness for those things in our past, often the things in our present are made a little easier to deal with.  "Recall" is a powerful tool.  How and what we recall is almost always a matter of the amount of gratefulness we have developed toward life's events.  How we recall is "tainted" either by any of the emotions of a spirit of fear, anger, distrust, envy, pride, or perhaps joy, peace, praise, and hope.  What we recall is often a matter of how well "glued" we are to God's heart.  When things don't exactly go as we had hoped or expected, there is no opportunity for any of the negative emotions to guide our spirit of recall when we have "glued" ourselves to the heart of God.

Did you ever stop to consider the value of the past?  Most of the time you have heard me say we need to leave the past in the past - especially as it applies to hurts, disappointments, and the like.  Yet, the past, if rightly viewed through eyes of gratefulness, is what got us to today.  Without the past, there wouldn't be a today!  Not everything in my past is worth praising God for - but he lessons learned from even the worst of failures are!  I can look back, see his protection, thank him for his provision of grace, and nuzzle up all the closer to him because I recognize those things in my past actually drew me closer to his heart.  The same is true for each of you - those things in your past you'd probably rather forget are actually things which brought you to the place of nuzzling up a little closer to God's heart!

In the moment, it is sometimes hard to see God in the midst of the problem. In retrospect, we often can see exactly where it was he was restraining us, holding us up, and keeping us safe.  The power of gratefulness comes in recognizing those moments - even if it is after the fact.  Gratefulness is a way of honoring God's leadership over our lives.  Whenever we do this, we are in the best possible position.  If you have ever opened a can of beets, you know there is a very red liquid inside.  That liquid has the potential to change what it touches.  If you will indulge me, try this the next time you open a can of beets.  Take a piece of paper towel - the entire sheet.  Put the can of beets, with all its liquid inside a large bowl.  Now, put the paper towel into the fluid - just one corner, not the whole sheet.  What you will see in time is the influence of the fluid on the paper towel.  The longer the towel makes contact with the red fluid, the deeper red the towel becomes, until it is fully saturated with the red substance.  

What you have just witnessed is the influence just a little contact can make in the ability to change things in your life.  We only need to get a little corner of our hearts close enough to God's heart in order to see the rest of our heart just "sop up" his goodness.  Just sayin!