Agriculture.
My guess is that it’s probably not at the top of the list for words that people start blogs with, but today I’m doing my part to change that. (You’re welcome, horticulturists.)
Jesus talked about it all the time: the good tree, the sower, the grain of wheat, the vine, the good shepherd. A surprising number of Old Testament laws are about agriculture, too.
These days, most of us are much more disconnected from soil, crops, and livestock, yet their resonance with spiritual life remains just as profound. So, if you feel a farming metaphor coming on, well… then I’ve done at least a mediocre job on this intro.
Contentment can bring to mind images of relaxation and ease. That’s true enough, but G.K. Chesterton, in his 1908 work Orthodoxy, compared contentment to agriculture since both are so active and arduous to maintain. That might sound like bad news, but there’s actually good in it. Contentment isn’t just born from blind luck.
It grows.
And God invites us into the work of tending it. Paul says he “learned” to be content “in whatever situation” (Phil. 4:11). Learned means it’s work. But then he also tells us where the strength to do it comes from: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13).
This doesn’t mean that we should ignore hard things or pretend they don’t hurt. Last year, I lost my mom to cancer within a few months of her diagnosis. Staying by her side was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Many of you in our church family have walked and are continuing to walk through very difficult seasons, too.
We want to be a community that makes lots of room for that. We want to grieve well, mourn with those who mourn, and be honest about what hurts. But we also want to keep the joyful life that Jesus invites us into firmly in our sights, even when circumstances are anything but ideal.
Unfortunately, our fallen nature presents a real challenge.
Psychologists describe a “negativity bias” in our brains. Rick Hanson puts it this way: “Our brains are like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones.” We naturally focus on difficulties because they demand a response, while the good things in life often go unnoticed because they don’t require anything.
Thankfully, God designed our brains with a profound ability to adapt and change. Paul calls this being “transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). This is great news, but the flip side is also true. Our brains want to follow similar paths. So, the more we focus on worry, complaining, or cynicism, the more those patterns shape what we notice and how we respond to life.
Our minds are like that one house in your neighborhood with the immaculately manicured lawntastic front yard (that you’re definitely not jealous of). Left alone, neither stays prim and preened forever… both grow weeds. Fast.
Gosh, reader, if only there were some kind of tool to cultivate and tame the jungle in our minds…
More and more studies suggest that gratitude can ease anxiety and depression, help regulate our emotions, improve sleep, and lower stress hormones (among other things). It’s even been shown to affect the structure of the brain itself.
Gratitude changes us spiritually and physically.
Try it right now (if you were with us this past weekend, try it again!). Give your full attention to something you’re grateful for and savor it. Delight in the blessing you’ve received. Notice what happens to the quality of your mood. We can’t always change our thoughts by feeling a certain way, but we can begin to change how we feel by intentionally thinking a certain way.
Having walked with many people through hard seasons, I don’t want to pretend gratitude is a cure-all or quick fix for trauma. We’re not being asked to pretend the weeds aren’t there or to be grateful for every painful circumstance. This isn’t about faking that everything is okay when it’s not. It’s about learning to recognize what (and Who) is good and giving our blessings the attention they deserve.
Paul describes part of the Christian life as being “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor. 6:10). Both can be true. We don’t have to choose between being honest about our pain and being intentional about our joy.
I hope I can become the kind of person who holds these things together. I also hope that we can be the kind of church that does the same: a place where we don’t gloss over hard things or rush people through grief, but remind one another of God’s goodness and cultivate a joy that isn’t dependent on everything going our way. Not because life is always good, but because God is.
“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”