Mmm?

Lately I've been watching a lot of the Food Network. I honestly have just wanted safe, rated-G television in the background lately without having to spend extra electricity by turning on my DVD player. I like watching people teach other people how to cook and/or talk about fancy food. I'm not a foodie, I have a very simple dollar-menu palate, and I'm not interested in learning how to cook anymore. In fact, I'm less interested than ever in spending time in the kitchen, and I'm currently so busy that I've become almost exclusively a drive-thru grazer. Drive-thrus have a surprising amount of variety. In addition to dollar-menu selections that can be eaten with one hand while commute-steering with the other hand, items such as healthy $8 salads, almost-healthy Whatachickens, non-burger McDonald's sandwiches, or Jack In The Box egg rolls can be purchased and dearly enjoyed. Once in a while, however, drive-thru atrocities occur.

The photo I posted above is one such atrocity. (I snapped it long after I had eaten what I wanted from it and it had been sitting in my car for about an hour.) I won't name the restaurant in this public forum, but I will say that I think it's a cheap, terrible copy of Taco Bell. This evening while I was errand-running, I was in the mood for some nachos, so I thought I'd try this particular restaurant's large nacho offering. After I ordered and sat in the drive-thru line for at least 10 minutes (which is a considerably long wait for a drive-thru, and the cashier was courteous to apologize), I drove to a nearby parking lot to eat.

At first, I thought they had given me the wrong bag, because there were two Styrofoam containers in it. No, it was the correct bag, but what the restaurant neglected to print on its drive-thru menu was that my nachos came with ASSEMBLY REQUIRED. There were chips and a tub of cheese in one container; there were beans, beef, tomatoes, and sour cream in the other container; and jalapeños were packed separately. What the heck? I was parked in a parking lot with a door on one side, a purse and professional accessories on the other side, and a steering wheel in front of me. How the heck was I supposed to assemble a large nacho platter with nothing more than a fork? After I deposited most of the beautiful-looking toppings onto the chips, I discovered that the nachos weren't beautiful-tasting. The chips and cheese alone tasted either like movie-theater nachos or Sam's Club cheese-gallon nachos, and the only spice in the entire meal came from the jalapeños, which I only eat sparingly because my taste buds aren't made of asbestos. Perhaps the do-it-yourself nacho process would have been worth it if the food had actually tasted good. Gosh! The whole point of going through the drive-thru was to collect one container of pre-prepared food that I could shovel down my throat before proceeding with my busy evening. I didn't know I'd have to hire my own caterer and waiter, too. Taco Bell wouldn't have treated me this way, and Taco Bueno at least warns me with "dips and chips" in the title of their classic dish. I think the Food Network would probably sic a few customer-oriented chefs at the assembly-required drive-thru.

Of course, while I was chowing down on my drive-thru disappointment, the wheels were grinding in my head, and I was thinking about God and how much He likes food. And I was thinking about how He does NOT have terrible customer service.

"My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience." (James 1:2-3, NKJV)

"...in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." (1 Thessalonians 5:18, NKJV)

Maybe watching all those hours of the Food Network has spoiled my perception of food just a tiny bit. I was thankful to eat least get something to eat tonight. But my experience overall was a major FAIL for the assembly-required drive-thru restaurant, where I plan to return never again. That's no way to enjoy a nice, quick dinner that I paid good money for and waited a good, long time for. And there's no reason for me to pretend that I had a wonderful dinner.

When I was in college, our pastor liked to act out funny illustrations so that we would remember certain Bible passages. The verses in James that I quoted above was one such passage. Regarding counting it all joy when you fall into various trials, our college pastor literally jumped and leapt around the stage and basically shouted, "Hallelujah! It's a trial!" and cheered very happily. I'm not a Bible scholar, so I don't know what the original Greek word for "joy" is, but I know (I've been taught this, and I've experienced this myself) that "joy" isn't always synonymous with "happiness." I don't think said pastor interpreted this verse all that accurately (I think he maybe just wanted us to remember what it said), and I don't think he would have been so hasty to have frolicked jubilantly while shouting something like "Yay! I just lost my job!" or "Yay! My cat is sick!" or "Yay! One of my family members just died!" I think it's unhealthy and kind of dishonest to just plaster on a smile during a heinously excruciating trial.

It's the same thing with the "in everything give thanks" verse I quoted above. Again, I don't know the Greek, but in English, I've noticed it doesn't say "FOR everything give thanks." I don't think the Bible is necessarily saying that we should literally prance around with fake happiness and non-sarcastically shout silly things like "Oh, boy! I have no idea how I'm going to pay my bills next month! I may end up losing my house! Whoo-hoo! My life is awesome!" Not to say that that couldn't be a genuine, heartfelt response. When I got laid off a year and a half ago -- perhaps it was my internal glutton for punishment, or perhaps I'm simply extra crazy -- after the brief shock wore off, I gladly embraced the challenge. What I'm saying is that just because I'm a Christian doesn't mean that I'm required to fake happiness in order to make Jesus look good. (Don't try it. I tried it, and it nearly killed me.) I'm saying that joy is deeper than happiness.

I think joy is complicated to explain or define; it isn't exactly like happiness. Happiness is reclining on my couch and typing away at my little computer while I've got two extremely adorable cats napping nearby. Happiness is biting into a Heath candy bar after it's been stored in a cool, dry place. Happiness is listening to any single that The Carpenters recorded in the early- or mid-seventies. Happiness can disappear rather quickly. But joy stays around much longer. Joy is knowing that I've got a Father in heaven who is quick to dispatch angels to come to my aid whenever I need it, and especially when I least suspect it. Joy is enjoying the fact that my Father in heaven trusts me enough to make simple little decisions for myself like which drive-thru to try. Joy is resting in the truth that if I get hurt, I have a Father in heaven who will let me crawl under the shadow of His strong wing and have a much-needed cry. I hope you see a motif here.

I don't think the joy or the thankfulness that the Bible talks about is necessarily "Yay, I have a trial, and I'm SO thankful that my life sucks right now!" (But if that's an honest heart- or gut-response that you have, that's truly awesome.) I think the joy and thankfulness that God helps us experience during a terrible time is more like "I have no idea why this is happening, but I'm SO thankful that God will help me see the other side of it, and I hope it will be soon, because this sucks so terribly that I don't know when I'm going to be able to stop crying or uncurl from this frightened fetal position, but I SO dig that God is with me right now and that He'll never leave me, and I'm SO glad that He wants me and that He's helping me, and this spot here between His shoulders smells SO nice and is SO comforting and is SO superabsorbent for this freakishly flowing current of tears; and perhaps someday, I'll be able to help other people who are having to walk through this atrocity also, and now that many of my tears have gotten squeezed out, I'm kinda starting to laugh about the whole thing; dang it, this spiritual desert reminds me a lot of a buttcrack, 'cause it's so tight and stinky! Girlish giggling!"

"How priceless is Your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of Your wings. They feast on the abundance of Your house; You give them drink from Your river of delights." (Psalm 36:7-8)

"But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you." (Psalm 81:16)

"I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward." (Genesis 15:1b, NKJV)

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28)

I hope I haven't ruined your appetite, but I'll go back to the topic of food -- metaphorically, at least. What I don't have an appetite for during a trial is platitudes. My least favorite platitude is "everything happens for a reason." Yes, the reason that these words appeared on this page is because I typed them, the reason that my cat is currently purring is because she's feline, and the reason it's dark outside is because it's nearly one in the morning. Platitudes don't really tell me anything. I can't really eat platitudes anymore, and they especially don't nourish me during a trial. I've done this before, and I know that people mean well when they do it, but please, if someone you know is going through a hard trial and they're hurting, maybe you could just skip the platitude and hug them instead. Hug them for a long time, so that if they start to cry, you'll already be right there to comfort them. Or if they're not into hugging or crying, maybe just offer a "sorry, that sucks" and an ear so that they can vent a little bit. But you can't snuggle with a platitude. You can't soak your tears into a platitude. You can't talk to a platitude. Or maybe I'm completely wrong about this, and platitudes truly encourage you and bless you.

They don't bless me anymore. I put a ton of platitudes in my high-school graduation speech. (I was 18 when I wrote it. I didn't know yet what it was like for life to punch you in the face.) Something like "it is always darkest before dawn" may have sounded good while giving a pep talk to high-school kids, but it might not sound so good to somebody who's genuinely, clinically, on-the-brink-of-cutting-themselves depressed. Quoting the title of a Yanni album like "Dare to Dream" may have sounded cute while encouraging young people who are about to go off to college, but it might not sound so good so someone who has come to the end of their rope and feels like their life has become a pile of crap. I even had the nerve to quote Job 17:9 -- "Yet the righteous will hold to his way, and he who has clean hands will be stronger and stronger." (NKJV) Now I understand that Job probably knew what it was like to be misunderstood and be offered a platter full of platitudes while he was starving for comfort during a trial -- nay, a buffet of trials.

I think we in the body of Christ tend to have a bad habit of offering a band-aid to someone who has a broken arm. Sometimes we find out that someone is going through excruciating pain, and we basically respond with, "Pffffft, whatever, God will work it for good, and will I see you at church on Sunday???" And to a degree, yes, it's true that God is pretty much the only One who can reach down into the person's trial and fix it. But come on. You're the one with the hands and feet that are visible to the naked eye. You've got a fully functioning ear and a fully absorbent shoulder. Maybe the way your body parts are sewn together happened for a reason?

But I'm not saying that we should spoonfeed each other. When a person gets hit with catastrophe, it's that person's individual responsibility to walk through it. I think our job as the church is to point the trial-embracer to the only One who can shield them through it, feed them exactly what they need to eat, and make sense of the whole thing in a way that only He can. It might look something like the following.

"Lord, thank You for the food, but with all due respect, what the effing crap? This is NOT the meal I ordered!"

"Hmm. Yep, it looks like someone effed up your order."

"So, I was destined to eat this effed-up meal?"

"No, I'm not the one who made the mistake."

"Can You please help me sort through this? I've never had to eat a meal like this before."

"Of course, My delight. Here. Just balance this container here on your lap while carefully opening the other one... There you go. Come on, My delight, you can do this. You see all the components of the meal set right in front of you. Deal with it."

"Yep. Got it. Cool. I think I can-- Aw, dang it, there's no hot sauce!"

"Aquí hay jalapeños."

"OK, I think I've got this... Yay! Now let's see how this tastes. Aw, this is terrible! What the effing crap, Lord??"

"We're almost through this. It's going to be OK. I'm right here. What do you need?"

"Wisdom. I know now that Taco Bueno is my friend."

"See? There you go. Now you know to go there instead of to this, uh..."

"Atrocity drive-thru."

"I delight in you so much."

"This dinner was a disaster, but I really enjoyed getting to hang out with You, Lord."

"I love you, too, and I'm never, ever going to leave you."

"This is what it's all about, isn't it? just being with You?"

"Now you're getting the hang of it, My delight."

"I think maybe whoever told me that I had to fake happiness for You probably didn't know You very well. You really do make me happy, even while I'm eating a drive-thru atrocity."

"You make Me happy, too, My delight."

While I currently type this, each one of my cats is sitting here on either end of my little computer. They're like extremely adorable matching bookends. Maybe the reason they parked their adorable little furry selves here by my computer is because they love me. Or maybe it's because it's cold in here, and my computer is warm. Or maybe it's so that I can delight in them in a new way. Regardless, they make me happy. No assembly required!