Walking With Christ

Ecclesiastes 1:9  What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.(ESV)

If we tell the same joke again and again people will eventually stop laughing.  If we ride the same roller coaster again and again the thrill goes away.  A lot of people make fun of the guy whose greatest accomplishment in life was a touchdown in high school thirty years ago.

The brain is made to seek novelty.  It filters out most familiar patterns.  This is called habituation.  It’s part of the survival mechanism because it is actively seeking threats that actually need to be responded to or dealt with.  Things that are considered to be a normal part of the environment or daily life simply get ignored.  This is the dangerous mechanism behind addiction.  The first use of something creates a new experience.  After a while, it becomes normal.  The body and mind adjust to this change and begin to filter out the effects.

There are some things that this doesn’t happen to as easily.  This might be slightly different from person to person.  Unlike a joke, praise and trauma or drama are often tied to emotional responses.  This causes them to be stored differently in memory.  This is why a flashback to a car wreck can be just as traumatic as the original event.  This is also why some people seem to hang onto praise or validation from years ago.

The guy whose greatest accomplishment was that one amazing play in high school probably got praised for that play.  They may not have come from a family that offered encouragement or praise very often.  So, they hang onto that moment for dear life.  Trauma and drama is often used as a life raft for the same reason.

My point is that we all hang on to some things that others find ridiculous.  It’s not a problem until hanging on to what has been prevents you from experiencing what is.  It’s true that there is nothing new under the sun.  That doesn’t mean that you have experienced it all.

If your trauma is preventing you from moving forward in life, please get help to let go of the fear and the pain.  If drama is what you’re addicted to, you owe it to yourself to find a quiet place where you can find the joy in just being you.  A life that is constantly surrounded by drama often causes us to never be able to settle enough to actually find out who we are.

If you are hanging on to praise from yesterday, last week, last year, or twenty years ago because you don’t get praise that often, you deserve praise.  There is more to you than just this one event that seems to define your life.  You are more than that.  You are worth more than that.  Find yourself a Barnabas, a cheerleader, who sees the amazing person you are and, more importantly, tells you about the person they see.  Trust in their vision of you as it is probably much closer to the person God sees than what you see in the mirror.

To my beautiful wife, I see you.  I will shout praises for you from the rooftops until my voice goes out, then I’ll use smoke signals, Morse code, ASL, interpretive dance, and any other form of communication I can think of to tell the world how amazing you are.  You can’t see what I see.  You are utterly blind to the splendor I see when I look at you.  I’m not worthy to say your name, let alone the name of the one who blessed me to be with you.  Your heart is a beauty to behold.  You have this raw lust for life when you let your passions run.  I am excited to share every moment of life with you.