Missing out

There's a new acronym around:  FOMO.  It stands for Fear Of Missing Out.  This is a thing.

Perhaps we should revisit a famous old poem:

The Road Less Taken

            by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

The point: you are always going to give up something.  You are one person, with one life, and each day when you get out of bed, you make choices to do certain things, and not to do other things.  You will definitely miss out on some things, and that's okay, but it is good to know that this is how it works.  When we understand, we can choose intentionally, rationally, wisely.

Perhaps I am skipping ahead, but we can make the leap from FOMO to a life lived wisely if we understand which things are best missed, and which things we surely want to avoid missing at all costs.

Here I will interject my gratitude for the Lord who made heaven and earth and reigns in sovereign grace over all things.  Ultimately, He is in control, and I do not live in fear, not even fear of missing out, because I trust Him to guide me.  When I obliviously miss His guidance, I trust Him to correct me and use my mistakes as valuable learning experiences that perhaps even prepare me for something wonderful and useful.  Yes, He is that good.  Such inconceivable goodness should not make us careless about making mistakes.  However, it means we do not need to live in dread of making a mistake, because God will ultimately redeem everything.  He works all things for good for His beloved children, and He is for us, so nothing can stand against us, not even our unfortunate choices.  This grants great freedom and confidence to those who follow the Lord.

Yesterday I wrote about how God gives us what we want.  He allows us to choose our path, and although He will orchestrate circumstances to influence us in one direction or another, He will never force or coerce us to follow Him.  Lovingly, He stands by, offering life and salvation to all who will call on His name.  He offers His gifts right up to the very end, as He did for the thief on the cross next to Jesus.  The Lord has no desire to punish or destroy people, but only to save, heal and restore.

In life, we will miss out on whatever we choose not to do during the days we have been given.  Jesus promised that if we will abide in Him and keep His commandments, we will experience fullness of joy.  Implicit in that promise is this: the things God asks us to give up are worthless anyway. Now, it is obvious that people who neither know nor believe in Jesus do not see how living a righteous and godly life would yield fullness of joy.  However, I have noticed that people who purport to be Christians, believers in Jesus, followers of God, often have just as lacking a concept of this fullness of joy.

Jesus is the source of joy.  Knowing Him is the reward.  Carrying the treasure of His precious, powerful, immortal Holy Spirit within us as we navigate the journey of life in this world, this is what we long for, this is what we seek, this is where we rest and rejoice and find refreshment, the very water of life itself.

And yet, Satan has slyly, successfully lied to us, repeatedly, so many times that we never think to question the assumptions that live in our hearts.  Deep down, in wraps so cleverly arranged we have no idea they are there, we take for granted that the path of sin is the path we are loathe to miss out on.  Even people who have been Christians all their lives, who grew up in the safety and security of godly homes full of respect and cleanliness and compassion, look across to the other side of the fence at the wild parties, the promiscuous relationships, the chemically induced mood swings, the piles of material possessions accrued through selfishness, the mind-numbing images of airbrushed false-beauty gyrating under flashing lights on the TV screen, and they might even turn the TV off, but they feel a thwarted hankering.  They feel like they are missing out.

Many of these people live with a sort of brittle bitterness.  "If you were not a Christian," Satan whispers to them, "you could enjoy all those fun things, too."  It happens so often, perhaps even constantly, that they don't even hear Satan's words.  The idea simply becomes part of who they are.  Some of them become increasingly bitter, and fall into thoughts such as, "Look at all the things I am giving up for the Lord.  He sure better make heaven good, to make it up to me for all I've gone without."  My heart aches to write about it, but I know this is true.  People think and feel this way towards our loving heavenly Father.  Prideful and blind, we can lose every concept of grace and the overwhelming kindness of God, who welcomes broken people into His kingdom where He invites us to receive complete restoration and renewal, to bask forever in His presence, a pleasure exponentially surpassing in every way the most beautiful, sunny, beach day ever experienced.

[Others--who also self-identify as Christians--decide that "keeping His commandments" (John 15:10) is "legalism," and it is fine to go out and wallow in the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (see 1 John 2:15-17).  They do not know their Bibles or their God--indeed, it is impossible to know God without knowing His word, where He reveals Himself.  But they prefer to make up their own rules and claim "freedom in Christ" as license to love the world and the things that are of the world.  They are oblivious to the truth that our poor fallen world is poisonous, and the precepts of God are a generous gift, an antidote to the venom, given only and always for our best good, God's own loving directions to help us find freedom from the crippling bondage of sin that leads to death.]

I am trying to say that we--and when I say "we," I mean myself and others who share my faith in Jesus Christ--can tend towards a warped and irrational fear that we are missing out on the pleasures of the world.  This leads us to a warped and irrational interpretation of stories like the one about the thief on the cross.  We think, "Oh!  Don't tell unbelievers they could get away with a last minute decision like that!  Then they will just party and sin all their lives, and afterwards, they will repent at the last minute and get into heaven and receive all of God's heavenly reward, too. That's not fair.  That's not fair to us, because we are giving up so much."

There's a parable about this, you know. Matthew 20:1-16 tells about a vineyard owner who went out to hire workers for his vineyard.  He went out in the morning, at mid-day, in the afternoon, and in the evening right before the day's work was done, hiring more workers each time, not because they sought the work, but because he found them standing idle and wanted to help them become productive.  He told the first group he would pay them a good day's wages.  In the end, when all the workers lined up to be paid, this vineyard owner paid every single worker a full day's wages, just as he had promised to the first group, who had worked all day long, since early morning.  These fellows were angry and grumbled about their wages, saying, "Those last guys you hired only worked one hour, but you have treated them as though they worked as hard as we did, we who have worked all day in the scorching heat!" (see Matthew 20:12)

In essence, the vineyard owner replied that he would be kind to whom he wanted to be kind, and the workers should have nothing to say about it.  Implicit in his response is a displeasure at their jealousy, and especially at their grumbling about what it was like to work all day on his estate.  The vineyard owner was a compassionate man.  He offered aimless loafers an opportunity to come into his vineyard and be a part of his team.  In every instance, he was the one who went out and invited the workers to come work for him; they did not apply to him for a job.  They were just loitering their day away.  He went out and found them, and offered them a position, productive work, and a paycheck.

This is what it is to be a part of God's kingdom.  Instead of wasting our lives in pursuit of vain, dead-ended, selfish pursuits, we can live for something bigger and better than ourselves.  We can know God and carry His Spirit within us.  We can grow in wisdom, learning more and more about what is eternally important.  We can experience the peace of living with faith that our destiny is going to be an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, so we can bear anything in the temporary, transient present.  All these gifts are ours in Him: purpose, wisdom, peace, hope and joy.  The longer we get to spend with Him, on His team, working for His kingdom, the more blessed we are.

It is an unfathomable privilege to be God's child, to live in fellowship with Him.  This is what we aim for, in heaven.  This is what our final reward will be.  On earth, we get a foretaste of God's amazing promise of eternity, through the lavish gift of His Holy Spirit, whom He literally, lovingly pours into our hearts.  Why would we ever be jealous of someone who had to live all of his life apart from this great gift, adrift and without direction or hope?  Why would we think that a lost sinner had some pleasure we should have had, if he spent his entire life living only for his own selfish, worthless indulgence and just barely had time to choose Jesus on his deathbed?  Would we not, if we were thinking rationally, realize that a life lived apart from the Lord is a tragedy, not a perk?

Another parable touches on this idea: The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-31).  The prodigal son was like the thief on the cross.  He chose a life of sin and selfishness, rather than a life in his father's house.  Satan allowed the masquerade of hilarity to continue long enough for the prodigal son to be drawn far, far away from his home and his father who loved him dearly.  Then Satan did what Satan does: he pulled out the rug, smashed the 3-D glasses, and left the prodigal son lying prone in an ugly mess.  At this point, the Spirit of God moved in the heart of this unfortunate young man, humbled him, and woke him up to the truth: his father's household actually held everything he had always desired.  So, he traveled the long journey home, and his overjoyed father welcomed him with open arms, new clothes, a celebratory feast.  But do you remember what happened next?  The prodigal son's older brother got angry.  "Why?" the older brother demanded of his father, "why are you squandering all these resources on a party for this punk kid?  He spent his inheritance on prostitutes, and now you are throwing him a feast?"

We often fly past the father's first response. "Look dear son," he said gently, "you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours."  My dear child, you have been with me all this time, and I have been with you, and everything I have is yours.  This is our position as believers in Christ today.  Stop for a minute and think about it.

Another thing: Jesus shares everything with us so that we can share with others.  Everything I have is yours, He says.  He gives us everything, everything that pertains to life and godliness, through His divine power and precious promises, inviting us to be partakers of His divine nature.  The Lord transforms us into the image of Christ, the image of love and compassion.  He does this so we can be effective members of His team, working side by side with Him and with the brotherhood of believers, sharing our spiritual gifts for the incomparable pleasure of seeing God's kingdom unfold, for the glory of His name.  As we become more like Christ, we develop deeper and deeper compassion for those who squander the bulk of their lives on the futility of worldly pursuits, and we watch expectantly for God's redemption in whatever way He applies it.  We should never be jealous of someone who comes late to the kingdom.  If we are, we need to examine the faith we think we rest on, carefully, because true faith recognizes the privilege and joy of being united with God in His all-surpassing glory.

David Livingstone (1813-1873, Scottish missionary to Africa) and Hudson Taylor (1832-1905, British missionary to China) both poured their lives out to bring the gospel to people in far away places, giving up their familiar homes, extended families and financial security (among other things), but they both said with sincere confidence: "I never made a sacrifice."  They found true joy in living their lives for the Lord.

Jim Elliot (1927-1956, American missionary to Ecuador) was killed by the very people he was trying to reach with the good news of Christ.  Before he died, he had written, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

FOMO?  What are you afraid of missing out on?  Are you afraid of missing out on worldly experiences that will stain your soul and leave you with regrets and scars?  Or are you afraid of missing out on time spent at the feet of Jesus, loving and being loved, being strengthened, grown and glorified?  Every day, you make choices that propel you to assuage one fear or the other.





[P.S. Think about that last paragraph the next time you find yourself musing on what it means to have "fear of the Lord."]