While the apostle Paul was imprisoned, he wrote a letter to the church in Philippi expressing his joy—joy that from his own suffering he could spread the Gospel of Christ.
No matter what we believe, I think Paul can be an example to us
.
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In chains, he rejoices. In grave circumstances, he has only a message of love and encouragement. He does not dwell on or complain about his own suffering (or at least not outwardly) instead he accepts it and thrives in it.
Because of the example of Paul's suffering, and also because of the message of wisdom, joy, and love that he cultivated even amidst his adversity, I am able to gain. I am able to find peace and joy as well as apply his lessons and example to my own life, thousands of years after he lived, simply because he chose to make the most of a sucky situation.
I've been accused, at least in the days of my childhood, of "always trying to find a reason to be upset". Perhaps it is a stubborn, subliminal reaction to this accusation, or perhaps it is just my particular way of coping with the clouds of arbitrary and devastating pain that sometimes linger on our path as we spin around on this earth,but over the years a spirit of perpetual optimism has grown in me.
Despite this, I sometimes still find myself dwelling on my own problems, retreating inward and focusing on my own suffering.
This is what Paul's example made me see:
(Bare with me while I, as I so often do in my writing, extend this metaphor beyond what is probably, or probably definitely, the reasonable limit.)
I imagine pain, anxiety, suffering—whatever type of adversity we face—as a gas, like helium or argon. And this gas follows the laws of physics and chemistry in respect to volume, pressure, and mass (flashback to high school chem, anyone?) If I focus the high-energy molecules of my problems inward, if look at them within myself alone, then they have nowhere to go in that small volume of space. The volume is low; the pressure is high. Of course my problems seem big when my focus is inward! Relative to myself, there is a massive cloud of angry, upset, stressed-out molecules colliding inside of me!
(And no, pepto bismol wont fix my problem. It's a metaphor... grow up!)
But what if my focus is outward? At the volume of the earth, of the universe, or even of this little, third-floor apartment in Paris, those problem molecules can disperse and diffuse. They are a wispy cloud in this room, a little blotch of pain in this city, a single spec of dust on this earth, and they are nothing in God's infinite universe.
Unfortunately though, a little bit of that suffering inevitably remains within us. A few molecules linger, that, relative to ourselves, are still significant enough to cause us grief, suffering, pain, stress, or maybe just annoyance.
The point is that our problems, out in this universe and all of the millennia it has seen, don't seem so big anymore.
And even if, once diluted and let out of their bodily cage, the vestiges of that pain are still near impossible to bare inside, there is hope. If our suffering is outwardly manifested as love—as something positive, constructive, or encouraging—then, in the world at least (even if not within ourselves) that suffering is cancelled out. If we focus outward, good can come from our problems. Suffering can become gain.
I know that this was perhaps a little heavy, and definitely strange. Though to me and, I hope to someone that really needs to hear it, it makes perfect sense.
Even now, after releasing the energy from those feeble but irritating thoughts of pessimism and frustration that festered within me today, I feel better. I feel like I at least put my own life, in the grand and beautiful scheme of everything, in perspective. I released the negative, converted it into a personal message of hope and love for anyone who is nice enough (and patient enough) to read the silly things that I write.
The cool thing about love and hope, though, is that they don't follow the same rules as pain. While problems diffuse and are diluted when we focus outside ourselves, love and hope multiply exponentially when we let them out, bouncing from smile to smile and radiating in a continuous stream for miles and for years, never losing strength or concentration.
After all, Paul's message of love and his example of hope, created from his moment of suffering, traveled for thousands of years and tonight found a random girl in Paris who needed it very much.
Now if only love could travel BACK in time, I'd be sending it your way, Paul.
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