Circumstances

I’m not necessarily the most observant guy.  I live in a relaxing form of oblivion from time to time.  However, I do notice things eventually—like certain themes that keep occurring near me or around me.  Eventually I have to notice them if they show up enough.

Maybe the theme isn’t popping up more frequently than any other time.  Rather, it might be that I’m noticing it where I didn’t notice it before.  I think that’s the sort of thing I must pay even more attention to.  I have to pay more attention because it’s coming to my attention for a reason.  Something is drawing my attention for a purpose.

He’s one of my best friends, even though he doesn’t feel very friendly right now.  He feels like hurt and he feels like pain.  I try to fight him from my guard, but he passes quickly, forcing me to half-guard.  It’s not where I want to be, but I battle valiantly before he cuts through that, too.

His guard-passing game is phenomenal.

He applies some pressure, angles his hips, and pops his foot out of the place I thought I had locked it down.  He cruises into full side-control with what seems (and feels) like ease.  He doesn’t stay there for very long.

Almost immediately he pops up into his favorite position (one he has drilled methodically at my expense)—the feared and dreaded knee-on-belly.  He’s smaller than me, but right now he feels about the size of my truck.  All his weight is focused at the bony tip of his knee and that knee is living—alternately—between my ribcage and my sternum.  I’m not dying.  I just feel like I’m dying.

The pain is distressing—it disrupts my breathing and immobilizes me from doing anything I want to do.  I briefly access the files in my brain that might remember an escape from this position, but I can’t pull any of them forward into the action part of my mind.  Instead, I do what is natural.  I reach down to push his knee away with my hand.

When I do I leave an opening.

I have become so consumed with that pain that I fail to wedge my elbow against my body.  It’s like a Venus Flytrap or a Trapdoor Spider.  He springs and I’m almost instantly tapping to the armbar.

There’s time on the clock, so we start again.

We start in my guard again.  It’s like we’re replaying the same script, because I once again find my guard passed and him back in that horrible knee-on-belly position.  This time I’m a little smarter—I’m not going to leave that same opening.  I keep my elbows tight while I address the knee.

He chokes me, instead.  My hands left my neck unprotected.

There’s still time, so we reset and I’m back in the same place again.  Maybe I’ve learned something.  I manage to defend my neck from the choke.  I get tapped with the Kimura. Mercifully, the round ends moments after.

It was a frustrating round.

In the aftermath of my abject humiliation, I pick my friend’s brain for solutions.

“What am I doing wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he says, “you’re doing everything right.”

I don’t believe him.

“You’re doing what I know you need to do—you’re going to focus on my knee.  When you focus on that you leave yourself vulnerable to everything else.  I’m just waiting for you to expose an opening.”

I have no vision.  Whatever I am experiencing at this moment—in this place, right now—that is the entirety of my existence.  I struggle to see above or beyond the present.  I become captive to my emotions.  Brain chemistry rules my disposition.  Current circumstances are the defining measure of who I choose to be and what I choose to see.

Today is a good day, but only if I’m getting everything I want.  Today is a bad day if only one thing goes wrong.  If all is well and I am well—I am well until just one small thing becomes unwell and I become unwell. 

That makes no sense, but it makes all the sense in the world.  My emotions are fickle things that steer me into dark spaces and light places, depending on how I feel about them.  They make no sense, either.

Even worse, I allow my faith to be defined by circumstance.  I allow my perception of my God to nest itself in the static place where I find myself right now—and in the static place I will probably find myself tomorrow.  My faith changes in real-time because my circumstances change in real-time.  I am immune to the past and blind to the future.  I am focused solely on the space and place that is right now and right here.

It’s a terrible way to live.

An indecisive man is unstable in all his ways. (James 1:8) 

In all fairness, it’s not easy to think outside of the place where I am right now.  I am anchored on this place in time.  It’s the only place where I exist.  It’s the only time where I exist.  It fills my vision because it’s where I am.

I’m not sure how to not focus on what is happening to me right now—in this moment and in this present.  It is the most noticeable thing to me because it hurts right now or it feels great right now.  The present is the place where I exist.  It’s the place where I live—right here and right now.

I struggle to focus anywhere outside of my circumstances.

I think I have his timing now.  He’s moving quickly and he’s been touching me with the jab, but I think I’ve figured him out.  He snapped a few lead punches toward my face, forcing me to react quickly.  A couple of them landed, but they were jabs without much in the way of power—just speed.  After parrying a few, then slipping a couple, I’m pretty sure I can counter on the next one.  When the next jab does come, I slip offline and set my feet, ready to explode forward with my right-straight.

Even as I lower my weight—before I can adjust—he’s cracking my lead leg with a vicious leg-kick.  I’m so heavy on my base that I can’t defend.  The blow lands so hard it feels like it touched bone.

I was so busy defending the jab that I never considered the kick.

Moments later I’m talking with him.  He’s better than me and I want to learn.  I want to learn how to be better than me, too.

“What am I doing wrong?” I ask.  “How do you keep catching me on that?”

He’s not gentle with his words.  I don’t want him to be gentle—that’s not how I get better.  “You’re focusing on the wrong thing.  You’re focused on what’s happening now, not what’s happening next.  You’re not trying to understand what I’m setting up…

…you need to understand better.”

How do I understand better?  It’s not natural to focus outside of the moment.  The moments—my current circumstances—they consume all my attention.  They consume my attention because they are right here in front of me.  I am trapped in this moment.  I am mired to the present.  I have no eyes for the future and no enlightenment from the past.  I am a creature of the immediate and the immediate consumes.

I allow my circumstances to blind me to what God is working to do.  I am so rooted in the emotion of the moment—whether it be elation or misery—that I’m not even trying to see the future we’re building or the past I’m being redeemed from.  My eyes fail to shift—they fail to lift—to see beyond what is directly in front of my face.

I’ve already caught him once with my right hand, and that right hand landed clean.  I can tell that it stung.  The look on his face gives it away.  He’s not used to being hit—not yet.He really wants to fight, but he’s inexperienced.  He’s game and he’s willing to do the work.  He’s sparred before, but he’s never really sparred hard.  This is an introduction to how difficult this sport can be.

He’s gun-shy.  I touched him once, just a few seconds ago.  Now he’s flinchy.  He doesn’t want to get hit again.  His desire to not get hit is giving me anything I want.  Whenever I twitch my right hand, he reacts and whenever he reacts, he leaves an opening.  I’m not catching him with my right hand anymore.  I’m catching him with every attack but my right hand—I’m taking him down, landing kicks, and dropping left hooks at will.  All I have to do is twitch my right hand because my right hand is the only thing he sees.

I can see the frustration shining from his face, so I stop our session to allow him to calm down.  I remember learning this lesson so long ago.  I’m still learning this lesson.“I need you to relax your eyes,” I tell him.  “Stop looking at my right hand.  If that’s the only thing you’re looking at then you’re not going to see anything else.  Relax your eyes.  See more than my right hand.”

I give good advice.  I should listen to myself better.

I’m desperate to know how to relax my spiritual eyes.  I want to see more than I see right now because I know how flawed my vision is.  I live in the moment, but that doesn’t mean I want to live for the moment.

Keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God's throne. (Hebrews 12:2) 

My faith is a fragile thing—so easily disturbed by a moment and so easily rescued by another moment.  My faith is the most significant thing about me, and if it is so easily moved then the very core of me is just as easily moved.  That is no way to live because that is not living.

I can’t settle my eyes into the right place—not on my own.  It’s unnatural.  It’s not in my nature.  If I am willing, I think, I will realize that I can’t do this for myself.  My thinking is what’s killing me, and my own thinking isn’t going to save me.  I have to ask for help.  I need a whole new perspective and that is a perspective that I have to seek for.

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.  I pray that the perception of your mind may be enlightened so you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the glorious riches of His inheritance among the saints. (Ephesians 1:17-18) 

Sometimes—many times—I am so blinded by my present that I lose all  confidence in my cry for help.  I don’t know why God would bother to answer it.  I wouldn’t if I were Him.  But my request isn’t dependent on my belief—and not even a little bit on my vision.  God doesn’t need all that much from me.  He’s not captive to my limited ability to believe.

Then Jesus said to him, "'If You can'? Everything is possible to the one who believes."

 Immediately the father of the boy cried out, "I do believe! Help my unbelief." (Mark 9:23-24) 

There is a knowledge in these times that I must hold on to—in this here and this now.  It’s the sort of knowledge that, if I hold onto long enough, might transform into wisdom.  I remind myself, intellectually, that the moment where I am is only a moment and that the moment will soon dissolve. I will be better for it.

But this is not an intellectual exercise.  It is a spiritual exercise and my intellect and spirit are often at odds.  Neither of them trusts the other.  But they both know that they can trust and the promises God gave me.  When the moment passes God’s plan will survive.

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28) 

I can’t allow myself to be defined by the moment I find myself in.  God is so much bigger than my circumstances.  He’s building something better than temporary emotions like happy and sad.  He’s designing me through my circumstances to seek permanent dispositions like peace and joy.  The future of who I’m going to be won’t even remember these fleeting moments.

It’s going to be a journey, but I can’t wait to get there—eventually.

I don't say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.  I know both how to have a little, and I know how to have a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content—whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need.  I am able to do all things through Him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:11-13)