I am a boomer raised in a small country farm town in eastern Oklahoma. I discovered life during the innocent days between the Second Great War and the various undeclared clashes that followed. I was brought up with all the southern values one would expect, and I viewed life through the lens of that cultural setting. I was obedient to my parents, loved my church, feared God, and was a fairly good student. At home, I taught myself how to be a junior scientist with my own basement laboratory. I literally thought all drugs were pills that came from a pharmacy, and I never even heard the word marijuana until I entered the university. To be concise, I was a typical geeky, small-town, boring country kid, which made just about everyone very happy – parents, pastor, teachers, and the single officer of the Haskell Police Department.
But in our small village of less than 2,000 souls, not everyone my age was boring, and they pleased very few. These kids got into a lot of trouble. My mother described them as “just looking for trouble in all the wrong places.” I was raised around the expression “just looking for trouble” with the unmistakable impression that this could never be a compliment.
But early-onset-value-systems are wont to drift over time. And, quite literally, this morning I was awakened from a restful sleep with this concept pinned to my forehead like a yellow sticky note fastened with a thumbtack. It read, “Today you need to work harder and continue to go out and look for more trouble.” (This certified fact is not merely an illustration just for this Battlefield Report.)
None of this actually surprises me. Halfway through my seventh decade, I have learned that the primary assigned duties of my retirement years have been to go out and deliberately look for trouble. Indeed, I am being re-trained by the ministry of the Holy Spirit of Grace to fully embrace that value system reversal. Because if I am not out there actively looking for trouble every day, then I am to be ashamed of myself.
When I awoke this morning, I opened my eyes to a load of duties that befit my responsibility-laden titles in order of precedence: Bondslave of Jesus, Husband, Father, Granddad, Templar Prior and Grand Priory Editeur, Deacon, friend of many, author, and owner of a startup tech company. Here is something profoundly essential that I have discovered about all these jobs…
They are not honorary titles.
They are assigned life tasks with very critical due dates. Each of them does not just require action; they all require proactive action. I can sit on my rear and stare at my nicely stacked resume all I want – but that is an overt, shameful dereliction of duty. My job description is quite simply stated as this:
Go out to all my assigned places and actively look for trouble – people in trouble – genetic and spiritual family, friends, neighbors and persons-on-the-street in some kind of trouble needing a hand. It doesn’t matter to me where they live – next door or in Jerusalem.
And I have discovered that in all these things I am responsible for, there is always trouble – and lots of it in spades every day.
But here’s the key interesting wrinkle: unless I go out and actively look for it, trouble typically will not seek me out, because people like to keep their troubles to themselves.
The best analogy I can think of is a building. A brand new building stands proud and needs little work… for a few years. But if the owner doesn’t actively look for the trouble, the rot, the infestations, the peeling paint, the sagging roof segment, and the occasional dripping leak, eventually it will collapse for lack of tender loving care.
And just like that building, people and their problems will typically not come to me and seek anything for reasons of privacy, pride, not wanting to be a bother, or not appreciating that just a kind word of inquiry could really help. But they all really do need me and Claudia and would positively and gratefully accept a helping hand, a timely word, a touch, a prayer, a ride, or even the simple task of making a phone call once in a while.
But none of this will ever come to me. I have to gird up my loins and go out and find it – like Diogenes constantly out each day casting about the wilderness with his lamp looking for that one honest man.
All of this is a relatively straightforward lesson in responsibility learned the hard way in life. Ignoring problems is very human because, well, let’s all agree, problems are problems, and they don’t carry that moniker because they are pleasant. Everyone has their own problems that they are deliberately not solving because of their level of difficulty, so why would anyone persistently go out and seek out others to purposefully get involved in solving theirs?
I love this question, because God has already supplied the most supernaturally powerful, utmost, truthful response:
“Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.
“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;
“…do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:1-4)
We do these things by the encouragement of the Spirit of the Living Christ Who indwells us, by providing to others the consolation of love, affection, and compassion, uniting with them by the Spirit of Grace, and deliberately taking on their problems and making them more important than our own. We do these things because we have been commanded to do so!
And now I will leave you, beloved Templars, with one more clear and balanced doctrine of scripture that you may consider and contemplate today, along with the all the rest:
God is no one’s debtor.
If you sacrificially take care of these others who need you so very much, God will take on your problems while you take on theirs. Trust me in this, fellow Templars. It is true. It has happened many times in my life, and it is still happening today.
So go out today and look for trouble in all the right places! It is our duty and our honor to use ourselves up in this life so that we may be prepared and fitted for the next.
I love all of you Templar troubleseekers and am so proud to be called your Prior – even if only just for a few more days.