Hope with Grace – Part Fourteen
I used to suffer from “Cardboard Box Syndrome!”
When there was pressure around and demands got too great, I wanted to retreat into my own world and seek to protect myself from those stresses. Sometimes it was as though I put a cardboard box over my head. Do you have your own cardboard box, kept handy for those pressure times?
My cardboard box was an indicator of my selfishness. With my head inside it, my world shrank down to a manageable size. The only voice I heard inside my box, was my own. When I spoke it was so loud it drowned out all other voices. The only heartbeat I heard was my own; the only emotions that mattered were my emotions. There was not much light in my box.
Sometimes I was not so bad that I completely encased my head in the box; sometimes I had a couple of slits so that I could look out; I might even open a whole flap.
But what did I see? Just tunnel vision. All I could focus on was the direction I was actually going. I couldn’t see, or hear, those who were beside me. Occasionally those who were beside me, banged on my box; the loud noise echoed through my enclosed ears and my resultant annoyance caused me to close the flap again.
I could get trapped in my box. I needed to have people who would help me remove my cardboard box and preferably help me to destroy it!
When do you use your cardboard box? What are your times of stress?
Observing my wife encouraged me to overcome my “Cardboard Box syndrome.” When she was stressed by writing too many reports; her solution was to go help someone else to proofread theirs. When colleagues were overwhelmed by too many exam papers; she was known to offer to take classes for them. Can you see the difference between her attitude and mine? And now let me ask you a simple question; does her method bring more joy to herself and others or does my box method? It’s “Hope with Grace” again!
Francis Chan confessed:
“When I am consumed by my problems – stressed out by my life, my family, my job – I actually convey the belief that I think the circumstances are more important than God’s command to always rejoice. In other words, that I have a “right” to disobey God because of the magnitude of my responsibilities.
Worry implies that we don’t quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what is happening in our lives.
Stress says that the things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace toward others, or our tight grip of control.
Worry and stress declare our tendency to forget that we’ve been forgiven, that our lives here are brief, that we are headed to a place where we won’t be lonely, afraid, or hurt ever again, and that in the context of God’s strength, our problems are small, indeed.” [1]
Let’s help one another, including our students, to keep the boxes off and live as the community God intends us to be.
Blessings,
Brian
[1] Chan Francis Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God David Cook Publishers (rev 2013) p41