Too Far Down the Road

Jonah 1:11 NIV

 The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, "What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?"

Have You Gone Too Far?

Recently I had to take a rental car back after a trip to Los Angeles.  I needed to return it to the San Jose airport which is about a twenty minute drive from my home.  Before that though I discovered from my son that my wife’s car needed to be taken to the mechanic so after dropping it off, I headed to the airport.  No one in my family could drive my car because it is a manual transmission and it was in the church parking lot.  So it was up to my son to bring my wife to the airport to come get me.  For an hour I waited for them to arrive.  Growing frustrated, I called my wife to find out what had happened to them, only to discover that the hood of my son’s car had flown open while they were driving on the freeway and because they could not figure out how to reattach the hood, they were driving slowly back home, praying the hood would not bounce back up onto the windshield again while they were in traffic.  So what was I to do?  It was easy, I would just call one of my friends to come get me but I only had the numbers of three people in my phone who I thought I could ask.  One by one I called each of them and every time, the person I called did not take the call.  So now what was I supposed to do?  The normal answer would be, “Just solve the problem!”

What is your typical response to a difficult problem?  Do you just figure out what to do? Do you make the best of things and not worry about the outcome?  Are you a fretter?  Do you try to find an expert and get advice?  Do you just quit when you aren’t sure what to do?  How do you respond psychologically to the problems in life?  Are you most likely to take charge of the issue at hand or pretend as if nothing is wrong?  It is true that each situation is different and sometimes we react one way and other times another way.  Yet we must admit that we probably have a default setting when it comes to challenging situations; a way of approaching them that is our usual pattern.  What is going to be suggested today is that we can go too far in how we solve matters and when we do so we can be left psychologically exhausted.

What is meant by “psychologically exhausted”?  This is the state when we find it nearly impossible because of the lack of internal resources to cope emotionally in our preferred manner.  For example, rather than feeling relaxed and peaceful, you can’t hold back your anger, depression despair, anxiety and bitterness or even lust or moral limits.  Like someone who is so tired from driving that she cannot keep from falling asleep at the wheel, certain types of situations become too big for you to handle the way you wish you could or would.  You blow up at someone you really do love.  You develop a headache because of anxiety levels you have reached.  You lie or act in ways morally incompatibly with your values or you give in to an addiction you thought you were past or don’t show the sort of integrity you think you should or believe you ought to maintain.  There is a cause of psychological exhaustion that is actually quite simple.  We try to do God’s work and it is too much for us to handle.

Here is a way of illustrating this that you may have experienced personally or at least have known of happening.  A person who is not a skilled swimmer wades out into the ocean and suddenly a wave unexpectedly swells and sweeps that person off his feet and he is caught in the undertow.  Flailing wildly, the person tries desperately to get his head above the water so he can get his breath.  His heart is pounding, his mind is racing in desperation and his eyes are frantically searching for the surface.  If he does survive, he is left exhausted and even traumatized.  Spiritually it is like that for you when you are not careful.  If you take away from God the work He alone is supposed to be doing, you respond psychologically in similar ways to the panting and traumatized swimmer.  We see examples of this mistake often in scripture.

There is a strange detail in the account of Jesus’ crucifixion that although curious, rings true to human nature.  Christ was hung on a cross and on either side of him two criminals were also nailed to crosses.  Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed.  When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals — one on his right, the other on his left…One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!" (Luke 23:32-33, 39 NIV)  Isn’t this odd?  One of the two men suffering the same fate as Jesus, convulsing in terrible agony used that time to curse and mock Jesus.  His psychological pain was also great and the way he managed it was by insulting Jesus.  What had Jesus done to hurt this man?  How had he earned the fellow’s wrath?  Of course our Lord hadn’t done anything to warrant the insults and rage.  This was the case of someone dealing with a circumstance much too big for him to handle.  The terrors of impending death, the grief of a life wasted, the regrets of pain he caused others to suffer was crashing down upon him and he was trying to cope with all this on his own.  Unwilling to turn to God to carry him through his pain, he was left, like a drowning man unable to swim, without the psychological capacity to handle what he was facing and so the psychological reaction was to become angry with someone who actually loved him.

We see something similar in the Old Testament.  Unable to have children but determined to figure out some way to provide a child for her husband, Sarah, without turning to God for help and counsel, convinced her husband to take her servant girl and try to father a child through her.  We know how well this went.  Abraham was successful and the slave Hagar eventually gave birth to his son.  It was not quite as easy as Sarah imagined seeing her servant pregnant with a child her husband fathered.  When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.  Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me."  "Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her. (Genesis 16:4-6 NIV)  Clearly Sarah’s jealousy was egged on by Hagar but Sarah’s plan worked perfectly except that she was not equipped psychologically to live with the consequences of her actions.  Rather than turn to God for help regarding her seeming infertility, she figured out things on her own and the result was she became psychologically exhausted trying to do God’s work.

Jeremiah 2 gives us rich insight into the difficulties we face solving all our problems without God.  "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)  The two sins are clearly to God evil and deadly.  The people quit turning to God for help and then developed their own strategies for solving their problems.  We have come to think as they did that getting along on your own is somehow noble and courageous.  But it is just the opposite.  It is foolish and ruinous.  On your own, all you have are the psychological skills you have acquired in life.  Some have quite a few and can manage well for a while without God.  Some have been so damaged by the hardships they have faced that they have almost nothing in them to keep their anger and depression and bitterness and jealousy at bay. Why do we see suicide and drug abuse and violence and crippling depression?  Without God carrying you through the troubles of life, you may or may not have the psychological strength to protect you and keep you at peace so you turn to your own brokenness to see you through.  There is however another option to independent living.

Consider the fascinating case study of Daniel who as a believer in God, prayed three times a day.  When a law was instituted that demanded no one would be allowed to pray to anyone other than the king for the next thirty days, Daniel coolly opened up the shutters covering his windows and quite publically continued praying to the Lord.  When he was caught and brought before the king, even though the king, who was desperate to try and save him from his own law, fretted in despair, Daniel seemingly did not have a care in the world and without comment bravely faced his sentence of being thrown into a pit with ravenous lions.  When the king heard this, he was greatly distressed; he was determined to rescue Daniel and made every effort until sundown to save him.  Then the men went as a group to the king and said to him, "Remember, O king, that according to the law of the Medes and Persians no decree or edict that the king issues can be changed."  So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lions' den. The king said to Daniel, "May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you!" (Daniel 6:14-16 NIV)  Where did Daniel get his courage and peace to see him through his trials?  He went directly to God.

Jesus’ famous promise to give his people peace is almost universally misunderstood in one important detail.  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John 14:27 NIV)  Jesus is not offering to give you a reason to have peace.  He is pledging that the peace He possesses Himself will be inserted into you when you accept it from Him. Regardless of what you have learned or not learned in life, of however many self-help books you have read or not read and however much confidence or despair is in you, God’s peace will take over and put calmness in your heart.  Christ did not die on the cross in order to give you strategies for having peace in your life.   That would leave you with the same failure rates of all other men or women who have tried to work out their problems on their own.  He died so that you might have his own personality working inside you regardless of what you face each and every day.  Stop trying to figure everything out on your own.  Let God work out things in you so that whatever challenges you face can be worked out through you.

Obedience—The Great Uncovering Step 2

Genesis 28:16 NIV

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it."

Are You Aware Of God’s Work In You?

Perhaps the most odd of all my actions in college was when I got involved in a “love triangle”.  Now I am sure that the girl in the triangle did not think of herself as being in a love triangle.  She was just having a good time going out with different guys.  My two friends though who liked her and who wanted her to choose between them felt very much like they were in a love triangle; or at least in a very attracted to this girl triangle.  For several weeks each of these two guys pined to me about his affections for her and how he could not tell if she liked him or  was just pulling him along to feed her ego.  I liked these friends and didn’t want either one hurt and so finally when I heard the girl was going out with a third guy at our school, I decided we should do something about this.  A group of us guys snatched her one day, brought her to the school fountain at the front of the campus and tossed her in it.  Now some would say this was a very mean thing to do and although the girl was laughing and mad all at the same time when she got out of the fountain and perhaps in some strange way liked all the male attention she received that day, I was doing something that had to break some rule.  Even though I never read a single regulation in the school handbook prohibiting guys from throwing girls in the fountain, I cannot say that what we did was “right”…funny perhaps but not right.  What struck me in this was that it probably revealed more about me in organizing this prank than it did about Ella who we all thought deserved to be “baptized” in the fountain.  The question is, what did this rebellious and somewhat mean spirited act reveal about me?

We are unconscious beings who carry below the surface a vast assortment of memories, ideas, convictions and desires.  Who we think we are and what we decide about ourselves isn’t necessarily the complete picture and perhaps not even a true picture of us!  There is much to us that we don’t grasp…some we recognize but try to keep from others and a lot that is hidden from us of which a little, unbeknownst to us, has trickled out where it is observed by friends family members and even strangers.  The question is not whether or not we have a significant unconscious world within; it is what shall we do about that unconscious world and will we let it determine key aspects of our lives.

The Bible provides us with rich insight into our inner world and it is of great value to study the people who are described in it.  One of the most important players in the Old Testament is David, the eventual king of Israel whom some would call the greatest of all the Hebrew kings.  David was courageous, intelligent, creative, godly and passionate.  But he also was lusty, narcissistic, bull-headed and ambitious.  He was a wild tangle of conflicted personality traits that God worked through to establish a culture of faith among the Hebrew people and make into a “man after his own heart”. (See 1 Samuel 13: 14)  David knew there was much below the surface of his personality that he didn’t understand and he invited the Lord to probe it.  Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24 NIV)

There is a powerful and critical way the Lord reveals our hearts to us and it is astounding how effective it is.  The law of God not only defines holy behavior but it also uncovers layers of buried material that unconsciously drive many of our actions.  The Sermon on the Mount is a surprisingly effective way God reveals to us our hearts and the hidden wounded parts of our soul.  Consider just the directive to forgive.  For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15 NIV)  It is amazing how difficult it is for us to do this.  In fact, it could be argued that it is nearly impossible for many.

The painful description of David’s relationship with his first wife Michal illustrates just how illuminating the law of forgiveness can be.  David was the golden boy of his time, the conquering war hero who could do no wrong.  Yet it is likely that deep resentments that were developed in childhood haunted him.  His father saw so little in David that when the great prophet Samuel came to their town and called for everyone there to meet him for a sacrificial feast, the boy’s dad never bothered to call his youngest son back to the house.  He left David out in the fields tending sheep while every other child of Jesse was at the party.   To get a perspective on this, suppose Michael Jordan or Bill Gates were to come to your neighborhood and everyone on your block was invited to meet him at one of the homes down the street from you.  You had eight sons but brought only seven of them to the meet and greet.  How would it have felt to have been the only child not asked to come?  Later, we see what this mindset of the father did to David’s siblings.  When the older brothers went off to war to fight the Philistines and David’s father sent David to the front lines to bring food to his brothers, the oldest brother had a bitter reaction to David’s natural curiosity about the taunts of the giant Goliath and the way the soldiers planned on responding to Goliath’s challenge to fight him.  When Eliab, David's oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, "Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the desert? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle." (1 Samuel 17:28 NIV)

Of course, we know that David not only ended up watching the battle but played the most important part in the Israelites winning the fight.  As a result of this bravery and other successful accomplishments in war, David was made a high ranking general in Saul’s army.  His popularity exploded and he was revered by the Israelites.  In fact he was more beloved than the king himself.  This infuriated King Saul and his jealousy inflamed his hatred of David.  The king concocted a plan to have David killed.  He told the boy that if he could somehow kill one hundred Philistines, he would give his daughter Michal in marriage.  Michal was in love with David and it would seem the feelings were mutual for David agreed to the bridal price.  David successfully killed one hundred Philistines and won Michal as his bride but their marital bliss did not last long.  Saul’s hatred of David grew so bitter that it became clear soon Saul would kill him if he did not immediately go into hiding. His wife Michal helped in his escape despite the risk she took enraging her father.  She knew it was possible that he would kill her for the part she played in David’s getaway.  But her love for David was too great for her to worry about her own life.  She had to help David save his.

What followed is tragic. The timeline isn’t clear but this marriage of infatuation and sacrificial love fell apart.  Abigail quickly got on a donkey and, attended by her five maids, went with David's messengers and became his wife.  David had also married Ahinoam of Jezreel, and they both were his wives.  But Saul had given his daughter Michal, David's wife, to Paltiel son of Laish, who was from Gallim. (1 Samuel 25:42-44 NIV)  Did first Saul force Michal to abandon her husband and marry someone he handpicked to replace him or did David first marry Ahinoam and Abigail and as a consequence Michal abandon her marriage to David and marry Paltiel upon her father’s direction?  We don’t know.  Probably Michal was the first one to remarry based upon Saul’s fury with David and Michal’s fear of her father.  David now had been rejected by the two most important men in his life, his father and the king who had taken him under his wing.  Michal may have been a mere pawn in her father’s hand but her rejection of David clearly stung David and his bitterness over her betrayal worked like dry rot in his soul.  He never forgave her.  One might argue that he couldn’t.   He was still the little boy whose father did not think he was good enough to warrant attendance at the party.

Ten years passed.  David had now added at least five more wives and perhaps more, fought a bitter war with Saul’s son and Michal’s brother Ish-Bosheth to gain control of all of Israel and no longer had King Saul to fear due to his death six years before.  Ish-Bosheth’s general Abner had become incensed with Ish-Bosheth and so decided to form an alliance with David and pave the way for David to be king over all Israel.  David was more than happy to make this agreement but first he had a requirement if he was to make peace with Abner and his army.  The general had to bring Michal back to David so that he could force her to be his wife again.  For perhaps ten years Michal had been with her new husband and he loved her deeply.  She was his only wife…he was her only husband.  David on the other hand had at least seven wives and many more he would take later.  What sort of bitterness of soul could lead to such a cold hearted, spiteful demand?  It was an ugly scene.  David told Abner and King Ish-Bosheth, "I will make an agreement with you. But I demand one thing of you: Do not come into my presence unless you bring Michal daughter of Saul when you come to see me." Then David sent messengers to Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, demanding, "Give me my wife Michal, whom I betrothed to myself for the price of a hundred Philistine foreskins."   So Ish-Bosheth gave orders and had her taken away from her husband Paltiel son of Laish.  Her husband, however, went with her, weeping behind her all the way to Bahurim. Then Abner said to him, "Go back home!" So he went back.  (2 Samuel 3:13-16 NIV)

Consider an imaginary conversation taking place between David and Jesus, one much like what happened between Christ and the rich young ruler.  David asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life and Jesus tells him as he tells us all in the Sermon on the Mount to forgive, “Forgive Michal for marrying Paltiel and come follow me.”  David replies, “I can’t; it’s too much to ask, to demand I forgive her!”  Now, why couldn’t he forgive Michal for remarrying?  Why did he make her return to him?  He no longer loved her.  She didn’t love him anymore it seems.  Why couldn’t David just forgive Michal and move on in his life and let her move on too?  What drove his determination to ruin Michal’s life and Michal’s husband’s life even though it is a fundamental principle of God’s Kingdom to forgive those who hurt us?  Perhaps, it was because David always had to prove he was the biggest man in the room, always had to be the conqueror, always needed to have the prize in his hand, always needed to be respected and appreciated.  He could never let anyone get the best of him, never be disrespected. He had a deep seated need to prove his worth, to be someone!  Why might that be?  Perhaps, his bitter disdain for Michal and her needs and his unwillingness to forgive her was rooted in something deep and ugly…perhaps it had to do with his battle to prove his worth to his dad.  Maybe, there was a wound in David’s soul that had never healed and when someone he cared about deeply reminded him of the rejection he experienced when he was a child, he could not let go of the hurt it uncovered.

What if though, everything went in a different direction and the rich young ruler did give up his wealth and follow Jesus and David did forgive Michal for marrying someone else?  Is it possible that in doing the command of God, by forgiving Michal, David might have been freed by God of his need to prove himself, freed of his neurotic need to live up to the expectations of his father?  We cannot say what might have been but we do know this.  The commands of God are not intended to take apart the joy we have in being independent and free.  God’s demands are based in love and if we obey Him, there is power in God to make us more free than we ever thought possible.  Consider the promise found in Malachi made to those who take God seriously enough to do as He commands; who believe that in all His ways He is good, even when He tells us to do something that we feel is too hard to do.  But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. (Malachi 4:2 NIV)

Pushing Forward

Why do we think we have developed a heightened level of spirituality when we give up on praying and stifle our love of Christ in a muffling "your will be done"?  Nothing so marks the carnal mind like the indifference to praying and "keeping on" praying.  It is passive aggressive bitterness that stops at the point of impassioned interceding for all the needs that come to our mind.  The great purpose of intercessory prayer is simple; to bring each and every one of those things that disturb us to the mind of Christ and there with the Holy Spirit working in our heart  learn to love God with the type of love Mary had not many minutes after she  wondered aloud why Jesus had waited too long to save Lazarus.  The pagan determination to pray for the dead is not so far off the mark as we think.  In Christ, who is the Alpha and Omega all at once, who is to say our praying cannot reach back before us and alter even what has happened in the past.  Where is the justification for giving up on everything that seems hopeless to us if God can pull the dead from the grave on the last day?  The praying of one believing Christian can change the course of events miraculously and in stunning fashion, not because she is worthy of it but because the love of God is poured out in the interceding and that love is a healing fire.  Nothing in the spiritual realm is quite so intoxicating as the determination to quit on a matter because it seems hopeless.  It is the morphine of Satan, this resolve to let go of the thing when the Holy Spirit is pressing us forward in prayer.  Who among us has not quit on a matter just as arrogantly as the mourners who laughed when Jesus informed them that the little girl was not dead but merely sleeping?  The opportunity to pray at any given moment for each part of a day is a privilege won for us at the Cross and we should not quit on it so carelessly.  

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Mark 11:24 NIV

The Crisis Point

The crisis point is not at the moment you find some part of your life out of control; it is when you must accept that every part of your life is actually beyond your control.  We try desperately to calibrate this and modulate that but it is in the end not ours to fix or determine.  The Lord does not intend to make you more differentiated from your environment...He is using it (that wild and unpredictable world where you have been placed) to add to the supernatural work of being born again.  The more we try to squirm out of our predicaments and fix our dilemmas, the more sustained the rough edges of our personality.  You cannot love unless God surgically removes the bumps of hate and jealousy, you cannot trust unless he sculpts away the scared ridges of doubt and self-confidence and you cannot hope unless he rubs off the fear and bitterness caked on your too fragile psyche.  You have been placed at your spot so that the Lord can perfect His work in you.  Rest your soul in God who loves you enough to keep you where you are.

Minding Your Business

Minding Your Business

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. (James 4:1-3 NIV)

Every form of anger other than righteous or holy anger generated by the Spirit of God is due to a lack of contentment with what God has given you or allowed come to you.  When you want more than He wants you to have or feel that you deserve something better than what you have gotten, whether it be better treatment, more respect or greater influence, you get angry or depressed and the peace of God leaves you.  Angry, bitter thoughts sprout within a mind that has not made Christ its center or Lord.  Cursing, complaining and angry words are always a sign of idolatry; of wanting something more than what comes out of the hand of Christ.

When Christ is not the source of your joy and peace, your mind will become less able to guide you rightly, making you susceptible to depression, anger, apathy and confusion.  Nothing weakens your mind’s ability to make sense of things more than your devotion to Christ weakening.  You are less patient, more prone to take offence, less able to forgive, more judgmental, more frustrated and your ability to make sense of your life diminished.  The mind out of sorts with the Holy Spirit lacks the most important component needed to be happy and at peace; the guidance and empowerment of God.  The mind becomes a battleground where despicable and hurtful thoughts fight with what is right and good and all too often win.

The way to clear your mind and make your thinking free of its power to mislead you is to follow the instruction of Philippians 4.  Present your requests to God rather than ponder them, complain about them or fume about them.  Be thankful rather than disappointed, keep looking for the good Christ is doing for you and do not be misled into thinking you are somehow losing or missing out.  Every circumstance is being used by God for your good so there is never a reason to be frustrated or upset about how someone treats you or the difficulties you face.  The role of your mind is to keep bringing you to Christ if it isn’t, you must discipline it to do that very thing.  Force yourself to be thankful to God or ask for His help.  If you aren’t doing one or the other, you are losing your mind to every trap and misdirection Satan may use to confuse and confound you.  It is certain if you fail to pray for help or thank God for what you have at any moment, you risk losing your thoughts to a demonic attack upon your brain, one you may even know is happening.  Depression, anger, bitterness, jealousy, despair, loneliness, lust, disgruntlement, self-pity are not from God.  They are all the fruit of refusing to either ask Christ for help or thank Him for what He has given you.  You may be snared in one of Satan’s traps or just living in the natural result of your own sin but you don’t have to stay there.  Your mind can be happy and contented but you must go back to the one thing.  Praise Christ for what you have or ask for His help.  Reclaim your mind and get on with the business of having a good life today.

Gratitude

I have started each day writing down a line of blessings. It has just been a three day discipline but already it feels like stretching out a bad back or flossing infected gums. I am not very good at it and it shows. My first day I could only write down two blessings; the second day I really improved and came up with three. One was pretty pitiful. I wrote that I was thankful that my car was repaired. Of course the repairs cost me one hundred dollars more than I expected and in the end, the mechanic listed two major problems my car has that because of its age and mileage are too expensive to fix. So, my repair gratitude was grudgingly added to make me sound thankful…or pretend I was thankful.

It cannot be simply a natural tendency to pessimism that makes gratitude such a strain. I just do not have the inherent talent to be thankful when I have a headache, the living room is full of clothes and toys and half the congregation is gone on Sunday. My gratitude list is far too short for someone living with Jesus and much too shallow for all I have been given. When I was in graduate school, my supervisor was providing an in-service on parent training. She talked about how difficult it is sometimes to compliment your children. She told of one parent, determined to say something good about her child blurting out, “I really like how your nose sits right in the middle of your face.” My prayers often have that same feel. “Thank you Lord for the air I breathe.” “Thank you Lord for the flu only lasting three days.” Thank you Lord that my car broke just forty-five minutes from the nearest mechanic.”

It is a stretch to be thankful but it is a stretch to cook dinner sometimes, a stretch to get up before dawn and a stretch to smile when your back aches but we do all these things anyway. The other day I was asked by one of the teens in our youth group whose idea it was to organize a hike up mission peak. Because I wasn’t sure if he was glad he went or angry he had to go, I hesitated before I answered. He did get to stand at the end on top of the world looking down on a billion city lights, look up at trillions of stars and breathe the fresh air of a cool breeze floating over the peak. I think I like life better when I think a bit more about the twinkling city lights than the sweat dripping off my brow. That alone may make gratitude worth the effort. I read recently of a beautiful young professional golfer who committed suicide. I do not know why she took her life but perhaps she missed the sparkling stars one too many times as she climbed the peak she was given. The Apostle Paul warned that in the last days there “will be terrible times…” He also said in the same letter, “I thank God…” The two can co-exist in one heart at the same time. Gratitude may be the most viable and definitive mode of expression limiting the progression of bitterness, pride and despair all in one fell swoop. Just one thankful comment can turn around a gloomy day…a cheap remedy that no elixir can match.