lock the doors
“Life’s pressures may produce character, but the little frustrations test how solid that character truly is. When we’re pricked – not pressed – we discover just how mature we’ve become.”
You have a junk drawer in your house, right? A drawer that accumulates all kinds of rubber bands, charging cables, scraps of paper?
Most people do, but I can’t tolerate mess. Instead, I created a junk drawer for my weeks – Sundays. It’s a bad habit. I’ve tried to kick it, but I typically save a whole list of tasks for the very day I should reserve for church and family.
Inevitably, I wake up on Sundays trying to write books, ride bikes, knock out house projects, and get a head-start on work, all while spending “quality” time with my wife. Basically, I cram a week of to-do’s into the last day of the week and expect it all to fit.
It’s not that I’m a procrastinator. Rather, I’m only as content as the projects I accomplish, and I overestimate my ability to complete them in a reasonable amount of time. As those two factors coalesce, I frantically shuffle around the house trying to make the impossible work out, while venting my frustration when I can’t.
I thought I could change this a few Sundays ago. I was in the middle of training for an Ironman, which is a triathlon that demands a great deal focus on performance and long workouts. Yet, I asked Erin if she’d like to ride bikes together. Our last ride ended in tears, and I wanted to make it up to her. Long story short, I wanted to ride fast on heavily-trafficked roads, while Erin preferred a leisurely pace on the bike trails, and compromise wasn’t how I handled it.
“We can take our time, riding through the rich neighborhoods,” I enticed her. It’s one of our hobbies; we cruise by mansions lining nearby golf courses, musing about which features we’ll build into our one-day dream home. I wanted to show her that despite my training schedule, this ride would be different.
“You know we don’t ride at the same pace, right?” Erin tested me. “And I don’t like busy roads?”
“Yes, yes,” I confirmed.
“And you’re fine sticking with me on side streets?”
“Yep.”
“Even though you’re training?” She pressed.
“Yes! C’mon. It’ll be fun,” I said.
Riding with Erin brings back sweet memories of our early days. In addition to running by and swimming in Lake Michigan, riding bikes was one of our first dates. I guess you could say spandex brought us together. I have to admit, however, nostalgia wasn’t my only motive that morning. I was feeling tempted to multi-task. I figured riding together meant checking “quality time” off my to-do list, alongside my daily training. What’s better than the smell of efficiency in the morning?
“You really think we can ride and get to church on time?” Erin said once more with a note of skepticism.
“Yeah, no problem.”
“And you know we have to get there early, right? We’re signed up to serve today,” she reminded me.
“We’ll be fine if we leave now.” Truthfully, she had me on that one. I hadn’t forgotten, but I didn’t factor it into my plan. Arriving on-time wasn’t on my list of priorities.
“Alright,” Erin smiled. “You get the bikes ready, I’ll go change.”
Ten minutes later, we were ready to roll. We don’t have a keypad for our garage door, so after Erin wheeled her bike outside, I pressed the button and ran toward her. I ducked the door as it closed behind me and yelled, “Ready!”
“You grabbed a house key, right?” Erin inquired.
“I thought you were going to?” That’s the line I use when something crossed my mind, but I assumed Erin, who’s far more planful than I, probably had it covered.
“I didn’t, but that’s fine. We can use our spare,” she suggested, referring to a small key hidden in our backyard.
I knew I should have put that key back.
I kicked myself, realizing that was the exact thought I’d had yesterday, after letting myself into the house with our spare key.
“We can’t, actually. I used it yesterday. You were out shopping when I got back from my ride,” I shrugged.
“So, we’re locked out?”
“Maybe, but let’s just ride,” I directed. First things were first in my mind. We could deal with unlocking our doors afterward. While it’d definitely mean arriving late to church, it wasn’t my priority.
“Nate, no. If we can’t get inside, we need to call someone.”
I drew a deep breath. “Well, let me just check the back door and windows. Maybe we left one unlocked.”
I knew very well I’d locked them but I wasn’t willing to negotiate my plan for the day. I reappeared in the driveway two minutes later, attempting to convince Erin we should stay on schedule, despite officially being locked out. “I can call someone while we ride,” I offered.
“How?” She wasn’t convinced.
“We’ll ride slow. I’ll google a locksmith on my phone as we go.”
I grew restless. I could sense my finely-arranged morning slipping through my fingers. Like a train conductor wanting to hit each station at just the right time, I knew each minute spent standing on the driveway meant one less riding. That, in turn, would domino my agenda, offsetting the time I’d allotted for my other projects.
“What if you need to sign something? Locksmiths can’t just open up a house without the owner there,” Erin reasoned. “Call someone first, and we’ll see when they can get here.”
The third locksmith I tried answered his phone, and said he’d be at our house in 20 minutes. This really sucks, but 20 minutes isn’t terrible, I thought. I hung up and started re-assigning projects to different time slots in my mind. If I could squeeze my timetable by a few minutes here and there, I’d still achieve maximum efficiency.
Have you ever seen someone catch the speed wobbles? Whether it’s a skateboard, bike, or motorcycle, once a small pebble or obstacle starts the wobbles, they grow in intensity and oscillate the rider farther and farther to each side until eventually, the rider crashes. While I wasn’t on my bike, I got the wobbles. One small setback, locked doors, threw me off course and I never recovered.
After the agreed-upon 20 minutes came and went and there was no locksmith in sight, the wobbles worsened. “Where’s this guy at?” I asked incredulously, sitting in my spandex and tapping my bike cleats on our front porch.
“Did he stop for a four-course breakfast or something?”
Erin didn’t indulge me. She let me sulk because sometimes, trying to blow out a fire only stokes the flames.
“Do you tip locksmiths?” I continued my rant. “I hope you do, just so I can decide to not give him a tip for showing up late.”
Eventually, Erin tried to console me. “Look at it this way. Now we get to just hang out and enjoy each other’s company.”
It was nice a thing to say, but rather than enjoy what I had left – time with my wife – I could only whine about what had been taken from me. Worse, as I considered how frustrated I felt, the fact I felt frustrated really frustrated me. It was a nasty spiral.
I continued tapping my foot as I tried to pull out of my tailspin. While I generally relish the experiences that most find insufferable – slogging through the Amazon jungle, gritting out 100-mile bike rides – one little speedbump had completely knocked me off center. I’ve endured some pretty unforgiving conditions, but a 45-minute delay? Forget about it. I was as upset as a toddler being told ice cream isn’t an actual meal.
I wish I could say that changed. That I adjusted my attitude and spent the rest of the day in quality time with Erin. But after the locksmith came and went, I stewed over how my master plan had been foiled. It wasn’t until I crawled into bed at night that I felt sorry. I’d subjected Erin to my sour mood, so I apologized to her. When I did, she was quick to articulate what I was slow to realize.
With equal parts laugh and groan she said, “You’re really good at staying calm when life is intense, but you’re really bad when little stuff throws you off.” Then, she shared what I really needed to hear. “Just remember when we have kids, you can’t get frustrated when days don’t go your way anymore.”
Ouch. The hardest part about hearing those words was Erin was absolutely right. I can withstand life’s serious setbacks, but I sweat the small stuff. Which is an issue, because life’s pressures may produce character but little frustrations test just how solid that character truly is. When we’re pricked – not pressed – we discover how mature we’ve become.
Forgetting our house keys opened my eyes to see I wasn’t as mature as I thought. At my core, I prioritized myself. My time, my goals, my ambition. These things came first in my mind, so when they were second in reality, I whined about it. That needed to change because newborns don’t operate by their parents’ plans, and as it turned out, Erin was already ready for that. She’d had a few years of practice caring for a husband who could act like one hairy, oversized toddler.
In the opening words of James’ letter to the tribes of Israel, he writes, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” (James 1:2-3) Steadfastness is significant to James because he says with enough time, it’s the virtue which creates “perfect and complete” followers of Christ. In other words, and to use a gran cliché, he says time and pressure form perfect diamonds.
Although steep, it makes sense perfection is James’ standard. Most scholars agree he was Jesus’ brother, and his writing mirrors the famed Sermon on The Mount in which Jesus says, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) “Therefore” is preceded in the sermon by a long list of imperatives concerning anger, lust, divorce, integrity, revenge, love, and a description of the characteristics God blesses. James describes that blessing a few sentences later when he writes, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.” (James 1:12)
Ultimately, James is pointing out there’s a specific end goal behind us remaining steadfast and growing in character. This idea of enduring for a purpose is repeated time and time again by the Bible’s authors. Paul, for example, asks the Corinthians, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.” (1 Corinthians 9:24)
This is serious business. Our calling as followers of Christ is one of great weight. The standard to which Jesus, James, Paul, and God himself hold us is perfection, attaining a crown, and the first-place prize. It’s a solemn charge which, without doubt, will require us to struggle.
Fortunately, we all have the capacity to sustain a great deal of pain. It just comes down to the purpose behind the pain. But in today’s digital and consumer age, pain stands in stark contrast to a far more familiar experience – inconvenience. It’s why first-world problems are funny; they’re common and relatable. Yet, far too frequently, the root of inconvenience is not enduring for an eternal prize or crown of life. It’s selfishness. Different from “trials of many kinds” which accompany greater purpose, life’s little hassles don’t always have much meaning. Sometimes, our plans are blown off course by nothing more than locked doors, and selfishly, how could there be any purpose in things not going our way?
This means trivial encounters are often an accurate measuring stick for how we’ve progressed in our calling to Christ-like perfection. When we live for ourselves, our threshold for feeling frustrated is dramatically reduced. Or in the words of Henry Ward Beecher, “No man is more cheated than the selfish man.” An oversized ego magnifies small setbacks into personal attacks, which quickly turns mild inconveniences into the most severe frustrations.
Looking back, a set of locked doors opened my eyes to see just how selfishly I view my time, and how that needed to change before our first child. While I still wobble more than I’d like, I’m working on seeing life’s little speedbumps as a chance to slow down and double-check what I’m living for – God’s call to perfection, or my own purposes.
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