“My heart is not proud, Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful (too great or too difficult HCSB) for me.” Psalm 131:1 NIV

Have you ever apologized for something you haven’t done wrong, but you do it anyways to keep the peace? There are people like that, and I am one of those people. I am the first to say, “I am sorry” to lower the tension in a heated conversation, or I end up cleaning the glass of milk that someone else spilled in order to help others enjoy the day.

It is not that I am afraid of conflict as much as I hate it when people make mountains out of molehills. But there are those people who just can’t help seeing Mt. Everest in the every day of life. Why does life have to be so hard?

I don’t think it does, so in my desire for peace, I often jump in with an olive branch, a mop and pail and try to help. Maybe that is why I went into the ministry – – to help be an agent of peace and reconciliation? But lately, it seems like the more I try to help, by offering a biblical perspective on self-denial & personal righteousness, the more it seems the mountain grows. I really am no help at all.

Last week a good friend wrote a note to encourage me about the impossibility of helping everyone. Let’s call him Rodrigo. (I chose that name because it is fun to say it three times fast when you are drinking coffee and reading a kid’s book in the corner.) Here is what Rodrigo wrote me…

“We weren’t created to be able to handle the bad news or the criticism of the world, man.  All this stuff is new. When the Bible was written, all those principles were for the people right in front of you, not the people 1000 miles away.  Sure if we can do something, we should, but up until 10 years ago, none of this was even possible.  I think sometimes you are a victim of your own heart and conscience.  You see what’s wrong and want to help.  I’m the same way.  But then I remind myself that I’m not built to take on the thoughts and problems of 7 billion people, I wouldn’t even know.  Then the tension goes away.”

Rodrigo is very insightful. His words remind me what David wrote 2,700 years ago in Psalm 131:1, “I do not concern myself with things too wonderful for me.” There are things I can’t fix, there are things I really have no expertise to handle, there are things that are out of my domain. So David’s advice, like Rodrigo’s, is to “still and quiet my soul.” (Psalm 131:2)

Trust God in the big things and wait.

Sounds well and good, doesn’t it? But here is where the larger problem arises: to simply be still and wait for God to act has now become a sign of indifference and even acceptance of evil to the modern-day crusader. Mountain makers will not allow stillness, mountain makers are tired of waiting for God, mountain makers insist:

“Something is deeply wrong with you if you ignore or gloss over injustice. If you say, ‘It’s not my problem’ it is a sign you have no compassion.”

“When you have the ability to change things, (a person with power), and you don’t, you are perpetuating the systemic evil. When you say ‘love your neighbor’ and yet you don’t get involved to change structures, you are nothing more than a clanging cymbal.”

See Rodrigo, I can’t win. If I get involved I am chastised because my help is seen as nothing more than the outdated ideas of an obtuse and even clueless outsider who knows nothing of the other’s plight. So then if shut-up and I don’t get involved I am chastised again because my lack of help is seen as callous indifference toward the outsider looking as if I don’t give a rip about the other’s plight.

I lose on both counts.

This reminds me of my son’s second year in elementary school. My son had a very kind and caring teacher who had a heart to really help the disadvantaged. She was a great teacher and very well meaning. However, there was only one problem, she always called on and gave special attention to the students she considered “at risk” and those needing more affirmation than the average child. Because she knew they lacked the support at home, she would go out of her way to compensate for that lack in the classroom. She did this by calling on them first in class for the answer, she picked them first to do the special jobs, and she would even let them have rewards that normally went to the hard-working kids even if they didn’t earn it.

One day while it was time for my son to do homework, he said he didn’t want to do it. I asked him why?  “It doesn’t matter Dad. If I do the hard work and raise my hand, or try to earn the prize, it often is ignored in favor of helping the other kids. So why try?” I asked a few other parents with hard-working kids if their kids felt the same way? They all said, “Yes, but what can we do — we want to be supportive of those other kids too?”

I wanted to ask the teacher, “Did it really help the other kids to give them what they didn’t earn, and reward them even if they didn’t do the work? Did it really help the kids when many of them never really progressed after a full year of special treatment? Did it really help the kids who worked hard and were not rewarded in kind?”

But like the other parents, I said nothing. I made my kid “take one for the team” for the sake of the disadvantaged. I also said nothing because if I did say something I am sure it wouldn’t benefit my child in the long run. A good parent doesn’t want to be more of a hindrance to their son by being the dad that is considered one of the privileged oppressors in the mind of his tender-hearted teacher.  I know how the average elementary teacher feels toward the opinionated parent – – they see a person who is not a positive change agent, only a pain in the behind. I don’t like being a pain in the behind.

And I also said nothing because I know how some elementary teachers think they know more about my kid than I do. I would rather shut up than be labeled as a silly, misinformed parent who knows nothing of social reform. I mean seriously, I don’t have an early childhood development degree like they do. Hey, I only live with four kids in the home. I don’t teach 30 of them in a close-knit classroom. What do I know about raising kids?

So I shut up. You know, I realized that over time my silence didn’t really help anybody, including my own son for achieving excellence in his classroom. But I chalk my silence up as another step in the process of helping toward cultural and social progress.

So, between you and me, I now realize in our mountain-out-of-a-mole-hill-world, our “it takes a village world”, even though I want to help, my help is not seen as helping. When I want to say something I know it is better not to. I lose any way you cut it.

I am the problem.

So Rodrigo, I raise a glass to those of us who know we can’t do anything. I raise a glass to principles that once worked and now are swept away in the dustbin of what was. Those days when you only were responsible for yourself are gone. I raise a glass to all those teachers that mean well but don’t think parents do. I raise a glass to all those agents of social change that know more than the average person, you know the one who works hard and comes home to mind his own business.

I know most mountain makers would prefer it if we all would just be quiet and let them run things. Fork over the tax money, and do what they say.

So here is to the mountain makers, the milk-spillers, those who like problems so they can come in and solve them. I drink to you, I am no longer going to try to clean up messes. I am heading off to the woods in a cabin with Rodrigo!

Cheers!