Inner and Outer

Over the past week I have seen over a dozen people with some form of mental illness. And I have talked with a number of people from my church, as well as a couple of friends, and something startling emerged from those conversations.

What struck me was the degree to which almost universally the people I talked to had what is called - in psychology speak - an external locus of control.  Almost every one, in one way or another, was crediting people, events, circumstances outside, for what was going on inside.  A husband, a job, Obama, the GOP, taxes, the economy, children.  So many things are out there that we can point to which "cause" our inner state.  Sometimes those things make us sad, or mad, and at other times they bring us joy.  Or so we think.

But is this really true?  Is it what is happening outside us, or is it how we are responding to that external factor that is the problem?  When someone makes us feel bad, is it really how that person behaves toward me the problem, or how I chose to interpret that action?  An interpretation usually determined by "my stuff."  For example my insecurity, or my lack of self worth.

The same problem emerges when we seek happiness.  Is it a good thing that I rely on another person's acceptance or admiration to make me feel fulfilled?  Lou Marinoff notes that "most people who seek happiness through the pursuit of pleasure or euphoria become increasingly miserable... "  It doesn't matter what we seek, erotic love, power, status - any appetite that can be satisfied by some means external to our self is going to be temporary.

What we need is an "internal locus of control."  We need to find, within ourselves, the strength, the resources we need. For it is what is inside that counts.  For inside is God's Spirit.  As Paul notes, the secret is this, Christ in us!"  When we go inside, when inside we find strength, and inside we find joy, then we can be people who can withstand the battering that life gives us.  Then we can be people who find deep joy and contentment

It is then, as Paul notes in Ephesians, that "we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming."

In this world of polarities, of conflicting values, of voices screaming at us to buy this, or drink that - in this world where people are telling us to be afraid or hate - we need to turn inside, to the God who has become present in us in the Spirit.