Cynicism vs. Delight
We're going to talk about something today that probably 90% of you think you are not. However, I bet you every single one of you struggle with this. I see this everywhere, and it’s actually pretty tricky to identify. It’s something that is valued in people and actually respect them for. We think it’s helpful in life. This thing is called cynicism.
Now before you think, “that’s not me!” ask yourself these questions. I think we’ve all become cynical, but it’s the air we breathe so we don’t notice it. So here are a few questions:
Do you get annoyed when people are optimistic?
When someone is nice to you, do you wonder what that person wants?
Do you constantly feel misunderstood when things are going well?
Are you waiting for the bottom to fall out?
Do you quickly notice people's flaws or faults?
Do you worry about getting taken advantage of? Are you guarded when you meet someone new?
Do you wonder sometimes why people just can't get it together?
Are you sarcastic?
Cynicism is an especially powerful tool from the enemy because when you and I are struck by it, we don't see our need to be helped. We get arrogant and we separate ourselves from getting help. We think we know more than everybody else. I want to talk about what cynicism is. Cynicism is this idea that we're looking for the bad to keep the bad from hurting us. It's protection. It's making sure that we're not getting taken advantage of. Making sure that somebody is not using us. And in a world where people can be really hurtful, cynicism can sometimes be helpful. So we start to prize it. We start to feel educated, like we're not naive.
I want to tell you a story about my team. My team is so amazing. They love God and they have given their lives to help build IF:Gathering and to take discipleship to this generation in a way that's accessible. A lot of them moved to Dallas with me to keep being a part of this ministry, because that’s how surrendered they are to this mission. They’re incredibly obedient ot God. But I want to tell y’all this story that I think will help you understand cynicism a bit more.
I was talking to them about a Tony Robbins documentary I was watching that I was really relating to. I don’t buy is method, because it’s just self-help, but some of his strategies are really helpful. He talks about how you choose what is in your mind, and what you think about will determine how happy you are in life. So I was telling my team about it, and one of the girls at the table said, “I don’t like this. I don’t feel good about this. Because if I just choose to see the good in things and I just choose to think positively, I'm gonna get taken advantage of.” Another girl that was there, who worked with IF:Gathering at the time, is one of the most delightful human beings. Her name is Elizabeth. She is sunshine on a stick. I looked at her and said, “you tell me what you think, because you model it.” She walks around with joy in her heart and sees the best in everybody. She said, "So what if I get taken advantage of? I'm happier.” I thought that was brilliant. We’re choosing our mind y’all. We’re not talking about circumstances. We’re talking about the things we live with day in and day out.
It’s conditioned in us to look for the negative. Our mind is trained to find the negative in our family, our friendships, our circumstances, our job, our callings. Cynicism is this slow leak. It’s the slow leak of joy in our lives, because if we fixate on the negative, then we are never going to be happy.
I know as Christians we’ve got bigger goals than happiness. That’s not our ultimate goal. But joy in our hearts and minds is a goal of Christianity. Who wants to follow after people that are following after God if we don’t exude joy? We have a God that issues ultimate joy, ultimate hope, ultimate peace. Scripture tells us that. So we should be reflecting that if we’re following God.
Cynicism makes us question all of our authorities, so we never submit. It makes us question all of our institutions. So we never participate. It makes us question all of our friendships. So we never connect. It makes us question our family members. So we never, ever feel safe.
So how do we change this? First of all, I think we've got to be careful what we're feeding our souls. For me, I had to get off Twitter. It wasn’t feeding my soul, so I just stopped logging on. It made me feel cynical. Every time I got off Twitter, I doubted every single thing about God, everything about church, everything about the hope for humanity. I want to believe the best in the world, and I can’t fight for that when a constant negative input was in my life. I stay up to date on news, but just in little bits. If there’s something interesting there, I’ll go read more. But I don’t sit there and consume news from angry people on Twitter.
When we moved to Dallas, I felt very cautious about who my friends were going to be. I wanted to choose people are going to input into my life. These are not the people I’m discipling and loving as a pouring out relationship. These are the people that are in my ear everyday and are really close to me. I wanted to make sure they are positive people. I needed people that saw the good in the world and the good in me.
When I think of my friend Elizabeth, she is acquainted with suffering. She’s not naive to hardship. She’s not naive to disappointment. She’s not naive to people hurting her. She has just chosen a better way to live. That’s what we have to do. We have to get a little bit selfish and zealous for our minds and decide what we’re going to dwell on.
I don’t know what the thing is for you that’s not leading to life. But you need to notice it in yourself. What is causing a cynical spirit in you? It could be gossipy friends, friends complaining about their husbands, friends complaining about their jobs. I’m not saying you cut these people off, but you don’t spend all your time with them. And when you do spend time with them, you are aware of where it may lead your mind.
I do this all the time with my kids when they are in seasons where their friends are making bad choices with their words and gossiping all the time. They don’t need to cut off their friends, but I teach them how to turn the conversation. How can we bring life and peace into a conversation? We train them to have those soundbites that can turn a conversation in a different direction. That’s how we can be light in dark places. But we also need places that are full of light and that bring energy, life, and joy into us.
When I thought about what interrupts my cynicism, I saw a theme, and it was delight. I remember when I was on a retreat with Curt Thompson one weekend, and I was so cynical about being there. I just wanted to go have fun and be with my friends, but here I was, having to dig into my feelings. He keeps asking intentional questions, and I have my arms crossed not participating. One of the things he talked about in our time was how powerful art is, and how it can cut through our guardedness. I thought it was such a joke. But toward the end of the retreat, I haven’t shared anything, and one of my friends Micah read a poem. It was a poem about her down syndrome child and something about it hit so deep in me that I started weeping. Of course Curt asked me after she was done what I was feeling. At this point I couldn’t even breath, I was crying so bad. We’d spent time in worship, in our Bibles, with friends, but none of that struck a chord with me that weekend. Art did. A poem did. Curt says the reason art can do that to us is because we don’t see it coming. Our rational, reasonable self doesn’t see it coming. A song can do that for me. A beautiful play can do that. Art can touch something in you that common sense and reasonableness and truth can sometimes miss. It’s God’s evidence that something far more wonderful than this world is coming. It reminds us there’s something bigger and better and beautiful coming. It reminds us our creator is profoundly loving and absolutely delightful.
I don’t think as a culture we value delight. Have you ever thought about the ways God delights in you? Have you ever noticed how much delight there is in God’s creation? Have you ever seen a baby born? Something about those things expresses God’s delight over us. Delight reminds us that even in this broken, sinful, suffering world, there is still delight.
Sometimes when we experience delight, we immediately feel like something dreadful must be coming. When something good happens, there must be something bad coming for us. Like the ball has to drop sometime soon. We don’t even give ourselves the chance to sit in the joy, delight in the gift, and enjoy what God has given us
I would rather live full of joy and get burned every once in awhile rather than constantly waiting to get burned and live full of negativity. That is a sad way to live. I think when we speak life and good over someone, that person often rises. When I speak life over my kids, they rise to that. When I’m telling my son Cooper that he’s a leader, and to act like one today when I drop him off for school, a lot of the time he’ll have a much better day at school. Because he rises to those words. He rose to what I saw in him. We’ve got to realize that what we think influences what we say, what we believe about ourselves, and what we believe about the people around us.
The opposite of being cynical is being life-giving, and some might call you naive for it, but for the most part, people just need that in their lives. Most people will want to go to coffee with you because they need someone to speak life into them and actually believe it.
