As I was writing my book on Proverbs, I made a point to not mention certain things. One of those things was my ischemic stroke.
Wait a minute, Mark. You were writing a book on Proverbs. Proverbs! What could your stroke have to do with anything? Why would you even think of it?
I had reasons, but the worry that people would find such a discussion outlandish and perhaps decide I was looking for an excuse to write about myself, outweighed them.
Recently, I got James Clear’s valuable book, Atomic Habits, from the library. In the introduction, Clear begins by recounting his high school experience dealing with a life-threatening brain injury. He describes what was involved in his recovery as an entry-way into his learning the importance of acquiring productive habits.
My brain injury was much later in life (just over five years ago in my late forties), and I actually started to think about Proverbs before it happened. But the experience helped solidify my understanding.
I spent about three weeks in in-patient physical rehabilitation. Most of the work during that time was spent following directions. Examples:
- “Take those objects in that container one-by-one and put them into the other container.”
- “Do this dot-to-dot picture.”
- “Tie your shoe.”
I had as much “will” to follow these instructions on the first day of rehab as I had on the twentieth. I carried out most of the directions I was given early in my stay. The issue wasn’t whether I followed the directions or how hard I tried to follow them; the issue was how well I carried out the directions. That changed drastically.
For example, picking objects out of a bucket with my right hand and putting them into another bucket should be easy and mindless. But it was difficult and required intense concentration. I often would start gasping for air because I instinctively held my breath due to the effort required. My hand and arm resembled the claw in one of those arcade games in which you pay money for an attempt to use a joystick to grab a prize. It took an agonizingly long time. While my left hand “just worked” and did what I wanted it to (what I “told it to do”), my right-hand had to be “micro-managed,” if you will.
I had, when I was a student in Junior High and High School, watched educational movies that portrayed the brain like a control room where everything was run by buttons operated by a man who sat inside. But I realized I had never “operated my hand” at that level of detail, at least not from my earliest memories. Maybe infants have that initial experience, which is why they have so little control. I had been more like the pilot of an X-wing in the movie Star Wars with an R-2 unit performing all the calculations and functions necessary to carry out my wishes. The stroke had left me with a malfunctioning robot, so that my piloting tasks became much more complicated.
I could pick up a cup of water off the table and bring it to my lips effortlessly with my left hand. If I attempted the same action with my right hand, it was an entirely different matter. It was a series of discrete actions. I had to bring my hand to the cup, neither missing it nor knocking it over. I had to wrap my fingers around the cup, squeezing enough to pick it up and not so much (if it was paper or styrofoam) that I crushed it. I had to keep it upright while I moved it through space to my mouth. Then I had to tilt it the right amount to drink without spilling.
At one point, curious, I sat at a table and put my left hand on it. I completely relaxed it. I put my right hand (the side of my body affected by the stroke) next to it on the table. I relaxed it as well. Immediately, my right hand slid off the table and fell to dangle at my side. Apparently, even when I thought my left hand was “completely relaxed,” I was really holding it up. I was using my arm muscles even though the effort was so low I did not perceive that I was doing anything. We reach the point that we are so used to doing some things that we don’t realize we are exerting any effort.
But if holding a hand on a table can seem relaxed, why couldn’t other actions become so well-trained that they seem easier than we ever imagined they could be? We come to believe certain reactions and behaviors are natural, but some of them Proverbs treats as produced or developed by training, for good or ill.
Consider the skill of keeping one’s temper.
- “A man of great wrath will pay the penalty, for if you deliver him, you will only have to do it again” (Proverbs 19:19 ESV).
- “Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare” (Proverbs 22:24–25 ESV).
Proverbs treats anger as a destructive and compulsive habit, one that is hard to break and also spreads as a social contagion. To a person with such a habit, not reacting in anger seems to require superhuman effort.
Or consider sloth: “The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor” (Proverbs 21:25 ESV). As a stroke victim with a hand that refused to do my will, I couldn’t help but see a similarity. Just as once my right hand had done whatever I willed, so there are diligent people who work and serve with alacrity (Alacrity is a wonderful word, by the way—worth meditating upon). They may not even perceive the effort involved. To alter the language of Proverbs 21:25, their hands are eager to labor.
By repeatedly doing actions with my hand, my hand started to do those actions better—faster, more accurately, requiring less intense concentration. When a young person learns to work wholeheartedly, doing such work eventually require less effort and is less wearisome.
I had been raised to understand that we should obey God. But Proverbs (and through Proverbs many other Scriptures that I thought I was already familiar with) showed me that there are different skill-levels of obedience. The antithesis between obedience and disobedience is essential, but disregarding differences in the level of obedience is to ignore the hope of progress.
To put all this another way, my goal as a stroke victim was never to do hard things. Tying my shoes was not supposed to be hard. The goal was to get to the point that such tasks were easy. Then other tasks would be within reach. Maybe I could make those other tasks, currently unimaginable, possible.
God doesn’t want you to do hard things. If tying my shoe was still hard, it would mean if I would have to spend an unpredictable amount of time working on tying them. I would fail a number of times and have to start over. Christianity allows for that, but it is not the goal. Basic commands like loving one another and sharing with those in need, etc, must become second nature. Giving to someone who needs help, after agonizing over it, is obviously better than being selfish. But Paul doesn’t say God loves a reluctant giver. “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). Likewise, Jesus says reluctant obedience is better than hypocritical disobedience (Matthew 21:28ff). But the real goal, as Paul wrote, is to “do all things without grumbling or disputing” (Philippians 2:14).
I suspect that contemporary Christians don’t realize their mandate and their potential because they are taught that their obedience is tainted with sin and worthless. But justified sinners who are accepted in Christ by faith know that even sins taint doesn’t separate them from God. They are beloved children of God and their heavenly Father wants them to mature. The fact that their behavior will not be morally perfect doesn’t imply that it is hopeless to seek to improve. On the contrary, it should mean that they will always be able to improve in some way as long as they live in this world, until they are glorified at the resurrection.
Keep hold of instruction; do not let go;
guard her, for she is your life.
Do not enter the path of the wicked,
and do not walk in the way of the evil.
Avoid it; do not go on it;
turn away from it and pass on.
For they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong;
they are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble.
For they eat the bread of wickedness
and drink the wine of violence.
But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,
which shines brighter and brighter until full day.
The way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
they do not know over what they stumble.
Proverbs 4:13–19 ESV
