Reality Check

Yesterday, I wrote a little about expectations. In particular, what are our expectations of God? How about our other expectations in life?

A friend of mine has written a great novel. I was fortunate to be able to read an early copy. We met as an editorial team the other night. A common topic there was about reality and the potential audience.

What is realistic? Is a family that all get along realistic? If a teen respects and is respected by adults, is that realistic? How about the way people interact with other people and circumstances? What is realistic?

How do you demonstrate what can be, and still be realistic? How far can you go and be believable? At what point do people stop relating to the characters and story? There aren’t easy answers.

What can a person expect from a teen or young child? Perhaps a scenario will help explore the question. In some churches and other organizations, you are mostly expected to be a sometimes contributing spectator until 20. Good luck getting a leadership position before 30. And people wonder why young adults leave the church? That is a whole other article or three on its own, for another day. I do understand there is some wisdom that is gained with years.

It doesn’t take a whole lot of discernment to figure out spiritual maturity often has little relation to years. Believers of all ages get a full-sized Holy Spirit in them. Spiritual gifts are gifts. You don’t earn them. So, young Christian children get spiritual gifts also. Like us older ones, all they have to do is ask.

So let me ask you, would you rather have a middle-aged pastor gifted in other areas pray for your illness, or a young child with the gift of healing? With whose prayer is healing more realistic? God does the healing and can do it anytime through anyone. But it happens more often through those with the gift.

Like us adults, the kids I know do not see healings 100% of the time. But they see it many weeks. And, unlike most of us, they have not learned to doubt. They have high expectations from their prayers and see results. What do we expect from God? What do we expect from young people? Because I have seen young children and teens live at such a high level spiritually, my realistic expectations are quite high. For many people, their experience has been quite different. And correspondingly, their realistic expectations are lower.

The school year has just begun. In some ways, teachers have it easy. A fourth grade teacher can pretty much assume nearly all students start out being able to perform on at least a third grade level. So the teacher can adapt the teaching content and style appropriately with those realistic expectations.

For those of us writing for the general public, it is not so easy. Nearly all assumptions are faulty. Book and Internet readers come with a wide variety of ages, world views, experiences, and needs. Good luck trying to write for everybody! I know not all of my readers are Christian. Some are men. I think probably most are women, partly because of numerous female relatives. Some of my thoughts, written and unwritten, are geared more towards leaders. At other times, I try to avoid churchy talk and meet people where they are at.

And that may be the key: Where are they at? What is their experience? As a writer, we have no control over that. Perhaps what is “realistic” is whatever is not too far away from our experience. The story or message is a relatively small step away from what we have known. It is close enough that we can say “I could do that!” or “I could see that happening.”

For a person growing up in a violent home, reading about a peaceful household may seem a stretch of the imagination. For others, that is just normal growing up for them. Some have difficulty imagining trying a new thing, speaking to strangers, praying in public, trying an unfamiliar food, being able to forgive quickly, joining community theater, having a great marriage, hosting a foster child, singing karaoke, going to college, or even writing out loud in a blog. We all have things that seem to be quite a stretch for us.

So how does a person write or teach or mentor in this somewhat random scenario? There are probably dozens of books on it. And I am no expert. But I believe that ideally, you challenge all levels to the next step higher. Perhaps it is a higher level in something familiar. Or it may be a challenge to a new experience. Or the challenge may even be to cut out something from our lives resulting in greater focus or flexibility in other areas.

Multi-level communicating can be hard. And I think it might be quite difficult within a novel. But I have no experience with that kind of writing. A gifted novelist probably has much higher expectations.

What is realistic? What could be our reality, if we chose to pursue it?

How about our dreams? Do we still dare to dream? How are we uniquely made? What can we do best? Do we perceive some of those goals and dreams as unattainable? What if we took small steps in that direction? We could discover our destiny and create a new reality for our lives.

What do we want our reality to be? Are we willing to take steps to make it happen? You never know. We could enjoy it. Stranger things have happened.