The “long answers” for all of these questions are obviously tied to the book itself. The reason I included the questions at all is that some of the content can be “slippery.” The words sound familiar, and that familiarity can make it easy to rush past the question with tired answers, and to miss what might be new to those of us who adopted tired answers too easily before, and could stand to think about things in fresh ways – to find love in new ways.
Questions from The Squeezed Dry
1. Where do you give until you are “squeezed dry”?
This has never been a primary struggle for me, I’m afraid. I’ve been more of a taker than a giver – even when I’ve run myself ragged for the sake of pleasing someone, the effort has always been more about what I would gain in the reward they’d eventually offer.
Maybe this is true, at some level, for all people who give until they exhaust themselves, but I think some people either have more noble character than I have, or have a harder time letting go of the energy suckers in their worlds than I have.
Recently, though, I’ve found myself encountering moments of squeezed dryness – and maybe the truth is that I’m just late getting to this point of maturity (or place in the road).
I’ve always understood that Christians are meant to be salt and light in the world, and that one of the primary uses for salt is to slow decay. What I hadn’t really put together, though, was the fact that the world – as a whole – is decaying, and things are getting worse, even though there are instances of salt and redemption. We are not evolving – we are dying. And that feels heavy.
And the heaviness gets heavier when my friends continue in their addictions (especially the suburban friends whose lives look fine but whose addictions to comfort and the idols of such things as family, security and “good mother” sap their souls). Of course there is heaviness tied to seeing a lesser path chosen. There is heaviness in watching God be rejected, and the isolation and sorrow that comes to the people who reject Him. But to tell you the truth, what really squeezes me dry is my own motivation: I want people to do well so that they will be safer for me, so I don’t have to feel pain, so I don’t have to experience isolation, so I have some backup in them, so that my God feels stronger to me, and my hoped-for solutions actually work.
I squeeze myself dry serving others most when my real, secret motivation is to control them, because I want to be in control. I want to be God in this place.
I’m not. And I’m grateful for the blistering heat the grows within my grip until I finally have to let go and just be me. And His.
Oops. I think I’ve answered the other questions now, too. I’d change that, but nah.
2. What benefit do you gain for giving too much?
3. Who are the Nabals in your life? The Abigails? The Davids? Where are you a nameless person caught in the crossfire? Where do you create crossfire that impacts the people who are vulnerable to your choices?
4. What would a choice for intimacy with God look like in that situation?
Go to previous chapter discussion questions here.
Go to next chapter discussion questions here.
