Spilled Milk

By J.B. Hixson, Ph.D.
06/21/2021

…For I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content. (Philippians 4:11)

When I was a young boy, I dreamed of playing in the NBA. I just knew that as I got older, I would grow taller and that someday I would be an all-star. I guess it was sometime in junior high school that I first took a hard look at my growth chart and realized, “It is not looking good.” Even then, though, I had a hard time accepting the fact that I was not destined to be a professional basketball player. I kept reminding myself of such little giants as Tyrone Bogues and Calvin Murphy. Eventually reality set in and I had to admit that the NBA was not calling my name.

I was playing basketball out in the driveway with my two boys several years ago. I think they were about eight and ten years old respectively. They were quite impressed with some of my basketball moves, which were not really all that much to brag about. But to a child, something as simple as being able to dribble the ball with either hand is an amazing feat. One of my boys asked me, “Dad, why aren’t you playing in the NBA?” Still hanging on to my dream I responded, “Well son. The only reason I am not paying in the NBA is because God called me to be a preacher!” That line worked for a couple more years before my boys saw through it and realized that the only way their dad was going to see the NBA was if he bought tickets to a game.

Sometimes it can be hard to acknowledge reality. Most stress is caused by a failure to accept the things that we cannot change. I know I have certainly wasted my share of energy by obsessing over circumstances that were beyond my control. Why do we do that? It is a lot like crying over spilled milk. When you spill a glass of milk, there is nothing you can do about it but grab a rag and clean it up. You could sit there all day and complain about the spilled milk, fret over it, get upset about it. But none of that will make the milk magically flow back into the glass and the glass set itself upright again. What’s done is done. Just clean it up and move on.

The Apostle Paul had a healthy perspective as it related to accepting his circumstances. If anyone had reason to complain about his situation it was Paul. He endured a great deal of hardship during his thirty plus years of ministry. Yet he wrote, “I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content” (Philippians 4:11) Notice he says that he “learned” to be content. I take comfort in knowing that even Paul had to learn to accept his circumstances. In other words, it does not come naturally. It takes wisdom, experience, and time to get to that point where we accept the things we cannot change.

There are some things in life you can change and some things you cannot. The sooner we come to grips with this principle, the better we will be. Reinhold Neibeur put it beautifully in his prayer we call “The Serenity Prayer.” He writes, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

To put it much less eloquently, “There is no use crying over spilled milk!”