You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Faith’ category.
No. No. No.
No thanks.
Thanks, but no thanks.
No.
What was I thinking? As a person who struggles with the need for affirmation, I willingly took my career in a direction where I will hear the word “no” from most of the people I encounter. That’s the equivalent of a man who is scared of heights taking a job washing the windows of New York City skyscrapers.
On the one hand, you could say this is a very courageous thing for me to do. And I suppose that would be accurate. The problem is that while I’ve had the courage to make the climb, I don’t have enough courage to be ok with the possibility of falling.
I was struggling to find a good way to articulate it, when I overheard my son’s Taekwondo instructor say the following at the end of class today. “It’s good to have the courage to compete. But what’s even more important is to have the courage to accept the outcome.” Um, yeah, what he just said.
In my spiritual journey, both professionally and personally, I’ve definitely mustered up the courage to step out in faith and to put one foot in front of the other. Absolutely. But what I’m missing is the courage to accept the outcome. I have been pursuing my journey with fear in my heart. Fear of what might be asked of me. Fear that my business might fail. That I might be asked to make personal sacrifices. That there may be a fall required for me to land where I need to land.
As a result, I’ve pulled back, and in some cases paralyzed myself. Refusing to move forward. Unable to do so. Because I haven’t had the courage to unconditionally accept whatever the outcome might be. This has led me off the path in multiple instances. It’s placed distance between me and God.
I’m not that discouraged though. For two reasons. The first is that this is the biggest self revelation I’ve had in a while, and awareness is, after all, the first step toward solving any problem. The second is that no matter how lost I become along the way, no matter how far I drift from God, it’s an easy road back to Him. As it says in Malachi 3: 7, “…Return to Me, and I will return to you.”
I feel continually blessed that God chooses to speak to me in mysterious and unexpected ways. And that He continues to seek me out, even when I’m not in the frame of mind to move toward Him as it says in that verse. My prayer for today is simple. I’m asking for courage to accept the outcome, so that I continue the journey toward it with less fear and more faith.
There are days when the doubt is deafening. When I literally can’t tune it out or speak over it. When I literally can’t hear anything that anyone is saying to me. It’s disorienting, debilitating and destructive.
I’ve come to realize in these moments of crisis that I’m misplacing my faith in the first place. I act as if the decision is whether or not I believe in me, instead of whether or not I believe in my God. When I allow my self doubt to overcome me, I’m also declaring defeat of the Lord at the same time. I’m saying that not only is this too big for me, but it’s also too big for Him.
But in these moments, I can’t even hear myself think. It’s as if my eardrums would burst with the addition of one extra decibel. The deafening sounds of doubt have filled them to the brim. I also have realized in these moments that it’s too late to summon my faith when the doubt shows up. I need my God locked and loaded before I find myself in crisis. Deeper, stronger, healthier roots are required to weather the storm. You can’t simply grow them when you start to feel the wind kick up.
The bottom line is that despite good intensions, I’ve not depended my beliefs and secured my faith. It’s still as weak and feeble as ever. Easily overpowered by the overwhelming concerns of daily life and the relentless pressures of this planet and its people. A place where it’s easy to not measure up, to never catch up, to forget to look up.
Today, the doubt is deafening. It’s hard to find God’s voice. It’s hard to concentrate. It’s hard to gain perspective. But mostly, it’s just so loud and so hard to hear.
My prayer for tonight is silence. And for tomorrow, strength.
Most of us have faith when we have to have it. When there is no other recourse. When we are at the end of our rope, and we realize we can’t get there without God.
Most of us have faith when it’s not hard yet. When everything is working just great for us, and life is good. When it really doesn’t require all that much of us.
But there is a place between those two extremes when most of us lose faith. It’s that moment just before the point of no return. When we’re staring down a situation or circumstance, and we blink. In that moment, we doubt God’s power. We decide we can’t go through with it. We freak out and run. And we miss out because we move before we let God move. It’s in that moment where we decide whether we’re going to trust God or trust ourselves.
This is a very unfortunate truth. I feel confident you can point to at least one time in your life when you failed to hold your ground. When you saw an out and took it. When push came to shove, and you pushed and shoved your way out of God’s will because it got real, and it got really scary.
I feel like I’m facing a moment of faith myself. Trying not to bail. Trying to see it through and trust that God is leading me down an intentional path. But it’s hard. I started my new company six months ago. January actually marks my seventh month in business. But last week, I all but panicked. I looked out ahead and couldn’t clearly see what God had waiting for me. To date, I’ve been pulling in enough work to keep me busy and pay our bills and all. But January, my seventh month, marks the first time that client work feels really light. This happens with all startups, but that doesn’t make it any less disconcerting.
As I pondered my next steps, I realized that I could either a. continue to diligently pursue the path I believe God has me on and trust that I’m right and that He will provide. Or b. I could bail, quickly begin looking for work and take matters into my own hands. I grabbed my Bible to calm myself with scripture. Opening it randomly to Ezra, I started reading in Chapter 3. There it talks about worship being restored at Jerusalem.
In verses 3-4, it says, “Though fear had come upon them…they set the alter on its bases and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord both morning and evening…they also kept the Feast of the Tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings in the number required…”
So in other words, they were afraid, freaked out, but they continued in obedience, pushing ahead despite fear and worry. What was most powerful for me in this passage was the way it started. “And when the seventh month had come…” Their seventh month. As in my seventh month. I feel like God clearly had something to say to me that afternoon.
So, at the moment, I’m a little freaked out still, but I’m proceeding ahead in the direction I feel God is leading, and trying to rest in peace knowing He will deliver me and my family accordingly. But this moment of faith is tremendously difficult. And every morning, I wake up, and I feel like running. I feel like blinking. But I won’t. I can’t. Not if I want to see God move.
There’s a book called “Let Go” which features a series of letters written by Francois de Salignac de La Mothe Fenelon. Let’s just call him Fenelon from here on. He was the Archbishop of Cambrai, France, during the seventeenth century and a well-respected spiritual advisor.
A good friend of mine shared a copy of Fenelon’s work with me a week or so ago, following a spiritual chat over breakfast. It had been very helpful to him, and based on our conversation, he thought I would find value as well. He’s been right so far.
I’m a few weeks in as a small business owner. And business has been good early on. I have three clients with active projects, and several other opportunities that could come through soon. But I’ve noticed that building a business is really time consuming. Yeah, I know. What a surprise! I have also noticed that I live and die each day based on how the business is going. If I get good news, or something goes right, I feel good. If something throws me off course or doesn’t go as planned, I feel bad.
I’ve also noticed that while it’s really physically demanding to start a new business, it’s mentally overwhelming if you let it be. You think about it constantly, running things through the back of your mind no matter what you’re focused on at the moment. You worry, you scheme, you dream about it. It can take over everything before you know it, preventing you from being present with your family, friends, even – or should I say, especially – God.
Letting go is obviously a big issue with me. Luckily, I’m reading a book on how to do it. Perfect timing, God.
In one of the first letters of the book, Fenelon had this conversation with me:
Fenelon: “Haven’t you yet learned that the strivings of the human mind not only impair the health of your body, but also bring dryness to the soul?”
Me: “Well, yeah, I guess that makes sense.”
Fenelon: “Do you think God can speak in soft tender accents that melt the soul, in the midst of such inner confusion as you permit by that endless, hurrying parade of thoughts going through your mind?”
Me: “Well, I suppose not.”
Fenelon: “Be quiet, and He will soon be heard.”
Me: “So, I hear ya. But that’s not as easy as it sounds.”
The letter encourages peace through simplicity and obedience. Suggesting that peace is quickly destroyed by a restless mind. And that inner striving can consume you. He’s got a great point, because this all has been true for me. Just as I’ve declared that I’m finally taking action and moving into what God has for me, I’ve engaged in so much inner striving, so many hurrying parades of thoughts that I’ve not been still in a very long time. I’ve not posted on this blog. I’ve not meditated with God. I’ve not regularly prayed to hear from Him. I’ve been working furiously to make everything make sense. Getting adrenaline and affirmation from successes and crippling anxiety and worry from defeats. I go high, I go low, and I keep running right past the happy medium that lies in being at peace with God.
So my prayer is that I can get better at letting go. That I can be still and hear God. That I can release the pressure and expectations I’m placing on myself and allow God to work through the gifts He’s given me and the opportunities He brings my way. That’s going to be tough!
I read an interesting article last week titled 3 Reasons Young Americans Are Giving up on God. If you’re short on time, the study cited claims that fundamentalist stances on issues like homosexuality, increasing visibility of atheist role models, and ongoing attacks by liberals are the 3 causes to blame for Americans under the age of 30 doubting the existence of God.
I’ve felt that way lately. Like I could give up on God. Like I wanted to question His very existence. Not because of overly zealous campaigns from the right or the left, or because of compelling arguments from non-believers. Then again, I’m also closer to 40 than 30, so I don’t suppose this specific study speaks for me in any event. What a sad truth!
But I have felt that way. Questioning, at the very least, God’s plan for me. Questioning whether there really is a plan for me, or if I’m destined to always be asking the question, “What’s next?” and never feeling like “what” is “now.”
And yet all along the way, no matter how much I question, doubt, object, deny, turn away from or otherwise dismiss God’s providence, He just keeps whittling away. Making a beautiful carving out of a block of wood.
If I look back over the last six months, the only truthful thing I can say is that God’s fingerprints are ALL over it. If I honestly reflect on the 100 semi-related events that have all occurred at just the right time to pave the way toward where God wants my journey to continue, I have no recourse other than to be amazed. But of course, I find a way not to be. It’s a specialty of mine.
I’ve been tied up in knots the last few weeks because I’ve decided to start my own company. I’m so fearful of failure. I’m so timid and weak and freaked out. Every little thing sends me spiraling. Questioning whether I can do this. My wife wants to pull her hair out. She believes in this direction, that I’m doing exactly what God wants. That everything will be just fine. Meanwhile, I’m manic. And God knows this.
Every time I hit the wall, and I want to retreat and find a safer way to exist, a way that isn’t what God has for me, He moves in me, around me, for me. Just this past week, when I was on the verge of not following through with my new business, a phone call came out of the blue, offering me my first paying customer. A customer that wanted to pay in advance for the work. And to pay enough to help me transition from my old job to this new venture. Or at the very least, make it a little easier and a little less scary.
I remain the owner of many doubts and fears. Insecurities. Lies. My faith is not nearly as strong as it needs to be. But I’ve decided I’m not going to give up on my journey, no matter how disconcerting it feels while I’m in the middle of it with no view from the top. And I’ve decided that unlike some of my younger brothers and sisters out there, I’m not giving up on my God.
Instead, I’m going to brace myself for what’s next and take it like a man, or at least like a mouse with protective headgear. Signing off now, and strapping on my helmet. There’s cheese to seize.
I just finished reading Everything Belongs by Richard Rohr. I’ve read several of Rohr’s books, but I think this one was the most powerful and revealing for me. Possibly because it feels tailor-made for where I am in my journey at the moment. There were several passages that completely resonated with how I’m feeling right now. One in particular nailed it.
“Usually, I can feel myself get panicky. I want to make things right, quickly. I lose my ability to be present, and I go up into my head and start obsessing. I tend to be overfocused, and I hate it because then I’m not really feeling anymore. I’m into goal-orientation, trying to push or even create…”
I could have written that about myself this past week. I’m six short weeks away from being unemployed for the first time in my career. I still have a few opportunities in play, but nothing that’s a sure bet. I’m torn between full-time and freelance work. I still don’t really know which path God intends me to pursue. All the while, I’ve been so distracted by my work situation that I’ve been completely unable to focus on what God is trying to do in my life. I’ve been unmotivated to wrestle with God, unmotivated to write on this blog. I’ve just been pressing, and getting a little panicky. I’m afraid I won’t have the resolve to stand tall in the midst of this uncertainty and receive the full guidance God has for me.
That’s about all I have to share today. I mostly wanted to get back on the horse and publish a post. Hoping the week ahead brings more prayer and less panic, more faith and less fear.
My job is going away. I wrote before that it was “likely” going away. At one point, I posed the question, “Should I quit?” But today I received a phone call that made it clear. I am on the clock. The job is going away, and I am being graciously granted a head start before my paychecks stop.
Just a few weeks ago, there were at least two firm job offers coming my way. They each appeared to be taking me down a different path from what I felt I was hearing from God. I prayed for clarity and strength and for God’s will to occur. Interestingly, those opportunities have receded into the darkness and, at least for the moment, vanished.
As my current job is in a free fall, my safety nets removed, I’m also knee deep in resolving some core issues stemming from childhood. Dark corners of myself that I finally found the bravery to drag into the light. I feel like I’m at war. My life is quickly approaching an inflection point, where I either branch in the direction God would have me go, or I retreat to a position of safety where I feel more in control.
After hanging up the phone today, I called upon God’s word for comfort. I randomly flipped to a passage that starts in Jeremiah 4:5. In my Bible it’s titled “An Imminent Invasion.” It paints a picture of a coming enemy, calling for people to take cover, to beware of great destruction. It’s described as a dry wind blowing in the wilderness, and as a warrior with horses swifter than eagles and chariots like a whirlwind, ready to plunder.
I am at war. God is allowing my faith to be tested, to be stressed, to be placed in crisis. He’s in this battle with me. Fighting for me. In the midst of trying to break free from the chains of my past and navigate an uncertain future. In the midst of a dry wind trying to overtake me. The enemy is at the gate, and I have to trust God’s provision and intervention. His resolution. His strategy for winning this war.
I’m asking for prayers. Prayers for strength. For courage. For obedience. For resolve. The invasion is imminent, and how I respond to it will make all the difference in whether I stay in the trenches with God and fight for His will or retreat to a high hill where I feel safe, but defeated.
As I was standing stage left, in a black t-shirt with big letters, the words death, burial and resurrection scrolling across, I felt incredibly awkward, uncomfortable, unsettled. Several hundred onlookers applauded as the pastor introduced a trio of people taking the plunge in believer’s baptism. A 12-year-old boy, a 7-year old girl and me.
I wanted to do it. But as a 30-something, lifelong “Christian” I felt embarrassed. I wondered what other people were thinking. For some reason, deep inside it was important to me that they knew that I already knew God and was finally declaring my passion to truly follow Him, not that I was just finding salvation. Of course, none of that mattered. What mattered was that Satan had successfully filled my head with ridiculous lies and nonsense and noise, allowing all my familiar insecurities to dominate my attention in a moment when the focus should have been squarely on God.
I wanted to do it. But I tried my best to rationalize my way out of it when the time was drawing near. For almost a week, I debated backing out. Not going through with it. This morning, I stayed in bed as long as I could. Dreading what was to come.
This doesn’t sound like the best way to approach being baptized. It should be a joyous, momentous occasion. For me, this act was about obedience. It was about doing it because it was the right next step for me. I needed to do it. I wanted to do it. I just wasn’t comfortable with the actual act of doing it.
I didn’t want people to think that I had just figured things out. As I discussed earlier, when I was baptized as a child, I had no full appreciation of its significance. Of grace. But was my profession of faith genuine? Was I saved then? I don’t know. Now that I really contemplate it, I really don’t know. As I play back the last several decades of my life and truly, objectively evaluate my historical heart, I really don’t know. But I know this. I am saved in Christ. Did it happen when I was 11? Did it happen just this past week? I really don’t know. But I know that it happened. I know my heart in this moment, my desire for true repentance. The change I’ve been feeling inside. The relationship I now have with God.
My favorite song recently is “Somebody I Used to Know” by Gotye. Such an awesome song. It’s become my anthem for how I feel about myself. With every passing day, I feel like I’m shedding old burdens and chains and that I’m more fully embracing who I am, and who I am to become. Understanding where I came from, who I have been. It’s like the person I was for so much of my life is quickly becoming somebody I used to know. That’s exciting to me.
I still have such a long way to go. So much to figure out.
As I sat in the tub, the pastor about to submerge me in water, I had a fleeting moment of clarity. This act of baptism was not only for me to publicly declare that I will live my life for Jesus. It was also an opportunity to proclaim my faith in allowing God to start anew with me. As I climbed out of that tub, I no longer felt the discomfort, the worry about how people were perceiving me. Whether anyone was judging me, thinking I should have figured this out by now. Whether anyone thought I looked out of place on that stage.
In Everything Belongs, Richard Rohr writes that we, “must always be ready to see anew…to be vulnerable, to say to your soul, ‘I don’t know anything.'”
That’s what I was able to say to God and all those in attendance today. I don’t know anything. I don’t have it figured out. I had it all wrong, for so long. But I’m ready to start again.
On Sunday, I’m taking the plunge. Again. I’m getting baptized. Yes, I was saved when I was 11 and baptized then as well. I believed in God, in Jesus. I didn’t understand grace. How could I? I had no appreciation or connection with the symbolism or the sanctity of baptism. I just knew I was in the “club” and supposed to act like it, now that I had been dunked.
The first time I was baptized didn’t signal a new beginning for me. It signaled several decades of confusion about who God really is. To the best of my deductive abilities, it seemed to me that Christianity was part fire insurance policy, part obstacle course where I was to avoid all things bad and unholy, part high horse from which I could look down and let people know when they weren’t on the right path and lastly, part megaphone to be used for spreading the gospel through the streets.
Even my perception of God was twisted. Because of what I had been told and taught, I viewed God as:
Superman
God was a superhero, coming to my rescue, pulling me from a burning building just before the rafters caved in and I was crushed then incinerated. Once He had ensured my safety, he was off like a blast of light again to save the next poor soul from a fiery death. If I found myself in danger again, I could just call his name.
Santa Claus
You better watch out, better not cry, better not pout I’m telling you why…as the familiar Christmas tune goes. God was all-knowing. He was sitting up on his throne, keeping score, recording everything in a holy book. I had my “to do” list. I had my “not to do” list. And I knew He was always watching. I needed to perform well. And performing well meant doing as much on one list as I could, while avoiding as many items from the other list as possible.
Uncle Sam
I didn’t get to rest very long in my decision to follow God. It was now time to get me prepared to witness for Him. To get new recruits in the door. There was an army to build. I ran through Bible drills, scouted the neighborhoods, went behind enemy lines to knock on doors and witness to people who needed it most. Every event – Vacation Bible School, Tent Revivals, Easter Sunday – had a tally board with the number of conversions as the proxy for success.
I’m not trying to cast blame or dodge any responsibility for my misunderstanding of God, faith, grace, et al. But somewhere along the way, I missed it. And no one pointed it out to me.
Part of it was probably my immaturity, and lack of context. Again, how could I fully comprehend it? It’s because of this, because of the decades I spent missing the point, that I cringe every time someone announces that their six-year-old has accepted Jesus. I know that’s a controversial thing to say, and that I probably just sparked an outrage within you as you read this. But if I wasn’t ready at 11 to truly understand, even after being raised in church, I find it hard to believe that a toddler can appreciate the significance of being dunked in a tub of lukewarm water on a Sunday morning. I promise you, they are only thinking about how cold and wet they are.
I know that we are supposed to have “faith like a child” but I think that is much different than having “faith as a child.” Think about it…that child also believes there’s a dude in tights and a cape who can fly and fight crime, and an old guy in a red suit with a beard who delivers presents via a sleigh and eight reindeer.
I am not theologically equipped to argue what age is too young to sincerely accept Christ. But I do know that there is a level of maturity required before someone can live as a Christ follower and fully accept and appreciate His grace. For me, that took a long, long time. Not just because I was thrown off track early on. Long after I became aware of the need to have a personal relationship with God, I wasn’t open to the notion of truly pursuing one.
When they dunk me this Sunday, I will be approaching the ritual with full reverence. I’m ready to be clean. And if I am to proceed on my journey, I must deeply believe that my sins have been washed away. That I am a new creation in Him. And that His grace is sufficient for me.
It’s the sheer speed of things. Technology. Progress. Breakthroughs. Change. Life.
Less than 24 hours following the 2012 Oscars, Angelina Jolie’s leg had 7k followers on Twitter. It’s close to 50k now, in case you’re curious. If you don’t know the story behind the leg, a quick Google search will get you caught up.
Whitney Houston’s tragic death was reported by a Twitter user more than half an hour before any official news media outlet.
Technology is advancing our society at an unprecedented clip. The Internet is a great example of this phenomenon. Remember when you had to wait for the morning paper? Or the nightly news? Or even the online news alert? Now news, even trends, come and go overnight.
It’s like that with life in general. Our food is fast. Our entertainment is on demand. The answer to all questions is a wiki away. You can buy/sell/trade anything at anytime from anywhere. From Fandango to FastPass we are on the verge of eliminating the need to ever wait in another line. Making a friend is as easy as sending a request. Literally everything in our life now is geared to feeding our innate human desire for instant gratification.
For me, this makes it tremendously challenging to exercise patience in my walk with God. With everything else in my life being fast-tracked and the space between want and have being all but erased, it sometimes feels like my faith walk is moving at the speed of paint drying.
It’s so hard with everything else being at my fingertips to remember that there is no app for quickly delivering a deep enriching relationship with God. No social network that will put me in instant community with Him. No status update that will provide me total insight into God’s will in 140 characters.
It can feel frustrating and disenchanting when the pursuit takes longer than I’d like. But I have to resist that feeling and recognize that the society around me is wired for rapid movement, resolution in a nanosecond, gratification in an instant. And not the reality of sitting still with God and deeply uncovering what He has for me.
the way to (t)here 
What You Said