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When you change the way you look at something, what you see will change.
That’s a really bad attempt to quote Deepak Chopra, who I recently saw speak at a conference. He also said that our bodies are merely artificial manifestations of our collective, raised consciousness and that we are merely energy entangled within the DNA of our ancestors (or something extremely deep and ponderous like that). For purposes of this post, we’ll just stick to the first quote.
According to Dr. Chopra, we all have a set point. A default position for how we view things. For instance, when we encounter a challenge, do we view it as a problem or an opportunity? The bad news is that this set point is typically formed within the first three years of life. It gets worse. We typically create our set point by mirroring based on expression, body language and other cues from our surroundings. Okay, now stop. Think about how your parents respond to stimulus. Scared? Well, don’t be. You can change this set point through self-awareness.
This past week, I was reminded once again of my set point. I got up close and personal with a big heaping spoonful of self-awareness.
I’ve been grappling with a major life decision. I’ve blogged about that several times lately. Through this experience, I’ve come to realize that you don’t have to be going through trials and tribulations to stretch and test your faith. You can be challenged while being blessed. It’s almost embarrassing for me to admit that the big crisis I’m wrestling is whether to take a new job or stay in the one I currently hold.
In a time when many people have been seeking work and struggling through a sluggish economy, I feel more than guilty for asking anyone to pity me in my situation. But it’s been hard. The new job is a risky one with lots of upside. My current job is stable but has taken a mental toll on me. It’s been a really hard decision, in part because I’m finding it hard to trust that God will provide no matter what my decision is.
I’m placing enormous pressure on myself to make the right choice, to not mess everything up. I’ve defaulted to my set point, which is to over-analyze and then paralyze myself. To create a scenario where I’m near meltdown and stressed beyond belief. Where I drive my wife crazy all weekend, pacing back and forth while flip-flopping on what I should do. Where I somehow turn a very enviable position into the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-19 it says: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit.
Wow, my set point is soooooooooooooo far away from that. It’s a daily battle to adjust it. To continue to be self-aware. But Dr. Chopra is right. About the whole change thing. As soon as I realized how I was responding to the situation, it changed the way I viewed it. And that changed the situation itself.
I’m happy to report that I am starting a new professional chapter. I’m taking the new job. I’m trusting that God will continue to provide. I have sadness to leave my current team and everything that I’ve accomplished there for the past several years. But at the same time, this move is going to significantly stretch my faith. I won’t have any safety net, other than God. My set point naturally says that is too dangerous. That I should reconsider.
But the set point I strive for rejoices in the opportunity and gives thanks. And keeps the Spirit flowing within me. It feels good to put it in writing. I can’t wait to see how God uses this new chapter in my life to further His will.
This will be a short post, as I’m pressed for time. However, I feel compelled to write it because a. I’ve been pressed for time a lot lately and b. God is stirring within me.
So, I’ve been wrestling with a major decision the past few days. Driving myself crazy. Weighing pros and cons. Asking God what to do. Just a few moments ago, I paused and realized I might be praying for the wrong thing. It’s just like me as a broken, frail human to cut to the chase and ask God for the specific answer. Don’t make me work for it, God. Just hit me with it. Make the choice for me. Tell me what to do.
We all know the adage about teaching a man to fish. You give him a fish, he eats for a day. You teach him to fish, he eats for a lifetime. Same goes for decision making. What I actually should be praying for is the following:
1. The wisdom to make the best choice.
2. The faith to step into that choice with confidence.
3. The perseverance to see it through to completion.
4. The provision that God promises to always make available.
That’s a much taller order than just sending me the answer. Just like teaching someone to fish is a heck of a lot harder than snagging a bass or a catfish (my favorite) and handing it over.
The reason I haven’t felt comfortable with either road that lies in front of me is that I’ve been treating it like a coin in my hand, flipping it into the air and asking God to call heads or tails. That’s simply not the way to go about it. I am now praying for the above. Wisdom. Faith. Perseverance. Providence. That will lead to increased peace and unity with God, as well as a deepening of who I am in Him.
Gwen Stefani has little or nothing to do with this blog post. But I love Gwen Stefani, particularly from her No Doubt days. Hoping to have some of those no doubt d
ays myself sometime soon.
I always feel so guilty and hopeless, weak and hypocritical, when I doubt God. The rough spiritual patch I’ve been working through lately is mostly because of doubt. About me just simply not being able to trust God. And that doesn’t feel good at all.
Last week was full of doubt in a different way. Around every corner, it seemed God was bringing the subject up with me…asking me to meet it head on.
On Wednesday, I was holed up in a bookstore on the campus of MIT, momentarily escaping a torrential downpour. One book jumped out at me: Heaven is for Real. It’s the story of a toddler who has a near-death experience and comes back to tell us all about what’s waiting for us on the other side. One of the reviewers quoted on the inside cover claimed this story would “encourage those who doubt and thrill those who believe.” For some reason that quote struck a chord. I read it several times before placing the book back on the shelf.
On Friday, I randomly encountered a compelling blog post by Mike Friesen, The Importance of Doubt Within Faith where he says, “God wants us to express our personal and theological doubts about who he is, rather than suppressing them because ‘a good Christian doesn’t have doubts.'”
On Sunday, our pastor was talking about perseverance (one more shout out to patient endurance), and he said, “God meets us in our doubt. If we stay available.”
It can feel so frustrating when God is trying to move, and I just shake and shudder and dig in like a dog that doesn’t want to go on a walk. All because I can’t step out in faith. But doubt is okay. It’s part of the true Christian experience. It’s part of growth. It’s actually one way God works in us. Delivering even when we doubt. Building our faith through His faithfulness. In weakness, we find strength after all. I believe God is asking me to seize my doubt, get comfortable with it, use it as an opportunity to learn something about my belief system. To find a way to stay available even when I have no confidence, when I’m raging inside with nervousness and disbelief.
I’m currently sorting through some things with God, asking Him to overcome my doubt. I’m staying available. I’m expressing my doubt openly as I ask for His intervention and support. After several nudges this past week, I have no doubt what God wants me to be focused on right now.
Belief is such a mysterious process. We get so deeply rooted with our own and so closed off to the beliefs of others. We demand definitive proof and logic from others, but will battle to the grave for truths we hold sacred with absolutely no back up or rational evidence. Or even a well-constructed reasoning for why we believe it.
I’ve caught myself recently on the verge of prejudice when encountering beliefs that were different from my own. It makes me pause, because I’m pretty sure I don’t have it all figured out. That none of us do. And, I don’t want to close myself off from fresh thinking and outside perspectives. That’s what growth is all about. Being able to examine and reflect and consider other points of view help you better define your own. To grow deeper roots.
I also think it is important to keep in context what it is like for others who encounter us as Christians. We are many times too quick to question their belief systems and wonder in amazement how they could believe some of the things they believe. And even more so, how they could not believe in the God we love and follow. But just stop for a second and imagine what it must be like for people who didn’t grow up like me, in a church home, in a church community, on the buckle of the Bible Belt with messages of God and Jesus in surround sound. Here’s a good example. This quote comes from Roger, an extraterrestrial from an unnamed world who regularly makes appearances on the animated shows 
American Dad and Family Guy.
“I love your religion for the crazy! Virgin birth. Water into wine. It’s like Harry Potter, but it causes genocide and bad folk music” – Roger
I don’t recall the specific episode or even which show the quote was from, but that’s really not all that necessary for the point I’m making. The quote is funny and sad at the same time. Belief is a stretch. There are days when I have a hard time truly believing, despite being a card-carrying member of the Lifetime Christian Club. So, yes, when you lay out the storyline, it must be incredibly difficult for someone experiencing it for the first time to immediately accept.
So, my point is two-fold. First, know what you believe but be open and understanding of belief systems that are foreign or even contradictory to your own. And secondly, always remember that your beliefs will seem less of a stretch to you than they will to others, simply because you’ve already examined, accepted and processed them for yourself. Roger that?
I almost hit a woman with my car tonight. As if she walked out of nowhere, there she was in the cross walk as I chugged on through it. I absolutely had to have grazed her with the passenger side of my vehicle. I didn’t even have time to hit the brakes or turn my steering wheel. As I looked in my rear view, I was relieved to see that she was a little surprised and scattered but completely fine. I had missed her. Luckily.
It was just a moment of distraction. Letting my thoughts and worries dull me. Letting my daily routine turn me into autopilot. I was unfocused. And I almost seriously hurt someone. After the near collision, I drove the rest of the way home in brilliant clarity. My senses were in overdrive. Everything seemed sharper and magnified. I was focused with adrenaline coursing. Wide eyed.
I spend a lot of my spiritual life asleep at the wheel. Distracted. Dulled. Unfocused. I would welcome more frequent wake up calls to jolt me from my slumber, although I hope they don’t have to be as dramatic as almost clipping a woman with my car. It’s terribly difficult not to allow the days to lull me into complacency, to pull me into a thick fog. They can quickly result in a series of cycles and routines or motions on top of motions. As I’ve more actively pursued God, I have seen a significant decrease in my sleep walking. But it remains tough to hold focus and to keep everything bright, sharp and clear.
And tonight’s little “almost” incident shows I don’t have to be actively dangerous to be reckless with my faith. I just have to be distracted.
One of my favorite cartoons as a kid was G.I. Joe. Great action figures too! My parents must have dropped $1,500 investing in tiny plastic army guys with swivel parts and cool nicknames. And then there was Star Wars, oh and He-Man. Yeah, I was an action figure junkie. And with two small boys in the house, I’m sure I will get to be one again really soon.
But as usual, I digress. In every episode of G.I. Joe they closed with the following sign off from our hero. “So, now you know…and knowing is half the battle.” For most of my adult life, I carried that around as solid advice. Feels pretty good, right? Knowledge is power. Etc.
This week, it has finally dawned on me that after all this time, Joe doesn’t know jack. Knowledge isn’t half the battle. It’s not even a quarter of the battle. Yes, it is a necessary weapon, and I wouldn’t encourage you to wage war without it. But to suggest you are halfway there just because you’ve been enlightened is a slight exaggeration.
I am more self-aware now than at any point in my life. I am in tune with my sin, what triggers me, why it triggers me, my wounds, the way I respond. I truly feel like I know and understand a great deal, especially after journeying this far and this long in active pursuit of God. And yet this week, just like several other blog posts where I have confessed falling short, I find myself at the mercy of all that consistently ails me. Feeling anxious about circumstances in my life because my faith is running on empty. Placing pressure on myself because I am trying to stay in control instead of letting go and letting God. Fueling fires because of my insecurities and self perceptions. Making bad decisions based on selfishness.
I know better. I know each and every time I slip what the right action, thought, response is. I know God is good. That He is just. That He will provide. I know the lies are lies. I know. I know. I know. I know. And guess what? Knowing is NOT half the battle. Not even close.
When I find myself in this place, my first goal is to try and put the shovel down. If left to my own devices I will just keep digging the hole deeper and wider and plunge to greater depths by the minute. Once the shovel is at rest, I try to translate the knowledge I have trapped in my mind into action. I try to take one step that is counter to the path I am wandering. Just bend the momentum. Break the cycle. That usually works well. Because as I’ve learned, knowledge is a powerful, necessary tool, but it’s only a tool. If you are able to transfer it into action, no matter how small, you are indeed halfway there. So, Joe…now you know!
Ah, good ole Mr. Miyagi. What a c
lassic movie character. Remember how he made Danielson wax cars, sand wooden floors, repair fences and paint his house all in the name of learning karate? It was a little unorthodox as far as karate training goes. But just look at the end result. You can’t argue with success.
Mr. Miyagi knew what he needed to do to prepare Daniel. And although Daniel didn’t fully understand how household chores were setting him up for the world’s most legendary crane kick, it eventually was revealed. The puzzle pieces came together. Amidst the chaos, a pattern was discovered. A method to the madness.
I’ve felt that way many times in my pursuit of God. Looking back on circumstances that made absolutely no sense to me in the moment or possibly didn’t even register with me at all, only to discover how they are connected to a greater, unseen strategy. Wax on. Wax off.
As I was climbing through our storage closet a few days ago, unearthing Christmas decorations to prepare our home for the upcoming holiday, I came across an old study guide that was left over from a small group my wife and I had attended more than five years earlier. Yes, I’m a pack rat. The guide was based on the book of Acts, and it was intended to carry you through the formative years of the early church. As I flipped through it, the only thing I remembered for sure is that our group only made it through a couple of weeks in the study before getting distracted. At the time, I was thinking of how many better ways I could have spent $30 bucks.
Like most study guides, there were a lot of questions to answer and blanks to fill as you went along. I was fascinated to read some of the things written down in my own handwriting. Things such as, “Be patient and the Spirit will move in you with God’s timing. God has a purpose for you.” And, “We are being trained to understand and use the Holy Spirit.” And, “They didn’t need to know endpoints. They were instructed to carry His word forward. They didn’t need a timeline. Power in faith.”
While simple in nature, these insights were so far beyond my readiness and comprehension at the time. I was not in a place where I truly wanted to deepen my relationship with God. I was in a study group because that’s what our friends and acquaintances were doing. I was just along for the ride. So, while intellectually I could respond to the scripture, jot down notes about its significance, I was not even close to internalizing and meditating on it. But there it was again for me, five years later, in the back of my closet. Waiting to be reaffirmed.
I believe that during a very dry and distant time for me, God was planting seeds. Giving me chores to do. At that point in my life, I would much preferred to have been scrubbing floors and painting walls than reading scripture and filling in blanks before sitting in a circle for multiple hours to talk about my feelings. But today, much of what was covered during the early pages of that study guide are right on target with my journey.
In one of the application sidebars in the guide, it offers tips for gleaning more from scripture as you read it. The last question it suggests you ask yourself is this:
“How can this passage increase my knowledge of the Lord, not just my knowledge about Him?”
That is a great question. And a great way to differentiate where I am from where I was. Five years ago, I was approaching the small group and my other Christian pursuits to learn about Him and not of Him. The funny thing is, He was okay with that, and took the time to prepare me for the eventual journey I would engage.
I’m still not completely clear on everything. But some of the dots are getting connected. In the meantime, I will continue to wax on, wax off, wax on, wax off…
I spend a lot of time in my own head. Obsessing. Analyzing. Wrestling with truth. Stressing about life. Too often, it’s where I hold my faith as well. My beliefs. My compass. It’s hard for me to shake loose from this, but it is important that I do.
Isaiah 46:8 – Remember this, fix it in mind, take it to heart…
Isaiah 51:7 – Hear me, you who know what is right, you people who have my law in your hearts…
Isaiah 59:12 – For our offenses are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us…fomenting oppression and revolt, uttering lies our hearts have conceived.
2 Corinthians 3:3 – You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
God calls rather clearly for us to gain freedom from our minds and feel our faith. To exist in the heart instead. It’s when we get our hearts right that we achieve greater peace in Him, not when our minds have it all worked out. In the mind, we can debate and defend our faith, but only in our hearts can we prove it.
On the way home today from a relatively unsuccessful family day out at the park, my wife and I were talking. As we drove by massive homes and sprawling estates, I remarked that even though I know money doesn’t cure all worries, I’d be interested to just know what it felt like to have the financial security the owners of these homes must enjoy. After a philosophical debate on the issue, she said that in the end it’s all about getting your heart in the right place. That’s what will make you happy.
She’s right. And I spent a lot of time today unhappy because I was once again living in my head, letting every minor inconvenience bend me out of shape. The perfect afternoon I had developed in my mind wasn’t happening just as I imagined, and from there, things quickly unraveled. Most times when I look back at situations like this, I made things worse because I was operating from my head and not my heart. Many times when I’ve betrayed my faith, it isn’t because I didn’t “know” what to do, but because I “chose” not to do it. I let my thoughts dictate my actions instead of letting my heart guide them.
On the heels of my wife’s point of view today, I stumbled upon these verses which I had scribbled down in my notebook months before. They were just waiting for the right moment to resonate. The mind can be a prison. Thinking can suffocate feeling. And the shallow nature of thought will never bring the same peace as the depths that exist within the heart. I encourage you all to stop trying to get your minds right and instead focus on your heart. If you center yourself there, good thoughts, happiness and freedom will follow.
A few years back, I served as an adjunct professor for a communications course. In that one semester, I learned two important things about teachers. 1. They are totally underappreciated. Wow, is that a tough job! 2. They don’t’ know it all.
As I stood there every Wednesday night, it became more and more clear to me that as an “authority” on communications I was expected to know all the answers and to have it all figured out. I didn’t. Not even close. Nor does any other professor or instructor who graces the classroom, no matter how experienced and educated he or she may be.
This is important because it reflects how many of us look for God. We look for him in authority figures, or unassailable icons like Billy Graham. We hang our spiritual hats on the religious leaders and “prophets” of our time. We expect they will have all the answers, and that they will guide us to a better place, closer to God.
This is why many of us have our faith shaken at its very foundation when a priest inappropriately touches an altar boy or a pastor is exposed for having an affair. Or even as simple as a church elder wronging us in some way or showing up as “unchristian” in some scenario. Putting this much pressure on spiritual leaders is as wise as expecting the same from our athletic heroes, who routinely show up in strip clubs with trash bags full of cash, drive their cars off cliffs, assault their wives and girlfriends and get publicly humiliated for having more mistresses than clubs in their golf bags.
Ecclesiastes 7:20 – For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin.
Powerful verse if you are paying attention to it. I’m not suggesting that it’s perfectly okay that a man of God sins in a way that not only impacts himself and his family but potentially everyone who holds him in high regard. Or that our spiritual leaders are having a tough time taking a higher moral ground than our celebrity athletes. But I am suggesting that each and every Christian leader you choose to follow is flawed. He may not be pistol-whipping people in a back alley or juicing with performance enhancing drugs before taking the pulpit, but everyone has demons, wounds, internal battles that can easily spill into external wars.
Men and women who share the word of God and lead congregations have special assignments from on high. However, we shouldn’t hold them accountable to the standards forced upon them to be perfect, when the Bible clearly states in multiple places that the potential for perfection in man does not exist.
So we should be forgiving of their sins and learning from them. Even though they typically are more sensational, with higher impact and much greater visibility than when we mess up, these leaders are after all human. We should never lose sight of that truth as we follow them.
Additionally, we shouldn’t take every word and message verbatim with no questioning or no seeking on our part to define what is true for us. We are all tour guides who haven’t actually been to the place we’re talking about. Who knows how wrong we’ve got parts of it. I’m not saying that no one out there has insight, or that no one knows anything. I’m not saying that God hasn’t shared wisdom with us, directly and indirectly, through His word.
I’m just saying that God wants to speak to us individually and if we open ourselves to Him, insight will come. We need to spend less time wandering around and showing up like sheep hoping some smart or inspired person will lead us to a deeper relationship. God doesn’t call us to be spoon fed by corporate worship. He calls for a one-to-one relationship.
1 Corinthians 1:20-22 – Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
And finally, we should not limit our search for God among people who “know it all.”
In the past year, I’ve been introduced and exposed to Christians who are struggling with sins and circumstances in their lives, including infidelity, sexual addictions, dependencies on drugs and alcohol, depression, anxiety, foreclosure, bankruptcy, abuse, neglect, abandonment, criminal activity, divorce, death, unemployment and sickness. You could easily draw the conclusion that these people can’t teach us much about God. They definitely don’t have all the answers. In fact, they probably don’t have ANY of them.
And you’d be sorely misguided in that assumption. In these beautiful and broken people, in each and every one of them, I’ve seen God, I’ve seen Him work, I’ve seen Him redeem and be glorified. And I’ve seen it in a way that traditional worship and corporate religious experiences can’t, and probably won’t, show me. Go back and review the history of how God has shared His heart with His people. He has most commonly used busted, broken, fatally flawed men like the disciples and the most ordinary, unassuming and sin-pressed people He could find.
So, why is it that today we place unrealistic expectations upon our Christian leaders and demand that they successfully live out a fairy tale, Hollywood existence where they shower us with perfect prophecy and guide us perfectly down a golden path to God? The higher the pedestal, the farther the fall. Might I suggest we recognize that our leaders have a critically important role, but not an all-encompassing one? That we remember to err is human? That we take more responsibility on ourselves to see God as He intended? Through personal relationship and totally unvarnished gritty, real and redeeming experiences with the battered, the bruised and the broken around us.
I was reading Psalms 105 today, where it talks about God’s marvelous and wondrous works, his righteous deeds. The glory of His name. His strength. His judgments. His everlasting covenant. The passage was calling for singing and sharing and seeking and remembering all the wonders God has delivered.
Over the past two years, God has been diligent to deliver marvelous and wondrous works in my life, over and over again. To be seen by me. To be heard by me. To share His will and his ways with me. And while I feel like I’ve thanked Him for most of the instances where He’s provided wonder in my life, I haven’t completely celebrated the way that Psalms describes.
As I meditated on this passage, I wrote down some simple practices that I need to commit to in order to fully receive the blessings God has and will bestow upon me. This is really basic stuff, but stuff that I hardly ever do when in a moment of His glory and wonder. I’d encourage you to do the same the next time you are witnessing an act of God, an answered prayer, a blessing.
Be Still. This is the hardest thing in the world for me. I am perpetually in motion. If possible I need to just rest in it for a moment, and let it soak in.
Be Alert. Concentrate on it and fully realize the gift. Accept it. I can’t appreciate it if I’m not focused on what it is and what it means. To understand exactly what God is saying to me by and through this work.
Be Grateful. This is usually the part we all get right. We say thanks and mean it. Being genuinely appreciative for the act should be a natural response for me.
Be Amazed. In awe. Speechless. Marvel in it. Truly acknowledge the glory of it. Each and every gift from God is a miracle. I can’t cheapen it just because it isn’t parting of waters or moving of mountains. Even the smallest of works by God is a big deal.
Be Fortified. Let it validate my faith in the moment, and serve as a reminder in the future when I am in doubt. Keep it stored in my mind so that in times of difficulty I will remember what the Lord has done for me.
Be Generous. Share it. Pass it around. Let others know the blessing I’ve received so that I might give hope to them and help solidify their faith as well.
the way to (t)here 
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