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What’s going on inside me?
I despise my own behavior
This only serves to confirm my suspicions
That I’m still a man in need of a Savior.
Poignant lyrics from a dc Talk song called, In the Light. I heard it again today for the first time in a long time. I played it 10 times in a row, just to hear that chorus and to internalize it.
Clean up always takes time. Whether it’s an oil spill, the aftermath of a tragic storm or a living room turned upside down by toddlers, restoration is a time-consuming process that requires investment and patience. Like many people, I am geared for performance. My goal is to achieve. I need to get more comfortable being a work in progress, a restoration project, an investment. Repairing my relationship with God and maintaining His will is not a fast or easy endeavor. Not because He makes it difficult. That part is on me.
I’ve shared before that I believe we need to change the way we keep score and praise progress instead of dangling perfection like an unattainable carrot. Even with that mindset, sometimes it is hard for me to recognize the progress. Sometimes the progress is so very small. Sometimes it is as small as simply remembering I am still a man in need of a Savior.
It happens far too often. Something taps my wound, and like a cavity-stricken tooth meeting a cube of ice I am victim to a seething pain that aches and thuds and pulses within me. This “something” plays off the pain, and then spoon feeds me a lie. I am coaxed into accepting the lie, biting down on it only to intensify the throbbing. I get upset. Increasingly upset. Sometimes just on the inside. Other times visibly disturbed.
From here, I spiral, and it is as if all my teeth have cavities. Like they all might spill from my mouth like water from a glass. By the end, I am completely unwound and undone. And when I look back at what ignited this chain of events, it always seems so petty and insignificant. It’s hard to understand the cause and effect of it all. To trace the chain from beginning to end. For a moment, I feel defeated. AGAIN. And a mixture of anger and sadness courses through my veins, pounds in my head, pricks my heart. I’m so disappointed in myself and my inability to break this cycle. To keep ending up here. In this very same place.
You can see how unhealthy this pattern is. And it’s only when I somehow find the perspective to zoom out and actually realize what’s going on, to recognize the pattern, that I find any peace. The funny and glorious thing is that when I’m able to do this, there is not only peace, but complete peace. I’ve disrupted the pattern, at least for the moment, and it no longer controls me.
I’ve come to understand that my wounds are pretty much always going to be there with me. And that no matter how accepting I become of them, they will have the innate ability to trigger negative emotions if given the most remote of opportunities. I also can’t stop the lies from coming. They always do. They are powerful and strong and convincing and so believable. But at this point in the pattern, I actually do have a choice. I can choose to believe the lies and send things rolling down hill or I can choose NOT to believe the lies and cut the pattern short. When I am in a healthy, balanced state, I do a good job of this. The problem is that I quickly forget it.
Since I’m actually feeling a great deal of peace this week, and balance, I thought I’d capture this train of thought so that when I stumble into a darker place, I can have this to remind me of how to return to the light.
When I’m healthy, I even go so far as to anticipate the lies. To expect them. To wait for them. To look for them. To run toward them and take them head on. They are persistent and consistent. But these lies are never original. They just run along like a broken record. It’s the same old thing over and over again. For me, the lies are usually along the lines of me not measuring up, being good enough, being successful, being liked, being accepted and validated. Being relevant. Visible. Worthy. They just keep coming, the same line of them, over and over and over and over.
I know I use a lot of sports analogies, and I apologize for that. But really, there’s nothing in the world that you can’t compare to sports or Seinfeld to make a point. When I’m healthy, and balanced, I approach my lies like a batter in baseball. Hitting a baseball is one of the most difficult things in the world to do. Believe it or not, one great tactic for improving your ability to hit the ball is to guess which pitch is coming. There are certain scenarios when a batter can more accurately predict whether the pitcher will throw a strike or a ball, and whether the pitcher will throw a fast ball, or a curve ball or a slider.
When a batter is anticipating a fast ball thrown in the strike zone and guesses correctly, he usually makes good contact with the ball. Many times, he will crush it. And yes, if he guesses wrong, he will typically look really foolish. When I’m healthy, I’m poised at the plate, waiting for a certain set of lies to come my way. And then I crush the truth out of them. And I disrupt the pattern. As I just stated, it’s easy to anticipate the lies. And when you are able to do that, something that can seem so very difficult to master can become much, much more manageable.
I wish I could say that by now I always crush the lies. But there are times, many times, when I don’t. When I’m not in a good place, and I just can’t see clearly what’s coming next. They catch me off-balance. They surprise me. They overwhelm me. And it seems like resisting them is one of the hardest things in the world to do.
While I’m in my healthy, balanced, peaceful zone, let me encourage you to examine the patterns that lead you off your positive path and into the weeds. To seek out the lies you tell yourself. And then to extract all the power those lies hold by waiting anxiously for them to show their face and then laying the wood to them like you were trying to clear the left field wall.
And if you swing and miss, do what all successful baseball players do. Dig in and try again.
I say revival, and you think…
A week-long church fest featuring an overly eager guest speaker? Popping the tent and slapping the tambourine? Maybe even smacking someone upside the head to heal them?
Most of us have come to associate the word revival with an intense, focused (and staged) event intended to jar life back into the church congregation and create a “great awakening”. It’s supposed to replenish us, like we are a bunch of spiritual squirrels filling our cheeks and running back to our trees to store up for the winter.
In my personal experience, I’ve not seen many genuine situations where a church body enjoyed true revival. I’ve seen a temporary frenzy that fostered fleeting episodes of group think and follow the crowd mentality akin to the popularity explosion of the Snuggie or Justin Bieber. Those “revivals” are often short-lived and then it is back to business as usual until next year. I’m not suggesting a church body can’t experience true revival. I just think that when it does happen, it is more organic and inspired than the revivals I’ve been a part of in the past.
For me, revival is about a renewal of your fervor and desire to pursue God. Or it can be a restoration and healing related to a dark tragedy or deep wound. It occurs on a personal, not just a population, level.
My revival happened two years ago and has been rekindled probably about every two weeks since then. I was in a slumber, and then I received a spark. And quickly, I’ve seen the spark fade and then brighten again, over and over. If I’m being honest, it’s all I can do to keep it alive and “stay awake”. So far, it’s been worth the effort.
I guess my point with all this is that 1. you don’t need to wait for “potluck week” to have a personal revival, or your own great awakening and 2. while revival is a sudden combustion of flames, it can burn out just as fast if you don’t nurture it. In the end, I encourage you to displace your initial reaction to the word revival (at least if you carry the same baggage as me) and consider how you can achieve something much more powerful underneath a tent made for one.
Every Thursday night and Saturday morning, you can find me on the diamond, coaching baseball. Well, actually it’s tee ball. Ok, tee ball for three and four-year-olds. Otherwise known as herding cats.
I really love coaching these kids. But some days I’m tested. A few weeks back, we were attempting to practice. It was 95 degrees and humid. The kids were distracted, even for toddlers. I had two players whizzing behind a tree…together, one running for the hills (literally), a la Forrest Gump. Another with his knuckle shoved up his nose, like a booger-seeking missle. Yet another sniffling and calling for his daddy while ramping up the heebie jeebies. Another stirring up a cloud of dust with his sneakers. Another pulling at my shorts, asking to play duck duck goose (he wanted to be the cow). And then there was my son. Waiting patiently in the field, in the ready position, anticipating a ground ball coming his way. He was focused. He was locked in. He was listening to me. (If only we could replicate this behavior at home on a consistent basis!)
I was proud of my son that day. He made a decision to listen to the coach and commit to the game of baseball. He wanted to get better. It wasn’t because his dad was out there coaching. Like I just said, he has no problem NOT listening to me whenever he feels the need. That attitude is what I am finally bringing to my walk with God. What we all should bring.
Psalms 37:4-6 – Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, and He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.
What I’ve noticed since I truly committed to this journey, since I finally reached a place where I truly yearned for a closer relationship with God, is that I’m a lot like a kid on a baseball field who is actually paying attention to the coach. Who is committed to getting better. Even my mistakes have positive results. For anyone who has played a sport, you know the feeling of hearing a whistle blow and the words, “Let’s try that again!” A coach doesn’t just cheer you when you succeed, they teach you when you fail. Every time you mess up, the coach is there to offer insight and advice If you listen, if you truly listen, you are going to get better. If you are just playing ball on your own without a coach, or not actively listening to the coach you have, your mistakes will just keep happening and you may not even realize what you’re doing wrong or how to fix it.
Recently, when I step off the path, make a wrong turn, get caught up in poor behavior, I hear Coach. That is much different than it used to be. But because I’m tuned in to my sin, and because I’m finally ready to listen, I’m getting coached. When I make a mistake, it’s a learning experience, not just another mistake. And I’m getting better as a result. Instead of going off-road into a ditch and then off a cliff when I goof up, I merely spend a few moments on the shoulder and then find myself back between the lines.
My son will grow his baseball skills this season if he keeps his focus and commitment. I think many of the other kids will as well. As long as our recent practice becomes a distant memory. After all, whether they are listening or not, I’m there every Thursday and Saturday, coaching the entire time. Offering advice. Correcting mistakes. Teaching lessons. God is a lot like that. So, if you can’t hear Him in times of sin, when you make a wrong turn, then I ask you: Are you committed to the game? Are you listening? Are you genuinely interested in getting better? Because once you are, you’ll be able to hear Him as clearly as a whistle in your ear.
Anyone who has spent 5 minutes in a corporate setting has had to call the “help desk” for computer issues. And anyone who has had to call the “help desk” for computer issues can predict with 100 percent accuracy the very first thing the “help desk” will ask you, no matter what issue you are trying to fix. Say it with me…Have you tried rebooting?
As much as I make fun of “help desks” the whole rebooting thing is actually pretty good advice. Sometimes it is needed in our spiritual walk as well. Sometimes disruptive change is required to force us from deeply dug ruts. Sometimes we just need to reset and start over. Clean the system and power back up. Computers usually respond well to the rebooting process. They run better, faster, etc. It only stands to reason that we function more optimally as well when we press the restart button on our walk. I know it has worked well for me. It helps us break free from the same old infinite and repetitive loop of failure. A clean slate can be an inspiring, motivating thing.
Sometimes, instead of rebooting (or in addition to it), we need to rewire. Change the circuitry inside our machine to bypass our transgressions.
In one of Aesop’s Fables (The Fox and the Lion), the moral of the story is that “acquaintance with evil blinds us to its dangers. ” We grow numb to the action. It hurts less, carries less guilt, generates less remorse, every time we repeat the same sin. We also begin to distance ourselves from the consequences. We begin to dismiss the odds of serious repercussions occurring as a result of our actions. We develop a habit, form an allegiance, firmly attach the vice to our daily lives. After a while, we are incapable of thinking or acting differently.
The psychological term neuroplasticity suggests that, even as adults, learning and re-wiring of the brain can happen through changes in the strength of connections, by adding or removing connections or by adding new cells. This is great news because it means we have an innate ability to literally change our minds. Not suggesting it is easy, but if we can reconfigure our thoughts to join our actions more closely to their potential consequences and to alter the auto pilot nature of sin, we greatly increase our chances of replacing the habits of worldly man with the pursuits of a Godly one.
So reboot, rewire, restart. There is great power in the re.
Hello again. Miss me? I’m supposed to be feeding the lake every day this year, remember? Well, I hit quite a dry spell and allowed myself to collect dust. Luckily a flood, literally a flood, helped me get back in the flow.
I just returned from an “all in” kind of weekend. I was terribly afraid of it, feared it, dreaded it. And that was before multiple feet of rain washed our campground away. But I committed to it and put it in God’s hands. In the process, I learned that my greatest wound is possibly my greatest weapon in the fight for God’s kingdom.
I have a need for validation, affirmation, approval. I’ve been screaming for it. I’ve struggled mightily with it. And I have let it consume me. What I learned on this weekend, as a torrential downpour pushed our group all over the Franklin area, is that this gaping hole in me has given me great compassion and insight for others. I also learned that I’m not alone.
All this time, there have been many others dealing with exactly the same kind of thing. And I was doing nothing for them. While I wallowed in self-pity about validation and affirmation, I was sharing none of it with others. I was oblivious to similar needs of people very close to me. I was boxed in, staring at my navel, contemplating why things are the way they are. Woe is me.
It’s amazing how we’re led to believe we are all alone in our struggles, like no one else is feeling the same way or wrestling with the same issues. When the truth is, no matter what you are combatting, countless other people out there share your pain. The world tries to isolate us. Just like any predator and prey situation. Think of a sheep being attacked by wolves. Think tipsy girl at a bar. The predator tries to separate us from the pack and isolate us. Prevent us from feeding on the strength and support of others. Limit our ability to empathize and share common trials.
We’re made to believe we are the only one dealing with our situation. There we are alone, left to battle the predator single-handed. All along truly believing that no one can relate to what we’re going through.
I started my journey alone. It was me and God. And that’s okay. But on this rain-soaked weekend, I learned that I can only go so far in isolation and that walking this path with others will significantly increase my chances of getting where I want to go in my trek toward a closer relationship with God. There are people who understand my struggles. People I can help, and people who can help me. Again, my wound can indeed be my weapon.
There is great power in numbers. I am not alone. And neither are you.
I’m being honest here, right? I mean, I’m speaking the truth about the journey I’m on, good, bad, ugly, indifferent. Right? Well, I’m frustrated. After some positive movement, I feel like I’ve veered off the course. I haven’t been able to write and have allowed a host of excuses prevent me from posting lately. I haven’t been hearing from God. My blade is dull. My walk is at a stand still.
And what I’ve noticed about the walk, the journey, is that you aren’t moving across flat land. You are climbing a mountain. Momentum is important. Constant motion is important. When I say I’m at a stand still, that’s actually an overstatement. Once you lose steam, you lose ground. So if you aren’t making progress, if you aren’t moving forward, you are actually sliding backward. There is only drive or reverse. There is no neutral. There is no park. You are either marching closer to God or wandering farther from Him. That’s my point of view anyway.
The physics aren’t in my favor. It’s much easier just to roll down the side of a mountain than to dig in and climb. And the farther up the mountain I go, the harder it gets to maintain the climb, to reach the next level. But if I stop, if I fail to maintain momentum, the fall from there is much higher, must faster.
Of course, we all are going to lose steam at points in our journeys, lose ground, fall backward. The key is to recognize you are headed in reverse and recover lost ground as quickly as you can. If we think of being stuck or stagnant only as failure to move forward instead of actively moving backward, we probably won’t act with the same sense of urgency. I know I haven’t. Right now, again if I’m being honest, I’m going in reverse. And I fully recognize it. I’m trying to get things turned around quickly. It’s not the first time I’ve been here. Won’t be the last. My ongoing goal is to make it higher up the mountain each time, and when I fall, to fall a shorter distance. After all, no one’s journey can be depicted by a perfectly straight line. Instead, they look like stair steps and scribbles up and down. As if charting the stock market. Our walks are highly volatile.
I have a remarkably shallow pool of physics knowledge to wade in, but I do know that an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by a sum of physical forces. Right now, physical forces (me) AND natural forces (the mountain) are acting upon my motion. The third law of gravity says for every action, there is a reaction. (And that, my friends, was the last splash of water in the pool.) So, it’s my turn again to react to my situation. I can either roll all the way down, or dig back in and claw. I choose to claw.
the way to (t)here 
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