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There’s a lot going on right now. Personally. Professionally. Spiritually. It’s easy to get distracted, or overwhelmed, and retreat back to a simpler, safer path, instead of continuing to press and lean in to what I’m hearing from God.
I’ve found a few really effective ways for me to keep perspective and stay in the moment. To not get led astray by all of the competing priorities and noise around me. To keep me focused on the work at hand.
The first thing I’ve done to keep myself focused is to find a consistent time to be with God. It’s not easy for me to sit still. It’s not easy for me to turn my mind off and hear from God without letting all my thoughts and worries get in the way. For a while, I used a daily commute to work as captive time to spend with God. Lately, I’ve been a daily dip in the tub. It’s not the most manly thing in the world, but in my warm bath with Bible or other book in hand, I’ve been able to be still and hear from God. And He has graciously rewarded my diligence by granting countless insights and connecting numerous dots for me.
The second thing I’ve done to keep myself focused is weeding my flowerbed. Also not very high on the manly man scale, right?
I used to absolutely despise anything related to working in the yard. Cutting grass. Planting stuff. Yuck. We have a large flowerbed that borders our back patio. I built it, and since that moment, it’s been the bane of my existence. Twice, weeds have overtaken it to an extent that forced us to hire professional assistance to get it back under control. As the warm weather once again summoned those insanely persistent demons from below, I begrudgingly spent an hour crouched beneath the bright sun, wrestling with the weeds, my hands gnarled and shredded, my lower back aching. About halfway through the process, I started to notice all the obvious parallels to my spiritual walk. How these weeds represent my sin, my wounds, my struggles.
These include the fact that if I don’t consistently tend my spiritual garden, the weeds will overtake it. The longer I put it off, the tougher they are to pull, the more damage they can do. Even if things look okay on the surface, they are waiting just below the surface. They are still there, lingering. If I don’t actively combat them, they will suffocate growth. They will create a tangled mess.
Since then, I’ve tended this flowerbed several times. And I’ve started looking forward to it. As I work, I visualize the struggles I have in my spiritual walk as these sinewy little green creatures. With each pesky weed that I uproot from the mulch, with every shrub I free from the clutches of these attackers, I meditate on how I can achieve the same thing spiritually. It’s been really hard on my hands and my back, but it’s been powerful for me in my relationship with God. Another opportunity for me to stay in tune with the fight I’m supposed to be fighting.
So there you have it. The keys to my spiritual focus lately are flowerbeds and bathtubs. My man card is in serious danger of being revoked right about now.
“Christ comes to restore and release you, your soul, the true you.” – Wild at Heart
My wife texted me this quote yesterday. It wasn’t the first time in the past week that I had been approached with thoughts about restoration, release, of being who I really am. What a great quote, though. We are free in Christ to be the actual creature He created. To be our TRUE self. The problem is we usually don’t take advantage.
I’ve spent a great deal of time professionally counseling companies on how to create a brand for themselves or a product or service. How to message and portray the “essence” of what they are selling. How they want others to think and feel about it. It’s all about image. Perception is reality. We’re all consumers, so this idea of a “brand” is not a foreign concept. As you walk down the aisles of any store, you see the packages lined up with their own distinct messages and colors and designs and shapes. They each have their own presence and personality. They all are projecting an image that they hope will make you buy them.
I do that in my everyday life. And I bet I’m not alone. I create a brand to project to the world around me. It’s partly who I am, but in many ways it’s far different. There’s an entire persona that I have to work hard to keep in tact that speaks to success in my career, my personality, my moral compass, my family life, my talents. An image that requires daily maintenance, and at the same time smothers the real me. The true me. That doesn’t afford for me to be human and to be okay with my flaws and confident in my own skin. That doesn’t allow me to show the world how I’m broken and how God is working in me. The true me.
There are two major problems with creating a brand to represent my being. First, a brand is an attempt to express something you are striving to be. It takes liberties with reality, glosses over flaws. You can easily lose yourself, who you truly are, in trying to keep up with the brand that you are putting out on the shelf.
The second problem is that I don’t fully control my brand. One of the basic tenets of brand management is that a brand is ultimately shaped and defined by the people you share it with. In the end, your brand is not what YOU say it is. It’s what others perceive you to be. So, now, in addition to altering my true being to project a different image, I’m also being subjected to labels and expectations by the outside world. And quickly, I can become really confused and insecure about who I really am.
I guess there’s actually a third problem with a brand. It doesn’t take long for your consumers to figure out that you don’t have it all together anyway. I mean, how many times have you bought a product based on the “brand promise” only to be disappointed in its performance? Happens all the time with products, and with people. Just because you smile big and put on your “Sunday best” doesn’t mean everyone is buying it. There’s no way to live up to the image, to deliver on the promise, leaving me deflated and defeated.
I want to be the true me. I want to replace my brand with my being. I want to live a transparent life and to have God work through it. While it would be a difficult, scary and taxing thing to do, I can just imagine how liberating it would feel and how powerful it would be in fulfilling God’s plan for me.
So my prayer is that I’ll allow Christ to restore and release me, my soul, the true me.
I finally got to see the movie Moneyball after pretty much everyone else in the free world had watched it already. Sort of fits with my journey. For the few of you out there who are not a. baseball fans or b. Brad Pitt fans, I’ll quote IMBD and tell you that Moneyball is, “the story of Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane’s successful attempt to put together a baseball club on a budget by employing computer-generated analysis to draft his players.”
Not the greatest movie I’ve ever seen, but what an inspirational story. Billy Beane, after being a major disappointment as a player, finds himself in a no win situation with a team that has no payroll but still wants to compete with the New York Yankees and other big market teams. They have a decent season and then lose all their best players to other organizations. All the veteran baseball people on Beane’s staff try to go back to business as usual and rebuild the team the way baseball people have been rebuilding teams for as long as the game has been played. But what does Beane do?
He says that’s crazy. To try and play by the same rules and go through the same motions. And expect to be successful. Isn’t that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? So, instead, he goes completely off script and breaks every law and rule in baseball. And what happens? They win. A lot.
I think if Jesus were a general manager for a baseball team, he’d look a lot like Billy Beane. After all, look at the twelve disciples. Not exactly Yankee material. There were no Derek Jeter’s in that bunch. It’s hard for us to remember that God is actually very unorthodox. He does whatever it takes to win our hearts. He doesn’t need a script. He doesn’t bow to tradition and ritual. He doesn’t just keep grinding it out. He adjusts to the situation and reaches for us in very creative ways.
That’s been my story. I had stopped reading my Bible, wasn’t regularly attending church. Wasn’t really actively pursuing God. It took a while, but in the end, He showed up in His own way and reached me with non traditional tactics. I ended up on the road back to Him because He didn’t play by the rules. He played Moneyball.
I’m more spiritually awake than ever because of it. After sleep walking for 25 years, I finally stopped going through the motions. That’s almost as long as it took me to find two free hours to watch the movie. And so, I also am committed not to be chained and restrained by the way things have always been done and the way they are supposed to be. My ultimate role model has demonstrated to me that He doesn’t play by those rules. So why should I? Wouldn’t it be so much more effective for me to simply pursue Him and follow where He leads me? Unfortunately, that feels rather odd to a lot of people in our society today. But I’m with Billy Beane on this one.
I read a great post recently on the LIVESTRONG blog talking about how to be successful in achieving New Year’s resolutions. In the post, it states:
“Changing your body, losing weight, gaining muscle, quitting smoking—every goal you desire will be difficult to achieve. At some point, you’re going to hit a bump in the road, be confronted with a challenge, and begin to doubt your ability to make real, lasting change. When that happens, don’t ignore your frustration. Instead, acknowledge your anger. Channel your frustration and ask yourself one simple question: HOW BADLY DO I WANT THIS?”
While this article was aimed squarely at health and wellness goals, I saw a lot of application to my spiritual walk as well. Real, lasting change in the way I experience God is also difficult to achieve. And I will experience bumps in the road. I already have. Many times over. And it’s made me doubt whether I can really “get there”, whether I can successfully transform my life. Well, a great question for me to continually ask myself is the same one posed by this blogger.
HOW BADLY DO I WANT THIS?
My God wants this really bad. He wants nothing more than to be in close union with me. The only question is how much I want it. I have to be broken, desperate, at the point where there’s nothing I want more. Nothing I cherish more. Nothing I long for more than Him. That explains why I’ve failed so many times in the past. I wasn’t there. I didn’t want it. Not badly enough.
My prayer for today is that I can keep my priorities in line, that I can fuel my desires appropriately. That I can stay hungry and yearn for the closeness with Him that I’m pursuing. I want to have the right answer to the question. I don’t want to fail because I didn’t want it badly enough. Not this time.
We are a mediated society. There’s hardly a direct path to anything. There are always hoops to jump through, forms to fill out, strings that are attached. We can’t even directly approach the person we want to do business with. A few examples…
When you buy a car, you don’t get to haggle with the manager. You have to go through the salesman, who constantly runs back and forth until a mutually agreed upon price is reached.
When you call pretty much anyone in corporate America, you don’t get to talk directly to him or her. You get voicemail, or an operator or an assistant who has been trained and coached to not let anyone through.
If you find yourself in any sort of legal dispute, attorneys will be doing all the talking for you.
If you hole up inside a bank with hostages, you don’t get to talk directly to the people who can give you what you want. Instead, you end up with some guy who specializes in negotiation tactics.
You can’t even talk directly to the banker on that torturous game show Deal or No Deal. Howie has to broker the conversation.
Meanwhile, the Internet has created a collective consciousness where you don’t really need to have direct experiences with anyone or anything. You can simply Google it and add it to your vicarious knowledge bank.
With all of this connecting and facilitating going on, it can be easy to forget that approaching our God is no longer an activity that requires mediation. That hasn’t always been true, as the Lord states in Ezekiel 22:30.
So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one. Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads.
Before Jesus, connecting with God required mediation of some sort. It required sacrifices and offerings. It required someone standing in the gap between God and man. Jesus obviously came to be the constant connector so that we no longer would have to worry about the gap between ourselves and God. He erased the space between us.
And today, we are unencumbered to approach God. Yet, we get tangled. We create the illusion that we need assistance to approach God or that there are physical obstacles or expansive spaces between us and God. But really and truly, there is no mediator, go-between, intermediary, translator, negotiator, gate-keeper, facilitator, agent, bookie, broker or manager required for us to reach God. There’s no great wall or lake or river or moat or enormous valley or vast transom in our way. There’s nothing and no one that is a bridge that must be crossed in order to connect to our God.
Spiritual leaders can edify and fortify us, help us see more clearly and feel more deeply. But even the saints among us are not required for true, personal intimacy between a man and his God.
For the longest time, I was waiting for someone or something to negotiate on my behalf. To play matchmaker and set me up with God for a lunch where we can get to know each other. Someone to serve as a messenger to hear my grievances and report back on what God has to say about them. I didn’t fully appreciate the gap had been filled by my faith in Jesus. And that God was standing right in front of me. Patiently waiting to speak with me. Directly.
It’s been such a liberating experience going directly to God. With no one and nothing between what He wants to share with me. I don’t always fully get the message. And maybe a mediator could help me better understand what He’s saying and thus help me make fewer mistakes. But I prefer to embrace the uncertainty and confusion I sometimes feel, the great mysteries my mind can’t wrap itself around. Because there’s nothing quite like spending time directly with God.
A few days ago, I was playing with my two sons. It was a gorgeous afternoon. Sunshine and laughter. The type of scenario that begs for a camera to capture the memory, so that years later this beautiful day can be relived. And in the midst of this picture perfect moment, I was absolutely distracted. I had work on my mind. I was also thinking about how long it had been since I’d written anything for my blog. I was thinking about how stalled I felt in my relationship with God. I was mentally balancing our checkbook and stressing about financial security. And all the while, I was missing out.
In my inability to be present and engaged with my sons, I lost out on what should have been a really great time. In that moment, it shouldn’t have mattered what was next, what was wrong, what could happen. In that very moment, something really great was happening, and all I had to do was be present to experience it fully. It’s depressing to consider how many times my inability to be present has intruded upon and obstructed something God was trying to show me or share with me.
“You are always here. There is no there.”
Those profound words were shared by Jon Kabat-Zinn, a leading practitioner of mindfulness. He was addressing employees at Google’s headquarters at the time, guiding them through a workshop on meditation and mindfulness. He called for them to “inhabit now”. According to Kabat-Zinn, when we are trying to hard to solve a problem or to make sense of our circumstances, we sometimes just need to stop, to go beyond thinking and pushing and forcing our way to the solution. Just stop. Inhabit the moment. Be present.
I’ve had to stop myself a lot lately. When my journey to a closer relationship with God isn’t going as smoothly as I had hoped, when it isn’t progressing at a fast enough clip to satisfy my impatience, I find myself forcing the issue. Feeling a desperate frustration that drives me mad, the same way it feels when you’re late for something important and stuck in traffic on the interstate, bumper to bumper, and you feel trapped and you want to pull at your hair and act crazy just for a moment.
I have to remind myself to stop striving for the end result I’m after and be present. In Matthew 6:34 it says, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Yes, today has its own trouble to deal with, so don’t go borrowing trouble from tomorrow. But in addition to worry, today has its own power. Today, I can be in perfect union with God. Today, I can find refuge in God. Today, I can engage in a meaningful exchange with God. I can find truth, insight, hope, guidance, mercy. Even as I continue to work on being the man God wants me to be. Even as I wrestle with my idols, my wounds, my sins. Today, I can have peace. If I can be present.
Luke 17:21 says that, “the kingdom of God is within you.” In other words, you are always here. There is no there. All you need is to be present and to inhabit the moment.
For that again, is what all manner of religion essentially is: childish dependency – Albert Ellis
Ellis is considered to be more historically influential as a psychotherapist than Sigmund Freud. He was also a self-proclaimed atheist and for most of his career believed that religion created massive psychological strain on the people who bought into it. So obviously this was a brilliant, and brilliantly misguided, man.
But I have to say that the quote above is one that I resonate with completely. I also have to say that I am not writing this post to make myself feel better about missing church this morning without a good excuse.
In the United States, we blast off fireworks once a year (or for a month straight if you live in my neighborhood) in symbolic celebration of a violent struggle to claim our freedom and independence. But for the balance of the other 364 days a year, we’re constantly searching for crutches and distractions, vices, things we can lean on or depend on or believe in.
We think because we are stubborn and opinionated, that we are independent. But we’re not. As humans, we’re geared toward seeking affirmation and being included. Feeling like we belong. That everything is okay. Co-dependency is in our blood. Independence is hard. It’s counter-intuitive. Non-instinctual.
Many times, this childish dependency is thrust upon religion. It can get in the way of our relationship with God, just as easily as any other sin, vice or dependency can. That’s the irony. After all, religion is largely created by man. In Romans 10:3 it says of Israel, “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.”
I’m not calling for self-righteousness or isolationism, or suggesting we each create our own individual theologies. Not trying to detract from the value of corporate worship, spiritual structure and being part of a believer-based community. I’m just saying that we should seek independence and keep our minds and hearts free to bond directly with God, with mediation only occurring through Jesus and nothing else. That we not get entangled in the mechanism of religion because of the affirmation and inclusion given to us as a result of shared beliefs.
I know this is way too heavy for Sunday night reading. And I’m not even sure I’m clearly articulating what’s on my mind. But to try and state it much simpler, here’s a summary. As man, we’ve created a lot of pomp and circumstance to being in relationship with God. We’ve created long lists of rules and regulations. We’ve corporatized worship. We’ve mass marketed the Gospel. At the end of the day, we’ve made it very easy to get caught up in all the trappings of being a part of a church or being a part of a specific religious interest. We’ve come to rely, co-dependently, on that religious interest to do all our heavy lifting for us. We expect it to help us carve out our place in this world. We expect it to tell us what’s right, what’s wrong and what God wants for our lives. And many times, we let it get in the way of the personal relationship God wants to have with us.
It’s fascinating that Albert Ellis could get it so right while he was getting it so wrong. But then again, I suppose he’s not all that different than the rest of us in that way.
I forget a lot of things. Birthdays. Where I set my car keys. Speaking of, where did I set my car keys? The points of stories. Taking out the garbage. The capitol of North Dakota. The list goes on. I was reading a passage in Job tonight that struck a nerve, because it reminded me of a time when I forgot something a little bigger than all that. It reminded me of a time when I forgot God.
Job 8:13-22 – So are the paths of all who forget God; and the hope of the hypocrite shall perish, whose confidence shall be cut off, and whose trust is a spider’s web. He leans on his house, but it does not stand. He holds it fast, but it does not endure. He grows green in the sun, and his branches spread out in his garden. His roots wrap around the rock heap, and look for a place in the stones…
This passage ends by saying that if he is destroyed from his place, it will deny him, saying “I have not seen you,” and that this dwelling place of wicked will “come to nothing.”
This is a perfect compilation of the different issues I’ve grappled with the past few years. Shallow roots. Double-mindedness. Idolatry. Chains. Self-medication. Clinging to things that expire instead of things that are eternal. Basic wickedness, according to these verses.
Three short years ago, I had forgotten God. I had compartmentalized my relationship with Him, tucked it deep into a corner of mind and heart. I had gone numb to what grace and mercy really meant, completely ignoring the sacrifice of salvation. I wasn’t even aware enough to understand how hopelessly far away I had drifted from Him.
I remain so amazed and thankful that I have remembered God. That I’ve received glimpses of who He is and who He wants me to be. And yes, all the “wickedness” described in this passage is still the “wickedness” I battle on a daily basis. But as I’ve said many times before, I’m in pursuit now. I’m fighting now. And everyday, pass or fail on my attempts to be more Christ-like, I always succeed in one task. Remembering Him.
We were standing in a big circle around the pitcher’s mound. Just a few moments after finishing a competitive, if not overly athletic, game of church-league softball. As is customary in church-league softball, we ended with a prayer. This particular evening, we were specifically praying for a young man who had been arrested on child pornography charges and who was sitting in a jail cell on suicide watch while we played a silly game of pitch and catch.
It was a somber end to the evening. My heart was broken for this guy. I didn’t know him. Still don’t know his entire story. But it was so devastating and sad. One of the members of the team we had just finished playing led the prayer. And the way he started it really struck me. He acknowledged that God is “chasing us in ways we don’t even realize.” I’ll stop right there. I didn’t hear anything else he had to say. I’m sure the rest of his prayer was really elegant and theologically sound. But that picture he painted of God chasing us, chasing me, completely flooded over me.
I often think of it this way. God is always there, ready for a relationship with us. But we tend to run away or wander off. Or refuse to move closer to Him. Whatever our misguided path happens to be. And while it is very comforting to think about God patiently waiting for us, not moving, but holding firm and still, it is even more comforting to imagine Him actively pursuing us. All the while we are wandering or running, He is chasing us from behind, yearning to be closer to us and to be in closer relationship with us.
I pictured this young man, who obviously took a horribly wrong turn in his life. Who knows what the history or background or context is. The reason behind his actions. Whether he is remorseful. What exactly he did. Whether he knows Jesus. What a beautiful picture to imagine God racing toward him, chasing him, even as he sits in that cell, on the verge of total collapse. Even then, God is God, and God is actively and genuinely in pursuit of his heart.
I am praying for this young man tonight. Even as I write this. And I am praising God for his relentless pursuit of us. Of course, I could make it easier and stop running already. But in the meantime, it feels really good to think that God doesn’t just wait on me, but chases after me. No matter how terribly I veer off course. Chasing me in ways I don’t even realize.
As I climbed into my car, on the last day of a job I’ve held for 8 years, the radio jolted me. I had cranked it up on the way in this morning, jamming out so I could enter the office with some positive energy and not be sad about leaving or scared about going. After I adjusted the volume, I laughed. The song on the radio was by Michelle Branch. It’s called, “Are you happy now?”
I took it as a not so subtle reminder from God that it doesn’t really matter if I’m in my old job, my new job or yet another new job. My old house. My current house. A different house. On a beach. On a mountain. If I turn to the wrong source for my happiness, I’ll be left unsatisfied.
All along the way, the decision to take a new job was frightening for me. You are probably tired of reading about it at this point. And while I continue to believe that it will strengthen my faith by requiring me to trust God more, I think I’ve been putting too much emphasis on it in terms of how much it actually changes me. Of course it changes a lot in terms of my daily life. But it’s still a job. It is intended to pay the bills. It should not define me, or prevent me from being in relationship with God or investing in my family and friends. It has literally no impact on my happiness and my peace. The source for that remains the same.
When I got home, I spent some time with my wife and kids, and then I picked up The Naked Now by Richard Rohr. I’ve quoted this book before, but I had all but forgotten about it after it was buried beneath mail and magazines on our kitchen counter. I picked up where I left off many months ago, and wouldn’t you know it, the first two pages I read were focused on “change.” Rohr states that as individuals, and even as churches, we usually ignore things that require actual change of our lifestyle, security system or dualistic thought patterns and instead we emphasis intellectual beliefs and moral superiority stances that ask little of us. Rohr suggests that we naturally divert our attention from anything that “would ask you to change, to righteous causes that invariably ask others to change.”
I take all that to mean that one of my favorite, old-school, hip hop groups was right when they said, “You need to check yo self before you wreck yo self.” Who knew that they were laying down some philosophy at the same time they were calling for us all to shake our rumps?
Too often, I get caught up in addressing the superficial in my life. Moving furniture around. Determining better ways to pay bills. Trying to keep my backyard green. Trying to be successful at the office. Trying to find the perfect job. And I let changes in these areas, big and small, take precedence over spiritual concerns. Over the last month, I’ve been 110 percent consumed with the new job and all the emotions I described previously. It’s been unhealthy for my family time and even more so my spiritual walk. At the end of the day, I truly believe that God finds my place of employment largely irrelevant in terms of His relationship with me. I could change jobs a thousand times in a year, and God would have the same expectations and desires for my heart.
I’m in for a big year of change professionally. My new gig couldn’t be more different from my old one. But I’m more excited about the changes I expect to experience internally. Getting serious again about asking God what He has for me. The real change He wants for me that will lead to change in others.
When God says to me (or maybe sings to me, I don’t know): “Look me in the eyes, and tell me are you happy now?” I want to have a good answer for that.
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