Awareness vs. Acceptance

June 18, 2012 in Journey | Leave a comment

I came across a passage tonight, Luke 18:14, which basically says,

“If you’re content with simply being yourself, you will become more than yourself.” 

I had to read that about half a dozen times. It hit me like a truck. Bingo. One of my biggest problems. I’m so preoccupied with “being more” or “doing more”, with overcoming mistakes I’ve made, with trying to transform myself based on this newfound awareness I have.

This verse was quoted in a book by Dr. David Benner called “The Gift of Being Yourself.” Dr. Benner goes on to argue that we can’t really give up something until we possess it. He says that”before we can become ourself we must accept ourself, just as we are.” That self-acceptance always precedes genuine self-surrender and self-transformation.

I’ve been feeling good about myself because I’ve become so self-aware.  I’ve been waiting impatiently for the transformation that I thought would come because I’ve “figured so much out” about myself this past year.

But self-awareness is a far cry from self-acceptance. And let me tell you, I have a ways to go on the acceptance front. Or at least that’s what I’m realizing.

So, first comes awareness, then acceptance of what you’ve learned, then surrender of yourself so that you can be transformed. How ironic that all I have to do to achieve a greater purpose tomorrow is to simply be okay with who I am today.

For the moment, I’ll have to settle for accepting the fact that I wasn’t aware of how much work was still ahead of me in my “transformation.” At least I now understand what might have been stunting my growth and stagnating my progress the last few months.

Feeling the Panic

June 3, 2012 in Faith, Journey | Leave a comment

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.

Kick Me While I’m Down

May 23, 2012 in Journey, Relationship | Leave a comment

I opened my eyes to a sideways view of the sidewalk. My temple pulsing, my head fuzzy as if my brain was thick with static cling. It’s a very weird thing to wake up when you didn’t even realize you were unconscious. Moments before the queasiness had set in as my dad and I were waiting on a takeout order. I quietly stepped outside for fresh air. I felt dizzy and light headed and then, BAM. I was down and out.

A few days later, I was finally released from the hospital, with a clean bill of health. Evidently I have the heart rate of an elite athlete, which means it is really low. The good news is I’m in good shape, and that at the rate I’m using my heart, it should be good for another 300 years or so. The bad news is that when your heart beats as slowly as mine does, you’re a small dip away from a black out. It’s never happened before, and the doctors said it was quite possible I’d never experience it again. But now I know the feeling, so if there is a next time, I can at least cushion my fall.

I’ll be honest. I’m getting a bit frustrated with my current situation. I was already in the midst of wrestling with some of my most personal demons. I was already grappling with the pending loss of my job and the uncertain future ahead. I was already trying to stay alert and clearly hear what God has to say to me in this time of “crisis” so that I’m obedient and follow the path He has for me in all of this. And then BAM. I wake up on the sidewalk and spend the weekend getting poked, prodded and probed as if I were in alien hands.

Kind of feels like I’m being kicked while I’m down. Or more accurately, being put down after getting kicked several times. I’m remaining open to what God wants to show me in all this. How all the pieces are connected. In the meantime, I guess I just have to roll with the punches…and the kicks…and the sidewalks that come my way.

Small Steps

May 16, 2012 in Journey | Leave a comment

Research (such as The Power of Small Wins that ran in Harvard Business Review May, 2011) shows that people who make progress every day toward something they care about (even small steps toward it) report being satisfied and fulfilled.

That is not me. I wish I could report being satisfied and fulfilled by small wins. But it’s not cutting it for me lately. It’s so hard to satiate my desire for clarity and the full articulation of my purpose. As I’m sitting here, trying to figure out the next step in my career, staring at multiple forks in the road, I wish I felt freedom and liberation instead of frustration and paralysis. But instead of having a sense of direction, I am stymied. Stuck. Pent up. UGH!

I want to take another step, because you never know when the next small step changes everything. But there have been so many small steps lately that seem to only lead to another small step. Is that part of the plan, or have I just been missing the opportunities for big leaps? Or, am I just missing the significance of the steps I’m taking and how meaningful these smalls wins really are?

In any event, I keep waiting. Inching along. I have severe writer’s block at the moment, which is preventing me from working on my book, despite the fact that I now have some free time to dedicate to it and have a much clearer picture of how it needs to unfold. I have some professional opportunities lining up, but most do not feel at all like the direction I’m being called to go. It is a draining place to be dwelling.

I honestly need a respite from the small steps. I just need to mix in a hop, skip or a jump. Praying for something to happen that sparks the flame and ignites the passion that is building up inside with no appropriate outlet. Praying for that to happen quickly!

An Imminent Invasion

May 11, 2012 in Faith, Journey | Leave a comment

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.

What Do You Want Most?

May 9, 2012 in Journey | Leave a comment

Here’s a tremendously insightful question from Dan Allender’s book, To Be Told. I’m asking myself this daily right now. My response has great implications for the success of my journey. How would you answer it?

What do you want most:

God or the hollow peace of your own control?

Somebody I Used to Know

May 6, 2012 in Faith, Sin | 2 comments

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.

Getting Clean, Getting Grace

April 30, 2012 in Faith | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

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.

Staying Awake

April 26, 2012 in Journey, Obedience | Leave a comment

This is officially my 200th post to this blog. It’s been very helpful and fulfilling for me to have this outlet to share my thoughts, and in many ways to process my thoughts out in the open. And to have a record of how I’ve progressed in my understanding of what God’s plan for my life looks like. For those of you following along at home, I thank you. And hope that in some small way, something I’ve discussed has been meaningful in your spiritual walk as well.

Today, I want to talk about staying awake, alive and in the moment when pursuing God. It’s been something I’ve battled the last few years, and you can see evidence by flipping back through the 200 posts on this blog. You’ll see seasons where I’ve written regularly and been very much alert in my spiritual walk. You’ll also notice times when the well was dry and it appeared that I had closed up shop.

Early on in this journey, I read a book about living wide awake. It’s stuck with me. What I’ve come to realize is that living wide awake requires me to do a few things.

#1 – Wake Up

This happened for me a while back. The initial wake up call that jolted me into action. The mini epiphanies I’ve been having since that moment that open my eyes to new insights. Opening myself to the truths that God has for me and receiving them. For each day to start, you literally have to physically and mentally wake up! In a spiritual sense, that requires a desire to see God. 

#2 – Get Up

There can be quite an expansive space between waking up and actually getting up. My wife and I can vouch for that with our morning routine. It’s not uncommon for the alarm to blare, and the kids to climb the bed while we both fight to stay beneath the covers with our eyes closed for another 5 precious minutes. This can go on for quite a while. Same goes for my spiritual pursuits. Just because I’ve opened my eyes from a desire to see God, doesn’t mean I’ll get there. It requires motivation to take initiative and get on my feet.

#3 Stay Up

I always have grand expectations and intentions for my evenings, once work is done and the kids are in bed. Oh, the writing I will do! Oh, the things I will accomplish! But lately, what happens a lot is that I’ll pass out on the couch at 9:30 pm watching American Idol on DVR. I remember laughing at my grandfather as a child, because he would always pass out the instant he would sit down in his recliner, no matter what time of day/night it was. But it’s easy to be physically, mentally, spiritually exhausted. To be beaten down by life, circumstances, trials. Truly living wide awake requires  perseverance to stay alert when the only thing I want to do is close my eyes and check out.

In my spiritual journey, there have been many instances when I didn’t possess the appropriate desire to see God. Or when I didn’t possess the approrpiate motivation to pursue him. Or when I was just too exhausted or tired or lazy to persevere and stay on fire for Him.

There’s a Japanese Proverb that I love which says, “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” That’s my approach to my journey. Fall asleep seven times, wake up eight!

Instant Gratification vs. Intimacy with God

April 18, 2012 in Faith, Journey | Leave a comment

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.

Areas of Interest

Past Stops on the Journey

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