Manly Moments with God

April 16, 2012 in Prayer, Relationship, Sin | Leave a comment

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.

We All Want the Why

April 4, 2012 in Purpose | Leave a comment

Com[Passion]

April 2, 2012 in Purpose | Leave a comment

Compassion. It’s a word I’ve been using lately. Misusing actually. I’ve been using it as a straight substitution for sympathy and empathy. A passive but heartfelt, “Oh, no I’m so sorry” attitude. I saw the word in writing last week, when it hit me.

Com [Passion]

PASSION is such a big part of that word. And passion is not a concept that you’d describe as being passive. It’s active and deep and positively aggressive. I’m seeing compassion in such a different way. Compassion requires you to empty yourself in order to fix the problem at hand. Not just feel bad about it or say that you can relate.

In this world, we are trained to have no compassion. To guard and protect our hearts. To look out for number one. When I was living in a big city, my co-workers and friends taught me how to march right through the homeless. It was an acquired skill. You never stop or even slow down. You definitely never, ever make eye contact. Don’t say “Sorry, not today.” Act as if they are not there. Just focus on the street ahead and walk with purpose. How horrible is that!

But that’s how a lot of us approach any conflict or pain that doesn’t squarely affect and involve us. We try to march through it. Pretend it’s not there as we power through. After all, we have our own stuff to deal with, so we can’t really spare what it would take to make an investment anyway. And it’s always so messy, uncomfortable and inconvenient to really go there.

So, we don’t proactively look for it.  Sometimes, we work around it and ignore its very presence, even when it is standing there tattered and torn reaching out to us, asking loudly for help.

On a recent trip to DC, I was compelled to shake off everything they taught me in the big city. On a stroll from the office to my hotel, I probably encountered 20 homeless people. I slowed down and talked to every one of them. I gave money while it lasted, although I didn’t have much cash. I told the others I was sorry that I couldn’t help today. It was a small way for me to commit to myself that I would start looking for others who might be hurting. Not in a, “So sorry to hear it” kind of way. But in a genuine, “I want to help you if I can” sort of way.

I just realized what I’m trying to practice is com[passion]. I definitely don’t have it mastered. I have lots of previous training to undo. But I’m quickly understanding from God that the fastest way to heal myself is to devote myself to helping heal others whenever possible. So, that’s what I’m trying to do. And likely what my next professional endeavor is about at some level. Still looking for clarity on that front!

Do You Suffer from TOFI?

March 27, 2012 in Sin | Tags: , | Leave a comment

There’s a fascinating medical reality facing many of us today called TOFI. Thin on the outside, fat on the inside. Scans have revealed that many people who have normal body weight are “carrying around hidden layers of fat. Stored up around vital organs, they can put outwardly healthy people at risk.” If that isn’t the perfect metaphor for many modern day Christians, I don’t know what is!

How many of us are walking around, looking all thin and healthy, while harboring affliction?

It reminds me of the passage from Matthew 23:25-26 – “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.”

Continuing in verse 27, Jesus describes them as whitewashed tombs. Beautiful on the outside but housing dead men’s bones and all uncleanliness.

The most obvious truth here is that in our hypocrisy we create stumbling blocks for others who are outwardly in pain. We create and maintain the illusion that we are a-ok, that we’ve got our stuff together. This creates a horribly unsafe and unwelcoming environment.

But our hypocrisy also damages us as well. We walk around in denial. We look fine. Others tell us we’re “righteous” or that we’ve got it all together. While on the inside, we are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanliness.” We’re obese in our own sin, placing our spiritual health in jeopardy.

I encourage you, as I’m encouraging myself. Stop the hypocrisy and step into the light. Let people in. Be transparent. Be real. Be healed.

Blowing it Up

March 23, 2012 in Obedience | 2 comments

Two days ago, I finally hit my breaking point. I wanted something. I wanted guidance. I wanted clarity. So, I asked God for it. I asked specifically for specificity. I asked clearly for clarity.

I pleaded with God to show me at least the next step in His plan, to help me not feel like I was wandering around in circles. I asked for what all Christians ask for at one point or another. I asked for a sign.

A few hours later, I got a fairly random request from my neighbors next door. They were selling a car, and some guy responded to their Craigslist ad wanting to test drive it at 9:30 at night. The husband wanted me to ride along, just to help ease his mind about this sketchy fellow. As I was standing in their kitchen talking to them, I mentioned how I was feeling about my journey. The husband quoted a verse that had always spoken to him about the righteous living by faith. His wife told me how when the husband was in a similar place, he moved on by quitting his job. She looked at me like she knew I was waiting for someone to deliver specific wisdom. She said, “Sometimes, you just have to take that next step. That’s what God wants. And when you do that, He’ll make sense of it all.”

In the end, the guy never showed up to drive the car. And it wasn’t until I woke up the next morning that the words of my neighbor struck me. And I thought, “Was that God trying to communicate?”

I shook it off. Drove into downtown for a meeting at a coffee shop. Logged into my email and stumbled upon a column in the Washington Post by Carolyn Hax. Carolyn was answering reader questions. The first question was from a guy  who was checking in with a midlife crisis, saying he was tempted to blow up his life and go sell t-shirts in Tahiti or something like that. But, of course, he was feeling conflicted about blowing up his life and moving to Tahiti.

Carolyn responded by suggesting he finish this sentence: “The real reason I’m not ‘blowing it all up’ is that I actually like ____________.” She offered suggestions like “paying the bills” or “being safe and secure.” She also said he needed to recognize if he was standing in his own way.

To admit if he was staying with his current job because he was telling himself he couldn’t afford to quit it. But really using that as an excuse because he was afraid to try something new.

She said that when you acknowledge your choices and why you’re making them, you can do one of two things. Embrace them. Or change them.

I naturally linked this article with the words from my neighbor. And for a moment, I felt like God might be reinforcing what she had told me. But then I thought to myself, “No, this isn’t what I think it is.” I thought, “I sorta need to hear it one more time.” The whole things come in three’s theory.

Less than five minutes later, I found myself eavesdropping on a conversation two guys were having in the coffee shop. I shouldn’t have been able to make out anything they were saying. They were at the other end of the store. But it was as if I were standing next to them participating.

One guy says to the other, “Is today your last day? Are you packed up and ready?” The other guy responds and explains that tomorrow is actually his last day at his job. He then starts talking about how worried and stressed he is about it. How he’s spending six months on “the trail” and how there will be bears and snakes and other dangerous wild animals. How he’ll probably lose 20-30 pounds in the first month or two. How every 7 days or so, he’ll pass a town or gas station or something but in between it’ll just be wilderness. But what a great adventure.

As crazy as it sounds, I feel like the message was reinforced again. A message that doesn’t make any rational or logical sense at all. I’ve been trying to discern where God is leading me so I can follow, but is God asking me to follow first? I’d love to get some affirmation from some objective third parties. If you’re out there, reading this, and you feel like you can validate or contradict what I think I’m hearing, I’d love to hear from you. Does this seem like actual communication from God? Or am I over-analyzing things and trying to connect unrelated events to force clarity? Should I just chill out and be patient? Cool my jets? Or should I blow it all up?

Should I quit my job?

I Am Not the Same

March 21, 2012 in Journey | Leave a comment

Wanted to share these lyrics with you. They are from the song I Am Not the Same by Aaron Keyes.

Just heard it for the first time. This song sums up how I feel about where I’ve been and where I’m going.

Great message!

You restored the wasted years
You build the broken walls
Your love replaces fear
Your mercy makes us whole

Adopted healed and lifted

CHORUS
I am not the same Iʼm a new creation
I am not the same anymore
I am not ashamed I will not be shaken
I am not the same anymore

I bow before your cross, A broken life made new
Amazed at all You are, And who I am in You
Adopted healed and lifted
Forgiven found and rescued

BRIDGE
You have overcome, it is finished, it is done
Now my heart is finally free
Every chain undone, by the power of the Son
Risen Saviour, Reigning King

Hard Habits to Break

March 20, 2012 in Sin | Leave a comment

One of my favorite songs growing up was “Hard Habit to Break” by Chicago. I would stand at the edge of my driveway, awaiting the school bus, and belt out the first verse and chorus as if I thought I could really sing. The bus always came before I could get to the second verse, which I’m sure the neighbors fully appreciated. I did this everyday for a while. It became, ironically, a habit to sing that song each morning. I didn’t even notice I was doing it.

Fast forward several decades, and I’m still spending the majority of my time completely unaware of habits and the power they hold in my daily life. Completely disregarding the patterns that trap me daily and frustrate me as I try to walk more closely with God.

I recently discovered a book on this subject by Charles Duhigg, a reporter for the New York Times, called The Power of Habit. Duhigg quotes research from Duke University showing that more than 40 percent of the actions people perform each day were habits, not conscious decisions. He calls this alarming because we are thinking less when we’re in habit mode. “Our neurological activity literally decreases as the habit unfolds. That’s why the behavior feels so automatic, almost unconscious.”

The good news, according to Duhigg is that habits can be “ignored, changed or replaced.” And that understanding the structure of habits makes them easier to control. He lays out the structure of the habit loop: Cue. Response. Reward. Basically, there’s something that incites the habit into action. Then there’s our trained response to the stimulus. And finally, there’s the payoff. Whatever it is that we find rewarding about the behavior in question.

It’s interesting to break down the cycle in this way, because I typically go right to the behavior or habit itself and try to attack it head on. I don’t spend enough time understanding what the “reward” is for me, or just as importantly what provokes me, or triggers me to fall into the habit in the first place.

The second wrong turn I take when dealing with bad habits is that I try to remove them from the equation. I try to avoid them. Alter my course. I go the route of Clockwork Orange and try to torture them out of my being and rewire my brain to cause me physical pain at the mere thought of them. I have heard countless times from a variety of experts that it’s not enough to try and remove a negative.

Instead, you have to fill the space it occupies with a positive. You have to find something to replace it. This makes sense. The habit is somehow filling a void, providing some type of reward. Filling that need in a fruitful and appropriate way is the only path forward.

In the end, my natural tendency to jump straight to the response with no regard to the stimulus,  and then self-administer aversion therapy to prevent actions from repeating themselves, typically gets me nowhere.  But that’s yet another hard habit I’m trying to break.

Abandoned

March 13, 2012 in Journey | Leave a comment

Abandoned.

Not banished.

Or sentenced to solitary confinement.

Just left alone when you are in your greatest hour of need.

Empty inside. Miles separating you from the world around you.

Abandoned.

It’s a cold, lonely word. It suits the condition it describes quite well. You’re left to deal with reality on your own. The person, people, things that you trusted have all but evaporated. They didn’t storm out, or even announce their departure. You open your eyes, and they are just not there.

And so you sit in desolation, a wasteland around you. Not knowing where to turn. Whether to scream, or cry and so you sadly sit there, huddled in a ball, trying to breathe, trying not to think, trying to sleep until it doesn’t hurt any longer. You feel hopeless, betrayed, neglected…you feel…abandoned.

Deep down you know it isn’t fair; it isn’t right. You know it doesn’t really define you. But you won’t let yourself believe all that. Your mind needs it all to make rational, logical sense. You won’t admit how you feel. That would just make you weird or weak on top of everything else. And you don’t need to feel worse about yourself.

So you just pack it down inside of you and force a brave smile. Longing for the day when you grow numb and possibly don’t even remember how this felt. Questions bubble up in your head, but your mouth pops them before they make it out.  It’s hard for you to trust. To feel stable. To depend on others. To let them in. Isolation is the offspring of abandonment.

It’s also hard to keep things in perspective. To seek the lessons you are supposed to learn from all this. To positively respond to it. To make good out of it.

Abandoned.

That’s the word I’ve been searching for, the internal condition I’ve been trying to describe. For a while now, I have been calling my wound a need for affirmation. While that’s true, I needed to peel back the onion one more layer. The need for affirmation… What is that and where is it coming from? In my case, I’ve just realized, it’s abandonment. Just the sound of that word in the air is like a live grenade for me right now. It shakes me at my core, exploding through walls that have been in place forever, exposing a core challenge I never really knew was dwelling beneath the surface.

There have been several times in my life since childhood when I’ve felt abandoned. Not physically. But emotionally. And spiritually. Those wounds have festered for the longest time. And they have left an ugly, decimated legacy.

I read this quote last week on a site (abandoned.ru) that features photographs of abandoned buildings and thought it was both fascinating and poetic:

Future is waiting for us. With hollow skeletons
or downsized ugly creatures with bulgy eyes – it’s not important.
Important thing is that there will be a footprint left.
Footprint of civilization. Cement, metal and dust not claimed by anyone.

They are eternity.

The site’s author goes on to say that,”We’re not that different from abandoned things. The Abandoned have some sort of a strong and complicated connection with our souls; some people get scared and try to escape their impressions, some fight with them and try to destroy or rebuild or just leave their own footprint on the abandoned site to prove that they’re stronger than this world. And some do not try to do anything – they just look and listen to the Abandoned, enjoying those impressions, feeling the real meaning of time. I am one of them.”

I’ve been abandoned. We all have at some point in our lives. Some of us get scared and try to escape the memories or the feelings. Some fight and try to prove they are strong enough to power through it. And some don’t do anything at all. In denial, they just smile and admire the view.

I’ve become overly positive about my past pains recently. I’ve become slightly obsessed with finally laying it all at the feet of my God and having Him guide me on how to best use it for good. How to heal myself. How to help others. How to build a healthier relationship with Him. How to turn my abandonment from an eyesore or a statue of a failed and broken man into a monument of redemption and a signpost for the path forward.

Abandoned.

A word I won’t mind leaving behind.

They are eternity.

I Hate Running

March 12, 2012 in Journey, Sin | Leave a comment

I hate running. Turn me loose on a basketball court, baseball field or any other venue where there’s a ball and competition, and I’ll stay in perpetual motion for hours. Ask me to lace up my running shoes and take a jog, and I’m sucking wind by the time I pass my own mailbox. I hate running.

I may hate it so much because there’s nothing to distract me from the intense burning in my lungs and the pointlessness I feel when I’m running just to run. Or I may hate it so much because I’ve been doing it for so long. For 25 years, that was pretty much my thing. Run. Run. Run. Like Forest Gump, I just couldn’t stop. Running from mistakes I’ve made, bad things that have happened to me, wounds that I’ve endured. I’ve tried to outrun sin. Sprinting, trying to make stuff happen. I’ve just been running. Exerting effort. Trying to distance myself from the past. Trying to race toward some future I’ve created in my mind.

God asks us ALL THE TIME throughout the Bible to stop running. To “be still.”

Why does He repeat this so often? Because He knows we need the practice. If you have kids, ponder the following. Have you ever asked your child to be quiet and still when you’re…

  • In church
  • At karate class
  • In a library
  • Talking on the phone
  • Sitting with a friend
  • Driving in a car
  • Stressed out

How many times have they listened the first time you asked? Or the second? Never? That’s what I thought. If you don’t have kids, just look around the next time you’re in a restaurant or another public place and laugh as parents try in vain to silence and contain their little bundles of joy. The harder they try, the more chaos ensues.

But running is pointless. Says so right in the Bible.

Isaiah 30:15-17 (with commentary and translation sprinkled in)

In returning and rest, you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength….

God has it covered. There’s no need to run. I just need to be still. 

But you would not, and you said, “No we will flee on horses.”

Sorry, gotta run! It’s kinda my thing.

…those who pursue you shall be swift!

I can’t outrun my enemies, my wounds, my temptations. They are always just a step behind, pushing me. I will never get relief.

…you shall flee, till you are left as a pole on top of a mountain and as a banner on a hill.

I won’t know when to stop. After a while, they’ll just stop chasing me because they don’t have to any longer. My head will down, my iPod cranked up and I won’t even be looking over my shoulder. Just running as far and as fast as I can. Until I finally stop, and look around. Lost and alone in the middle of nowhere.

But then in verse 18, it provides a picture of how God will respond. Even after I say no, no, no, no and kick and scream and run around all hopped up like a crazed toddler who has had too much ice cream. It says: The Lord will wait that He may be gracious to you.

He’s right there waiting. When I finally stop running, and I realize I’m a banner on a lonely hill, so far away from where I was headed. He’s right there. Probably smirking. Hoping that I notice and fully appreciate the irony of how quiet and still it is.

I hate running.

Chew on This

March 9, 2012 in Faith | Leave a comment

I was given this verse to ponder over the next several months. Actually to “chew on” and to sit with for the next few months. Thought I’d share it with you as well. It’s rather perfect for where I am right now.

Isaiah 50: 10

Who among you fears the Lord? Who obeys the voice of His Servant? Who walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon his God.

And then, verse 11

Look all you who kindle a fire, who encircle yourselves with sparks: Walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks you have kindled. This you shall have from My hand: You shall lie down in torment.

In my current season of life, the temptation is to light as many fires as I can, struggling to gain clarity by my own actions. Trying to light my own path, instead of walking in the darkness and trusting the hand of God to lead me. It’s hard to relinquish control and rest in Him. For me, it often feels impossible.

I’m chewing!

Areas of Interest

Past Stops on the Journey

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