The Problem of Shooting at Your Foot, Hoping You’ll Miss, and Other Interesting Ways to Avoid Pain

by studio98 | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

Keith, I’ve been secretly wondering if I’m a real nut case—I’m highly motivated to do well and be a good Christian—but I resist doing things that are difficult and or will take a lot of time—even if the payoff for me will be great. I don’t tell anyone about this problem because my vocation involves complex and time consuming research and writing—which I love but which I put off and put off until I miss a deadline. Am I alone with this problem?

I don’t know how many others have this problem, but I sure do. I may wake up feeling very uneasy with a strong urge to “escape.” Suddenly, I sit up in bed, wondering, “What’s the matter with you?” As I reflect on our family life and my job, I realize that things are really going very well. We’re all healthy and have enough to eat, and no major problems are undermining the comfort of our life together. I am in the midst of writing a book. But I have the feeling that it is dull and no one will read it—or if they do, they will think I am naïve. So I will have to go through the agony of reworking the manuscript again to try to reproduce in writing the pictures which I see in my mind. And this is very difficult for me.

At this point I saw my problem. For some reason I was trying to avoid writing, the very thing I love to do. Why? As I thought back over my life, I realized that I have often avoided things I really wanted to do, just because they were difficult. I remember as a skinny little boy wanting to have a well proportioned physique. But I would do almost anything, including feigning sickness on occasion, to avoid heavy muscle-building work around our yard. I love to learn, and yet in school I avoided studying for exams as long as possible.

I said here, last week, that later, as an adult, I strongly resisted the notion of committing my life to God—for many years. Although I was strongly attracted to the idea and suspected that it was the better way, the suggestion of “total commitment” made me angry and was repelling. Such a commitment would no doubt fill my life with difficulties and force me to examine my true motivations at every turn. I was convinced that I would have to give up the normal joys and goals of living.

Throughout my life a strong desire has often forced me to overcome my resistance and try the more difficult thing: to begin doing the calisthenics, work, study in school, and finally, to become a Christian. In each case, when I chose what appeared to be the difficult course, I learned a strange truth about life: often the difficulties were actually the doorways to growth and fulfillment. Yet, I have spent much of my life, both before and after becoming a Christian, unconsciously avoiding painful and uncomfortable situations.

I realized this morning that most of the insights that have been of value to me in relating to other people were distilled from my own difficulties and pain in trying to wrestle with the problems of life. Some of these things—the conflict with loved ones, the blundering mistakes in trying to learn to pray at home—some of these seemed funny when I wrote or told about them in retrospect. But at the time I was facing the situations they were difficult, agonizing encounters from which I wanted to run—and often did.

I cannot recall a single person who has been of real help to me in learning to cope with life who has not personally faced some great difficulties or suffering in his or her own experience, even though he or she may have seemed profoundly positive and joyful.

The second thought that struck me was that the experience we call “joy” does not usually come from the trouble-free and effortless periods of life. Rather, joy seems to be distilled from a strange mixture of challenge, risk, and hope. And as I have met in groups with other uncertain Christians to share the difficulties in our families, vocations, and relations with other people and God, the effect has often been one of deep joy and insight into life—even though the difficulties themselves may not have been overcome.

But if this is true, then I should not run from the risk of difficulty and responsibility as I have done so often. I should quit trying to avoid necessary hard tasks but instead thank God for them. Because these things seem to provide the main doorways to character and firsthand knowledge about life. (I am not saying that one should go out looking for personal pain and difficulties. This tendency can be a mental sickness called masochism. It has been my experience, however, that one will find plenty of problems and pain to face just trying to do God’s will.)

My restlessness this morning must have been because I did not want to face the difficulty of writing these pages to you. But doing it has brought a great sense of peace about today. And I hope that for the rest of the day I will spend less time running from the tasks and problems that may lead me to life and wholeness.

People then should rejoice in suffering, strange as it sounds, for this is a sign of the availability of energy to transform their characters. Suffering is nature’s way of indicating a mistaken attitude or way of behavior, and… to the non-egocentric person every moment of suffering is the opportunity for growth.  Rollo May, The Art of Counseling

Where there is no strife there is decay: “The mixture which is not shaken decomposes.”

Heraclitus, As quoted in The Story of Philosophy

Father, thank You that Your Holy Spirit seems to use my hours of conflict and suffering as “teachable moments” in my life. Help me to distill from difficulties a way of living that is whole and gutsy and does not sugarcoat reality. Give me the grace not to reject those Christians whose circumstances have been such that they claim they have never personally faced fear of failure and the frustration of suffering through something difficult. Thank You that Your presence with me in my weakness often brings endurance and hope.

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.  Romans 5:3-5

Fear of Being Changed into Someone Who Is Not “Me”

by studio98 | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

Keith, you seem to be writing a lot about the importance of surrendering your entire life to God. I have some fear about trusting God that much. Were you afraid to really turn loose? What’s the real skinny on actually deciding to?

P.S. And also, can you guide me to other writers who have helped you regarding the idea of surrender?

The simple answer is “yes,” only I wasn’t just a little afraid to surrender totally. I wasn’t sure it would even be safe to. I had started my real Christian adventure by committing “as much of my life as I could to as much of God as I could understand.” That commitment allowed me to come out of the spectator section onto the playing field and become a “visible” serious Christian. But when I first heard that God was calling me to “surrender my whole life” to him, I was very fearful. I had been baptized and confirmed and made some serious commitments and changes in my disciplines, behavior and attitude.

But there were some problems. People in my close relationships seemed to think I was controlling them (while I thought they were trying to control me.) And certain things plagued my intimate relationships, arguing with my spouse about some of the parameters of our most intimate life (ego, money, sex, and who’s really in charge here). Whatever the issues, I had an inordinate need to be declared “right,” even in arguments about who said what, etc.

I could not surrender to God because that meant I might have to acknowledge my self-centeredness and quit trying to make sure I always turned out to be the “good guy”—or that I might have to quit thinking some clearly un-Christian thoughts that occupied a lot of my time. Although I managed to change enough habits and behaviors that were very important and made me more vulnerable than I’d ever been, I just wasn’t willing to risk trusting God with my whole life that much—in a blank check sort of way. I didn’t trust that God would work the above issues out in ways that would make me happy or allow me to do well in a competitive world. This wasn’t all conscious, but I now can see it was very real and confining. So I just muddled along, experiencing a lot of anger and rejection in my most personal relationships—and ironically, honestly helping a lot of people.

But finally, in a treatment center, the pain got big enough to drive me to the end of my rope because of the threat of losing my family’s love and respect altogether. That put me in a position of powerlessness. I saw that with all I’d learned during my studies in theology and psychology, I couldn’t make anyone forgive me nor love me. At that point I finally really surrendered everything to God. I stepped through the portal of fear-filled pain in me and awareness that I was powerless to change my family’s opinion of me. And I simply surrendered my entire life (including the future) to God.

What has happened since that time has not been easy, but the sense of peace and the new perspective on just about everything has surprised me beyond anything I can describe to you.

I saw that God doesn’t evidently want me to spend all my energy focusing on “being good” or being “more religious,” but rather to focus on trusting and loving God, facing my denied selfish habits and learning how to be real and loving toward the people in all the different everyday areas of my life. But I now realize that I couldn’t possibly have kept all the rules, perfectly, or the disciplines, or loved perfectly—without a lot of denial and rationalization. I finally had to admit that in spite of all my determination and ability, I am powerless to transform myself into what I thought God wanted me to be.

About that time I was told that the faith that can transform our lives is not religious but “spiritual.” Whereas a religious person wants to know how to do the religious behaviors and disciplines and services that the religion prescribes, a spiritual person (particularly one who is committed to the God Jesus called Father) wants to know and do what’s real and loving in and outside of any church with which one affiliates. I finally got it that if an individual person is being the person he or she was made to be, that person will no longer focus his or her life on ‘goodness’, but rather on being authentic and trusting, while loving God and loving and helping other people become all they can be under God.

That was when I began to understand why I hadn’t been able to “give up” and surrender to God. In grad school I had learned from psychologists that everyone has several basic ‘drives’ that guide us to the things we need in order to survive: hunger, thirst, sex, autonomy, power, closeness, etc. But in our fear of not getting all we need, we have twisted these normal and natural instincts and exaggerated them to make sure we get what we decide we want (are entitled to)—based on what we are taught by our materialistic culture that we “deserve” if we are willing to work hard enough for them.

So I discovered that if I want to be the person God evidently designed me to become, I have to try to surrender my entire life to God, and then face my compulsively exaggerated and twisted focus on some of those basic instincts, and then confess the ways I have hurt and used other people in my life by using anger and subtle manipulation to get more than my share of money, possessions, prestige, sex etc., And as I saw these unacceptable facts and events in my life, I learned to make amends. When I tried to do these things, my worship and trust of God felt natural, and strengthening. (See Matt 5:23-24)

Now when I go through the daily process of facing, confessing, and making amends for my harmful actions toward God and the other people hurt by these self-enhancing behaviors, then the instincts and need to be right usually shrink toward being normal sized. And my experience over a number of years indicates that God will not try to make me into a super-pious saint. But instead, God is gradually allowing me to feel at home in my own skin and enjoy using and sharing the gifts and abilities he has given me to help other people to move toward becoming all they can be as God’s children. And most of the time I’m not afraid of getting old and all the shriveling that involves, (although it’s true that women don’t give me a second look any more (except maybe to see if I’m going to make it across the street safely). And that tells me that I’m not exactly “ruby-lipped and 22. But I am happy, really happy, and in love with my wife, Andrea. And I know that deciding to surrender my whole life to God was the biggest step on this leg of the adventure in loving we’re on.

And I’m still fascinated and passionate about learning all I can concerning God as God is revealed in Jesus, and about living that kind of loving.

Thanks for asking.

God, forgive my frightened stubborn avoidance of surrendering my life and my will. Help me to surrender this day and just trust you. Teach me how to love you more, and how to love other people and help them become what you made them to be. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

“When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear.” 1 Jn 4:17 (THE MESSAGE)

P.S. The following are a few statements of faith from people whose writing has helped me along the way in looking for the courage to surrender:

“If then, thou desirest to obtain freedom and grace, freely to offer thyself into the hands of God is the first essential. The reason why so few attain to inward light and freedom is because they cannot endure wholly to deny themselves. ‘My words remain unalterable: Unless a man forsake all he cannot be my disciple. If therefore thou desire to be my disciple offer thyself unto me with thy whole heart.’ “ Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, p. 253.

“Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.” Blaise Pascal, Penses, p. 78.

“But conversion is not realizing that it is possible. It is a conscious submitting of all we see of ourselves to all we understand of God. The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.” Blaise Pascal, Penses, p. 79

A prayer to enter the deeper life: “Lord Jesus, I believe that thou art able and willing to deliver me from all the care and unrest and bondage of my Christian life. I believe thou didst die to set me free, not only in the future but now and here. I believe thou art stronger than sin, and that thou canst keep me, even me, in my extreme of weakness, from falling into its snares or yielding obedience to its commands. And, Lord, I am going to trust thee to keep me. I have tried keeping myself, and have failed, and failed most grievously. I am absolutely helpless. So now I will trust thee. I give myself to thee. I keep back no reserves. Body, soul, and spirit, I present myself to thee as a piece of clay, to be fashioned into anything thy love and thy wisdom shall choose. And now I am thine. I believe thou dost accept that which I present to thee; I believe that this poor, weak, foolish heart has been taken possession of by thee, and that thou hast even at this very moment begun to work in me to will and to do of thy good pleasure. I trust thee utterly, and I trust thee now.” Hanna Whitehall Smith: The Christian’s Secret to a Happy Life, p. 54

“Here in this inner region, in this root of man’s being, he [God] is still subduing his enemies, he is conducting his mysterious education.” F.D. Maurice quoted by H. Richard Niebuhr, Christian Culture, p. 228.

(The following is a thought I jotted down while reading Alfred North Whitehead’s Adventure of Ideas.)

Looking out on a clear beautiful day one would assume the only light in the sky was the sun, but wait for night and you will see the stars—which could not be seen at first because of the brilliance of the first light you saw. To see the beauty in the heavens we must look further—maybe a deeper conversion, a deeper life for us all. J.K.M.

The Short, Unusual Witness of Bennie Abernathy

by studio98 | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

Keith, the heroes in the Bible seemed to have much more vivid encounters with God than I do. I’ve been wondering what it might be like to have an encounter with the living Lord. And if I did, would anyone believe me? How would I tell if it was real?

Good question. Some years ago, not long after I had made a decision as an adult to commit my life to God, I was thinking of how little we know about communication. I tried to imagine the live television pictures from the moon hitting my brain with pinpoint accuracy after traveling untold thousands of miles through the fantastic speeds of the earth’s and moon’s orbits and their joint travel around the sun. This kind of communication is more than my father could have even imagined. As a matter of fact, I remember seeing a demonstration with him of the first live television equipment at a university exhibit when I was a boy. I overheard people saying that television was interesting but would never be feasible, because it could only transmit a stationary picture for a few feet.

Just now I thought about the intimate experience I am having as I communicate with you through this book in your mind, perhaps across thousands of miles . . . conceivably over years of time. And yet even if I am dead when you read this, my living mind is meeting yours, and we are sharing to some degree the communication I am experiencing as I write. It is eerie, but it is true.

We may be just beginning to learn about the transmission of information between persons and between God and people. If God is personal in nature and we are to pray, “Our Father . . .” as Christ suggested (Matthew 6:9), then we should expect some sort of response in meaningful terms. It may be that our ability to tune in to God’s frequency is blocked by our own self-centered absorption. Perhaps our sin is like “filling our receiving screens with snow.” Yet occasionally people get very clear “pictures” of God’s answer to a prayer in terms of a meaningful word or image. And whether the contact was actually with God or not, sometimes the depth of the experience carries with it the power to change the life of the person praying, and through him or her, the lives of many others.

Several years ago a good friend named Alan told me about a startling encounter he had just been through. My friend is an intelligent professional man and in some ways a little cynical about things he hears. I certainly do not know if the experience had a transcendent reference, but my friend had been deeply moved by the account he related.

A Christian, an automobile salesman, who was a friend of Alan’s, decided he was going to make hospital calls two days each week as a part of his response to Christ’s admonition to visit the sick. During a routine telephone call to a man named Bennie Abernathy, with whom he had talked earlier about buying a new car, the salesman, Bert Johnson, reached his potential customer’s wife. She said, “Mr. Johnson, I don’t think my husband will be needing a new car. He is in the hospital and has incurable cancer. He will probably never get out.”

Bert thought, “I’ll go by to see him, just to say ‘Hello.” When he got to the man’s room in the hospital, he had a very superficial conversation. Bennie was nice enough, but Bert didn’t know him very well and had no idea how he felt about death. Finally, just before leaving, Bert decided to get in at least a word about the real situation. He turned to the sick man, “Well I hope the Lord gives you peace about all this,” nodding toward his body.

When the man heard Bert, his face lighted with a wonderful smile. “Let me tell you something,” he said. “All my life I have never really known what I felt about God. I have heard that a person must ‘commit his life to Jesus’ or ‘be born again’—but I didn’t really know how. Yesterday I was lying here, very depressed, because I did not know what to do to tie my life into God. In desperation I decided to pray. I simply asked God how I could come close to him.” The man’s face was very sincere and intense as he remembered his experience. Now he looked into Bert’s eyes with great clarity. “And do you know what’s happened as I prayed? I saw Jesus—here in this room, as real as you are. He was standing over there (he nodded toward the corner), and there were people coming to him. As they got to where he was, each one would reach inside his own robe and lift out his heart . . . and hand it to Jesus. First there were grown men, all kinds, and then there were the children…” Bennie paused as he saw it all again in his mind against the wall in the corner of the room. Bert did not know how long they sat like that, but finally the man looked up calmly and said, “Then I gave him my heart, too—and he took it, put his other hand on my shoulder and smiled as he said, ‘Peace.’ And then he was gone.”

Bert could only nod his head slightly as if in agreement. “That’s . . . wonderful,” he said softly.

The man in the bed went on thoughtfully, “You know, Mr. Johnson, I realize this whole thing sounds absurd, but it’s true. It’s the truest thing that ever happened to me. And I am going to tell every person who comes in that door before I die.”

And he did.

. . . All I can do is indicate indirectly certain events in man’s life, which can scarcely be described, which experience spirit as meeting; and in the end, when indirect indication is not enough, there is nothing for me but to appeal, my reader, to the witness of your own mysteries—buried, perhaps, but still attainable.

Martin Buber, I and Thou

A miracle is “not contrary to nature,” but contrary to what we know as nature.

Augustine, The City of God

In the dispute concerning the true God and the truth of religion, there has never happened any miracle on the side of error, and not of truth.

Blaise Pascal, Pascal’s Pensées

Lord, sometimes in my cynicism I feel as if prayer is autosuggestion and that we are playing games with ourselves when we talk of communicating with you. And then I see the miracles of modern science and realize that we are already experiencing things which point beyond our intellectual horizons to a time when people may be able to communicate mind to mind across thousands of miles. With regard to you, we seem to see though a dim lens now; but I believe with Paul that someday we may communicate face-to-face. I believe, and I appreciate your help with my unbelief. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete . . . . We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright. We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us.

I Corinthians 13:9,12

The Night I Became King

by studio98 | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

Keith, I have had many successes—president of my company, more than comfortable financially, elected a deacon at my church, my kids are grown and in good colleges. But I’m not as satisfied or fulfilled as I thought I would be after all this and am a little disturbed about the lack of satisfaction I’m experiencing. Do you ever feel this way? R.T.

Good question. In the fall of 1945 I was an entering sophomore at Tulsa Central High School which had 3,500 students. I was coming from a middle school that essentially sent its students to another high school, so I didn’t know many kids at Central. After the first day of bumping through the crowded halls on four floors, any self-confidence I had ever had vanished. I came home and complained to Mother, “I don’t know anybody in this school. This feels awful”

She said quietly, “Everybody coming in there is lonely and feeling inadequate. and they are all jumping into a bigger frog pond as minnows. You can just trust me on that. But if you’ll learn the people’s names and speak to them by name, you’ll get to know some of them. And you’ll also really be helping them, because all people want to be known.” I didn’t have anything else to do so I did what she suggested—except I didn’t just speak to a few kids. By the next fall I had memorized the name of virtually everyone whose picture was in the yearbook.

I also went out for basketball, and I was only about 5’ 7” tall. Fortunately I grew to six feet between my first and second years. In my senior year we did not lose a single game during regular season.

Near the end of school each year there was a big musical show at Central called “High School Daze.” A king and queen of the school were elected, to be announced and crowned the first night of Daze. I had become president of the senior class; we’d had a great basketball team; and I had won a few other honors. Then in the Spring of 1945 I got elected “king.”

I remember sitting in a room backstage alone, all dressed up in a tuxedo with a big red cape looking at the crown they were going to put on me. The school queen was a beautiful girl, and I was crazy about her. But as I sat there alone waiting for the “coronation” to begin, I had a strange hollow feeling inside—not at all the excitement and anticipation I’d thought I’d have. I asked myself, “Is this all there is?” And in that moment I knew a secret: being “king” is not the meaning of life. But I didn’t know what was.

After college some notable successes came my way in a couple of different fields that you know about, R. T. But the successes didn’t answer my question, “Is that all there is?” The thing that did lead to the answer I was seeking were the pain of failure and losses in my personal life (loss of my entire family of origin by the time I was twenty-eight, and then going through a painful divorce for which I was primarily responsible—in the midst of my greatest outward successes.)

Finally, in several stages, I saw my incredible self-centeredness and that even though I was sincerely committed Christian I was in denial about the fact that I had unconsciously put myself in the center of my life instead of God and was unwittingly building a Christian kingdom in which I was the king instead of Jesus Christ

When I discovered that many years ago now, I was horrified. And after much struggle I finally confessed my self-centeredness and the resulting sins and consciously surrendered everything in my personal and vocational lives to God.

I’m telling you this R.T. because since that surrender, what I began to learn to do as a sophomore in high school sixty-six years ago has become the way I’m trying to live my life now—that is, paying attention to and getting to know people around me—all kinds of people. Only now I’m loving them and specifically trying to help them find hope and self acceptance in life because that is what God is continuing to do for me. And as they ask me—or it becomes appropriate, I tell them what I’ve discovered by trying to surrender my life to God.

Mostly I’m not consciously running for anything now or trying to win some kind of prize or “game.” And that change of purpose brings peace and happiness into the present. But it’s the sense of God’s love and guidance that has been teaching me to enjoy life—whatever is going on that I’m facing. I’m eighty-two now and I’m learning how to live for God while walking toward death. And in doing what I believe God wants me to do now, I’m enjoying this final stage of life more than any so far!

I’m telling you these things because many years after I was “King Daze” and found a real King to live for, I came to see that everyone out there is lonely and sometimes feels inadequate at some level. And that if I can just get to know a few people personally, listen to them and help them in ways that I feel God would have me to, I can always have a life of meaning and I will never have to be alone, or bored. Of course sometimes I still wake up lonely or afraid, but now I know that’s just a natural part of life—sort of a spiritual “bad hair day.”

Lord, I’m so glad that you don’t leave us when we’re winning—or losing. Thank you that you keep teaching me that the values that aren’t your values are not nourishing very long. It’s good not to have to get an increasing supply of them all the time in order just to feel “normal.” Thank you that you can actually free us (in this life) from that rat race to success in which it’s so easy to get lost. I love you very much. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

“…where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21)

I’m Blessed… When I’m At The End Of My Rope?

by studio98 | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

Keith, a lot of my friends talk about being “blessed” all the time when something good happens to them. Recently a neighbor felt “blessed” because her husband got a raise. And last month a friend at work said she felt blessed because no one was hurt in a car wreck she was in. But Jesus said we’re blessed when we’ve just lost that which is most dear to us—things like that. So… what does being blessed really mean for a Christian?

Good question. I wrestled with that one for years because I came to God because I had already lost a lot, and already was at the end of my rope! Feeling terrible, I finally said, “Lord, just tell me straight. What good news do I have to share about being blessed when I’m at the end of my rope?”

And then my answer came. One morning I was stunned to read about Jesus’ telling his disciples to consider themselves blessed when they “lost what was most dear,” when they were “persecuted,” or even “at the end of their ropes.”—as if these tragedies were actually God’s delivery vehicles for sending us His blessings?

Ridiculous!

Then reading through all the beatitudes in Matthew 5, I saw…and my world changed. “Wow!” I thought. “Maybe the best news I can bring to an anxious world terrified of failure, personal rejection, and loss of loved ones is this: As I’m surrendering my life to Him—with all my failures and broken relationships—the Lord is giving me the courage, honesty—and willingness—to face, and walk through some of the most difficult problems this world has to offer, with my eyes wide open! And for me that has been wonderful news.

Before now, it hadn’t crossed my mind that the willingness, honesty, courage are the blessings from God I didn’t know to request. Yet they turned out to be doorways to the understanding and love I’ve always longed for.

Lord, thank you. Your “blessings” are Good News indeed when it comes to spiritual maturity—even if they sometimes feel a little like sandpaper. Amen

“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” Matthew 5 (The Message)

Letting Your Weight Down Through A Tangle Of Seaweed

by studio98 | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

Keith, I am so over-committed that I wake up often on the verge of panic. The problem is that I’m a minister and can’t even find the time to pray anymore. It seems like I’m swimming like crazy but the shore is getting farther away. Have you ever had this experience? If so what did you do to get back on solid ground?

Oh yea, periodically as a new Christian, I wanted to help people and to be a part of everything Christians were learning or doing that appeared to be God’s will. But before long I had made more commitments than my calendar could possibly hold. I cut down on sleep, exercise, and play time with my family. But things got more and more chaotic, until one night I woke up in a nameless panic, staring with saucer eyes into the predawn blackness. I began thrashing around in my mind for solutions that didn’t involve failing or being shamed by having to admit I couldn’t fulfill all my commitments. Thoroughly revved up, I jumped up to another frantic day of jockeying appointments, meeting deadlines, and short-changing my family—promising that I was almost caught up. But something told me that wasn’t true, and in addition my frantic life was far from Jesus’ “peace that passes understanding,” but though I felt guilty giving up projects that seemed so “Christian”, I felt like I was about to drown—and the shore was getting further and further away.

My stomach was in a knot, my chest tight, my mind a buzzing bee hive that had been upset. As I tossed up a “please help me” prayer and lay down on the floor to do a few token sit-ups, a bizarre memory flashed on my inner screen—an old newspaper story: Before dawn on a cold December morning, three duck hunters in waist-high rubber waders—were thrown into the icy black water of an unfamiliar lake when their small flat-bottomed boat capsized. Thrashing around in the dark trying to swim ashore, all three drowned. The article said the accident was particularly tragic since the water where the boat capsized was less than five feet deep—but the men didn’t know. Had they not panicked, but simply put their feet down, they could have waded out.

*

I shook my head, smiling at my own blindness. I’d been struggling so frantically to take over Jesus’ job and save the world that I’d almost gone under, when all I had to do was stop, be still, and let my full weight down on God.

So I did—right then. And when I did that, I saw clearly that I am not God and I made some calls and cancelled some things. I’d been participating in and out of a need to be more than I am.

“Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10 RSV)

Lord: Thank you that even when we’re in our worst messes you’re love is always close enough to stand on—if we will just quit thrashing, remember that You are God, and let our feet down!

Where To Find Jesus During Weekdays

by studio98 | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

Keith, I go to church every Sunday but during the week I seem to rush from one activity to my next appointment. How can I find God during the week?

After several busy years of public witnessing and teaching as a new Christian, my spirit turned gray. I felt less and less intimate with God. One day, as I read the dramatic account of the judgment day scene in Matthew 25, I got a simple picture about how I might spend more intimate time getting to know Jesus.

The “Son of Man” Judge/ King divided the judgment day crowd into two groups: the sheep (the good guys) on his right and the goats (bad guys) on his left. He told the sheep they would be with him forever because they had cared for him, clothed and fed him, and visited him. The good guys said, “Sir, we don’t remember doing any of that for you.” The Judge replied, “Oh yes, when you did those things to a specific person who was overlooked or ignored, you did them to me.”

Then to the goats he said, “Get out you worthless goats. You didn’t feed me when I sas hungry, or care for me in any real way.” The goats objected, “When did we see you hungry, thirsty, sick or imprisoned and not respond?” The Judge replied, “When you didn’t do those simple things for someone overlooked or ignored, you overlooked and ignored me!”

Jesus seemed to be saying to me that morning, “Keith, I’m with you Sundays at church. But during my work week, I live with people who are poor, lonely, sick, imprisoned, or feeling marginalized—especially any such people who are at the end of their rope. If you want more intimate time with me between Sundays, that’s were you can find me.”

Soon after that, I visited a friend in the hospital, dying of cancer. As I listened to him share his experience of dying, I began to picture Jesus sitting inside my friend, cradling his heart. I could almost see the Lord smile and mouth the words silently, “Keith, I’m glad you came…I’ve been waiting for you.”

“I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.”

Matthew 25: 40 (The Message)

Dear lord, thank you for offering us on the job training for heaven with you…learning your quiet ways of loving the little ones you died for. Amen

How Can I Become A Full Citizen In God’s Kingdom?

by studio98 | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

Keith, I’ve been going to church off and on for years, and I’ve always prayed to God, even if I didn’t attend church. But lately prayer has gotten pretty boring—like talking to old people who don’t listen and just repeat the same stories. But you act like you think God is real and might say something important… or at least interesting. If that’s right why do you feel that way?

The truth is that for a long time prayer was just something I did because I believed there was a God and I was taught that Christians pray. But through a series of sicknesses and deaths in my family of origin, I found myself the last member of our family at age 28. I was at the end of my rope, and didn’t know what to do. I decided to surrender my whole life to God.* At that point I didn’t know how to live for (and with) God in business, at home or how to handle anger, fear, etc. that I still faced on a regular basis as a Christian. But after that attempt at surrender, something happened to me. Without knowing just how it happened, I found that God became more real to me than I could have imagined. The relevant point here is that I started praying about some of the real and non-religious questions and relationship problems that affected my important day-in day-out happiness, self-esteem, and sense of value (or lack thereof) in everyday life. I was told to just offer the issues to God, and pray for guidance in dealing with them. This made prayer a lot more interesting. (Just as I listened to my Dad better than I ever had when I finally got the courage to ask him about sex.) But my prayer life changed most drastically not too many years ago.

One night a few years ago I sat up in bed in the dark, unable to get back to sleep. “God,” I prayed, “I love you. But to be honest, my prayer life is just not working. Please give me a hand.”

I opened the Bible to Matthew 18 and tried to read, but my spirit wasn’t in gear. Then I had a strong nudge: “Focus on what you are reading. It’s for you!”

Jesus was telling his disciples, “I’m telling you once and for all…” (That sounded very serious) “unless you return to square one and start over like children you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in.” Suddenly God seemed to say, “Keith, you can’t see reality from My perspective—or what I think is the best thing to do—unless you become like a little child again.”

Next, I asked myself, “Is there anywhere else that Jesus said we should approach God as a child?” Immediately I remembered that the Lord’s Prayer—the only prayer Jesus ever gave as a model—began “Daddy” (Matthew 6:7-13)

DADDY? Really? Calling God “Daddy” felt sacrilegious, but…all right. I’d try. I bowed my head. “Daddy, I am a lost little boy trying to get you to help me control everything and everybody around me instead of listening to you as your little child.”

Instantly tears came, and I grasped the problem with my prayer life. When praying to “Our Father” I prayed adult to adult, as if God were a peer with expertise in an area I hadn’t mastered (whom I could fire if I didn’t like his advice.)

When I prayed to “Daddy,” I totally REPOSITIONED MYSELF as a listening child. Simply saying, “Daddy” brought what all my studying and meditation experience had not: a new set of ears. Although there was a lot more that I learned about God—and myself—by that one change of perspective, that attitude of being teachable was a new beginning.

Jesus said: “I’m telling you once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in.” Matthew 18:2-5 THE MESSAGE

Daddy in Heaven, thank you for teaching me to lay aside my controlling knowledge and skills, and come to you with childlike eyes wide open and ears listening, so you can re-parent me to be like your Son… Amen.

* Described in some detail in Chapter three of The Taste of New Wine.

Taking Toxic Waste to the Proper Dump

by studio98 | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

Keith, what can I do with my depressing feelings of guilt and failure? I’ve tried talking with my family members, but I can tell they’re getting really tired of hearing my sad story.

Years ago I formed a terrible habit guaranteed to keep life from being boring, but which rained gloom and doom on my own house. At times, all kinds of unrelated failures and lonely feelings from the past came out to dance with me, and I would tell my family members how miserable and sad I felt about my failures and inadequacies. I painted my feelings in the blackest and most discouraging colors I could think of, asking them to pray for me. As we talked, they become sad and depressed, too, and sometimes felt guilty, thinking I was blaming them. When they lovingly tried to help me by making specific suggestions or offering solutions, I had “good” reasons why none of their suggestions would work.

Sooner or later they would give up, or it was time to be somewhere else or go to bed. My previously happy and carefree loved ones were now long-faced and unhappy, while I felt better. When I went to bed on such nights, I’d go right to sleep.

It’s as if my family were living with a live skunk. I’d call them all together and spray them with my skunk oil of depression and doubt. Then as we talked, they got those smells all over them. I was the only one that went to bed “smell-free.”

While in a small group of Christians trying to learn how to turn our lives and wills over to God, and to love others as God loved us, I came to see that my “center-of-the-world” habit of dumping my depressing feelings on family members was sort of like vomiting—I certainly felt better—only I was vomiting on the people I loved. God showed me through these fellow adventurers that this kind of “dumping” was a form of victimizing my family by getting them to “carry” my sense of failure and regret in the name of “sharing my reality.” And one day I stopped in mid-whine and faced the fact that, although it temporarily made me feel better, it wasn’t a very loving action toward my family members.

After that, if a reason to talk about my painful feelings came up, I used a different approach. I began by saying something like “This is how I’m feeling right now, but these feelings are not about you.” And when I finish sharing the feelings, I say, “I know these feelings are not your fault. I’d just appreciate your praying for me as I’m dealing with them.” And then I get off the subject and ask about their lives.

Better yet, I now share a lot of these painful emotional storms with my fellow strugglers on God’s adventure in groups outside my family—and ask these strugglers to pray with me there. In addition I have discovered that I can hear fellow struggler’s honesty and suggestions about options I might choose better than I can from my family members, and that these Christian companions are not as likely as my family to absorb and carry my feelings.

“Make this your common practice. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so you can live together whole and healed.” James 5:10 THE MESSAGE

Lord, I am grateful that you give us a safe fellowship of recovering sinners in which to face our feelings and learn from them. When I share my sins with other people on the same spiritual adventure I’m on—and do not “dump” them on my family, expecting them to carry my feelings for me—I can get real help, while learning to be more loving and supportive of those closest to me. Amen

Temptation: A Strong Wind for a Flickering Flame

by studio98 | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

Keith, no one I know talks about the imperious and demanding Mr. Hyde (or Ms. Hyde) transformation that temptation can change even a deeply committed (to our Lord) Christian into a totally self-centered drooling squinty-eyed lascivious or gluttonous pagan. It would be helpful if you are willing to deal with this question in a reality oriented way.

Temptation is a strange experience for me. I want to be God’s person. But I also have some deep human needs for approval, affection, and the satisfaction of strong physical and emotional drives. When wrestling with a specific temptation, I seem to change into a different person inside. I have a kind of tunnel vision and only see the object of my resentment, greed, or lust. All else is blotted out. I am no longer the smiling, friendly Christian, but instead am an intense and sweating stranger—yet not a stranger, for I know this one so well. Reason waits outside the door of temptation for me. I argue against my conscience and dazzle myself with agile rationalizations. By that time the battle is usually lost.*

Of course, sometimes there are long periods of peace and productivity when all the dragons appear to be dead. But then, one day when I am seemingly in good control of my emotions, I am suddenly in the midst of temptation. My senses are alive to the object of my resentment or my desire. I am practically engulfed in the urge to surrender to my inclination—to glorify my desires above everything—the instant they are born. And sweeping away reason, goodness, God’s will, caution, and the potential guilt—I succumb.

People who have not had this experience as Christians would make poor counselors for people like me. I know you may say that I am weak. And of course that is the truth. I am weak. But my question is, “What does a weak yet utterly sincere committed Christian do when temptation gets through all blockers and tackles him or her with a crippling jolt?”

My reactions have been varied. Almost always I feel inadequate and do not like myself. I shy away from prayer, feeling that somehow I could have resisted longer and not succumbed. It is strange, but because of my pride, I always think I could have conquered. But this notion rests on the dubious idea that if I am truly committed to Christ, I can control all my actions with reason and determination—if I will just try hard enough.

The truth about the Christian life seems to be, however, that no one bats a thousand in facing temptation. As a matter of fact, most of the saints felt that their averages were pretty low. We can improve our performance, and I thank God that this is so. But evidently in this life we will always have the occasional experience of succumbing to some kind of mental, physical or spiritual temptation. The sad truth is that much of the time I am too weak to resist, and my failure is simply a hard cold fact with which I must live. I have to come to God with the horrible uncomfortable feeling of failure. And finally, with no excuses, I force myself to my knees before him in confession, asking for restoration to a state of usefulness and self-acceptance by His grace.

I thank him that this process is what the gospel is all about—the forgiveness of the glorification of our desires and pride to a position above everything, including him. And asking him for a new set of controlling desires, I thank him for the miracle of forgiveness and the new starts he can give me. I pull myself to my feet, brush the caked spiritual mud from my clothes and walk into another day as his child.

First don’t dwell on yourself, do not say: “How could I be such as to allow and suffer it?” This is a cry of proud self-opinion. Humble yourself and, raising your eyes to the Lord, say and feel: “What else could be expected of me, O Lord, weak and faulty as I am.”

Lorenzo Scupoli,Unseen Warfare

I resolve to meet evil courageously, but when even a small temptation cometh, I am in sore straits. That which seemeth trifling sometimes giveth rise to a grievous temptation; and when I think myself to be secure, and least expect it, I am overcome by a light breath.

Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

Dear Lord, I know it must have broken your heart to realize that even those of us who follow you would get carried away and crush the people around us, trying to satisfy our hungers for attention and power and love.

Help me not to kid myself about my real needs and desires and cloak them with phony righteous motives or plead “weakness” as an excuse for succumbing to temptation. Although the nature of the sins has changes, the process is the same. And I realize that I am still capable of almost any sin. Give me the courage to face you more realistically. Thank you that you have made those things which are loving, creative, beautiful, and constructive so attractive to me that I spend more time running toward them . . . in another direction from the crippling world of inordinate self-indulgence.

And Lord, thank you for indicating that you believe a person should be forgiven more than once. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” Matthew 18:21, 22

The Frightened Elephant in the Living Room of Faith

by studio98 | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

Keith,I’ve been a Christian for many years. I’ve committed my whole life to Christ and have been taught that I should trust God. But inside where I face the challenges like (1) the changing economy that threatens my vocation, (2) the reckless and (to me) dangerous behavior of my teen-aged son and daughter and (3) recurring fears that I (or they) will not be able to meet the challenges and will fail. And yet at the same time I keep receiving the strength to go on. Am I just an underachiever in the faith department?

These are good questions. I believe that I and many other serious followers of Jesus have been afraid to be honest about our real feelings. But my experience of this paradox goes like this.

One morning I was lonely. My wife and children were all there with me, and we loved one another very much. But I was facing some fears of failure that could not be shared with them. I felt that my performance on a very important examination involving the future for all of us would not be adequate, and I was anxious and afraid, like a small boy. Yet God seemed very near. If I failed, he would be there, and I could pick up whatever pieces there were and do something else. And this gave me a deep underlying courage. But the conditioned franticness which made my mind a beehive of fears was a carry-over from a lifetime of feeling that I must succeed to be acceptable.

This paradox is hard to understand—a sincere commitment to Christ combined with human insecurity in the face of failure. And many of the great Christian speakers and writers have left me alone in my predicament by neglecting to tell me of these paradoxes of the inner journey. As I have read devotional books and listened to the evangelists and teachers of the faith, I have tried to reconstruct from their words a picture of the inner way. But many of them have omitted so much of the sweat and gravel from their descriptions of the Christian life that I am left with visions of untroubled saints, walking through the quiet aseptic corridors of their souls with unchanging attitudes of serenity and courage.

I am finding that serenity and courage are very different in “appearance” inside my own life. And as I counsel with other Christians, I realize that I am not alone in this. The record of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as he wrote from the Nazi prison camp before his martyr’s death, sounds stimulating and rather glorious at first glance. But as I read his letters* more closely, the actual daily experience for Bonhoeffer seems to have been very different. Much of it was made up of the buzzing whine of summer flies around his face, the maddening frustration and disappointment as his hopes for release were agonizingly prolonged or smashed, fear and doubts, and despair. All of these were things that often filled his mind as he lived out those days and nights of “marvelous Christian discipline and courage.” Yet because of the paradoxical joy and hope he experienced, Bonhoeffer was able to go through that miserable imprisonment and make of it a great positive sign for all of Christendom. And this same paradox faces thousands of ordinary men and women who are trapped in jobs or marriages that seem impossible. But because they think that a “truly committed Christian” should feel victorious, they hide and feel ashamed of their painful fear and loneliness and the guilt they bring.

That morning, as I was confronted by the threat of changing to a new vocational direction in midstream of life with my bridges burned behind me, I could risk it because of my faith in Christ. But the fear of failure rode with me in the pit of my stomach as I went to the examination that would determine the next chapter in my life. If I passed the test and “succeeded” in my new venture, some of my friends might say someday, “What courage, to have launched out in faith at your age!” And I wondered if I would remember the anxiety that made my palms sweat. Or would I only smile, humbly “give God the credit,” and forget to tell how slender the thread of faith seemed to be that I was following through the jungle of my fears that morning?

“I have repeatedly observed here how few there are who can make room for conflicting emotions at the same time. When the bombers come, they are all fear; when there is something good to eat, they are all greed. . . By contrast, Christianity plunges us into many different dimensions of life simultaneously.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Prisoner for God

“It is rather in overt behavior that we must look for a measure of belief, and it is principally this that is inhibited in doubt or disbelief.”

D. E. Berlyne, as quoted in Signs, Language and Behavior

Lord, thank you that you give us the courage to go ahead and “risk it” occasionally in trying to follow you, forgiveness when we “chicken out” and cannot, and the clean slate of a new day after each of our failures and denials. In my attempts to witness to the hope and joy of your presence in ordinary life, help me not to whitewash the frailty of the humanity into which it came to dwell as I try to trust you in everything. I am grateful that even you had some struggles in facing the challenges in your life.

Anguish and dismay came over him, and . . . he went on a little, fell on his face in prayer, and said, “My father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by. Yet not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

Jesus in Matthew 26:38, 39 NEB