Glory

There are trees

indisposed

weighed down with the fruit of misplaced desires.

And then there are trees

who have found glory...

whose roots grow deep in the remoteness of God.

Phil 3:3 "...(we) glory in Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh."

Raising the Dead

The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to his friends letting them know about the trouble he went through in Asia. He said he was "crushed and completely overwhelmed and he thought he would never live through it. In fact he expected to die."

"... ultimately being a Christian, is not a matter of being a success story, but of living with human failure–and with the God who raises the dead. That’s what following Jesus is likely to involve.” Timothy Keller

Paul goes on to to say that as a result of their hardship "we learned not to rely on ourselves but on God who can raise the dead."

And this is what it's really about... if there is a God who can raise the dead then there is hope.

A Thousand Times I've Asked

A thousand times I've asked.

My heart evaporating, warmly clouding into hope.

Weather I'm alive when the cool air of promise collides

Remains to be seen.

Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. Jeremiah 6:16

Point A to Point B People

Not in his goals, but in his transitions man is great. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Have you ever driven on a highway where road construction has funneled progress down to one lane? And as you are slowly making your way past the construction site, have you ever noticed how many construction guys are working and how many appear to be watching? It seems the ratio of guys watching to actually working is about 2 to 1. When road construction guys are in the picture, there’s a lot of unnecessary waiting. In fact, just this morning I was leaving a parking lot, trying to enter a busy street. From the left side of my vision, one lone construction guy began to cross my path. One guy. He had the orange vest and hat on. The boots, long sleeves and tool belt. He was one road construction guy. I looked all around and couldn’t find anyone else dressed like him. And he just slowly strolled… all the way across my only point of outlet. I waited and thought something spiritual like, “Good grief, it doesn’t matter where these guys are, whether it’s one or many, they make you wait.”

When you see certain people in life you just know you will be waiting. Waiting is difficult because we are “point A to point B people”. We have a linear perspective. We assume point B is the goal and when we're forced to wait, we’re in between. We’re not at A or B.

In between A and B is where life happens.

In his book, Transitions, William Bridges cites three major transitional stages, which I’ll adapt here…

1. Leaving
2. Waiting
3. New beginning

All three stages are interconnected. Yes, you want the new beginning stage. That's point B. (Or at least we’ll assume its point B. In reality it might be point J but who really knows until we get there?) But to get to B you must first be willing to leave point A. (Or “end”, or “let go”. Only you know your situation well enough to know what word to use.) I firmly believe that many of us are simply not good at leaving. Can you imagine trying to drive always looking in the rear view mirror? Put another way, what do you have to do in order to grab hold of something? You have to let go of whatever is in your hand. To hint at more of a spiritual element here, you have to be willing to experience death before you can get to life. Now, here’s a crucial point…

Leaving/ending or letting go must always be processed inside out. It starts on the inside with some form of letting go of a long held belief, idea or perspective of something or someone or yourself, which in turn, triggers an external response. But it has to start on the inside. If you get that mixed up you're in for pain. You see, everyone wants to find a shortcut around the bump in the road. But, life isn’t a journey around… It’s a journey through... Your society, your place of work, your church and your family is filled with people who want to circumvent the pain of going through.

But you can’t run away from yourself.

In between A and B is where you deal with yourself. Some people never make it. What about you?

Resurrecting Hope in Transition

Uncertain, unpredictable, volatile, inconsistent... these and many other unstable-oriented adjectives (UOA's) are occupying a good portion of our society's thinking these days. We are in an age of transition. Transition is OK... for everyone else. Tolstoy said, "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." When UOA's call for me I'd rather not pick up the phone. They're messy and usually call collect. Yes, I've had lots of experience with change. Jobs, deaths, fires, relationships, and parenting have all brought opportunity for immense transition. One would assume that by now I would be able to navigate these waters with a great outlook. Not necessarily.

I had a conversation with our 14-year old daughter recently. She knows our family is almost certainly facing some kind of dramatic change in the near future. She went out of her way to assure me that whatever the changes were, she was committed to being positive. I was so grateful to hear her unsolicited encouragement. I looked at her for a moment and thanked God for her.

And then I asked God to protect her.

Because hope can do something for her but it can also do something to her.

Don't get me wrong. I want her to hope. It's what we're told to do. "Be joyful in hope". I know it's good. But I've lived long enough to know that anything good can cast a shadow. In the case of hope, the shadow is called vulnerability. The truth is, hope opens me up to potential disappointment in a way that not hoping doesn't. Hope is a down the road, future-oriented investment and like any good human I'd rather have the immediate payoff of anxiety.*

Still, her resolve helped me. The 14-year old is positive. I will be as well. And you can be too. Wrestling with transition has helped me come up with three action points for you...
1-Be still. Be in the moment. You cannot fast-forward and you can't afford to go in reverse. The only thing left is to be where you are, right now. Something internal must happen before the season changes and internal things can't be rushed... nor the seasons.

2-Hold on to what you know is true. (Which is what the pastor from Mtn Valley reminded me last weekend.) There are many UOA's out there that may or may not happen. Focusing on them only makes life overwhelming. Simplify. Focus on what you know to be true and then let all the other things come or go as they need.

3-Accept responsibility of being joyful in hope. Not choosing to hope is giving into fear and blame. Sometimes the only person you blame is yourself. It feels tough but it's really not. When you blame yourself it reinforces fear. Then you end up convincing yourself that you cannot do this, you cannot change. Well, that's not an option so accept the responsibility.

*June Issue of The Atlantic - George Vaillant - provides interesting study on happiness and hope.

Inside Peace

As the climate begins to approach fever-pitch this election season it's good to be reminded that regardless of who's in the white house, or on capital hill, or in your town, family or marriage... regardless of the financial outlook facing us as a nation or you personally... no matter what issue is currently staring down at you..

the Kingdom of Heaven is currently available to you through Jesus Christ.

It seems counter-intuitive... no, it is counter-intuitive in the midst of chaos to assume that peace is available. It appears more rational to assume that noise must be eliminated and clutter organized before God's internal work can begin or continue. Yet, Jesus communicated that via Him - not the systems of the world - that God was accessible.

The people of Jesus' day had a problem with his approach. They assumed that God would come only through their prescribed way of thinking... The Pharisees said that the law had to be interpreted more strictly. The Zealots said the government had to be overthrown. The Herodians/Saducees said that working with the government was the only way to usher in God's kingdom. Jesus didn't fit into any of those groups.

In 2008 He still doesn't really fit into any of those groups... or any of our groups... my groups... His way is different than mine. I tend to form opinions from the outside in. He always works from the inside out.

Do not assume that God's kingdom is accessible unless something changes. The only thing that needs to change is your willingness to change.

The Kingdom of Heaven is presently available to everyone.

A Way Out

Sure I am of this; that you only have to endure to conquer. Churchill

I Cor 10:13 assures us that "He will provide a way out." I think our expectations and perspectives are fascinating to study. When we fail to meet our expectations then adversity sets in. For some this adversity is lethal. Psychologists have coined the phrase, “learned helplessness” to explain the feeling of helplessness one feels after lots of failures. If you're someone who just can't seem to measure up, or can't catch a 'break' or keeps falling to temptation then sooner or later you'll probably deal with this learned helplessness idea. That's where your spiritual enemy wants you to be... hopeless.

But there is hope.
And there are options.
And He can provide a way out.

And then you say, "I've already tried. He hasn't come through." Well, then try again. Look, if you’ve only got one bullet then I’d be reluctant to fire it as well. But you don’t. You have lots of them. You just have to keep firing.

I love what Henry Cloud says, "What if your hope is not in one particular option but in the belief that if you keep looking for options one will appear?"

Selling Fear

A rant for a moment on negativity that runs through our society. Just a small observation… here in Phoenix where it rains very little, of course, we’ve had something like 2 or 3 inches all year. If you were to watch the news (I did once a couple of weeks ago) you would learn how concerned we should be over the lack of rain. Never mind that we live in a desert and the reason it’s called a desert is because periodically we don’t get enough rain. Recently we got a couple inches of rain over the weekend. If you were to watch the news (which I didn’t but I know this happened) you would learn that you should be concerned about how much rain we got… roads washed away, cars stuck, floods, etc… Doesn’t anyone else notice this? This use of fear to constantly assault us? Why do they do it? Because it sells.

Fear is an easier sell than hope.

• Modern Medicine? Essentially focused on fighting disease instead of building health.
• Clinical Psychology? Focused on pathologies instead of optimism. (Dr Dan Baker in his book, What Happy People Know, written in 2003 cites that at recent count, “there have been 54,040 professional articles written on depression and 415 on happiness.”)
• How bout marketing and advertising? Do they not prey upon your fears of not having enough, not being good enough, sexy enough, smart enough, etc…?

What about the educational system, economy, religion...? Hmmmm...

The world is selling fear. Are you buying?