Faith Venture

Yesterday, I talked about determining who you want to be. Before that I talked about getting up early to read, meditate, get ready for the day.

Say you woke up this morning and said, I’d like to be a more spiritual person. Except for a rare few, it doesn’t just happen. It’s really a journey. The journey starts with behaviors that become the pattern of your life.

It starts with getting up early. It’s quiet. You can study, meditate and pray. And it really only needs to be 30 minutes or so. If you can get in an hour, that’s great. In some ways it’s easier for me, because I don’t have small children at home. But when I visit my son’s family, the little ones know I get up early. So I don’t have as much time. But I have my cup of coffee and quiet time. When they get up, they know I’ll be downstairs and we can have some quiet time watching the sun rise and chatting.

I talked about changing your story–that idea you plant in your brain that says “I’m not a morning person.” But let’s change some behaviors.

It starts with getting prepared the night before. Do some of the things you might rush around doing in the morning–pack your (and your kids’) lunch; lay out your clothes; set your alarm. Plan out how many hours of sleep you need and go to bed earlier if necessary. Maybe that means you DVR your 10 pm TV shows (if you are still addicted to that thing) for later viewing. Make you to-do list the night before. That gets it off your mind.

Get up, turn on lights. Fix a cup of coffee or tea. Have your book already out by your favorite chair.

Commit to doing it for 21 days. After that time, it should become a habit.

Oh, and do it weekends, too. Don’t sleep in until 8 for two days and expect to get back into it. Maybe you’re up a half-hour later, but don’t sleep in.

As you act, so shall you become. If you begin to act in spiritual ways–and study, meditation and prayer are excellent starting places–you will reflect one day about how your life has changed.

Before a weaver begins weaving a pattern into the cloth she’s making, there must be a clear picture of what that cloth is to be. Is it a Tartan plaid for a scarf or a herringbone for a jacket. Regardless, the first priority before beginning to make the cloth is to know what the cloth will eventually be.

I’m still working out the idea of patterns in your life. Rather than resolutions or goals, I’m thinking more about what my life looks like and then living into it.

You must be someone before figuring out what to do.

Jesus wanted us to be the kind of person who “leans on” (translation of the Greek that John uses for believe in) or “leans toward” him. The first thing is to be a person with a relationship with Jesus.

Beyond that, what else would you like to be. Andy Stanley recently talked about writing the script for the talk the pastor will give at your funeral. There might be a little about what you did, but mostly it will be about who you were.

You might, for example, write down a few keywords that describe who you are/striving to be. Honest. Transparent. Servant. Trustworthy.

If you see yourself as a good teacher leading people into faith and knowledge, then your to do list becomes easier to figure out. You will do things that help you become a better teacher. And you will do things to put yourself in a teaching situation.

Even more foundational are the qualities that guide daily life. Honesty, for example, means when you are faced with a situation where you might want to squirm out through the use of falsehood, you decline that urge and deal honestly.

By striving to be the sort of person you envision–the whole cloth so to speak–you begin picking up habits that move you in that direction.

That’s where the Spiritual Disciplines come in. Developed over millennia, the practices of study, prayer, meditation, celebration, worship and the rest help you become that person you want to be.

This is the time of resolutions, goals, objectives. You tell yourself, “This year I’m going to (insert wish here).”

Many of us who  have lived through this, and observed others, and have pondered these things have developed the idea of forming habits rather than adopting goals or New Year’s Resolutions.

There was a man (I was told this story by a third person) who was always late. Late for appointments. Late with reports. Just totally disorganized.

One day, he decided that rather than lose his job and even his family he would change the way he lived. He adopted one small new habit–he decided to start getting up a half-hour earlier in the morning. He heard that if you fill your mind with the right things in the mornings it would set the tone for a better day. So he got up and read something that was educational or inspirational.

This worked so well for him, that he started getting up even earlier and reading longer. People noticed the change. He became a top-performing sales person in the organization.

Your story

What do you tell yourself about yourself? Do you say “I’m not” often? “I’m not a morning person.”

What if you changed your story? What if you told yourself, “I get up early so that I can read from the Bible and meditate before I go out to face the world”? Your mind believes what you tell it repeatedly. You can change your story.

What if you began the year looking at the pattern of your life? Do you feel defeated or insecure? Do you lack energy? Do you watch too much TV?

You can weave a new pattern that includes getting up early to start the day with God. Then you can go out and view every event and situation of the day as an opportunity for service. Where you set your daily patterns, your life and thoughts will follow.

Maybe this is the year you begin to live more fully. It’s your decision.

As we bring spiritual practices into the pattern of our daily lives, we become ever more aware of the forces that intrude into our balance. Perhaps relationships with dysfunctional people. Perhaps worries about what we did yesterday or what may happen tomorrow.

Every ancient wisdom and religion I have studied up to and including modern social science has taught the importance of living only in the moment. T.S. Eliot said in Burnt Norton, “At the still point of the turning world is the dance. And there is only the dance.”

That brings me to one piece of practical advice that just happens to be supported by a scientific study as reported by Matt Killingsworth in this TED Talk on Happiness. He found that happy people tended to focus more on the present and bring their thoughts back from their wanderings.

Science “proves” ancient wisdom

For years scientists have uncovered the many benefits of meditation. Here’s on on remaining in the moment. I discovered this many years ago. My hair stylist at the time said that we were worriers due to our German heritage. Don’t know about the truth of that statement, but I know I got it from Mom (didn’t we all get our phobias from mom?).

Then I discovered techniques such as when I caught my mind wandering into all manner of weird thoughts and worries and fears of what tomorrow may bring, I would consciously bring it back to the present moment. If necessary, I would consciously choose to focus on something else–usually something much more pleasant. In that way, I could change my mood.

Our pastor in a recent talk mentioned three Laws that he uses. Trust me, they work.

Law of Attention: Become aware of what you are focusing on.

Law of Exchange: As you become aware that you are focusing on negativity, exchange that thought with a positive one.

Law of Reversibility: If I don’t like the way I’m thinking, I can work my way out of it.

We must first be aware of what we’re thinking. Don’t go through life reacting to every passing thought. That’s a definition of insanity. Become aware of yourself. Then you can change yourself.

A small group I attend when I’m in town has been studying “The Journey: Walking the Road to Bethlehem” by Adam Hamilton. The book and accompanying video are an attempt to connect us with the locations where the events surrounding Jesus’ birth occurred.

Sometimes I think writers will stretch things a little to make a good story (there are times I suspect Paul did that, too). This is worth considering.

Hamilton considers the “manger” (one group member noted that if you read that word in French, it means “to eat”) where Jesus was placed as in a crib (don’t know if they had cribs back then). Anyway, take this tour of logic–manger, a place to eat; Bethlehem, literal meaning “house of bread”; Jesus said “I am the bread of life”; his next to last day, this bread represents my body. He tries to tie it all together.

Early Christians placed great importance on experiencing Jesus. He was in their midst when they met to sing, pray and study. It wasn’t until about 340 AD that the church decided that doctrine took precedence over experience. That is a struggle that we still face today among many Christian groups.

As for me, I place precedence with experience. Sometimes the experience of Jesus just breaks through the fog with shining light and clarity. Sometimes it’s a little bit at a time that comes through Spiritual practice–serving others, studying when a breakthrough occurs, worship when the songs and prayers penetrate your fog.

May Jesus be your Bread of Life.

We’re in the last week before we celebrate Jesus’ birth and his coming into the world and coming into our lives. This is a great time to hone those spiritual practices–be a servant to someone; meditate on the word; pray for God’s guidance; worship with praise and thanks.

Are you a good person? I’m an optimist most of the time. I tend to see people as good unless they prove me wrong. There are people who are the opposite. They are suspicious or cynical about people and expect the worst unless proven otherwise. And even then they aren’t sure.

In fact, none of us are truly good. We struggle with emotions, desires, actions that are not good. The apostle Paul’s starting point in his discussions of people is that we are not good to begin with.

So how do we get on the path toward being a good person?

I just finished John Ortberg’s latest book, Who Is This Man?. He said, “Because of Jesus’ emphasis on the heart, goodness does not begin with right behavior. It begins with openness to the truth about the mess in my inner being.”

This is not really a new thought. Ancient wisdom taught that first we must know ourselves. Or as the Scottish poet Robert Burns put it, “O, wad some Power the giftie gie us / To see oursels as others see us!”

To do that requires hard work on our part. We must sit in contemplation and step away from ourselves in our mind and observe ourselves. This also works if you are out somewhere, say in a queue at a market or airport ticket counter. You sort of project your mind out and observe yourself dispassionately as you act. I’ll tell you, that exercise has prevented me from foolishness on occasion.

The cool thing about the church calendar is that it prompts us to remember certain things with regularity. We are in Advent. Remembering the coming of Jesus. This is a good time for us to look within and see where we are harboring guilt, anger, greed, self-centeredness, and the like.

By being open to this, we can then prepare our hearts for Jesus to enter our lives to help us put those behind us and begin to approach living a good life with him.

I like to play around with words. Yesterday I was asked to help come up with a title for a Webcast (you can catch me live on the Web on January 31st moderating a panel discussion about software). My method is to come up with a phrase that I think captures the important points. Then I  start a list. I’ll play around with the verbs. Then the nouns. Consider a variety of adjectives. And write down the subsequent phrases until something seems to click.

Thing is, I write so often to areas where English is a second language, that I worry about being clear. So, I try not to use puns or plays on words.

But a friend posted on her Facebook page about my post on Being Blessed that I thought about the other usage of the word. Instead of receiving a blessing, say from God, some people are a blessing. That’s what I thought when she said yes she is blessed and give me more. I thought, she is a blessing–at least to me.

Think about your relationships and people you know or who have come into your life. So many are a blessing to you. Maybe just because when you see them they bring such joy and happiness as one friend, or peace as another friend does.

Maybe while we contemplate the great blessing from God that we celebrate this time of year we can also be more aware of our own being a blessing to people we meet.

That is a Spiritual practice I wish everyone would bring into their lives. Consider how great a world filled with blessing would be.