Faith Venture

Dr. Henry Cloud spoke at Willow Creek last weekend on his new book about happiness. One of his points was that happy people think differently from others. They are optimistic.

He didn’t say positive, as in “I’m positive the world is coming to an end.” Rather it’s a attitude toward life of looking for positive outcomes, ways to help, focus on doing something.

I like the word attitude in the sense they use it in flight. It’s not feelings, but orientation. You orient your life and thoughts either toward optimism or toward negativity. Thinks about people you know. Don’t some just have a generally negative attitude toward things? They always see the worst, suspect the worst, envy others, think they’re not valuable.

On the other hand, don’t you love knowing people who are always positive–even if not feeling cheerful? Or those who are focused on some goal or end point? They have a mission in life. They have a kind word for all. A smile.

One of the flight attendants on my flight yesterday morning was one of those people with a genuine smile (you can see it in their eyes). Not bubbly cheerful, which sometimes comes across as fake. She was the sort of person who helps get your day off to a great start.

What if you are in a state of negativity? Can you change? Of course you can.

First, you must cultivate an awareness of your own feelings. You can do this through a discipline of daily stopping to meditate, slowing your breathing and then scanning your mind and body. Bring to your awareness your thoughts. Whether you are holding stress in your neck, shoulders, hands.

Next, feel yourself getting warm and heavy. You can say to yourself, “My shoulders feel warm and heavy. My arms feel warm and heavy.” And so on. You can feel yourself sinking into the chair.

Next you can bring your awareness into positive thoughts of things you can do. Where can you be helpful? What mission is calling you?

Finally, act. When you change your behavior by acting upon a goal or end, then your thoughts will necessarily change with you.

Paul lays out his vision of an ideal Christian gathering (or church) in his letter of advice to Timothy (1 Timothy). I think if we step back and stop picking on certain things that you may either agree or disagree with (a common way of reading), we can discern some interesting things.

• Men should be praying.
• Women should not be flaunting wealth.
• Women should be humble before the Lord.
• Leaders should lead orderly lives based on God’s principles.

Actually, I think that’s pretty cool. I’d like that sort of church. Forget the politics and personal promotion. Focus on God and on living a life of walking with God. We pray. We care for one another. We attract new people because we don’t act like “leaders” from business or entertainment or whatever. We are with-God and people know it.

It’s been a bit of a strange week or so. At the end of last week, we flew to Florida to attend a pre-kindergarden graduation of our grandson. OK, so we as a society have probably taken the concept of graduation to extreme levels, but it still marked an end and a beginning. Most likely next year he will leave behind the relative playing period of life and begin the necessary work of growing intellectually and socially.

While we were there I noticed on an email from the newspaper back home that a young woman had died on the railroad just two block from our house. That was an ending that was the end.

I went from Florida to Chicago for a conference and then yesterday driving to the park for a run I went on the bridge over the tracks just where she had died. Posters and flowers were there to commemorate her passing. It was an odd, reflective moment.

Do you know what’s going on in the emotional life of those around you? It’s hard. It’s even hard to realize what’s going on inside yourself.

When I was taught philosophy and religion, I was always a little uneasy about the way it was taught. It wasn’t until several years out of college that it dawned on me what the problem was. It was taught as intellectual mind games. The development of intellectual, logical thought.

But the goal of that education should be to help you live your life fully. It’s really all about how to live your life with God hour by hour, minute by minute. I have no idea what was going through that girl’s mind during her last hour. But it is certainly a tragedy. Meanwhile I look at my grandkids and hope that I can gently pass on the idea that the goal of life is simply to live it well with God in you. All the striving and mind games are perhaps interesting, but not the goal.

Are you a “lists” person or are you a “picture” person?

I think about this duality every time I travel with my wife. If she is planning a trip where she will be driving, she wants a list.  She’ll follow that list–unless she is driving with a friend or two in the car. If they start talking (what do I mean “if”?), the distraction of talking can cause her to miss a turn. Then she must scramble to figure out how to get back on the path.

Show me a map. I want to visualize the route and burn that into my memory. I’ll make a list of the important turns, but it will always refer back to the map.

When it comes to life in the Spirit, though, what I find is there are an awful lot of people who want lists. Make it simple for us. Just give us a list of rules to follow, and life will be easy.

I think that humans have tried that. God gave Moses a list of 10 things. In many ways those 10 items were more vision about how to live than a list of things to do. Immediately, Moses began explaining those 10 items in lists of to do and not to do items. Then for over a thousand years, the people kept adding to the lists. One trouble is that it’s easy to be distracted.

Jesus called those lists a burden or a yoke. He  said we should have a vision of what a person living in the Spirit is like. How they act. What they say. How they interact with other people. They killed him. It’s easier to make lists.

I must have three topics swirling in my head to write about this morning, and then I read a blog from Jon Swanson. He was writing about what he learned on Monday and related this:

“I listened to a 25 year old podcast while driving to get Hope. What new followers of Jesus need, said LeRoy Eims, is love and protection. Before they need rules, before they need scolding or expectations that they should immediately figure out everything that the church hasn’t been able to do right for the past 2000 years, they need love. And explanations.”

This is a lot of what Paul was saying in the last chapters of Romans. Treat others with respect and love. Yes, sometimes we are too quick to pile on rules. We tell the new Christian, “Congratulations. Now that you are one of us you need to stop doing [lots of things] and start doing [lots of things].” But they just need love. Actually, that’s what we all need.

I started meeting with a group of men on Tuesday early morning when I’m in town for study. One of the things we discussed yesterday was the story of Jesus first sending out his disciples to spread the Word. So one guy said that the word that kept springing to mind was “transparent.” The disciples needed to be transparent.

That was a great word. There was to be no duplicity, no trickery, no masks, no false personality. Think of the ways that the word works. The intention of the disciples was transparent to the people (whether they accepted the message or not). The disciples were transparent in the sense that the light of Jesus shone through them (think of like a pane of glass). People saw God through them.

Tim came to a group many years ago. He stated that he always looked for the mask people wore. He believed that all people were hiding something behind a mask. You never saw their true selves, their true motives.

He may be right, but I think that there are people who are genuine. “What you see is what you get,”  as the saying goes. That’s what we should be. Our love, our motives, our representation of Jesus should be transparent. We get that way by pausing and looking at ourselves. Every day. Where did we have a hidden agenda? Where did we hide behind a mask? Where should we have let the light of God shine through us?