Inappropriate Explosions of Emotion

April 19, 2016

I had a conversation with a coach yesterday describing an inappropriate explosion of emotion I experienced over the weekend. And no, it wasn’t me!

It dealt with a coach explosion on the sideline of a game and subsequent venting in public. The coach I was talking with said, “Hmm, I’d better learn from that. Take a deep breath. I can get carried away at times.”

There actually exists a time for anger. Sometimes you just have to show emotion. There is a referee I know who is very good. Her weakness? She is always too nice. Sometimes you have to have “the look” that tells players she’s unhappy with that action.

I bet she develops “the look” when she gets married…OK, we won’t go there.

The deep breath comment is worth digesting.

Most times our anger is not that of an honest response to a wrong. It rather springs from sources such as wounded pride or excess of ego. Some of the angriest people are also the most insecure.

Andy Stanly discusses “what have we got to fear” on his current Your Move series.

Security comes from a deep relationship with God. Usually that was modeled by secure parents. If you were not so fortunate, perhaps a spouse or other relationship. Perhaps you could be that model of relationship to help someone overcome the fear and anger that resides deeply within.

In normal life, the deep breath before shouting at the kids or referees will save both us and others injured feelings and discord.

I go to my model. Jesus dealt with all manner of interruptions and even hate with patience and even-temperedness. However, when he was unhappy with the way the religious leaders were ripping off pilgrims to the Temple, he did not hesitate to show his anger at the sacrilege.

Deep breath. Slow release. Ahhhh. Now go face the day.

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A Teaching Moment or a Being There Moment

April 18, 2016

I am running a little late this morning getting this written. Recovering from a busy weekend.

Spent most of the weekend at a youth soccer tournament in Cincinnati. I was there to work with a group of young men (there was a woman in the group, but she was injured and left before I got there) improve as soccer referees and progress to higher levels of grade and games.

Isn’t it amazing how learning moments and growth moments occur sideways to a main topic?

We were talking techniques and observation skills to help them referee better.

There was one young man who was fit and enthusiastic. He showed all the potential toward becoming one of the elite referees in the state.

Oops, then he cramped. It was the first hot weekend of the year with temperatures into the 80s. Hydration was important. I even got mildly dehydrated and I wasn’t running. Just never realized I wasn’t drinking enough water even though I was standing and walking.

Well, this young man told me (after returning from the medical tent with a bottle of water and a bottle of sports drink with orders to drink them both, soon), “Well, I only had two beers last night.” Any water with the beer? “No, and I didn’t eat breakfast this morning.”

So we talk nutrition and taking care of our bodies.

I started thinking about being open to all manner of conversation when the moment appears. There are a few friends who believe every occasion should be filled with preaching at.

Sometimes listening and responding to the need is what is really crucial. I could have taught a class on nutrition before. Who’d have cared? But, when the need arises, then we have a teaching moment.

Same with all manner of spiritual and emotional teaching.

And, sometimes, it’s not the words, but just being there. In my weekend example, the group of referees were just happy that someone cared enough to come out and be there. How many times have you been with someone in trying times and being there is all that’s needed.

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Leadership By Delegation

April 15, 2016

What is the hardest leadership lesson to learn? Actually, more than learn (we all can memorize words and regurgitate them), what is the hardest leadership task to do?

Pause, while you think…

I’m betting on delegation.

It is for me.

I’m a get things done sort of person. Give me a task and I dive in and do it.

Even as a leader. Often I would just do the task. Until I found myself just totally swamped. Then I’d take a breather–no, literally, with Yoga breath–and gain perspective. Then say to myself, self, you could have asked someone else to to this. They’d have loved the task. You’d have been able to work on something more important to your own goals.

So, you have your trusted place where you write every idea, task, next action, request. And you process those into lists of next actions (to-do list). Oh, yes, and then you have to actually do the items, one by one.

What if you added one more thought consideration to your process? What if on every item you thought, “Can someone do this better, faster, easier than I can?”

What’s the trouble with delegating?

  • You think it’s too much trouble to explain to someone else how to do it or just exactly what you want.
  • You don’t trust someone else with the task.
  • You’re a control freak–you know who you are.
  • You think they are already too busy.

Why should you delegate?

  • You only work on items that you do best.
  • You work on items that further your goals, and by extension, your organization’s goals.
  • You will be developing the skills and value of someone else.
  • You will strengthen the team by including more people on it.
  • You will prepare for future leadership transitions.

This is hard. I know it. Been there, done that, have a T shirt. But you and your organization will become so much more effective if you do it.

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Treating Other People Well

April 14, 2016

Jesus left us with clear teaching about how we are to live in society. Unambiguous. Straight forward. Challenging.

Try–and the second is like the first to love your neighbor as yourself. Whereupon he proceeded to give his listeners an expanded definition of neighbor.

Try–and they will know my followers by their love.

I just saw someone on Facebook (I slipped and actually read through my newsfeed this morning) ranting about discrimination laws.

I thought, why do we have such laws? Well, it must be because we as a society discriminate against other people or groups of people.

Why do we, in a Christian nation (as my friends like to say), discriminate against people or groups of people when the founder and author of our faith says to love our neighbor?

Will laws change our hearts?

Well, laws can change habits (maybe), and a habit repeated can change our heart. And Jesus was concerned with the heart.

But, Jesus’ main opponents, the Pharisees, tried that law path themselves. We’ll make them behave, they thought, by laying out a law governing every aspect of the peoples’ lives.

Hmmm. Didn’t work out for them, did it? Grace won.

So, why do we have laws about discrimination?

Sounds like a vicious circle. We don’t live out our life as Christ-followers, so some bright people say “we ought to pass a law”, and people resent being told to be nice. So we gotta pass another law.

Better to determine, where is our heart.

Maybe a bumper sticker, “Jesus is my cardiologist.” Nah. Bumper sticker theology is so lame.

Maybe I’ll just go out today and love my neighbor.

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Let Your Light Shine

April 13, 2016

Still looking at the early teachings of Jesus that Matthew recorded. Jesus told us about letting our light shine. We don’t hide lights (duh). The reason we turn one on is to illuminate an area, right?

Whenever Jesus used a common physical story, it is always meant to describe our own lives.

So, he took the light metaphor and applied it to us.

Let your light shine, he said.

Why?

Some think that letting our light shine means to talk all the time. Light equals air. We are shining because we are always telling people about Jesus and ourselves. We tell it. And retell it. And even more.

But…

That’s not what Jesus said. Check it out.

Jesus said that we should let our lights shine so that people will see our good works.

But not just to see that we do good things. It’s not about us. Jesus has lots of stories about people who do things just for show. It’s a little theater. Look at me.

No, Jesus said another so that. So that people will glorify God because of our good works.

It’s all about attitude. You don’t do good works to earn God’s favor. You do good works because you have this great relationship with God. And then you let people see them so that God will get the glory.

We make a mistake when we think it’s all about preaching. It’s all about revealing our right relationship with God through how we act and what we do. Don’t hide your light.

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Taxes and the Pursuit of Spiritual Practice

April 12, 2016

Working on income taxes brings out so many spiritual issues that there could be a book. Or maybe spiritual practices and personal development practices (as if they could be separated).

I’m working on mine. Yes, I know they are due in less than a week. But mine are a little complicated. I have a business with income and expenses and the like. On the personal side, my wife and I are reasonably generous and have many charitable deductions–our major personal deductions.

While pondering all my receipts and expenses, I thought of all the ethical decisions based on each item.

Is this truly charitable? Well, in the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service, is it truly charitable and deductible? This is both an ethics and a legal question. Deserves honest answers.

There are so many ways for a non-rich person to ignore income that was cash only or came in a variety of “off-the-books” ways. Not illegal, but not reported. More ethical decisions.

I use a tax preparation program. Fitting things into the categories has always been an intellectual exercise calling for yet another cup of coffee.

Yes, tax time is definitely moral inventory assessment time.

It’s also personal growth and productivity time.

I’ve written about Getting Things Done, Evernote, and Nozbe (my to-do list capture and productivity tool).

The first practice is to capture everything–idea, receipt, income, contract–in one trusted place. I keep almost no paper. I use Evernote for documents. I photograph or scan all receipts or use the cloud where possible. Send directly to Evernote. I link important things that relate to next actions from Evernote to Nozbe. Nozbe is my daily (hourly) reference for what I should do next. This one is easy–sit down, concentrate, do taxes!

This collecting process is the one thing that helps that few people do. Looking around for scattered notes and odd pieces of paper is time consuming and will definitely lead to your missing important documentation.

Good record keeping circles back to help on the ethics issue. You have the document and know what sort of income or expense. Of course, you still have to make decisions and do the work. Where’s that extra cup of coffee?

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Jesus Turned Everything Upside Down

April 11, 2016

Matthew had an interesting outline for how he wanted to present his friend Jesus to the world. He introduces Jesus and the scene. Then he skips to Jesus baptism and what we call temptation (actually a period of spiritual formation followed by facing temptations which always happen to us after a deep spiritual experience and we’re strong enough to deal with them).

Then he consolidates the core of Jesus’ teaching. Chapters 5-7. I have now decided to reread these annually along with my annual reading of the book of Proverbs.

If you can clear your mind, throw away footnoted, transport yourself back to the scene in your imagination, then read the teaching, perhaps the message will sink in.

Many of us need time to let things sink in and become part of our awareness.

Looking at the “blessed” statements with eyes open to the world of the Romans, you see how Jesus turned it all upside down. Instead of the powerful being blessed, it is the opposite.

Then Jesus proceeds to raise the bar on following the law. It was already hard for people,  especially common, ordinary working people, to follow every bit of the law. Then Jesus says, you have heard it said, but I say… He made it impossible.

Then you think about it. If you think you can follow the law to become right with God, you have set an impossible task. However, if you have the right relationship with God and people, then you will in fact be following the law. It’s all upside down–God’s way and our way.

So it’s sort of weird, our spiritual practices. They should help us maintain a right relationship with God and at the same time help us focus on being right with other people.

We don’t study just to be knowledgeable. That is useless. We study so that we know how to relate to others and how to help point them to a relationship. We also study (people have said in surveys) to achieve and maintain our own right relationship with God.

Same with prayer. Same with worship. Same with fasting.

Spiritual is not just what’s inside you. Spiritual is also how you manifest that which is inside to other people. Are you helpful or a hindrance? Generous or selfish? Thinking of others or all about you?

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Jesus Kept Raising The Bar

April 8, 2016

Imagine you are a first-century Jewish common person. From Galilee, the “hillbilly” of the country. You’re listening to a new guy preach. You’ve heard rabbis and self-proclaimed rabbis speak before.

But this guy is different. His name is Joshua, same as the guy who conquered the Holy Land. (In Greek, which they spoke but didn’t use except for trade, Jesus.)

His talks turned the power relationships upside down. He brought forward the poor and disenfranchised. He poked at the rich and powerful–Romans and especially Pharisees.

Then he reinterpreted the Law and raised the bar. He raised it so high that even those self-righteous Pharisees couldn’t make it.

John preached righteousness and repentance. But this Jesus dude–he took it to a whole different level.

There was no way anyone could make it except by God’s grace.

I guess that was the point.

No wonder those first-century listeners followed him. He also backed it up by healing those who came to him.

So how does all that impact our spiritual formation and disciplines today? Does it still seem so impossible? Or, have we heard the story so many times that we lose the wonder and mystery?

I’m going back and reading just Jesus’ words. Not the stories or interludes. What did he say?

Then I try to put on new eyes and see the text new. What would I think if I were sitting on that hillside on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee? Seeing this guy for the first time? Not knowing what would happen in just three years.

Could he topple governments? Put those snooty people who think they are so great in their place?

Certainly he was feeding the spiritual hunger that had grown so much at this time.

Messiah (in Greek, Christ; in English, anointed one of God)? What did that really mean?

He certainly gave us something to think about as we walked home afterwards.

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He Started a Revolution And We Almost Missed It

April 7, 2016

My morning studies now involve just reading the words of Jesus. I’ve been deep in Paul for a few years and felt like it was time to visit the source.

I’ve often taught over the years about how Jesus upset the philosophy, should I say spirit, of Rome. The prevailing spirit of the time was power. He who has power, wins. Even the Pharisees played along. They just defined power as following the Law better than others did. This gave them the feeling of religious power.

Jesus upset the whole thing.

Matthew records that Jesus began his ministry proclaiming repentance–turning your life around.

Then he proceeds in his compilation of teachings to what we call the Beatitudes. And who are the blessed of God?

  • simple people
  • merciful people
  • peacemakers
  • humble, meek people
  • those who mourn
  • those who are persecuted
  • Those who hunger for righteousness

None of these would be Pharisees. Even today, in most churches we do not consider these people in our midst blessed–holy ones.

When we sit in our chair in the morning for study and prayer, maybe we need to check our attitude. When we go forth to serve, maybe we should check our attitude.

The powerful and super-confident may seem to win for a while. In the end, they don’t.

 

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The Body Is The Temple of the Spirit

April 6, 2016

While I am on a physical development trend right now, let me bring up an article I found in The New York Times. It seems a study shows that few people actually do the four pillars of a heart healthy lifestyle.

Let me preface this meditation with a few words from Paul, the Apostle:

19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20  New International Version (NIV)

The article in The New York Times stated:

Most Americans know that a heart-healthy lifestyle includes eating a healthful diet, not smoking, being physically active and keeping weight and body fat down. But a new study found that fewer than 3 percent of American adults could claim all four healthy elements.

Only 2.7 percent of the Americans in the study were nonsmokers who ate a reasonably good diet, including eating plenty of vegetables and whole grains and avoiding saturated fat; got at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week; and had a healthy percentage of body fat, defined as up to 20 percent for men and 30 percent for women.

Actually, there is no guarantee that you will live longer if you follow all the advice. But you will live better.

Do you ever find yourself without energy in the afternoon or evening (or both)? Do you have trouble focusing for long periods? Are your relationships falling off the track?

How do you think you can be a witness and servant of Jesus if you don’t have the physical stamina?

How can you maintain the disciplines of study and prayer and meditation with the lack of energy caused by an unhealthy lifestyle?

Eat primarily vegetables with some added lean meat and whole grains. Reduce fats and processed foods (especially white flour and sugar–we get way too much of those in our diet). Add some daily exercise–running, walking briskly, some sort of weight training, Yoga or Tai Chi.Watching what goes into your body includes eliminating smoking (anything) and reducing alcohol to just a couple per day.

Turn your body into a true Temple for the Holy Spirit. Build it day by day.

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