Becoming Self Aware

March 23, 2012

I am working this week in chunks of time in the early morning and late evening with a few exceptions. Otherwise, I’m playing with the grandkids. As they get older, I am reminded of some of the stages of growth in maturity of a human being. Sometimes we forget. Some people never progress.

By two, kids are walking, talking, interacting, but often they just follow their impulses. So, to socialize them, you try to channel their impulses and teach a few life lessons. By four or five, it’s time that they begin to realize that following nature’s impulses may not be the best course. It’s time that they see the impact of their words and actions on others–and how that reflects back to them.

So the grandson is learning self-awareness. You know, it’s when you start something–maybe you start getting mad at someone or something. And it just builds. You just can’t stop. You need to be able to see yourself and recognize what’s happening. Then pause for a time and let yourself come back into balance. Blogger Rex Hammock calls for giving it five minutes.

As I study Spiritual Discipline–or as John Ortberg recently called it, Spiritual Practices–I become ever more impressed with the basic need for self-awareness as something that comes before the practice. How do I feel? With whom do I have issues? Have I let something gain control of me? Where do I stand toward God at this moment?

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Treat People Like Adults

March 19, 2012

How do you treat people? How do the organizations to which you belong treat people? Your church? Are you expected to sit, listen and then do what you’re told?

Perhaps the most important book I’ll read this year is Gary Hamel’s “What Matters Now.” The noted management thinker proposes a new way of  management and leadership in organizations in his latest work.

He tells two stories of organizations–an Anglican parish (England) and a bank (in New Zealand)–whose leaders decided to do things differently. They decided to empower “front line” people to make decisions, get passionate about what they are doing and let them do their work. “If you treat people like adults, they’ll behave as adults,” said one of the leaders.

As a result of reading those stories last night, my mediations this morning massaged that idea. I know “managers” who treat people like children–and they are the kindly father who guides them out of his wisdom. Of course, that doesn’t work today. I am in organizations and I am acquainted with other organizations that are so structured with rules and where the leaders see their main job as retaining their positions that they treat people as children to be led or numbers to stroke their egos about the size of their organizations. Those organizations are doomed. It may be a lingering death or a quick demise, but they are doomed.

My habit to continue to develop? Treat people with whom I interact with respect due to an adult. It may not be easy, but I think that’s what Jesus did. And I’d like to be like that.

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You Become What You Think About

March 16, 2012

Do you ever want to do something, but you wind up doing the opposite? Say, for example, you want to lose weight by not eating certain foods (in my case potato chips), but you eat them anyway. Paul, writing in the middle of his letter to the Roman church (chapter 7) discusses that inner conflict where you want to do good, but you wind up doing the very things you don’t want to do.

Some people don’t wade through the logic and get confused by Paul’s writing. But he’s simply stating something we all experience. So, how did Paul get out of the dilemma? What is he trying to teach us?

“We become what we think about.” Earl Nightengale summarized the accumulated knowledge of many thinkers on a successful life with those words. Paul said (chapter 8), “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”

It’s our choice. We choose where to set our minds. If we set our minds on being healthy, we will live a healthy lifestyle. If we set our minds on the Spirit, we receive life and peace. And the inner turmoil Paul describes in chapter 7 gradually fades away. And that describes the with-God life.

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Being Open to Learning

March 15, 2012

I don’t know how many times in life I’ve looked at myself and wondered what I was doing? How in the world did I ever get there? I don’t know when I first decided to try new things. Go to new places. Have new experiences. Maybe get in over my head.

Some of that attitude works its way out in being open to new ideas. New ways of looking at things. I was discussing Romans yesterday and how I was trying to explain the logic of spiritual development that Paul was using when someone wanted to jump in and fixate on his favorite link of the chain. It was as though he thought his link was the entire chain. This was the time for a pause. To recognize what was happening and to ask God for a teaching moment.

We’ve all the the experience of reading a familiar passage as if for the first time–“I didn’t realize that was in there!” We have to approach reading–and life–with that openness. With the child’s expectation of being surprised by learning something new.

Go ahead. Try something new. Open yourself up to learn something today.

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Jumping to Conclusions

March 14, 2012

I love travel–well, mostly. It breaks my habits. Sometimes I get confused. I got up a little late today and just took a walk down Des Plaines River Road (O’Hare area of Chicago) to both get some exercise and to meditate. Trouble was, I was meditating on the sequel to this post–only I hadn’t posted it yet.

Mr. Johnson was the Superintendent of Schools in my hometown. He also taught some math classes. When he taught plane geometry, he told us that what he was really teaching was how to think. And he did–in my case, at least.

What we learned was how to prove theorems. It was an exercise in logical thinking. That concept is so deeply ingrained in me, that I cannot proceed without it.

So, a few weeks ago I was leading a class in the study of Romans. I introduced the concept of the logical development of Paul’s thought as he leads us in an exercise of spiritual formation. But as soon as I started the logical progression, someone wanted to jump ahead and latch on to the one thing that speaks to him from the letter. And the way he expressed it sounded almost vindictive. You know how some people sound accusatory even if they say they don’t mean to be? It’s one of those “I’ve got it, you don’t” sort of statements.

But I wondered a couple of things. First, can we have the patience to slow down and go through the logic of Biblical writers rather than grab a thought and cling to it without context? Then, can we be open to the leading of the Spirit as It guides us toward further spiritual formation?

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Trust Comes From Truthfulness, Goodwill

March 12, 2012

I wrote Friday about trust. To go deeper into the word, Gary Hamel, writing in his latest book “What Matters Now,” says, “Trust is not simply a matter of truthfulness, it is also a matter of amity and goodwill. We trust those who have our best interests at heart, and mistrust those who seem deaf to our concerns.”

That has been a problem with leadership in the Christian church for centuries. Especially so maybe today. In the United States it has become possible for preachers using the reach of TV to build empires accumulating much wealth. But it’s hard to emphasize that and have followers think you have their best interests at heart. The empire eventually crashes.

We are supposedly living with the “Me Generation” in charge. There are many people who think “me first.” This attitude is often reflected in our political leadership. When I was studying sales (to become one of them), I was taught to tune into my customer’s radio station WII-FM — what’s in it for me. Too often that is what the salesman is thinking–but about himself, not the customer.

At this time of year especially, think about Jesus–not to mention Peter, Paul, John, Stephen and the others. They certainly didn’t exhibit the WII-FM attitude. Thank God.

It is a challenge to us to try to live counter to the prevailing culture of self-centeredness. When we lead, do we exhibit truthfulness, amity and good will? That’s a good thing to stop and think about.

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Leaders Must Establish Trust

March 9, 2012

OK, this was poor scholarship. I didn’t write the name and author of the podcast talk I was listening to. I didn’t find the name of the person quoted. But a couple of months ago I noted in my pocket notebook (where I capture ideas whenever they occur):

“If my people understand me, I get their attention. If they trust me, I’ll get their action.”

This works in so many areas. It works with us individually as leaders–whether in business, in the church or in our families. It works with businesses as they build a brand–if you trust the brand, you will be more likely to buy their products. It works with churches if you are trying to lead the people somewhere. And it works with your relationship with God.

Trust? It means doing what you say you’ll do. Your words and your actions are congruent.

Paul, writing in Romans, says, “But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.” He’s writing here about Abraham (and people like him who followed) who trusted God first without trying to use following laws or doing rituals as a way to please God.

Trust takes a long time to develop but can be lost in an instant. Abraham found God to be trustworthy. He trusted God and God was worthy of that trust–He did what He said. In like manner, Abraham was trustworthy.

As inheritors of that faith, do we find God trustworthy? And are we to be trusted? To be trusted with leadership is an awesome burden, but worthy of a follower of God.

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Is Life a Still Photo

March 7, 2012

It was just a billboard picture. Enticing travelers to stop in for a sandwich. But the picture had nothing to do with eating. Two young adults were caught in a snapshot in a moment of fun.

The marketer wants our brain to assemble this formula:

fun = McDonalds

But I contemplated the picture and wondered, Is life like a still photo? Do I have a picture in my mind of what a relationship is? Holding hands on the beach, for instance? Or what church is? A laughing group of people with hands raised in joy?

What comes before and after that picture? That is where life is.

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Is Confession Confusing

March 5, 2012

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the Discipline of Confession as a “corporate” discipline–that is one that you should do with another person. This has been brought up several times in groups where people are puzzled and concerned about this.

On the one hand, many people are reluctant to share their deepest sins with another person. Trust seems to be a major roadblock. But I think there is a deeper problem–it’s hard. It is hard enough just to look at yourself and become aware of things you do or thoughts you dwell upon as sins. But to tell another person really opens you up to the possibility of ridicule, rejection or worse.

But psychologists will tell you both from experience and from research that healing cannot commence until you seriously recognize your problem and get it out in the open. That is the only place where healing can begin.

On the other hand, there is the situation of being the hearer of the confession. Do those words from Scripture really tell me that I can extend forgiveness to another? Just because Jesus said we have the power to forgive sins on earth, is it really true?

Some people are raised to believe that priests and pastors are people set aside by God and invested with certain powers–one of which is to hear confessions and forgive. Others do not accept that distinction–rather accepting the theology of the priesthood of all believers.

We believe that God’s grace is there for everyone. If anyone confesses their sin and resolves to turn their life around and walk with God, they are forgiven. There is no problem for a believer to be the healing person to put that into words for the penitent person. In fact, you can become God’s instrument of healing and faith formation for that person in that moment.

And what better thing can we do with our lives than help someone else begin the journey?

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Practice Active Listening To Enhance Spiritual Disciplines

March 2, 2012

Worship is a Spiritual Discipline. Calling it such implies that somewhere in there is an act that you do, not something that happens to you. I’ve written about people who keep trying different churches (maybe an American thing?) seeking “to be fed.”

Do you go to worship and sit back and expect to be entertained? Or do you put some effort into it?

Let me use an analogy. When I go to a concert, I don’t sit back and get overwhelmed by the overall music. I listen to the whole and all the parts. Listen for the sections of the orchestra that have a “moving” part, that is, where that section leads toward the next chord. At the same time you can hear the entire piece and how the composer has used each section to build the work and how each individual is performing.

That is active listening. I am in the midst of all the creativity, absorbing the entire piece and reflecting on it.

When I listen to people, I concentrate on the person. I hear what she says and how she says it and what she means and where the conversation is going logically so that I can ask the next question. The American writer Ernest Hemingway said, “When you listen, listen completely. Most people don’t listen.” Or as the American philosopher, well, baseball player and coach, Yogi Berra once remarked, “You can hear a lot just by listening.” You can do the same as you develop the discipline of worship.

In your mind, participate in the service. Sing the songs. Be present. It’s not all about you. It’s all about you worshipping God.

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