Posts Tagged ‘Christianity’

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Advent or Christmas Season

December 1, 2010

Are you in the Advent season? Or are you in the Christmas season? Another way to look at this thought is–are you recreating the anticipation of Jesus’ birth that signals the advent of a new movement of God’s Spirit in the world, or are you caught up in nostalgia and gift-giving just to be giving gifts–or even in gift-getting, hoping to get lots of stuff.

It’s the time of year for pastors and teachers to talk about remembering Christ. But a Sunday sermon or lesson is not enough. Then we go out and immediately become inundated with advertising seeking emotional levers in our souls to get us to buy more stuff.

What began as a simple way to remember how visitors left gifts for Jesus has become an all-out effort fraught with worry and anxiety. Part of the trouble is–at least in American society–we all have lots of stuff. What we should be doing is throwing stuff out and simplifying and uncluttering our lives. Instead, we’re asking for more stuff. Heck, even I got more stuff. I’m the owner of a new Apple iPad–my early Christmas present. I’ll use it as a tool for work, but still, I could just use what I already have.

Medieval English mystic Walter Hilton said, “For no man can be spiritually healed unless he wants and desires to be spiritually healthy.” The attributes of focus and placing attention on the right things have become my themes lately (will be tomorrow’s subject when I meet with my new boss at the magazine). Hilton states a psychological truth. You have to want to be healed before you can be–at least regarding spiritual things, and as we now know, addictions as well.

Get yourself a little reminder to keep with you that you can touch and see to remind you that you desire to put your attention on the coming of Jesus in your life and push the gift-giving frenzy back to its proper place. Do something for someone or some group. Give service, honor Jesus. Simplify. You’ll have a more enjoyable December.

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Forget Goals, Find Your Passion

November 27, 2010

I returned to the US from Germany just in time for Thanksgiving. Sorry, I didn’t do an obligatory post on thanks. When I’m traveling–especially to these conferences–that extra hour to work on one of these posts just seems hard to come by. Plus I’m working on recovering my stamina after a fairly bad muscle pull Sept. 1 that but me on two weeks of bed rest, a week of physical therapy before I started a series of 6 trips in 9 weeks. In December, it’s two trips to Chicago and a trip to Tennessee/Florida over Christmas.

If I made goals like all the self-help gurus tell you to do, I’d make a goal to come up with a better schedule of how to work on the road. But that leads to my thought for day. Tomorrow is the beginning of Advent. This is a season of preparing for the future. Many people use this time in their personal lives to take stock of what they have done and think about what they’d like to accomplish. Then they make goals (sometimes called “New Year’s Resolutions”) to focus them for the coming year.

The church had a future-looking committee many years ago. As people talked, it became obvious that there were many people with many great ideas for ministries. But the committee leadership was fixated on developing a five-year plan of goals. (Or, as I have been known to observe–this form of planning worked so well for the Soviets…) But a new pastor came to town who did one pretty simple thing–he gave people permission to pursue their passions. And, wow, what a change.

So, here is some practical advice for you for the new year. Or the rest of your life. Don’t set goals. Find your passion and accomplish what you want in life while having fun doing it. My favorite lifestyle writer, Leo Babaueta, says this:

Goals take credit for our accomplishments. We give them a lot of credit for our accomplishments, but they didn’t do the work. They might have given us a direction, but in the end, the work is done on a daily basis. Goals also require that we do a lot of admin work — assess and report on how we’re doing with our goals, etc.

But remove goals from the picture and look at the gritty details of how work gets done and accomplishments happen:

  • You get excited about something. Sometimes that’s through setting goals, but it could be other ways: inspiration from someone else doing something, setting a challenge for yourself, joining a group doing something exciting, or just waking up and wanting to do something great. Or you put on ‘Hey Mama’ by Black Eyed Peas and start shaking your booty and want to get moving.
  • You take action.
  • Maybe you report your new thing to others — on your blog or Twitter or Facebook or an online forum, or just telling your friends.
  • You might make it a part of your life for a little while.
  • You take more action.
  • You tell people about how you’re doing.
  • Pretty soon you’ve done something amazing.
  • Notice that goals are only one way to do this.

So, here you go. I wish you all the best in finding your passion while you meditate on Jesus’ coming during this Advent season. You might spend the month asking what he wants you to be doing. Oh, yes, but then you have to listen. Then, do.

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Are You Acting The Part of a Spiritual Person

November 17, 2010

Humans are great actors. Most won’t make it in Hollywood. But most of us try to act like someone we’re not in real life. We dress a certain way to impress people. We show up in church. We show up for certain service activities. We may even hold doors open for others. Or say “please” and “thank you.”

But what is inside? Do we care at all for those we serve? Are we full of anger, hurt, bitterness, vengefulness, envy, greed? It’s easy to be caught up in some of those emotions–emotions that can crowd God out of the picture and our lives. Anger seems to be the prevalent emotion in America today. Most likely caused by underlying feelings of greed, selfishness and envy.

I live in America and travel frequently to Europe. I speak only a little German and very little French. I can watch a little TV and see magazines, though, and see the same things as here–a supersaturation of marketing trying to reach the depths of emotions of needing things to be satisfied (or sexy, or beautiful, or accepted). Those are all external things with which we act a part in a play. And we buy it. Literally.

But, what are you left with?

The real need is to be in relationship with God. Bring your inner life into congruence with what your outside life sometimes says. Saying you have faith is one thing. But living with God is another. Living with God requires stepping back in your mind and observing yourself. Catch yourself when you get caught up in some of those emotions–and you will get caught up in them. Then remember your friend–Jesus. His example and teaching were meant to help us line up our thoughts, as well as deeds, with God.

This takes effort. You must slow down your life and reflect. Pray as a conversation where you talk and you listen. Don’t pray that someone else’s faults are corrected. Pray that your own faults will be corrected. Simplify your life so that you quit acting a part and start living the part.

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Work Your Way Out of Spiritual Darkness

November 15, 2010

After spiritual highs come spiritual lows. After Jesus’ baptism and vision came 40 days in the wilderness full of temptations. St. John of the Cross wrote “Dark Night of the Soul” describing the phenomenon. Happens to all of us. Sometimes we just don’t “feel” the presence of God.

How do you get over that feeling and get back to the with-God life? Thomas a Kempis writes that you should do good works. Modern psychologists hold that you should consciously act the way you want to be and feel, and it will come. I wrote earlier about looking for opportunities to start the day by doing something good for someone. It turns out that that is good for your soul.

You are not saved through your works–God’s grace takes care of that. You don’t want to be like the early American Puritans who held that God picks some and not others. You don’t know if you’re one, but you don’t want the community to know that you’re not in the chosen, so you act like you are. No, those are false trails.

It’s simply that you can’t trust emotions. You have accepted God’s grace. But you just don’t feel it every day, every minute. What you do, is look for that first opportunity to do something good for someone. As soon as you do, then it’s easier to do it again. And that will help you get your focus back on God–where it belongs.

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Strive not for talk but for virtue

November 11, 2010

The political season is over (albeit briefly) in the United States. That is always an exhausting season for people emotionally. Every media if stuffed with candidates and pundits striving to reach a message that stirs your basest emotions so that you’ll hate the other guy and vote for him/her. As much as analysts have discussed for at least 40 years the changes that will be wrought in politics and business if we just have more women  involved, I have yet to see any difference in actuality.

Interesting that Thomas a Kempis puts these words in a dialogue between Jesus and the disciple, “For the kingdom of heaven consists not in talk but in virtue. Attend, rather, to My words which enkindle the heart and enlighten the mind, wich excite contrition and abound in manifold consolations. Never read them for the purpose of appearing more learned or more wise. Apply yourself to [subduing] your vices, for this will benefit you more than your understanding of many difficult questions.”

It’s not what we say as much as what we do. People watch you. Kids will mimic your actions, not your words. The old phrase, “Actions speak louder than words” speaks to this. If you say one thing and do another, people will believe what you do–not what you say.

If you talk about your relationship with God, yet do not practice virtue, who will believe you? If you have memorized vast amounts of the text of the Bible and do not act differently from how you acted before, who will listen to you? And in the end, what will it benefit you with God? Go out this morning and look for the first opportunity to help someone. That will start the day off right.

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Focus on Jesus

November 1, 2010

“My child, do not trust in your present feeling, for it will soon give way to another. As long as you live, you will be subject to changeableness in spite of yourself,” says Thomas a Kempis. Ever wonder why you can go from happy to sad to joyous to envious to angry–sometimes all within an hour or two? Wise people have pointed out to us for millennia that this is the human condition.

Sometimes we think that we are free from constraint to do what we wish, when in fact we are at the mercy of our passion. Benjamin Franklin, one of the American Founders, once said, “If passions are the driver, let reason hold the reins.” That was wise, but  still a little lacking. Sometimes our reason exists to justify the desires of the passions. We know that from buying decisions. Suddenly we desire something–a new car, expensive dress, whatever. The desire was probably driven by advertising or from someone we know who got one. Then our brain begins to start figuring out the rational reasons why that purchase would be good.

Thomas a Kempis concludes the chapter saying, “The eye of your intention, therefore, must be cleansed so that it is single and right. It must be directed toward [Jesus], despite all the objects which may interfere.”

Ponder that. How can you keep your focus on Jesus, and through him, God?

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Free or Responsible Speech

October 23, 2010

In the U.S., there is a legal case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court on the First Amendment right of free speech. I don’t know many details–but it has something to do with a group of people who say they are Christians who are upset with something, so they chose to generate publicity for their cause by protesting outside funerals of  U.S. soldiers who had been killed in Iraq or Afganistan. The legal case involves the group’s first amendment right of speech versus the families’ fourth amendment right to privacy.

I’m not commenting on that–exactly. But I’d like to take a teaching from my new best friend, James. I think he would agree with me (although they didn’t have many of these legal “rights” in his day) that just because you have the right to do something doesn’t mean you should do it. The word “responsibility” creeps in here. You need to combine doing things with responsibility. I guess when we protested for civil rights and against the war in VietNam in the 60s, we didn’t dream to what extent that idea would spread. Now we have protests arranged mostly to generate publicity all over the place. (Another good reason to turn off TV news.)

James told us to watch our tongues, because that is one organ that can surely send us to hell. He also said just after his teaching on the tongue that wisdom from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.

I think that list is one we should compare ourselves to. When is our speech not up to God’s standards of wisdom? How can we bring ourselves back to these attributes? Remember this list. Watch for when you stray. Then revisit the list and bring yourself back into God’s way.

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Doing for others, doing for Jesus

October 16, 2010

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about living a life with God. This was started by peering into the attitudes of people who claim Christ as their leader, but their actions appear anything but Christlike by exhibiting hate, malice, arrogance and the like.

Bill Hybels, founder and senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill, has been speaking on Matthew 25:31-45. This is part of Jesus’ final teachings as he prepares his followers for life on their own without his physical presence with them. He taught on watchfulness and using your talents wisely. Now he discusses how God will judge you at your resurrection.

Come you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me… Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.

Salvation is a gift of God’s grace. Our first act is to acknowledge God and ask to partake of that gift. But God expects much of us. Not to just sit still in his grace and condemn others. He expects us to get off our butts and bring love and grace to those whom we meet.

As I typed these words, I realized that there are some who like to separate themselves from others. They might narrowly define what Jesus means by “members of my family.” But the Old Testament and New Testament are united in stating that God’s desire is for all humanity to know him. Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan precisely to show that we must think beyond the boundaries of our tribe.

These words also challenge me. I give money. I give time. I try to serve others where I am. But is it enough? Am I squandering the talents God gave me? How about you?

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Speak Evil of Others

October 4, 2010

In yesterday’s class that I teach, we were looking at James where he says (after the teaching on curbing your tongue), “Do not speak evil of others.” Someone said, “But can you only speak evil about people you know?”

I’m not sure what she meant by that. Could it be that speaking of people you don’t know doesn’t count? I’m not sure. But I answered that it is easier to speak evil of others, precisely because you don’t know them. Although I’ve lived long enough to hear plenty of judging, put-downs, gossip, derogatory comments and the like directed at people the speaker does know.

But the Internet, email and the Web give us instant communications. We can connect with more people more rapidly with more misinformation than at any previous time in history. Therefore the hate emails that get blithely spread from so-called Christians full of untruths and exaggerations passed off as fact designed to get your emotions aroused against certain groups–usually gays or Muslims these days, but could be directed at anyone.

James had an answer to this human condition. It was to tame your tongue. Speak out of mercy, peace, truth, gentle without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. I certainly have long tried to live up to this Christian ideal. I wish I could say I always succeeded.

God, I tame my tongue, help me when I fail.

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Beyond Hate and Anger

September 30, 2010

Underlying so much of the so-called discussion of messages floating around the Internet and reactions to various people and ideas are hate and anger. Now anger probably leads to hate, because it must eventually manifest itself against someone or something. Anger usually springs up from inside yourself. Causes are individual, but certain general causes accumulate from the individual. Often anger comes from internal feelings of lack of self-worth, or feeling threatened by events, or feelings of fear of others who are different from me, or fear of losing my wealth–or not getting the wealth I feel I deserve.

The generation now in its 50s and entering the 60s has been described as the “me generation” since before 1970. And that’s a lot of what I see. Too many people are still striving for everything that they think they are owed, when in fact, they are owed nothing. Too wrapped up in accumulating things and worried simultaneously about losing what they have and not getting as many things as they desire, they lash out at others who threaten their lifestyle–at least as they see it.

I’m back to Thomas a Kempis in The Imitation of Christ, but you could find similar words in most spiritual writers. “A man is raised up from the earth by two wings–simplicity and purity. There must be simplicity in his intention and purity in his desires. Simplicity leads to God, purity embraces and enjoys Him.”

Only by simplifying your life and striving for purity by focusing on God through Jesus can you deal with all the internal turmoil–the conflicts that lead to hate, anger, fear. I counsel that to so many people I meet these days who are so conflicted by striving and worry. Calm down, breathe, seek God, meditate on His Word. In these you can start toward simplicity and the true peace that God offers.

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