“You are living and breathing because he has hope you will believe for the impossible” – Bill Jonson
Boom.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bethel-church-sermon-of-the-week/id76583739?mt=2&i=1000427188577
Start at 20:45 to hear that quote and the rest of the story about who you are and why you’re here.
After watching Notre Dame get destroyed by Clemson, fuming about how instant replay makes the game so long and generally being frustrated about what a waste of time it all is, I deleted the ESPN and Formula 1 apps off my phone. So how, you may ask, do I know Christian Pulisic is getting ready to move to Chelsea FC? Ah, turns out you can add your favorite sports or teams to the Google search app and still get highlights….
Going back to yesterday’s post, I can set up rules for myself but the rules don’t always work because I’m pretty sneaky and strong willed.
Paul puts it this way – “Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.” (Colossians 2:23 NIV)
My friend Adam would say the pathway out includes having a vision for my life, being clear about what I want and why I want it, then making the appropriate choices and taking the next right actions.
I’ve noticed that when I hit a wall, when I fail, when I sin – my default reaction is to step up the constraints on my life. What if the actual answer lies in the opposite direction?
It is for freedom Christ set us free. Why would I submit again to a yoke of slavery?
I may need a new understanding of how good the good news truly is, how good God is, how he wants me to manage my freedom and expand it, rather than institute a series of laws against myself that do not work. In fact, scripture tells us the laws we insert in our own lives have the opposite effect from what we intend.
Jack says it well –
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses
Yesterday morning I led a conversation about self awareness in our group, much of it influenced by Tasha Eurich’s interview on the HBR ideacast.
Eurich challenges that 95% of us believe we are self-aware, but only about 15% of us are. The odds are pretty good that I’m not as self-aware as I think I am.
She suggests asking trusted friends, “what’s the most annoying thing about me?” You can learn a lot from those who love you and are willing to be honest. After group, one of my friends called me and asked me that question. I struggled through my answer, confronted with what it meant to give this kind of feedback to someone I care about. Then I asked him the same thing.
“When you listen, you’re often attempting to solve a problem instead of just listening, asking questions, and being with people.” Ouch. He’s right on the mark. I needed to hear that, and more, I want to be present with people without having an agenda.
How can you grow today in self-awareness, without falling into self-absorption or self-consciousness?
There’s surprising power to be found in a regular debrief with a few questions. Here are two that I stole from Jana and two from me (and I can’t remember where I stole “mine” from). I’ll run thru these after tough encounters or really anyplace that I’m stuck. I keep in view that God is love and that he is good and that he’s working out all things for my good and growth. He wants me to be more self aware, and he’s also kind about how he does it, so I have be nice to myself here. And, I have to be willing to be tough with me, not BS myself or perpetuate a lie.
So, if you’re game, start with Jana’s questions and ask him:
1. God, what are you trying to teach me right now?
2. And am I being a good student?
In a tactical way, when I leave a meeting, I have a habit of asking myself these two questions:
1. What did I do well?
2. What would I do differently next time?
I’m reading Bob Goff’s new book, Everybody Always, and he keeps coming back to this phrase “becoming love.”
Remember philosophy class, and the statement that God is pure being? We have being, from him, but we are in process, we are becoming. And this process, spiritual formation, is either making us more like him (love) or less like him.
Colossians 1:27 tells us that we have Christ in us, the hope of glory. Love in us, joyful, confident and full of expectation, transforming us into love as well. When I see myself and my life thru this filter, it’s easier to take in stride or make sense of some of the really hard things in my life. He’s working all things for good, teaching me how to love and shaping me into love itself.
Mary Oliver is a poet both my daughters enjoy. You might have heard these two lines from her poem The Summer Day:
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?”
It’s a new day, a new year, a new you. How can you move full force into your hopes, your passion, your calling today?
No excuses. It comes down to how you will use your freedom today, the actions you will choose to take or not take, your willingness to take responsibility for where you are right now, and the seeds of change you’ll plant in every decision you make.
Or, as another American poet (Jack Kerouac) said, “Go to your desire, don’t hang around here.”
Has God given you a word for this year? Have you asked him?
My sheep hear my voice and they follow me, says Jesus in John 10:27. A word from him can set the tone for what’s coming and give you clues about what he’s up to and what to look for.
My word this year is intentionality. From Google dictionary:
noun: intentionality
the fact of being deliberate or purposive
The night before my last day of work this year, a few questions popped in my head that I thought would help me evaluate my efforts, my results, my wins, my failures, as well as what was incomplete. I took an hour that next day and answered the questions below. I’ve decided to call this my Annual Review. (Thanks are probably due to David Allen of GTD fame, and Brian Buffini).
Wins from this past year – acknowledge what went well?
Losses from this past year – acknowledge it
What’s left open? (major projects or initiatives that are incomplete)
How do I connect my work with core purpose?
What matters for this coming year?
Review roles and responsibilities
As an added bonus, here’s a template for a planning session my wife Jana and I do at the end of every year. I know it’s the 31st, but there’s nothing magical about either doing this today, thru the evenings this coming week, or even next weekend. (I’m going to estimate we put about (8) hours of conversation in our answers and planning related to this year’s version, spread over the course of two days)
I’m indebted to Graham Cooke and a message I listened to that inspired the following coaching I gave a friend who’s wrestling with some lies he’s believed for a long time. Those lies have embedded themselves in his self-talk, and created an inner world of unworthiness, self-loathing and shame. He knows better, and he knows that he knows it. And yet he’s stuck in this rut and looking for a way out. I know what that feels like, having done this same work earlier this year.
If you’re in a similar spot, here’s the work I did and recommended for my friend:
1. Make a list for yourself of all the agreements and lies.
2. Recognize, along the lines of Isaiah 61, that he is the God of instead. Figure out the exact opposite of the lie/agreement from the first list and write that out on another list. This is the truth of who you are and how God sees you. The first list is just the attack, the enemy trying to keep you from being who you were designed to be.
3. Destroy the first list, there’s no reason to keep record of it, it’s not who you are and it’s not how God sees you
4. Take the list from Step Two and fashion it into a series of affirmations that you can read. This is your personal story and destiny with God. You’re going to start speaking this over yourself. Put it in an easy place to get access to, like your phone. You can pull it up and read it a couple times out loud per day.
Remember: Don’t save the first list. No one needs to see it and you don’t need to ruminate on it.
Do yourself a favor. Do the work, don’t just read about it. God will meet you in the middle of the actions you take to draw near to him.
Chuck Spicka's Blog 