Christians in high-profile positions of ministry have suffered some embarrassing scandals and marriage failures. I’m sure the reasons for this are very complex, but I’m going to take a look at an attitude that I think has contributed to it’s fair share of scandals and divorces. (more…)
Our friends at CNN posted a gem of an article with this title.
Allow me to tell how I really feel about this situation. Parents push their kids towards a "career" while they are still kids. This forces the kids to deal with adult like situations much before they know how to handle it. They constantly wonder if they’d be "good enough" for their parents if they weren’t a "star". Is it any wonder that so many kids that get involved in show business turn out so screwed up?
And yet, the tragedy of this situation according to CNN is that her precious career could be affected by this situation? Give me a break.
The real tragedy is that this baby will be born into a family that puts their kids into show business instead of allowing them to be kids.
It was already 1:30 and we were walking back into Lowe’s for the 4th time. Not 4 separate trips, one trip. 4 times in and out of the store. Each time we made it through the checkout line and back to the car, we immediately realized we had forgotten something we needed. My wife will tell, this kind of thing drives me crazy. Because when your expectations of what you’re going to accomplish in a given day are as high as mine, there’s not much room for things to go wrong.
I began to realize sometime last year that my perception of what a "normal" day was, had grown bloated. The problem is, I had started looking at certain tasks that I didn’t particularly like as short, get-it-done-and-move-on tasks. The more things I committed too, the smaller those things got to be in my mind. Banking? No problem. Doing laundry? No problem. I’ll do it right after I get done updating the church website.
The problem is, those things aren’t short little things. They take time. And I was doing myself a huge disservice by not accepting that fact. So I’d end up planning my day full of so many things that I’d end up feeling like a failure by the end of the day because not everything had gone perfectly.
This also exposes another problem. My expectations are based on perfection. I base what’s normal on what’s really exceptional. I still remember the night I bowled a 221 back at Manheim Lanes. No one was there to see it, but it became my new "normal" bowling score. From that point on, if I didn’t make 221, I was failing to play up to what I was capable of.
So because there have been a few days where I got an enormous amount of things done because everything went exactly as planned, that has become my idea of a "normal" day. So anytime anything goes wrong, it feels like I’m failing. Because I’m looking at near-perfect and confusing it with "normal".
As I look around at American culture, it becomes obvious to me that I’m not alone. I think that collectively we have a distorted view of what "normal". Of what one person should be able to do. Technology has cut so many corners for us, leaving gaping holes in our day, that we then fill with more stuff. Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I just accepted the fact that I can only get one really important task done in a given evening, and then limited my responsibilities around that reality….
What is broken? – What do we think of when we read the verse "A broken spirit and contrite heart?" Do we interpret that to mean we give up our strength, and passion? Thank God it doesn’t mean either one.
When a horse is first trained, the process is called breaking. Before the horse has been "broken" it is full of power, energy, and drive. It is dangerous to anyone who dare to ride it. It does what it wants to and cannot be controlled.
It’s strength is basically useless because it knows nothing about using it’s own strength to do anything except exactly what it wants to.
Focused Power – After the horse is broken, it possesses all the power, energy and drive that it did before. The horse has not been impaired, harmed, hindered, or otherwise broken. It is every bit as capable of running fast, jumping high, and kicking it’s legs up as it did before.
What has changed is why it does those things.
When a horse has been broken, it runs when the master wants it to. It stops when the master wants it to. If the master want it to jump, it will jump. When the master calls it, it will come running. It has all the same power and speed, the only thing that has changed is why it uses them.
A Broken Spirit – When God says he wants to break our spirit, it’s not because he wants to take away our passion, our energy and our vision. He wants to change why we do the things we do. Rather than the short-sighted useless things we would do on our own with what he’s given us, he asks us to apply our strength and energy the way he wants us to.
We don’t lose the ability or the passion to do any of the things we can do, all that changes is why we do them.
If people know not to sit in your family’s pew in church…..you might be religious
If you still think heaven’s going to be a quiet place….you might be religious
If it’s been more than a month since you shouted anything in happiness or anger…..you might be religious
If people ask what religion you are and you answer with your denomination….you might be religious
If it don’t take all that…you really might be religious
And finally, if you speak in tongues for longer than you talk to visitors at church…..you might be religious
"Can I have another shot of those eye drops?" I asked the nurse. I had barely slept the night before because my eyes were hurting so bad. It felt like a grain of sand under my eyelid, and nothing I did could get rid of it. I went to the emergency room the next morning where they put some drops in my eye that numbed the pain.
I would have done anything to get rid of that pain. I knew the drops were not good for my eyes in the long run, but I just didn’t care. Once I experienced even a little bit of relief, I just wanted to keep the pain away. Thank God the doctors weren’t allowed to give me what I wanted that day.
Sin is medication – Most things that we consider "bad" are really just pain medication. Most people feel a dull ache in their soul and will do anything to find some satisfaction. That ache comes from a lifetime of missing the one thing that can fulfill us completely.
The ache inside - Most of us crave attention. We long for someone to tell us we’re valuable. There’s a reason for that. We were all born incomplete. There is a need for validation, affection, completion, and affirmation that every single person needs. Parents, peers, children, and friends cannot completely fill this need.
So some people turn to Jesus. They’re promptly taught that the answer to that ache is to serve Jesus. To do good works. But they never really learn to experience God rather than serve him. They continue doing God’s work, thinking that in that work come fulfillment. But the hunger deep inside for approval and validation continues to hurt.
Is it any wonder that so many people turn to alcohol, drugs, pornography, gambling, sex, fame, or any number of other things? What do you do when nothing anyone says takes away the ache in your soul? If you can’t fix it, than you might as well numb the pain.
Addicted to numbness – There is a physical side to addiction, but I believe there’s also an emotional side to it as well. How many people get completely wasted because for a couple of hours they feel free from the cares of the world, and they temporarily stop feeling that something is just wrong without being able to fix it. To feel that temporary freedom becomes an addition. And pretty soon the physical catches up with the emotional and now our bodies are as addicted as our souls are.
Living Water – God is the only thing that can take away the ache in our soul. The feeling of emptiness. But it doesn’t happen by studying the Bible if we still view him as a far-in-the-distance God. Until we come to grips with the fact that he wants to be integrated into our lives like breathing will we experience the fulfillment that only he can bring.
Many things in our lives take hard work. Most of those things give us callused hands. If our walk with God is like that work, eventually we’ll get a callused heart. Unable to feel compassion, contentment, comfort, or conviction, we’ll settle for guilt, condemnation, judgement and anger.
It’s a good thing to stop every once in a while and ask ourselves this question.
A while back Lori and I travelled to Las Vegas. While staying at the Luxor Hotel, we went to a day spa. I had never been to any such thing before, so I didn’t know what to expect. One of my favorite things about it was the sauna, with eucalyptus steam. Sitting in there in the intense heat, breathing in the sinus clearing eucalyptus steam was a refreshing and restful experience.
As I left the sauna, I was sweating, so I went to the huge jacuzzi, where I soaked for as long as I could stand the water. Then I grabbed some juice, a newspaper, and just sat on a lounge chair by the pool for a good while.
I abided in that spa for just a couple of hours and it refreshed me more than anything else on that trip. Imagine if I could pack up that day spa in a box and take it with me anywhere. The next time I need a break from whatever is frustrating me, I take a few minutes to soak in the dense, refreshing eucalyptus steam.
How much more kind, patient, compassionate, and loving would I be if I could experience that anytime, anywhere? I’m getting to a place where I’m realizing that experience the presence of God is every bit as refreshing as that spa. It refreshes my spirit, my mind, and my soul.
Jesus instructed us to abide in him as He abides in us ( John 15:4 ). Should that be something that take a lot of work. Does it take a lot of work to abide in your house? When you sit down on your sofa, is that a lot of work? Do you have to earn the right to be in your house? Maybe your house needs some work done, so it does take some work. But Jesus ain’t no fixer-upper. He don’t need any work. Abiding in him is a place of resting, not a place of labor.
If we perceive our walk with God to be one that involves strain, friction, tension, labor, etc… we begin to develop calluses on our heart that prevent us from experiencing the fruits of the Spirit. We think that praying must be done a certain way, at a certain time of day, in a certain place. So getting to that place is sometimes difficult, but we strain to make it there faithfully because that’s what a good Christian does.
We work so hard making sure that no one else experiences any kind of inconvenience or hardship, maybe partly because we think God expects that of us. So our relationship with him becomes callused.
There are certainly things in this life that will require us to work hard. We will develop calluses to many things. We’ll grow callused to the shock of waking up early in the morning. We’ll grow callused to the cold wind on our face. We may even grow callused to the back breaking labor required to do some of our jobs.
But God is not our work. Our work is not a prerequisite for being in relationship with him. It’s important not to confuse the two. God is IN our work, but he is not our work. Our work may give us calluses, but God will not.
Some people have been building callused hands and hearts by working for a God they barely know for so long that they wouldn’t hear God’s voice if he spoke to them verbally. The good news is that there’s a place of rest for even those tired laborers. No heart is too callused that he can’t soften it. No spirit is so callused that he can’t break through.
Give your religious job your two weeks notice. You just got a new place to live and it’s already paid for.
As Lori and I have been working towards completing our remodeling job here at the house, I’ve often felt anxious over scheduling of the different people we have doing different parts of the job. I’ve had a hard time nailing down concrete dates for much of this project, and this has caused some stress. I suppose that this is normal, but lately I’m realizing that I must really guard my spirit against feelings of despair.
Despair as I understand it is the feeling of impending doom. A fear of the unknown, of the worst possible scenario. It is a sinking feeling that will keep you from sleeping, and occasionally from eating. I’ve struggled with this my whole life. At times I think it might have been depression, but regardless of the cause, I’m convinced now more than ever that I must confront feelings of despair with nothing less than righteous anger.
Despair will mess up your whole life, rendering you helpless to function in even the most basic ways. I believe that despair is rooted in fear. And if there’s one thing I know, it’s that God has not given us a spirit of fear. It says so in the bible. I also struggle with fear a lot too. Lori travels around the world as part of her job, and I often struggle with not thinking about the worst things that could happen as she travels.
The thing about it is, being anxious, being worried, and being full of despair does absolutely nothing to change anything. It drags you down to the point where you’re scared to leave the house, to feel like you must always be in constant contact with those you love to make sure nothing bad happens to them.
Laying our cares upon the Lord is a wholly unnatural thing for us to do. But it’s the only thing that will bring us peace. Despair has robbed me of too many hours of sleep. And I love sleep.
This is part 2 of this article, for proper context, see part 1….
So there I am, browsing youtube, looking at videos of people playing like SRV, and that familiar feeling of dread starts rising up inside of me. "I need to start practicing, I need to catch up. I need to be better than them all" But rather than indulge those feelings, I began to step back and ask some tough questions.
Why do I feel the need to be the best guitar player?
If I was the best, what would I want people to say about me?
Why would I want them to say it?
If I was the best and nobody knew it, would I still be happy?
Some of you may already know that I run a guitar lesson website called StevieSnacks.com. I was very influenced by the guitar stylings of Stevie Ray Vaughan as I learned, and I’m trying to pass on some of that knowledge. Part of making that website relevant is knowing who else out there is doing what I’m doing. So I was cruising YouTube on my iPhone last night, looking for videos of people playing like Stevie Ray Vaughan. As I did this I experienced something that I honestly thought I had gotten over. The gut-wrenching feeling that I need to get SERIOUS about my guitar playing because some of these people are better than me and I need to catch up fast!
I’m going to try and disect what I was feeling and why I was feeling it. But first, let me go back in time a bit to explain how I got here.