Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love.  It is reached when a man deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone else in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost.

In every man there is hidden some root of despair because in every man there is pride that vegetates and springs weeds and rank flowers of self-pity as soon as our own resources fail us.  But because our own resources inevitably fail us, we are all more or less subject to discouragement and to despair.

Despair is the ultimate development of a pride so great and so stiff-necked that it selects the absolute misery of damnation rather than accept happiness from the hands of God and thereby acknowledge that He is above us and that we are not capable of fulfilling our destiny by ourselves.

But a man who is truly humble cannot despair, because in the humble man there is no longer any such thing as self-pity.

This is one of my all time favorite pictures.  It was taken a year or two ago up at my parents’ cabin.  Mercy was just 1 then, and she was cuddling with me while we were on a boat ride around the lake.  I try to relive this moment everyday.  I try to cuddle with her like this as often as I can.  My best chances are always in the morning, right after she’s woken up from her long night sleep.  She’s a little groggy and still half asleep, so she is much more content to just sit still in my lap.  Sometimes she curls up in a ball on my lap and other times she drapes her arms around my shoulders and rests her head on me.  I love it.  The stiller and the quieter she is the more I can just enjoy her.

That happened this morning, right after I finished meditating.  The form of meditation I practice is described by Thomas Keating as centering prayer.  During it I get as still and as quiet as I can and I just rest in God’s grace.  I let all self-justifying thoughts go as well as any visions of grandeur or even to-do lists.  I just sit still in the presence of God and know that there is absolutely nothing that I have to do to be accepted by Him.

Afterwards (usually 20-30 minutes of meditation), I move into a time of prayer.  I find it so easy to talk with God after this time of stillness and silence.  I find it so easy to know that he is listening.  It doesn’t really mater what I say — I feel so loved, accepted, and heard by Him and I can just share freely.

I imagine my meditation and Mercy cuddling with me have a lot in common.  When I meditate I let God’s arms of grace wrap themselves around me, and I believe God delights in me just being still before him the way I delight in Mercy just sitting still in my lap.  She isn’t showing me all her art work from Pre School.  She isn’t asking me to help her clean her room, play with her dolls or get her something from the kitchen.  She just wants to be with me.  She just wants to be held by me, and I love it.  There’s nothing I’d rather do.  I imagine God loves it when we just want to rest in His presence.  I imagine it’s like a child who climbs into his lap and just sits still in His loving, accepting arms.

Note: for those of you that find this post a bit too sentimental, see the previous post in which God is portrayed as an accountant.

We are beginning a new series at New City this Sunday.  I’m excited for it.  It’s about identity, value and worth.  We will look at three central areas of our identity with the goal of answering the question, “Who Are You?”

In preparing for this week’s sermon, I came across this powerful Merton quote on being and doing.  Enjoy.

All men seek peace first of all with themselves.  That is necessary, because we do not naturally find rest even in our own being.  We have to learn to commune with ourselves before we can communicate with other men and with God.  A man who is not at peace with himself necessarily projects his interior fighting into the society of those he lives with, and spreads a contagion of conflict all around him….

It is useless to try to make peace with ourselves by being pleased with everything we have done.  In order to settle down in the quiet of our own being we must learn to be detached from the results of our own activity.  We must withdraw ourselves, to some extent, from effects that are beyond our control and be content with the good will and work that are the quiet expression of our inner life.  We must be content to live without watching ourselves live, to work without expecting an immediate reward, to love without an instantaneous satisfaction, and to exist without any special recognition….

Our Christian destiny is, in fact, a great one: but we cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great.  For our own idea of greatness is illusory, and if we pay too much attention to it we will be lured out of the peace and stability of the being God gave us, and seek to live in a myth we have created for ourselves. It is, therefore, a very great thing to be little, which is to say: to be ourselves.  And when we are truly ourselves we lose most of the futile self-consciousness that keeps us constantly comparing ourselves with others in order to see how big we are.

No Man is an Island, pg. 120-122

These words were like a cool drink of water to me.  I hope you enjoyed them.

Photo from flickr.

Ruth Haley Barton says there is a dark side to leadership.  A church planting coach I recently heard, says that the biggest issue church planters and young leaders have to face is their past emotional baggage.  When leadership seems oppressive, difficult and emotionally taxing, what dark habits will emerge in your life?  What old emotional baggage will resurface in your life without warning?

I believe this happens.  I’ve seen it happen in my own life.  It’s a real problem, and Barton, in her book Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, says that the only solution is solitude and silence.  It is only when we stop and practice Sabbath and silence that we can deal with the dark side of our soul.  Quoting Parker Palmer, she reminds us that the soul is shy.  We are vulnerable and insecure human beings, and the chaos and demanding nature of leadership causes our souls to shrink back into hiding.  Only in silence will they emerge.

This is why, I believe rest is so important.  We are all leaders in some part of our lives, and we all need to rest. It’s one of our core values, and this Sunday at New City, we’ll be talking about the importance of Sabbath as a part of our weekly rhythm.  If we want to grow into the people God has made us to be, we must be people who rest.  I hope you’ll join us!

Race car drivers control their cars.  Pilots are in control of their airplanes.  Athletes control their bodies.  Control is synonymous with excellence.  The better you become at flying a plane, driving a car, or contorting your body as you fly through the air for a lay-up the more “in control” you are.  You are a master over something once you can control it.  We long to be in control of whatever we are doing because we believe it guarantees success.

That’s why we want to be in control of our lives.  When we work hard and gain control over our lives, we believe we can control the results.  We can control how things will turn out.  We want to control our kids, because we want them to be successful.  We control our friends because we want them to enhance our lives.  And we want control in our careers because we want to be successful.   But when our kids rebel, our friends let us down, or we get passed over for the promotion that we deserved, we come face to face with the reality that we are not in control.

Interruptions and disappointments jar us awake to the fact that we are not in control.  This produces anxiety.  If we aren’t in control, how can we be sure things will work out!  We usually respond by trying to work hard to regain control.  We slow down, recalibrate, and do whatever we can to re-establish control over our lives.  If things are really crazy, we may stop spending time with people.  We may withdraw a little.  We may drop commitments we previously made.  ”Just until things get back under control,” we say.

Unfortunately, control is an illusion.  We will never get in control of life.  If we think we have, we are wrong.  If we pursue control, we do so in vain.  Control is elusive and the best response to the chaos of our life is to embrace it.  Accept that control is an illusion and welcome the humbling that comes from not being in control.

If we want to follow Jesus, this is a must.  You can’t be in control of your life and enjoy intimacy with God.  They are mutually exclusive.  Intimacy with God comes from reckless obedience to the ways of Jesus.  It means we live by faith.  It means we make decisions that put us in harms way.  It means we take risks, and risks by definition include the possibility of failure.  If we demand control, we cannot follow Jesus in faith.  Jesus said to Peter:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.””  (John 21:18 ESV)

Following Jesus means, like Peter, we go where Jesus wants us to go.  We no longer “dress ourself and walk wherever we want.”  We live out of control and by faith.  Following Jesus means we may have to go “where we do not want to go.”  This is not all bad though.  The good news is that God is with us.  If we are living out of control, then that means that we aren’t in charge.  God is.  And while our life may be a lot more scary — because it’s a bit reckless — it’s also way more fun.

The Rolling Stones sang the song, "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Image from flickr.

Life’s hard isn’t it?  At some point we’ve all had to come to terms with the fact that we aren’t going to get what we want.  The thing that we won’t get can be as mundane as a new camera or as meaningful as a new job, a spouse, or a child.  Sometimes, even with the most important things, we have to face the reality that we can’t always get what we want.

What I’ve found is that in these moments of dealing with our inability to get that which we want, something profound can happen.  We are forced to let go of the hopes and dreams we had surrounding this thing and figure out if we can keep living without it.  Usually that process draws us much closer to God.

This happened to me about five years ago.  I was working at a church in Boston, but I knew that it would soon be time to move on.  As I prepared to leave the job I had, I was eagerly awaiting news about another job that seemed a near certainty.  Then after I left the job in Boston, the job I expected to get fell through and I was left in the lurch.  I had miss timed my jump into this new ministry, and I was left without a job.

As this unfolded, my anxiety level escalated.  When I heard they didn’t want to hire me, I felt like a nobody, a loser.  I felt like I was without an identity.  The pain I felt at not having a job exposed just how much of my sense of self-worth and value was based on having a job in ministry.  I had to come face-to-face with the reality that I didn’t get what I wanted.

But in not getting what I wanted, I got something much better.  Because I didn’t have a ministry job for more than a year, I had to deal with my false sense of worth that was rooted in having a ministry job.  I had to deal with my false sense of identity that was tightly inter-woven with my vocation.  I had to deal with what equaled idol-worship of my vocation in ministry.

Not getting what I wanted was the best gift I could have gotten.  It forced me to deal with my issues.  I felt like I would cease to exist without this job.  Then, when I didn’t get it, and low and behold I continued to exist.  I was still a husband, a father, a son, and a child of God.  I remained a valuable human being created in the image of God and passionately loved by him.

Sometimes God’s gift to us is received in the void of the thing we most wanted.  The loss of these things can be tremendously painful — as it was for me — but through its absence we can learn to find our identity in God’s love for us not our possession of titles or things.  Now that I am in ministry I’m thankful for this lesson.  I can engage in ministry without needing it to validate my ego.  I can give to my church and those in it without that unhealthy co-dependency that happens when a pastor has his identity rooted in the success of his mission.  In the midst of my pain and the feeling of deep loss, the reality was God was with me.  He was giving me something much better than a job.  He was giving me freedom from my worship of vocation.  He was giving me an identity that is defined by his unwavering love for me, regardless of where I work.

As a child, I remember talking to myself.  I remember thinking through conversations with myself in my head and sometimes even mouthing them out with my lips.  I would replay conversations that I had earlier in the day, or I would try and act out and anticipate upcoming conversations that I knew I would be having in the future.

At some point I remember noticing that it was a little weird that I would mouth out conversations and I stopped doing it.  However, I never stopped carrying on conversations in my head.  In a non-schizoprhenic way, I still carry out conversations in my head.  Sometimes they are totally subconscious and other times intentional and thoughtful reflections on what I’ve said or need to say.  I continue to engage in self-talk, and sometimes these conversations have a powerfully formative effect on my future attitudes and behaviors — they frequently shape the decisions I make and the way I live.

I think we all do this.  They can be thoughts about  things like, “I need to hurry up and get out of work before traffic gets to busy” causing us to get anxious and short with people as we try and rush out of work.  Or it can be thoughts that happen as the result of a misinterpreted look from a friend that causes us to think, “Why did she look at me that way.  Is she mad at me?”  This thought may replay in our head over and over again making us feel insecure about ourselves or angry towards this person.  Or, maybe it’s a thought we have about ourselves as we walk past a mirror and think “Wow, I look heavier than I remember looking last time!”  This causes us to feel despondent and defeated at our deflated self-image.

Over the past week, I’ve been working hard at paying closer attention to these thoughts.  They pop up quite a bit, and many of them are destructive to my attitude and resulting behavior.  The Apostle Paul talks about this saying:

“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. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”  (Romans 8:5–6 ESV)

When thoughts of self-loathing, indulgence, anger, or judgment come into my mind I’m working hard at recognizing these as coming from the flesh.  They aren’t true statements, and the faster they die the better.  The longer they linger the more pronounced their effect.  They kill my sense of identity, confidence, and squash my desire to love others.  When my mind is set on the flesh it does bring about a sort of death.  It’s a death of me and all that God has made me to be.

The contrast is a mind set on the Spirit.  A mind set on the Spirit is rooted in the gospel, and it filters all my thoughts through the love of God shown to me in Christ.  If I struggle with feelings of inadequacy about my work or my weight, I can submit those thoughts to the Spirit.  Even when I struggle at my job or pack on a few extra pounds, God’s love for me is unwavering.  There is nothing that can separate me from his loving care and concern.  So instead of letting these thoughts sabotage my life and bring about a sort of “death,” I let the Spirit reign in my mind and enjoy the fuller life and peace that comes as a result.

I don’t think I’m alone in letting my thoughts get the best of me sometimes.  I’m keeping myself accountable right now by engaging in a spiritual discipline called the Prayer of Examen.  It’s a journalling exercise that I do at the end of the day where I spend some time journalling about my day.  As I go through the different parts of my day, I imagine how God saw me in each setting and situation.  I’m asking myself the question, “Was I walking by the flesh or by the Spirit in that situation?”  It’s been really helpful for me in identifying how my “fleshly” thoughts tend to wreck my soul.

Have you ever been annoyed when a spiritual guru has told you to do some self-exploration?  I think that’s fair.  There’s enough self-absorption in our country that when another Christian pastor or spiritual leader tells people to “look inward” or to “know thyself” that it sounds like New Age Narcissism.  Often times, Christians object to this sort of counsel with quotes from Jesus about dying to self, Paul’s exhortation to sacrificial service and the like.  But in a book on the integrity of the soul, A Hidden Wholeness, Parker Palmer adeptly highlights the importance of being self-aware.

I have traveled this country extensively and have met many people.  Rarely have I met people with the overweening sense of self the moralists say we have, people who put themselves first as if they possessed the divine right of kings.

Instead, I have met too many people who suffer from an empty self.  They have a bottomless pit where their identity should be — an inner void they try to fill with competitive success, consumerism, sexism, racism, or anything that might give them the illusion of being better than others.  We embrace attitudes and practices such as these not because we regard ourselves as superior but because we have no sense of self at all.  Putting others down becomes a path to identity, a path we would not need to walk if we knew who we were.

Palmer, Parker, A Hidden Wholeness, pg. 38

He urges us to know our authentic self, and to live with integrity.  He says we often live a divided life swayed this way and that by the external pressures of our peers or the internal expectations we put on ourselves.  We do things that don’t fit with who we are out of obligation, guilt, or shame, and often time it is eating us up inside.  In this book, Palmer pushes us to live an undivided live.  He encourages us to live in such a way that we have a Hidden Wholeness.  I’m excited to get through it all!

“So some have doubted.  But then in turn there were some who sought to refute doubt with reasons.  As a matter of fact, the connection was actually this: first of all they tried to demonstrate the truth of Christianity with reasons or by advancing reasons in relations to Christianity.  And the reasons fostered doubt and doubt became the stronger.  The demonstration of Christianity really lies in imitation.  This was taken away.  Then the need for “reasons” was felt, but these reasons, or that there are reasons, are already a kind of doubt — and thus doubt arose and lived on reasons.  It was not observed that the more reasons one advances, the more one nourishes doubt and the stronger it becomes, that offering doubt reasons in order to kill it is just like offering the tasty food it likes best of all to a hungry monster one wishes to eliminate.  No, one must not offer reasons to doubt — at least not if one’s intention is to kill it — but one must do as Luther did, order it to shut its mouth, and to that end keep quiet and offer no reasons….those whose lives are marked by imitation have not doubted….because their lives were too strenuous, too much expended in daily sufferings to be able to sit in idleness keeping company with reasons and doubt, playing evens or odds.”

Soren Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination, translated Hong and Hong, pg. 68

Don’t you hate overly serious pastors?  Don’t you know that their earnestness belies their insecurity?  When one’s in a position of spiritual authority, be it a situation where we counsel, preach, or lead a meeting, there can be a temptation to use seriousness to gain leverage.  By being overly serious about a matter, we can manipulate the emotions of a meeting.  It becomes unsafe for anyone to disagree.  We’re so serious in the delivery of our sermon we must be right.  We’re so stern as we warn someone to flee from sin as we counsel them in that we demand allegiance.  We’re so prayerfully dedicated to leading the meeting our way that everyone thinks our plans must be from God.  Or, so we’d have you believe…muhahahaha!

The reality is pastors are just like everybody else.  They are struggling to figure out God’s will just like the person on your left and your right.  We are just as selfish as everyone else around us too, which means we want to get our way and we don’t want to look bad either.  Feigning spiritual intensity helps us accomplish both — we can get our way because those around us are uncomfortable disagreeing with a serious and spiritual person and we avoid the insecurity of not knowing the answer to a theological theodicy, counseling conundrum, or meeting mystery.

The antithesis of seriousness is playfulness.  A playful spirit puts everyone at ease and it allows sermons to be heard honestly, meetings to run smoothly, and when appropriate counseling sessions to move into real heartfelt sharing.  Playfulness seems so unspiritual, but it is the essence of a healthy system.  I hope our church is marked by playfulness.  I hope people feel playful around me…enough so to make fun of me and me them.