Weekly Blog

Tips, Tricks, Skills, Spirituality and Wisdom

Teresa McBean 10/10/19 Teresa McBean 10/10/19

Trusting God with our Fear

35 Later that day, when evening came, Jesus said to them, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake.” 36 They left the crowd and took him in the boat just as he was. Other boats followed along. 37 Gale-force winds arose, and waves crashed against the boat so that the boat was swamped. 38 But Jesus was in the rear of the boat, sleeping on a pillow. They woke him up and said, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re drowning?” 39 He got up and gave orders to the wind, and he said to the lake, “Silence! Be still!” The wind settled down and there was a great calm. 40 Jesus asked them, “Why are you frightened? Don’t you have faith yet?” 41 Overcome with awe, they said to each other, “Who then is this? Even the wind and the sea obey him!”

~ Mark 4:35-41, CEB

Yesterday I wrote about fear and the fact that it is ever-present in my life. I’ve also spoken about this in weekend messages over the years. In those messages, specifically, we talked about the fact that faith gives us a new perspective on life. God provides us with an alternative to interpreting our lives and life events through the lens of fear (i.e. worst-case scenario thinking/planning). Instead, we have someone in whom we can place our trust and to whom we can submit our fears and anxieties. Now, as we said, this doesn’t mean fear and anxiety magically disappear, it just means that we have some responsibility to find our faith (in response to Jesus’ question) and make sure that these things are submitted to God. Too often we submit God to our fear, rather than the other way around.

Tomorrow I’ll share a story about what I mean and then unpack it over a couple of days.

Teresa McBean 10/9/19 Teresa McBean 10/9/19

Fear and trust

~ Mark 4:35-41, CEB

I have plenty of opportunities in life to be afraid. Change, of any kind, often sparks my fear. Why is that? I don’t really know. I just know it happens. And it happens to all of us (or a lot of us). We have a stereotype of “old people” that they get stuck in their ways and are totally change averse, right? My grandmother(s) could not/would not learn how to use a computer or a cell phone because it was just too different from what she knew. In fact, one of my grandparents got sort of pushed into retirement because she was a bookkeeper who refused to stop doing the books by hand.

Eventually, it seems like we get to a place in our life where we’re simply done changing and adapting and we give up (which may or may not lead to retirement). But, each of us is change averse in smaller ways in our daily lives. I hear a lot of fear around the government. I hear a lot of fear around jobs and other issues of security. I hear a lot of fear around family relationships. Some of the things I’m afraid of make me uncomfortable. Some of them I don’t understand. But, I ask myself, why is my response to be afraid? Many of the changes we see and experience each day are inevitable. How does fear relate to trust?

We’re always going to deal with some fear. Having fear doesn’t mean, necessarily, that we’re bad at trust. But I think it’s important to examine our fears, our anxieties, etc. I think it’s important to push ourselves a little bit, to ask ourselves hard questions about whether or not we truly are trusting (and/or exercising faith) that the world is more than the chaos it seems to be.

When I read Jesus’ words here, I try to imagine that he might ask the same thing of me. It’s a discipline, and it’s not easy, and I’m not good at it, but it’s something I’m trying. We will always have some fear. That is natural, understandable, and acceptable. It’s also okay to question our fear from time to time.

Teresa McBean 8/19/19 Teresa McBean 8/19/19

Learn to question your feelings

When I was a kid I often dreamed of the police coming to the house and hauling my dad off to jail. As I aged up, I often had these vague feelings, fear and dread mostly, that I was a person who might get hauled off to prison for wrongdoing. What wrongdoing? I did not know. I wondered - am I a bad person?

I could shrink all this down and hypothesize about my chronic shame, but it would bore you and miss the point I am trying to meander to. Here’s the deal: There are a ton of things we cannot know for certain, but one thing that is true enough and sure enough to make all of us collectively jump for joy.

“

This is how we know we’re living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He’s given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit.

~ 1 John 4:13, The Message

Our feelings are helpful, but don’t get the final say in determining our value. Neither do other people’s feelings, thoughts and opinions. Here is what we can know: We are living in the light when we wrestle with what it means to love God. There is no major renovation needed to turn us INTO a someone God can love, he created us as beings he deeply and profoundly loves. This changes the nature of our work, and the confidence in our capacity to be faithful people.

We were made for this abundant, loving life. It is our best and most natural look. But we still screw up. We do bad things. God knows this, and made provision for us. It is beautifully laid out in the 12 Steps of AA. In case these are not steps you trod, we’ll unpack it in future blog posts.

Teresa McBean 7/30/19 Teresa McBean 7/30/19

Uncertainty is not the worst-case scenario

Uncertainty is not a worst-case scenario. Living in pain for a life unnecessarily might be.

Now, of course, life is not pain-free. There is not a version of life without pain, without conflict, or without hardship. In fact one of the most important things we can do as people of faith is learn to face pain, conflict, and hardship head-on. It is vital that we learn to live with some level of pain, to work through conflict, and to tolerate hardship. Otherwise we are fooling ourselves.

The kind of pain I’m describing is the kind that is unnecessary and avoidable. Should we make a change, it would not exist. Making that change, though, may give rise to some other problem or pain. That is the uncertainty piece.

Embracing uncertainty is difficult, but it can be an act of hope. It suggests that we’re willing to tolerate some pain, some discomfort, for a time in order to ensure a future where we are better suited to reflect God’s image because we’re not bogged down by pain. We have pain, but we are not bogged down. There’s a difference between having some pain or discomfort and being bogged down by it such that our ability to live as the kind of people we hope to be is compromised.

I am not suggesting you go out and end every relationship that causes you pain. I am suggesting that you consider whether a relationship or situation is /defined/ by the pain it causes. If so, it may be worth considering uncertainty.

Teresa McBean 7/29/19 Teresa McBean 7/29/19

Hope and acceptance

Many of us get to a certain point in life where we’ve become so accustomed to the way things are that we fear change, even though change brings with it the possibility that things will be better. The status quo, or the familiar, offers us comfort because it’s a known entity. We know what we’re up against day-in and day-out even if what we’re up against robs us of our joy and our ability to thrive. It can be, ultimately, an act of faith to abandon the familiar in order to create the possibility of a more joyful, more free life of thriving.

I get it, though, even if the familiar isn’t particularly pleasant it often offers us benefits. If your child has a use disorder, it can ease our anxiety to be able to put eyes on them whenever we want by allowing them to live at home. It can be comforting and secure to go to work everyday and receive a steady paycheck even if the work environment is negative. My point is, even things that are negative experiences on the aggregate generally offer some benefits. So, when we make a choice to change those things we’re leaving behind not just the “familiar negatives,” which we tolerate because they’re familiar, but also the benefits, though they may be small. This is a challenge. A big challenge.

All that said, though, making a change will offer new positives, even as it offers new negatives. The question is whether these changes open up the possibility of living out of our new way of seeing. You certainly don’t need to change what is familiar just for the sake of changing it, but it may be a good idea if it supports our ability to love as God loves at the same time as it decreases our pain. Changes also bring the pain of loss, and this, too, can keep us stuck.

Acceptance is about embracing the truth that the familiar may be quite harmful for us. Hope is trusting that changing what is harmful is ultimately for our benefit, even though it brings with it a great deal of uncertainty.

Uncertainty is not a worst-case scenario. Living in pain for a lifetime unnecessarily might be.