Day 23: The Realities of God's Love

We continue on our 40 day sprint toward the celebration of the birth of Christ. Holding to long standing traditions, this time offers us the challenge of self-reflection. It’s a way to prepare for the party. One way that helps us do so is to practice various spiritual disciplines intended to increase our self-awareness. In particular, we maintain mindfulness about God’s steady disposition and inclination of love toward us. Otherwise, we will struggle to make some progress in the journey of transformation. Adam and Eve forgot this about God and ended up hiding behind fig leaves. This is not a good look. We must be prepared to wrestle with the reality of God’s love. Our own ambivalence about ourselves can sometimes cause us to project these harsh self-judgments onto God. This does NOT promote transformational work. Unlike Santa, God doesn’t just love us only when we’re nice. He loves us when we’re naughty too. Jesus loves the whole of us.

We wrestle long and hard in our community with what it means to live a holy life. Once in a while, someone will start thinking that holiness means that we should all strive to be SuperHuman – capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound – for the sake of Christ, of course. When that happens, fingers start wagging.

One Sunday when we were still gathering in person, someone fell asleep in church. This offended his accountability team, and they got up in his face, demanding that he make restitution for falling asleep in church. His behavior, according to his cohorts, made the whole team look bad. I won’t go into all the details, but let’s just say that the good news is, all this piety did not lead to any punches being thrown…a near miss.

No one asked me to weigh in on the subject, but if they had, this is what I would have said. “You know what? He was here. He wasn’t on the streets. He wasn’t in a crack house. He was sitting in church, with a group of people who have nodded off in odd places countless times. That’s what happens when people are homeless and go days without food (and use a lot of crack). He was here, in the community. He showed up. That’s a good day.”

I’m much more impressed that he showed up than concerned about whether he stayed awake. I don’t consider falling asleep in church offensive. I tend to think it is a natural response for a guy who has been fed a good meal, is sitting in a heat-filled room surrounded by folks that he is pretty confident aren’t going to beat him up or steal from him. We are privileged and yes, responsible to love the whole self of others, not just the ones who can stay awake through the sermon!

Day 23: The Realities of God's Love

We continue on our 40 day sprint toward the celebration of the birth of Christ. Holding to long standing traditions, this time offers us the challenge of self-reflection. It’s a way to prepare for the party. One way that helps us do so is to practice various spiritual disciplines intended to increase our self-awareness. In particular, we maintain mindfulness about God’s steady disposition and inclination of love toward us. Otherwise, we will struggle to make some progress in the journey of transformation. Adam and Eve forgot this about God and ended up hiding behind fig leaves. This is not a good look. We must be prepared to wrestle with the reality of God’s love. Our own ambivalence about ourselves can sometimes cause us to project these harsh self-judgments onto God. This does NOT promote transformational work. Unlike Santa, God doesn’t just love us only when we’re nice. He loves us when we’re naughty too. Jesus loves the whole of us.

We wrestle long and hard in our community with what it means to live a holy life. Once in a while, someone will start thinking that holiness means that we should all strive to be SuperHuman – capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound – for the sake of Christ, of course. When that happens, fingers start wagging.

One Sunday when we were still gathering in person, someone fell asleep in church. This offended his accountability team, and they got up in his face, demanding that he make restitution for falling asleep in church. His behavior, according to his cohorts, made the whole team look bad. I won’t go into all the details, but let’s just say that the good news is, all this piety did not lead to any punches being thrown…a near miss.

No one asked me to weigh in on the subject, but if they had, this is what I would have said. “You know what? He was here. He wasn’t on the streets. He wasn’t in a crack house. He was sitting in church, with a group of people who have nodded off in odd places countless times. That’s what happens when people are homeless and go days without food (and use a lot of crack). He was here, in the community. He showed up. That’s a good day.”

I’m much more impressed that he showed up than concerned about whether he stayed awake. I don’t consider falling asleep in church offensive. I tend to think it is a natural response for a guy who has been fed a good meal, is sitting in a heat-filled room surrounded by folks that he is pretty confident aren’t going to beat him up or steal from him. We are privileged and yes, responsible to love the whole self of others, not just the ones who can stay awake through the sermon!

Day 24: Celebrating the Joys of Others

When I have an opportunity to talk with young couples I try not to give a bunch of advice. After all, really, what do I know? I only know my marriage. But one thing I try to always point out is that personal satisfaction and joy are inside jobs.

We appreciate the moments when we have intense feelings of satisfaction and joy. Clearly we experience this internally. Today, I want to ask you to pause and breathe deeply – you’ll need the oxygen. I want you to plunge into the deep end of the pool of consideration. Think about moments of satisfaction and joy…were they really inside jobs? Or were they the by-product of comparing yourself to another and believing that you “won”?

People with prepositional problems (to and for confusion) unconsciously (perhaps) confuse life satisfaction with winning. Only when a winner can be declared, and that winner is self, does a feeling of satisfaction and joy overtake the restless heart of one who is prepositionally perplexed. Paul writes about this in the book of Galatians when he writes that acquiring satisfaction and joy is not a competition – it is the result of living one’s true in-Christ self…figuring out who we are and why we exist. As we experience God and ourselves and others within the framework of love, we discover what we are responsible for and who we are responsible to.

And this is really stunningly great news. When those we are responsible to thrive, we can experience the joy of knowing that we contributed to their experience. Clearly, learning how to live with the burden of caring more about others than our own success is hard work. But think. Think long and hard. If our purpose is loving others well, imagine all the opportunities we have waiting for us – chances to celebrate over the joys of others not just self.

This in no way suggests that we should ignore our own needs. In fact, just the opposite. We must take responsibility FOR ourselves - our care and feeding, education and fitness SO THAT we are filled to the brim with the resilience and stamina required to love others well.

As we calendar our time between now and the New Year, can each of us find some time for self-reflection? Maybe consider how we may show up for others and what it would take to acquire a level of fitness for that work. Or, if we are suffering, maybe our work is allowing others to show up for us.

Day 24: Celebrating the Joys of Others

When I have an opportunity to talk with young couples I try not to give a bunch of advice. After all, really, what do I know? I only know my marriage. But one thing I try to always point out is that personal satisfaction and joy are inside jobs.

We appreciate the moments when we have intense feelings of satisfaction and joy. Clearly we experience this internally. Today, I want to ask you to pause and breathe deeply – you’ll need the oxygen. I want you to plunge into the deep end of the pool of consideration. Think about moments of satisfaction and joy…were they really inside jobs? Or were they the by-product of comparing yourself to another and believing that you “won”?

People with prepositional problems (to and for confusion) unconsciously (perhaps) confuse life satisfaction with winning. Only when a winner can be declared, and that winner is self, does a feeling of satisfaction and joy overtake the restless heart of one who is prepositionally perplexed. Paul writes about this in the book of Galatians when he writes that acquiring satisfaction and joy is not a competition – it is the result of living one’s true in-Christ self…figuring out who we are and why we exist. As we experience God and ourselves and others within the framework of love, we discover what we are responsible for and who we are responsible to.

And this is really stunningly great news. When those we are responsible to thrive, we can experience the joy of knowing that we contributed to their experience. Clearly, learning how to live with the burden of caring more about others than our own success is hard work. But think. Think long and hard. If our purpose is loving others well, imagine all the opportunities we have waiting for us – chances to celebrate over the joys of others not just self.

This in no way suggests that we should ignore our own needs. In fact, just the opposite. We must take responsibility FOR ourselves - our care and feeding, education and fitness SO THAT we are filled to the brim with the resilience and stamina required to love others well.

As we calendar our time between now and the New Year, can each of us find some time for self-reflection? Maybe consider how we may show up for others and what it would take to acquire a level of fitness for that work. Or, if we are suffering, maybe our work is allowing others to show up for us.

Day 25: The Power of Soul Friends

It seems like it should be easy to show up for the people we love. I’m just not that great at it. It helps me to learn new ways of being, so that I can do better. One thing I have learned over the years is the importance of having the capacity to see the person as they really are, not who we wish them to be. This requires the wherewithal to hold their potential and their problem areas in tension – accepting both the possibilities for their life and the present day realities in a loving, if sometimes uneasy tension.

In his book, Sacred Companions, David Benner writes:

“Spiritual friends are soul friends. This means that they care for each other as whole people, not simply as spiritual beings. Soul friends become spiritual friends when they seek to help each other attend and respond to God.”

I love Benner’s word choices. What more beautiful way can we assist (or receive aid ourselves) when we are overcome than to have a friend who will help us attend and respond to God? Now, the truth is, hurting people do not always know or even want to attend and respond to God. No problem. They’re hurting. They do not need to wrestle with that just now. But a soul friend can know that and show up as a God representative. A soul friend shows up and bears witness to the unseen but clearly known stickers plastered to their friend’s heart that read: FRAGILE - HANDLE WITH CARE. And, THIS SIDE UP.

Attending and responding to God may involve asking more questions than it does giving instruction. It may require more encouragement than exhortation (certainly both are appropriate but soul friends have the discernment to know when to use what as a way of helping others). Notice the emphasis – it is providing a space in the life of a hurting person that enables them to listen to God more than focus on how to fix the problem at hand. They do not have to be acutely aware that it is God they are focusing on; it’s ok for them to think that it was their friend that made them a cup of hot tea and served them three gingerbread men with extra frosting. It feels like a cool breeze is blowing through my heart when I think of the delicious possibilities that soul friendship presents each of us.

Lord, teach us how to be this kind of friend to those who welcome it.