Straining At The Oars

Straining at the oars of prayer at times can be such a sweet burn in our spirit-muscle.

Just a whiff of the possibility that it matters is all it takes to keep rowing, to keep praying.

Natural Response

Compassion seems to be a natural response, even though it so often feels unnatural.  It is when we see the object of our compassion through the lens of what we, too, have experienced, that we can offer mercy.

This morning's mercy to me came in the form of this awareness, that where I might want to react in anger (ironically, often because of anger towards me), I more naturally want to respond with mercy...because of the mercy that has been shown towards me.

In other words, what someone else is going through...is something, if I'm honest, I also have gone through (or still go through).

Has Prepared

“What no eye has seen, 
    what no ear has heard, 
and what no human mind has conceived
    — the things God has prepared for those who love him—”

-- 1 Corinthians 2:9

Holding You Back

The only thing holding you back is you -- and your willingness to try.

-- Jeff Haden

Telling & Trusting

When we tell people to do their jobs, we get workers. When we trust people to get the job done, we get leaders.

-- Simon Sinek

Lower Level? No!

We always have visions, before a thing is made real.  When we realize that although the vision is real, it is not real in us, then is the time that Satan comes in with his temptations, and we are apt to say it is no use to go on.  Instead of the vision becoming real, there has come the valley of humiliation.

Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And batter'd by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.

God gives us the vision, then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way.  Every vision will be made real if we will have patience.  Think of the enormous leisure of God!  He is never in a hurry.  We are always in such a frantic hurry.  In the light of the glory of the vision we go forth to do things, but the vision is not real in us yet;  and God has to take us into the valley, and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the place where He can trust us with the veritable reality.  Ever since we had the vision God has been at work, getting us into the shape of the ideal, and over and over again we escape from His hand and try to batter ourselves into our own shape.

The vision is not a castle in the air, but a vision of what God wants you to be.  Let HIm put you on His wheel and whirl you as He likes, and as sure as God is God and you are you, you will turn out exactly in accordance with the vision.  Don't lose heart in the process.  If you have ever had the vision of God, you may try as you like to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never let you.

-- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest

Essence of Inhumanity

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.

-- George Bernard Shaw

What Is Love?

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about what love is. Perhaps, even more, about how it works...how it should work, especially when it isn't clear...how it should work.

Does it mean, for example, that it mean that we forebear with others or respond to them, about things that make it hard to 'be' together?  Is it accommodating?  Is it sensitive?  Or, it is tough?  Does it mean that we pursue or that we need to wait, patiently?

These questions put things in 'either-or' terms.  I suspect love isn't constrained by such definitions; that is, love is much more malleable, less prescriptive than we might like it to be...than simply this or that.

I have turned to a passage in 1 Corinthians for further perspective on what love is:

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies. 

Love, it seems to me, is all these things, not just always one or the other. In other words, love is 'both-and', not 'either-or'.  There is a time for everything...and love encompasses time.

So then, the next emergent question appears to be one of timing.  When...do we love with patience, with waiting?  When...do we love with pressure, with confrontation?

At the very least, love appears to be quite imprecise...not very much about seeking to 'get it right'.  This, actually, is quite freeing.

Inevitable

Change is inevitable.  Growth is optional.

-- John C. Maxwell

Because They Want To

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Mother of All Skill

Repetition is the mother of all skill.

-- Tony Robbins

Only Gets Better

Leadership is something that only gets better by doing it.

-- Maynard Webb

CT: Farewell, Cultural Christianity

As American culture changes, the scandal of Christianity is increasingly right up front, exactly where it was in the first century. The shaking of American culture will get us back to the question Jesus asked his disciples at Caesarea Philippi: “Who do you say that I am?” As the Bible Belt recedes, those left standing up for Jesus will be those who, like Simon Peter of old, know how to answer that question. Once Christianity is no longer seen as part and parcel of patriotism, the church must offer more than “What would Jesus do?” moralism and the “I vote values” populism to which we’ve grown accustomed. Good.  Continue here....

-- Russell D. Moore

Blood Into Ink

The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink.

-- T.S. Eliot

I've been writing thoughts, phrases, and ideas more lately.  Perhaps this helps explain why.

Convinced

We seem to only be convinced of something that is, once we've become convinced of something that isn't.

It is part of the process of knowing, of believing -- to learn what isn't true, often the hard way, helps us believe what is true.

Requires Something

Nearly everything worth having or enjoying requires something.  Rather than simply a curse, perhaps there is something about requirement that affords us the ability to enjoy.

The easier way -- the one with less requirement -- is not the better way afterall.  It reduces our ability to appreciate, even participate in, what we enjoy.

Giving and Receiving

Knowing and understanding is a result of giving and receiving.

Ember

Is an ember something that is dying out or what keeps something burning?

I feel like an ember describes my sense of being the last few weeks; in other words, not much flame.  I am wondering, which direction things are going...that is, which is a more accurate description of me, at the moment...am I dying out or keeping something alive?

My instincts are to do something to make myself feel busier.  But, I don't think I fully trust this instinct...I suspect I need to burn differently for now.

Every Journey

Every journey down is really soil for a journey up.

Largely Through What Happens

If God speaks to us at all other than through such official channels as the Bible and the church, then I think that he speaks to us largely through what happens to us...if we keep our hearts and minds open as well as our ears, if we listen with patience and hope, if we remember at all deeply and honestly, then I think we come to recognize, beyond all doubt, that, however faintly we may hear him, he is indeed speaking to us, and that, however little we may understand of it, his word to each of us is both recoverable and precious beyond telling.

-- Frederick Buechner, Now and Then

...though He uses them, it seems His speaking is in a language beyond the limitations of words. His is a language of knowing, that He teaches me.

The Years Are Short

A compelling perspective on how much ordinary, even inconvenient, things matter.  Because it is often in such things, that we can have the opportunity to be the most present with someone else.

Clear Intention

Knowing what you want, uncomplicated by confusion, is a clear intention.  Your brain obeys clear intentions more easily than confused intentions – that’s why multi-tasking turns out to be so inefficient. Neither task receives adequate focus, and the brain is divided between competing intentions.  Every time you hesitate or feel mixed emotions, your intention is no longer clear.

Think of how hard it has been to make decisions in your own life when you felt ambivalent, indecisive, or unsupported in your decision-making. These factors affect not just you, but the entire situation.  Worse still are decisions that must be made where there is distrust, rivalry, and hidden agendas.  A group of people with mixed motives isn't conducive to reaching any goal smoothly, and when a bad result occurs and outsiders ask, "What were they thinking?” The answer is usually "They were thinking too many things at once."

In every area of life, intentions become murky when you:

• Don’t really know what you want
• Think you don’t deserve to get what you want
• Feel skeptical that any result will come
• Have mixed motives
• Experience inner conflict

The secret to holding focus is to make it effortless. The image of a genius with furrowed brow concentrating like mad is the wrong image.  Awareness likes to be focused when it is pleased – that’s why two people in love can’t tear their eyes off each other.  They drink each other in; there’s no effort involved. So apply your focus to the things that charm you. Put your energy on things you love but also on things that most easily hold your attention and make you feel energized and vital.

-- Deepak Chopra

Other Side of Fear

Everything you want is on the other side of fear.

-- George Addair

Fork In The Road

Pain takes us to a fork in the road -- it can cause us to harden ourselves (self-protection) or it can be what opens us up...to more of life.

Pain creates opportunity for us to pay attention to things we otherwise might not.

More Disappointed

Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.

-- Mark Twain

Addicted & Bored

We are both addicted and bored...by the familiar worlds we seek to maintain.

Compassion

You may call God love, you may call God goodness, but the best name for God is compassion.

-- Meister Eckhart

This Is No Wall

Big news, there is no wall.  Mistakes make your brain grow.

-- Jo Boaler

...read more here about how our mindset affects our growth.

You Don't Care

If you aren't working hard, you probably don't care a whole lot about what you're working on.

-- Ann Handley

Rigor and Growth

As I reflect on my past, as well as on what I see around me, it seems to me that rigor is a key ingredient to our ability to grow as human beings.  Challenge creates opportunity for discovery within ourselves of things that just can't be gotten to otherwise.

Conversely, the avoidance of things requiring rigor often leads to atrophy and a stunting of our growth.

This seems to be true physically, mentally, regarding self-awareness, and spiritually.

None Of Us

None of us see things fully the way they really are....