Posts in Category: down to earth believer
“The Lover Is the Main Thing”
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8, English Standard Version)
Unwelcome revelations about myself frequently come knocking on my mind’s door. One arrived yesterday. I realized that I love our little dog more than I used to love my children. I tend to be a very self-critical person. I am used to being that way. But this revelation is very dismal indeed.
Now, don’t get me wrong. There was nothing wrong with my children. And our dog is nothing special—except, of course, to us. No, it isn’t the dog’s fault that I love her more, nor is it my children’s fault. There was something terribly wrong with me. In my younger days, I was simply incapable of loving as I should have loved.
I suppose there were any number of reasons: fear, short-sightedness, the desire for immediate gratification. (By the way, why do they call it “gratification”? It’s not really all that gratifying.) Reasons, yes, perhaps, but no excuses and no justifications.
In fairness to myself and the truth, I did love my children. I loved them as well as I could . . . at the time. However, it was so inadequate.
This is a very non-uplifting post, is it? It is hard to read, isn’t it? It is difficult for me to write. But here, we turn a corner as readers and as writer. And a glorious corner it is!
As I was thinking these dreary thoughts and feeling down about my fathering, I suddenly was struck by the insight that it isn’t the beloved who determines the love of the lover; it is the lover who determines that. And then, my mind turned toward God’s love, and I was flooded with light.
God does not love me because I am lovable. God loves me because God is love. God can and does love me perfectly, not because I am perfect or lovable or perfectly lovable. No! God loves me perfectly because God is The Perfect Lover. It is entirely about God, not at all about me. And because it is all about God and not me, it is also about me.
All my life I have been trying to make myself more lovable. Hasn’t worked. Never will. But that isn’t the issue. What I need to do is to choose to let myself be loved, whether I’m lovable or not.
Then, and only then, there is the difficult and exhilarating work of becoming more loving myself. I am in the process of learning how to love. I would say that I am in about the third grade in this school of love, but I’m making progress. One of my best teachers is my little dog.
“God and the Lesser Pain”
There was a time when I wasn’t allowing my oldest daughter to learn to walk. My intentions may have been good. After all, I didn’t want my daughter to experience the pain of falling. We lived in a parsonage that had a hardwood floor. So, I would catch her. My daughter turned it into a game called “I-fall-backwards-and-daddy-catches-me”. The game was great fun, but there was a downside: My daughter was not learning to walk.
Finally, my wise and tough wife said to me, “She’s never going to learn to walk if you keep doing that.” She was right and I knew it.
So, the next time our daughter started to walk, I stood a few feet away. As she fell backward, I contraried my instincts and let her fall. She looked back at me with such shock and accusation that I almost thought that I had done the wrong thing. But within a few days, she was walking.
“Underneath are the everlasting arms,” said God to Moses. However, that doesn’t mean that God always catches us when we fall. Sometimes, God lets us fall. We call these “consequences”. Some of us also question God. “Why didn’t you catch me?” Actually, this is often more of an accusation than a question.
But here is the bottom line, I think: God wants us to learn to walk. A painful process? Yes! At least, the falling is. I suspect that God, because God loves us so much, finds our falls to be very painful, too. However, it will be more painful in the long run for us and for God if we don’t learn how to walk. And God will always choose the lesser pain for Himself and for us.
“Nibbling God”
Psa. 34:8 “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” (English Standard Version)
This was the verse of the day in the You Version app recently. In the story that was connected with the verse, the guy who was doing the story made the simple point that “taste and see” and “takes refuge” are verbs. They are things we can actually do. Indeed, we must do them if we are to experience God.
Sometimes, I put way too much emphasis on feelings and thoughts. Unfortunately, thoughts and feelings are almost always nouns. At least, that is true for me.
The Hebrew verbs for “taste” and “see” are imperatives. They are commands. Of course, as with any command, we are free to disobey. When I was a little guy, I was very finicky. My mom used to say to me, “Well, taste it and see if you like it.” Sometimes, I obeyed. Sometimes, I did not. But the only way to know if I liked something or not was to taste. No amount of external pressure or cajoling was a substitute for experiencing something for myself.
So it is with God.
How do we “taste and see that the LORD is good”? We nibble. Nibbling is a greatly underrated action in the spiritual life. I think that those of us who claim to be Christ-followers are at least partly to blame. “Either you believe, or you don’t!” is the watchword of many believers. We ignore Jesus’ comment about a mustard-seed-sized faith. We also ignore the cry of a father whose son was possessed by a very cruel demon, “I do believe, help my unbelief!” He had just enough faith to cry out for faith to help his unbelief. That’s really not a lot of faith. Yet, in response to his cry of (un)belief, Jesus healed his son. A nibble of faith was apparently enough.
Perhaps God is more eager to be tasted and known than we are to nibble.
“Think Before You Ask”
“Think before you speak.” (A common saying.)
“Think before you ask.” (A corollary to the above common saying.)
“James 1:19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;” (English Standard Version)
Asking is a form of speaking, and my wife thinks that I ask too many questions. I more than half suspect that she is right. She wants me to try to think through a thing myself before I ask her a question. Because I know that she is right, I don’t particularly like her advice. There are reasons (or at least excuses) for my tendency to ask too many questions.
- I’m lazy.
- I am impatient.
- I don’t trust my own thought process, or the conclusions based on it.
- Related to my lack of trust is the fact that I have attention deficit disorder.
- I had a dad who was a perfectionist. I was afraid to displease him, and this led to me asking questions to make sure that I didn’t get it wrong. Of course, my many questions alsodispleased him.
However, I’m trying to learn how to practice the fine art of thinking through things before I ask for advice. This is the flip side of yesterday’s post, in which I made an impassioned plea for listening to the advice of others. It isn’t either/or; it is both/and. We do need to ask for advice, and we do need to think through things for ourselves.
So, I’ve had some teeny tiny victories in the realm of thinking-before-I-ask. I am going to mention two of them that occurred within the past twenty-four hours. Am I bragging? Yes! Yes, I am!
I bought a new mouse at OfficeMax yesterday. When I got it home, I thought that the package was defective. It did not have the little piece that you plug into your computer that makes the mouse work. (That piece is called a “dongle”. Who knew?! I certainly didn’t.)
I was going to take the mouse back, but I decided to have another look. I had noticed a little piece within the mouse itself next to the batteries that looked like a watch-a-ma-call-it dongle. I tried to pull it out, but I couldn’t and was afraid to break the confounded thing. So, I concluded that it must not be what I was looking for. However, I decided to have one more look. It still lookedlike it might be what I was looking for, so I tried pulling in a different direction . . . and it came out! My mouse is working just fine now, thank you very much!
A second vignette:
I have a combination lock, but I have forgotten the combination. Covid meant no Planet Fitness for a long time, and by the time I went back for a workout, my mind was locked out in terms of the sequence of numbers for the lock. I was about to throw the lock away, but I had this nagging feeling that I had that combination written down somewhere. But where?
I typed “COMBINATION LOCK” into my computer search bar. You’ll never guess what happened! Oh, you did guess. Right! A file came up with precisely those numbers. Sometimes, I’m more organized than I realize.
So, asking for the help of others is nothing to be ashamed of. However, it is a good thing to think for yourself, also. It is a simple thought, but even the simplest realizations are difficult for me. The simplest insights often hide in plain sight. And, of course, “simple to understand” is not synonymous with “easy to do,” is it?
“You Don’t Know Yourself as Well as You Think You Do”
I was listening to a recent “Hidden Brain” podcast the other day. Shankar Vedantam was interviewing Tim Wilson in a show called “You 2.0: How to See Yourself Clearly.” The authors made an excellent point: Introspection is not always the best way to understand yourself. In fact, many studies have suggested that your friends—and sometimes even people you don’t know at all—can help you to make better decisions than you can make for yourself.
In one intriguing study, some people were given a profile of someone they were thinking about dating. Another group was given one anonymous evaluation of the person they were thinking about dating from someone who had had one date with that person. The people who had read the profile ended up being much more dissatisfied with the prospect than those who were given the evaluation from a stranger.
This all confirms something that I have experienced repeatedly. Let me illustrate. My wife and I will go to a restaurant. Usually, I order the same thing, but once in a while I will get really adventuresome and order something else. My wife will say (with raised eyebrows), “Do you really think you’re going to like that?” Now, whenever my wife raises her eyebrows, I need to sit up straight and pay attention. Sometimes, I do. However, sometimes I am in a rebellious mood and ignore her eyebrows . . . and end up not enjoying my entre.
The Bible, especially the Book of Proverbs, informs us that taking the advice of others is one form of wisdom. Here are some representative verses:
“Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future.” (Proverbs 19:20, English Standard Version)
“Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” (11:14)
“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.” (12:15)
Of course, we need to be careful about the source of advice. In particular, online advice can be worthless at best and a scam at worst. But we need to face the fact that we can give ourselves some very bad advice, too. As Andy Stanley says, we are all great salesmen. We sell ourselves on bad ideas. The most serious scams we fall for are the ones we perpetrate on ourselves.
“Purposeful Thinking”
“Rom. 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2, English Standard Version)
A friend of mine is well aware of the fact that he tends to overthink things. People who really desire to grow and change for the better often do that. I recognize this because I desire that very thing myself. Frequently, I even overthink my tendency to overthink.
So, I sent an email to my friend, and then realized that I was also talking to myself. Here is what I wrote to him (and to myself):
“Thinking can be a very good thing. Being un-thinking is definitely not a good thing. But over-thinking is not the goal either. What is the goal of thinking? Do you realize that I’ve lived 71+ years, and I have never before asked this question?
A very preliminary response to my own question might be as follows: The purpose of thinking is to act in a loving way in each situation, to feel better, to be better, and to position myself to think more sanely still.
Perhaps we need to question our own thinking process. Maybe, when we’re prone to overthink (or to simply think wrongly), we could ask a few simple questions that are incredibly profound.
- Will this line of thought help me to act more lovingly?
- Will this line of thought make me feel better in the long run?
- Will this line of thought make me a better person?
- Will this line of thought position me to think more sanely?
I don’t know if any of this helps you, but I think it might help me. Hopefully, I’m not overthinking the whole thing.”
“Hoping for or Hoping in?”
“Psa. 42:0 To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah.
Psa. 42:1 As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival.
Psa. 42:5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation
6 and my God.
My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me.
8 By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God, my rock:
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As with a deadly wound in my bones,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
Psa. 42:11 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.” (Psalm 42, English Standard Version)
Sometimes, you have to talk to yourself—in addition to talking to God. In Psalm 42, the psalmist is doing both. It is a prayer, but it is also self-talk.
One of the things that the psalmist said to himself was a command. It is repeated twice in the psalm. He is talking to himself, to his own soul, and commanding his soul to hope in God. The English Standard Version turns a command into a determination. I am not convinced that this is the best translation. A command, and imperative, is not the same thing as a declaration in either English or Hebrew.
Sometimes, we need to not only talk to ourselves, but also to command ourselves. Hope is not an option for people who believe in God. It is essential.
But notice carefully: Here (and in many other Scriptures), hope isn’t about a what, but about a Who. Too often, we hope in particular whats. Some Scriptures do speak in that way. However, the lion’s share of references in the Bible talk about hoping in God. Hoping in particular whats makes a highly questionable assumption, the assumption that we know what we need. What if God has other ideas? What if God Himself is what/who we most need?
So, here is the deal: If you are hoping for particular outcomes, self, you may be entirely off-base. Perhaps you should just trust in God. Yes, I know it’s a radical concept, but you still might want to try it. After all, my dear self, hoping for particular outcomes doesn’t seem to be working all that well for you.
DTEB, “The Uncomfortable Bothness of Anger”
One of my twelve-step friends said very helpful thing to me the other day. “I know that anger is a huge red flag for me. I also know it’s super normal to get frustrated and angry sometimes. All these new spaces are so full of bothness, and it makes them uncomfortable to be in, but in truth, this too is the easier, softer way. This is the path to growth and joy and freedom.”
I love the word “bothness” even though my spell-checker flags it as not being a word. There are a lot of bothnesses in the world. Anger is a red flag, and anger is also super-normal. In fact, I believe that God gave us the gift of anger. Often, good change and growth are fueled by anger. This is true for both individuals and society. Almost every positive change is provoked by being provoked to anger.
But, as is always the case, good things can go horribly bad. The desire to alleviate pain is a good desire. Such desire can lead to positive changes in our diet and exercise. It is also one of the key components of the opioid addiction crisis.
In Ephesians 4:26, Paul says that we are to be angry and yet not sin. Some translations tone down the radical nature of what Paul is saying. “For example, The New Language Bible: The New Berkley Version translates the verse, “When you are angry, commit no sin . . . .”
However, in the original Greek, the word is in the imperative. The King James Version has it right: “Be ye angry, and sin not . . . .” Anger is not just commended; it is commanded!
But Paul, who was more into bothness than many of us are, follows up with the words “. . . and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath.” Anger is so good that it is commanded, but it is so strong that it has a statute of limitations, which is very short indeed.
Instead of either expressing or suppressing our anger, perhaps we need to slow our roll and ask ourselves (and God) some questions.
- Why am I really angry?
- Can I do something positive with this anger?
- If I can do something positive, what is it?
Neither blowing up nor bottling up is the best response to our anger. Recognizing the bothness of anger is exceedingly important. Anger is certainly uncomfortable, but as my friend pointed out, it is indeed “. . . the path to growth and joy and freedom.”
“Love: The Only True Adventure”
“Love God and love people like you love yourself.” (Jesus, my paraphrase)
“We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them.” (J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again)
One of my 12-step readings for today is as follows:
“Sunday, August 7
We love because it’s the only true adventure.
—Nikki Giovanni
In loving, we meet ourselves. As we have become more honest, we no longer make excuses about our relationship problems. We can’t blame our troubles on our partner. Our problems with love were often because we didn’t know how to be close or we didn’t dare to be.
When we let ourselves engage in this adventure, we meet many obstacles – things we can’t control, and sometimes we want to quit right there. We have arguments and disappointments as well as good feelings. But what adventure is without difficulty or surprises? Part of the reason for choosing new experiences is to confront forces outside our control. A relationship is a dialogue. Only if we stay with it through the frustrations, express our deepest feelings openly, and listen to our partner, do we achieve a new level of understanding and confidence in the relationship. Then deeper levels also open within ourselves.”
Today, I will let honesty guide me in this adventure of my love dialogue.” (From Touchstones: A Book of Daily Meditations for Men ©1986, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation.)
In the above reading, I was especially struck by the sentence “But what adventure is without difficulty or surprises?” The fact that I was struck by the sentence should not be construed to mean that I liked the sentence or the truth that it expresses. The truth is that I like easy and predictable. On the other hand, is easy-and-predictable really The Truth?
My wife likes Hallmark love stories. (I do too, but don’t tell my wife. Hopefully she won’t read this post.) Have you noticed that they generally end with the wedding? That is an excellent idea. Why? Because the difficulties and surprises begin after the wedding. It is difficult—verging on the impossible—to wrap a marriage up in a neat package and put a pretty bow on it. Having a beautiful wedding and a beautiful marriage are two very different things.
And, of course, most of every adventure consists of boring, demanding slogs through dismal country. Almost no one tells you that. However, that also is part of the adventure.
My affirmation for today is as follows: “Today, by God’s grace, I am daring to love myself, God, other people, and all creation.” It takes some daring. Even Hallmark shows have some difficulty and surprises as part of their script.
I hope that you have an adventuresome and loving day!
“How to Avoid Being a Tyrannical Hero”
“The hero of yesterday becomes the tyrant of tomorrow, unless he crucifies himself today.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/971054-the-hero-with-a-thousand-faces, accessed 08-04-2022)
“I die daily.” (The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:31, my translation)
Probably, we all would like to be the hero sometimes. Most of us who are over the age of thirty would be quick to moderate this heroic desire by saying, “Well, maybe in some small way, I would like to be a hero.”
Perhaps we should thank God that we aren’t heroes. Why? There is a simple answer: Today’s hero easily becomes tomorrow’s tyrant.
But no matter whether we are ever heroes or not, here is the thing: Today is the only day we’ve got. Since I am feeling very tired, old, and useless today, I am especially aware of this. Sometimes, just living the day and doing ordinary things is heroic enough. And avoiding being a tyrant today is also being a hero.
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
- DTEB, “Getting Christ and Ourselves Back in Focus” November 11, 2024“Col. 3:1 ¶ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Col. 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Col. 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden […]
- “Search Me!” October 27, 2024“Psa. 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24, English Standard Version) I am participating in a Bible study, and this is a prayer […]
- “Christian Speech” October 26, 2024“Eph. 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Foulkes, in his excellent commentary on the Book of Ephesians, writes the following, which I quote at some length: “29. Now the […]
- “God is in the Details” October 11, 2024“The devil is in the details.” (A general saying, often quoted by lawyers, reporters, and negotiators.) “God is in the details.” (Me, almost certainly not original.) “Luke 12:7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Jesus) God does not micromanage, but God […]
- “Grandma’s Pump” October 8, 2024When I was a little critter, I would stay at my grandma’s house for a night or two sometimes. I liked this for a lot for many reasons. One thing I liked about staying with her was that Grandma’s house was much more technologically advanced than ours was. For one thing, she had indoor water—sort […]
- “Wearing the #14 Wrong-Side-Out” October 5, 2024Pete Rose, #14, is dead. Many of the old guys with whom I play softball watched him play and appreciated him greatly. I do as well. He was one of the greatest players who ever played the game. Yes, he admitted (eventually) to betting on baseball. But many of us still regard him as one […]
- “Passing Along the Love (and a Link)” October 4, 2024Several years ago, a friend of mine put me onto a daily meditation by Richard Rohr and friends. I don’t read them all the time, but I probably should. They are good! I thought that today’s writing was especially good, and I also figured that this would be a good way to post something. I […]
- “Witnessing Versus Being Witnesses” September 19, 2024“Acts 1:1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, Acts 1:2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Acts 1:3 He presented himself alive to them after […]
- “A Bathroom Prayer for Hurting Hands” September 11, 2024A week ago Sunday, my hands were hurting so badly at church that I went to the bathroom to run hot water over my hands. Arthritis perhaps, or carpal tunnel, or general orneriness—I don’t know why my hands hurt, but they do. They have for years. So, while I was running hot water over my […]
- “Waiting and Seeking” September 10, 2024“Lam. 3:19 ¶ Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! Lam. 3:20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. Lam. 3:21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Lam. 3:22 ¶ The steadfast love of the LORD […]
Recent Comments