Posts Tagged: Your Move

“On Not Giving Up”

On September 17, 2019 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

I was thinking about giving up.

I was listening to an Andy Stanley sermon titled, “You’re Not the Boss of Me.”  Part 1 was difficult to hear, in view of how all-over-the-map my emotions are right now.  It is hard for me to tell my emotions, “You’re not the boss of me,” when they are being particularly bossy.

As I walked, I listened to Andy Stanley’s “You’re Not the Boss of Me,” part 2.  It was about guilt.  The first ten minutes were, even by Andy’s own admission, pretty depressing.  He was warning about trying to deny, or minimize, or blame someone else for the harmful things we’ve done.  My walk and my listening were getting more and more depressed and depressing.

What was the use of trying to get clean and honest?  It had not brought healing to my children, to my wife, to others I had harmed.  Had it even brought healing to me?  Telling the truth as best I could had simply caused others to wonder what else I might be hiding.  What was the point of anything?  Why not just give up?

Just as Andy Stanley was making the turn toward the fact that Jesus had died for all our sins and guilt, that we were no longer condemned or defined by our guilt, I made the turn down one of the cull-de-sacs.  I finally had enough courage to look up from my blue running shoes, and there, in a yard at the turn of the street, was a sign:

DON’T GIVE UP

This seemed very strange, in view of what I had just been listening to, and feeling, and thinking.  “Surely, this is a mirage,” I said to myself.

But, no, it wasn’t a mirage.  It was still stubbornly there as I got closer.

I knew the couple who lived there—slightly.  We had chatted a few times when we were out walking in the neighborhood.  So, I walked up the sidewalk, and rang the doorbell.  The man of the house came to the door.

“I needed to see your sign,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said.  “I’ve got several of them at work as well.”

“Is this some sort of program?” I asked.

“It is to encourage young people who are depressed or suicidal,” he replied.

“I’m afraid it isn’t just young people who struggle with depression or suicidal tendencies,” I said, fighting back the tears.  “Your sign was just what I needed to see.  Thanks.”

I continued my walk.  Another street, another cul-de-sac.  When I made the turn at the end of the cul-de-sac, I looked up and there was the lady of the DON’T-GIVE-UP house walking toward me.  She walked with me a while, and she talked a bit about why they had the sign, and how the signs were the brainchild of a concerned person on the West Coast.  The lady left me with a card for a free mental health program and a prayer.  “You are an angel of God for me today,” I said to her.  Only just now, I remembered that her name was Angela.

Sometimes, we all need a sign from God.  And sometimes, the sign is a sign.

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“WINNING BY WITHDRAWING”

On December 6, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

Rabbi Abraham said:

“I have learned a new form of service from the wars of Frederick, king of Prussia.  It is not necessary to approach the enemy in order to attack him.  In fleeing from him, it is possible to circumvent him as he advances, and fall on him from the rear until he is forced to surrender.  What is needed is not to strike straight at Evil but to withdraw to the sources of divine power, and from there to circle around Evil, bend it, and transform it into its opposite.”  (Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim, volume 1, page 115)

Andy Stanley made a similar point in a podcast he calls, “You Might Also Like.”  He says that you can’t overcome the temptation of greed by saying, “I’m not going to be greedy!  I’m not going to be greedy!”  Rather, we overcome greed by . . .  Well, frankly, you need to listen to his podcast on You Tube.

I have tried too often frontal assaults on the evil that assaults me.  How many times has that actually worked?  I don’t know precisely, but I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere between zero and nil.

Do you remember an old cartoon strip called “Cathy”?  Cathy was a single young lady who was always going on diets.  In every frame of the cartoon segments that chronicled her diets, she gained weight.  I can identify.

So, perhaps it would be good if we tried Rabbi Abraham’s approach and Andy Stanley’s approach.  Perhaps we should withdraw to God.  Maybe life wasn’t meant to be lived by ourselves.

Even if you don’t believe in God—and who of us really does believe in God all that much—you can act as if there is a God.  Take the empirical approach.  The Scripture says, “Taste and see that the LORD is good” (Psalm 34:8a)

What have got to lose?  I mean, besides the chronic losses you suffer when you attack your problems head-on?  Withdraw to the source of your strength, of all strength.  Your attack might go much better when you have done that.

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