Category: Self-Improvement

God Meets Us Where We Are

God says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in….”

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I have come to realize God meets people where they are.

When I was growing up, the concept of “finding yourself” was a popular idea. I thought I needed to go out into the world to find myself, and that’s what I did. I launched myself on that journey, even before I left high school.

I remember the old adage that the wind can’t carry a ship that is at anchor, or a ship at anchor can’t be steered (or something like that). That became a guiding principal, and I have given that guidance to my children. You have to get up and move, even if you don’t know precisely where you are going.

I think it’s generally good advice. It has held me in good stead. If we wait around for the perfect opportunity to come our way, it may never come. We even find wisdom along those lines in Proverbs (16:9)(NASB):

The mind of a man plans his way,
    but the Lord directs his steps.

When I set out to search for truth as a young adult who had squandered his teenage years in reckless drinking, drug use and risky behavior, I thought the truth was “out there”. I just had to search for it and find it.

In more recent generations, the conventional wisdom might run along the line of finding the truth within. Oprah Winfrey and other popular prophets of modern wisdom would say we don’t need to go searching for the truth because the truth is within us.

In my latter days now, as a journeyer who moves a bit slower, I have come to see things slightly differently. Neither paradigm rings true. I think we can find the truth “out there”, and we can find truth “within”, but neither paradigm is completely accurate.

I certainly don’t want to make light of the search! We need to orientate our hearts toward “finding it”. We need to value the truth for its own sake and be willing to let go of anything that runs counter to it – even if we don’t like it, even if the truth doesn’t look all that attractive to us… even if the truth is hard.

At the same time, the truth isn’t necessarily “out there”, and it isn’t “within” either. I am (you are) not the arbiter of truth. “My truth” doesn’t mean anything in the face of reality. We don’t talk about “my scientific truth”, and we shouldn’t talk about “my spiritual truth” – if we are really interested in truth at all.

Continue reading “God Meets Us Where We Are” →

COVID-19 and Spirituality in the 21st Century

We are made for interaction and for relationship. 

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To paraphrase from the article linked below, spirituality in the 21st Century is is a one-person-show. You tap in, you tap out. You are the curator of the experience; you are in the pilot’s seat. Self-betterment. Self-discovery. Self-awareness…. Spirituality in the 21st Century is a singular, self-focused pursuit.  You are your own god, attempting to build your own island paradise. Sounds like a dream.

That dream is a attractive to a recluse like me. As a child, Robinson Caruso and My Side of the Mountain influenced my impressionable psyche at an early age. Thoreau captured my imagination as a still impressionable, but disillusioned, teenager. Of the major world religions, Buddhism spoke to me as an early college student.

Retreating from the messy cacophony and harried competition of modern life seemed like Nirvana to me. Back to nature, isolated on my own island paradise, beholden to no one but myself, released from external duties and melting into the oneness of all life seemed like a laudable and desirable goal.

My inspiration comes from a blog I follow by a lovely lady and Christ follower. You can read the original blog post here: Eavesdropping on a Plane. She calls to mind the siren song that beckoned me up to a point in my life.

As I sit here in self-imposed quasi-quarantine (for the sake of others, not myself this time), some 40 years after a paradigm shift in my life that changed the trajectory of my journey, I recall the allure of that dream, and I am also convinced it’s a mirage, an unattainable state of illusory bliss.

We are social creatures, created for relationship with God and each other. The ordered, but largely self-regulating, isolation we now experience as we fight the threat of the alien invader, COVID-19, proves the point: we are uneasy, restless, and missing the regular, personal contact we need and thrive on.

Continue reading “COVID-19 and Spirituality in the 21st Century” →

Is God Really Good? — Fractured Faith Blog

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Here’s to tough English teachers, careful use of the English language and God’s direction and formative influences that He allows into our lives. I am reblogging this piece that reminds me of a turning point in my life, and the tough English teacher who met me at he turn.

I was an angry, rebellious youth, living a recklessly self-destructive teenage life, drinking, smoking pot and taking unnecessary risks. I don’t know why I was that way, but that’s how I was.

I think I was desperately searching for something meaningful, trying to fill the voids, unwilling to settle for mediocre. But the things I was using to fill those voids left a deeper void.

An unrelenting, stubbornly idealistic and sternly enthusiastic English teacher is just what I needed. She challenged me, and it turns out I was ready for the challenge. The two papers I wrote that semester, on Joseph Conrad’s, Lord Jim, and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s, Crime and Punishment, were just the rigorous tests of critique and simultaneous self-reflection necessary to jump me off the nihilistic track onto the path to truth and meaning that can only be mined with same kind of relentless, stubbornly idealistic and uncompromising confidence in the effort that my teacher demonstrated for us.

The blog, Is God Really Good?, reminds me of these things, and the gratitude I owe to my “very grumpy English teacher”. Only she, was less grumpy than enthusiastic, but none the less effective in her influence on me.

When I was at school, and Queen Victoria sat upon the throne, I had a very grumpy English teacher called Mrs Hume. I felt sorry for Mr. Hume if she was as grumpy at home. Mrs Hume was a well balanced woman. She had a chip on both shoulders. Life had dealt her a poor […]

via Is God Really Good? — Fractured Faith Blog

In Times of Trouble

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lightstock_62496_xsmall_user_7997290We have all been there. You have done your best, but your best is not good enough. Maybe you have not done your best, and now your best is not good enough to fix the mess you are in. Maybe your impossible circumstances are totally beyond your control.

The feeling of abject desperation is the same.

In those times, the temptation may be to withdraw, curl up and bury your head. Maybe the temptation is to beat yourself up, hang your head in despair and live in condemnation. Maybe the temptation is to throw up your hands, say it doesn’t matter anyway and drown your woes in alcohol or drugs. The options may seem dismal and dark.

But, this is a critical point! The last place we often want to turn is the first place we should go – down on our knees in prayer to the God who made us and loves us.

There you will find God greeting you, not with judgment, but with open arms. “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17)

You may not be able to see your way out of the predicament you are in, but God stands high above your predicament. He is also with you in your circumstances, and He is bigger than your circumstances

When you are trapped in a hopeless situation, or what seems hopeless to you at the time, when you cannot see your way out of the darkness and the world is caving in all around you, cry out to God. He hears you! (Psalm 18:6) The righteous are those who cry out to God in their distress (Psalm 34:17), and God will deliver you from your troubles!

We are not righteous because we are good; we are righteous because we cry out to God!

He may (or may not) deliver you from your circumstances, but He will deliver you from your troubles. That is the promise of God, and “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind.” (Numbers 23:19)

When we go to God, we go to the Maker of the Heavens and the Earth, of all that is seen and unseen. When He makes a promise, He keeps his promise.

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! …. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:4-7)

Rejoice always means to rejoice in every circumstance, good and bad. God is above all of our circumstances! When we are anxious, that is exactly the time for us to go to God in prayer. When we are anxious, we should petition God. With Thanksgiving, we should make our requests known to God. We should appeal to God in all of our troubles…. and the promise of God is peace for our troubled hearts!

In this verse, we are not promised deliverance from our circumstances, but we are promised peace – peace from our troubles!

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” (Psalm 46:1)

Sometimes God allows us to come to the end of ourselves, to a place where we are powerless (or feel powerless) to help ourselves, and in that place is where God does His most significant work in us. We simply need to turn to Him.

We can choose not to turn to God. We can go it alone. That is always our choice, but in turning to God we not only have ready help, peace that passes understanding and a deliverer from our troubles, we have a Savior – One who delivers us not only from our troubles but from ourselves and the sin that leads to death. When we turn to God, we have Life and, we have life more abundantly.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10) The thief, the robber of our souls, is a condemner, an oppressor and a liar. When we feel desperate and hopeless, the thief is at your door.

Turn to God in your time of trouble; cry out to God, and then rejoice in God and His promises; pray to God – He will meet you where you are. That is His promise!

The Talents You Do Not Have

For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Matt.14:29

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Niño asombrado mirando a la derecha

God will not reward you based on the talent you have or the talent you do not have, but He will reward you based upon what you did with what He gave you. I am not talking about works. We are saved by grace, not by anything that we have done.

I am talking about stewardship. Continue reading “The Talents You Do Not Have” →