Fear

Been thinking about this subject a lot lately. It's an ugly thing. I think it boils down to: Either you're using it, experiencing it, or being manipulated by it - consciously or not. It is a part of nearly every decision you make and every action you take.

Breaking through

Ever have the feeling that there was something just beyond your grasp? Not physically out of reach, but mentally. Some barrier to break through, some idea or concept that's just beyond your ability to comprehend? You don't know what it is, but you know it's important, even necessary, that you conquer this unseen, unknown challenge. You're willing to move forward, or at least you think you are, but aren't yet able. There's some part of you doesn't want to. Fear?

How'd you get past it? Or have you?

Getting past it is the wrong word, it can imply avoidance. Getting through it is more accurate.

Start of a new era

Tomorrow begins a new era in the United States, for better - and worse.

Yes, America needs to move on from the Bush administration. No question about that. Yes, it's great that a minority was elected to the highest office in the land, giving a lot of people a sense of validation and renewed hope. And maybe even some healing.

The expectations, though, are frightening. When people realize, and many never will, that government can't (and shouldn't!) fix everything that's wrong in their lives, the honeymoon will be over.

The current mess we find ourselves in isn't due any one political party or even ideology. It's due to one thing, and one thing only: entitlement. Our culture has so convinced us that we need and deserve a nice house, a nice car, the latest television, the best cellphone, and the nicest clothes We're convinced that if we don't have these things that we don't measure up - and there's an easy way to get the shiny thing that will make us think we've arrived: Credit.

When we ALL stop believing that BS and start living within our means - that's when real change will happen. That's the change that's needed in our economy. Proverbs says "The borrower is slave to the lender." Is it really any wonder what's going on?

There's always an answer to the desires of our heart, but is it right one.

Thanks to Michael Sitarzewski for the inspiration to write this.

Change: Getting on with it.

I've posted about change several times, and have been thinking about it again lately, perhaps from little different perspective. Death. Several people I know have had to deal with death of loved one in the past few weeks, so the subject has been higher in my consciousness than normal, and has caused me to evaluate my own experiences. My dad died from cancer just over 15 years ago. I still think of him often, almost daily-but the memories are real. Not sad, just real.

Most of us lose someone very close to us in our lifetime. Conventional wisdom says we go through a period of grief, then we move on. We all grieve differently, but the process is basically the same. The 'seven stages of grief' are well-documented. We experience shock and denial, pain and guilt, anger, then depression. We start to turn back, we rebuild, and then we accept what's happened and our life continues.

The grief process is the ultimate study of change. Change in the most extreme form most of us will ever experience. Reality is not a constant, in fact the only constant about the world we live in is it is constantly changing. Death of loved one, or more precisely, someone close to us changes our reality. Forever. They're never coming back to us in this life, and we have to learn how to live in this new reality.

The grief process, then, is more correctly titled the change process. I believe that every change in our lives that we have to process follows this same pattern. The degree of which we experience the emotions will vary depending on many factors in our psyche, and the nature of the change itself.

There are many sources of change, but only 2 types: internal and external. Internal change is the change we desire to make. Like to change a bad habit. This is transformational change, you must let something die in order for this change to occur, thus initiating the change process from within. You make this choice. External change is the change that happens to us from outside. Like the death of loved one, an unexpected job loss, a divorce, and so on. This is change out of our control, but still initiates the change process. Both types change reality.

What's really happening in this process? Behind the scenes of our denial, anger, sadness and acceptance, our psyche recreates our view of the world. Our perceptions are altered. Our core values, beliefs, attitudes, and expectations are reprogrammed to adjust to this new reality. The new facts are used as input, and when the compiler completes, we have our shiny new paradigm through which we operate in the world.

Romans 12:2 "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." The context here is changing to be more like Christ, but the process is the same. 'Renewing of your mind' is rewriting that roadmap within which we guide ourselves (credit to M. Scott Peck in 'The Road Less Travelled' for that metaphor). Again Paul writes in Ephesians 4:22-23 "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds." Paul's metaphor is 'put off your old self' - or toss out that old map. Also, James 1:2-3 says "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance." Change is hard, but purposeful. There are many more biblical examples, but I hope my point is clear with these.

So. Death makes change, reality is in a constant stage of change (irony that I used constant to describe change, eh?). We have to change to match reality, the change process is what gets us there. When someone close to us dies, we don't get 'over' it, we get 'on' with it.

There's more to sport than winning

Mikey and Roy both posted this on their blogs. After reading, I felt compelled to share it as well. Sometimes, we get so caught up in our immediate goals and needs that we lose sight of the bigger picture or purpose. I see this at work, at home, at Church - and here's a great example of sport.

They played the oddest game in high school football history last month down in Grapevine, Texas.

It was Grapevine Faith vs. Gainesville State School and everything about it was upside down. For instance, when Gainesville came out to take the field, the Faith fans made a 40-yard spirit line for them to run through.

Did you hear that? The other team's fans?

Click here to read the full story. Warning, you'll likely need a couple of these:

2009 - already?

Hard to believe it's been two months since I've posted. A lot has happened in the past 8 or so weeks, many of which really deserve their own posting, so I'll just lightly touch on what's been going on personally and professionally.

Tonia and I celebrated an amazing 9 years of marriage last month. I can't begin to express what that means to me in words. She's the best wife a guy could hope to have. She's put up with me, helped me grow, encouraged me, pushed me, been a great step-mom to my son, and a wonderful manager of our home. I repay her by doing stupid stuff, and for the life of me can't imagine why she chose me.

Nick continues to learn to be a teenager - and I continue to learn how to be the parent of a teenager. We're entering one of the biggest transitions in his life, and our relationship. As such, roles are changing. My job needs to change from being more the coach or manager that gives him direction and instruction, to that of the encourager and cheerleader he needs to help apply the things he's learning in his own life. It's an interesting and challenging time for certain, but a defining time as well. My son is becoming a man.

For me, I continue to struggle to make positive change in my life (details later). It's a daily, sometimes hourly, question whether I'm up or down about life in general. My last physical had some disturbing news about the progression of diabetes. I need to make significant lifestyle changes now, or this disease will kill me sooner rather than later. So it's a constant battle internally to resign myself to the fate of the disease, or to learn how to fight harder.

Professionally, the scope of my job has changed significantly. I'm now in the systems department, focusing primarily on security and PCI/DSS compliance. I welcome the new challenge and hope this process can help our company move forward. It's an exciting time as it feels like we're on the verge of turning a corner. Several things we've been working toward are falling into place, so 2009 should be an exciting year.

The Worship Team is going pretty well. We've made significant progress in the quality of what we do. I LOVE to play, but more than that, playing with a purpose of leading our congregation's hearts and minds into the presence of the Throne is also a great responsibility. I'm honored to be able to participate at several levels from planning, to running sound, to playing instruments.

For goals this year, health has to be top priority. I'll make a detailed list of goals for my next post, I think.

Happy 2009!

Judged?

Have you ever been judged unfairly by someone in the church? This message may help.

Quote of the Day

I just started following Max Lucado on Twitter. He posted this gem the other day that I just now read.

Failures are not fatal. Death is not final. Life is not futile.

Gonna chew on that awhile, but my first reaction to this is that it speaks directly to fear. We're afraid to fail, so we do not risk. We're afraid of death, so we do not accept the gift. We're afraid of a meaningless life, and let that fear cripple us - which is destructive, as Bruce blogged about awhile back.

We. Is. Me.

On Change, Transformation, and Death.

Mike made a quick post about Change vs. Transformation a few months back, and Bruce posted some additional thoughts yesterday. Go read those posts first to get the context of this post. Got me to thinking about my own life.

I commented on Bruce's post with this question: "what motivation do we have to accept, let alone initiate, transformation?" The answer I had in mind is along the lines of: "is there being a real or perceived value to self, either indirectly or directly by choosing this new path." In those terms, it would seem making choices is easy, or at least ought to be.

But is it really?

The smoker usually knows he's ruining his health by smoking. He knows there's a value in quitting, yet he lights up the next one, the one after that, and continues on the destructive path even though he KNOWS there's value in the transformation of smoker to non-smoker.

Why doesn't he just quit?

You could put many situations in the same story. The alcoholic, the meth addict, the abused wife the pre-christian. And me.

Why do I continue to hold on to unhealthy habits and ways of living when I *know* that changing them will add to my life, and to the lives of those around me? If I'm healthier, I likely will live longer and be here for my wife and son. If I were more organized, I'd be more efficient and successful at my job, and have a better life in my home. If, if, if... So what prevents me from choosing healthier, more productive ways of living?

At some point in my life, I made a choice to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I'm glad that I did. My motivation for that was learning about man's separation from God and that by choosing Jesus, I'd be reunited with Him when my earthly body died. A perceived value, even a selfish choice.

A few years ago, after many, many times of lighting a cigarette and telling myself that I needed to quit, I did. I lit the last cigarette in the pack that I had, threw it away, tossed my lighter in a drawer, and haven't smoked a cigarette since. I just looked, that lighter is still in the drawer here, I use it to light the occasional candle.

Yet, I feel I'm in my own way of making...er scratch that, of trusting God's work in me to transform me. Or is it not really letting God work in me, it's making better choices because He gave me free will and trusts me to make choices. Or is it God's in control and I need to let go and let Him. (I suspect the answer to all of the above is "yes").

WHY then, if I see value in doing things differntly, do I continue on the wrong path?

So, if you've read the links and have kept up:
Mike's point:
Change, and the desire to change, is doomed because it is incremental which allows us to retain control - which we'll likely never give up.

Transformation is successful because we let go completely of the old way and trust in God that the new way is good.

Bruce's addition:
Something must die for transformation to occur. The old way has to die for the new way o flourish.

Steve's struggle:
How do I choose to initiate transformation - or get the hell out of the way and let it happen?

Do we really understand?

Fernando reposted a blog post that a pastor had written that questioned the accepted understanding of a passage in scripture based on grammatical mood. See the link if you want to read more, my intent isn't to try and open another discussion on that topic, but to raise another question: In our (man's) exegesis of scripture, we learn more of God. Indeed, stated purposes of scripture are teaching and "thoroughly equipping":

2Tim 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Another facet of God is that he reveals details about Himself, His plans, and actions when He so chooses:

Acts 1:6-7 So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.

There are several other passages that show that same theme. Doesn't it logically follow, then, that our understanding of God, is subject to change as He reveals more of Himself to us?

In other words, is the canon, and therefore God, as static as we've been taught?

Got Service?

A friend on the Christian Musician Forum posted this vid tonight. I'll add no commentary except to say that I'm that guy. (Well, except for the good looks, the suit, and the Buick....)