Honest To God

Dr. David E. Carlson wrote an intriguing article in the mid 70’s that was delivered at the Research in Mental Health and Religions Behavior Conference in 1976. It was title, “Jesus’ Style of Relating: The Search for a Biblical View of Counseling”. His goal for this article was to “Bridge the gap between carrying helping professions and dedicated to communicating with those in the church who are threatened by [mental health care professions].” This was a daunting task then and a battle that is still being fought today.

In the 1970’s the Southern Baptist were regaining their strength after a long season on interdenominational quarrels. Not only were they struggling to find their identity (again) theologically, they fought against each other over differing views of methodology. The way they related to people and the input they received from the Mental Healthcare professionals was only a small slice of the overall controversy they were facing. However, it was this type of conversing over the hard topics of methodology and theology that was happening, not only among the Southern Baptist, but the Church as a whole as they tried to care for people completely by staying true to their convictions unswervingly.

Dr. Carlson addresses this problem well in his article, and I am sure it was received as vital words in a time of turmoil when he first delivered it. Nonetheless, we are still struggling with these same types of decisions today. Evangelicals are still trying to find how they relate to culture and how much input they allow secular scientific study to speaking into the methods we hold so tight to when doing what the Church has been asked to do.

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From www.creationswap.com, file #: 7521

This weekend I started the new sermon series called “Abide”. For two weeks we will be studying what God says through His Word in Chapter 15 of John. Perhaps there is no more important sermon Christ gave while on earth than the simple instruction to abide in Him.

But what does that really mean? What does it look like for us to abide in God?
Even if we have grown up in the church and heard hundreds of sermons, the chances are that none of us can really put words to what it means to “abide in Christ”. In fact, I must admit, I too had a warped view of what it meant to abide in Christ. It is not to simply stay close to Him for the sake of greater reward or more steady obedience. Rather, to abide in Christ is to have our entire lives affected by His Lordship over us.

This means that I trust Him even when it hurts. In the passages of John 15 we see things that talk about the pruning God does in our lives so that we can have maximum fruit-bearing abilities. We say we want to be close to God and bear fruit for Him, but we forget how much it hurts when He prunes us.

Perhaps you’ve thought or said things like these people before:

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Photo Courtesy of iStockphoto.com, © jgroup, File #2694919

Everyone goes through life with a gnawing sense of unease, an unspoken dread we’ve lived with for so long we hardly know it’s there anymore. It taints everything we do with a strange sense of displacement and dissatisfaction. Even when things are going our way, at the end of the day, alone with our thoughts, the whispering anxiety remains. It is there when we wake up in the morning and hovers at the edge of awareness all the time.

If you don’t believe me, then try this: Find a quiet place where you can be alone. Sit still for five minutes and just breathe. Pay attention to your thoughts. Make no attempt to control them—just watch where they go. What did you experience? An unshakable peace and contentment? A calming and comfortable assurance of God’s acceptance and approval of your life?

Probably not.

I am willing to bet—because this is how it usually works for me—that you quickly gravitated toward the nagging list of “shoulds and shouldn’ts” we each carry around. It started with things you should be doing right now instead of this pointless exercise. Then you moved on to reliving things you wish you hadn’t said or done, or things others have said and done to offend you. Perhaps you thought you should have this kind of quiet time more often—and then felt a stab of guilt when you remembered all the unfulfilled promises you’ve made to yourself and God. Your mind began to swing like a pendulum between past regret and future anxiety, with you hanging on for dear life in the middle.

No wonder we fill our lives with distractions!

Here’s the point: All that mental turmoil—to which no one is immune—arises from the same place, a deep and driving fear we all share: We’re afraid we’ll never be good enough for God. Like awkward teenagers in gym class, we are sure we’ll never be His first pick for anything. We find it impossible to rest, to stop judging our mistakes and plotting how to be better next time, in the hope of finally measuring up.

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I love this picture! I want to buy a big print of it and put it on my office wall!

How do you kill your giants?

That’s right – One  at a time.

Yes, there are millions of saying like this, but there is truth in all of them – if we are going to take care of those monstrous tasks before us, we have to just take it one little step at at time.

Lately Iv’e been in one of the most overwhelmed seasons of my life. Iv’e had church tasks, sermons, school, writing, family, friends, counseling and 1,000 other minuscule tasks to take care of – all at the same time. My list of both tasks (single action items) and projects (anything requiring more than one step) seems to grow faster than I contain it.

I’ve learned not all task and projects are created equal. Some are actually enjoyable, while others are more haunting then going to the dentist for a root canal.

As I’ve been knocking down my giants one-by-one, I’ve kept track of these little tips to help pull me through. Here are some helpful hints I’ve been using for getting though this overwhelmed season of life:

1. Find inspiration. For example, I use the picture above as a desktop back ground on my computer. This picture is a biblical inspiration for me to be to live like David and kill of all the Goliathes – one at a time. For other projects, I’ve create a folder or a piece of paper where I past saying, pictures, and other little reminders of things that will inspire me to keep pressing on. I find that without keeping little symbols of inspiration around I get drained faster.

2. Create a realistic plan. Without a plan, I’m toast. I have to know how I am going to get though the mounds of work before me. At least weekly, if not daily, I will sit and schedule out my tasks on my calendar, place a list in Evernote, or sort my Omnifocus by deadline and start date. I find that knowing I have a plan relieves a lot of anxiety.

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Anger is the aircraft carrier in the fleet of our emotions. Not only because of its massive size, but also its ability to do harm because from it proceeds a multitude of other feelings—grief, sadness, hatred, loss, horror, and doubt. Anger in itself is not necessarily wrong. It is an emotion God has given us, but as with anything He has given us, we must not elevate it higher than Christ. If we allow our lives and hearts to be defined by our anger, we are worshipping at the altar of our emotions, not at the throne of God.

Mary and Martha were faced with the choice of harboring their deep-seated frustration with Christ or clinging to Him for hope. Their brother, Lazarus, was deathly ill, so they sent for Jesus, who they believed cared about Lazarus too. Yet to their surprise and dismay, He made no effort to get to them quickly. In fact, He stayed away another four days and moved on to a different city rather than running home to be with, and possibly help, Lazarus (see John 11). Imagine how frustrating this must have been for the Mary and Martha. They wanted Jesus to respond according to their terms. They were faced with the choice to hold a grudge against Jesus, or to trust Him.

Upon His arrival—finally—to Bethany, Martha ran to Him and started playing the “If only…” game. Later on, Mary joined in as well. You know the game I’m talking about. It’s the game we play when we don’t get our way in life, especially from God. We run down a list of “if-only’s” with God, telling Him all the ways things would be different if only He would have done what we expected. By the time Jesus arrived, Lazarus was dead and buried, and Mary and Martha were sure things would have been different if only Jesus had come sooner. You have to admire the honesty of these ladies; in the face of loss they had the guts to cry out before Jesus and share their deep frustration with Him about how they wished He would have acted.

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