Always Ask…

What is God trying to teach me?

So if your situation is good or bad, exciting or boring, pleasure or pain, simply ask.

-What are you (God) showing me?

-What are you wanting me to learn?

-How is this going to help me grow?

-How can this experience give me wisdom?

 

This will keep you on your toes and on your “game”.  It will keep you from getting stuck.  All it takes is turning off the “auto-pilot” and start flying.

 

The unique thing is although this may seem egocentric (all about you), it actually creates an environment and a posture that makes it about God.

 

…and that’s the sweet spot.

Bird Feeders

It’s springtime and it’s the perfect time to put up all the “pinteresting” ideas on how to feed birds.  I love them.  They bring life into your backyard with cheap seeds and nectar.

 

I also think about how simple this is and that fact that so many people don’t do it.  (Lindsay and I don’t do it because our two young kittens, Crash and Eddie, are apex predators and that would be cruel.)

 

This is true of life.  Life, zoe life/real-meaningful life, is easy sometimes.  (sometimes it isn’t).  Sometimes it’s as simple as being intentional as putting “things” out there that attract life.  Someone that puts out a bird feeder is doing something so profound and may miss the reality of what they are doing.

-They are doing what anyone can do (there is no special skill)

-They are putting it up near them (you don’t have to travel around the world)

-They are using their own resources (you don’t have to depend on others for your own generosity)

-Their generosity attracts

 

May you realize that you can attract life.  May you also realize that Life comes from giving yourself away and not from holding on.

 

with humility.

Opposition to Gravity

There is a gravity to anything.  Relationships, Processes, Ideas and Objects.  Everything has a “pull” (or a mass).  Sometimes it’s so weak you can’t really measure it and sometimes it’s so pervasive that you forget about it.

 

How many of us woke up this morning and tried to jump out this planet?  You don’t because you have just excepted it.

 

This is okay at times.  You learn to use this gravity to function and to get by.  ”Gravitys” create a sense of control/form and give you the ability to run somethings on “auto-pilot”.  When I wake up I don’t curse the Earth for pulling me down, nor do I curse the moon for not pulling harder.  I just calculated their effects and walk.

 

But there are some “gravitys” that need to be named in your world, they need to be exposed and opposed.   Some we all share, and those are hard to break because they get reinforced.  Some are individualized, and they are hard to break free from because others can’t relate.

 

Community “gravitys”

-politics

-nationalism

-religion

-gender roles (or the opposite but just as toxic “we are all the same”)

-status quo or political correctness (it’s retarded)

 

My “gravitys”

-egocentric reality (the Ryan Roberts minus Copernicus perspective)

-white guy perspective

-education saves (it doesn’t…it actually makes a crappy savior)

-diet/workout styles

 

In short, we all get pulled to settle.  Settling is the instinct that pulls us in our minds, relationships, and culture.   (Settling is a gravity.)

 

It wasn’t like Clark Kent didn’t feel the pull of our planet’s gravity.  What made him Superman was his strength to be more than the pull of our gravity.

 

Be Superman.

I missed out on the mother/son relationship

This is something that I’ve always felt has created a void in my world.  Loosing my mom at 4 and then having a step-mom from 6 until 23 (but now we have zero contact), has probably created some wounds in my heart and psyche.  The fact that I can’t remember my mom and don’t even have a picture of her up in the house probably would indicate some issues.

 

However, I believe God is redeeming and restoring this through my bride.

 

She is the prototype mother.  She is everything a child would want in a mom, in a woman, in a nurturer.  She has been filling in the gaps and holes in my mind and heart that were put there in my childhood.  When I see her mother the way she does, it’s like God is telling me “That’s what you missed as a child, make sure you don’t miss it now”.

 

God has given her to me to see this and given me someone express my limited ability to love to.  (she is expanding my limits)

God has given her to Kai and Andrew to see how God has made a mother, but also what to seek later in life.

God has given her to Malia to show her how a woman is to be to her husband and to her children.  Malia will want to be a mother because of her mother.

 

blessed.

Idea Purgatory

I think my friends and I that are on this journey together. We have left one paradigm and are working on living in another one. (this isn’t a shift from old to new or a shift from “ehh” to better….it’s just a shift)

But… alas… we are living in this middle space that requires God to teach us patience.  It’s hard because we are trying to (in our minds/hearts/actions) build out an ecclesiology that is foreign to us.

…It’s a foreign land (even in our “skull size kingdoms”)

Egocentric Cages

We all have trapped minds. We all get caught in believing that “this is about me!” or “how is this going to affect me?”. I’ve come to realize that this is how I think and I want to escape from it.

The problem is I can’t.

I wake up everyday with a mind that has been reset to believe that “me” is what “this” is about. Then there are days when I come across someone or some idea that breaks me free from this prison, and for that day, I’m free.

…but alas…I retire to the night

And the next day, I’m back to being about me…
…my problems
…my joys/passions
…my aches
…my to do lists
…my relationships

So in light of this frustration, I’ve figured out how to daily break free. (I will admit that I don’t do this as well as I want.)

Steps for Redeeming Shawshank:
1. Read something random/new
2. Try to create something
3. Talk to the spectrum (meaning: have rich conversations with different generations, the opposite gender, different political/religious views, etc.)
4. Pray, rinse, and repeat.

with humility.

Managing the Dip

If you have never read “The Dip”, check it out (HERE)

Knowing about the “dips” are important.

Dips – the decrease in passion, enthusiasm, and response from others after your initial “high” of the idea, experience, or relationship.

Examples: “7 year itch” in marriage, sophomore year, and 6 months into a new job.

The Dip is real and it’s hard, but it’s important. It’s important because there is fruit on the other side and the dip is a “quitting point”. Most people give up because it’s hard. The sad thing is they give up before it gets good and those that live to see the good have one common trait – perseverance.

Anyone that’s had a deep, rich relationship or success in an adventure*, will be to tell you “it wasn’t always good”.

(*substitute career or vocation)

Caveat: it’s okay to realize that you have to quit somethings. This can be healthy. The art to quitting or persevering lies in the personal awareness that you are made for somethings, and somethings just aren’t your “bag”.

with humility