Living as a Flawed Disciple

So I’m on my way home from the gym, doing a little mental assessment of my workout, and I think the Holy Spirit decided this was a good time to open my eyes a little bit about us humans. Maybe part of the reason we are such a sexual culture…a culture of outward appearance…a culture of physically based attraction…is that we’re lazy. Now I realize that probably sounds ironic…or maybe just wrong. But I think there is something to it.

Of course going to the gym, working out, eating healthy, etc. requires work and effort. And of course most of the people identified as incredibly fit (physically speaking) are not what we deem lazy. But I think it all depends on the scale we are using.

If we use a physical, outward based scale where one end is the proverbial “couch potato” and other end is fitness freak/gym rat, then certainly those people devoting time and energy to getting their bodies in peak shape are certainly not lazy. BUT if we use a different scale, one that maybe goes from “complacent about the person I am” to “striving to be the best person I can”, then I think we may find a whole lot of us on the “lazy” end of that scale.

I’m being a little too broad here I know, because physical health is important. Eating right and taking care of your physical body are important and good and godly. What I am getting at here is the prioritization of this very visible aspect of ourselves versus the equally visible (though we don’t think about it too often), but less visually apparent, inner part of ourselves.

It seems to me that improving the inside part of ourselves…our character flaws, our weaknesses, our sinful tendencies…is much, much harder than making ourselves lift a weight or run on the treadmill. It’s not as fun, the benefits are not always as immediate and not always as easy to see, and in the current culture, it often seems less valuable. But it wasn’t always that way, and I don’t think it is that way every where today…and with everyone. In fact I know that it is not.

Still, there is no denying that we live in a world that is preoccupied with the outside. And let’s face it, the outside is easier to work on. I mean I know dragging yourself to the gym can be a real challenge. And I know denying yourself that slice of cake takes real effort. But compared to holding our tongue when all we can think to say is something bitter or spiteful, or compared to forgiving the person who maybe even deliberately hurt us, or compared to carving out 15 minutes of our day to spend in prayer…compared to those things…I think the physical stuff is comparatively easy for most people…at least I know it is for me.

Not only does working out our inner self require a lot of effort….it’s ugly. We have to confront the fact that at our core we really are not very nice people. Most of us are inherently (it seems) selfish. We are easily offended. We carry grudges. We judge others to make ourselves feel better. We do all kinds of things that make us not very attractive. So can we really be blamed for focusing our effort somewhere else? I mean rather than confront that ugliness and the self-doubt and fear that comes along with a good look at ourselves, it seems perfectly natural that we turn to something we can more easily control…our outside appearance. Ultimately, we want to be loved. Ultimately, we want to be wanted. And whether we admit it or not, most of us are terrified of being unlovable.

I think we all have a sense of this deep down. We know somehow, that left to ourselves, we fall short. We know the ugliness inside us…even if we never look at it. And so we feel like we are unlovable from the get-go. We feel unworthy of love. BUT…we need it. We long for it. In fact we were created for it. So we have a choice. We either work on who we are and try to clean up the ugly parts of ourselves…or maybe…since that is really hard and real slow going sometimes…maybe instead we can pretend to be better than we are…and then we can distract people with the stuff on the outside. I think too often that is the road we take…not really because we are lazy….but because we are afraid.

But the good news is that regardless of how unloveable we feel…we are loved. And we are loved by the greatest of all lovers…our Creator. And even more, the truth is that when He created us…He created a good person. So this means that at our core….we are good. Did you get that…we are already good. And so while it may take work to get to where we are more often kind than not, or to where our default is to think of others more than ourselves, or to where we enter every situation looking for how we can best share God’s love…the good news is that we can get there…because that is who we were made to be. Rather than changing something from what it really is….we are really just scraping off all the crud to let what is already there shine through. And THAT is pretty good news.

I play fantasy football. For those who play or are familiar with the game, I expect what I am about to share will ring very true. For those who don’t play, I think you’ll still be able to relate to the weekly lesson Fantasy football delivers.

[BTW, not that you need to know this to understand what I am sharing, but for those who don’t play, fantasy football is a game (usually online) where you get to “pick” real NFL players to be on your virtual Fantasy Football Team. You then get points each week based on how those real NFL players perform in the games they play in real life. So for example, if you have Peyton Manning on your team (QB for Denver Broncos and frequent star of TV commercials) and he throws a pass for a touchdown, your fantasy team gets 6 points. Each week you compete against another player who has their own Fantasy Team with the winner being whosever team gets the most total points that week.]

So I’ve been playing Fantasy Football for probably over 10 years now, and I’m convinced God is a fan of Fantasy Football. How do I know this you ask? Well, I think God is generally a fan of anything that offers a regular healthy dose of humility. [This is the same reason that I think God is a fan of annual physicals.]

You see, playing Fantasy Football is a near constant reminder of how limited my vision is and how little I know. I don’t say this because I’m a perennially fantasy loser. That would make this more about self-pity than humility. No, the reason Fantasy Football is so humbling is because my successes often occur despite myself and my losses are the direct result of something brilliant I thought I did.

Keep in mind there are fantasy football players far more “into it” than I am, but I take it fairly seriously. I subscribe to a couple sports websites offering inside information. I listen to podcasts and read articles by experts offering good strategies and forecasting the best performances in the upcoming week. And then I take all this, factor in what I’ve seen in previous games, throw in a good dose of “gut feeling,” and then set my sure-fire can’t lose line-up for the week. Come Sunday I have my laptop (or iPad) by my side as I watch the games anxiously but confident that I’ll win my weekly match-up.

And then it happens. Actually one or more things happen. Sometimes one of the players that I took out of my line-up winds up having a high scoring day (which means I don’t get his points since I took him out of my line-up). Then sometimes the player I was sure was going to have a career day winds up playing absolutely lousy (again resulting in very few points). And still other times, the player I wound up starting because I had absolutely no choice winds up winning the entire matchup for me because he did have a career day. And of course sometimes times all of these things (and others) happen in the same week. Can you see the frustration….and the humility?

With all my facts and information, with all my insight and insider info, Fantasy Football has taught me over the years that I am pretty incapable of affecting an outcome. Sure sometimes I win…and initially my pride swells and I feel pretty good. But it doesn’t take long for me to realize (although sometimes it takes until next week’s match-up) that a lot of why I won had nothing to do with me. And on the flip side, when I lose, though initially my pride searches rapidly for excuses as to why I lost (like one of my players got injured or because the defense was playing better than normal or whatever), I eventually realize that if I had made some different decisions (which now seem sort of obvious), I would have won. So the bottom line is that every week I get smacked in the face with a heaping, but healthy dose of humility.

Of course it doesn’t take too big a stretch to see that this fun little distraction of Fantasy Football is like a little microcosm for how we live our lives a lot of the time.

On any given day there are a million decisions to be made. We are constantly faced with choices…some big and some small, but all with ramifications. Often we (or at least I) try to make these choices using the “wisdom” of our life experiences, the “expert” information propagated by the gurus, and/or that “gut feeling” we have about what will bring us the most success or the best outcome. Too often the very last thing we do…if we do it at all…is ask God what we should do. Even then, we’re often only half-asking (or half-listening) because our minds are already made up or the moment has already passed and we had to act.

When this is how we live, the results of our choices, even if they seem good initially, ultimately hurt us. Our successes allow our pride to puff itself up, dig in a little deeper, and fight even harder next time for figuring stuff out on our own. Our failures often don’t do much better because there is always a reason or excuse for why we can’t really be responsible for the outcome and how if we had only known X, then we would have made a better choice.

But the fact is…if we are honest…its pretty easy to see that only God can see beyond our choices…only God can see the ramifications of every step and every choice we make. And if we truly care about the consequences of our actions…and if we truly want His best for our lives…then we need to embrace our limitations…embrace our dependence. After all, we are dependent on Him…for every breath we take in fact. And after all, He loves us. The Creator of the universe, the Master of time and space, the Alpha and Omega of Love…loves us. Why not seek Him first whenever we have a choice to make? Seems like an easy decision to me.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9

Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes ; Fear the LORD and turn away from evil. Proverbs 3:5-7

Now if God will just tell me who to start on my Fantasy Football team this week… 🙂

We all want easy answers. The lazy, pain-avoiding selfish side of us all wants solutions that require minimal work from us and that ultimately cost us very little. And certainly elections feed into this desire. The bigger the election, the bigger the hope that the answers to our problems are only a vote away. If only [INSERT CANDIDATE] is elected, then [INSERT ISSUE, i.e. The Economy, Unemployment, Healthcare, etc.] will be fixed. Making it worse is the fact that while we agree with the popular notion of “The Good” for all, if we are really honest, underneath this hope for an answer to the “big” issues, is really a desire for some personal benefit (i.e. I can finally retire, or I can finally find a job, or now I don’t have to worry about getting sick, etc.).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting it’s a sin to want/need a job, or to want the economy to be stable, or to want healthcare for myself and/or others. These are all good things and just part of surviving. The problem comes in our wanting all this to be “easy.”

When we are faced with difficult situations…hard choices…we recoil from the possibility of pain. We don’t want to endure any kind of pain…even briefly…whether that be the pain of unhappiness or depression, the pain of sacrifice due to financial struggles, the literal pain of enduring an illness, or even the more altruistic pain of knowing there is a world of suffering that we feel we can’t do anything about. And so to avoid the pain, we cling to easy answers..or at least the appearance of easy answers. If we can just get the right leader, or the right job, or the right spouse, or the right economic environment, or the right law, etc. then everything will be better. Despite the seemingly obvious naivete of this belief, it makes us feel better. We console ourselves with the notion that by supporting this candidate or this cause or this ‘solution’, we are DOING something about the problem. But the reality is…we are wanting someone else to do the work that solving this problem would really take.

We see this play out time and time again. A pain (meaning an issue) rises and consumes our collective attention. Journalists begin talking about it, politicians begin debating it. Grand solutions are drawn up and then these are debated. Despair grows as this looming issue persists in our collective mind. And in the end we get a new program or a new law and the process starts all over again. But often, the situation continues. People are still hungry, crime still exists, prices still rise, jobs are still hard to get, and people are still in pain.

The challenge is that we are complacent and comfortable…even in our discomfort. For solutions to happen, change has to happen. And while we are accustomed to talking about change in the big picture, we are all fairly deft at avoiding change in our own little world. Change hurts. It requires a breaking of our will…forcing it from one position to another. And since that is so very hard for us to do, most of the time we don’t do it.

But for all that elections do to foster this false hope in an easy answer, they also provide us with a wealth of reminders and a great opportunity to recognize the truth. The solution to all of our problems (hunger, illness, crime, loneliness, depression, and even death) begins with each of us. We need to stop trying to escape the pain of change…the pain of difficulty…the pain of resisting our selfishness. If we see or know of someone who is hungry, WE need to feed them. If we know of someone who is sick, WE need to secure care for them (if not do it ourselves). If we know of someone who is lonely, WE need to visit them. Of course this is inconvenient, and yes this can be awkward, and yes this can cost us (both time and money), but that’s the real answer. As Gandhi put it so succinctly, “be the change you want to see in the world.” If each of us were willing to do this, the world would change….problems would be solved.

But sadly that won’t happen. I’m not really this much of a pollyanna. I know that not all of us are willing to try to do this…and fewer still will persevere long enough to actually do it. [I have enough failures in my own life to doubt whether I can actually do it…even as I write this.] But changing the world isn’t really the reason to do this anyway. The reason I should change…the reason I should act…and the reason I should feed and care and visit (and the reason you should too) is not because I can change the whole world, but because I can change the world of at least two people: myself…and the person I help. And what greater purpose can a life have than to improve the life of someone else…that is to love someone else. This is what it means to really love. This is what loving your neighbor really looks like. This is what God desires of all of us.

“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat ; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink ; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink ? ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ (Matthew 25:34-40

“Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” (Romans 12:15-18)

So often when we think of our calling in life or we hear about “the call” on someone else’s life, we think of a vocation or a grand direction….and usually it is a desire or compulsion to pursue an occupation such as the feeling you are being called to be a doctor, or a missionary, or priest. Of course there are not-for-pay callings too such as being a stay-at-home mom (or dad) or being a deacon. And certainly there are callings to marriage, or virginity, or celibacy. All of these are examples of God’s stirring something in us that desires to live a certain way and/or perform a certain job. But the other day while I was praying…seeking to surrender my will to His, I found myself asking God to help me hear and recognize His call not in this big sense…but in a much smaller sense. I asked him to help me hear His call in each moment. I didn’t think about these words before I said them, but once I did, I quickly suspected that maybe I had just been given a bit of Divine insight.

Many theologians (Protestant and Catholic) have written and preached about how each of us have God-appointed tasks to do in life or God-given duties to perform. And there can be no doubt that God directs us and leads us to our occupations and roles in life…if we let Him. (I love the line in one of St. Therese’s prayer: “May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.”) But I feel like maybe there is an opportunity to draw closer to Him if we usurp the idea of a calling…or of God’s call…from it’s normal context and see it at its core.

God’s call is not about our making a one time decision or about His occasionally pointing us in a certain direction. Rather God’s call is more basic. It is His voice in our lives…urging us to follow along the perfect plan He has for us. God’s calling is dynamic and specific. It is not measured in lifetime achievement or years of service….but rather it is measured in seconds…in the outcome of individual moments. You see….this is where He lives. He is in the Now…He is the Present. If we accept this premise…that ultimately our “calling” is just God’s appointed direction…which is to say action…in our lives, then we can see that “His call” is more than roles and occupations. In fact, I think maybe we need to see that is His call is really just for each of us to obey Him in every moment…To act like His Son in every situation. In other words, God’s calling on our life is much more granular than what we normally think. God is much more personal! God has a specific plan…a desired action…for each one of us in each moment. He wants to be there and help us in every situation. He wants to lead us in every moment of our lives. He loves us THAT much.

And how can we not trust His direction? He sees beyond us…beyond this moment. He not only knows the moment we are currently in, but had already been there before us. He sees the actions that will most benefit us…and the actions that will most benefit those around us.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11)

And so He calls to us…longing to directs us and guides us along our best path…not just the big picture path…but each step, around each stone, across each crack of the journey. We don’t ever have to enter a moment feeling alone…feeling lost or unsure. Not matter what the moment looks like…God is there…calling us.

So yes…we all have a calling. And yes…God has appointed-tasks for us in life. Most of us have to work…and all of us have roles to fulfill. But more than being a doctor, a missionary, or a priest…He wants us to be a healer, a servant, and yes even to be His Son…in every moment of our lives. So I guess that means that you and I need to forget the “big” question and begin asking God the smaller question (over and over again)…what is Your call for me in this moment?

I don’t think I have ever used my GPS on a trip and not heard the system announce “recalculating.” And usually I hear it multiple times. For any number of reasons it’s just hard to consistently stay on corse and follow each and every direction. Many times the reasons are my fault, but sometimes it’s just a matter of “life” just not working out as planned (such as when there is no road where the GPS says we are suppose to turn right). What I realized last night (Ash Wednesday) is that this is true for both traveling down the highway…and traveling through life. And as our pastor pointed out, what an incredible metaphor for Lent.

Lent is a time for us to reflect on and be transformed and renewed by Christ’s Sacrifice and God’s Love. It is a time for us to humble ourselves, to remember our weakness, to acknolwedge our faults. And inevitably, if we are honest and exhaustive in this exercise, we come to realize that we are not wholly where we need to be. For some of us…or maybe it is better to say that at some point in all our lives…we are significantly off course. For others…and at other points in our lives…maybe we have just drifted off the road a bit or slowed down too much or spent too much time in the rest area.

But regardless of the degree, most of us are off course…and so Lent is a time for recalculating. It’s a time to assess where we are and spend maybe a little time thinking about how we got here. But most importantly, I think, Lent is a time for figuring out how to get back to where we need, and want, to be.

Sometimes we have to figure out where exactly that is. Sometimes we just know…and maybe have known for awhile. But regardless, the broader method is the same. We have to identify where we are, we have to decide where we want to go, we have to map out a plan for how to get there, and then lastly we have to resolve to follow that plan. Maybe we need to start (or re-start) a daily prayer time. Maybe it’s saying the rosary on a weekly basis. Maybe it’s reading the Bible more frequently. Maybe it’s going on a retreat. Maybe it’s reading an inspirational (and/or very practical) book by a saint. Or maybe it is a combination of all these things. Each person’s path is going to be unique because God has a unique plan for each of us…and He is dying to show us what it is. Some of us already see it (and we are just not there yet). Some of us know that we saw it at some point in our life, but that seems so long ago. And some of us have never really seen it at all. But again…that is what Lent is for. This is our opportunity. All we have to do is say yes to God’s Positioning System (GPS!) and He will recalculate our lives. We may have to go down some unfamiliar roads…we may have to travel through the night…but if we humble oursleves and diligently follow His directions…we’ll get back on course…His course…and come Easter morning…the Son will rise…and we will find we have Life…and have it abundantly (John 10:10)!

Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Matthew 26:36-37

It is always a little surreal to me saying the Rosary during Christmas time, particularly the Sorrowful mysteries. There is something about pulling the Crucifixtion into the Nativity that seems wrong…jarring. But in truth, they are one and the same. Both are saving acts from our Creator. Their significance is eternally woven together. We shouldn’t see one without the other.

Besides, there is so much to learn from Jesus…and about Jesus…through His Passion. Take the passage above for instance. In just a few verses we learn at least two very practical things about Jesus…and about ourselves.

First, we learn that Jesus worried. He grieved and felt distressed. He knew what lie ahead for Him…and quite naturally…it upset Him…made Him anxious. How very human! And all the more testament to Paul’s teaching:

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:15

Second, we see that Jesus thought about the future. His mind wandered, just as ours does, out of the present moment and into the not yet formed future. So often it seems we are encouraged not to worry about tomorrow. To focus on today and let tomorrow take care of itself….as if simply thinking about tomorrow…about what might be is wrong. And while no doubt Christ’s words are Truth and Wisdom (Matthew 6:34), I think this very vulnerable moment in Jesus’ life helps frame what He really means when He says not to worry about tomorrow.

Clearly Jesus worried (or grieved or was anxious or distressed)…and yet He was without sin. So that must mean that worrying…or maybe I should say feeling worried…is not sinful. In fact, I think we have to admit it is very human. It’s in our nature. But where the real decision point comes…where the step toward or away from sin really happens…is in where we go from there….in what do we do next. And the answer to that, is found in the Garden.

And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” Matthew 26:39

AND

He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, “My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done.” Matthew 26:42

AND

And He left them again, and went away and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more. Matthew 26:44

Like so many aspects of our human nature, it is not our initial reaction which leads us to sin. For better or worse, we are the creatures we are…at least at this level…the level most similar to animals’ “instinct”. No…the decision point…the thing that determines if we take another step toward being a heavenly creature or a hellish creature (to borrow from C.S. Lewis)…is what we do after that initial reaction…what we do next. And thankfully, Jesus made it abundantly clear what we are supposed to do next. Whenever we are worried, or anxious, or grieved, or distressed, we need to go to God in prayer. We need to seek Him. We need to acknowledge His sovereignty and our weakness. When we need peace…we must go to the source of all Peace. And then…we need to let go of our worries and trust Him. Sometimes this takes work….sometimes it takes time. Jesus prayed three separate times before He completely exorcised His anxiety…His distress. So we must expect that there will be times when we will need to go back to God in prayer again…and again…and again. But if we go to Him faithfully…honestly…openly…humbly…and if we truly desire to abandon our worries and fears and instead trust Him…then Jesus teaches us…God will answer (http://www.biblestudytools.com/nas/luke/22-43.html)!

So the other day a good friend of mine was trying to help me understand the motives and endgoal of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Since I tend not to watch the news, I had only a general sense of what was going on and what this protest was all about. But as he explained to me the injustice of corporate greed and unjust labor practices and the importance of government intervention, I couldn’t keep my mind from wandering away from the details of this particular situation and asking…where is the mercy…where is the grace…where is the humility?

It seems like everywhere I look, we are becoming people who blame rather than seek reconciliation…who avoid accountability rather than accept responsibility…who expect others to make things right rather than do the work to make ourselves right. I see it everywhere from for-profit companies to non-profit organizations and from checkout lines to church parking lots. And yes, I see it in the Occupy Wall Street movement and in the talking heads that debate (and report on) the movement. But the irony of it all, is that I see it in the mirror too.

Of course, like so many things, we were warned that this would happen. The Author of life new all too well the inevitable consequences of sin in our lives:

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God– having a form of godliness but denying its power. (2 Timothy 3:1-5a)

Keep in mind the above is not end-of-the-world, Armageddon hype….this is just human nature. This is in all of us…in small ways if not big ways. This is who we are left unchecked…left to our own devices. And so that’s why I think the world (and Wall Street) would be infinitely better if before we started blaming others for the injustice we see around us (or that is leveled against us), we first look in ourselves…look our lives…and root out the arrogance and selfishness and greed in ourselves. I’m not sure any of us can really claim to be that different from those we so quickly identify as evil. Even my friend acknowledged during our conversation that eventually sin (though he didn’t call it that per say) wins out…the goodwill we muster deteriorates…corruption begins anew within.

And therefore the solution can’t be…at least not in the long term…to force (whether by government law or violence) everyone else to behave better. That is just a band-aid…because eventually a new injustice will rear its head because left unchecked, selfishness corrupts. No…the solution has to be for each individual to accept responsibility for making themselves behave better. That is our only chance of true, lasting revolution. But I know many would quickly describe this as being pollyannaish. Certainly not everyone will do this…or could do it. And maybe that’s true…but I think we have to look at the real reason most won’t commit to this sort of self-protest…and that’s because it’s hard…and requires sacrifice…and it means the denial of self…of self-interests. It means letting go of what we want. It means putting others ahead of ourselves. And it may mean…at least in the short-term…living with injustice…allowing ourselves to be treated unjustly. This kind of self-examination…and self-transformation…is painful…but it is powerful.

And so, much to the chagrin of my friend, the takeaways from our talk were less about the evils of Wall Street, corporate greed, and government corruption (which of course I think are all wrong indeed), but more a reminder of how easily we all find it to blame others, to expect others to fix things for us, and to generally expect the world to change with the least possible pain for ourselves. I see all this in myself. When I forget something important I was suppose to do, it was because someone didn’t remind me. When someone at work makes a mistake, they need to fix it. When I see a behavior in my wife that annoys me or even hurts me, I demand that she change. None of these things are my fault…so that means changing the situation is someone else’s responsibility.

But…I know there are things I can do…things I should do. I need to take the time to make lists and write myself reminders when I know there is something I can’t forget to do. I need to understand that my colleagues have a mountain of things “to-do” too, and so I can show some mercy when a document comes back to me needing edits and just make them myself. And when I see a behavior in my wife that annoys or hurts me, yes I can talk to her about it, but before that I need to do the internal work of understanding why it annoys or hurts me and what I can do to view this behavior differently and/or react differently. You see, we all have a great power at our disposal…the power to choose how we behave…how we think…and how we see those around us. We are not helpless to change the situations we find ourselves in…it’s just that often the change has to come from us and we don’t like that…because change hurts.

In the end, I get that Occupy Wall Street is about broad, big picture change…and we need to fight for things that are right and fight injustice…but I just think that before we go off to battle Wall Street, we should probably spend some time occupying our own internal street and seeing what evils we can root out there. It will hurt a little more and it will take a little longer, but in the end, we just might have that better society we all say we want.

I have a hard time praying. Or at least I have a hard time making time to pray. And no wonder it’s hard…if the only way I think I will have time is by “making” time. Not sure anyone has figured out how to do that yet. I guess it is more accurate to say that there doesn’t seem to be enough time….with all the other things I have to do. Despite my best intentions, it seems there is always something pressing that I “have” to do right at the time I’ve earmarked for prayer. And on one level, these other things are important…things like work, household chores, spending time with family, etc. But on the other hand, if I truly believe that prayer is talking to the very Creator of the universe…and more importantly that prayer is actually a conversation where the very creator of the universe talks to me…then how can anything be more important?

No…I think the truth…the real truth…is not that there isn’t enough time, but rather that I choose to use my time for other things. And once I recognize that….I just think…what the heck is wrong with me? Why would I not choose to spend time with God…my Creator…my Savior…my Father?

Now I do talk to God a fair amount, I think. Slowly over the years, and largely unconsciously, I have redirected my natural tendency to talk to myself so that I address Him instead. So throughout the day I say things in my head (and sometimes out loud) to God. Things like: “Wow I blew that one, God” or “Thanks for that God” or “Please help me figure this out” or “Father please be with that person.” And I am thankful for this…really I am. It feels good to have Him so close…or rather to recognize He IS so close. But I don’t want to use this as a copout for not doing the harder more serious type of prayer. I’ve heard people almost boast about this type of prayer….where they don’t have a prayer time…they just are always talking to God. And I certainly don’t want to presume to know the hearts of these people…and certainly Brother Lawrence has shown us that such constant communication with God is not only possible, but obtainable by us all. So again it is a wonderful thing if you can develop this constant prayer stream in your life. BUT, I think there is a fundamental problem with my “talking to myself” version of prayer. The conversation goes only one way.

I mean it’s obvious, but I so easily forget it….or maybe I intentionally dodge it. But any real relationship needs communication to flow in both directions. And that’s certainly what God desires…He wants a relationship with us. And so it isn’t enough that He hears us….but we have to hear Him too. And actually, I think most would agree that we probably need to hear Him more than He needs to hear us.

And maybe that is at the heart of my problem….of why I “choose” to do other things instead of carving out a few minutes to stop and just pray. I have no doubt that if I stop long enough to get quiet….to clear my mind as best I can…and to just listen to God speaking in me…in my soul…there will likely be some hard things to hear. I am sure there will be conviction…for so many of the sins that I gloss over and try to ignore…and guilt…for we need to feel the sadness and regret of our sin in order to propel ourselves toward repentance. And let’s be honest…who wants to hear that? But aside from the fact that I NEED to hear those things…if I hide or even run from that encounter with God…if I plug my ears to His voice…then I’ll also miss His words of Love…and Forgiveness…and Acceptance. I’ll miss out on His Guidance…on His Wisdom. I’ll miss out on the very thing that I was created to experience…communion with God. In short, if I don’t take time…deliberate…focused…uninterrupted time…to pray to…and hear God…then I will miss out. And I am missing out!

But it’s hard to be quiet…it’s hard to stop. There is so much going on all the time. But I need to stop myself physically…and I need to stop myself mentally (which is often the bigger battle). Because what I’m missing when I don’t pray is far too important. In fact, one could say it’s everything!

If I’m honest with myself, I tend to judge how close I am to God…or how healthy my relationship is with God…by how I feel. Do I feel close to Him? Do I feel His presence in some way? And the same goes for prayer. In my mind I had some good prayer time if I come away feeling good…feeling happy that I accomplished something spiritual or feeling like I was praying for the right stuff or saying the right things. But recently God has been showing me that this is the wrong measure. Faith is about things unseen…AND things unfelt.

For better or worse (and often for worse), our feelings are easily manipulated. They come and go and are tossed about like a buoy on the ocean. I mean just think of how easily a good mood can disappear. Imagine you wake up feeling good about the day…glad to be alive…with thanksgiving for all your blessings just rolling off your tongue. Then imagine you get in your car and head for work. Someone cuts you off on the highway, you jerk your car to avoid an accident and your coffee splashes over the edge and gets all over your cup holder and surrounding console. Then, when you finally get to work, the closest available parking place is all the way at the end of the parking lot….and it’s already over 90 degrees outside. On the way into your office you say to yourself…well this is starting out to be a crappy day…and presto…you are in a bad mood.

Maybe that example seems a bit contrived, but haven’t we all experienced how quickly we can switch from happy to mad? Or flipping it around…haven’t we all experienced the power of an unexpected and heartfelt compliment to brighten our mood..and maybe even make our whole day better?

The point is that our feelings are molded and shaped, pushed and pulled, enhanced and diminished by a variety of unending influences….and THAT makes them unreliable. Are you any less blessed because someone cuts you off while driving or because you spill coffee in your car? Are you not the same person with the same appearance and the same talents regardless of whether someone unexpectedly compliments you?

The truth is feelings are good…and they can be helpful…but they are not the end goal. We want to be healthy…not just feel good. We want to be secure…not just feel safe. We want to be loved (by someone’s actions)…not just feel loved. Feelings are a bonus…they are a byproduct…a happy consequence…but they are not what we really desire…or at least not what we really should desire.

And this applies to our relationship with God. Of course we want to feel close to God…we want to feel His love. But ultimately isn’t the most important thing that we actually are close to Him…regardless of whether we feel it or not? And isn’t the ultimate gift that He does love us….regardless of whether we feel that love at any particular moment in time? As one of my favorite authors asked so pointedly: Would you rather say a prayer that pleases you or that pleases God? The answer is, I expect, obvious to all of us.

But of course this is all nice in theory…the challenge comes putting it into practice. Believe me…I know! I find it terribly difficult to pray when my mind is wanting to wander and I keep getting distracted by random, often insignificant, thoughts. I really struggle with how to push through these moments…or periods…of seemingly dry…ineffective…unrewarding prayer. What’s the point…I ask myself. How is this doing anyone any good…myself or God? But I’m realizing that is exactly what the Enemy wants me to think. He wants me focused on the feelings. He wants me focused on the gift…not the giver. He wants me to re-write Scripture (just like it did for Eve in the Garden of Eden) and conclude that faith is the assurance of things received and the conviction of feelings I have felt. And so I have to force myself to remember the truth:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.Hebrews 11:1

If I truly believe in God…if I truly trust Him…then my feelings shouldn’t matter. After all, He tells us that if we pray…He hears us (1 John 5:14). He explicitly asks us to come to Him (Matthew 11:28). He both tells us and shows us that He loves us (John 3:16). If we believe God (not just believe in Him) then we know these things are already true. We don’t need the feelings to confirm it. Certainly those feelings are nice…even beautiful and powerful…but we don’t need them in order to be assured about our relationship with God. He has given us more than that.

If we reach out…if we are faithful in spending time with Him…regardless of how that time feels to us…then we can know beyond a doubt that He is pleased…and we are transformed for the better because of it. God’s love and grace and mercy and protection is constant. It doesn’t change on a whim…it can’t be altered by a circumstance.

In the end, we just gotta have faith. And at least as God has shown me…having faith isn’t about feeling something….it’s about doing something.

If you had asked me a week ago what the secret of life was…I would have told you to “live like you were dying.” It seemed to me that the real “trick” to life was to always believe this could be your last moment…the last time you’d be with a particular person or the last time you’d be at a particular place…and so you had to seize the opportunity….say what you really want to say…do what you really want to do…and not put anything off…leave no regrets. I truly believed that to really live we had to be continuously aware of the significance of each moment…of how valuable each second of our lives really was…and I had to keep that in the forefront of my mind. This is what I believed. And so I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to really be in a particular moment. I felt like I needed to be hyper-aware of what was going on….of the preciousness of each moment. I had to truly appreciate where I was and who I was with…and then save that moment in time…by making it incredible.

To put it mildly, I was giving myself a tall order. And as you can probably imagine…I never really figured out how to do it. It seemed the more I focused on the importance of the moment…the more I missed the actual moment. I mean I would gear myself up for some event…tell myself over and over that I had to pay attention…I had to stay focused and be in the moment…wherever I was. Somehow I had to appreciate the gift of this time with this person or these people. But inevitably, no matter how hard I tried to remain cognizant of the moment, I’d find myself after the event, thinking about how fast the time went…and how it didn’t seem quite memorable enough…or how I wasn’t really as “there” as I needed to be. And I would walk away feeling like there went another missed opportunity…a missed moment.

The whole thing kind of reminds me of that scene in Spaceballs where they wind up watching the movie Spaceballs in the movie and eventually (after fast forwarding) catch up to where they currently are in the movie.

Dark Helmet: What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie?
Colonel Sandurz: You’re looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now is happening now.
Dark Helmet: What happened to then?
Colonel Sandurz: We passed then.
Dark Helmet: When?
Colonel Sandurz: Just now. We’re at now now.
Dark Helmet: Go back to then.
Colonel Sandurz: When?
Dark Helmet: Now!
Colonel Sandurz: Now?
Dark Helmet: Now!
Colonel Sandurz: I can’t.
Dark Helmet: Why?
Colonel Sandurz: We missed it.
Dark Helmet: When?
Colonel Sandurz: Just now.
Dark Helmet: When will then be now?
Colonel Sandurz: Soon.

I really started doubting whether it was even possible to really be present in the moment on a consistent basis. I mean certainly there are times in our life when something gets etched in our minds….when something makes such an impression that we will never forget it…and usually those are moments when we were truly IN the moment (for better or worse) and we weren’t really conscious of anything else in the world. But those times are rare and natural. They can’t be contrived. No, it seems to me that normally we are moving through time so quickly that all we can do is look back.

But then the other day I think God rescued me from this misguided “wisdom.” You see, it hit me that while I can’t seem to remain self-consciously present in each moment…I can do some good…and I can be present for someone else. And there it was. I had been so preoccupied with what I thought the moment (or my being in the moment) should be for me…that I lost sight of one of the most important things in life…and more importantly in Love: we are not here for ourselves, but for God…and for others.

As I started working through this new idea…tossing it around in my head…I realized how very doable it is. While it may be true that I can’t remain super aware of the meaning and significance of each moment while I am in it…and therefore am not really appreciating and valuing each moment as if it was my last…I can think about what the person or people I am with at each moment need…and then I can do what I can to meet that need.

Maybe sometimes this means lending a hand to help them accomplish some task…or at other times it may mean offering an encouraging word or sharing some piece of my own experience to help them make sense of something that is happening in their lives. But often…and maybe most of the time…it probably just means listening…validating who they are…letting them see and feel that they are worthy of attention…that their story and experience matters. Whatever form it may take…it means loving the people who are with you in each moment.

Sure sometimes this will mean sacrifice…it will mean humbling yourself…maybe forgoing your own story or experience. It may mean giving up some of your own time and the plans you had for it. It may mean pushing your body a little harder…skipping that extra sleep you thought you needed or settling for a less splendid meal. In short it may mean dying to self.

And so maybe I didn’t have it all wrong. Maybe the secret to life still is to “live like you were dying”…only there’s a bit more to it. The dying we do…the self that we crucify…is not for our own sake…but rather for the sake of others. We are to seize the day…but not for ourselves…we are to seize it for others. I believe God does want us to be in each moment (after all life IS a precious gift)…but He wants us to be in each moment so that we can make it better for others….not for ourselves. In short, I guess I almost had it right. We ARE suppose to live like we are dying….but we are suppose to live like we are dying for others!

Thank you Father for opening my eyes…for freeing me from the frustration of my imperfect reasoning…and for showing me continually how to live. Help me to bring Your love into each moment…and help me to make each moment better for those around me…no matter the cost.