One of my favorite story arcs is the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis in the bible.
Joseph is his father Jacob's favorite son. That doesn't sit well with his brothers. So, they do what any jealous brothers would do, they sell Joseph into slavery and tell their dad his favorite son has been killed by a wild animal. No more favorite son. Joseph was eventually sold to Potiphar, an officer of the Pharaoh of Egypt. Joseph excelled in his role working for Potiphar and became a prized member of the house. That is, until Potiphar's wife falsely accused Joseph of trying to seduce her. So, Joseph goes off to prison. In prison, Joseph gets a reputation for being able to interpret dreams. There then comes a day when Pharaoh is having troubling dreams and Joseph is summoned back to the house he was kicked out of to interpret them. Joseph not only interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams, predicting seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine, but also proposed a plan to store grain during the years of plenty. Pharaoh was so impressed with Joseph's wisdom that he makes him second in command of Egypt. In that position, Joseph eventually reunites with and forgives his brothers and provides them food that saves them from the very famine Joseph predicted. This series of events took place over twenty years. How many times in those twenty years, how many moments could Joseph have decided nothing is going his way? Many. The challenge presented to Christians is embracing the reality that when things feel like they aren't going our way, it's entirely possible they are absolutely going God's way. Our ways are not his ways, and sometimes that sucks. Sometimes that makes life's direction very difficult to understand, and embrace. And sometimes, that can make us feel like we are in places we can't possibly belong when we are actually sitting in the place where we most belong. Sometimes, where we are can feel like a signal to give up when it is much more likely a signal to keep going. We don't keep going because it feels like we're in the right place. We keep going with faith that God is using the place we're in to get us to the right place. I am writing this because maybe you are like me. Maybe you sometimes feel like, shoot, maybe you EVERY SINGLE DAY feel like, I am in the wrong place. Nothing is going my way. I want to encourage you. When you get to feeling like you're in the wrong place, when you find yourself declaring that nothing is going your way, remember this story of Joseph. Joseph spent twenty years far from the home where he had to feel like he was supposed to be. Joseph was frequently in circumstances where he surely had to believe nothing is going my way. Still, Joseph kept pressing forward as if he was absolutely in the right place, like EVERYTHING was going his way. We will never get where Joseph got if we wait to feel like everything is going our way. We will only get there when we trust that everything is going God's way. When we embrace our calling to go where God is calling us to be, in those moments of that embrace, that's when we can be confident everything is going our way. Even when it doesn't feel that way. God's ways and our desires aren't always in alignment. Which is why it's always good to pause before deciding: Nothing is going my way.
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For an ice-breaker at a team meeting this week, our boss asked us to name the three phone apps we'd have on your phone if we were only allowed to have three.
Our choice of three didn't have to include the apps that traditionally come with your phone. We went around the room and my colleagues named their three. Many of them explained why they'd choose those apps, often using phrases like "I could never live without that one." I myself, when speaking about my Evernote app said, "my whole life is in that app." When we were all finished, I made the observation that a mere four decades ago these phones and the apps that we're talking about did not exist. They were science fiction in many ways. They sure were to me. I mean, when I was a teen talking on the phone, the one hanging on the kitchen wall, that you had to stick your finger in small holes and dial, and everyone around listening in - NEVER EVER in my wildest imagination could I have envisioned a day when that phone would do what our phones do today. And yet, in short order, smart phones have become such a normal part of our lives that many of us can't imagine living without them. It is scary in some ways how the unthinkable blasts its way to complete normalcy in our lives. It's scary because once something becomes normal, it's increasingly more difficult, sometimes impossible, to see the harm that normal may be doing. When we look back on history, I'm not sure we'll conclude that smart phones were a healthy addition. I am certain we'll conclude they were toxins to the brains of the developing child. But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to remind us just how easily the unthinkable can become the normal in our lives. And once it becomes the norm, it's much more difficult for us to see it as the problem. I had a conversation with a young person the other day. They got in some trouble after drinking at a party. They expressed the kind of drinking they did that night wasn't their normal pattern of drinking. So I asked them, why did you change your pattern that night? The student said, that's just what you do at that kind of party. Normalcy becomes one of the loudest invitations there is, one of the most inviting temptations, to let what was once unthinkable deceptively enter our lives like a virus, suddenly intent on taking over our entire being. When I was young, on occasion I witnessed alcohol at the center of fun, of laughter, of people having a good time. It never occurred to me that alcohol might be destructive. But for many it is. Normal is the great secret keeper. When your life is in shambles, it's often hard to attribute that to something you see everyone else doing as a normal part of their lives. (This is why I don't withhold one destructive story from my boys about the abnormal damage alcohol has done to my life). Normal often hides the destruction occurring beneath the surface. It hides the destruction beneath the buzz, beneath the scrolling, beneath the political party or religion, beneath the opinions and judgments. Normal has a way of flying into our lives, destruction stowed away in the carry on bags. I guess I'm just asking us to think about the things that have become normal in our lives. Maybe so normal that we don't pause and wonder, has this become such a normal part of my life, my beliefs, my choices, that I no longer even wonder if this is healthy for me? There are many things we normally do every day that are indeed healthy for us. But they are healthy for us because they are healthy choices, not because they are normal. Normal is never the best predictor of healthy. 1/19/2024 0 Comments Do you practice what you hope?Dr. Curt Thompson says, "hope becomes this extended way in which I imagine the future based on things I'm practicing right here and now, over and over and over again.
I don't know about you, but there have been periods in my life when hope looked like the things I didn't feel like practicing right here and now. For me at times, hope has looked like, "I hope these challenges one day disappear in my life" instead of me doing the things in my control to tackle those challenges. Hope has looked like, "I hope this opportunity comes my way one day soon" instead of me doing little things each day that look like that opportunity. Hope has looked like, "I long for a healthy and loving relationship in my life one day" instead of me practicing healthy and loving relational traits with the people who are in my life today. Hope has looked like, "I hope to one day feel closer to God than I feel today" instead of me drawing closer to God every day through prayer and meditation. If we're not careful, hope can become a crutch. It can become something I imagine instead of something I do. We need to asks ourselves, continually, what gives me the better chance of receiving or seeing the things I am hoping for? Spending my day hoping for those things, or spending my day doing things that in some way resemble those things? One looks like standing around with our fingers crossed. The other? It looks like confidently marching toward the hope I am hoping for. Maybe confidence and hope aren't so unrelated? They both require us to keep doing. To keep going. To keep going and keep practicing the things that look like the future I imagine. What are you hoping for today? Go practice it. 1/18/2024 0 Comments Happiness is an inside out journeyMany of us have built our happiness models upside down. We've come to believe that happiness starts first with the people and the world around us being happy, and then and only then will we find happiness.
As such, in our pursuit of happiness following that model, we spend a lot of energy trying to change the people and the world around us. Change them to reflect something that will look more like our picture of happiness. I know that model well. I have lived it. I lived it plenty long enough to know that not only did I frequently end up unhappy, so did the people and the world around me. The reasons for that boil down to this: happiness isn't meant to be built, it's meant to be spread. And it isn't meant to spread from outside in, it's meant to spread from inside out. Much of the world is running around trying to create happiness somewhere out there, when true happiness is discovered somewhere within. For me, and maybe for you, that discovery centers on three things, really. Discovering things I need to let go of to make me a happier me. Discovering things I need to grab hold of to make me a happier me. Discovering things I need to accept about me that will make me a happier me. In pursuit of my own happiness this year, I've doubled down on letting go of things I know I need to let go of to make me happier. I've had some habits I'd come to just accept as simply part of who I am, but in deeper reflection last year, I came to discover they are actually habits standing in the way of who I want to become. Habits standing in the way of my happiness. As long as I believe the world around me is to blame for my unhappiness, people, situations and circumstances, I tend to hold on to things that are far more the real sources of my unhappiness. It's one of the most destructive elements of that upside down happiness model. There are also things I am grabbing hold of this year to make me a happier me. Jesus is certainly at the top of that list. Oh, Jesus has been grabbed hold of most of my life. But mostly in line with that upside down model. I often turned outward to Jesus when my inside world was falling apart. But truly grabbing hold of Jesus means clinging to him inside me always, while recognizing that inside world is ALWAYS falling apart. And maybe that's that last piece, the part of coming to accept some parts of me on the way to becoming a happier me. I am broken. My inside world will always be some form of falling apart. If we're being honest, that is true of all of us. We've had things done to us in the past, we've done things to ourselves and to others in the past, our past is a destructive force that is always challenging us to undo all of those things that have been done. Challenging us to remake them. In many cases, the far bigger challenge isn't undoing anything. It's accepting those broken parts of who we are as, well, parts of who we are. And maybe we start by not calling them broken parts at all, but parts we can accept and grow from and move toward happiness with. And we need to know that this commitment to moving toward personal happiness is not a selfish endeavor. Not at all. It's actually a very critical one. Critical, that is, if you have an interest in spreading happiness to the world around you. Because the world's happiness is an inside out process, not the other way around. And nothing would make me happier, and likely you, than to one day discover a much happier world. 1/17/2024 1 Comment You are made for moreOne thing I love about music is it often provides beautiful and helpful imagery.
Imagery like a bed of shame. I am no stranger to shame. In fact, most of my life has been a battle to fight forward in spite of it. I've not always won that fight. There have been many days and months and probably long years when shame soundly defeated me. Those defeats often looked a lot like me in a bed made in my shame. I spent some time yesterday washing my sheets and blankets. And you know, there's something lifegiving crawling into a freshly washed bed at night. It feels more peaceful. Restful. A lot of times our beds don't feel that way. Especially when we crawl into them with minds racing with stories that don't feel like peace. They feel like guilt or anger or shame. Wouldn't it be nice if our minds could be washed like our sheets and blankets? Wouldn't it be nice if we could wash ourselves in a fountain of grace before we crawl into bed? I'm here to tell you we can. God's fountain of grace is always raining down on us, reminding us that when we crawl into that bed of shame, telling ourselves horror stories about who we are, he is all knowing that we are so much more than those stories. God knows we are all going to make choices we are ashamed of. It's become clear to me that God doesn't jump in and stop us dead in our tracks before we make those choices. I also believe God knows that being ashamed of those choices in the aftermath is what helps us stop ourselves dead in our tracks before making those same choices again. But where God DOES jump in, where God DOES want to stop us dead in our tracks, is when being ashamed of our choices becomes a forever shame we make our beds in. God does want to jump in and remind us that making bad choices doesn't make us less than, it simply makes us made for more. Feeling like we are less than is an easy way to give up on life. Knowing I am made for more is the best reason to get out of a bed of shame and make that life of more. I want to encourage us all to stand in the spray of that fountain of grace. Be reminded that we are his. And the most beautiful part of being his is the assurance that we never have to sleep in a bed made in shame. Bad choices stand in our way of that assurance, but they never destroy the way. If you ever get to believing they have destroyed it, just look ahead. Look ahead and soak in the imagery of the fountain of grace running your way. Because I assure you it is. It's coming for you every time you look for it. It is always carrying a reminder. You are made for more. Less than 20 years ago, Kalen DeBoer accepted his first college football head coaching job at the University of Sioux Falls. Last week, he accepted that same position at the University of Alabama. In doing so, he followed in the footsteps of the greatest college football coach ever, Nick Saban.
An unknown at Sioux Falls to taking over the reins of a legend at one of the most dominant football programs ever. Now that's a journey. I was listening to DeBoer in an interview last week. The reporter asked him, could you have ever imagined yourself coaching at the University of Alabama? I loved DeBoer's answer. He said, out of college I was coaching high school football. And I loved it. I just loved being around the game. I could have been happy coaching high school football forever. I just wanted to be around the game I loved. He went on to say, if I had been dreaming about becoming the head coach at Alabama, it probably never would have happened. It's true. How often do we let what we want to be stand in the way of finding joy in who we already are? When we are driven to be in a specific role, and we aren't there yet, we spend a lot more time lamenting what we are not than finding joy in what we are. Steven Furtick says, "you will be sitting in tomorrow what you open your heart to God for today." Too often we get our brains fixated on what we want to be tomorrow instead of opening our hearts to what we can love today. DeBoer isn't the coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide because he always wanted to be the coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide. He's their coach because he always loved the game of football, and he always kept his heart open to where that love might lead him. I watched DeBoer's introductory press conference. Sitting in the front row was Nick Saban, watching and listening to every word. DeBoer was asked if it's intimidating, if there is pressure following in the footsteps of the greatest to ever do it? He said no, he doesn't see this job as a burden. He sees it as an opportunity. That's what comes when every day we open our hearts to pursuing and embracing all that we love about this day. Opportunities don't often come on the other end of a plan, they often come on the other end of simply doing what we love. Keep doing what you love coach. And good luck to you. (When you aren't playing Notre Dame 🤷♂️). 1/15/2024 0 Comments Maybe our no is god's yesI've spent a lot of time at the door of my life wondering when God is going to show up. I'm discovering that much of that time, God has been peeking through a window wondering where he'd possibly sit if I ever opened that door.
Last week, I spent time reflecting and writing about the idea that I need to say no to more things in my life. Another way of looking at saying no is to think of it as creating room. We live in a world that offers us a chance to say yes to more things than ever. Which makes it increasingly more difficult for us to understand why God won't say yes to this one simple thing for me. Maybe God is telling me he is longing to deliver my yes, he simply has no idea where to put it. My life looks too full of yes already. Or worse, maybe God is telling me he's already delivered it, and it's simply buried beneath the things I just can't say no to. I live a life that makes it too easy to feel like God is saying no to me. When the reality is, God is saying yes over and over. He's just waiting on me to say no to enough of my life to see it. It's an ironic possibility, isn't it? That our no is going to be the same as God's yes. God isn't on the other side of the door saying no. He's peering in the window wondering when we'll make room for his yes. God isn't unwilling to say yes to what we need in life, he's simply waiting for us to say no to all the things we don't. I always love the story in the bible about the rich young ruler. He asked God, what can I do to have a more fulfilling life? My life feels empty... God told him to go home and give all of his belongings to the poor. Then, return, and we will go do a fulfilling life together. The bible tells us the man walked away dejected. Dejected because he knew he couldn't say no to all of his belongings. The man walked away dejected, but I wonder if he got to feeling rejected. Because that's our nature at times. To go from feeling dejected because I can't say no to things I know I need to say no to, to feeling rejected because God won't say yes. God SO wants to say yes to us. His yes is not the problem. Our no is. God is ready to come through that door, he simply wants to know there will be a place for him to sit when he does. Maybe this new year is about creating more room. Saying no to me more to create more room for God's yes. I used to have some very rigid thinking. I had my opinions and ideologies and I stuck to them. No matter what.
They were unbreakable. Today, I know I needed them to be unbreakable because they allowed me to feel unbreakable. In a life that often felt tattered and scattered, beliefs were something I could cling to for security. And certainty. When you've never known who you are, it's easy to allow your religious and political and familial doctrines to define you. And when that's the case, going against those doctrines can feel like betrayal. It can feel like weakness. I've spent a lot of time this last decade getting to know me. As a result, many of the doctrines I followed are doctrines I no longer remotely believe or adhere to. I have changed my mind about a lot of things. There was a day that would have felt like a threat to who I am. Today, I see it as one of my greatest gifts. It's a gift that has helped me understand that the the beliefs I once held were a hurdle standing in the way of me getting to know me. And at least as importantly, maybe more, I now know that other people's beliefs are often a hurdle that stands in the way of me getting to know them. Our beliefs don't always define us and categorize us as nice and neat as we'd like to define each other. Maybe they rarely do. Our beliefs often lead us to assume we know everything there is to know about someone. Maybe they tell us very little at all. I am grateful for the people who've come into my life NOT challenging my beliefs, but being curious about who I am. People who continue to help me discover just that. I don't believe a lot of what I believed a decade ago. You could say I changed my mind about a lot of things. That would be true. But it would be more true to say who I am has changed a lot. My beliefs and opinions have just followed suit. Many of my unhealthy habits are rooted in my past. They are activities I chose to help me feel better about life when for many reasons, my life didn't feel well.
It often didn't feel much like life at all. It's the cruel nature of unhealthy choices or habits or addictions. They unapologetically use our unwellness against us. They show up, promise to make us feel better, then once we take their hand, they lead us into a dungeon where they become obsessed with trying to destroy us. Not a lot of people understand that about unhealthy choices or habits or addictions. They don't understand how one could choose a path of destruction not out of a desire to destroy their life, but actually in a desperate attempt to save it. We often don't understand one's choices because we've not experienced their desperation. In a moment of clarity, though, at least in my own moments of clarity, you come to realize your life has not been saved at all. You come to realize you had given up on life, and have now adopted habits that actually make you believe that was the absolute right choice for you. Habits that make you believe giving up was the very best you were ever going to do, so relatively speaking, destruction isn't such a bad outcome in your little corner of the world. And deeper and deeper you sink into your destroyed little corner of the world. Until you take back your story. Until you turn your attention to a narrative that recognizes everybody's life is worth more than giving up. Everybody's life is worth reconstructing no matter how deep or painful the destruction. I assure you, that is no easy turn. It's the nature of our brains. They are quite lazy. They are far more comfortable relying on old thought patterns, telling old stories, than they are writing a brand new one. But not easy is not the same as impossible. I love the image of that green shoot held hostage by the weight of the concrete hanging over its head. Held hostage, that is, until it sets its focus on the sun. It's easy to believe I'll never overcome the concrete in my life. Until I become obsessed with the sun. Maybe like me, you are ready to reclaim the power of your own attention. Maybe it's time to recognize you've given up on this place you want to go because your lazy brain has convinced you buried beneath the concrete is the best you'll ever do. Well it's not. Turn your gaze upon the sun. Fight off everything that's grabbing your head, fighting with all their might to forbid you to gaze, and gaze anyway. Break free of those things holding your head. And every day, remind them; I am on to you. In a moment of unwellness, you fooled me once. But never again. Forevermore, my gaze is on the sun. In the book of Matthew, shorty after Jesus was baptized, he went into the wilderness to fast and pray for forty days and nights. While there, Satan approached Jesus three separate times with three distinct temptations.
First, Satan tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread to relieve his hunger. Then, Satan challenged Jesus to jump from the top of a temple to prove God could miraculously intervene. And finally, Jesus was offered all the kingdoms of the world if he would simply bow before Satan and worship him. Jesus said no to all of these temptations. It would be missing the point if we assumed these temptations were easy for Jesus to say no to because he was the savior of the world. We can't forget, this savior of the world came to the world in the form of humanity to assure us that he DOES understand every bit of our humanity. Not the least of which is the lure of human temptations. I think it's also important, and this is a point becoming clear to me for the first time this morning as I write this, that these temptations in Matthew happened at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. Before Jesus went about showing us the things he would do to reflect his character, he showed us there were things he would refuse to do. He showed us that becoming who we long to be often starts with being able to say no to who we do not long to be. Maybe Jesus could see coming what has certainly come to be, at least in our American culture. There are more temptations available today than anyone could have seen coming when Satan was tempting Jesus to turn stones into bread in the wilderness. We are all in a wilderness of sorts today, and Satan is showing up with a relentless discharge of temptations. Technology and social media has been Satan's friend in this discharge. The availability of alcohol and drugs certainly hasn't hurt his cause. Nor have the endless invitations and opportunities for humans to express disdain for one another. And that's only the beginning of Satan's 2024 arsenal. Yes, temptation has always been an obstacle to human beauty. But today it can get to feeling like we are carrying a three-ton weight on our backs while trying to scoot ourselves over and around those obstacles. So I think it's more important than ever to know that where we want to go starts with being able to refuse to NOT go anywhere that isn't that place. Jesus had a pretty important mission in mind when he came to earth. And he started that mission by demonstrating that an important part of a successful mission, maybe the MOST important part, is being able to say no to things trying to pull us away from it. We all spend a lot of time planning where we want to go. We also spend a lot of time being frustrated that we aren't there yet. Maybe it's time to consider that what's holding us up isn't that we aren't doing the right things, it's that we haven't demonstrated the capacity or willingness to say no to the wrong things. This was Jesus' starting point. Maybe we should consider making it ours. |
Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
May 2024
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