We become what we imagine.
Maybe you don't believe that, but watch a few television commercials and you'll discover a lot of advertisers believe it. They want you to imagine the you who can't live without the newest iphone - and have you decide they are right. They want you to imagine that you can't have fun or a good time without alcohol - and have you decide they are right. They want you to imagine you're the only person on the planet who hasn't watched Ozark - and have you decide you need to spend the next 24 hours fixing that. And there's social media, quietly asking us every day, non-stop, to imagine what it would be like to be someone else - as if who YOU ARE isn't good enough. There's the big houses and the fancy cars we pass every day begging us to imagine what our lives would look life if we could only trade ours in for theirs. Life wants us to be in a constant longing for a trade. Most days, the noise of this world is all about people and things and circumstances competing to be center stage in our imagination, convincing us they can be an upgrade in our lives. Because who and what we spend most of our time imagining about - that's what we'll spend most of our time trying to be about. For Christians, God said we were made in his image. So we don't have to listen to the noise of this world to figure out who we are. For us, the healthiest use of our imagination would be imagining who God is. The more time we spend imagining who God is, the more time we'll spend letting God shape who we imagine we can become - not the latest Budweiser or Apple commercials. Over and over the bible tells us God is love. And that love is most visible in how we treat one another. I think God is saying turn off the TV. Go sit quietly on a trail or a park bench. I think God is saying open up your bible or your devotional and imagine. Imagine that God loves you and loves all of your neighbors in spite of the things you've heard about them or said about them. Imagine that the people we think ill of God wants to love the most. Imagine all these things. And then become what you imagine.
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5/17/2022 0 Comments Seek first to understandIt's easy to judge someone's decisions. We look at their decisions, decide if it's a right or wrong choice - usually based on what we think we would have done with that decision - and then we cast a judgment. Or an opinion.
We are good at comparing choices. We're not as good at comparing the positions choices are made from. Because no two choices come from the same positions. The decisions one makes from a position of loneliness might look different from the choices someone makes from a position of togetherness. The decisions one makes from a position of poverty may look different than the choices one makes from a position of wealth. The decisions one makes from a life of oppression may look different than the decisions one makes from a life of protection. The decisions one makes after a trying morning with little children looks different than the decision one makes living in an empty nest. Here's the thing. If all we're interested in having is judgment - or forming an opinion, we don't need to understand the positions. But if we're looking to have empathy and compassion, if we're looking to influence healing, then understanding positions becomes everything. There is another side to this equation as well, though. Even though I've been through a hard time, my next decision will influence my position. Because no matter what position I'm in, I will always have a new decision to make. If I make it blaming myself or blaming someone else for that position, chances are my decision will look like bitterness. I think we spend way too little time trying to understand the positions other people are in - and how much their positions influence their decisions. All the while, we spend way too much time focusing on our own positions as a reason for not making healthy decisions. There is a balance here. There is a healing here. It's in this place where I'm willing to overcome the challenges in my life to meet someone else in the challenges of their life. The decisions that help me overcome the positions in my own life are often the foundation for a better understanding of the positions of someone else's life. No two decisions are the same. No two positions are the same. But understanding can look a lot alike. Understanding ourselves. Understanding others. 5/16/2022 0 Comments Human Healing begins with the faceOne of the most vivid memories I have from the birth of my boys is their eyes. From the earliest seconds, their little eyes were searching. And what they most easily fixated on - was a face.
I'll never forget the first time little Elliott's eyes caught mine. Our stares became glued together - interlocked beams lacking any desire to break away. In those moments, the foundation of Elliott's feeling of safety was a face. And from that moment on, it was up to me to make sure that face would always represent his safety. His healing. In this month of mental health awareness, I've seen a lot of prompts for us to remind the people in our lives that we are there for them. That if they are struggling, they can talk to us. I support those reminders. But I'd also like to remind us there is incredible power in the face. In our mere presence. In fact, sometimes presence alone can exceed the power of a million words. That is, if we've established our face as a safe place to be. If our face has been a place free of fear and guilt and shame. If our face has been a place of acceptance and of invitation. If our face has been a place that can be counted on. Then our face alone says you are not alone. Think of that person in YOUR life. The person who walks into the room of your suffering, you see their face, and in an instant your suffering begins washing away. In an instant, there is a wave of hope. There have been no words spoken, there is only a face. There are a lot of people in the world - more than there have ever been - who can not picture that face. They have no idea what it looks like, or what it feels like, for a mere face to bring such waves of hope. For people who don't have faces in their lives that look like hope, words of hope mean very little. One of my favorite scriptures is Numbers 6:25 - "may the Lord cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you." When I hear that, I accept it as a reminder that God's face is indeed shining upon me. But I also accept it as a challenge. A challenge to be the face that God uses to shine upon others - to have a face that is gracious. That doesn't mean I'm a face that walks around with a constant smile. It means I'm a face that's more eager to show up for you than it is to speak up to you. It's a face that says I want to hear you more than it says I want to lecture you. It's a face that has so consistently represented light that it looks like a lamp when it enters a room. I am fearful that the human face is becoming something more and more that we fear in one another, and not something we look to for light. And we have no words that can ever replace the disappearing face. Because we come into the world looking for our face. Because we will never ever stop looking for it. Seasons are the pattern of life.
Winter, spring, summer and fall. Days of the week. Even the hours of the day are new seasons. With each of these predictable season changes comes a chance to be born again. To find new life. Yet - many of us don't find it. We don't because we insist on bringing the debris of seasons gone by with us. Much of that debris comes in the form of regrets. We start each new season beating ourselves up for things we did or didn't do last season. We start each new season listening to the haunting voice of missed opportunities. We repeat this over and over until new seasons don't look so new at all. They look like the seasons of our past. They look like regrets. The hope found in a new season is that it will ALWAYS look like something you have never seen before. It will always offer the chance to add new life to your life. The life-sucking power of regret is it will ALWAYS look the same. It will always look like something you did or didn't do. It will always look like a wish. No matter how far removed you get from a regret, when you revisit it, it will always make you feel the same. It will always make new feel like old. Regrets are clingy. They hate to see us leave. They grab hold of your ankle and hold on for dear life as you try to step into your new season. But a new season comes with a cape - a superpower if we choose to put it on. In our cape, we can look behind us and see regret slowly losing its grip and fading into the darkness of seasons gone by. No more regret. And we march on. Into new seasons. Into new life. I've been working on a bit of a project. As part of the project, I had to come up with a title for the movie of my life ten years from now. The title that came to my mind first when I was working on it yesterday was: Happily Ever After.
After writing that title down, I spent the day pondering - happily after what? 'After' suggests a starting point - the beginning of ever happy. So - after what? When I read the quote below this morning, I felt like I'd stumbled upon the title for my 5-year movie, and at the same time, my after. I think the title for my 5-year movie will be: Unbuilding A Sophisticated Hypocrite. One thing I've discovered the last several years is that I've been in a life-long fight. And that fight has been waged almost entirely inside of me. No crowds. No referees. Just an endless fight. A fight between the me I long to be and the me I think the world wants to see. And the discrepency between those two - well that is the fight. That is the endless misery. More and more, it's easy for me to spot hypocrisy in the world - hypocrits - because I have been one, and many days I'm afraid I remain one. And more and more, I don't look on hypocrits with judgment; I look on them with sympathy. My heart feels for the fight they are in. For their misery. I feel sympathy because they are living in a world that is far more accepting of hypocrisy than the person hiding beneath it. Ryan Reynolds says, "the faker you are, the bigger your circle will be. The realer you are, the smaller your circle will be. That is fact." I DO believe that is fact. The more we appeal to the masses, the more we present who we think the masses will find appealing. And therefore, the more we appeal to the masses, the more likely it is we lose sight of the person WE find most appealing to live with. And thus the fight - me versus the stranger I created to live with me. For many people, the happy feeling that comes from being accepted by a big circle of people stems from having so many people offer something we've always had a hard time offering ourselves: acceptance - admiration - approval. When you spend a lifetime losing the fight going on inside, you welcome the applause of the world on the outside. Even if they are applauding for a sophisticated hypocrite. Unbuilding that hypocrite is hard. The circle begins to shrink. But a beautiful thing begins to happen in the shrinking. More and more you begin to feel like you are living alone inside. That's not nearly as sad as it might sound. Because when there is only one of you inside, the fighting begins to go away. The misery begins to subside. Sure, the applause begins to subside too. But you might be surprised to discover - the day you can genuinely clap for yourself, that's a clap that easily drowns out the applause of the masses. Unbuilding isn't easy. And it isn't fast. But it is worth it. 5/11/2022 0 Comments Buy the whole stinkin' fieldIn his message Sunday, Steven Furtick shared the parable found in the 13th chapter of Matthew. And in the parable Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."
I've read and heard that parable many times. But maybe I've never been as challenged by it as I was this most recent time. I was challenged because I could imagine walking through a big wide-open field here in Virginia. And in that field, finding a treasure. Some unexpected but life-changing treasure. And in the excitement of that find - in dreaming of all the possibilities of my future because of that treasure and all that comes with it - I sold everything I owned and bought the whole stinkin' field. I bought it because I wanted access to that treasure every second of every day. I bought it because I wanted the chance to live my life in the presence of that treasure at all times. The thing is, I HAVE discovered what a treasure Jesus is. I know with my mind - the worth of that treasure is beyond the worth of all the treasures in my life combined. It's not even a close comparison. Yet, if I'm being honest, I've never been so overwhelmed by the joy of that treasure that I've wanted to sell everything I own to buy the whole field where that treasure is buried. No, the truth is, many days I'm content that I know the owners of the field and I'm just thankful that they liet me visit the treasure whenever I want. I wonder what kind of joy I'm missing out on when my heart isn't as overwhelmed by that treasure as my mind often is. Because it's our hearts that buy a field like that, not our minds. Our minds will never be able to calculate the price of that field as a sane investment. Our minds will never let us believe we could live without all that we hold on to instead of buying that field - the things we think bring us joy while true joy is buried in the field we're fine with visiting from time to time. So often we try to create heaven on earth. And so often we do that with the things we buy, or the things we work tirelessly to buy later in life. The Lord's prayer says, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. I think in this parable, Jesus is trying to get my attention - and maybe someone else's. He's saying the kingdom of heaven doesn't have to be future joy; it can be right now joy. But to experience that joy, I have to sell the fields I currently own, I have to quit dreaming of the fields I long to own, I have to quit visiting the field where I say my most meaningful treasure in life is buried, and I have to buy that field like my heart feels what my mind believes. So many times when I think of the sacrifices it takes to truly feel Jesus as a treasure in my life, I find myself wondering how I could ever feel peace and joy in the face of those sacrifices. In hearing this parable this time, I hear Jesus asking a challenging question: how much peace and joy have you ever truly found in any of those things? How much peace and joy have you ever truly found in the fields you've bought - or in the fields you're chasing? The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. When peace and joy escape me, maybe the answer isn't to buy a new field. Maybe the answer is to buy THE field. The field where my life's truest and most meaningful treasure is buried. 5/10/2022 0 Comments Now is the right timeHow many of your creations are you waiting for just the right moment to put into the world?
How many ideas are you waiting for just the right moment to pursue? How many conversations are you waiting for just the right moment to have? How many chances are you waiting for just the right moment to take? I wonder how much the world doesn't change because the world's people are waiting for just the right time to bring the change that only they can bring. I wonder how many people don't transform because they are waiting for just the right time to become the person that only they can become. How much of life are we missing the chance to live because we're waiting on life to say go, when the real problem is we're ignoring a life that is constantly screaming go? I gave a talk at a resilience event last night. When I was finished talking, a young woman stood up and asked where she could find more groups of people who were talking about overcoming the traumas in their lives. She said she'd seen the event posted online and decided to show up. I was touched by her. Not as much by what she was willing to stand up and say as I was by her willingness to show up and say anything at all. Her willingness to show up when she had no assurances whatsoever that is was the right time and place to show up. How much of life are we missing the chance to live because we're waiting on life to say go, when the real problem is we're ignoring a life that is constantly screaming go? More and more I'm coming to realize that when I find myself wondering if this is the right time or not, it IS the right time. When the only thing standing between me and me taking a big step is some assurance from life I'm ready for that step - the time is now to take the step. Because assurance is never coming. I've come to realize there is much greater risk in waiting on ready than there is tackling something before I think I'm ready. Because if I'm not careful, my whole life can quickly become a life that is waiting for ready. Today, if you find yourself waiting for life to say this is the right time, chances are, life already screamed it and you missed it. But that's okay. Because it's never too late to realize now is the right time. Now is the best time you have to listen to a life screaming go. So listen and go. Listen to life screaming, and then just show up. I've watched every Kentucky Derby for the last 40 years or so. And the one I watched Saturday, well it was the most incomprehensible finish of them all. In fact, reflecting on it a bit, it's hard for me to come up with a bigger David beats Goliath sports outcome in my lifetime.
Let's work backwards on this miracle finish. Rich Strike, the winner of the race, got entered only because one of the entries backed out at the very last minute. Unlike most Derby entries, Rich Strike wasn't purchased at a yearling sale. Rich Strike was claimed for $30,000 last year in a race where literally every horse in the race was for sale. Rich Strike is the first Derby winner ever purchased through this claiming system. (By comparison, the 2nd and 3rd place finishers in the Kentucky Derby were purchased at sales for 260,000 and 170,000 dollars respectively before they'd ever run a race.) The horse's owner has owned fewer than 10 total race winning horses in his life. The horse's trainer has been in the business over 30 years and had won just one graded stakes race (the highest level of horse racing). And the horse's jockey has won a lot of races at small tracks, but nothing even remotely as big as the race he won Saturday riding Rich Strike. All of these men, and their horse, were seemingly WAY out of their league in this race. But - and here's the but we all need to pay attention to - the owner claimed the horse, the trainer trained it, and somewhere nearly every day of the week for years, the jockey was riding horses. Every day these men got up and went about life unknowingly creating the Kentucky Derby miracle that was coming their way. That is so important for us to see. A Kentucky Derby miracle didn't fall in their laps. These men and their horse created the miracle. When the horses at the front of the race went out faster than any Kentucky Derby horses had ever started that race, leaving them tired and with nothing left as they approached the finish line, Rich Strike was sitting near the back - fresh and ready - to write a miracle story. As we watched the story unfold - a horse literally coming out of nowhere to grab a victory in the most famous horse race on the planet - it was easy to believe it WAS a victory out of nowhere. But it wasn't. It came out of somewhere. Because the owner bought the horse. The trainer trained it. The jockey had rode horses in literally thousands of races. And the horse had spent a lifetime running. Between them, they'd spent decades and thousands of hours writing this miracle. In the aftermath of watching David beat Goliath, it's easy to start wondering; when is my David moment coming. When is my miracle going to fall into my lap. It's Monday. I think there's a better question to ask. What miracle story am I writing today? Am I living my life believing it's going to take a miracle for life to get better, or am I busy writing the miracle that I know will make it so? It is true. Some days miraculous circumstances do show up in our lives. But if we aren't ready for them, there will be no miracle. None. Being ready is always the main ingredient in a good miracle story. What can you do today to get ready for yours? Quit waiting for your miracle story; start writing it. I believe there are two words God loves hearing me say. He loves hearing me say: "that's impossible."
He loves hearing those words because they set him up to say two words he loves saying: "watch this." God is always waiting for us in the impossible because our God is a God of impossibilities. I suppose because - at least in my case - we rarely call on God when life is good - when it's filled with possibility. If we do, it's not with the same sense of urgency and dependency. God longs for us to depend on him. If you think that makes God arrogant and not loving - just reflect for a second on how good it makes you feel when your kids depend on you. Or a friend. Reflect on how loving you feel when in the midst of their impossibilities, they turn to you. And you in turn can offer them hope. God is a father of children depending on him - because God is a God who wants his children to depend on one another. If there is one thing that defines impossibility - it's the complete lack of hope. And God's "watch this" in our lives - it's the gift of hope. It's handing us big boxes of answers we never saw coming to questions we thought had absolutely none. Oh how God loves meeting us in the impossible. Steven Furtick says, "you're only stuck if you stop." God loves showing up in these impossible places in our lives, places where we are prone to getting stuck - and stopping - and taking our hands and saying, you don't need to know just yet where you're going, you just need to know you are going to keep going. God loves showing up and asking, do you remember some of those impossible places I've met you in before? Well they don't look so impossible now, do they? So I just need you to take my hand, God says. Take my hand as we take one more step. And as I take this walk with God, further and further down this trail of impossibility, hand in hand, I can hear God saying under his breath: "watch this" And I watch. Generally speaking, I think there are two kinds of adversity. Adversity of our own making, and adversity we really had nothing to do with.
Further, and again generally speaking, I think there are three responses to adversity: 1. I blame you 2. I blame me 3. I'm tired of blaming, I'm going forward. I believe to keep momentum in life, to avoid getting stuck, we have to get really good at figuring out which adversity is of our own making. Because the reality is - a lot more of it than we admit IS our own making. (Something we overlook when we use the "I blame you" response). When we figure out which adversity has been built by us, we realize there is no one more equipped to unbuild it. Or to build something completely new. Mel Robbins is famous for saying "no one is coming." She encourages folks to remind themselves of this when they find themselves feeling like a victim. When their answer to feeling stuck is to sit around waiting for someone to come pull them out. When they are waiting for someone to actually give them permission to pull themselves out. I told a friend yesterday that life is a building project. And some of us aren't very good at some of the things we're trying to build. Which is okay. Because part of the reason life is a building project is so over time we'll get better at building the things we are trying to build. The problem is, many of us stop building because we have a hard time accepting we've built a bad building. We've built a bad job. Or a bad run. Or a bad relationship. Or a bad investment. Or a bad first draft. We spend so much time lamenting that we built something bad that we fail to see the opportunity that comes with seeing that we built something bad. When I am the builder, I can be the unbuilder. When I am the one holding me back, I can be the one that moves me forward. When I am the one who put the handcuffs on me, then I am the one with the key to taking them off. Trust me, I know writing all that is easier than doing any of that. But also trust me, doing none of that does nothing to fix a bad building. A lot of our bad buildings - they don't have a local fire department. No one is coming. No one but the architect that is. And if all goes well, one day the architect discovers, hey - I built this thing, I'm the best one to fix it. Chances are really good - the only one who can fix it. |
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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