I have never been a runner. But today, I run. I’m starting slow. Lots of walking intervals. A 30 minute workout to replace my normal morning 3 mile walk.
My goal? Run a 5k some time in the next 12 months.
Today, I Run
Oct 8
Technorati
Oct 5
I’m updating my technorati information, and so need to post a little bit of nonsense. Please ignore. 🙂
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Libraries
Sep 18
Q: By what process(es) do books get onto library shelves?
Despair
Aug 4
For some reason, I know quite a few people who have recently taken their own lives. I don’t know how much of it is because becoming a pastor a few years ago has circumstantially put me in closer contact with more personal tragedies than I would otherwise be aware of, or if it is because suicide is on the rise, or maybe if it is just bad luck. But what once was a rare horrible shock is starting to turn into more of a familiar, terrible, recurring pain.
I’ve read quite a bit on the natural and psychological causes of suicide. Suicide is usually linked to either mood disorders, personality disorders, or substance abuse. Also, along with the typical addiction, schizophrenia, depression, etc, there are often life circumstances that compound the situation. People who attempt to end their own lives often feel trapped, unable to escape, without hope, afraid. Often, they feel despair.
But despair can come from other causes, too. Not all despair is due to a chemical imbalance making it impossible for a person to have the right perspective to see that suicide is a permanent non-solution to a temporary problem. There is also spiritual despair.
Spiritual despair is when you are faced with the impossibility of your own redemption. When you look at your own dysfunctional behavior and at evil you discover in your own heart and cannot see any hope of change. Despair is often the final stage of the spiritual trials we call temptations. Spiritual despair causes you to feel like you’re drowning, like you’ve been punched in the gut, like you’re trapped under the ice, like you can’t draw a breath and soon will suffocate if you can’t manage to somehow escape the flood and suck in some air. In despair, things that once seemed certain–the existence of God, the love of friends, the value of life–fall to doubt and even rejection.
I’ve been there. I have been certain that life has no meaning. I’ve been convinced there’s no hope for my soul. I’ve never been suicidal. But I most certainly have despaired.
I’m not saying most suicides are connected to spiritual temptation alone. As I said earlier, suicide is heavily linked with mental illness. Usually it involves someone whose brain is not allowing them to see the full spectrum of possibilities in their lives. Depression is a natural ailment, but it imitates a spiritual one, and hell will use any tool it can get its hands on to destroy a person. So there is a spiritual component to suicide. Just not the one most traditionally expounded by western religions. The Christian idea of suicide as a special kind of sin comes from medieval theologians, not the Bible. Yes, suicide is horribly hurtful to all the people left behind; it is evil. But committing suicide doesn’t have any special go-directly-to-hell-do-not-pass-go rules associated with it. It is one more short-sighted, hurtful mistake among the thousands we humans often commit.
But despair is evil. It is not evil to despair, but to cause it. We are spiritual beings, surrounded by an unseen world that influences us nonetheless. There is a heaven and there is a hell, and hell doesn’t like you very much. Despair is a powerful tool for hell.
Despair can cause you not only to kill yourself physically, but to attempt spiritual suicide as well. To decide, “Well, I’m not the sort of person that belongs in a church.” To say to yourself, “What difference does it make what decision I make. It’s not like I’m ever going to heaven, anyway.” To declare, “There is no God, so it doesn’t matter which decision I make.” Despair sets you up for the next temptation, shatters your resolve so that you backslide into behaviors you had been trying to break free from. Like going on an eating binge just because you slipped once in your diet, despair can trigger a series of decisions that themselves lead to even more despair.
Don’t let despair get you. Spiritual despair tells you that you are no good. It’s a nasty trick, because it takes the very true idea that all goodness comes from the Lord, and turns it on its ear. The Lord said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Without me you can do nothing.” Despair says there is no God, so there is no good. Or if there is a God, he wouldn’t help you, because you are no good.”
That’s a lie. The Lord is forever flowing into ever person’s heart, inspiring in every person a desire to do good. You just have to accept it. You have to give it a place in your heart to land. True, you cannot overcome your spiritual temptations, but if you let Him, the Lord can.
When someone is drowning, they will instinctively act in ways that make it hard to save them. A drowning person is a dangerous thing. Ask a lifeguard. When you are in spiritual despair, your instincts are all wrong. Stop flailing. Surrender. Ask the Lord to save you from your despair, and then wait. He will save you, if you give Him permission. And He promises that after despair comes comfort. That after struggle comes rest. After combat, victory. Read the Psalms.
Moreover, when you are in despair, you are on the threshold of something good! Read Seth Godin’s The Dip. We often quit the wrong things at the wrong times. The great things in life only come after struggle.
Read through Secrets of Heaven. Over and over you will see references to spiritual rebirth as a result of spiritual struggle. And know that hell wouldn’t need to attack so fiercely if heaven wasn’t just around the corner.
My friend Jason killed himself a few days ago. I’m angry. Sad. Guilty. Irrational. Heartbroken. Full of “what if”. None of what I write here changes anything for him. It doesn’t give his family what they most want. It doesn’t undo the pain his friends are in.
But maybe some day you will be in despair, too. And maybe some tiny spark hidden deep within you will latch on to some small part of what I’ve said today. And it will give you the strength to get your head above the flood one more time, for one more breath. And you will be able to hold out, to buy time, to do whatever you need to do to get through your spiritual struggle so you can return to a place where hope again shines.
God Himself has felt it. He knows what we go through. He’s been there. And He’s defeated it. And if you let Him, He’ll defeat it for you, too. In Secrets of Heaven it says this:
All temptation is attended with some appearance of despair; otherwise it is not temptation… They who are being tempted are brought into anxieties, which induce a state of despair concerning the end: the very combat of temptation is nothing else… As the Lord endured the most direful and cruel of temptations of all, He, also, could not but be driven into despairs, which He dispelled and overcame by His Own Power.
Faith saves. But faith isn’t saying a certain prayer, or making a certain statement. Faith is living as if you trust that the Lord will save you. And to be able to honestly have that trust, you need to make an effort. Fight on a little longer. Do something for someone else no matter how you feel about yourself. Take another breath. Trust in the Lord, and He will keep His promises.
I could say, “Don’t despair.” But despair happens without our choosing. Rather, when you despair, hope anyway.
The Christian research organization, LifeWay, recently did a large study of Americans born in the 1980’s. All sorts of interesting findings there. Thom Rainer just shared some from the study that relate to leadership.
In short, a good leader for a member of the “Millennial” generation (born between 1980 and 1999) is a mentor, has a humble approach, matches their words with their actions, and is real. Those are my words to interpret their findings. Read more over at ThomRainer.com: “What Millennials Want in Leaders“.
All of this is in line with what I’ve been thinking and saying and trying to live. This is why “I” language is a good thing, and dogmatic grammar is a deal breaker. This is why authenticity trumps the false appearance of confidence. This is why listening is so key. In fact, this is why I have grown uncomfortable with the term “preaching” to describe what I am trying to do when I share a message about the application of truth to real life. I know many of you have suggested I get over this hangup, but there is a pretty powerful connotation to the word “preach” that really runs totally against both the grain of the coming generations and my own personal understanding of my role in the world.
This is why I try to remember to say, “I don’t know” when I don’t know, and “I think” when I think I do, and “What do you think?” when I’m done, whatever my answer is. Now, I’m not always good at it. I’m a pretty powerfully opinionated person who tends to feel certain and to sometimes act even more certain than I feel. And being an entrepreneurial leader of what is, frankly, a high-risk attempt to start something special from scratch, I feel a constant pressure to exude confidence, no matter how much doubt I may feel at times.
But here’s the good news (for me, anyway!): I am learning that if I put my trust in my Lord, then there is no contradiction between having self-doubt while also having total confidence in my creator and savior.
So here’s what I’ve been saying to anyone who will listen (and a surprisingly high number of people seem to find hearing this difficult): I have no idea what’s going to happen, or if my specific plans are going to come out the way I envision them, but I am completely confident that if we get people together and keep service to the Lord and to our neighbors at the center of our thinking, that He will make something wonderful come out of our efforts, one way or another. My personal ego has some very specific ideas of what the Lord ought to do with our efforts, but I know my God is wiser than me, and thinks bigger than I ever could, and sees the long-term big picture, and so I’m ready to find out what it is He will make of all our plans and efforts.
Emerson said:
Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.
True. I like more, though, what Irish martyr Padraic Pearse said in his poem, “The Fool”:
Since the wise men have not spoken, I speak that am only a fool;
A fool that hath loved his folly,
Yea, more than the wise men their books or their counting houses or their quiet homes,
Or their fame in men’s mouths;
A fool that in all his days hath done never a prudent thing,
Never hath counted the cost, nor recked if another reaped
The fruit of his mighty sowing, content to scatter the seed;
A fool that is unrepentant, and that soon at the end of all
Shall laugh in his lonely heart as the ripe ears fall to the reaping-hooks
And the poor are filled that were empty,
Tho’ he go hungry.
I have squandered the splendid years that the Lord God gave to my youth
In attempting impossible things, deeming them alone worth the toil.Was it folly or grace? Not men shall judge me, but God.
I have squandered the splendid years:
Lord, if I had the years I would squander them over again,
Aye, fling them from me !
For this I have heard in my heart, that a man shall scatter, not hoard,
Shall do the deed of to-day, nor take thought of to-morrow’s teen,
Shall not bargain or huxter with God ; or was it a jest of Christ’s
And is this my sin before men, to have taken Him at His word?
The lawyers have sat in council, the men with the keen, long faces,
And said, `This man is a fool,’ and others have said, `He blasphemeth;’
And the wise have pitied the fool that hath striven to give a life
In the world of time and space among the bulks of actual things,
To a dream that was dreamed in the heart, and that only the heart could hold.O wise men, riddle me this: what if the dream come true?
What if the dream come true? and if millions unborn shall dwell
In the house that I shaped in my heart, the noble house of my thought?
Lord, I have staked my soul, I have staked the lives of my kin
On the truth of Thy dreadful word. Do not remember my failures,
But remember this my faith
And so I speak.
Yea, ere my hot youth pass, I speak to my people and say:
Ye shall be foolish as I; ye shall scatter, not save;
Ye shall venture your all, lest ye lose what is more than all;
Ye shall call for a miracle, taking Christ at His word.
And for this I will answer, O people, answer here and hereafter,
O people that I have loved, shall we not answer together?
Finally, on the topic of self-doubt, go check out what Seth Godin said about “the lizard“. Or, for a shorter version, read this, taken from his latest post, “A post-industrial A to Z digital battledore“:
L is for Lizard Brain: This is a huge impediment to getting what you want, finding your calling and satisfying your customers. The lizard brain is near your brain stem, including your amygdala. It’s the part of your brain responsible for anger, revenge, fear, anxiety and reproduction. It’s the original brain, the one that wild animals possess. Steve Pressfield has named the voice of the lizard: it’s the resistance. The resistance rationalizes, hides and sabotages your best work.
But I’m rambling pretty far, here. Tell me: what do you look for in a leader? And what kind of leader do you aspire to be? And how do you balance self-doubt with confidence?