Unforced Rhythms

Sent from a friend:

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
- Mathew 11:28-30 (Message Bible)

Broken

I am broken.

I hope.

I hope I have finally come to the end of my rope. My hope. My way. My thinking. My strength. My trying.

I hope I have ‘cause it’s not working. The “I’ll figure it out, I’ll get better, I can stop if I have to, I can’t live without this, I don’t need any help, I’m okay this way, I’m generally good, maybe tomorrow” life isn’t working.

Thank God.

Thank God I’ve seen there’s more. And thank God I’ve realized I can’t get there on my own. I can’t figure it out, get better, stop, live without, be okay, good or last another day on my own.

I need three things in order of importance:

3 - I need the reality of what God sees in me and in the world. I need His perspective.
2 – I need people around me who see both of those too and point them out to me all the time.

I have both of those, but neither of them works without this:

1 – Scriptural humility.

I need a self-image consistent with the truth that I am a redeemed, mercy and grace empowered man in relationship with my Father in Heaven. Without that His perspective is nothing more than knowledge and the encouragement of friends is nothing more than empty words.

I don’t need knowledge and words, not by themselves. I need a faith-filled heart for them to root in. A heart that is first broken.

Thank God

technorati claim

I'm posting this so I can have this blog listed on technorati. If you're not technorati, you can ignore this one...

Technorati Profile

Marriage Necessities 1 & 2

I recently found a blog I recommend called Simple Marriage. A few weeks ago they conducted a simple poll on the “necessities of marriage." Participants were asked to list the five or six most important things for a successful marriage. It got me thinking. And when I think, I write.

So here we go:

1 - Faith in God

I don’t know how people who don’t believe in God stay married.

No really, I don’t.

Which brings me immediately to my next necessity:

2 - Commitment to marriage

You have to be committed to something larger than yourself and larger than each other. Marriage is such a thing.

Marriage is the bedrock foundation of not only all of society, but most of the Word of God. From the early verses of Genesis to the end of the book, God’s heart for marriage is certain: it matters. Greatly. The fact that The Church (capitalized) is referred to as His bride clearly illustrates the importance of the covenant of marriage.

And covenant is key. Marriage is first and foremost a covenant. It’s a promise. And it can’t survive without it.

I don’t care how beautiful, handsome, talented, wonderful and/or PERFECT your spouse is, there will come a day when, well, you won’t like them. On top of that, there will always – and I mean always – be someone MORE beautiful, handsome, talented and/or PERFECT. And I promise you will meet them.

Often.

Everywhere.

Of course they won’t really be all those things, but it’ll feel like it when you meet them. And did I mention you will meet them? I promise you will.

My marriage could have ended multiple times were it not for our commitment to the covenant itself. But understand this, I am NOT saying that we have toughed it out because we don’t believe in divorce. I’m saying that we’ve always found the tools, assistance and support we’ve needed to make it work because we don’t believe in divorce. Out belief in marriage has always provided the motivation to figure out how to make it work. We’ve always figured it out and we always will.

One last thing on commitment to marriage: the absence of the word “your”. I’m not saying commitment to YOUR marriage, I’m saying commitment to marriage. Period.

This isn’t to say that the other person doesn’t matter, of course, but I'll cover that in Marriage Necessities 3.

Faith and Government

In my last two posts, I explored ideas about fear and faith. I used a quote about government as a starting point and it brought an interesting response from a friend. You can read his thoughts in the comments of the fear post.

I need to clarify that I didn't write the quote about government. It was made by Charles Murray in a speech delivered to the American Enterprise Institutes Annual Dinner this past March. It can be found here. I do agree with it however, and for exactly the reasons my friend stated. Christians should not be fearing the things they want government to solve OR government itself. They should be asking "Lord, what is it you want ME to do to be a part of your solution to these messes?" To your point, we should be the "we the people."

Second, I didn't blame the government. I wasn't writing about government. I happened to chose a quote about government but only as a starting point to discuss fear. In my opinion, what pushes us from a healthy, effective government to an overblown, overextended and obtrusive government is fear. Fearing a thief gets us the police. Fearing businessmen gets us laws that run businesses into the ground because of unsustainable demands on their money. I'm NOT saying business is a savior. Greed destroys. BUT, greedy businesses usually self destruct. Our fear of greed, and a lack of faith in positive outcomes causes legal intervention that has unintended consequences. Again, just an example of fear run amok.

Now, having said that, here ARE my thoughts on government: I can only speak for myself and say I am upset with big government. I don't want the government solving my problems anymore than I want them solving other peoples. There was a time when the town drunk was taken in, comforted and assisted by townspeople. In a great number of cases, that person got well because in some part, they felt the shame of behaving badly within their community. You might say peer pressure kept them in line.

Somewhere along the line, government stepped in to "help" these drunks. The townspeople stopped reaching out because the government asked them to stop or, more tragically, they didn't have to anymore. Either way though, the result was a disconnect in the community and many more lifelong drunks. Take away personal responsibility and interaction and success rates plummet.

Government cannot effectively solve housing, saving, retirement, healthcare or poverty for exactly these reasons. It's my responsibility to see that the folks I know make their way through life without being homeless and broke. And though that may mean giving them a bedroom or money, it more often means living in relationship and community - encouragement, suggestions, introductions to others. All with a faith that God will work it out and we'll all be okay.

Fear gets us a "somebody needs to fix this" mentality, government and life. And that is no life. Faith gets us a "I don't know how it'll work, but I feel called to do this" life. Adventurous and scary and not always successful (at least in our eyes), but alive.

Faith based living

From the end of my last post:

"The problem is this: Every time the government takes some of the trouble out of performing the functions of family, community, vocation, and faith, it also strips those institutions of some of their vitality--it drains some of the life from them."

I don't know that I've read a better description of what we've done to life. Or more sad.

It's a perfect description of what I see in far too many people. More precisely, what I don't see: life. It all makes sense of course. I mean, how can you know if you're living a "life well lived" if there's no challange to living? And how can we live if all we do is fear?

We can't."

We were not created to live in fear. We do not have the mental and physical capacities to fear for any length of time. Want to know what the true #1 killer of people is? Stress. Estimates place stress as the key or contributing cause of most illness at well over 60%. We're just not made for fear.

But we're not made for safety either. God didn't tell Adam and Eve to be careful. Quite the opposite, he told them to subdue the earth. Have you SEEN the earth? It's anything but safe. Not to mention the fact that the battle in Heaven, the one that led to the deception of Adam and Eve and everything that's followed, happened before they were created. God created mankind in the midst of war.

And made us warriors.

Do warriors fear? Absolutely. Fear is what keeps them alive. It's what keeps them alert to their surroundings and vigilant in physical and mental preparation. It's what motivates them to plan and strategize and in the end, act.

Take away fear and bad things happen to warriors. They become apathetic, satiated, sedentary and lazy. They also become unimaginative and bored. The only good thing that happens is they don't die. At least not physically.

Notice I said "take away fear." This is our most common reaction to fear. We want it removed, compartmentalized, managed and taken care of by someone else. The flaw in this thinking is that it's focused on the fear itself. And this focus on fear only compounds the problem and we become fear-FULL.

But we're called to be faithful warriors.

We serve the God of the Universe. The Creator, Lord and Victor. We have nothing to fear that he can't overcome.

With our help.

Yes, we - you and I - are involved in this thing called life. We have a place in the story - as faith-FULL warriors. We must have not only faith in God, but faith in our selves as the warrior partners. We have a part to play, not in the removal, compartmentalization, management or delegation of fear, but in the fighting and defeating of the roots of those fears.

This is our calling and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Fear based living

A friend of my recently posted a note entitled "Fear" on Facebook. In it, he rightly pointed out our improper obsession with fear. It's a topic I consider often as I see myself alternate between moments of great faith and moments of great fear.

Of course I want to live by faith and I'll continue to grow in that direction. I know what faith looks like and I know how to live it too, but that doesn't make it easy.

But then again, is it supposed to be?

And then I came across the text of a speech by Charles Murray that can rightly be called brilliant. Delivered to the American Enterprise Institutes Annual Dinner on March 2009, the speech builds a case for "American exceptionalism, in which individuals freely unite to construct a civic culture."

Read it here, it's well worth the time. But my purpose here is not pro-Americanism, it's pro-faith-FULL living.

Mr. Murray's assertion is built upon the dual premise of "a life well-lived" and "deep satisfaction."

"To become a source of deep satisfaction, a human activity has to meet some stringent requirements. It has to have been important (we don't get deep satisfaction from trivial things). You have to have put a lot of effort into it (hence the cliché "nothing worth having comes easily"). And you have to have been responsible for the consequences.

There aren't many activities in life that can satisfy those three requirements. Having been a good parent. That qualifies. A good marriage. That qualifies. Having been a good neighbor and good friend to those whose lives intersected with yours. That qualifies. And having been really good at something--good at something that drew the most from your abilities. That qualifies. Let me put it formally: If we ask what are the institutions through which human beings achieve deep satisfactions in life, the answer is that there are just four: family, community, vocation, and faith. Two clarifications: "Community" can embrace people who are scattered geographically. "Vocation" can include avocations or causes."

I don't know that I've read a better description of life. Or more exciting.

Continuing:

"Put aside all the sophisticated ways of conceptualizing governmental functions and think of it in this simplistic way: Almost anything that government does in social policy can be characterized as taking some of the trouble out of things. Sometimes, taking the trouble out of things is a good idea. Having an effective police force takes some of the trouble out of walking home safely at night, and I'm glad it does.

The problem is this: Every time the government takes some of the trouble out of performing the functions of family, community, vocation, and faith, it also strips those institutions of some of their vitality--it drains some of the life from them."

I don't know that I've read a better description of what we've done to life. Or more sad.

It's a perfect description of what I see in far too many people. More precisely, what I don't see: life.

It all makes sense of course. I mean, how can you know if you're living a "life well lived" if there's no challange to living? And how can we live if all we do is fear?

We can't.

...to be continued...

My three blogs

Two months ago I made a change in my online strategy. I decided to re-split one of my blogs into two and start a third. I made an announcement at the time but want to be sure to point it out again. There's no reason to write if I don't have readers, and no way to gain readers without an invitation. So, consider this my invitation and a bit of shameless self-promotion too.

Here's a link to the original announcement where I give insights into the content of each blog. You can also read about them at my online hub on netvibes at http://netvibes.com/stevegrossman. In addition to quick
descriptions and links, you'll also find an extensive bio and my friendfeed page which tracks everything I do online.

What I didn't mention was that I have a fourth blog at work too. If you're an employee of Manheim, take a sec to check out All Things Inspections through Mainstreet.

So I invite you to check out my blogs and be encouraged. And drop me a line if you'd like me to discuss anything specific.
Thanks for reading.

Worm Theology

My friend Randy is a giant of a man. A compassionate and passionate wordsmith of a Pastor in the next town over, Randy and I had a conversation about worms long ago. Specifically what he called "worm theology."

Worm Theology says that we're so inferior and unworthy to the mighty, creator God of the universe that we are nothing more than dust. Sadly, I've found this to be a theology embraced by many Godly people who never move beyond paralyzing shame, fear, doubt and insecurities because they don't believe they should. They actually believe they are honoring God by viewing themselves as wholly inadequate and unworthy.

And it's a lie.

The Bible does not support Worm Theology. The message is consistent that we were created in the image of a God not a worm. A God that created us for fellowship, love and life. Created us to be his children and heirs to the kingdom. Children that he gave his Son for. We are princes and princesses, not worms.

Unless we want to be.

Just because we are princes and princesses does not prevent us from crawling about like worms. It does not prevent us from spending our days, weeks, months and years struggling to breathe, eat and live while crawling through dirt, dust and grime. Dirt, dust and grime that we were created to walk over not crawl through.

All too frequently I find myself living as a worm. I want to believe, but do not. I want to triumph, yet hesitate. I want to write, encourage, create, taste, experience, build, kiss, laugh. I want to live.

And yet I crawl.

But not all the time.