Month: March 2017

On Doing Good To Everyone – Even Those No Longer With You

If you’ve downloaded the free YouVersion.com Bible app onto your phone, Galatians 6:10 was the verse today, and depending on your settings, the image above would have showed up on your home screen. (If you’ve not downloaded the app, or set it to show you a verse each day, try it – I think you’ll find great value in it).

I appreciated reading the verse this morning, I agreed with it in my head, but then I thought about how tired my heart feels, and got a little anxious as I drove to work about how much good I might need to give out today.

It made me think of what other people are going through that is even more painful and exhausting than my current circumstances. Grief and regret, guilt and shame, disappointments and doubts – they are part of my life, maybe yours, and most everyone else. They can undermine our resolve to do good, sap our energy, distort our vision of the future.

But pain and suffering can also connect us. If we will abide in love.

As you contemplate the grief and regrets in your life, consider these writings on love, on doing good, on abiding and being present – with those still with you in body, and those with you only in memory. They continue to be a source of wisdom and healing for me, may they be good for your soul too:

The one who truly loves never falls away from love.

He can never reach the breaking point. Yet, is it always possible to prevent a break in a relationship between two persons, especially when the other has given up? One would certainly not think so. Is not one of the two enough to break the relationship?

In a certain sense it is so. But if the one who loves is determined to not fall away from love, she can prevent the break, she can perform this miracle; for if she perseveres, a total break can never really come to be.

By abiding, the one who loves transcends the power of the past. We transform the break into a possible new relationship, a future possibility.

The one who loves that abides belongs to the future, to the eternal. From the angle of the future, the break is not really a break, but rather a possibility. But the powers of the eternal are needed for this. The one who loves must abide in love, otherwise the heartache of the past still has the power to keep alive the break.

The whole thing depends upon how the relationship is regarded, and the one who loves- she abides.

Can anyone determine how long a silence must be in order to say, “Now there is no more conversation”?

Put the past out of the way; drown it in the forgiveness of the eternal by abiding in love. Then the end is the beginning and there is no break!

But the one who loves abides. “I will abide,” he says. “Therefore we are still on the path of life together.” And is this not so?

What marvelous strength love has! The most powerful word that has ever been said, God’s creative word, is: “Be.” But the most powerful word any human being has ever said is, “I abide.”

Reconciled to himself and to his conscience, the one who loves goes without defense into the most dangerous battle. She only says: “I abide.” But she will conquer, conquer by her abiding.

There is no misunderstanding that cannot be conquered by our abiding, no hate that can ultimately hold up to our abiding – in eternity if not sooner. If time cannot, at least the eternal shall wrench away the other’s hate.

Yes, the eternal will open our eyes for love. In this way love never fails – it abides.

May these curing words of Kierkegaard impart a fresh perspective on the breaches of love in your life.

As you grieve and mourn the endings in your life, may you learn to abide in love.

We may not get to choose our death day, but we do get to choose to do good to everyone with all of the days we have left.

How To Change Minds and Hearts

Maybe you’ve been called “stubborn” before? Me too. I’d like to call it “unpersuaded by inferior information” or “my way is still superior to you’re suggestion.” I’ve also been called arrogant, prideful, stuck in my ways, unwilling to listen, and self-absorbed. It’s all true, unfortunately. I know that I regularly need to repent.

When we read about Jesus in the gospel, we read about Jesus preaching “that people should repent.” This is what he sent the Twelve disciples to go do in the dusty villages of Israel. What do you imagine that was like?

Were they holding signs on street-corners shouting doom at people? Were they in the synagogues pounding the pulpit? Were they hounding neighbors at their doorway, demanding they repent? No.

In the gospel, Mark writes that the disciples “went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.” That’s the story we can have in our mind and hearts when we consider what it means to repent.

To repent is to be healed. To repent is to have darkness driven out of your soul. To repent is to be anointed with grace.

What’s it take to change someone’s mind and heart? It’s wise to reflect on what it takes for YOU to repent, to have your mind and heart changed.

Whether it is an organizational management directive to make a change in the office or company, or it’s a breakdown in the home – even when you are right and they are clearly wrong – how does change and repentance work together?

In the Hebrew of the Old Testament the word “repent” is often translated “return.” To repent of your sins was to return to God and the loved ones you had wronged. “Return” implies reconciliation, making right, as much as possible, what was wronged; turning around to be with the ones you love instead of having your back to them in anger and pride.

In the Greek of the New Testament the word “repent” can mean “change.” When Jesus and his disciples “preach that people should repent” it’s not a command that is shouted, but an invitation to change that is embodied through healing, anointing, and casting out of dark fears.

Jesus was sent by God to personally return Israel’s rebellious heart and mind back to the Lord. He came to bring healing and hope to God’s stubborn people so that they would be reconciled to the Christ, the king of Israel.

Christ Jesus put his whole self into his message of repentance – and it wasn’t about him, it was about the change God wanted for them – renewal of their purpose in life as God’s royal people to be a blessing for all.

And that’s what we can have in mind when we strive for a renewed hope and purpose together for the flourishing of our whole community, in the way of the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you are in a workplace or situation at home where you think someone needs to change their mind and heart on something very important to you, consider what Jesus can teach us about it as a way of embodying the gospel:

  • pray about it with a friend then together go to the person you think needs to change, as the Spirit of Christ prompts.
  • go simply to that person – don’t go with a barrage of facts for why you are right and they are wrong; go with a prayerful attitude and a listening spirit.
  • go in peace – go to foster renewal, be willing to see their perspective, desire reconciliation.
  • rely on hospitality – meet over coffee or lunch, view them as a beloved brother or sister, find a way to need them, don’t be the one with all the power.
  • reveal your character when present with them, don’t pretend that you have it all together, but do embody the values you want them to accept (hope, faith, love, etc.)
  • renew the many interconnected relationships – have an eye on how these changes in their hearts and minds will add to the flourishing of all, not just your convenience or convictions.

What Can You Do When They Believe In You?

Belief is powerful. When you believe in someone, when you have faith in them, what is it that you are doing? You are affirming their credibility and integrity. You are empowering their capacity for doing more good. You are infusing their identity with joy.

When you entrust someone with your belief, loyalty and allegiance, you are opening up new possibilities for flourishing in the world you inhabit.

I served on the Student Senate my sophomore year at Huntington University. Since I was a Bible & Religion major, I volunteered for the Spirituality Committee, which was tasked with helping improve our mandatory chapel experience for students. (At our small Christian college you had to go X amount each semester). We wanted to make it more engaging and student-led. Our subcommittee helped draft an idea that with modifications was approved.

When it came time to appoint a leader for the new student-led chapel on Wednesday nights, I was asked to lead it. To which I emphatically said, “No!”

This seemed like too big of a leadership challenge for me, and I really was afraid of all the work that it would require to make it successful. I liked the idea, and I really liked the idea of somebody else making it happen.

I’ll be forever indebted to the campus chaplain Bill Fisher for encouraging me to apply for this leadership role. He  believed in me when I didn’t. It changed the course of my life. Bill had faith in me, which empowered me to see and do things that I hadn’t thought possible.

When you believe in people, you unleash new possibilities for the flourishing of souls and places and organizations. And when you don’t believe in people, when you don’t pour faithfulness and trust into them (because you don’t pay attention or don’t want to get involved) – well that’s when hope dies and possibilities wither.

This happened to Jesus. In a pivotal story of the gospel, Mark tells of Jesus returning to his hometown of Nazareth with all of his disciples. This should have been a homecoming of great honor for Jesus and the village. It started off well, with Jesus as a revered Teacher and famously powerful Prophet in the synagogue on the Sabbath reading from the Torah and giving brilliant commentary on it. “…many who heard him were amazed.”

But then something happened, maybe they got a little jealous, whatever it was, “they took offense at him.” They didn’t believe in Jesus anymore, they resented him; and this prevented him from doing any miracles there, he was only able to “lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith [in him].”

If Jesus is vulnerable to the power of belief, we obviously are too.

Think about what this means for your close family and friends? Sometimes they can be the hardest ones to believe in, because you know so much about them, maybe been hurt too much, it’s become too complicated. Something similar happened to Jesus when he went home after accomplishing great things for his nation. “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.”

But you know what? Jesus didn’t give up on his people, his family and friends, or his enemies. He didn’t quit believing in them, didn’t quit being faithful to them, even though they had quit believing in him. So what eventually happened?

We know that anxious Mary the mother of Jesus stayed at the foot of the cross during his execution, risking her own life to be there with her condemned son until the very end.

Unbelieving James the brother of Jesus would become the leading bishop of Jerusalem in the new church and became known as “old camel knees” because of all the time he spent in prayer, like his big brother Jesus used to do.

You want to heal and change the life of those you live or work with? Tell them you believe in them.

Imagine how your life would be empowered if more people looked you in the eye and said, “I believe in you.” Now go and do likewise.