Wow, I’m grateful for the improvement since I last blogged. I did three things that really helped pull me out of that downward spiritual spiral we all can fall into: I put additional intentionality back in place to stay connected better (got my watch beeping to remind me, and when I felt stressed I slowed down to talk it over with the Lord), and more importantly I set aside extended time for solitude and decompression last weekend. It’s amazing how three hours of hiking or sitting quietly with no noise, just talking things over with God, can clear out the fog and bring back the light of hope.

Another thing I found helped is I went back to meditating on God’s Word. I had been reading a book that I got so caught up in, I started to slack in my nightly ritual of reading and meditating on the words of Scripture. I started back, and it reminded me again of how God’s Spirit uses his Word to guide and instruct and reveal things to us. There’s a reminder Paul gives to the church in Corinth about the purpose of the stories of faith and failure and God’s will and ways written down in Scripture: “These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age. If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall. The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.” (1 Corinthians 10:11-13)

I find that this simple practice of reading through a 365-day Bible (one that gives a passage from the Old Testament, New Testament and Psalms or Proverbs each day that gets you through the Bible in a year) helps me immensely. It’s all in the attitude with which you approach it. I try to read with the intent of listening to God’s Spirit as I reflect on an Old Testament story (what does this teach me about You Lord, or about people like me?), or the words of Jesus or the instruction given to first century churches (what do You want me to know, see, or do with this, Lord?) Holding up what I’m reading like a mirror through which to reflect on my own life, asking God’s Spirit to teach me and meet with me as I ponder what I read, letting it turn into a free flowing conversation…this has been a practice God has used to lead and guide me in very helpful ways. It’s not always a warm-fuzzy, electric experience—sometimes it’s just simply realizing or learning something I didn’t know, sometimes it’s asking God questions that still puzzle me, sometimes there is that “ah-ha” spark of realization that enlightens and leads me to a better place.

The 60-60 Experiment is over for Gateway. I warned our church that when you’ve focused on growing spiritually in an intense way for 60 days like this, there will be a tendency to “let down” and just revert back to old ways. So I challenged them to be aware and not go back! Even though I’ve practiced staying connected to God for years, and it has become more of a habit without needing the watch beeping, I still went through a spiritual letdown the past few weeks.

I was talking to my Spiritual Running Partners about it yesterday and one of them said something that made a lot of sense. He said, “If Jesus’ life teaches us about what to expect, after a season of great spiritual victory, we should expect increased temptation. And right before God does a great work through us, we should expect increased temptation and spiritual struggle.” I thought about that–Jesus was baptized, marking the beginning of his public ministry, and what followed? Forty days of temptation in the desert! Right before Jesus’ greatest spiritual accomplishment—paying for the debts of all humanity on the cross—he was tempted in the garden of Gethsemane to take the easy way out.

So I’ve experienced what I’ll bet many of you have experienced. After a season of seeing God’s presence and power in my life in some wonderful, life-giving ways, I find myself feeling weak and tempted and attacked. But I don’t want to just give in to it, because I know that when I live my life disconnected from the Source of Life my soul drains dry. Even this week, I’ve found myself tense and stressed in ways I haven’t felt in years. I found myself impatient and saying things at times I had to go apologize for afterwards, all because I’m not staying connected. So today, I’m relying on God’s loving forgiveness. I’m not soaking in my failure, I’m moving forward with His Spirit, and I’m fighting against the lies that tell me what a loser God thinks I am—I know where that comes from.

So, I’m setting my watch to beep again…’cause I don’t want to go back!

You know, some days it’s easy to know God is with you and life is good, other days are just hard. Today I woke up feeling like someone hit me in the face with a 2×4 (Mondays can often feel that way after a long Sunday). I am supposed to be “off work” but had people waiting on things I’d promised, so I spent the morning trying to get it all done. I told my son last week that we’d spend today having fun together at the skate park, but I think I broke my toe messing around with him on Saturday, so that’s out. I found myself just feeling grumpy and in a bad mood. Every interaction with people (even those I love) created irritation within me (and the voice in my head pointed out why my irritated feelings were their fault!).

To make it worse, I haven’t even wanted to acknowledge God’s presence or talk to Him at all, and I don’t know why. I don’t even want to write about this, but it’s how Doing Life with God really works. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s all the energy I can muster to overcome my pride to say, “Help me, Lord…I’m stuck.”

So that’s what I’ve been doing all morning. Before I speak, I’ve said, “Help me God or I’m gonna act unloving.” When I’m feeling my pity party cranking up inside, I’ve said, “God, take this away—I don’t want to give in to it.” It’s an act of will, against my feelings. And the feelings don’t necessarily change.

So now, hours later, I’m sitting out on a grassy hillside at the skate park. It’s afternoon, and somehow my attitude has shifted. I’ve noticed that slowly I’ve started feeling better—even able to be thankful. God did help me, though I didn’t “feel it.” Somehow God uses music to lift my soul (I let the music point my thoughts God-ward, that’s worship and any music that is true can do it). Watching my son and thanking God for him is part of it. I also noticed a group of kids who came to the skate park for a field trip, some in wheelchairs, some mentally challenged, some blind. It’s all relative, isn’t it? We all have our challenges, we all struggle, some in more ways than others, but we all desperately need God’s restoration.

I thought about my wife, and how she struggled with chronic pain for the first fifteen years of our marriage, yet she somehow acted incredibly loving and kind, caring about others despite having a great “excuse” to be otherwise. I think about how spiritually challenged some of these very capable guys at the skate park are due to the psychological and spiritual trauma they’ve experienced growing up (because I know some of them now). I have my own spiritual challenges that now seem very small and insignificant, but I need God nevertheless, every minute of every day…even to lift me out of a funk so that I can act loving instead of grumpy towards the ones I love most.

I just finished the best novel! My son and I have been reading The Waymaker, by Michael Warden. If you like novels in the genre of Lord of the Rings or the fictional works of C.S. Lewis, you’ll love this! (Though The Waymaker blends real world wrestling into a fantasy novel much more concretely than other fantasy novels). Sometimes having an imaginary world to get lost in can not only be entertaining, but spiritually encouraging as well. The Waymaker is both! It is part two of a trilogy about Gideon Dawning, a lost soul running from past demons, who finds himself thrust into a world where two languages of power are pitted against each other in a fight for survival. Slowly he discovers the courage to embrace a new purpose, long foretold by the prophets of this parallel universe. The Waymaker can stand on its own, but I would suggest reading Gideon’s Dawn first, also a page turner once you get into it (I recall you have to get through the first 50-60 pages before Gideon’s tragic life finds the beginning of redemption in the discovery of this new world). I can’t wait for the third novel, due to be released sometime in 2009.

Wow, okay so mental laziness got better for a while, but blogging laziness caught me. One problem I’m having with blogging is that it takes away from time I used to spend journaling. This is not good! I’ve got to figure out a new rhythm of life. As I wrote about in Soul Revolution, journaling my prayers and the history of God’s work in my life has been one of the most significant practices I’ve done. My ability to forget God’s past work in my life is astounding.

I think this is a human challenge as Moses and Joshua were given instruction on practices to help God’s people remember God’s works and faithfulness (Deuteronomy 27, Joshua 4:20-24), and Jesus said “whenever you eat this bread or drink this cup” (which likely meant more than just during the official communion service—every time you eat and drink!) remember me! (Luke 22:19)

So for me, journaling what I’m praying about or the issues I’m facing and what I sense the Lord wants me to do has helped me be able to “see” and remember his faithfulness throughout the years. And it really is amazing! One year I read back through the years of journals, noting specific things I was praying about or challenges I faced, then I marked the pages where God showed up, answered, or provided his clear direction—I was blown away (and a little shocked that I could ever doubt or fear again). I guess that’s why remembering is necessary—we do forget…easily! That’s why I’ve made it a practice to re-read the year’s journal each Christmas, because it builds my faith. Do you do anything to help you “remember” times when God has been faithful? It will build your faith so that when you face times when it seems like God’s not involved or not answering, you’ll remember.

Wow, I had such a great week with the Lord. Even in the midst of deadlines and stresses, I found myself experiencing more than just a peace—experiencing “remaining in His love.”  It really turns otherwise anxious, stress-filled days into great days. I had a day that otherwise would have tanked me, but it turned out wonderful. Then I find when I’m “off” (like this weekend), I get lazy and so quickly disconnect and forget everything! I then easily slip into a funk—feeling bored, or discontent, or anxious and missing moments with my family and friends.

I was reading some of the writings of Lawrence, this 17th Century guy who was a soldier in the French army and then a hospital cook most of his life. But he was known most for his character and the way he “practiced the presence of Christ.” Lawrence writes, “Do you know the highest kind of life we can experience? There is no other life in all the world as sweet and as delightful as the life lived in a continual walk with God. Even as I write such a statement I realize that the only ones who can comprehend it are those who have practiced and experienced that unbroken walk with the Lord.”

This is exactly the challenge of it! Unless you really go all out in willingness, not holding anything back, and do so long enough to “taste and see” how good life can get living in God’s will and ways, you’ll just lazily relapse into what you’ve already known and done.  And even when I have tasted something so much better, it’s still really easy to get mentally lazy and slip back into days, weeks or even months, if I let myself, of doing life alone.

It really does take a direct mental effort, but it also makes life and decision-making and everything else incredibly “doable.”  Because all you “have to do” is this One Thing—stay connected and willing, and then you can be sure that you are doing the very best you can to live out the life God created you to live. There’s nothing else you need fret or stress or worry about.  And the experience of many thousands is that “all these other things we worried about really do take care of themselves as we seek first His kingdom will and ways.” (Matthew 6:33)

So even though I woke up feeling lazy, lousy, and disconnected, I’ve decided not to roll with that attitude. Instead I’m gonna catch my mental laziness and even talk that over with the Lord, and seek to keep this mental conversation with the Lord going all day—increasing my willingness to respond as I go. We’ll see how it goes.

I had so many people come up to me recently and say, “I experienced the same thing…such freedom and relief when I finally did a full spiritual inventory, put it all down on paper, confessed it to God and one other person.” But I also know that most people won’t do it out of fear. It takes tremendous courage. I was thinking this morning about why it takes such courage, and why long-time Christians are often unwilling to do this very biblical thing. I think it’s because we subconsciously live our lives playing roles. We play the lead role in our own drama about how to have a fulfilling life, and in order to keep the act going, we have to be a little bit better than, or different than, reality would dictate.

But we don’t just play this role for fun, we are doing it for LIFE—to get the soul satisfaction from knowing we are secure, lovable, valued!  Anything that threatens our character (in the drama) threatens our sense of security, lovability, value! That’s why most of us are stubbornly trying to hang onto the role even if it’s costing us health, relationships, and life itself! We’ve believed the part so fully, we can’t let go of the act to learn to fully be ourselves. But those who have the courage to let themselves face reality (the good and the ugly about themselves) can then live where God lives, because God only lives in reality (truth).

When I did this spiritual inventory this time, I didn’t really think I had any built up residue. I did it more because I was asking everyone else to.  I was shocked when I took an hour and sat quietly before God, asking Him to show me if there’s any junk in the closets He wants me to deal with—I found pages worth to write. There were little resentments that had developed and affected the way I was treating people, there were patterns I was making excuses for in the way I dealt with my family. It’s sobering to be rigorously honest. After I read my list to my Spiritual Running Partner and he did the same, we both had a sense of gratitude for the other person—realizing we’re in it together and we are committed to each other. We asked one another what we learned and what we wanted to do to move forward—it felt very life-giving. There’s something incredibly freeing about living in reality and allowing God and others to meet you there and show you how much you’re worth.

I don’t know why it amazes me so, but it always does. I just heard several stories of what God is doing as people connect and stay willing. A twenty-year old told me last night about his wife who divorced him. They were both coming out of a life of drugging and partying. When they both came to faith, he was more zealous about growing than she was, and he drove her away by being critical and demanding.

During the 60-60, he sensed that instead of giving up on his marriage (which he had done), he needed to pursue her–but not to change her–to love her as God does. He told me that in the past month, she as seen such a change that she doesn’t go 12 hours without calling him now (they weren’t talking before that). She says she still doesn’t want to be married, but she wants to be his friend for life (he said that alone is a miraculous change, and he’s praying for a full re-uniting one day).  Then he told me that his parents, who have never had an interest in faith, have been coming to Gateway and doing the 60-60 and he thinks his father has found faith!

I keep hearing such amazing things that the Lord is doing. At the same time, this is stirring up a lot of pain and emotional junk for a lot of people. When you’ve lived for years running and hiding in order to not face old painful junk you’ve been dragging with you through life, often the first thing the Lord wants to do is set you free from it—that stirs up a lot of fear and angst.

Jesus once encountered a man blind from birth and asked him what seems to us like a silly question: “What do you want me to do for you?” When being blind has been all you’ve known (and it’s even become your identity), and Jesus comes along and asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” Some of us out of fear say, “Leave me alone—I’m afraid to get better. How will I survive? I’ve never done anything but beg. If I get better, how will I eat? Who will I be with eyes that see?” You have to overcome your fear with trust. You have to focus on God, not on your fear of that which you don’t know. Let go (you don’t have as much to lose as you think), and let God show you what you have to gain!

I’ll never forget a quote by a guy who joined Gateway’s recovery group. He had just found faith earlier that year and had been growing to experience this moment by moment life with God. When asked what he hoped to get out of the group, he said, “I’m here because this thing I’m experiencing with God right now is so good, I just don’t want to do anything to screw it up!”

Too often we focus on “not doing” this or that—it doesn’t work. The more long-term successful approach is to focus on staying connected and responsive to God, and when we stick with it long enough, we start to experience something better that replaces the old behavior until it’s not such a struggle. Paul put it this way, “Walk by the Spirit, and you won’t carry out the desires of the [old nature].” Galatians 5:16   Frank Laubach, who I’ve told the history of in my last post, wrote this in his journal after the first five months of seeking moment by moment life with God:

“Oh, this thing of keeping in constant touch with God, of making Him the object of my thought and the companion of my conversations, is the most amazing thing I ever ran across. It is working. I cannot do it even half of a day – not yet, but I believe I shall be doing it some day for the entire day. It is a matter of acquiring a new habit of thought. Now I like the Lord’s presence so much that when for a half hour or so He slips out of mind – as He does many times a day – I feel as though I deserted Him, and as though I had lost something very precious in my life.” – Frank Laubach, May 14, 1930

I can now believe him, but this was not always the case for me. For many years, my spiritual life felt dutiful. I would say it was the right way to live, or a good way to live, but not amazing, life-giving, exciting, thrilling, fulfilling like nothing else. Now I can say that because that’s been my experience as I’ve stayed more and more connected in a daily, hourly, sometimes even moment to moment way. When we learn to stay connected and responsive, sin begins to lose its appeal. We sin (go against God’s will or ways) because we think it will get us something we want or need, but the more you stay connected and experience the fulfilling inner life God’s Spirit produces, you selfishly don’t want to sin because you don’t want to ruin something much better with something less satisfying. That’s when lasting change takes root.

As I wrote in Soul Revolution, Frank Laubach was an amazing man. He lived in relative obscurity until about age 46, when he decided to try to line up his will with the will of God every 15 to 30 minutes during the day. What he began to experience made him decide to try an even more radical experiment—seeking to fill every minute with the thought of God in complete surrender to his will. Forty years later, when Laubach passed into eternity, he was one of the most widely known, best loved men of the twentieth century. God had led him on a wild ride of faith. He started the Each One Teach One literacy campaign he had taken to nearly every land on earth. He had written fifty books, consulted dignitaries and Presidents worldwide. He lived a truly remarkable life, but it all traced back to his discovery of life found by practicing the presence of the living God.

I’ve found some great lessons reading his journals because we can so easily miss what Jesus meant by “abiding in Him,” “remaining in His love,” “walking in the Spirit.” Laubach confesses, “Perhaps a man who has been an ordained minister since 1914 ought to be ashamed to confess that he never before felt the joy of complete hourly, minute by minute – now what should I call it – more than surrender. I had that before. More than listening to God. I tried that before. I cannot find the word that will mean to you and to me what I am now experiencing. It is a will act…I determine not to get out of bed [in the morning] until my mind is set [on willingness].”

This willingness is the key! Willing and wanting for God to be actively guiding my life. Of course, what keeps this from happening is a plethora of little things. My mind so quickly gets filled with all the things I “must do” or I’m “supposed to do” or I want to do that I feel I don’t have time to even consider God’s will in the whole operation. Which of course is so ludicrous–that I would have more important things to do than the will of the One who created me!  That anything I dream up could be more important (or more fulfilling—which is a more dastardly lie than the first) than anything God would will for me! But that’s the battle we must fight in our busy little minds.

What Laubach experienced with greater willingness and responsiveness is what I’ve personally experienced. The life He leads you into is so much better than anything that came before—it’s not worth comparing! Laubach describes it: “As for me, I never lived. I was half dead. I was a rotting tree until I reached the place where I wholly, with total honesty, resolved that I would find God’s will and I would do that will though every fiber in me said no, and I would win the battle in my thoughts. It was though some deep artesian well had been struck in my soul of souls and strength came forth.”