Wednesday, February 27, 2013

What? A Personality Pattern is a Sin?


On a murky planet in a galaxy far away, Jedi Master Yoda is training Luke Skywalker to become a Jedi knight. In the Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back, Luke is learning how to become a force for good in a world dominated by an evil emperor and his hatchet man, Darth Vader. When Luke whines and complains that the training is too hard, Yoda replies that it is Luke’s impatient attitude and quickness to give up that are holding him back. Yoda tells Luke that the dark side is “easier and more seductive.” The Bible confirms this truth that “the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it” (Matthew 7:13).

Luke is stuck in the Avoidant Worrier personality pattern, blaming Yoda for what he is dodging. It is his pattern of complaining and sulking that prevents him from sticking with the training. He attempts to manipulate Yoda by pouting to let himself off the hook. “It’s too hard,” is one of the standard ploys of someone stuck in the Worrier pattern. Luke is trying to avoid growth. He expects Yoda to reject him. Yoda confirms his expectations by getting fed up and critical of him. 

"It's too hard."

Every one of us sins like this, stuck in some form of manipulative personality pattern, whether we’re willing to admit it or not. The apostle John challenges every living person with the words, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). The sin of manipulation causes you to relate to God and others in a way that seems right to you, but backfires in the long run. Sin’s effects are described in Scripture as the crooked path: “Those whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways” (Proverbs 2:15).

Self-will, the root of sin, says, “I’ve always been this way and don’t intend to change. I don’t need forgiveness because I haven’t done that much wrong. I certainly don’t need a Savior to change me.” There are two problems with this position: 
  1. You are blind to your self-centeredness.
  2. You think God’s solution for sin and evil is not necessary, because your good intentions and will power are enough.
REDEMPTION AS THE CURE FOR SIN

To what degree are you free to become what God intends, and to what degree are you held responsible for your attitudes and behavior? Luke Skywalker is responsible for the attitudes inherent in his Worrier pattern: passive aggressively blaming Yoda for what he is unwilling to face in himself. Were someone like Luke to acknowledge his blame-shifting and ask for God’s help, he could find himself on the road to more responsible behavior. While sin pervades human nature, the situation is far from hopeless, for “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20).

In an act of infinite love, God solved the sin problem by the offering of Christ’s death in the place of all people. “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Christ’s atonement for sin is an objective, transcendent act of God that exists beyond the realm of human manipulation. And Christ’s resurrection is God’s promise made real that you are offered Christ-like wholeness when you surrender to God’s sovereign power.  

Jesus Christ's Resurrection

People can appropriate new life in Christ anytime, anywhere. “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). Surrender to Christ allows you to say and mean: “I bear true guilt for wrong attitudes and behaviors—some of which I’m aware and some I’m not. I confess my need for God’s forgiveness and help. I ask to receive the righteousness of Christ.”

Accepting Christ into your heart does not mean you don’t sin any more—rather, it means you can freely discuss your sins with God, inviting his help and wisdom for gradual growth that occurs over your lifetime. Alister McGrath points out, “Forgiveness does not necessarily mean that sin is eliminated—it means that the threat sin poses to man’s relationship to God is eliminated. There is all the difference in the world between being sinless and being forgiven.”

For more, see:


 

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Let Jesus Become The Master Potter In Your Life

A friend of mine named Miguel is a famous potter. This bearded Latino has one of his pots displayed in the Smithsonian. 

One day I watched him throw a brand new pot out of muddy red clay. He took a huge piece of the clay, massaged it with skillful hands, added water to it and plopped it down on the potter’s wheel. At first the clay was tough and unyielding. But as he continued to knead it with his strong yet gentle hands, the clay became more supple

Clay Pot

I could see that Miguel loved the pot he was forming. He whistled while he worked, and he smiled as the clay responded to him.

When he was about an hour into his work on this particular pot, I began to notice that while it had taken shape nicely, there were still many imperfections on its sides—lumps and jagged edges. These bothered me, but didn’t disturb Miguel.  He kept whistling and smiling. 

Suddenly, with a movement so deft I hardly saw it, he cut off the lumps and smoothed the ridges. He looked up at me, sweat pouring from his forehead, and announced with joy: “Done!” He set it aside for baking in the kiln that night.

A few days later he gave me that pot. He had decorated it with golden highlights to accentuate its maroon color. Tears welled up in my eyes. I marveled at how Miguel had crafted something so beautiful out of mud. 

Miguel’s pot reminds me of how God does the work of patiently sculpting our personalities. Our part is to remain supple and yielding so that God can transform our whole being—conscious and unconscious—into a unique and eternal expression of Christ.

Transformed by Grace

Personality transformation occurs through grace, a kind of effortless effort, not by striving to please God or obey all the rules. Jesus, the Master Potter, said it this way:

“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” (Mt 11:28-30 The Message).

Jesus Christ's Love and Grace

How is it possible that God's love can heal our fear, defensiveness and pride? It happens because the growing Christian learns to live in an atmosphere of inspiration rather than condemnation. Jesus' love and the power of the Holy Spirit work to transform personality.

As we actively trust the Lord for support and growth in every aspect of being, he will heal our fears and personality rigidities. We never arrive at complete perfection this side of heaven. 

Our testimony isn’t that we are perfect, 
but that we have met the Redeemer.

Christ died for our mistakes and shortcomings, so with Christ dwelling within, we need not live in bondage to fear. As John says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear (1 Jn 4:18).” We remain imperfect, but God’s perfect love now lives within us and slowly transforms us.

For more, read:

GOD AND YOUR PERSONALITY 

God and Your Personality



Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Five Tips to Live Valentine's Day Everyday


You settle down for an evening of enjoyment with your partner. Lighting the gas logs in the fireplace, you turn down the lights and put on a CD of sultry tunes.

You’re teaching your partner to play Scrabble. What makes the evening magical isn’t the amount of money you plunk down, for everything here is free. It isn’t in the exotic scenery, for you are at home. It isn’t the feeling of a vacation, for you may only have an hour together—depending on whether you have children, or how early you have to wake up in the morning. Yet this ordinary moment seems timeless because you are having fun.


Tip #1: The magic is wrought by your attitude, in which you are neither competitive nor pedantic, but warm and spontaneous. You and your partner may face endless demands at work and in family life, but together in moments like this, there is a pleasurable mystique. You are reminded why you got together in the first place: you like each other!

Tip #2: A lover’s secret, employed when sharing something new with the beloved, is to adopt an attitude akin to a grandparent teaching a little one the joy of finger-painting. In the Scrabble game you compliment your partner’s efforts and slightest successes. Far from bossing or chiding, you know that winning is not the issue: trusting and enjoying are.

Tip #3: Why are you so patient—so nurturing and non-judgmental? Because ordinary moments are transfigured into comfortable communion by your partner’s friendly gaze, or by the creativity released in each other’s presence. 

In the world at large there are aggravating deadlines and the daily pressure of meeting people’s expectations. Why not fill your private time together with little extravagances? Since this intimacy bond can either be diminished or deepened, depending on the quality of your attentiveness, it makes sense to give it all you’ve got!

 

Tip #4: It’s not just at home that you show patience and kindly humor; it’s when you’re out playing tennis, taking in a new restaurant, going to the movies, or strolling together with the kids around the neighborhood. This attitude of caring involvement even livens up mundane chores. You can turn a drive to the hardware store into a date by going out afterwards for coffee.

Tip #5: You’ve probably noticed couples who don’t live this way; who long ago stopped showering each other with sexy smiles and comforting hugs. Now they exchange grim glances and speak tersely, if at all. In their own way they are witnesses that love—when deprived long enough of energy and priority—can be lost.

Say you’re watching a guy playing tennis. He is about to serve to the woman with him. Bam! He hits a winner. Pow! He serves another winner. Ka-fluey! His last serves bounces up and knocks off her sunglasses.
“You’ve got to be faster, Honey,” he shouts. “Keep your eye on the ball so you don’t get hit like that! Anyway, it’s forty-love in my favor.”
But, in a nearby park you see a man holding a football and a woman in shorts and T-shirt.
The man tosses a soft spirally pass. The woman grabs the football like a slippery fish. “Way to go, Honey.” 
She laughs, plants her legs, and throws a wobbling pass that bounces in front of him. He chases it down.  “Let’s get a little closer,” he yells. They adjust the distance and one throw later she completes her first pass. Jumping up and down, she cheers, “I did it, I did it!”

As you can see, the football aficionado is a lover who is simpatico to his wife’s needs for frolicking fun. You can bet that after today they will have added another game to their repertoire of outings.

Live Valentine's Day Every Day!

Yes, it takes special intentions to transform ordinary moments into extraordinary communion, but that’s what living Valentine's Day everyday is all about.

For more, read:


STAYING IN LOVE


Friday, February 8, 2013

Socrates, Jesus and Human Search for Truth

My high school conversion to Jesus Christ at the age of seventeen changed my course of life and search for for truth. So viscerally did the Holy Spirit enter me at the regeneration of my soul that my body reverberated with peace. I felt peace and love for people, where suspicion and macho-minded aggressiveness had reigned before.
Love and Peace of Christ
By the end of my senior year, I had led about twenty of my peers to know Christ. The principal of the high school, who had threatened to throw me out for drinking and fighting the year before, now asked me to say the public prayer at the baccalaureate service for my graduating class.

Then came the time of testing. I witnessed, all too glibly I'm sure, to a neighborhood girl four years my senior who had returned for the summer after graduating from the University of Wyoming.

Sarah listened carefully to my personal testimony about what my life had been like before meeting Jesus. How the invitation for him to forgive my sins and enter my heart had brought a turnaround. How the Holy Spirit and the Word of God brought me guidance and inspiration. 

Then it was her time to speak, and speak she did.

"Dan, I'm not at all impressed by your overly dramatic story about some drastic change of character brought about by an invisible being, who we all know died centuries ago. So you're impressed with the ideas of Jesus. Well, what about Socrates, Plato, George Hegel, John Dewey, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Sir Bertrand Russell?"

Socrates

I didn't recognize half the names on her impromptu list.

"But Jesus said..." I started to say, before she lifted her hand and flashed a scornful smile.

"Don't tell me about Jesus until you've read the history of Western philosophy and wrestled with the existential questions of humanity. Then I might have some respect for your opinion."

That ended our first date -- at least my feeble attempt at having a first date with a highly educated woman who the next day dropped off on my doorstep a copy of Aldous Huxley's Heaven and Hell, with a note that said, "Happy reading!"

Looking back on that event from my vantage point forty-five years later, I can see the hand of God in our encounter. Christ had nurtured me tenderly the first year of my Christian formation, but with this baptism of criticism Jesus was actually challenging me, as I later discerned, to take a Master's degree in Philosophy.

I specialized in the history of Western philosophy, with a sub-theme of integrating philosophy, humanistic psychology, and Christian theology—all preparation for my life calling as a theologian-psychologist.
My thesis featured a comparison and contrast between the relative truths that Socrates and the philosophers teach and the absolute Truth that Jesus Christ is

Jesus Christ: Son of Man and Son of God
I suggested that either a personal-transcendent Creator God reveals and anchors human truth within his Being, or we humans are adrift in a sea of relativity, with no way out but a pitiful death.
I still believe this is the case. And I know I have the advantage of watching the Holy Spirit work in my own life and thousands of others, making real the presence of Jesus in human existence, and directing the life path of those who call upon the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

For more on the integration of theology and psychology that places Jesus at its center, read:


Compass Psychotheology

Monday, February 4, 2013

How To Replace Fear of Life with Trust in God


It’s one thing to say we trust in God. It’s another thing to actually do it, especially in times of trouble and pain, when fear of life can overwhelm trust in God.

Here’s an action step to help you learn to lean on God with expectant trust, especially when life is too hard to handle by yourself: 

LEANING ON THE WALL TECHNIQUE

If you are willing, wherever you are right now, I’d like you to get up and walk over to the nearest wall.

Now lean against it. I mean tilt into the wall at a steep enough angle that if it didn’t support you, you’d fall flat on your face. 

Lean on Wall

Let the feeling of trusting in the wall spread throughout your body. 

Notice that you can even relax while the wall is effortlessly upholding you. 

This physical sensation of leaning into the wall epitomizes what it means to trust the Lord with your mind and heart, body and spirit. 

God delights in this experiential surrender to him.

Here is a prayer to help transfer your experience of leaning on the wall to leaning on the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit:

“Dear Lord, I apologize for any ways I’ve been holding back from you because of fear or worry. I’m going to believe that you are here with-and-for me every day. Help me trust you as genuinely as I trust this wall to hold me up. Without you I will fall flat. But with you I can do all things. I love you. Amen.”

Lean on God

For more, read: