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

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:

Dr. Dan & Siggy's Guide to Couple's Love

STAYING IN LOVE

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:

Where Theology & Psychology Really Meet

Compass Psychotheology

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:

FAITH BEYOND CHURCH WALLS

Finding Freedom in Christ 

How Christians Can Confront A Problem Relationship

Danny Charles’ mother stood a mere five feet tall, yet to him she seemed a Goliath. Ever since he could remember, she was pushing him forward into the world of people, regardless of how shy and introverted he felt.

He recalled a scene from childhood.

Mother dragged me by the wrist downtown to the shoe store. I was about ten-years-old. “Mr. Hoffman,” she told the owner of the store in a high-pitched voice, “Get five pairs of shoes out here right this minute. Danny needs a new pair for his birthday party. Do you have any colors other than black?  Black is so dull!”

Mr. Hoffman hopped back and forth like a rabbit, opening so many shoeboxes it looked like Christmas. Wrapping paper and empty boxes were everywhere.

Other people came into the store, but they had to wait. “There’s the perfect pair,’ she exclaimed, pointing to a red pair of tie-up shoes. I cringed. I’d be the laughingstock of my school. My stomach swirled. “Don’t you just love them?” she asked without waiting for my reply. “Wrap them up in nice paper, Mr. Hoffman. Danny loves them!”

 

This forty-year-old man vividly remembered many such episodes. And he shared more:

It wasn’t just the shoe store. I felt invaded daily, my dignity tromped upon and my feelings disparaged. My chest often felt numb with tension and my stomach cramped with unexpressed anger. Anger was not allowed in our home, unless it was Mother’s anger.  She didn’t get angry just at home. The older I got, the more I noticed that Mom was loud, aggressive and outspoken everywhere, except when she wanted to make a good impression. Then she’d instantly change, becoming all smiles, sweetness and charm. Yet no one dared mention her anxiety and driving need to control everyone, especially me.

Danny Charles’ mother handled his adult life with the same antagonism and smothering nosiness. She opposed his vocation, took a strong stand against his marriage and contradicted whatever he believed in. In his thirties, he thought, I don’t know who I am.  My mother dominates my thoughts, feelings and actions. God help me!

Danny Charles learned in psychotherapy about the Self Compass and applied it vigorously to heal his personality. He took growth stretches into Assertion and Strength to find the courage to cut the psychological umbilical cord to his mother. He wanted Jesus Christ to be the center of his life.

He flourished in his new growth, and developed his career interests with passion. Danny Charles finally made his declaration of independence from his mother. He got her moodiness and negativity out of his core. For the first time, he lived life with freedom and joy, trusting the divine Spirit of Christ to guide him daily.

Then the strangest thing happened. He felt God calling him to return to his mother and help her. “No way!” he said to the still, small voice. “I can’t stand to have anything to do with Mom ever again!” But over months the gentle voice prevailed. “Danny,” the voice explained, “I’ve set you free to be your real self. You’ve learned how to stand on your own feet, handle vulnerability, assert yourself and love others. Now it’s time to love your mother.”

Reluctantly, Danny Charles made arrangements to spend several months living with his mother. She was now eighty-years-old, and her contrary ways had put off her other children and grandchildren. Her husband had died. She lived alone.

Their first months together were stormy. His mother wasn’t about to hear from her son what she had avoided hearing for a lifetime. He’d try to delicately bring into her awareness how her constant criticisms drove people away. She’d explode into tirades.

The fourth month Danny Charles had a reckoning with God. “Dear Lord, you sent me here to help Mom, but she’s only getting worse. I’m going crazy. I’ll stay one more week and then I’m leaving until she dies.”

Inner Voice of the Lord

A few days later Danny Charles and his mother took a trip together to a town sixty miles away. In the middle of the drive, the inner voice of the Lord prompted Danny Charles to go for broke. He took a breath and started speaking softly, but firmly. 

“Mom, I’ve got to say a few things and I’d appreciate it if you’d just listen.” He saw her set her jaw, stiffen her neck and glare straight ahead. “You were raised as a child piano prodigy and had your own radio show by the age of twelve. They called you ‘Queen of the Air.’

“By thirteen you played for two civic clubs in town. You were the most colorful and talented of your ten brothers and sisters. Everybody thought you were the center of the universe, including you. All your childhood confidence turned you into a sassy know-it-all. As an adult and a parent you believed that the world was at your command.

“At home, to get your way you threw temper tantrums and harangued for hours. And to the townspeople you put on smiles one minute and snap at them the next. I’ve been trying to have a two-way conversation with you my whole life, but it’s been impossible. You butt in, jump to conclusions, and get defensive to keep from hearing the truth about your own behavior.

“I just want to say there’s a better way. For whatever years you have left, you can choose to become a positive and caring woman who uses humor and affection instead of aggression and contrariness. I love you, but I know that if you don’t change soon, you’ll die without ever having had a single decent conversation with your own son.”

His mother sat in silence for the next ten minutes. Her face looked pale, her arms folded over her chest and her neck slightly bowed. Then she spoke in a quiet voice. “Danny Charles, every word you’ve said is true. I’ve never understood my life until just now. God has spoken to me through you.”

Over the next two weeks, Anna changed so noticeably that all the family members could talk of little else. She showed some humility now, shared the limelight with others and listened while others spoke. Her old arrogance shifted into quiet confidence. Her aggression all but disappeared. Instead, she demonstrated good cheer and a wonderful ability to build people up. Whether through phone calls in person at family get-togethers, Anna could be counted on to say a hearty, “I love you and may the Lord bless you!”

The Self Compass

The story of Danny Charles and his mother Anna shows how anyone can change, even in fundamental ways, as long as they live.  

By accepting God’s grace and applying the principles of the Self Compass, you can find your way home to personality wholeness and balanced relationships with others and with God, who cares about your personality.

I know.  I’m Danny Charles.

Dan Montgomery

Christ's Compass for Couples

Jesus commands us to love others as we love ourselves (Mark 12:31). 

This is a tall order. How do you do that, especially when it comes to the daily complications of a couples relationship?

But Jesus doesn’t leave you hanging. He gives you clues by the way He lives his life as described in the Gospels. Clues to a healthy personality that help you relate to one another in Christlike ways, yet unique to you as a couple.

How can couples do this in the 21st century? Enter the Self Compass. Based both on Jesus’ personality and modern psychological research, the Self Compass steers couples toward man/woman intimacy. 

The Self Compass

The Self Compass helps reveal what Jesus' personality is like. In the Gospel accounts of his life on Earth, Jesus showed us the model of a perfect personality. Unlike the rest of us, Jesus was perfectly loving—a good friend to Peter and John. But he wasn’t loving all the time. Jesus balanced his Love with Assertion—by standing up against the Pharisees when he saw injustice and unfairness, for example. 

Jesus also revealed healthy Weakness—he was humble of heart, a servant who washed his disciples’ feet. He sweat blood, contemplating his crucifixion. Yet this vulnerability was balanced by Strength—to act according to his Father’s will and a confidence in his identity as the Son of man.

Love in balance with Assertion; Weakness in balance with Strength. Together they form Christ’s Self Compass. A Self Compass: a compass that contains Christ’s LAWS to act as your guide to a healthy and whole marriage.

What does Christ's Self Compass look like? 

Christ's Self Compass

Christ’s various names indicate the balance drawn from his own Self Compass. On the Love compass point, he is known as the Good Shepherd—tender, kind, and nurturing. On the Assertion compass point, he is the Lion of Judah found in the book of Revelation; Christ stands against injustice of every kind, and will judge the quick and dead based on their pursuit of righteousness or lack thereof. On the Weakness compass point, Jesus is the Lamb of God, who willingly laid down his life to redeem all who call upon him. And on the Strength compass point he is the Prince of Peace who died in weakness and was raised from the dead in strength and glory.

The Compass LAWS of a Christ-centered Marriage

Love and Assertion; Weakness and Strength. These are compass points that show the contrasting polarities in your personality. Love isn’t better than assertion, and strength isn’t better than weakness. Healthy people express both tender care and diplomatic assertion. They are competent and strong, yet humbly aware of their weakness. In a well-balanced marriage, couples maintain free and rhythmic access to all four compass points of their Self Compass.

Love is kindness. Thoughtfulness. Forgiveness. Tenderness. Compassion. Fondness. Faithfulness. Friendship. Sacrifice. In the development of healthy personality and relationships, Christ gave priority to loving one’s self, others, and God.

But no one remains loving all the time, nor is it healthy to do so. While love lets you stand with-and-for your partner, Assertion is required so as not to lose yourself.

 

Assertion gives you the courage to express your point of view or challenge what you perceive as unfair in your relationship. Diplomatic assertion preserves your individual differences as a couple and helps you develop the skill of negotiating for your reasonable rights. All couples experience bouts of anger or discontent, when your interests rub against the wishes of your spouse. But when you combine assertion in rhythm with caring, the diplomacy that results will help you reach successful conflict resolution.

Weakness reflects the human experience of uncertainty, vulnerability, and soul-searching. The weakness compass point helps a couple develop humility and empathy for one another. It allows the expression of disappointment, anxiety, depression, or helplessness.

Strength reflects the human need for competence and adequacy. Each partner needs to feel appreciated by the other; to be seen as worthy, capable; to be treated with dignity.

When a couple rhythmically modulates the compass points of Love with Assertion, and Weakness with Strength, their relationship develops the balancing grace of compass virtues: 

• Love brings forth charity. 
• Assertion yields courage. 
• Weakness fosters humility. 
• Strength develops esteem.

Jesus Christ

With the help of the Self Compass, you develop a whole and healthy marriage when you center your marriage in Jesus Christ and on His personality.

Overcoming Heartbreak You've Locked Away

I learned years ago that what is the most personal is also the most universal. By disclosing to another human being our deepest secrets, we tell the story of humankind, sing the song of the ancients, and create the poetry of the soul. In baring the darkness within us, we find light, and companionship.

Why is it, then, that there is such a powerful pull to lock our secrets in some cold inner vault and throw away the key? How is it that some things we most need to share end up in solitary confinement, living and dying within our consciousness alone?

But the practice of disclosing your self (strengths and weaknesses, talents and foibles, achievements and mortifications) is what prepares you to go deeper than usual with the one you love, the partner in whom you seek a heart-to-heart reciprocity. You learn that together you can transcend life’s painful episodes—past and present; those humiliating events that might have conquered you but for your redemptive sharing.

Ride Into Hell

My most humiliating experience began during a winter day of after-school sledding. Cheeks flushed against the cold and trembling with excitement, I stand in line with three other boys who wait their turn to dive through the air, land on sleds, and race to the bottom of the snow-packed hill. My turn comes up and I giggle uncontrollably when body and sled unite for another wild ride.

I gather myself at hill’s bottom in preparation for the trek back up, when I see five boys forming a curtain of bodies around me. Jimmy, a sixth-grade classmate, emerges from the circle, hands gyrating in boxer fashion. Is he playing some kind of joke?

Just then a fist whips out and connects solidly with my eye. Three blows follow hard after. I dizzily try to find him in my vision, but he is dancing around. The street itself looks tilted, like I’m in an elevator in an earthquake. More hammer blows sting my cheeks, nose, and chin.

The next half dozen blows I neither see nor hear, and wouldn’t even know about had not bystanders later told me. Mercifully, blackness swallows me like a snake swallowing a fish. 

When I come to, the world looks red. Two neighborhood friends have heaved shoulders under each of my arms and are dragging me home. My body feels foreign and out of joint. It’s not the physical pain, primarily, that feels so alien, but the humiliation of having not defended myself, the horror of having no answer to Jimmy’s evil assault.

A Real and Present Liberation

Here is what I’m driving at: it is precisely through retelling and reliving our stories that our isolation, and the evil embedded in our memories, is overcome. Every transparent disclosure cleanses and dresses old wounds until such time as we are substantially healed. Healing requires transcending fear and shame, and recovering our lost dignities.

Are you wondering if perhaps I cut off the Jimmy story prematurely?

Yes, you’re right. So if you are prepared to listen, I will tell you about Delta.          

That night Mom uses scissors to snip off my undershirt, to avoid pulling it over the cuts on my face. Dad retires to his den, grumbling about having a son who can’t hold his own in a fight.

I crawl into bed, my mind playing mental movies of flashing lights, falling bodies, derisive sniggers, and banging blows. I curl into a ball, cringing. A consoling image vies with the ghostly collage until it comes into focus. It is my girlfriend Delta’s face. 

Delta is my fledgling attempt at having a girlfriend, my fifth and sixth grade flame. We talk at night on the phone and sometimes hold hands during recess. She has a ponytail, blue eyes, and a smile that tickles my insides.

Though I don’t want to go to school tomorrow wearing my raccoon black eyes and purple bruises, I will go. Delta will help me through this terrible pain. She will know that I am actually quite courageous; it’s just that nobody ever taught me how to fistfight. I drift into a restless sleep, grasping the image of her warm hug.

The next morning at school I arrive late. The whole class, even the teacher, leer at my puffed-out face. I scrunch down in my seat low enough to become invisible. An eternity later the buzzer sounds. Everyone tears out of the room for the playground. I stay behind waiting for Delta to come running down the hallway to find me.

After five minutes, I peep out and the hall is empty. Another five minutes and the buzzer sounds. The first boy into the room, Terry, runs up to me breathless, and blurts, “Delta thinks you’re a coward. She’s broken up with you. She doesn’t want you to call her anymore.”

I learned enough at that moment to write a small book. The topic? A dozen reasons for never loving someone because it only leads to heartbreak. Not that I was intellectually aware of what I learned. This was a different kind of learning: the way a dog learns about cars by being run over. I unconsciously decided that genuine intimacy isn’t worth the pain; that relating superficially is the safest way to proceed.

But let me say what you know from your own life experience. While there are plenty of heartbreaks inherent in living and loving, they are most effectively overcome by baring the heart and cleansing the soul, by disclosing your pain to a trusted person whose gracious understanding brings you back to social solidarity.

Over the years I’ve risked sharing my inner life many times, and have many times received healing and encouragement. If this weren’t true, I’d be writing a post called, “How to Avoid Pain in One Easy Lesson: Clam Up.” I want to support you in your search for inner healing. I want to say:  

“Whatever pain you’ve secretly endured, 

go ahead and share it, so that you can keep 

finding the courage to love again.”