Secret Service

I heard a guy say a few nights ago that an old man told him, "If you want to practice humility, then try doing something good without getting caught."

It's easy to respond to people who make their requests known, but it's another thing to randomly do something for someone else without recognition.

I'm always blown away by people who actually spend time thinking about how they can bless other people. They think of ways they can reach out, or write a letter, or send a card, without any strings attached. They just want to bless other people for no reason.

To me, it seems like a lot of work.

But, I look back at all the ways people have blessed me randomly - the kind notes, the meals, the prayers, the gifts - and it creates an anxiety inside of my heart to think of giving back.

Give to people without waiting for them to ask? What?

According to my love languages, gift giving is down there with physical touch. It's just not on my radar.

Almost a year ago, there were some strangers (to me) who volunteered to do some work on my car. They didn't know me and I didn't know them. As I stood there, watching as they poked their heads under the hood of my car, I couldn't believe that someone would actually want to take hours out of their day to help someone they didn't even know. They even went to the lengths of washing the car and making the tires shiny. In a way, it felt like they were washing my feet.

And these were average, beer drinking, hard-working, blue-collar men - worldly indeed.

I'm pretty generous when it comes to responding to someone's requests, but I can't even remember the last time I blessed somebody just for the sake of blessing somebody - especially without getting caught.

So, today I'm gonna try to do something good for somebody, and stay anonymous. Bless for the sake of blessing.

Today's Action: Be of secret service to someone. Do something for someone and expect nothing in return.

Trance

As I was sitting in the back of the treatment center last night, my heart fluttered with fear. My mind kept telling me that I wasn't as alcoholic as they are. Or, I'm not as good of an alcoholic as they are.

I didn't have to go through a detox. I didn't have to be homeless. I didn't have to go to the last house on the block, as this particular treatment center is called.

As I sat there listening to the ego-filled veterans give their spill on alcoholism, I felt twinges of pride and ego in myself rising up, resenting every word they had to say. They were so loud and boisterous, talking down to everyone in the room.

It was my friend's first night there. There weren't any beds open, so he'd be staying on the couch for a few nights until a bed opened up. All I wanted for him was to have good seeds planted between his ears. I wanted to protect him. I wanted to control what he heard. I wanted him to be safe and protected from the crazies.

I'm getting back to the basics myself. I've been in a sort of trance.

I wake up in the mornings, zip through my prayers, speed through the scriptures, and wonder why I'm drawing blanks. I'm wondering why I'm not getting anything out of what I'm putting in. I'm wondering why I can't be satisfied with the way things are. I'm wondering why churches can't be the way I want them to be. I'm wondering why the scriptures can't just lift me up and set me on solid ground. I'm wondering why I can't just be content and happy and joyful all the time.

My years of drinking have shown me what it looks like to live in a trance. I can easily get so caught up in something that makes me feel good, that it'll take all of me. It looks good at first, but then weeks or months later I wonder how it got so bad.

When I drink, I lose the intimate connection I have with friends. I lose the ability to trust God. I lose the desire to worship with a sincere and childlike heart. I lose the dignity that comes with having a full-time job. I lose the ability to wake up early to get the day started right. I lose the ability to realize what I'm doing wrong (or right).

Thank God I don't have to drink today, which means I don't have to lose these things today.

While I may not be walking on air (or water), I have the ability to expand on the things that mean a lot to me.

I get to go to work now.

Country Song

Wrote this today:

Diamonds and car keys
Hotties and jockeys
Newspaper junkies
And black market pills

Sunsets on shrimp boats
Hot dogs and queso
Salt, bait and fresco
Carnival thrills

Engine grew hotter
Forgot the water
I spit two pistons
On Highway Ten

Guess it don't matter
Fried or battered
You're mighty sweet
To sip the gin

Dreams of the Rockies
Stars and some silence
Rush of the road
Flying by us
My friend

Don't let things stop us
Devil may mock us
I want to run along
The Rio again

Why We Impose Rules on Other People

All day yesterday, my mind was a jumbled mess.

From the time I woke up, I couldn't focus on God because I was so focused on someone else.

My anxiety caused my heart to feel like it was skipping beats. My prayers weren't working. My ability to get into the solution was nonexistent.

And so, on my way to work, I sent a litany of text messages telling this person what they needed to do, how they needed to live, and gave them a whole list of conditions.

I was convinced that if this person changed, then my problems would go away.

I wouldn't be facing the inner turmoil I was facing.

The problem was that even though I gave all these conditions, and set all these incentives, and gave this person the list of rules, my problems didn't ease.

My turmoil didn't stop.

My heart didn't stop skipping beats.

My anxiety didn't decrease.

What I was doing was taking the problems that were inside of me, and using them as fuel to make someone else the scapegoat. If they just do this . . . and this . . . and this . . . then everything will be better.

It wasn't until about 7:15 last night that the lights finally came on. Through a friend of mine talking about fear and how we take care of it, I finally saw that all of my texting and correcting and controlling was a selfish justification of my own problems.

I ended up calling this person later last night to make amends. I realized that I had tried to put my burdens on someone else, and it wasn't right.

When we have disruptions going on inside of our hearts, the world says that we need to change our surroundings, find a quick fix, realize that we are the victims.

How many of us go for days, months, and years, thinking that the world and its people have wronged us? And left it at that?

How many of us have become so irritable and restless in certain areas, having never even considered the thought that it could have been our own creation, based out of our own fear?

I was afraid of being taken advantage of, or, being humble.

But, the phrase being taken advantage of is in itself a perspective.

It's a mindset.

And so, if I carry around this fear then it's gonna set the ball rolling to make decisions (based out of that fear). It may look like making personal, generalized concepts like "I'm never gonna give money to the homeless," or "I'm never going to let someone borrow my car."

And so, out of this fear of being taken advantage of, we create these lists of rules that everyone around us has to follow. That way, they'll know not to do that when they're around me.

In my case, this fear crept up, and it snowballed into chaos quickly. And, when I woke up yesterday morning I was having thoughts of burning this person's stuff and creating a burden to put over their shoulders, because . . . how dare they.

Who am I to discipline someone else and avoid looking into myself to see what the real issues are?

If I'm feeling like I'm being taken advantage of, then I've gotta find out why. I've gotta find out where my part is.

And my part yesterday looked something like this: I'm too afraid to let go of my money, my space, and my time.

Do I really trust God with what I've been given if I feel like I'm being taken advantage of all the time?
Do we really trust God with what we've been given if we feel like there's this constant feeling that people are gonna naturally take advantage of us every opportunity they get?

Humility in this case is being at peace with the concept that my stuff isn't mine. It's God's. I'm a temporary keeper of stuff, including money, housing, transportation, and bank accounts.

I'm a vessel designed to carry this stuff to others who need it. 

Today's Action: Give unconditionally today, and pray while I'm doing it.

On the Move

Throughout the old testament, we find story after story of people migrating to new places.

Abraham leaves Egypt.

Moses goes into Egypt, and then takes the Israelites out of Egypt.

Joseph is carried away by slave traders into a new kingdom.

David leaves Jerusalem.

The wise men leave their flocks.

But when we're reading about people leaving in the Bible, we're reading about how things were in those days. People lived in tribes, and tribes are constantly on the move. Change of geography was essentially the norm, because in order to survive, people had to go where the food, water, and shelter was.

But, there was also another kind of nomadic movement occurring.

Underneath the current of moving wherever the instinct of survival took them, they were seeking something different, something hopeful, and something invisible but so believable that it motivated them to keep moving and moving in the hopes of finding this new country.

One of the pitfalls of being a nomadic people was, they were vulnerable - both in the sense of lacking basic needs for survival, but also in the sense of being look down on by surrounding nations who were building their own kingdoms and trying to get tribes to surrender to their power.

And so, we see countless stories of these nomads being tyrranized by empires, turned into slaves, and rescued.

But, migrating for these people wasn't just about geography and finding what they needed to survive. If that was the case, they could have just picked an empire to be a part of, enculturated themselves, and made it work.

Instead, there were stories that were handed down through the generations of a God who called people out of what they thought was normal, and promised them a land flowing with milk and honey.

Today, we would call it heaven or heaven on earth or paradise or Utopia.

The main characters of the bible believed that there was a God calling them to search for this so called land, but there was only one problem. They couldn't see it, and most of them never saw it.

Which raises a question: Why would someone leave everything they know to search for a land they will never see?

For the people who embarked on this nomadic journey into the unknown, what they couldn't see was more inspiring than what they knew.

Do words like hope and ambition and aspiration pop into your mind when you think of that?

Have you ever left a job not knowing where you were going, but believing that what was in store was better than what you were currently experiencing?

All these stories of people who left their homes, their possessions, their cultures, and their gods, were built on a faith in something that couldn't be seen. They didn't know where they were going, but had heard stories about this fabled land flowing with milk and honey.

It was an adventure, a journey, a step into the desolate wilderness to try to see what the ancestors were talking so much about.

And what they encountered was a God who was completely different than the gods they'd grown up with. This God didn't demand sacrifices, but wanted to bless. This God didn't want to destroy, but wanted to restore. This God didn't stand lifeless as a statue, but engaged the senses through sound and sight.

But all of this leaving what was comfortable and moving into what was unfamiliar wasn't just a story about a geographical move.

It's a story about an inward realization, an inward journey into the unknown realms of God.

It's about completely unlearning everything that once seemed so familiar, and learning how to live by a different set of rules.

It looks like leaving everything that's comfortable and moving into something that's unfamiliar. But it also looks like deciding to take a journey of the heart and mind, and entering into a new territory of thinking and living.

Either way, it takes hope in order to have faith that the unknown is better than what is known.

Do you have this constant underlying tug-of-war in your soul telling you that there's something that you can't quite see, or grasp, or sink your teeth in to, that is better than what you're currently experiencing?

What is it?

Do we believe that the voice that's been calling us for years and years about a land that is better, a land that's flowing with milk and honey, is valid?

For Abraham, Moses, Jacob, and so many others, they believed in what they never got to see. But the point is, they journeyed in search of it. They were convinced that what they couldn't see was better and more adventurous and more life-giving than what had become monotonously familiar.

Faith Without Directions

Anyone reading the Bible for the first time or the thousandth time, can easily be overcome by seemingly impossible examples of faith that the narrators string together - Abraham, Moses, Paul, Elijah, and countless other characters who displayed levels of faith that just make me feel really small.

For Abraham, he listened to a voice that sounded much like what we would call "gut feeling" today - and it told him to leave everything and journey to a land he'd never heard of.

For Moses, he saw and heard a similar voice through the burning bush - and it told him that he would need to go back into the country in which he was wanted for murder - but with a different agenda: to deliver the Israelites from Egyptian oppression.

For Sarah, it was a voice that told her at her old age (90 years) she would bear a child. And, she laughed because the thought was ridiculous.

When we talk about faith, there are two kinds of faith. The one kind is the cause and effect kind of faith. The cause - being X, leads to the effect, being Y.

In this kind of faith, the the journey is known. The objective of this kind of faith is to calm the storm of needless worry. After all, if the cell phone breaks, the store is right down the road. And so, the point of this kind of faith is to trust God from point A to point B. As a result, we do the next right thing, and try to trust that God is going to get us to the next destination in the material realm.

There's another kind of faith too. It's direction is less clear, more muddled, and way more risky.

In this type of faith, there is an X, but no Y. The Y is invisible. The destination is unknown. The process is not common sense. The road is untraveled.

There are no material landmarks that we can see, because they are invisible.

It's as if the faith was initiated by a still, small voice that said, "Go here, but there are no details for you to grasp, nothing for you to see, nothing to hear, nothing to engage your senses."

I've gotten really good at having the former kind of faith, the kind that reduces worry when I know where point A and point B are. This is the everyday kind of faith that's required to face the problems that life throws at me. This faith eradicates the worries that can so easily entangle us while living life on life's terms.

But, what about the deeper kind of faith. What about those instances in which we heard the still, small voice that sounded much like our conscious, but as soon as we heard it we turned it off and convinced ourselves, "That's absurd! That's just my mind trying to trip me up. Everybody would think I was crazy for doing that!"

Evidence of this kind of faith is more common to us that we probably think. A good example of it can be found by taking a deep look at what we love to do. Our favorite passions are usually the thing we're most afraid of pouring our lives into. Why?

Because the process seems impossible. The chances of us really making it seem slim.

The still, small voice has been reminding us for years and years that we were made to make movies, but we can't see the destination. The landmarks haven't been put out for us. And so, we stay at the same job, dream the same dreams, and talk the same talk, because doing that seems real, and we can at least have our senses engaged.

I believe the kind of faith we all yearn for is the kind that doesn't have visible road markers.

We all know people who've "chased their dreams." Why do we call it that? Because what they were chasing was invisible. And everybody who watched them thought they were insane for doing it, until they did it, and then everybody admired them for their courage.

What about the missionary who leaves everything to go into the jungles of South America, not knowing the language or the culture? What about the cyclist who quits his six-digit salary job to start a bike shop, not knowing how he's going to do it? What about the songwriter who decides that she's going to work eight to five writing songs, not knowing how she's gonna make rent?

I've been relying on the kind of faith that engages my senses for a long time. And it's not bad, it's just elementary. It's part of growing.

But eventually, if I want to have my spiritual life enlarged, I'm going to have to learn to have faith when there aren't any signs pointing me in the "right" direction.

It's gonna look like Abraham, who took a step into the desert fully confident that the invisible God was leading him, not the visible roadmaps that he was so used to.

I believe this kind of faith is not removed from the deepest desires of our hearts - our greatest passions. Whatever it is, it's been calling us for years to step out into the unknown and to rely on this still, small voice that keeps reminding us of what we were created to do.

Today's Action: What is that deep down desire in our hearts, that thing that seems impossibly difficult, that passion that we've been too afraid to give too much thought? Are we willing to embrace the kind of faith that steps into the unknown, the kind of faith that takes action and doesn't know where it's going? Make a list of possible steps "into the unknown", steps that tap into what that still, small voice has been telling us for years. Maybe we'll start seeing the phrase faith is proof of things unseen come to fruition.

The Connection Between Being a Doormat and Being Humble

Last night, I was listening to a friend of mine call me out about something, and I didn't appreciate it. He was telling me that I'd been carrying around this air of bitterness.

When he finished telling me this, I turned it around. I recalled something he'd lied to me about, and used that to avoid having to face the truth of what he was saying.

The truth was, I had been bitter.

But, how dare he tell me that!

He was in no position to tell me what I was doing wrong, or so I thought.

What was really going on was, I was afraid of being a doormat. I was afraid of being walked on and being made to feel as if I was invisible and insignificant and a failure.

So, I turned his correction around and pointed it back to his flaws and his mess-ups.

I wasn't supposed to be the one with the problems.

As I was sitting in my morning meditation this morning, and rehashed the conversation that went down, I realized that I had misplaced being a doormat with being humble.

While in the moment I was afraid of being walked all over, looking back I realize that I was actually afraid of being humble.

Over the last couple years, there's been this massive, sweeping, almost faddish media outpouring from (out of all places) Christian outlets about creating boundaries to prevent oneself from being hurt in any given situation.

There's this waking consciousness that screams self preservation and drawing hard-line, black and white generalizations about what it looks like to help others and to help ourselves.

One of the undertones of this rising philosophy is that our problems are created by outside influences, like people and places and situations.

Out of this rising consciousness is where phrases like being a doormat came from.

But I disagree with most of what this consciousness proposes.

And here's why, using the example of my conversation last night.

What my friend told me immediately raised red flags, triggers for things like anger and resentment and defensiveness.

The undertone of this recently unwrapped philosophy is that I need to create walls to prevent myself from being hurt - or boundaries. That way, it is believed, I can be free to help others without getting hurt myself or hurting them.

The problem is, as human beings we have this uncanny knack for having selfish twinges every time we want to help someone out.

We inevitably end up having cracks in our boundaries.

And so, what our efforts in creating boundaries actually do is shield us from doing anything that leads us to taking actions that result in humility.

And humility is not being a doormat.

Being a doormat is the thought process that occurs before being humble.

He wants money again? I never signed up to be his banker!

And so, we say no because we don't want to because we don't want to be walked all over.

But the reality is, and I know this first-hand because I've had a hardened heart for way too long, that the feeling of being walked all over has nothing to do with anyone else but us.

At the root of this concept is the fear of not being in control of whatever's at stake - money, relationships, power, stuff, emotions.

Being humble is about advancing past the "doormat" train of thought. It's about realizing that my stuff is not my own and that there are areas in my life (usually the ones that are being threatened at the time) that I need to release control of.

In the moment of conversation with my friend last night, it was actually an opportunity to release my need to be right.

Yet, the "boundaries" part of me told me told me to hang tight onto what I thought was right to prevent myself from being hurt.

So, when people talk about being a doormat or building boundaries, they're actually talking about shielding themselves off from avenues of humility.

Humility goes against the essence of our human instinct. It goes against our will to survive, to make it, to feel accomplished.

Yet, there's so much insight and growth that is untapped because we tell ourselves, "Well, I'm not gonna be a doormat!"

When we run into opposition (mainly, people we don't get along with), we are running into mirrors of ourselves. We don't like them because they display something that's inside of us. And so, we create boundaries to keep us from having to see that mirror and having to endure what that mirror has to teach us.

Looking back onto the conversation with my friend last night, I realize that I had a boundary set up and I didn't even know about it. Instead of defending myself and turning it around on him, I could have listened quietly, through the fear of being walked on, and waited for the truth.

Today's Action: There will be at least one situation today where we have two alternatives: let the fear of being a doormat take over and control our actions or release control and be humble about it, even when it hurts.