June 30
Scripture focus: So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. Romans 8:31-39 The Message
If holy God put everything on the line for us, what does that tell us about our response to him?
Have we put everything on the line for him?
When God put everything on the line, he embraced our condition – broken, narcissistic, selfish, prone to attachments and false gods. He didn’t wait for us to ante up and prove that we were worth investing in – he chose to embrace us even though the cost was great.
My kids love to quote a scene out of Seinfeld.
George Costanza says, “God would never let me be successful. He would kill me first. He would never let me be happy.”
Another actor replies, “I thought you didn’t believe in God?”
George says, “I do for the bad things.”
Reply, “Do you hear what you’re saying? God is not out to get you George.”
We must take seriously our false gods and misperceptions. God is on our side; Jesus at this very moment is sticking up for us. May we listen to each other with intentionality, and learn how to love each other in whatever condition we find ourselves or others. But may we never, ever accept our condition as an excuse for giving up on God.
What will we do with this information? Will it alter out thinking, feeling, believing, perceiving selves? Will it change how we work, play, live, love? May it be so!
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
June 29
Scripture focus: So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. Romans 8:31-39 The Message
What do you think?
If we came to believe that we cannot lose with God on our side, what might we be willing to endure, suffer, sacrifice and surrender in order to experience the reality of his presence in our lives?
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
Scripture focus: So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. Romans 8:31-39 The Message
What do you think?
If we came to believe that we cannot lose with God on our side, what might we be willing to endure, suffer, sacrifice and surrender in order to experience the reality of his presence in our lives?
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
June 28
Scripture focus: So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. Romans 8:31-39 The Message
What does a spiritual life look like?
Certainly there are certain aspects of a structured religious life that have proven timeless. God’s self-revelation is often embraced within the context of community. Historically, God’s people have found value in creating communities joined by faith.
Doctrines of faith, standards of behaving, reliance on Scripture – all have a place in the spiritually-attuned life.
All these things act as means of creating and maintaining conscious contact with God.
But none of these are satisfying if they become addicting.
Are there any spiritual components that you have come to depend on more than God?
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
June 17 (scroll down for June 17 - 27 entries)
Scripture focus: With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us. Romans 8:1-4 The Message
Yesterday’s devotional concluded like this: Feedback is a good thing; listening to community is a good thing. Living in a reasonable state of calm is a good thing. Prolonged imbalance is a bad thing. Grace helps us find our way back to God, to our center, to a place where sin can no longer dominate our every waking moment.
One think to keep in mind – the brain never completely forgets what it has learned. This is physiological as much as it is about people having really great memories. Addiction is permanent. From a neurological perspective, our cells can never erase the effects of attachment.
Grace must continually flow from God to us. We can’t be healed so much as we invite healing daily from the ravages of addiction.
No matter how Michael, Pete and I resolve the issue of going to concerts in an RV, we will forever have an image implanted in our brains of me cooking on a camp stove. This is not a pretty picture.
God’s grace can free us from the continuous, low-lying black cloud of living in an RV with two dogs and a lot of friends and family, but we must continually invite the Spirit of life in Christ to blow through our cells each and every day.
June 18
Scripture focus: Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored. Romans 8:5-8 The Message
Unhealthy attachment to anything restricts our freedom. God creates us for a life of fullness and freedom. Jesus reminds us in the gospel of John that we were created for an abundant life. The psalmist waxes on eloquently about the goodness of God’s creation – including his design of humankind.
Scripture also recounts the struggle for us to follow God’s call. We are all desperately in need of grace.
Thomas Merton wrote, “There is a natural desire for heaven, for the fruition of God, in us.” (The Sign of Jonas, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1953, p. 112) He argued that this natural desire is utterly useless unless it is inspired by grace. Maybe so. But I would offer up the following suggestion: our natural longing for God may itself be an expression of grace.
Either way, we are completely responsible for what we do with our longings.
What do you long for?
June 19
Scripture focus: But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's! Romans 8:9-11 The Message
If our longing for God is natural, then addiction is by definition doubly cruel.
We lose our freedom to choose AND we try to fulfill our longing for God through our own small, petty attachments.
God wants us to live a rich, purposeful life – we desire to achieve success and might be workaholics in the process.
God wants to be in a love relationship with us - we start looking for the perfect lover in human form via Craig’s list.
God wants us to experience the abundant life – we get confused and think that means we need an abundance of things to make us happy.
God wants us to lay down our life for our friends – and we end up hopelessly codependent.
God wants us to have no other gods before him, and in our efforts to love God the best we end up spiritually addicted and become spiritually abusive.
We long for God, but the material world is so very present – it gets confusing.
Do you have any confused/disappointing/freedom-stealing longings?
June 20
Scripture focus: So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him! That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. Romans 8:12-21 The Message
If we long for God but languish in our unhealthy attachments, what are we supposed to do?
What if...God desires love, not attachment, in his relationship to us?
What if...God wants us to love him from a position of freedom, not simply reflex because he wows us with his God-hood and overwhelms our circuitry to the point we don’t really have the freedom to choose?
What if...God actually thinks love, offered in freedom, is expressed when we turn to Him consciously and intentionally, with integrity?
What if...we can only choose God with integrity after we have chosen, painfully, to not allow our attractions to sway us to lesser gods?
What if...we must turn away before we can truly come home?
Michael, Pete and I sit down and have an honest conversation about a summer of Phishing.
* Pete confesses that he was hoping to leverage Michael’s idea so that he could see the ballparks?
* What if Michael confesses that he really doesn’t want quality time with the parental units?
* What if I confess that I took a vow to never use a camp stove and preferred hotels with room service?
* What if Ryan admitted that Phish wasn’t his kind of music and he preferred going to the ballparks with Pete?
* What if the dogs were able to tell us how badly they did not want to ride in an RV with a bunch of humans?
* What if we could tell ourselves and others the truth about what we longed for? And what if others loved us in spite of knowing the truth about our propensity to get attached to all sorts of small things?
June 21
Scripture focus: So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him! That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. Romans 8:12-21 The Message
When we figure out who we really are, it makes sense to come home.
But don’t expect “home” to feel normal.
After years of taking our desires to places that it was never intended to go, we cannot expect “home” to feel like a cozy family gathering in its most idealized form.
So let me offer both a word of warning and encouragement.
As we grow, we must not expect growth to feel comfortable. Don’t let this confuse us. Joyful anticipation deepens, but it isn’t always pleasant.
What uncomfortable forays have you made to find your way back home, only to get side-tracked because it didn’t feel good in the moment?
June 22
Scripture focus: So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him! That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. Romans 8:12-21 The Message
Constance FitzGerald says, “In the process of affective redemption, desire is not suppressed or destroyed, but gradually transferred, purified, transformed, set on fire. We go through the struggles and ambiguities of human desire to integration and personal wholeness.” (FitzGerald, “Impasse and Dark Night,” p.97)
Listen – we go through struggles and ambiguities.
This is normal.
What is not normal:
* Never feeling bad
* Never having doubts
* Never going through trials
* Having an easy life
* Always being happy
I’m asking: is it possible that God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are and we have missed the message of hope and the dream of a calling because we thought it would feel good?
June 23
Scripture focus: So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him! That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. Romans 8:12-21 The Message
Finding our way back home is good news and painful news.
It is good news in that it is a homecoming; it is liberation from slavery; it enables love.
It is painful news in that it is just plain hard; it requires relinquishment; we must let go; we must take risks; we must endure losses that are both real and painful.
May we find our way back home.
June 24
Scripture focus: So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him! That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. Romans 8:12-21 The Message
One of our most difficult concepts to wrestle with is our addiction to our own self-image.
We decide early in our life certain “things” about what it means to be holy, accepted, pleasing, successful, good, bad – whatever we decide to hook our self-image to in an attempt to win approval and status.
This causes us to pose, posture and encourages the development of a false self.
This image can become addicting.
“What’s next, Papa?” ...is a better question than “How does my halo shine today?”
What idealized view of holiness has thrown you off track?
June 25
Scripture focus: All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. Romans 8:22-28 The Message
According to Dr. Gerald May, M. D. ("Addiction and Grace") the opposite of attachment and addiction from a neurological perspective is flexibility. He describes it as a willingness to cling less and accept more surprises in life. He claims that this freedom is a sign of a brain that is willing to register sensation rather than having to be so quick to cling, attach, adapt, habituate.
This flexibility is uncomfortable and exciting. We might need to grieve the loss of our familiar chains.
Our black lab, Max, loves his kennel. Who would think that a cage could be a comfort? A few nights ago we had a terrible storm. We have discovered that even if he runs into his kennel, unless the door is closed, he doesn’t feel safe. The feeling of freedom creates a great deal of anxiety for him when he feels threatened by a storm. The other night during the storm, Max was locked in his kennel and by all appearances seemed calm as a cucumber. We make sure Max is always firmly locked into his kennel on nights when storms are predicted.
Max is completely incapable of reasoning. He has a thing about storms. They freak him out. Shutting him in his kennel puts him at perfect peace. But that doesn’t change the fact that the dog is locked in a box. This doesn’t bother Max.
Being locked in a box should bother us. We are humans, created for deliverance as surely as we are prone to end up in bondage. I pray that we will find our way out of the limits of our own understanding, so that we might arrive in spacious places, where we can join God in living the life he intended for us.
As I have observed my dog under the influence of anxiety, it has occurred to me that we humans aren’t that different from Max. When under stress, we run to that which comforts because it is familiar – even if it is in the form of a cage. Max is very honest with his emotional expressions – we humans are sometimes a bit more...convoluted. It is easy to see in Max his anxiety or his peace. He pants when anxious; he is calm and loving at peace; when he is afraid, he runs off to his kennel; when he feels protective or senses danger, he barks and his hair stands up along his spine.
How willing are we to express our emotions with honesty?
How willing are we to choose to cling less and believe more?
June 26
Scripture focus: God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun. Romans 8:29-30 The Message
Growing up in our salvation will require us to find our security apart from our own brain patterns.
We will experience a greater degree of dependency on the unexplainable mercy of God.
It is possible to spend a lifetime seeking satisfaction in places that will never fulfill our longing for God.
May God help us experience a transformation of desire as we recognize our deepest and truest longings are for Him.
June 27
Scripture focus: So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. Romans 8:31-39 The Message
Jesus, at this very moment, sits in the heavenly realm and is busy about the business of sticking up for us. This is awesome news. While Jesus is busy advocating for us, we’re on earth experiencing trouble, hard times, hatred, hunger, homelessness, bullying, backstabbing, killing and more.
Is this what we thought the life of a disciple would look like?
Surely victory means something different in the kingdom of God than it does to us on earth. In this world, victory usually includes endorsements, trophies and adoring fans. Not so in the kingdom of God.
It is impossible to figure out a way to adapt to the kingdom of God.
It is impossible to bottle freedom or contain love.
If we are going to become “entirely ready” to have God remove our defects of character, we must wrestle with what it means to become entirely willing to trust God.
What is it that you most trust? Would an alien observing your life see your trust in how you live?
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
Scripture focus: With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us. Romans 8:1-4 The Message
Yesterday’s devotional concluded like this: Feedback is a good thing; listening to community is a good thing. Living in a reasonable state of calm is a good thing. Prolonged imbalance is a bad thing. Grace helps us find our way back to God, to our center, to a place where sin can no longer dominate our every waking moment.
One think to keep in mind – the brain never completely forgets what it has learned. This is physiological as much as it is about people having really great memories. Addiction is permanent. From a neurological perspective, our cells can never erase the effects of attachment.
Grace must continually flow from God to us. We can’t be healed so much as we invite healing daily from the ravages of addiction.
No matter how Michael, Pete and I resolve the issue of going to concerts in an RV, we will forever have an image implanted in our brains of me cooking on a camp stove. This is not a pretty picture.
God’s grace can free us from the continuous, low-lying black cloud of living in an RV with two dogs and a lot of friends and family, but we must continually invite the Spirit of life in Christ to blow through our cells each and every day.
June 18
Scripture focus: Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored. Romans 8:5-8 The Message
Unhealthy attachment to anything restricts our freedom. God creates us for a life of fullness and freedom. Jesus reminds us in the gospel of John that we were created for an abundant life. The psalmist waxes on eloquently about the goodness of God’s creation – including his design of humankind.
Scripture also recounts the struggle for us to follow God’s call. We are all desperately in need of grace.
Thomas Merton wrote, “There is a natural desire for heaven, for the fruition of God, in us.” (The Sign of Jonas, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1953, p. 112) He argued that this natural desire is utterly useless unless it is inspired by grace. Maybe so. But I would offer up the following suggestion: our natural longing for God may itself be an expression of grace.
Either way, we are completely responsible for what we do with our longings.
What do you long for?
June 19
Scripture focus: But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's! Romans 8:9-11 The Message
If our longing for God is natural, then addiction is by definition doubly cruel.
We lose our freedom to choose AND we try to fulfill our longing for God through our own small, petty attachments.
God wants us to live a rich, purposeful life – we desire to achieve success and might be workaholics in the process.
God wants to be in a love relationship with us - we start looking for the perfect lover in human form via Craig’s list.
God wants us to experience the abundant life – we get confused and think that means we need an abundance of things to make us happy.
God wants us to lay down our life for our friends – and we end up hopelessly codependent.
God wants us to have no other gods before him, and in our efforts to love God the best we end up spiritually addicted and become spiritually abusive.
We long for God, but the material world is so very present – it gets confusing.
Do you have any confused/disappointing/freedom-stealing longings?
June 20
Scripture focus: So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him! That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. Romans 8:12-21 The Message
If we long for God but languish in our unhealthy attachments, what are we supposed to do?
What if...God desires love, not attachment, in his relationship to us?
What if...God wants us to love him from a position of freedom, not simply reflex because he wows us with his God-hood and overwhelms our circuitry to the point we don’t really have the freedom to choose?
What if...God actually thinks love, offered in freedom, is expressed when we turn to Him consciously and intentionally, with integrity?
What if...we can only choose God with integrity after we have chosen, painfully, to not allow our attractions to sway us to lesser gods?
What if...we must turn away before we can truly come home?
Michael, Pete and I sit down and have an honest conversation about a summer of Phishing.
* Pete confesses that he was hoping to leverage Michael’s idea so that he could see the ballparks?
* What if Michael confesses that he really doesn’t want quality time with the parental units?
* What if I confess that I took a vow to never use a camp stove and preferred hotels with room service?
* What if Ryan admitted that Phish wasn’t his kind of music and he preferred going to the ballparks with Pete?
* What if the dogs were able to tell us how badly they did not want to ride in an RV with a bunch of humans?
* What if we could tell ourselves and others the truth about what we longed for? And what if others loved us in spite of knowing the truth about our propensity to get attached to all sorts of small things?
June 21
Scripture focus: So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him! That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. Romans 8:12-21 The Message
When we figure out who we really are, it makes sense to come home.
But don’t expect “home” to feel normal.
After years of taking our desires to places that it was never intended to go, we cannot expect “home” to feel like a cozy family gathering in its most idealized form.
So let me offer both a word of warning and encouragement.
As we grow, we must not expect growth to feel comfortable. Don’t let this confuse us. Joyful anticipation deepens, but it isn’t always pleasant.
What uncomfortable forays have you made to find your way back home, only to get side-tracked because it didn’t feel good in the moment?
June 22
Scripture focus: So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him! That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. Romans 8:12-21 The Message
Constance FitzGerald says, “In the process of affective redemption, desire is not suppressed or destroyed, but gradually transferred, purified, transformed, set on fire. We go through the struggles and ambiguities of human desire to integration and personal wholeness.” (FitzGerald, “Impasse and Dark Night,” p.97)
Listen – we go through struggles and ambiguities.
This is normal.
What is not normal:
* Never feeling bad
* Never having doubts
* Never going through trials
* Having an easy life
* Always being happy
I’m asking: is it possible that God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are and we have missed the message of hope and the dream of a calling because we thought it would feel good?
June 23
Scripture focus: So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him! That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. Romans 8:12-21 The Message
Finding our way back home is good news and painful news.
It is good news in that it is a homecoming; it is liberation from slavery; it enables love.
It is painful news in that it is just plain hard; it requires relinquishment; we must let go; we must take risks; we must endure losses that are both real and painful.
May we find our way back home.
June 24
Scripture focus: So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him! That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. Romans 8:12-21 The Message
One of our most difficult concepts to wrestle with is our addiction to our own self-image.
We decide early in our life certain “things” about what it means to be holy, accepted, pleasing, successful, good, bad – whatever we decide to hook our self-image to in an attempt to win approval and status.
This causes us to pose, posture and encourages the development of a false self.
This image can become addicting.
“What’s next, Papa?” ...is a better question than “How does my halo shine today?”
What idealized view of holiness has thrown you off track?
June 25
Scripture focus: All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. Romans 8:22-28 The Message
According to Dr. Gerald May, M. D. ("Addiction and Grace") the opposite of attachment and addiction from a neurological perspective is flexibility. He describes it as a willingness to cling less and accept more surprises in life. He claims that this freedom is a sign of a brain that is willing to register sensation rather than having to be so quick to cling, attach, adapt, habituate.
This flexibility is uncomfortable and exciting. We might need to grieve the loss of our familiar chains.
Our black lab, Max, loves his kennel. Who would think that a cage could be a comfort? A few nights ago we had a terrible storm. We have discovered that even if he runs into his kennel, unless the door is closed, he doesn’t feel safe. The feeling of freedom creates a great deal of anxiety for him when he feels threatened by a storm. The other night during the storm, Max was locked in his kennel and by all appearances seemed calm as a cucumber. We make sure Max is always firmly locked into his kennel on nights when storms are predicted.
Max is completely incapable of reasoning. He has a thing about storms. They freak him out. Shutting him in his kennel puts him at perfect peace. But that doesn’t change the fact that the dog is locked in a box. This doesn’t bother Max.
Being locked in a box should bother us. We are humans, created for deliverance as surely as we are prone to end up in bondage. I pray that we will find our way out of the limits of our own understanding, so that we might arrive in spacious places, where we can join God in living the life he intended for us.
As I have observed my dog under the influence of anxiety, it has occurred to me that we humans aren’t that different from Max. When under stress, we run to that which comforts because it is familiar – even if it is in the form of a cage. Max is very honest with his emotional expressions – we humans are sometimes a bit more...convoluted. It is easy to see in Max his anxiety or his peace. He pants when anxious; he is calm and loving at peace; when he is afraid, he runs off to his kennel; when he feels protective or senses danger, he barks and his hair stands up along his spine.
How willing are we to express our emotions with honesty?
How willing are we to choose to cling less and believe more?
June 26
Scripture focus: God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun. Romans 8:29-30 The Message
Growing up in our salvation will require us to find our security apart from our own brain patterns.
We will experience a greater degree of dependency on the unexplainable mercy of God.
It is possible to spend a lifetime seeking satisfaction in places that will never fulfill our longing for God.
May God help us experience a transformation of desire as we recognize our deepest and truest longings are for Him.
June 27
Scripture focus: So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. Romans 8:31-39 The Message
Jesus, at this very moment, sits in the heavenly realm and is busy about the business of sticking up for us. This is awesome news. While Jesus is busy advocating for us, we’re on earth experiencing trouble, hard times, hatred, hunger, homelessness, bullying, backstabbing, killing and more.
Is this what we thought the life of a disciple would look like?
Surely victory means something different in the kingdom of God than it does to us on earth. In this world, victory usually includes endorsements, trophies and adoring fans. Not so in the kingdom of God.
It is impossible to figure out a way to adapt to the kingdom of God.
It is impossible to bottle freedom or contain love.
If we are going to become “entirely ready” to have God remove our defects of character, we must wrestle with what it means to become entirely willing to trust God.
What is it that you most trust? Would an alien observing your life see your trust in how you live?
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June 16
Scripture focus: I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. Romans 7:14-25 The Message
Suppose all this conflict leads to a bad case of insomnia, and I decide to take a sedative to get some sleep. The first time I try a sedative, it immediately works – reinforcing my belief that sleeping pills are a solution to my problem (if I’ve identified my problem as sleeplessness).
My cells quickly habituate to them, however, and soon they are less sensitive and responsive to the pill. Soon, I’m taking a couple of pills – I’ve developed tolerance.
Eventually more cells are damaged, and soon the whole system must adapt. Cells that used to know how to go to sleep are less capable than they were before you took the first pill. The cells now go completely wacko. It rebounds by getting completely excitable. All those adapted cells are screaming for a return to their new normal. Something is terribly wrong, and they want you to fix it. Agitation increases. The gauntlet is thrown down, the war is on.
The only way for Pete, Michael and I to resolve our issue is to return to the beginning and start over. We must calm down, gather together and get the facts straight. We must be gracious, patient and kind. We must be good listeners. This is the way out of chaos, and sets things
right in a life of contradictions where I want to serve God, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. How did this happen? When feedback failed, the system broke down completely. Whether we’re talking about chemical addictions, or relationships, the same kind of systems that help brains function or fail, operate in daily life as well.
Feedback is a good thing; listening to community is a good thing. Living in a reasonable state of calm is a good thing. Prolonged imbalance is a bad thing. Grace helps us find our way back to God, to our center, to a place where sin can no longer dominate our every waking moment.
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June 15
Scripture focus: I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. Romans 7:14-25 The Message
When neither feedback nor habituation restore balance to the system, adaptation occurs. This is another way to say attachment/addiction is forming. If the brain can’t calm the cells down, all the cells eventually give up and join in the fray. Suppose Pete and I had not been able to calm ourselves down, and the discussion moved out into the den. Michael is sitting watching a game with his friends.
I say, “I can’t believe you thought it was a good idea to let these kids go off in an RV without adult supervision.”
Pete responds, “I didn’t say that!”
Michael, seeing a good opportunity slip away like a triple scoop ice cream cone on a hot summer day chimes up, “You did to! You said we could go to Phish Concerts and baseball parks!”
Pete pauses. He did say that. But the pause provides an opening, and Ryan pipes up, “Hey, can I go? I want to go to the baseball parks too! Can my dad join us? What about my sister? My mom could cook on a camp stove!”
The whole discussion is getting way out of hand. If this continues for long, all of us are going to get so accustomed to chaos and yelling, shouting and hollering, that this will become our new normal. We’ll get so attached to the chaos and calamity that soon we won’t remember a day when we could calm down, pause to prepare, collaborate and come to a reasonable agreement on anything. We will have a family
system, addicted to chaos.
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Scripture focus: I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. Romans 7:14-25 The Message
When neither feedback nor habituation restore balance to the system, adaptation occurs. This is another way to say attachment/addiction is forming. If the brain can’t calm the cells down, all the cells eventually give up and join in the fray. Suppose Pete and I had not been able to calm ourselves down, and the discussion moved out into the den. Michael is sitting watching a game with his friends.
I say, “I can’t believe you thought it was a good idea to let these kids go off in an RV without adult supervision.”
Pete responds, “I didn’t say that!”
Michael, seeing a good opportunity slip away like a triple scoop ice cream cone on a hot summer day chimes up, “You did to! You said we could go to Phish Concerts and baseball parks!”
Pete pauses. He did say that. But the pause provides an opening, and Ryan pipes up, “Hey, can I go? I want to go to the baseball parks too! Can my dad join us? What about my sister? My mom could cook on a camp stove!”
The whole discussion is getting way out of hand. If this continues for long, all of us are going to get so accustomed to chaos and yelling, shouting and hollering, that this will become our new normal. We’ll get so attached to the chaos and calamity that soon we won’t remember a day when we could calm down, pause to prepare, collaborate and come to a reasonable agreement on anything. We will have a family
system, addicted to chaos.
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June 14
Scripture focus: I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. Romans 7:14-25 The Message
Habituation does not mean forming a habit. Habituation is the neurological cause of tolerance. Basically, it means that the cells become less sensitive and responsive to repeated stimuli. This can happen when the brain basically hangs up the phone, refusing to take the call from repetitive cells trying to get attention. If this goes on too long, the nerve cells actually start to destroy their own receptors!
Pete works at home. He emphasizes “work”; the children and I like to focus on “at home”. When the kids were young, they would run into his office for various things they thought were important – come play ball, fix my lego, open my juice box, tie my shoe, come watch tv... He got into the habit of turning around when the door opened and holding up his hand, signaling – STOP!
If I had charged into his office to discuss the summer plans, feedback may not have ever occurred if I had violated the boundary between work and home too often. Pete would have been habituated to signaling – STOP! He would not have heard my cry of distress or responded to my need for feedback.
Michael might have a rental agreement with the local RV store signed, sealed and delivered before Pete and I could find a moment to talk this issue through.
That’s why so many addicts find themselves completed taken off-guard when their bosses fire them, their spouses leave them, and their dog runs off with a pack of other dogs. Signals are missed, balance is off-kilter, clues go undiscovered. Eventually, hopefully, the person in distress has a moment of clarity. Like Paul in the book of Romans, they want to know how in the world things got so bad. It’s called habituation – like feedback, it’s trying to keep things in balance.
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Scripture focus: I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. Romans 7:14-25 The Message
Habituation does not mean forming a habit. Habituation is the neurological cause of tolerance. Basically, it means that the cells become less sensitive and responsive to repeated stimuli. This can happen when the brain basically hangs up the phone, refusing to take the call from repetitive cells trying to get attention. If this goes on too long, the nerve cells actually start to destroy their own receptors!
Pete works at home. He emphasizes “work”; the children and I like to focus on “at home”. When the kids were young, they would run into his office for various things they thought were important – come play ball, fix my lego, open my juice box, tie my shoe, come watch tv... He got into the habit of turning around when the door opened and holding up his hand, signaling – STOP!
If I had charged into his office to discuss the summer plans, feedback may not have ever occurred if I had violated the boundary between work and home too often. Pete would have been habituated to signaling – STOP! He would not have heard my cry of distress or responded to my need for feedback.
Michael might have a rental agreement with the local RV store signed, sealed and delivered before Pete and I could find a moment to talk this issue through.
That’s why so many addicts find themselves completed taken off-guard when their bosses fire them, their spouses leave them, and their dog runs off with a pack of other dogs. Signals are missed, balance is off-kilter, clues go undiscovered. Eventually, hopefully, the person in distress has a moment of clarity. Like Paul in the book of Romans, they want to know how in the world things got so bad. It’s called habituation – like feedback, it’s trying to keep things in balance.
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June 13
Scripture focus: I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. Romans 7:14-25 The Message
Balance and equilibrium are crucial for healthy brain functioning. This depends upon the delicate dance that takes place among chemicals, cells and systems of cells. Nerve cells are never isolated, their interconnections are legendary. One cell shifts and its whole entire local group shifts too. These changes affect the larger systems of the brain, and the brain then impacts the body. When balance is disturbed, the outcome is stress.
After Michael launches into his proposal for a summer of concerts, my brain is immediately stressed. Three basic things are about to happen in an attempt to maintain and regain balance: feedback, habituation, and adaptation. Feedback is the first response against stress. There are three kinds of feedback: excited cells are told to calm down, under-reactive cells are told to get moving, and healthy happy cells may be encouraged to continue their balanced ways. Suppose I take my very excited cell into Pete’s (my husband and the alleged co-conspirator in this summer of madness plan) office, calmly close the door and hiss into his ear, “Are you crazy? Did you tell Michael it was ok for him to rent a string of RV’s and bring all his buddies and their girlfriends on a summer expedition to Phish concerts?”
Pete might respond by providing feedback in one of three ways:
1. “Calm down! I did no such thing!”
2. “I’m not crazy, you’re the crazy one! I didn’t put him up to this! Where did you get your information? Boy am I mad at you! You never get the story straight!”
3. “Whoa! Honey, I’d love to stop working and spend hours chatting with you about this. How about if we go out and grab a cup of really expensive coffee and talk this through?”
The most effective action usually involves some form of calming (1 or 3) when a cell (me) gets all charged up. If ineffective communication happens, it increases the stress. Sin’s prison (addiction) totally messes up this system. When that happens, the brain is forced to try habituation as a coping strategy.
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
Scripture focus: I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. Romans 7:14-25 The Message
Balance and equilibrium are crucial for healthy brain functioning. This depends upon the delicate dance that takes place among chemicals, cells and systems of cells. Nerve cells are never isolated, their interconnections are legendary. One cell shifts and its whole entire local group shifts too. These changes affect the larger systems of the brain, and the brain then impacts the body. When balance is disturbed, the outcome is stress.
After Michael launches into his proposal for a summer of concerts, my brain is immediately stressed. Three basic things are about to happen in an attempt to maintain and regain balance: feedback, habituation, and adaptation. Feedback is the first response against stress. There are three kinds of feedback: excited cells are told to calm down, under-reactive cells are told to get moving, and healthy happy cells may be encouraged to continue their balanced ways. Suppose I take my very excited cell into Pete’s (my husband and the alleged co-conspirator in this summer of madness plan) office, calmly close the door and hiss into his ear, “Are you crazy? Did you tell Michael it was ok for him to rent a string of RV’s and bring all his buddies and their girlfriends on a summer expedition to Phish concerts?”
Pete might respond by providing feedback in one of three ways:
1. “Calm down! I did no such thing!”
2. “I’m not crazy, you’re the crazy one! I didn’t put him up to this! Where did you get your information? Boy am I mad at you! You never get the story straight!”
3. “Whoa! Honey, I’d love to stop working and spend hours chatting with you about this. How about if we go out and grab a cup of really expensive coffee and talk this through?”
The most effective action usually involves some form of calming (1 or 3) when a cell (me) gets all charged up. If ineffective communication happens, it increases the stress. Sin’s prison (addiction) totally messes up this system. When that happens, the brain is forced to try habituation as a coping strategy.
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
June 12
Scripture focus: I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. Romans 7:14-25 The Message
Continued from yesterday...
As the “cells” in our colony converse, all sorts of interactions, experiences and behaviors emerge. Thoughts, feelings, sensation, memories are contained in a vast array of neuro-chemical communications. Electrochemical energies run along the bodies and fibers of nerve cells, cross synapses (the little spaces between the cells), releasing and inhibiting all sorts of chemicals. Each response creates a reaction. The possibility for communication are almost infinite. Addiction mucks up this system. It’s so complicated that we can’t do it justice, but we must try. Because how our brain processes matters.
It also matters how families communicate.
When Michael shares his vision for a summer in an RV with his guy friends following Phish to and fro, my brain lights up like the annual Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center. What was his father thinking? Fortunately, we’ve been a family long enough that this isn’t the first time our cells have bumped up against each other in uncomfortable ways. We have some guidelines to direct us in moments like this….those times when I want to strangle the father of my children. First, I breathe. I breathe deeply, slowly, and repetitively. Second, I pause to prepare. I think, “Could there be more to the story than I know? Who should I ask for clarification?” These are pretty decent questions and have probably kept me out of the electric chair. An addicted family system when faced with a proverbial light show of excitement in the brain does not have the resources to pause, think, strategize, gather information, breathe or anything else deliberate. Addicted families react, usually to someone’s detriment. More on why this is more about chemistry than character tomorrow.
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Scripture focus: I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. Romans 7:14-25 The Message
Continued from yesterday...
As the “cells” in our colony converse, all sorts of interactions, experiences and behaviors emerge. Thoughts, feelings, sensation, memories are contained in a vast array of neuro-chemical communications. Electrochemical energies run along the bodies and fibers of nerve cells, cross synapses (the little spaces between the cells), releasing and inhibiting all sorts of chemicals. Each response creates a reaction. The possibility for communication are almost infinite. Addiction mucks up this system. It’s so complicated that we can’t do it justice, but we must try. Because how our brain processes matters.
It also matters how families communicate.
When Michael shares his vision for a summer in an RV with his guy friends following Phish to and fro, my brain lights up like the annual Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center. What was his father thinking? Fortunately, we’ve been a family long enough that this isn’t the first time our cells have bumped up against each other in uncomfortable ways. We have some guidelines to direct us in moments like this….those times when I want to strangle the father of my children. First, I breathe. I breathe deeply, slowly, and repetitively. Second, I pause to prepare. I think, “Could there be more to the story than I know? Who should I ask for clarification?” These are pretty decent questions and have probably kept me out of the electric chair. An addicted family system when faced with a proverbial light show of excitement in the brain does not have the resources to pause, think, strategize, gather information, breathe or anything else deliberate. Addicted families react, usually to someone’s detriment. More on why this is more about chemistry than character tomorrow.
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June 11
Scripture focus: I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. Romans 7:14-25 The Message
The brain is one heck of a complicated system. It is made up of cells (that live in colonies), neurotransmitters that help cells chat with each other, and a bunch of other really complicated stuff. Not only do cells talk – they give each other feedback! Who knew? This feedback affects the cells that sent the messages initially and changes the message that will continue on to future cells that weren’t in on the initial conversation. It kind of reminds me of how families talk.
Michael (our son) decided that it was a great idea to see how many Phish concerts he could attend in his lifetime. Michael is no dummy. So he took his “cell” and headed off to have a conversation with the daddy cell in our colony. This was an intentional conversation. He could have come to me, the mommy cell, but I have a history of liking to keep my kids close to home base. Michael’s dad loves concerts. But Michael’s dad also loves me. That’s the background, now here’s the conversation.
“Dad, what do you think about me seeing how many Phish concerts I can attend in my lifetime? Do you think that’s a worthy life mission?”
“Wow! That sounds like fun! We could rent an RV, go to Phish concerts at night and visit all the baseball stadiums during the day. We could make it a family vacation. Your sister could take a leave from her job. Your brother could quit seminary! We could bring the dogs. Your mom could cook our meals on a camp stove!”
Michael pauses to prepare. “Well, we could...” And he walks off to find me.
“Mom, Dad said he totally agrees with me that I should go to all the Phish concerts I can possibly attend in my lifetime. He says that it’s a worthy cause, and that I can rent an RV with Ryan and David and travel the country all summer. He says it sounds like fun!”
To be continued...
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Scripture focus: I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. Romans 7:14-25 The Message
The brain is one heck of a complicated system. It is made up of cells (that live in colonies), neurotransmitters that help cells chat with each other, and a bunch of other really complicated stuff. Not only do cells talk – they give each other feedback! Who knew? This feedback affects the cells that sent the messages initially and changes the message that will continue on to future cells that weren’t in on the initial conversation. It kind of reminds me of how families talk.
Michael (our son) decided that it was a great idea to see how many Phish concerts he could attend in his lifetime. Michael is no dummy. So he took his “cell” and headed off to have a conversation with the daddy cell in our colony. This was an intentional conversation. He could have come to me, the mommy cell, but I have a history of liking to keep my kids close to home base. Michael’s dad loves concerts. But Michael’s dad also loves me. That’s the background, now here’s the conversation.
“Dad, what do you think about me seeing how many Phish concerts I can attend in my lifetime? Do you think that’s a worthy life mission?”
“Wow! That sounds like fun! We could rent an RV, go to Phish concerts at night and visit all the baseball stadiums during the day. We could make it a family vacation. Your sister could take a leave from her job. Your brother could quit seminary! We could bring the dogs. Your mom could cook our meals on a camp stove!”
Michael pauses to prepare. “Well, we could...” And he walks off to find me.
“Mom, Dad said he totally agrees with me that I should go to all the Phish concerts I can possibly attend in my lifetime. He says that it’s a worthy cause, and that I can rent an RV with Ryan and David and travel the country all summer. He says it sounds like fun!”
To be continued...
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June 10
Scripture focus: I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. Romans 7:14-25 The Message
“A mind is a system of ideas, each with the excitement it arouses, and with tendencies impulsive and inhibitive, which mutually check or reinforce one another.” William James
Gerald May wrote, “According to Genesis, our human spirit is the breath of God in us. If so, it not only gives us the life we have but also calls us toward a more perfect and whole life, a life of growing freedom and love. Thus the human spirit is the source of our yearning as well as of our very life.” (Addiction and Grace, p.65)
In the next few devotionals we’re going to learn more about the neurology of the addictive process. But first, a word of caution. It is a good thing to acquire knowledge, but expecting knowledge to offer us salvation reminds me of wise teaching from the “Big Book” of AA. In it, someone has written that an expectation is a resentment waiting for an opportunity to arise.
The physiology of addiction is intriguing and interesting and instructive – but it is as mysterious as the grace of God that saves us. It helps me to stay focused in a healthy way to remember that all this complexity is a reflection of our Creator God.
Now, about the brain...
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
Scripture focus: I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. Romans 7:14-25 The Message
“A mind is a system of ideas, each with the excitement it arouses, and with tendencies impulsive and inhibitive, which mutually check or reinforce one another.” William James
Gerald May wrote, “According to Genesis, our human spirit is the breath of God in us. If so, it not only gives us the life we have but also calls us toward a more perfect and whole life, a life of growing freedom and love. Thus the human spirit is the source of our yearning as well as of our very life.” (Addiction and Grace, p.65)
In the next few devotionals we’re going to learn more about the neurology of the addictive process. But first, a word of caution. It is a good thing to acquire knowledge, but expecting knowledge to offer us salvation reminds me of wise teaching from the “Big Book” of AA. In it, someone has written that an expectation is a resentment waiting for an opportunity to arise.
The physiology of addiction is intriguing and interesting and instructive – but it is as mysterious as the grace of God that saves us. It helps me to stay focused in a healthy way to remember that all this complexity is a reflection of our Creator God.
Now, about the brain...
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
June 9
Scripture focus: But I can hear you say, "If the law code was as bad as all that, it's no better than sin itself." That's certainly not true. The law code had a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the succinct, surgical command, "You shall not covet," I could have dressed covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it. Don't you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of "forbidden fruit" out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless, and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it. The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong. So sin was plenty alive, and I was stone dead. But the law code itself is God's good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel. I can already hear your next question: "Does that mean I can't even trust what is good [that is, the law]? Is good just as dangerous as evil?" No again! Sin simply did what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me. By hiding within God's good commandment, sin did far more mischief than it could ever have accomplished on its own. Romans 7:7-13 The Message
Almost every day I go to a particular store in my neighborhood for milk or bread or some basic food item. I run in and run out. This is not a deeply spiritual experience, it’s just a thing I do. Until recently, when this store (under new management) began hanging all sorts of signs, instructing me on what is and what is not appropriate behavior. “Please do not touch the display.” “If you break it, you buy it.” “Please do not get finger prints on the glass.” In the decades of daily shopping that I have experienced in this store, I do not think I ever touched a display, broken anything or touched the glass….but boy do I want to now! It’s torture to shop. Every display calls out to me, “Touch me!
Just once! They aren’t the boss of you!” On and on it goes, temptation upon temptation to touch, break, and leave my mark – one perfectly placed finger print. I suppose these warnings serve a purpose that benefit someone. But it feels as if someone is daring to limit my freedom – and I don’t like limits! Certainly codes are valuable in guiding us through life. Can you imagine a community without guidelines? But I don’t like guidelines, I like to make my own rules. Didn’t I behave find before the post-it-note-police showed up?
What the law is powerless to accomplish – get me to behave – grace has overcome. I choose to not touch or break because it is an appropriate way to care for my store and those who work in it. Grace provides me a perspective larger than my own. I am no longer limited to a viewpoint restricted by self-interest and feeling good. This is pretty powerful stuff. I can’t guarantee tomorrow, but I can report that for today, I have avoided my natural inclination to prove that no one is the boss of me, and instead, give consideration to the effort it would take to remove all those little finger prints left behind by me and all my friends.
Grace does a much better job of helping me love God and others than little notes and dire warnings. May your day be Grace-filled.
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June 8
Scripture focus: But I can hear you say, "If the law code was as bad as all that, it's no better than sin itself." That's certainly not true. The law code had a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the succinct, surgical command, "You shall not covet," I could have dressed covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it. Don't you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of "forbidden fruit" out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless, and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it. The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong. So sin was plenty alive, and I was stone dead. But the law code itself is God's good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel. I can already hear your next question: "Does that mean I can't even trust what is good [that is, the law]? Is good just as dangerous as evil?" No again! Sin simply did what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me. By hiding within God's good commandment, sin did far more mischief than it could ever have accomplished on its own. Romans 7:7-13 The Message
Addiction is catching. Take note of yesterday’s devotional. When the husband called to ask a talk show host whether or not he should let his alcoholic wife return home, did you notice the problem? Here is a man who has been living with the devastating effects of a spouse’s addiction, and he needs to call and ask Dr. Laura if a week sober is enough time to forgive and forget (emphasis on forget)? I think that sounds kind of crazy.
Collusion is the term for what happens when friends, family, work buddies and even professional helpers actually aid and abet the addict’s need to use. This behavior is what has popularly been termed codependency. Collusion, literally, happens to the best of people – the most sensitive, compassionate, sympathetic, and loving members of the community are most prone to collusion.
I listened to a recent caller tell me how she spent years in a therapist’s office trying to get to the root of her addiction. When the therapist went out on maternity leave, she was assigned a new counselor – who promptly advised her to go to rehab. By the grace of God, her trip to rehab was a big step toward sobriety. Now she’s back in therapy, and seems to be making great strides at understanding some of the maladaptive coping strategies that contributed to her addiction issues.
Was Counselor A wrong and Counselor B right? Not necessarily – it’s not really about right or wrong. Counselor A knew that this client had some underlying “issues” that needed addressing. However, Counselor B believed that everything goes better if the person in therapy is sober. Interestingly enough, when Counselor A returned to her duties, she was most agitated to find that her client had been to treatment and was working a recovery program. That’s a puzzler, but again, not the point.
I would offer up the following suggestion. Instead of judging the process, can we thank God for the grace that enabled this woman to find her freedom? Grace flowed through community, and eventually the confusion cleared. One more alcoholic discovered that she could have life, and live it abundantly.
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Scripture focus: But I can hear you say, "If the law code was as bad as all that, it's no better than sin itself." That's certainly not true. The law code had a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the succinct, surgical command, "You shall not covet," I could have dressed covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it. Don't you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of "forbidden fruit" out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless, and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it. The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong. So sin was plenty alive, and I was stone dead. But the law code itself is God's good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel. I can already hear your next question: "Does that mean I can't even trust what is good [that is, the law]? Is good just as dangerous as evil?" No again! Sin simply did what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me. By hiding within God's good commandment, sin did far more mischief than it could ever have accomplished on its own. Romans 7:7-13 The Message
Addiction is catching. Take note of yesterday’s devotional. When the husband called to ask a talk show host whether or not he should let his alcoholic wife return home, did you notice the problem? Here is a man who has been living with the devastating effects of a spouse’s addiction, and he needs to call and ask Dr. Laura if a week sober is enough time to forgive and forget (emphasis on forget)? I think that sounds kind of crazy.
Collusion is the term for what happens when friends, family, work buddies and even professional helpers actually aid and abet the addict’s need to use. This behavior is what has popularly been termed codependency. Collusion, literally, happens to the best of people – the most sensitive, compassionate, sympathetic, and loving members of the community are most prone to collusion.
I listened to a recent caller tell me how she spent years in a therapist’s office trying to get to the root of her addiction. When the therapist went out on maternity leave, she was assigned a new counselor – who promptly advised her to go to rehab. By the grace of God, her trip to rehab was a big step toward sobriety. Now she’s back in therapy, and seems to be making great strides at understanding some of the maladaptive coping strategies that contributed to her addiction issues.
Was Counselor A wrong and Counselor B right? Not necessarily – it’s not really about right or wrong. Counselor A knew that this client had some underlying “issues” that needed addressing. However, Counselor B believed that everything goes better if the person in therapy is sober. Interestingly enough, when Counselor A returned to her duties, she was most agitated to find that her client had been to treatment and was working a recovery program. That’s a puzzler, but again, not the point.
I would offer up the following suggestion. Instead of judging the process, can we thank God for the grace that enabled this woman to find her freedom? Grace flowed through community, and eventually the confusion cleared. One more alcoholic discovered that she could have life, and live it abundantly.
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
June 7
Scripture focus: So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God. Romans 7:4-6 The Message
Addiction creates an environment of resistance to change that is rich with paradox.
One the one hand, when each of us comes face-to-face with our addictions of choice, we try and fail multiple times in our quest for freedom.
It’s easy to believe the line, “I can’t handle it.”
Conversely, if we manage to succeed for a short time, we think, “I can do this!”
I was driving in my car listening to the Dr. Laura show when a caller asked the following question. “Dr. Laura, my alcoholic wife wants to know when she can come home? I drew the line and told her she couldn’t continue to live with me and drink, so she chose to drink and moved out of our house. Now she’s stopped drinking and is ready to move back home. I am feeling ambivalent about taking her back.”
“How long has she been sober?” Dr. Laura asked.
“One week.” He replied.
“Well, after she’s been sober five years, tell her you’ll be most happy to have a conversation about her moving back home. In the meantime, continue to get counseling, talk with her, work on your issues both separately and as a couple. But you need to know that she can sustain recovery before you hastily invite her back into the family home.”
The duplicitous and scandalous tactics that the brain uses to keep an addict in bondage to their addiction is so extensive that freedom is a journey involving many steps. May we offer grace to ourselves and others as we patiently seek God’s healing power.
Dr. Laura was, I think, trying to give this husband a picture of the systemic and sneaky ways addiction tries to call the shots. One week isn’t enough time to insure that a victory dance is in order.
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
Scripture focus: So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God. Romans 7:4-6 The Message
Addiction creates an environment of resistance to change that is rich with paradox.
One the one hand, when each of us comes face-to-face with our addictions of choice, we try and fail multiple times in our quest for freedom.
It’s easy to believe the line, “I can’t handle it.”
Conversely, if we manage to succeed for a short time, we think, “I can do this!”
I was driving in my car listening to the Dr. Laura show when a caller asked the following question. “Dr. Laura, my alcoholic wife wants to know when she can come home? I drew the line and told her she couldn’t continue to live with me and drink, so she chose to drink and moved out of our house. Now she’s stopped drinking and is ready to move back home. I am feeling ambivalent about taking her back.”
“How long has she been sober?” Dr. Laura asked.
“One week.” He replied.
“Well, after she’s been sober five years, tell her you’ll be most happy to have a conversation about her moving back home. In the meantime, continue to get counseling, talk with her, work on your issues both separately and as a couple. But you need to know that she can sustain recovery before you hastily invite her back into the family home.”
The duplicitous and scandalous tactics that the brain uses to keep an addict in bondage to their addiction is so extensive that freedom is a journey involving many steps. May we offer grace to ourselves and others as we patiently seek God’s healing power.
Dr. Laura was, I think, trying to give this husband a picture of the systemic and sneaky ways addiction tries to call the shots. One week isn’t enough time to insure that a victory dance is in order.
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
June 6
Scripture focus: So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God. Romans 7:4-6 The Message
The problem with addiction is that it doesn’t satisfy. C. S. Lewis said, "If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world." That’s a great quote.
But sometimes, when we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, we must accept the fact that we’ve messed up the pleasure center of our brain by behaving addictively. (See our video on the physiology of addiction at www.northstarcommunity.com/special for a more detailed explanation.)
When we get to this point, we begin to get a clue that we must change, stop, increase our commitment to self-discipline, etc. But the crafty, addicted brain will try to talk us out of this perspective. Here are some common ways of thinking that might indicate we’re at the end of our rope with an addiction:
* I need to stop, but now is not a good time.
* I will stop, but not right now. I’m going to do more research and figure out how to stop, then I’ll begin stopping.
* I’ll wait to stop until conditions are more favorable. No need starting when there’s too much pressure.
* I’m too tired/sick/hungry to stop today.
* The next time I have a bad consequence, I’m going to stop.
* I’ll stop after my spouse stops bugging me.
“If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come." - C.S. Lewis
Lewis may be right, but the addicted brain hopes for unfavorable conditions because the bottom line is this: addictions call the shots, shackling us to a domineering sin master.
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
Scripture focus: So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God. Romans 7:4-6 The Message
The problem with addiction is that it doesn’t satisfy. C. S. Lewis said, "If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world." That’s a great quote.
But sometimes, when we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, we must accept the fact that we’ve messed up the pleasure center of our brain by behaving addictively. (See our video on the physiology of addiction at www.northstarcommunity.com/special for a more detailed explanation.)
When we get to this point, we begin to get a clue that we must change, stop, increase our commitment to self-discipline, etc. But the crafty, addicted brain will try to talk us out of this perspective. Here are some common ways of thinking that might indicate we’re at the end of our rope with an addiction:
* I need to stop, but now is not a good time.
* I will stop, but not right now. I’m going to do more research and figure out how to stop, then I’ll begin stopping.
* I’ll wait to stop until conditions are more favorable. No need starting when there’s too much pressure.
* I’m too tired/sick/hungry to stop today.
* The next time I have a bad consequence, I’m going to stop.
* I’ll stop after my spouse stops bugging me.
“If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come." - C.S. Lewis
Lewis may be right, but the addicted brain hopes for unfavorable conditions because the bottom line is this: addictions call the shots, shackling us to a domineering sin master.
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
June 5
Scripture focus: So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God. Romans 7:4-6 The Message
When all else fails, we start hiding.
Denial, repression, rationalization – none of them stop. But inevitably neither can they hide the truth. This is when sin goes underground and starts hiding.
I have a principle that I try to live by to the best of my ability. I try to live with nothing hidden. This idea took formation in my brain when I got pregnant for the first time. My husband and I decided that we never wanted to put ourselves in a position of never being tempted to lie to our children. We wanted to live with nothing hidden.
This has been exceedingly liberating. Oftentimes a discussion is quickly cut off by asking the first question, “If I make this decision, am I ok when (not if) my children find out?” If I can say, “Yeah, I wouldn’t blush or hesitate to talk about this decision and subsequent action over with my kids” then I proceed to the next set of questions. But anytime I hesitate, prevaricate, hope my kids don’t notice – I’m in trouble. Bill Thrall and his team at TrueFaced have defined holiness as living with nothing hidden. I like that. Is there anything in your life – no matter how small – that you feel the need to hide from someone? Look, if you think the behavior is acceptable, then there should be no internal urge to keep it hidden. It is that simple.
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
Scripture focus: So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God. Romans 7:4-6 The Message
When all else fails, we start hiding.
Denial, repression, rationalization – none of them stop. But inevitably neither can they hide the truth. This is when sin goes underground and starts hiding.
I have a principle that I try to live by to the best of my ability. I try to live with nothing hidden. This idea took formation in my brain when I got pregnant for the first time. My husband and I decided that we never wanted to put ourselves in a position of never being tempted to lie to our children. We wanted to live with nothing hidden.
This has been exceedingly liberating. Oftentimes a discussion is quickly cut off by asking the first question, “If I make this decision, am I ok when (not if) my children find out?” If I can say, “Yeah, I wouldn’t blush or hesitate to talk about this decision and subsequent action over with my kids” then I proceed to the next set of questions. But anytime I hesitate, prevaricate, hope my kids don’t notice – I’m in trouble. Bill Thrall and his team at TrueFaced have defined holiness as living with nothing hidden. I like that. Is there anything in your life – no matter how small – that you feel the need to hide from someone? Look, if you think the behavior is acceptable, then there should be no internal urge to keep it hidden. It is that simple.
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
June 4
Scripture focus: So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God. Romans 7:4-6 The Message
Eventually, in spite of our best efforts, our addictions can no longer be repressed or denied. But have no fear – there are more tools in our belt to avoid solving the problem. We can rationalize, make excuses, and attempt to justify our shackles. Although others might call us “liars” – what’s really going on is a vain attempt to convince ourselves that if we have a problem, it certainly cannot be related to our addiction. This is like wearing prison cuffs and calling them cool designer accessories.
Why all this elaborate meandering away from the truth? Because when we are addicted, our driving motivation is always the desire to continue “using.” This increases our internal distress and alienation from self. There is a heavy price to pay for losing touch with our true selves.
Are you in a restful state, or a state of restlessness? Could it be that there is a dependency that is unidentified that is having its way with you?
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
Scripture focus: So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God. Romans 7:4-6 The Message
Eventually, in spite of our best efforts, our addictions can no longer be repressed or denied. But have no fear – there are more tools in our belt to avoid solving the problem. We can rationalize, make excuses, and attempt to justify our shackles. Although others might call us “liars” – what’s really going on is a vain attempt to convince ourselves that if we have a problem, it certainly cannot be related to our addiction. This is like wearing prison cuffs and calling them cool designer accessories.
Why all this elaborate meandering away from the truth? Because when we are addicted, our driving motivation is always the desire to continue “using.” This increases our internal distress and alienation from self. There is a heavy price to pay for losing touch with our true selves.
Are you in a restful state, or a state of restlessness? Could it be that there is a dependency that is unidentified that is having its way with you?
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
June 3
Scripture focus: So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God. Romans 7:4-6 The Message
Continued from yesterday’s devotional...
Suppose you indeed made a really bad deal and bought a house in a slum rather than a palatial mansion by the sea next to celebrities. First, you wouldn’t want to believe you could make such a silly decision. Slowly, the evidence begins to mount. Jennifer Aniston and Denzel Washington are never seen entering the neighborhood, but the cops regularly haul people off in patty wagons from the crack house next door. Women of “ill repute” stand around on the corners, trying to sell their wares, and your friends keep trying to convince you that these are not celebrities but working girls. There are drive-by shootings, and needles left in the alley beside your garage. But you keep telling yourself that this is not an at-risk neighborhood, but is a celebrity haven by the sea. This is called repression. Somewhere down deep in your gut, you know you’re living in a dangerous neighborhood, but you expend tons of energy to repress the facts. This requires you to become increasingly uncomfortable. You either have to dull your mind or distract yourself so that you can’t acquire any conscious realizations. This is exhausting.
Are you deliberately keeping yourself super busy?
Do you find yourself uncomfortable with meditation, prayer, quiet times of reflection?
Do you feel alienated from yourself?
Is it possible that you are moving from the land of denial to la la land – otherwise known as repression?
If so, it’s possible that you are not going around doing whatever the heck you want, but instead, sin is calling all the shots in your life, hemming you in.
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
Scripture focus: So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God. Romans 7:4-6 The Message
Continued from yesterday’s devotional...
Suppose you indeed made a really bad deal and bought a house in a slum rather than a palatial mansion by the sea next to celebrities. First, you wouldn’t want to believe you could make such a silly decision. Slowly, the evidence begins to mount. Jennifer Aniston and Denzel Washington are never seen entering the neighborhood, but the cops regularly haul people off in patty wagons from the crack house next door. Women of “ill repute” stand around on the corners, trying to sell their wares, and your friends keep trying to convince you that these are not celebrities but working girls. There are drive-by shootings, and needles left in the alley beside your garage. But you keep telling yourself that this is not an at-risk neighborhood, but is a celebrity haven by the sea. This is called repression. Somewhere down deep in your gut, you know you’re living in a dangerous neighborhood, but you expend tons of energy to repress the facts. This requires you to become increasingly uncomfortable. You either have to dull your mind or distract yourself so that you can’t acquire any conscious realizations. This is exhausting.
Are you deliberately keeping yourself super busy?
Do you find yourself uncomfortable with meditation, prayer, quiet times of reflection?
Do you feel alienated from yourself?
Is it possible that you are moving from the land of denial to la la land – otherwise known as repression?
If so, it’s possible that you are not going around doing whatever the heck you want, but instead, sin is calling all the shots in your life, hemming you in.
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
June 2
Scripture focus: So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God. Romans 7:4-6 The Message
Denial is a strategy that our mind (mid-brain) employees in an attempt to allow sin to call most of the shots in our life.
What is denial? It is the process whereby the conscious mind studiously ignores or rejects any clues that something is wrong.
When we live in denial we...
* Do not recognize that a problem exists (even though others think differently).
* Do not want to think about the possibility of a problem existing.
* Do not see any reason to listen, consider, or think about the possibility that a problem might exist.
This costs us a lot of energy; it’s emotionally, psychologically and spiritually expensive to live in the land of denial. Think of it like this. Living in the land of denial is like buying a piece of property in a slum for a fee that is charged for the most exclusive, expensive, prime piece of real estate in the world...and then, trying to convince yourself that you got a good deal.
Can you imagine how uncomfortable you would feel if you bought a house thinking you were going to live on the same street as Jennifer Aniston and Denzel Washington, only to discover that your house was right smack between a crack house and a brothel?
Could you live restfully with yourself after making a deal like that?
To be continued...
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
June 1
Scripture focus: So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated
way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God. Romans 7:4-6 The Message
Most of us – if we are willing to speak honestly – are familiar with “sin calling most of the shots.” In fact, isn’t it the struggle between the desires of our true, God-created selves and our inconsistent behaving that really knocks our socks off – in a bad way? What is terrible – for me at least – is the awareness that sin is calling more shots in my life than I am. That’s yukky.
Clearly, those of us who have made a decision to “believe” don’t like it when sin calls the shots.
So what’s up with that? More on that in the days ahead…
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
Scripture focus: So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated
way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God. Romans 7:4-6 The Message
Most of us – if we are willing to speak honestly – are familiar with “sin calling most of the shots.” In fact, isn’t it the struggle between the desires of our true, God-created selves and our inconsistent behaving that really knocks our socks off – in a bad way? What is terrible – for me at least – is the awareness that sin is calling more shots in my life than I am. That’s yukky.
Clearly, those of us who have made a decision to “believe” don’t like it when sin calls the shots.
So what’s up with that? More on that in the days ahead…
Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community
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