I Don’t Really Know…

…what to title this post or even what to write because there seems to be quite a bit swirling around inside me right now. So, I will share a few entries from Henri Nouwen’s book, The Inner Voice of Love that have been helpful to me and I hope they are a blessing to you.

Work Around Your Abyss

There is a deep hole in your being, like an abyss. You will never succeed in filling that hole, because your needs are inexhaustible. You have to work around it so that gradually the abyss closes.

Since the hole is so enormous and your anguish so deep, you will always be tempted to flee from it. There are two extremes to avoid: being completely absorbed in our pain and being distracted by so many things that you stay far away from the wound you want to heal.

Cling to the Promise

Do not tell everyone your story. You will only end up feeling more rejected. People cannot give you what you long for in your heart. The more you expect from people’s response to your experience of abandonment, the more you will feel exposed to ridicule.

You have to close yourself off to the outside world so you can enter your own heart and the heart of God through your pain. God will send you the people with whom you can share your anguish, who can lead you closer to the true source of love.

God is faithful to God’s promises. Before you die, you will find the acceptance and the love you crave. It will not come the way you expect. It will not follow your needs and wishes. But it will fill your heart and satisfy your deepest desire. There is nothing to hold on to but this promise. Everything else has been taken away from you. Cling to that naked promise in faith. Your faith will heal you.

Stop Being a Pleaser

You have to let your father and father figures go. You must stop seeing yourself through their eyes and trying to make them proud of you.

For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. You need not look at that only in a negative way. You wanted to give your heart to others, and you did quickly and easily. But now you are being asked to let go of all of these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you. You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self.

Henri Nouwen wrote this during a time in his life that can only be described as a “dark night of the soul.” This book contains his personal journal entries from that time. I highly recommend it to you as a devotional aid in moving through all of the junk we carry with us through this life to the heart of God. These three entries have been very helpful to me lately. Hope they are for you, too!

Gratitude is Key!

I am reading more about gratitude and want to share these insights with you. Job 1: 10 says, “If we take happiness from God’s hand, must we not also take sorrow too?” Henri Nouwen says this about the subject in his book, Bread for the Journey:

“To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives–the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow,  the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections–that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those that we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let’s not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see it in the guiding hand of a  loving God.”

This necessary and timely reminder has prompted me to make another attempt at a discipline that I was introduced to in seminary. Dr. Burrell Dinkins suggested that we take time each day to literally count our blessings and enumerate at least three things from the previous day that we are thankful for. He said that he and his wife do this every day on their daily walk with each other and it has changed their relationship with each other and God. I have tried this with good success a couple of times in the past, but have allowed it to be crowded out by other things when life got busy or stressful. Time to make another attempt. I am redownloading the Gratitude Journal app on my iPhone. You can also try doing this with a note pad, blank journal or by buying a Gratitude Journal from Amazon.com or any major book store. Any one out there want to join me on this journey of gratefulness? Let me know and we can encourage each other along the way.

Needing to Trust Ruthlessly

I am physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted. Over the past 5 weeks our family has been through a tremendous ordeal. It actually started more than 17 years ago when our second child, Aaron, was born. On the first night of his life the nurse taking care of him found a heart murmur caused by a hole in between the ventricles of his heart. Through the years we were told not to worry about it, that things would be OK over time and get better. That was the case until last fall when he had some problems with a pounding heart and blacked out in class. We took him to the doctor and they found that he has developed an irregular heart rhythm. We had the first attempt at a heart ablation on December 23rd. The second was 5 weeks ago, followed by the third attempt two weeks later(three weeks ago). Since all three attempts at ablating his heart to correct the rhythm were unsuccessful, they placed him in the hospital two weeks ago to start him on a new medicine to regulate the heart. While he was in the hospital, they told us that they discovered a leak in his Aortic valve that was caused by the murmur. This was not necessarily the cause of his rhythm problems, but needed to be corrected and could have the added benefit of helping the rhythm problems in some way. So, the surgeon had an opening last Monday and he had open heart surgery to repair the hole that was the source of the murmur. He is home now and recovering. We won’t know whether or not the rhythm problems have been helped for several months.

Feeling the strain finally catch up to me, I picked up a book that helped me through my first brain surgery back in 2003–Ruthless Trust, by Brennan Manning. Boy did I need this book right now! I share this quote from the book that really nourished my soul:

“Uncompromising trust in the love of God inspires us to thank God for the spiritual darkness that envelopes us, for the loss of income, for the nagging arthritis that is so painful, and to pray from the heart, ” Abba, into your hands I entrust my body, mind and spirit and this entire day–morning, afternoon, evening and night. Whatever you want of me, I want of me, falling into you and trusting you in the midst of my life. Into your heart I entrust my heart, feeble, distracted, insecure, uncertain. Abba, unto you I abandon myself in Jesus our Lord. Amen.””

I think I am going to print this out and frame it! I need to see and pray this prayer every day!

I Am A Poser!

I was looking back at old entries on by blog before I migrated it over to WordPress from Blogspot.com. I read over this entry from April of 2007 and something resonated with me. Things are really hard for me right now and I am trying to stay in a good place through it all. This hit home for me and I hope it will be helpful to you. I know its a bit lengthy, but I think it will be worth a little more of your time than what I normally post. This was written after I attended the Florida 5 Day Academy for Spiritual Formation and just prior to moving to Brandon. Enjoy!

April 18, 2007

One of my favorite writers is Brennan Manning. I was introduced to his work by my dear friend, mentor and former seminary professor, Dr. Steve Harper. I first read his book Abba’s Child several years ago and absolutely loved it. I have re-read it once or twice since then.

Recently a friend recommended Posers, Fakers and Wannabes, which is a youth version of Abba’s Child done in collaboration with youth worker, Jim Hancock. Boy was the timing perfect for me to encounter this material again!

On the first full day of the Florida 5 Day Academy, my mind was spinning and I was having trouble concentrating, let alone praying. So, I began to write in my journal. Our topics for reflection for that hour were: Dealing with our own brokenness–How can I better deal with my own brokenness? What follows are my reflections on that topic.

I am anxious, distracted, timid, needy, restless, fearful, lustful, greedy, materialistic, jealous, judgmental, unforgiving, selfish, self-centered, lazy, undisciplined, perfectionistic, self-critical, ungrateful, rebellious, conflicted, shy, unimportant, dispensable, fat, ugly, unattractive, inconsistent, impulsive, emotional, moody, ill-tempered, untrusting, cynical, nosy, critical, gossipy, annoying, gross, repulsive, indecisive, a poser, a user, self-deceived, boorish, a jerk, messy, sloppy, loud, obnoxious, irreverent, offensive, obsessive, compulsive, intrusive, boring, routine, a performer, dishonest, stupid, lacking judgment, inappropriate, unrefined, ill-mannered, unpolished, a bad father, husband, son, brother, pastor, leader, friend, not good enough at anything, corny, a doofus, egotistic, stubborn, bossy, wounded, mean and a lot of other things that aren’t listed here (just because I couldn’t think of them). This is what my internal tape recorder so often sounds like. I know that these are all lies, but I have lived with them for so long that it sometimes is very hard to believe otherwise about myself.

God knows all of this and so much more, yet he loves and accepts me. Why can’t I accept myself? God loves even these things about me, yet I am transformed by his love into his image. We look at our spouses, children, parents, siblings, friends, etc. and are able to overlook many of their faults & quirks because we love them. There are even times where these little quirks & faults become endearing to us and cause our love and affection for them to grow even deeper. We are able to love them in spite of their faults & quirks. How much more is this not true of God?! If we are able to love like this, why do we have such a hard time believing that God loves us like this and so much more? Why do we struggle so much with accepting this kind of love and this part of ourselves?

Steve Harper taught me that we are both fully loved by God and fully known by God. These two truths have to be held together. If we only accept one or the other, it causes trouble for us. For example, if we accept that we are fully known by God but reject that we are fully loved by God, then we will cower in fear and run away from God. If we accept that we are fully loved by God but reject that we are fully known by God, then we will play games with God and not take him seriously. But, in fact, they are both true!

Why do I have such a hard time accepting how thoroughly loved I am by God? I don’t seem to have a problem with accepting that I am fully known by God. My holiness upbringing and perfectionistic tendencies have seen to that. But, I have such a deep struggle with accepting that I am also thoroughly and completely loved by God. So often I feel like I am not good enough; like I have to do more for God to really like me. I find myself regressing back too often to the notion that God loves me, but doesn’t like me very much (if at all). This robs me of peace and joy & pulls me off balance and out of center. I desperately want to experience the thorough, complete and perfect love of God as my center. How can I do this when it is often so very difficult to be still and quiet? I know the right things to say, etc. But, it is hard to let them become my center because there is all this junk crowding it out. I feel like the center of my soul is cluttered like a teenager’s room.

Then this entry later in the week, after meditating on Manning’s book and allowing it to sink in for a couple of days.

I am a poser–a poser, a faker, a wannabe, a performer and a pretender. Much of my inner-self is chameleon-like–ever-changing based on the company and context.

I want to try so hard to do whatever it takes to get people to like me, but I even fail at that. I am not even a very good poser, etc.

Within the church I am serving, there has arisen a group of people who are not happy with me. I think that they don’t like me. I call them the PMS Committee-the Pastor Matt Sucks Committee.

It has been helpful for me to name them. It makes it easier for me to laugh at them and dismiss them. I would much rather do that than face their issues with me. The Poser likes to laugh at my problems because it keeps me in denial and him in control. The Poser desperately wants to be in control.

You see, the truth about it all is that the PMS Committee is right. I do suck and I have failed them, hurt them and ignored them. They weren’t ones that cheered me on, patted me on the back, complimented me on my sermons, or did things for me or my family. So, I let the Poser have the wheel and they suffered the consequences.

Recently Brennan Manning reminded me of something I learned from him several years ago. It shocked me to read it again, because the Poser made sure that I thoroughly forgot what I had learned earlier. He told me (through the pages of his book) that I have to stop fighting and struggling with the Poser, because he will always be with me. No matter how hard I try, or how strong I think I am, the Poser will always be here with me for the duration of my earthly sojourn.

What I must do, Brennan said, is embrace and accept the Poser’s presence and influence. Then, I must take the Poser to Jesus. I must take the Poser to Jesus because it is only Jesus who can deliver me. When I am lost in the embrace of Christ and living in the center of Love, the Poser is exposed and dethroned. It is only then that I can truly see the Poser’s influence and receive the grace, love and peace to resist what has been the most comfortable and familiar, yet frustrating and discouraging, influence in my life.

This is not something that I can get away with checking a box on my Spiritual Task List and be done with. It is a part of my journey that will be dealt with repeatedly and continually. The more practiced I get in accepting and bringing the Poser to Jesus, the easier it may become during certain seasons of my life. But, I must be alert and diligent, or else he will gladly reclaim his comfy chair on the throne of my soul.