Category Archives: Surprised by God

A Fresh Look at Faith: Meditations on Life in the Spirit

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Faith & Surrender | A Series by Dr. Rich Blue of the Center for Christian Life Enrichment on Faith and Spirituality

 

One of the gifts of aging is the wisdom that comes with increasing awareness of life’s challenges and our limitations. When I was younger, if I was worried about any sense of my weakness or failure, then my defense was often to deny the truth. I was determined to do whatever I could to hide my shame from myself as well as others. I dreaded displeasing both Mom and Dad for different reasons. Growing up, I learned that making mistakes, losing and failure was to be avoided at all costs. Looking good and maintaining the approval of others were high values in my family.

 

Size and weight were also sensitive issues in the Blue household. My dad was a big guy and definitely lost his fight with excessive consumption of food and alcohol. My mom, however, was very conscious of her weight and appearance. Looking good was a top priority for her and she too battled with her own insecurities. It was no accident that I became excessively concerned with the opinion of others along with an unwillingness to love and accept myself. From as early as I can remember, I struggled with a distorted body image. No matter what I weighed or how I looked, I was never able to enjoy and accept myself.

 

Historically, compulsive overeating was the area in my life where my sense of powerlessness most often threatened to break into consciousness. Although I was very disciplined in many areas of my life, I continued to lose the fight with food. How many more diets would I try? How many more excuses would I make for not losing weight? How many more medical professionals would I enlist to help me eliminate my defects of character?

 

At the age of 60, I hit bottom. After years of others trying to support me, I finally conceded my powerlessness over food and the unmanageability of my life. I began attending Overeaters Anonymous (OA) and participated in an inpatient program for compulsive overeating. I learned that my problem was not a lack of self-control. I had demonstrated that I could lose weight (having lost 40 pounds at least six times in my life). My powerlessness over food manifested itself less with losing weight and more with my inability to keep the weight off.

 

When I started working a 12 Step Program, I was quickly confronted with the concept of surrender. I had a strong reaction to the word especially given my programming to never give in or admit defeat. The invitation to surrender to my Higher Power was very threatening. I mistakenly thought I had a head start in the spiritual dimension of the 12 Steps. I learned, however, that I did not believe that God would be sympathetic toward my powerlessness over food. It still sounded to me like a weak excuse. I could see powerlessness over an addiction to heroin or cocaine, but food? The message in my head was, “Suck it up. Quit feeling sorry for yourself!”

 

I mistakenly believed that my powerlessness with food was simply a character defect rather than an addiction. At some level, I believed that I deserved to be punished.  I did not believe that God cared about my overeating and would be willing to help. Weren’t there many more serious problems in the world? I still wanted to believe it was my problem and mine alone to deal with. If that were so, then I wouldn’t have to face my powerlessness. How could I ask for help when it was my responsibility to do something about it?

 

My progressive failure with compulsive overeating eventually broke me. I finally surrendered by the grace of God. I threw in the towel and raised the white flag.  For the first time, I was able to see that a life of faith begins with accepting what is so. I was a compulsive overeater and I was not able to solve this problem on my own. I needed help. This is the power of surrender. It begins with choosing to accept what is true about me and my circumstances. Surrender leads to freedom. For the first time, I was willing, to tell the truth about my inability to control my overeating.

 

Living by faith, I learned, is empowered when I acknowledge my powerlessness and inability to manage my own life. Freedom comes when I admit I can’t do it and celebrate the truth that God can. The apostle Paul wrote, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”[1]  Being a person of faith begins with being yourself. It involves choosing to stop managing and manipulating an image in order to look better than one actually is.

 

As pilgrims of faith, we embrace our shortcomings, failure, and addictions. We humbly acknowledge that we are insufficient. Our power and effectiveness are the results of exercising our faith in God, who is willing and able to do for us what we are unable to do for ourselves. In the teachings of Alcoholics Anonymous, we are those who seek progress, not perfection. The pursuit of perfection leads to membership in the cult of narcissism. Surrender is the pathway to a relationship of faith and hope in God.

[1]Philippians 4:13

A Fresh Look at Faith: Meditations on Life in the Spirit

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Trust: The Foundation of Faith | A Series by Dr. Rich Blue of the Center for Christian Life Enrichment on Faith and Spirituality

Trust is like breath to life.  It is foundational to how we view ourselves, others and God. Trust is vital in the process of authoring our sense of safety, belonging, meaning, and purpose. Trust is like a muscle that expands when exercised and atrophies through lack of use. Trust is not a gift. It is a choice. It is our responsibility to cultivate our capacity to trust. The path of transformation is lined with repeated choices to trust and take the next right step in our quest for wholeness.

We exercise trust all the time. I trust that a chair will hold me, that my car will start, that my phone will work. Relationships are built or broken based on trust. I trust that you will see me, accept me, tell me the truth, value me, and forgive me. Whenever something we trust does not go as expected, we experience a breach of trust. This breach often triggers a sense of panic and the release of many painful emotions including fear, anger, hurt and sadness.

Faith is the artery of our relationship with God. Trust is a key component of faith that empowers individuals to make sense of and face the unknown. People of faith continuously exercise trust and as a result, mature into their next level of development. Faith comes from the Latin, fidere, to trust. It is defined as confidence, reliance, and belief, especially without evidence or proof.

The development of trust is critical to a life of faith. If as children we learn that we cannot trust those we depend on, then, as adults we will live in a lasting state of fear and anxiety. Early childhood breaches of trust undermine children’s facility to live rich and rewarding lives.                        Individuals traumatized in childhood will often be unwilling to take the risks necessary to develop and mature into self-actualized adults.

Continually choosing to trust is one of the basic workouts in a life of faith. To enhance our development of trust, we seek out those who will encourage us to explore and experiment with new things.  The courage to step out into the unknown and repeatedly take risks promotes the development of faith. The challenges associated with a life of faith include risking failing, getting hurt, facing disappointment, experiencing rejection, and venturing into the unknown. Authentic faith thrives in an environment of risk, mystery, and uncertainty.

Religious people are often more concerned about avoiding sin than learning how to walk by faith. Moralism along with its bedfellow perfectionism is poisonous to the emergence of faith. Faith fails to grow in a culture of fear and performance. Moralism leads to the diminishing of our lives because we become increasingly unwilling to try anything that might lead to making mistakes or getting in trouble.  Living with the mistaken belief that my worth or belonging is contingent upon my performance promotes a “works oriented” mindset. My worth, value, and acceptance depend too much on looking good and fitting in..

Living a life of faith in which we risk trusting is the path to the abundant life that Jesus spoke of[1]. Every moment is an opportunity for us to learn, grow, and become more of who we can be. We are not growing as we could if we are not taking risks and occasionally falling short. Without risking failure, we are not stretching into our potential of who we are capable of becoming. I believe we have been entrusted with gifts that will only come to maturity through our willingness to risk living with and learning from our mistakes.

[1]John 10:10

Faith in the Here and Now

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A Fresh Look at Faith: Meditations on Life in the Spirit
A Series by Dr. Rich Blue of the Center for Christian Life Enrichment on Faith and Spirituality

I yearn to experience the peace of knowing that I am loved unconditionally. Instead, I often live with the fear of something bad happening, doing something wrong, or getting in trouble. The Bible says that perfect love casts out all fear. I understand at a deeper level that in the presence of love I can be assured I am safe and secure knowing that if God is for me, then who could be against me. The Apostle Paul reminded us that nothing can separate us from the love of God.[i]

Yet, if you are like me, I often find that I am continuously scanning for threats in spite of knowing about unconditional love. In many cases, I am hypervigilant in my attempts to ensure my safety and the well-being of those around me. At other times, I live in denial oblivious to the potential threats that encircle me. It is like living on a teeter-totter where one end is hyperarousal and the other end is numbness and denial.

In the beginning, our survival depended upon our primary caregivers’ ability to protect us from danger and nurture our development. The adage, “safety first”, is hardwired into our reptilian brains and is in harmony with the mission of our sympathetic nervous system. When in danger, this division of our autonomic nervous system directs us to fight, flee, or freeze. Our capacity to choose quickly and accurately is closely linked to our survival.

Faith develops as we learn how to trust by choosing who and when we trust. As we learn from our choices, we develop our ability to discern who are our allies and who poses threats. We learn when and how to trust ourselves and how to take in the wisdom of more knowledgeable others (MKO’s).

I am learning that living by faith is a choice to consciously be in the here and now. Faith is not denying challenging circumstances and faith is not hypervigilant scanning for threats. Faith is not the absence of fear, worry, concern, or anxiety. Instead, faith is the conscious awareness of all that is within and around me. It is an acute awareness of what I am feeling and experiencing at the moment. Faith works in collaboration with the truth of our experience.

My attempts to explain away or manage what I am thinking and feeling are acts of bad faith. When I am overthinking things, I am trying to control my life and unwilling to live by faith. It reflects my struggle to embrace the truth of my experience. My need to understand, make sense of, and wrap everything with a bow is a defensive tactic guaranteed to stifle faith. My need for certainty and clarity is an expression of my fear and unwillingness to be where I am in the moment. The hunger for certainty and control interferes with my choice to be, identify my feelings, and accept my powerlessness. I am not God.

When I am feeling anxious and afraid, I am learning to kindly, firmly, and effectively parent myself. I ask myself what I am feeling. I am learning to differentiate between having my feelings and indulging in drama. Feelings are feelings and do not need a story or explanation to justify them. I am learning to use my feelings to tell me what I am yearning for. I anticipate my mind desperately trying to make up a story of what is happening, knowing that most of the time it is fake-news!

Let’s stretch and see how much we can walk by faith accepting what is. As Paul Tillich wrote, let us have the courage to be. Let’s pay attention to what we are feeling, thinking and experiencing at the moment. Let’s learn how to surrender control and let God be God and accept that we are not!

[i]Romans 8:28-29

 

Faith and Feelings

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A Fresh Look at Faith: Meditations on Life in the Spirit
A Series by Dr. Rich Blue of the Center for Christian Life Enrichment on Faith and Spirituality

Feelings are the language of our hearts. Feelings remind me of my humanity. They point me to what I yearn for. We find comfort in reading the Psalms because they are songs of our souls replete with heartfelt expressions of feelings regarding what matters most to us. Feeling and expressing our feelings is a vital part of living life abundantly. Jesus was a feeling filled human being who passionately manifested his pain as well as his joy through the expression of his feelings. He rejoiced, celebrated, felt angry, grieved, and even bled in the expression of his feelings. Feelings stand on their own side by side with our thoughts on our pilgrimage of faith.

Historically, the church has not always championed feelings. In fact, in my early days of being a Christian, there was significant controversy regarding the role of faith and feelings. Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru), made famous the Train Diagram found in the Four Spiritual Laws (a popular evangelistic tool). According to Bright, the train diagram summarized the ABC’s of the Christian life. It was a train with three cars. The first was the engine, “Fact”, the second was the coal car, “Faith”, and the caboose, “Feelings.” Bright explained that the Christian life was built on faith in the certainty of God’s Word. According to Bill, the train could run with or without the caboose, feelings.

Diminishing feelings made sense to me as a young man because I did not trust my feelings. As a new believer in Christ, I feared that they seemed to be in conflict with the teachings of Scripture. My dichotomous mind mistakenly believed that my feelings, unlike my rational mind, were subjective and unreliable. My feelings were not objective truth nor a fruit of the Spirit (unless of course, they were joyful). I associated feelings with urges and thought that mastery over my emotions made more sense if I was going to be a faithful follower of Christ. I believed my mind was more trustworthy than my heart.

How often do we confuse thoughts with feelings? Routinely, I hear people say, “I don’t feel like God loves me” or “I don’t feel that God has a plan for my life” or “I don’t feel forgiven.” Except for the word “feel”, these are not feelings. These are internal judgments—self-talk based on mistaken core beliefs about ourselves, others and God. When we listen to these accusations we are sure to generate a host of painful feelings. This is the dynamic of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In fact, many of our most painful feelings are in response to our own critical thoughts.

Feelings are not indictments or signs of weakness. Instead, they are our heart responses to our thoughts and experiences. We are created in the image of God and feelings represent an important component of our personal truth. Our hearts are intended to be in partnership with our heads. Feelings are an important and dynamic aspect of the life of faith. Feelings are connectors. They allow us to empathize and identify with one another. They are what powerfully unite us with ourselves, each other, and God. Feelings lead us to our deepest yearnings—to love and be loved, belong, matter, and make a difference, to mention a few.  The scriptures record that Abraham, David, Mary, and Jesus all freely expressed feelings as they experienced their journey of faith.

Frequently, I find myself using thoughts to mask my feelings. I try and “think” my way through my feelings, especially when I am trying to avoid acknowledging my hurt, pain, and sense of powerlessness. Feeling our feelings demands faith. Oftentimes, I do not have the courage to face my sadness, fear, hurt and anger. It takes the fortitude of faith to choose to consciously embrace my pain and suffering as Jesus did throughout his life. Without my feelings, it is easier to numb out and avoid the truth of what I am experiencing at the moment. Jesus boldly experienced his feelings and prayed for the strength to embrace his pain as well as his joy.

A Fresh Look at Faith

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A FRESH LOOK AT FAITH | A Series by Dr. Rich Blue of the Center for Christian Life Enrichment on Faith and Spirituality

I see faith as an essential component of both human and spiritual development. Faith is the muscle that when exercised, empowers individuals to make sense of and face the unknown, exercise trust, and mature into their next level of human and spiritual development. Faith comes from the Latin, fidere, to trust. It is defined as confidence, reliance, and belief, especially without evidence or proof.

How often have we heard things like, “trust God,” “have faith,” or “just believe”? Yet these statements “paper over” the challenges of faith and trust. They suggest we should trust mindlessly, without question, rather than grapple directly with the difficulties we have in holding onto faith. Faith is confused with conformity and seen as a measure of devotion.

My perspectives on faith came to focus through my doctoral research on the role of faith in human and spiritual development. This research was one of the most meaningful and demanding experiences of my life. I went into this research regarding myself as a man of faith. But what I saw was that most the significant obstacle to my study of faith was me. I was afraid to question what I already believed to be true. I was scared to trust truth and afraid to trust God, the source of truth.  It took me a long time to see that holding on too tightly to what I thought was true was not actually faith, but its opposite.

It took faith for me to fight for the opportunity to study faith. Once I had gotten approval for my research, I found myself anticipating imaginary attacks on what I believed at every turn. The greatest threats, however, came from my own lack of faith. I began to see how resistant I was to reexamining everything I believed. My classmates can attest to the countless conflicts I created because I was trying to sound smart, be right, and have everything figured out. At the time, I was much more interested in having all the answers than I was in in asking questions and being in the unknown.

I recall an especially tense moment when the frustration level reached a crescendo. My biggest advocate, the chair of my doctoral committee. was tired of fighting with me regarding my latest theory on faith. He was threatening to pull the plug on my dissertation topic. I was frustrating everyone, including myself, by continually trying to have the answers and get everything right. Ironically, I was trying to figure out faith!

To be more open to what was possible, I needed to expose and dismantle two central silos—spirituality and psychology. I had strongly clung to the notion that spirituality and science were independent fields of study. I mistakenly believed that faith was the exclusive concern of the spiritual silo. I projected that psychology and academia were hostile to faith and a threat to what I valued. I was falling prey to dichotomous thinking—seeing the world as black or white, right or wrong, and characterized by all or nothing thinking. This type of thinking is what mystics refer to as the dualistic mind. I was discovering that the dichotomous thinking of the dualistic mind is hostile to faith.

What I came to see is that faith is more a verb than a noun. Faith is not so much what we believe in, such as our creeds and doctrines. Faith involves the courage to live with not-knowing. Faith is a divine muscle given to inspire and empower our spiritual transformation. Faith is a core yearning longing to be fulfilled. It is active, not static. Faith is a gift we have been given that only grows when it is exercised and stretched.

Please join me in this fresh look at faith. Watch for my next blog on Outoftheblueblog.us

Choose to Trust Love

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Ultimately nothing  is more important than whether our yearning for unconditional love and acceptance has the hope of fulfillment. In the end all of our successes and victories amount to very little in comparison to a life without the giving and receiving of love. This hunger for unearned love is at the heart of grace. What I believe continues to draw us to Jesus is his unwavering compassion for every single one of us. One of the favorite  love stories told by Jesus was the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-31). Enjoy this excerpt from Surprised by God: A Journey of Divine Discovery, Chapter 3, Grace.

No matter how many times we read a story such as the prodigal son, the father’s unconditional acceptance and loving embrace only penetrates the surface of our fears and limiting beliefs. Maybe for other people, we tell ourselves, but not us: “If I revealed my true nature—what I really think, feel, and believe―then God would not like me and possibly reject me. And then where would I be?”

The truth, however, is that God knows all about us, no matter how well we think we’ve kept our dark side hidden, and no amount of “good deeds” will win us any points with him. Although God desires that we follow his principles and obey his commands, his love for us is a completely separate issue irrespective of our conduct. It is the result of his choice to be true to his nature and not the result of our deserving it by our good behavior.

Yet foundational to any relationship—with God or another person―is trust. To be in a genuine, authentic relationship we have to trust that the other person will accept us as we are and forgive us when we fail, which we inevitably will. Before we can really risk being authentic with others, we must embrace and digest the marvelous truth that we are completely and unconditionally loved.

It is a choice for us to make, and it requires faith. I tell people all the time that I cannot “prove” that God loves them or me. It is a decision I make by faith. There is evidence to support either position: that God is loving or he is not. Our choice is what we are going to focus on, and on which body of evidence we are going to base our faith. Only when we feel secure in his love can we choose to love ourselves and risk being ourselves.

From a spiritual sense, we do not have the capacity to trust that leap without grace. It is what allows us to look at ourselves and our relationships in the light of truth. With grace we are emboldened to take the first step to being real, which is to understand how valuable it is to be true to ourselves.

Join us in this discovery of the divine both inside us as well as all around us. Let yourself be surprised by God in each and every moment. Check out the life transforming work we are doing at the Center for Christian Life Enrichment. Please get your own copy of Surprised by God and recommend it to a friend. Initiate meaningful conversations about the love and joy available to us as we grow in grace.

Divine Discontent

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Me with kids christmasIf you are like me then you long for meaningful and authentic relationships, You yearn to be seen, heard, and affirmed. You yearn for the love and safety of committed relationships. Accomplishments are great, yet, we will give up all our accolades for love.

From the very beginning, it was God’s intention that He would share in and enjoy an authentic and intimate relationship with His creation. No wonder the garden of Eden was paradise. Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed, open and accessible, with no barriers between each other or God. They enjoyed pure intimacy and unconditional acceptance and belonging.

In the New Testament, the narrative of Jesus reflects God’s desire for intimacy to be restored with His people. Jesus is the good shepherd, diligently gathering together His lost sheep. John 10:14–16 records Jesus’ words: “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.”sheep and shepherd

The longing for this garden experience is hard-wired into us. We experience it now as discontent when we are not living a big life, loving others, and fulfilling Jesus’ promise: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father” (John 14:12 NASB95). Jesus’ mission was to introduce the work of reconciling relationships, so that with His assistance we would carry it on to completion—that we would be one flock again. And, we would experience a divine discontent if we were out of relationship with God and with each other.

When Christians do not experience this divine discontent, it signals that they have lost their edge. Their relationship with God has become too comfortable, which in spiritual terms means stale and dead. They live by rote and habit, with no impetus to trust God and live by faith. Hebrews 11:6 says, “And without faith it is impossible to please God.” To experience a life of faith is to have a dynamic relationship with God and with others—a relationship that is powerful, alive, and stretches you to become more of who you were meant to be.

Surprised by God is a story of incarnational transformation–second order change from one life to the next. It is the story of one life impacting another and another. Anointed exponential growth! It tells how one person being genuine, telling truth, and seeking to live like Christ can make an eternal difference. Join us in this journey of being continually surprised by the joy of God available to all those who hunger and thirst for more of Him. The secret of getting more of Him is giving what you have away.

Surprised by God–Tough and Tender

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I am so excited. My 10 year project has come to fruition–Surprised by God: A Journey of Divine Discovery is here! This has been an amazing adventure and  journey of faith. Over the past ten years I thought I was writing a book, only to discover the book was writing me.

I am sharing in my blog, outoftheblueblog.us, excerpts from SBG hoping to give you tidbits of truth to enrich your experience of God’s limitless love for each of us. This excerpt is from chapter 1, Divinely Designed Relationships.

Growing up, I often felt that there were two very different people inside of me. One was strong and tough, rough and rambunctious. A high-energy child, I loved being active outdoors and playing sports. More than one adult would have labeled me as wild. At the same time, there was this other part of me that was sympathetic and tenderhearted. I was a natural caretaker and defender of those who were vulnerable and hurting.

These two sides of me seemed opposites, especially as I got older. How could I play sports fearlessly if I was also inclined to be a caregiver? How could I protect myself behind a macho image if I let my tender heart show? This dichotomy was uncomfortable, and I found myself wrestling with who I really was and what it meant to be me. Sometimes my wrestling was of a more literal sort—such as the day I thought I broke my brother, Charlie’s ribs.

When I was five years old, Charlie, who was fourteen years my senior, left for a four-year tour of active duty with the US Navy. The day he left was the saddest of my life. So imagine my excitement when I was twelve and Charlie came home on leave. I couldn’t contain my exuberance at seeing my brother, who in many ways had been a second father to me, always taking time to play with me when I was little. I idolized Charlie, who in my eyes was this macho military guy, and I couldn’t wait to show him just how much I had grown.

He hadn’t been home more than ten minutes when we started to roughhouse on the driveway. At one point, I picked him up and threw him on the ground. Charlie didn’t get up right away. The pain in his side was excruciating; he was sure one of his ribs was broken. Instantly, I felt ashamed for hurting my brother. No matter that Charlie assured me it was an accident, that we were just playing—and he was fine—I felt responsible for his pain. As my tender, caregiver side came out, I not only wanted to make Charlie all better, I detested how physical I had been with him. In my mind, there just had to be something wrong with me.

The tension between being tough and tender has always been a troubling part of my being. I was never completely comfortable with either part alone. To be so caring and open toward others was just too vulnerable. To be a real warrior, capable of inflicting punishment on my opponent on the playing field, I believed I needed to deny my gentler side.file0002026387392

It took me twenty-five years and much personal growth work to unlock another contributing factor to the puzzle that was me: the abuse I had suffered in childhood, the memories of which I had buried deeply within myself.

I didn’t know then that in order to make peace with all of me—to understand and accept myself just as I am—I needed to experience unconditional love. I was longing to be seen and accepted for who I was without conditions, but long before I could open myself up to that type of experience with another person, I had to allow it to come from the source of my being: God.

Join me in this journey of personal discovery. Take a fresh look at yourself with the eyes of the Spirit. You make sense and I believe God wants us to heal, grow and be transformed into the image of Christ.

Get your own copy of Surprised by God at www.surprisedbygod.net.