Tag Archives: Bible

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

2 Replies

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

My Commencement Speech!

Leave a reply

For those of you who were not able to be there in person, I wanted to share with you the excitement and joy that I felt while delivering one of the commencement speeches at the graduation ceremony in which I received my second master’s degree from the Wright Graduate Institute.  It was a great honor to be asked to speak, and I feel grateful for the opportunity to further share my journey, my vulnerability, and my faith!  I hope you will take a look leave me a comment or two letting me know what you think.

~Rich

 

 

Faith—An Experience of God

Leave a reply

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1

 

 

The Oxford English Dictionary defines faith as, “Confidence, reliance, belief, esp. without evidence or proof. The spiritual apprehension of divine truth or intangible realities.”

 

I am struck by the phrase, “without evidence or proof.” When I was 16 and chose to follow Christ, I was deeply touched by my experience. I sang songs, heard talks and read the Bible for six months searching for proof that believing in Jesus made sense. However, what moved me to ultimately dedicate my life to being a follower of Jesus was my experience. It was an elaborate symphony of sounds that all resonated in my soul awakening me to my deepest desires. It was the spiritual apprehension of intangible realities.

 

I felt wanted. I attended my first Young Life meeting because I was so touched when Shep and Jim invited me. I remember where I was in the library at Miramonte High School. I had no idea what Young Life was; however, it really didn’t matter. I was more interested in who invited me. These were good guys, leaders and more importantly at the time, athletes. I was blown away that they wanted me. I was lonely and hungry for affirmation. I wanted to be wanted.

 

I felt safe. After attending my first meeting, I was surprised by how relaxed and peaceful I felt. I had a sense of joy and aliveness. For the first time that I could remember I felt safe in a group of people. Nothing seemed to matter to them except for their love for each other and Jesus. I didn’t have to worry about feeling fat or not feeling cool. The only other place I had felt safe was on the field when I was fully engaged in the sport of football.

 

I felt OK. Although I had no real understanding of who Jesus was, I experienced the sense that I was accepted and wanted. I felt loved and people seemed to genuinely care about me. It had been such a long time since I had felt that way. When I was with this community, I started to let go of my ever-present fear that I would be found out and kicked out. I was sensing that I was OK just the way I was.

 

I felt I mattered. I could tell that people really wanted to be with me. People were calling me to make sure I was coming to things, and I didn’t miss a thing. I started feeling like I was part of the group even though I hadn’t formally accepted Christ.

 

The real test of my faith came when I was invited to attend the year-end Young Life celebration. It was a pool party and I was mortified. All my fears of rejection were contained in my mistaken belief that I was fat and undesirable. I kept dodging the invitations until Jim and Shep cornered me and demanded either a commitment or an explanation. I wasn’t going to lie and I didn’t want to tell—so I went.

 

It was only minutes after arriving at the party that I was in the pool having fun, having been distracted from my painful self-hatred. I was immersed in the waters of loving community. It was very early the next morning that I had an experience with Christ personally. After experiencing the love, acceptance and belonging I had been searching for, it seemed natural that I would express my love for and faith in Jesus.

 

For a time I cherished my experience with Jesus. As I got older, however, I moved away from the faith of my experience with Christ. Instead, I turned to validating my faith through Scripture, philosophy, and apologetics. I moved away from the faith in my experience. I am grateful that my journey of faith has brought me back to the solid rock of my experience.

 

I love to talk with others who are on the journey of faith and doubt. Authentic faith is alive and personal, whereas, belief is often dead and conceptual. I long to talk about who my faith is in rather than what I believe. I crave the community of those are living life in the here and now and sharing their experiences of faith.  I invite you to join us at the Center for Christian Life Enrichment. We are a community of those who want more authentic faith and intimacy with God and each other.

 

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. (Psalm 34:8)

 

Friendships: The Most Worthwhile Investments

1 Reply

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:13 

 

Relational unrest and breakdown is all around us and has hit close to home. Recently, we were surprised to see moving vans in front of the house of our next-door neighbors. They were a young couple with three kids. We later learned that they were going through a messy divorce. We never even knew they were struggling. Last week we were shocked to see the police surrounding the house of another neighbor two doors down from us. A domestic disturbance led to a five-hour siege with SWAT teams converging on this older couple’s home. We had no idea they were having any trouble. Sadly, the husband committed suicide.

 

Relationships are a mixed bag. We experience the most intense pain as well as the most meaningful pleasure in our relationships with others. From the moment of our conception, people are surrounding us. Conception initiates a relationship in which the fetus is completely dependent on his or her maternal host for existence. From start to finish, we cannot live without each other.

 

Admittedly, our survival is dependent on other people; however, without meaningful and nourishing relationships, we only exist and fail to experience the fullness of life. If we desire to have the abundant life that God wishes for each of us (John 10:10), we must cultivate our capacities and sharpen our skills for engaging authentically and meaningfully with others.

 

Relationships are a function of how we relate to ourselves. We are the living channel through which we relate to others. How we see, feel about, and treat ourselves matters—it impacts how we interface with others. Much like how the diet of a breast-feeding mother influences the digestion of her baby, so how we relate with ourselves influences how we will attach with others.

 

Many of us take our people skills for granted, mistakenly assuming that our capacity to connect meaningfully with each other is automatic—it is as if relating to each other were a part of our autonomic nervous system. Most of us will spend at least sixteen years investing in our education; yet, how many of us will even spend a couple hours with a counselor or life coach to enhance our friendships. We assume that we should naturally know how to relate effectively with others. Patently untrue.

 

It is a fact that we will all have relationships; however, what is in question is the quality and depth of our relationships. Relationships are on a continuum, from schizoid and splintered to intimate and interdependent. We have the choice as well as the responsibility to decide whether we want to have mediocre relationships or fulfilling friendships.

 

How we relate to others is heavily influenced by the quality and characteristics of the relationships we had with our parents and our siblings. It would behoove us all to take a second look at the health of our relationships within our family of origin. No family is perfect—all are filled with a blend of hurtful and healthy experiences.  The wise person is the one who learns from their past and practices for his or her future. As you learn and grow you can increase your capacity for intimacy with others. You attract more relationships and build more nourishing and genuine friendships.

 

Please join me for a free webinar at 12:30 CST on Wednesday, January 4, in which I will be introducing some of the key concepts about friendships from my new book, Grappling with God: Renew Your Relationship and Deepen Your Faith. The 25 minute webinar is entitled, “7 Steps for Genuine Friendships.”  Register @ https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/466304954.

Courageously Committing

Leave a reply


 “The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred… unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.”  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

 

Meaningful decisions that lead to personal transformation begin with courageous commitment and are brought to completion with burning desire and determined dedication.  This is one of the most important principles a person can learn in life. Many people wait for God to move and then they act. We have found at the Center for Christian Life Enrichment (CLE) that having the faith to risk stepping out into the unknown triggers the collaborative assistance of God.

 

Living by faith demands that we take risks and are willing to live our lives as an adventure in learning. Carol Dweck’s research on living with a growth mindset says that if we are not taking risks and making mistakes then we are not learning to our capacity. For some, learning came to a halt when they stopped going to school. I believe God designed us to be lifelong learners. We need to be living our lives in such a way that we are continually learning and growing. Taking risks, making mistakes, and incorporating the lessons learned is the formula for expanding faith and living increasingly fruitful lives.

 

I think of the growth mindset as the foundation for living by faith, recognizing that God is more concerned about our development and maturation than He is in us getting everything right. God is not a neurotic perfectionistic control-freak who is obsessed with us doing everything correctly. Instead, I believe God is a guide, mentor, coach, teacher and father who wants us to learn, grow, risk, and make mistakes in the pursuit of learning and living an abundant life. His plan is that we live courageously and learn from our mistakes as we become like His son, Jesus.

 

I have been inspired by the testimony of this courageous teenager whose speech I shared in my last blog post (Celebrating Courage and Commitment). Her dedication to learn and grow is highlighted by the fact that when she went out for cross country as a freshman in high school, she was out of shape and had never run competitively. She saw her life as an adventure and she wanted more. She knew she needed something and she understood that it was her responsibility to go out and get it. She wasn’t waiting for life to come to her. Somehow, she understood that it was her job to take risks and pursue opportunities.

 

She identified that distance running was interesting and valuable and she went out for the team. She knew she was inexperienced and was not unusually gifted athletically. Her success was the result of her initial commitment, her ongoing dedication and practice, her care for and investment in her teammates, and the support of her team and community. She led with her hunger and her character instead of her talent. She was quickly recognized as a leader and contributor on the team even though she was never one of the top atheletes.

 

This story is especially touching to me because I have lived with the mistaken belief that only those who are the best athletically are winners. My value as a human being has been a function of a host of external measures of success. For me, historically my success has been an illusive prey. When I first competed in a sport, my worth and value depended on whether I made the team. Once I made the team, the issue then became whether I would earn a starting position. Once I became a starter, then the question was whether I would earn all-league honors. If I made all league, then the concern would be whether I earned all state honors.  The measurement of my worth and value continued to move beyond what I could ever achieve. The net result was at some point I would fail to reach the goal and achieve the recognition. Was I now a failure?

 

All of these goals share the quality of having an external locus of control. They are all outside of the person and represent some form of external accomplishment and validation. The issue is not what you yourself value; instead, the issue becomes what those outside of you decide are the measures of success. Those objectives, like the rabbit at the dog track, eventually end up being beyond our grasp.

 

What inspires me in this story is that this young lady may have never won a race. Her last race was a PR (short, for personal record time). Her best time may never have resulted in her placing in a race. What then was she running for?  Instead of winning, she was competing. Instead of being the best, she was working hard. Instead of being the star, she was more interested in serving the team. She led from the pack instead of from the front. She earned her position as team captain based on her character as well as her commitment to the well being of her teammates.

 

This young lady is an inspirational transformational leader.  She is learning the power of living from principles instead of from performance. She is learning how to experience the joy and nourishment resulting from living true to her heart’s desires.

Celebrating Courage and Commitment

1 Reply

(This speech was written by the daughter of one of our CLE families. She is a senior at a local high school and was delivering this speech to her Cross Country teammates, parents and coaches at their end of season banquet. I hope you are inspired by her intitiative, courage, dedication and leadership. Her parents have paved the way through their own dedication to personal transformation for her to truly excel and flourish in life.)

  Four years, 196 practices, 36 races. For the four-year seniors here, that is what we have completed. It feels like forever, and has flown by at the same time. It has been an unforgettable experience that has done so much to shape me into who I am today. That is why, after crossing the finish line for the last time at the confer- ence race, I burst into tears. I had just had the best race of my life. At every turn there were my coaches, my teammates and my parents cheering for me. Ari my running buddy, was by my side, like always, silently rooting me on. I consciously refused to let fear enter my thoughts during a race for the first time I can remember. Instead I focused on how strong I felt, how strong the past four years had made me.

And now it’s over. This is the end of something great. I can only hope that in the future each of us can find something that we can once again love so fiercely, dedicate ourselves to so completely and can push us so hard and let us grow so much. And can most importantly, give us the gift of an amazing community, full of people who lift each other up to reach their individual goals. This is what Cross Country has done for me. It turned me from a shy, out of shape freshman who could barely run a half-mile on my first day, into a competitive runner and a captain who is surrounded by a massive group of girls whom I love. These girls have celebrated with me in my accomplishments, consoled me in my frustrations and pushed me to do things I never thought I could.

I had the time of my life with all of you and will always treasure the memories we made. But the Cross Country era will never end. While the season may, the spirit of the team will live on within each of us. Thank you for an incredible four years that will live on forever.