Four lessons from a Russian cat herder to help achieve your dreams for your family

Gregory Popovich herds cats. Sort of.

He created a world-famous circus show with cats and other animals pushing strollers, walking tightropes, answering phones, and putting out fires.

How does he get the cats to do what he wants? He doesn’t.

But what he does do can help shape expectations for our dreams for our families.

1. Patiently pay attention to how God is forming your family

I don’t necessarily teach a cat anything. I watch them for a while to see what they can do.

I (allow them) to show off their individual personalities and talents. Just like people, every pet has a special quirky little thing they like to do. This is what makes them who they are.

He knows he can’t mold another living creature into the image he wants. Their creator has an image in mind and is already molding them. His job is to discover that molding and cooperate with it.

Doing this with your family honors God’s dream for them. God had something in mind when he made them. Your job is to cooperate. To do that, you have to pay attention.

2. Turn loose your personal expectations

Popovich doesn’t go out looking for cats for a role. He doesn’t say, “This one will be the fireman. This one will ride the dog like a cowboy.” His expectation is to see the cats fulfill what they seem created to do.

This is challenging but also freeing. You’re free from the stress of owning your agenda for how your family turns out.

But you still have an agenda: God’s agenda for them as individuals and as a family.

You’re forced to be selfless.

You’re forced to pay attention so you can cooperate with their ‘specialty.’

You’re forced to be purposeful.

Let’s say you’re on Say Yes to the Dress with your daughter. You want her to be happy. Yes, you have a personal favorite dress. Yes, you’re convinced you know what looks best on her. But selflessly you pay attention and help her discover the dress that she adores and that fulfills her dreams.

You steer and influence, but in the end what gives you the most joy is her joy. You’ve already influenced her for twenty-plus years. So you let your influence mature in her personal decisions.

3. Help them be who they are becoming - some are stars, some sit in chairs

Popovich pays attention to who his cats are and what they like to do. Then he helps them be that and do that. Training is five minutes per day. He doesn’t sweat it. He knows it all adds up.

Some climb ladders. Some do handstands. Some don’t fit anything for the show he has in mind. They sit in chairs on stage. “They’re my chorus line.” He doesn’t fight it.

We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepeared beforehand, that we should walk in them - Ephesians 2.10

You can’t stop God from shaping your family to what he has in mind. We all have unique drives, motivations, and personalities. Some cry all night, some sleep. Some eat their veggies, some don’t. Some sing, some love numbers, some are stoic, some study dolphins, some love an orderly bedroom. Some sit in chairs.

You can try to get the dolphin student to keep an orderly room, and you can try to get the orderly one to study dolphins. But when you major on what they’re already majoring on, everyone will have more fun and be more successful.

4. Family membership is more important than any dreams

All of Popovich’s cats come from shelters. Unwanted house pets. Strays. He rescues them and makes them his family. They’re family members first, performers second. They stay in the family if they are stars or if they sit in chairs. They stay in the family when they retire.

You can sense when you’re not meeting the expectations of someone important to you. We all have a people-pleaser gene. It’s a powerful thing when someone senses that the highest expectation you have is for them to feel security and worth just from being in your family.

Acceptance in heaven comes from the work of someone besides me. I’m supposed to perform, but not for acceptance. The family puts skin on this picture of the role of performance: First comes acceptance, then performance.

What unique shapes and directions do you see in your family?

by | 18 Comments

What failure taught me about dreaming

When James Gandolfini died, I read his words on why Tony Soprano appealed to viewers:

You got to see what he was trying to do, what he was trying to fix, and what he was trying to become.

Every one of us is trying to do those same things. That’s your dream.

One day in Home Depot I heard Bruce Springsteen’s ’Working On A Dream’ for the first time. An appropriate place to hear a song about building something. I could relate and maybe you can too.

So your body doesn’t climb a ladder and swing a hammer with the rain pourin’ down? But your soul does, as you try to do, fix, and become.

Don’t do what I did

Seventeen years ago I had a dream about a radio show. I dreamed and talked and planned. Never happened. It died a long, quiet, uneventful death. Why? I think because it was always in the future. It was all “if” and “when.”

Today I feel guilty and foolish. I said I believed the dream, but I didn’t do much but think and plan. Occasionally I got all jived and worked at it for a few days. I prayed too, but as they say, you have to put feet to your prayers. Mostly I waited.

My soul wasn’t engaged in any ladder climbing or hammer swinging.

Yes, stretch for the future

Our family has a dream of a small property used for hope, encouragement, and perspective. A place where heaven, earth, and everyday living come together. It’s vague and incomplete, but each of us sees some specific piece. We’ve all talked about this for several years.

Our daughter the Nester (oh wait I can call her by her real name now) and her husband are ready. They’re looking for a home for their family and for their dream. The place will belong to them but also might be suitable for some of what we’re all dreaming.

They found a piece of property with a house. They’re in the middle of appraisal and inspection hurdles now. No one knows how it will turn out.

Don’t just embrace your dream - let it embrace you

Once a week or so I drive to that property. The owners have moved, but I want to be respectful so I sit in the car at the end of the gravel drive. I pray that in the future everyone who drives up that drive would find great encouragement at the other end and that they would take it with them when they leave.

One day I get bold and drive up the driveway onto the property. I plan to walk around the whole thing praying. I’m there about ten minutes when I turn around and see the owner’s truck parked next to my car. He’s just arrived and he’s walking out the back door of the house into the yard.

This is awkward. I’ve met him, but I’m not the one purchasing his property and I haven’t called or asked or knocked on the door. I’m just wandering around in his yard.

Be lighthearted and honest and apologize, right? Let’s call him Chris.

“Hey Chris, I’m Gary. We met a couple weeks ago. My daughter and son-in-law are the ones who want to purchase your property. I guess I’m trespassing but I wanted to come up here to pray.”

“Well that’s always a good thing.”

Honor your dream and treat is as a NOW thing

We make small talk. I ask how he’s doing since I know family issues are involved in selling the property. He shares how tough it is. I mention that I’m sure he and his wife had hopes and dreams for this place. We talk about that a bit and somehow the conversation moves to his desire to write books. That starts it.

Over the next fifteen minutes I do all I can to encourage this guy not to ignore that desire inside him and that he can do it. I SO want him to not just let his dream fizzle out. At the end I ask him if I can pray for him. He takes off his ball cap. Part of what I pray is that the God who created heaven and earth would help Chris and take pleasure in what he creates.

The next day it hits me: I did a fifteen minute impromptu version of my Scary Hope message with the owner of the property my daughter and her husband want to buy. My part of our family dream is to do things like that on the land we’ve talked about. And I just did it. But the property isn’t in our family!

For a moment, my part of the dream was already real. Even though the dream hasn’t happened yet.

What would you do if your dream came true? Do that now

The Nester has a dream of a gathering place for swap meets, and to learn crafts, and to connect with women and be encouraged about the purpose of our homes. She doesn’t have the place yet but she’s already doing all that stuff at her house or at whatever space she can find.

Our other daughter (daughters rock!) Emily and her husband John have a dream of contributing to the spiritual conversation in their community. After a year or so of prayer and planning, John just quit his job to engage their dream, even though it has not come true yet.

The Declaration of Independence announced a dream that had been decided in the hearts of the founding fathers months and years before. They were already living like it was true, even though the British could still win and defeat the dream.

Faith sees the future in the present. Honoring your dreams now with your actions is part of faith.

What’s your dream? How can you honor it now, by faith?

by | 25 Comments

4 things my wife needs to remember I can’t do (and that your man can’t do either)

(photo from awkwardfamilyphotos.com)

As we walk out of Amor de Brazil after her birthday dinner, she says, “Why did we go there? I feel like a caveman! You need to go back and take your buddies.” She’s half-joking.

Men walking around with meat on sticks asking, “Want some?” What a great concept for a restaurant. Brenda enjoyed the surprise, sampled everything, and loved being together, but it wasn’t her thing.

I took her there because I wanted her to experience something different and I had no idea what kind of surprise she might like. So I made an executive decision.

After forty years of marriage I have accepted that there are some things I cannot do. She of course has known this all along, but she may have hopes that it can change. I know at least four things that will not change and so here’s a reminder of these Four Male Marriage Incompetencies that we have to live with.

1. I can’t read your mind

If you’re going to tell me, “I really didn’t want to eat there,” AFTER we eat there, then you can tell me before. No, the birthday dinner was not an example of this, but every other time we eat out is. Seriously, I want to know beforehand, because I want to make you happy.

I don’t know how you feel.

I don’t know what you want.

I don’t really know if you’re happy.

I should know (if I really loved you!), but if you haven’t told me, assume I’m clueless. This applies to the serious stuff, not just where to eat.

So you could: Pretend you’re married to a person with a part missing-the ‘read your mind’ part. Then assume you have to make up for that missing part by telling me how you feel and what you want.

And I should probably: Ask you and believe what you say.

2. I can’t keep up with your logic and thinking

You’re way too fast for me. This is not a compliment or a complaint. Before I understand what you just said, you move on. So I try to move on with you but my mind can’t nimbly change subjects like you, so I end up back yonder somewhere.

Then it happens again. And again. In the same conversation. In the same minute. Now I’m WAY back there. I’m so far back there I can’t even hear you anymore. That’s what that blank look is on my face. When I say, “You have to stop,” it’s not because I don’t want to listen or because I disagree. It’s because I’m tired and must rest.

This frustrates me, and leads to us bumping heads. We may not even really disagree, but since I don’t understand what you said or what you want-and then you pause and expect a response-I just do the best I can with the little I understand.

You’ve heard that men think in boxes and rooms. It’s true. Now, we definitely look for ways to connect the boxes and rooms, but for the most part we must leave one room in order to enter another. Your rooms don’t have walls. You live in all the rooms at once.

So you could: Slow down. Just talk slower. Pause. Say, “Do you understand what I’m saying?” If I say yes, say, “OK tell me what I’m saying.” That will probably bug me so you’ll have to remind me I told you to ask.

And I probably should: Lighten up. No need to get frustrated. A frustrated man is not very attractive, right? (See I DO remember what you say). And I should ask questions as you go to make sure I understand.

3. I can’t stop trying to solve your problems

It’s a man default. It goes with my manly chest and my virile head of hair (hahaha!) I know you just want to be heard, and I do want to just listen, but I can’t. I

must . . .

solve . . .

problem.

The chances of this changing are the same as the chances of you hating chocolate. This is actually good, because when you DO have a problem to talk about, here I am wired and ready.

So you could: Give me a heads-up when you just want to share your feelings. Yes, you actually have to say, “I’m not asking you to fix anything.” No, it probably still won’t work.

And I probably should: Ask you, “Do you want me to fix anything?” This is where you would sacrifice your desire to just share and be heard, and you would say, “Yes! Please fix it!” so that I might have my purpose fulfilled.

Which reminds me . . . (#4 continues after this)

Sorry for the distraction. Finally . . .

4. I can’t be Jesus for you

I’m just a man. I cannot be a source of deep inner satisfaction for you (that hurts me to say because I want to be that).

You know all those wonderful love songs about how awesome and perfect and wonderful the other person is? Those songs are about Jesus’ perfect love but the songwriters don’t know it. That love exists, but not from a man, not from me. It’s not fair to either of us for you to expect that of me, and it hurts our marriage.

So you could: Let Jesus be Jesus, and let me be me. Go to him for what only he can give, and to me for what a man can give.

And I should: Try to be more worthy of your love, even if I can’t be Jesus. Because you deserve a far better version of me than you’re getting.

What else does a wife need to remember? Are there other Male (or Female!) Marriage Incompetencies?

by | 28 Comments

Last train to Fitsville

Sweeping up with four final questions about Everything Fits. The first three are HERE.

4.

What suggestions could you make to help me truly believe everything fits, when I really believe everything does NOT seem to fit? It is the “really believing” that is a challenge!

There was a time long ago during trips away from home when I thought to myself, “What if I forget how to get home?” (Crazy, eh?) On one occasion I badly frightened myself thinking how scary it would be to forget my way. What would you tell me if I told you it was a challenge to really believe I wouldn’t forget?

Believe it the same way you believe everything else. Sometimes God just gives you faith, but when he doesn’t, then you choose to believe. No one will make you, beg you, or prove it to you.

The first words in the Bible-”In the beginning God”-don’t try to convince you that there was a God in the beginning. It just states the facts. Believing it is up to you.

5.

Do we ever really reach a point where we accept that whether or not it makes sense, it all really does fit? Or is that a perpetual journey? Also, even if it all really does make sense and fit, what the heck do we do to heal and overcome all the scars in the process?

Maybe it’s steps. You can always go farther. You can also have peace wherever you are by just believing like a child. Kids don’t insist on understanding. They know how to trust that the grownups are in control. They ask questions and don’t understand the answers, but still trust. Grownups are too smart to trust. ”Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

I don’t know what to do to heal and overcome scars. Jacob limped the rest of his life. Jesus kept the holes in his hands and side. Life comes from death. Dirt grows beautiful living green things.

6.

So should we just not ask ‘why?’

I think we can ask anything we want. I just can’t demand an answer. God told Job that Job was not able to understand; and Job was as godly as they come. Some ‘whys’ God may tell me. Some ‘whys’ may not be best for me to know now.

Some ‘whys’ I may not ever be able understand; so on those, hammering at heaven’s door just won’t get me in. If I insist, I can expect a speech like Job got in chapters 38-41.

7.

For those who “get it,” what advice would you give to help talk to those who don’t? Seems hard to describe to someone unless you really know and trust your God in very intimate ways. That can be perceived as flippant, uncaring or unsympathetic by those in the midst of hardship or pain.

Yes, I agree. So don’t talk. If you truly trust God and believe everything fits, just let it show in your attitude, reactions, decisions, and in your peace. Then talk if they ask.

Bonus #8!

Give me one small practical thing to do to move me one baby step closer to accepting that everything fits.

This is lame but try it. Every time you doubt and question that everything fits, stare at your left hand. You’ve heard that your hand is filled with 27 bones plus ligaments, nerves, and muscles, yet you have never seen them. Now try to move your hand and wiggle your fingers-if you can, everything fits; if you can’t, it doesn’t.

* * *

What do you do when it’s hard to believe?

by | 11 Comments

Questions that will make your eyes pop out!

Or glaze over.

But the cool thing about Q&A’s is you can pick the ones you want to read. If you skip one, the next one still makes sense.

Maybe only one question asked about Everything Fits is for you, but since I don’t know which one, I’ll list seven and you pick. The first three are today. Four more on Monday.

1.

What do you mean when you say everything is engineered, permitted, or governed by God? Why use those words? Why not just say ‘control?’

To me, ‘control’ makes it sound like God has a big hand-held remote control and he’s toggling and steering all the details of his world. You could think that means we’re all puppets. So I use other words that show he’s in control but without blaming him for my pride or idiocy or slamming the car door too hard so my wife knows I’m peeved (that didn’t happen!)

2.

How could it make sense that God would allow a father to sexually abuse a daughter? And so she naturally ends up thinking ‘God where were you and how could you let my dad do that? What kind of God are you?’ You can talk all you want but that does not fit.

Lord have mercy. You’ll have to talk to Job. God allowed Job’s family to be killed and for Job to be thrown into suffering and poverty. Then God made sure he put it in the Bible.

The wages of sin is death and this world stinks with the smell of death. But it’s not going to stay this way. Until things change, there is comfort and help and victory in the middle of suffering and stink. I believe that but I can’t explain it.

My friend Dean said today that as he thinks of this world of confusion, waiting, regret, and hopelessness, he is comforted knowing that as a Christian this is the worst he’ll ever have it from now through eternity. He said he has Christ now, and Christ with a perfect world later. But for the person without Christ, this is as good as it will ever be-for them it gets worse.

Hero martyrs had opportunity for the same questions. God where are you to let this happen when I’m being faithful?

3.

The whole grace/law thing and God’s sovereign nature still puzzle me.

Well, grace doesn’t mean there’s no speed limit. But with grace I now am intimate with an indwelling Jesus and guess how fast he’s going? The speed limit. If I stick with him in trust, I go the speed limit without thinking about the speed limit-it’s just what I do.

When I break the speed limit I should feel something-not like a failure, but like “I must not be trusting Jesus because this guilt I feel is a sign.” My guilt should drive me back to intimacy with him and then the speed limit will take care of itself. That is very incomplete, but one way to look at it.

For God’s sovereign nature I picture two parallel train tracks going up into the sky. One train track is my free will and all my decisions. The other track is God’s sovereignty and control of everything.

I only see separate tracks that can’t both be the true at the same time But up in the clouds somewhere, those two tracks come together and make perfect sense, and I go, ohhhhhh I get it. And I worship. But that’s later. However if I believe it by faith I can go ahead and worship now in advance.

by | 2 Comments

3 things to hang on to because everything fits

This is a final bonus post for the series Everything Fits Even When It Doesn’t.

Long ago I told a friend that if he ever heard me saying my values were one thing but then observed me doing another, he should kick my butt and do it publicly. I’m glad I don’t know him anymore.

Usually you think people are phony or a hypocrite when they act like they’re something they’re not.

But it can be the same thing if you say you believe something but don’t act like it.

I say I believe God always loves me, and that he is always good and always in control. But I don’t always act like I believe it.

Believing is not something that happens to you. It’s something you do.

For the last eight weeks I’ve asserted my belief that I can have confidence and peace that somehow, some way, everything fits, even when it doesn’t. The natural result of this should be that I trust and cooperate with God in the fitting.

There is an easy way to know if I’m not trusting and cooperating: I worry.

It is not only wrong to worry, it is infidelity, because worrying means that we do not think that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything else that worries us.

Have you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the word He puts in? The cares of this world.

The great word of Jesus to his disciples is abandon.

- Oswald Chambers

I worry more than I want to admit. The other day I asked my wife what she would change about me. She said I get down on myself way too much. The reason I get down on myself is I don’t trust God.

But, when I DO trust God, I grow in peace in the middle of confusion, waiting, regret, and hopelessness. I accept-and even embrace!-myself and circumstances. And I see self-pity as sin.

It’s not enough to just agree with the idea that everything fits.

3 things to hang on to because everything fits

1. Believe it. All of it. Yes, you can decide to believe something. In 1949, right before his ministry exploded, Billy Graham decided to believe the whole Bible was true. When you get married, you decide to love this person and you decide to not love others. And you can decide to believe that God is always loving, always just, and always in control, no matter how it looks.

2. Act like you believe it. That means people see what you believe. Even if you have doubts and don’t feel like it’s safe, you can still make yourself get on the airplane. When I feel down and discouraged, I can make myself smile and sing and act positive, and soon that’s how I feel. That’s not hypocritical-NOT acting like what I say I believe is hypocritical.

3. Be gentle with yourself and others. Because everything fits, it’s not up to you to hold everything together. Seasons of doubt and faults and failures are part of everything fits-it’s a miracle! You have holes. You leak. So does everybody else. You do your best, but sometimes your best means all you can do is trust in God’s best.

What is one thing that might change for you if you really believed everything fits even when it doesn’t?

Next Monday: a Q&A.

* * *

by | 9 Comments

Part two - How to deal with the frustration of your unsolvable problems

This is the last of eight weeks of Everything Fits Even When It Doesn’t. The Everything Fits affirmation is at the end of this post. A bonus post is coming Monday, and a Q&A post after that. Then we make a pitcher of Country Time and take a nap.

* * *

How much of God’s activity in your life do you think is beyond your ability to understand?

A few things? Many things? Most?

If you’re like me you say ’most,’ but you live your life as if you expect to understand everything. And if we don’t understand something that’s important to us, we can cop an attitude (that we would never admit) towards God.

God knows this. So he wrote the book of Job.

Job was way better than you and me. ‘None like him on earth’ and ‘blameless and upright’ describe him. He was loaded with servants, property, possessions, and had a wife and ten kids.

In one day all his kids died and all his wealth was destroyed. He never knew why, but we do.

More going on than you can see

Satan announced that Job loved, trusted, and worshipped God only for what God could do for him. Satan said that without God’s blessings Job would curse God to his face. In the heavenly counsels where no people can go, this was all between God and Satan.

So Job loses everything in one day to swords and fire and catastrophe. You know the famous saying, “He gives and takes away; blessed be the Lord?” Those are Job’s words after he lost everything. Wow.

It gets worse. The whole Satan-God conversation is repeated, this time concerning Job’s health. Job ends up covered with “loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.” His friends can’t even recognize him.

In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing

- Job 1.22

If your whole family was killed, and everything you owned was destroyed, and you suffered horribly 24-7, what would you say to God? Job’s wife tells him to just curse God and die. Instead, he calls her foolish. Wow again.

Job is a rock-star believer. He’s human however: he wishes he had not been born; he loses hope; he complains to God that his suffering would be understandable if he had been unfaithful, but he’s innocent.

His friends visit. They’re good people, but like you and me, one of the ways they try to help is by becoming little teachers explaining God’s ways and why this has happened. The explanations go on forever, chapter after chapter. Most of the book of Job is about the ‘help’ from the friends, and Job’s reaction. Their explanations add to Job’s suffering.

Understanding: a privilege not a right

In the end, Job not only gets NO answers to his questions of ‘why?’ but he is also LECTURED by God for expecting to understand!

Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me

- Job 38.3

A grieving, sick, suffering man gets no babying.

Then Job REPENTS of his expectations and worships God. Job’s family is still dead and he is still suffering and he still has no answers-yet he worships. Then God tells Job to pray for the guys who tried to explain God’s ways (warning to us all!).

The end. That’s all you get. No answers, no coddling.

You end up thinking that God is very politically incorrect. He doesn’t just let the worst happen to a good man-he started it. And then God rebukes the innocent man.

The most normal reaction to struggles is to ask, Why is this happening to me? Where is God? What kind of God would let this happen? He must not love me.

Isn’t it interesting that worship resulted from NOT understanding ‘why?’ We can make ourselves the judge of God if we imply, when it all makes sense, then I’ll worship you.

What if you found out that your confusion, waiting, regret, and hopelessness was all rigged, and intended to be an opportunity to prove to heaven and earth that you don’t trust and worship God just for what he can do for you?

Bonus next Monday: So what do you do now?

* * * *

The Everything Fits affirmation. Each Monday we’ve looked at one part:

Everything about my life, everything that happens

- the family I was born into

- the circumstances I have experienced and find myself in

- my personality and DNA and wiring and gifting -

is engineered or permitted or governed by a sovereign, just, loving God who always has three good things in mind

1) to develop my personal relationship and intimacy with him

2) to accomplish his purposes in the world, and

3) to further his own awesome, immeasurable aims that are bigger than my ability to understand.

Therefore, whether it’s past, present, or future, I can have confidence and peace that somehow, someway, Everything Fits Even When It Doesn’t, and I will trust and cooperate with God in the fitting.

by | 19 Comments

How to deal with the frustration of your unsolvable problems-part one

This is the eighth of eight Mondays of Everything Fits Even When It Doesn’t. The Everything Fits affirmation is at the end of this post. Part two of this post is coming Wednesday, and a few bonus posts in the next few weeks. You can subscribe on the upper right to get the series in your inbox.

What if I NEVER see a reason for my confusion, waiting, regret, and hopelessness? Is that okay? It better be.

Go ahead, solve the senselessness of stuff like 9-11

The Friday after 9-11, all the Clear Channel-owned radio station morning shows in Austin, TX gathered in one large room. It was a show of unity, to broadcast one morning show on all the company stations in town. One morning show on six radio stations with six different formats for six different audiences. Each station’s morning team would be heard on all the other stations, too. I worked for the country music station.

We did it as a community service response to 9-11. No music was played for several hours. Each morning show had a chance to share their thoughts and take questions from callers. Most of the personalities loved it.

I hated it; not my comfort zone, the other air talents intimidated me, and the audience was big and scary (weird for a radio personality, eh?).

The answer for others

I prayed about what to say if I had the chance. I hated the idea of blabbering on with some inane opinion that didn’t mean anything. The only thing I could think of was the idea I heard somewhere of the image of a quilt. From the top, the quilt looks orderly and beautiful. From underneath all you see is a tangle of chaos. From the bottom you’d think this mess could never make sense. I thought about the quilt and 9-11.

The moderator for the show was a casual friend in our building. He knew I was a believer. When the show started, he looked right at me and his very first question on this broadcast to the largest radio audience I will ever have was, “Gary, you’re a man of faith, how does all this make sense to you? Where is God in all this?”

At that moment, I realized what an out-of-body experience felt like. I could not believe he was asking me this question, the only one I had prepared for.

I told the quilt story. I said God sees the top side of the quilt and from above it’s a different view that I can’t have right now, but that I trust his view. (I wish I had added, “and one day you can have that view too.”)

It was the only thing I said the entire morning.

The answer for you

I hate the quilt. I hate simplistic explanations of complex things. It’s helpful on a radio broadcast, or to get everyone’s head nodding yes in a class. But you don’t sit down with a friend struggling with a tragedy or loss and say, “I know you’re struggling to understand, but really it’s like a quilt . . .”

It’s easy to talk about the quilt idea when it’s not something that touches me. But when I get my own personal 9-11 or Newtown or Boston Marathon finish line, then an idea of a quilt is not enough. I need reasons and understanding to get through the pain and confusion.

But I often don’t get any reasons. And so the quilt is not something I use for someone else. The quilt is for me (and you) personally.

Thus the challenge that must be faced alone: Is it enough for me to know there are answers I don’t get to see? Can I let God be really big and me be really small?

How big is God compared to me? Whatever the difference; that might be the difference I can expect between what I can understand and what I can’t.

So, what would you pick?

Wednesday bonus: Part Two

* * * *

The Everything Fits affirmation. Each Monday we look at one part:

Everything about my life, everything that happens

- the family I was born into

- the circumstances I have experienced and find myself in

- my personality and DNA and wiring and gifting -

is engineered or permitted or governed by a sovereign, just, loving God who always has three good things in mind

1) to develop my personal relationship and intimacy with him

2) to accomplish his purposes in the world, and

3) to further his own awesome, immeasurable aims that are bigger than my ability to understand.

Therefore, whether it’s past, present, or future, I can have confidence and peace that somehow, someway, Everything Fits Even When It Doesn’t, and I will trust and cooperate with God in the fitting.

by | 12 Comments

Are you willing to be part of the uncommon shaped-by-God team?

Then abandon hope in this:

This is the seventh of eight Mondays of Everything Fits Even When It Doesn’t. The Everything Fits affirmation is at the end of this post. You can subscribe on the upper right to get the series in your inbox. And if you know someone who would benefit, please share.

In the middle of confusion, waiting, regret, and hopelessness, you want an arrow.

A straight, pointy, solid arrow. An arrow that connects your troubles to wonderful “it’s all worth it!” results.

An arrow would help you endure. When you sacrifice and save cash for a down payment on a house, you know exactly what it’s for. Savings on the left, house on the right, straight arrow in between.

You don’t get an arrow.

Oh, things are definitely connected. But it’s more like the dotted line between Billy’s start and finish.

Billy knows where he’s going. He just likes to take the long way to get there.

When you’re in the middle of trying to make sense of your family, or your circumstances, or your junkie stuff, you DON’T know where you’re going. You say you believe that God knows, and has a purpose, but without the arrow pointing right at the purpose, you’re not sure what it is. You feel lost somewhere on the endless dotted line.

You’re not alone. This is normal. The long way home is the way you get on the shaped-by-God team.

Expect the long dark night

The day Oswald Chambers told God he wanted a more intimate relationship with Jesus was the beginning of the worst years of his life.

From that day on for four years, nothing but the overruling grace of God and the kindness of friends kept me out of an asylum.

God used me during those years for the conversion of souls, but I had no conscious communion with Him. The Bible was the dullest, most uninteresting book in existence, and the sense of depravity, the vileness and bad-motiveness of my nature was terrific.

- from Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God

You sincerely ask God for intimacy and you get misery! Where’s the blessing and reward? Why ask for more of God if you know you’ll end up half-crazy?

You have to go way down before you go way up. Apparently there is no shortcut.

When Oswald Chambers came out of those 4 years of the dark night of his soul, he became the Oswald Chambers the world needed. Friends called him, “the greatest demonstration we had ever seen of the Sermon on the Mount fleshed out.”

During his life he spoke to dozens and hundreds. Today, because of the man he allowed himself to become, God’s purposes in the lives of millions have been advanced. Every morning his words still speak to me.

I see the arrow from Chambers’ struggle to God’s purpose as straight and pointy. To Chambers at the time, it was the dotted line tracing a kid’s meandering to the school bus.

Expect confrontation with your own insufficiency

Bill’s wife was sick wife for a long time. One day he came home surprised to see her working in the garden. “You’d better stop and go rest, you know what’s going to happen.” He knew she had very little energy. She said she felt fine.

She was fine. Her illness had left her. And something else happened. A peace beyond understanding had been born in her.

Bill was awed by the supernatural change in his wife. He grew to want the same thing. He began praying that God would change his life, too (uh-oh). He knew that the struggle and hopelessness of her illness was key. By faith he made preparations at work and financially for a long incapacitation.

Instead, his wife asked him for a divorce.

This began his own dark night of the soul, where he was forced to confront what kind of man he must be to cause his godly wife to want to divorce him. Like his wife, and like Oswald Chambers, he was squeezed into confusion, waiting, regret, and hopelessness. Like them, he came out the other side into humility, grace, and peace.

Bill ended up with a Bible study attended by hundreds - at work. And, he mentored Harold. Harold mentored me. Through Harold my whole family has been shaped.

In heaven the arrow is straight. On earth you get the crazy dotted line.

Expect to go down so others can go up

Jesus came to earth on a mission of selflessness. His father had plans to rescue people and creation. Jesus was the plan. We know what Jesus went through to accomplish those purposes; suffering, rejection, death. But then it gets scary when he says things like

Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. And I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them, so they can be made holy by your truth

- John 17.18-19

Yikes. He’s talking to his father about me (and you). I’m on the same mission of selflessness. No, I can’t go through what he did, but I’m still put here for God’s purposes, not mine.

That takes shaping. The shaping is not fun. If I could just see a straight arrow connecting the pain of shaping with the purpose for it, the shaping might be more bearable.

My arrow can’t be straight because all the stuff needed to make me usable for God’s purposes is crooked, confusing, and painful. It can feel like death.

For the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross. He knew that at the end of the dotted line everything fit.

I’m willing for someone to take the long, mysterious, dotted-line journey to accomplish God’s purposes for me. But, am I willing to do the same for God’s purposes for others?

Who (besides Jesus) has paid the price to be on the shaped-by-God team for you?

Next Monday: What about all the junk that makes absolutely no sense, no way, no how, no matter how hard you try?

—-

The Everything Fits affirmation. Each Monday we look at one part:

Everything about my life, everything that happens

- the family I was born into

- the circumstances I have experienced and find myself in

- my personality and DNA and wiring and gifting -

is engineered or permitted or governed by a sovereign, just, loving God who always has three good things in mind

1) to develop my personal relationship and intimacy with him

2) to accomplish his purposes in the world, and

3) to further his own awesome, unmeasurable aims that are bigger than my ability to understand.

Therefore, whether it’s past, present, or future, I can have confidence and peace that somehow, someway, Everything Fits Even When It Doesn’t, and I will trust and cooperate with God in the fitting.

by | 25 Comments

The secret that peaceful, Godly people want you to know

This is the sixth of eight Mondays of Everything Fits Even When It Doesn’t. The Everything Fits affirmation is at the end of this post. You can subscribe on the upper right to get the series in your inbox. And if you know someone who would benefit, please share.

I am not an orange or a grape. I do not like to be squeezed.

But for most of us, peace and godliness are squeezed into and then out of us. We’re on a journey of sporadic mountain-top enlightenment, dark discouraging valleys, and numberless plateaus of numbness. The valleys and plateaus squeeze us.

The squeezing is the part we hate and pray to escape. It’s also the part that can lead to what we really want. This is the secret that peaceful, godly people want you to know.

Bad times are good ways to discover the sufficiency of God

When we moved to Texas fifteen years ago the passenger seat floor of our Camry was piled with tissues filled with my wife’s tears. Leaving family and a new grandson and starting over again in a strange land with no friends brought Brenda to the end of herself. She had been on the way to the end of herself for a long time.

In Scary Hope I describe it this way:

“Lord, how long can she go on like this?”

For years I laid on my back in bed next to my wife, eyes open, praying through the ceiling, arms raised straight up in the air like a dead horse. She was asleep and never knew.

Brenda lived an agitated, anxious life. You didn’t usually notice on the surface, but it was always there inside her like a distracting buzz.

Every day, we all have several issues we live with that are a potential source of anxiety: marriage, finances, children, work, friendships, expectations, health, self-esteem, desires, needs. These issues rotate, may be resolved, disappear for a while, and return. New issues enter the rotation and old ones dissipate. It’s part of life.

For Brenda, her soul seemed to say, “I can’t have peace until all that stuff is fixed.” Which is impossible.

Friends misunderstand you? No peace.

Pain or headache that lasts longer than a day? No peace.

Husband within twenty feet of another woman? No peace.

At every moment of every day for twenty-five years, one or more of these words applied to her: jealous, insecure, argumentative, anxious. It was all under the surface, but busting out in ways that confused a mere husband. It was always mixed with a gentle personality. Gentle and agitated, that was her.

She was a sweetheart and I loved her madly. Her suffering killed me.

One day I came home from work and she was reading a book. She held it out to me, pointed to a page and said, “Is this true?” It was something about the finished work that Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross, not just for heaven, but for here right now.

“Oh, yeah, that’s true.”

That was the moment everything changed

A supernatural peace was born in her. It was a silent, unspectacular turning point. She became a woman of grace, instinctively trusting the sufficiency of Jesus Christ for everyday living.

She had been a Christian for twenty-five years, but still believed there was something left undone in her. Then God personally showed her, in a way I still don’t understand, that all her un-dones were done on the cross with Jesus. And she believed it.

No circumstances changed. We lived in Texas for four more years. All the daily potential sources of anxiety remained. Yet peace and godliness reigned.

Confusion, waiting, regret, and hopelessness squeeze me. I want relief, I want solutions and answers, I want things fixed. I want satisfaction and release from the tension between how things are and how I think they should be.

But, I want these things more than God does. He could snap his finger and fix everything. He doesn’t, so he must have other priorities.

One of those priorities is to develop my personal relationship and intimacy with him. Like he did with Brenda.

The privilege of unresolved problems

King David often woke up in the middle of the night obsessed with thoughts of God. I have never lost sleep because I couldn’t stop thinking of God. Yet even David, the ‘man after God’s own heart,’ did not do well in good times.

He was much closer to God, much more alive spiritually, when he ran for his life, needed rescued, and lived with unresolved problems. When times were good he disengaged from his kids, got lazy, had an affair and then covered it up by killing the husband. Prosperity was his enemy. But the bigger his problems, the more intimate he was with God.

Unresolved problems must be a big deal. It must be good for me and pleasing to God for me to really experience his sufficiency personally, and not just know it in my head. It must be a big deal because he’s always creating or allowing opportunities for me to find satisfaction in him alone.

Usually, however-and knowing better-I still try to find my greatest satisfaction in solved problems. But the peace that comes from solved problems is not the same peace that comes from God.

The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let you requests be made known to God.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

- Philippians 4.6-7

The scent of people who personally experience God’s sufficiency

They are peaceful because they have abandoned control of how things turn out. They have given that control to someone they are convinced is trustable. They have experienced the sufficiency of the one they trust. They have accepted squeezing. That scent is the aroma of God.

Remember a time when you felt super close to God? What was happening in your life?

Next Monday: Your junk is not wasted

* * * * *

The Everything Fits affirmation. Each Monday we look at one part:

Everything about my life, everything that happens

- the family I was born into

- the circumstances I have experienced and find myself in

- my personality and DNA and wiring and gifting -

is engineered or permitted or governed by a sovereign, just, loving God who always has three good things in mind

1) to develop my personal relationship and intimacy with him

2) to accomplish his purposes in the world, and

3) to further his own awesome, unmeasurable aims that are bigger than my ability to understand.

Therefore, whether it’s past, present, or future, I can have confidence and peace that somehow, someway, Everything Fits Even When It Doesn’t, and I will trust and cooperate with God in the fitting.

by | 20 Comments
« Older Posts
Copyright © 2013 · Gary Morland · Design by Design by Insight