"The First Duty of Love is to Listen"

“The First Duty of Love is to Listen”

“The first duty of love is to listen.”  The neo-orthodox theologian, Paul Tillich, offered this profound thought.  It reminds us of foundation of fluent, effective, respectful and loving communication.  Many disagreements which mature into harmful arguments originate in miscommunication.  The failure to listen mainly causes poor communication and its natural consequence of weakened relationships.  Anger and frustration are by-products of feeling unheard.  One usually responds with hardening one’s positions and justifying one’s feelings.  Such a stance inevitably puts one at odds with an equally passionate and resolved person.  As spouses, parents, siblings, colleagues, friends, genuinely listening to another person’s feelings and thoughts is one of the greatest acts of love that we can give.

Social and behavioral scientists inform us that eighty-five percent (85%) of communication is non-verbal.  Actions do indeed speak more loudly than words.  We men what we do more so than what we say.  As a parent, I realize that consistency and discipline are the most significant means of communicating my directives, desires and principles to my children.  My words possess little value in comparison with my actions.  When I follow through with the potential consequences of violating my orders or ignoring my instructions, I receive immediate obedience from my children when issuing similar instructions.  Essentially, my children listen with their eyes as well as with their ears. 

Loving by listening necessitates that we take the time to learn what is meaningful to others by observing their habits and use of time and talents.  I recall a story in which a wife repeatedly asked her husband to make it home for dinner with the family.  Her treasured memories of family meals made this important to her; she wanted the same enriching experience for her children that she enjoyed by having her parents’ attention during that hour of the day.  Her continual requests fell on deaf ears as her husband worked late at the office and expected to be served his meal upon his arrival at home.  His wife gave one final verbal request with detailing the consequences were he to be late again.  On the following evening, he once more demonstrated that he had not heard his wife’s heartfelt desire as he arrived after the children had been sent to bed.  He further found all of the pots, pans and food had been put away.  He had to retrieve all of these items; serve his food; warm it in the microwave and set his place setting. Facing these consequences enabled this man to listen with his eyes so that he finally heard his wife’s words.  From that night forward, he arrived on time for dinner with his family.  He ultimately heard how important this family tradition was to his wife.

Listening as an act of love requires us to strive to better understand other people.  To grasp a different or opposite opinion often necessitates listening with the heart.  We deliberately intend to suspend our reservations and sympathize with the opposing position.  We put ourselves in that person’s shoes and try to imagine the issue from his or her vantage point.  Are their assumptions, experiences and predispositions that contribute to your spouse’s feelings, thoughts and positions?  Would taking the time to consider these better enable you to understand him or her?  Listening with the heart evokes the words of the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.  In that immortal set of petitions, he asks that he may seek to understand more so than to be understood.  Practically speaking, this means giving the other side the benefit of the doubt instead of assigning blame or ill-gotten motives to them and their thoughts.  More significantly, it means divesting ourselves of self-centered fears and self-seeking motives in order to consider sincerely the legitimate needs of another person.

Clarification of words, feelings, intentions and actions usually resolves most miscommunication.  This lengthy and difficult process pays tremendous relational dividends.  My wife and I find it helpful to inquire periodically of each other whether we are meaning to be the way that we are experiencing each other.  “I’m experiencing you as adversarial, angry, impatient or sarcastic.  Are you meaning to be this way?”  In response, “No, I mean the following.”  Many people laugh when we share this communication ritual with them.  However, for fifteen years in which we have spoken every day regardless of where we were in the world, we have found this mechanism effective in preventing useless arguments and brewing harmful resentments.  It is a very practical means with which to practice the first duty of love which is to listen.

As he begins a prayer for the church at Ephesus in the first chapter of his letter, the apostle Paul asks Almighty God to open the eyes of their hearts to enlighten them to God’s will.  He concludes the prayer at the end of the third chapter by petitioning God to show the Ephesians the height and depth and the breath and width of God’s love in Christ.  This immeasurable, sacrificial and enduring love is a divine gift offered to us in marriage, family, and friendships.  It unfolds and appreciates from the spiritual practice of genuinely listening to those persons whom we love.  This duty of love means we understand our loved one listening to them with the eyes and ears of the mind and heart.

"Work the Solution and Not the Problem"

“Work the Solution and Not the Problem”

We live in a cynical age.  Generations X and Y and the Millennials possess an inbred disdain for authority.  Their disregard for their elders and people in leadership positions emerges naturally and understandably from observing the protracted lack of integrity displayed by such persons.  Moral failure and questionable ethical behavior have become the norm.  We expect it from leaders in all facets of society whether government, academy, athletics, entertainment, religion, or healthcare.  Anticipating negative outcomes inevitably seals a perpetually dismal outlook upon life.

Personally and practically, we arise daily and digress mechanically to seeing all of our problems.  Quite possibly, we spend lots of time and energy polishing our problems until they sparkle.  It stands to reason that a gleaming problem is not a gift.  Despite its shine, it still threatens our well-being.  A polished problem delineates the demands on our time and resources necessary to resolve the dilemma we face.  If we are not deliberate in defining and resolving our problems, we lapse into the modality of chasing after them.  Hence, I encourage you to forsake the prevalent skepticism that an undue allegiance to the scientific method as the sole basis for determining truth yields.  Dwelling upon the “facts” limits our consideration of possible solutions to the challenges that we face.  Today, let’s resolve to work diligently for the answer rather than expending ourselves ineffectively by focusing upon the problem.

It is conceivable that many people conclude that one never resolves the deep-seated pains and disappointments of childhood.  Consider the promises that your parents made but did not fulfill.  What about the hurtful names that you were called?  How many people remain on your resentment list because of the things that they did and said to injure you?  Will a dawn unfold when you may think about these things and they do not cause you to cringe or become angry again?  Does replaying these emotions and experiences help to process them?  Maybe, such remembrances deepen the wounds or more clearly refine the scars?  Yet, we remain in need of inner healing and wholeness.  How shall we obtain it if we concentrate upon the pain and never progress to finding its purpose?

Ironically, problems inherently possess solutions if we analyze the challenges through the eyes of faith.  Recently, I learned of a woman who became a successful businesswoman because of a problem that she faced caring for her aging aunts.  Her search for a care giving firm that would provide medication reminders, prepare meals, light housing cleaning, rides to doctor’s appointments and daily companionship for her aunts until she returned home from work yielded no leads.  Finding a non-existent market to address her needs, this woman proceeds to create one.  She successfully opens one of the first in-home care agencies for senior citizens who are still relatively independent but need some assistance.  These types of businesses have proliferated throughout the country as the numbers and percentages of seniors increases considerably as the “baby boomer” generation retires.  In fact, states licensing is necessary in most regions of the nation.  This woman chose to work the solution rather than concentrate upon the problem.  Her resolution favorably affected the lives of countless other seniors and their families as a new option for elder arose.  The answer was embedded in the problem itself.

Additionally, a friend of mine shared an interesting true story of a man who similarly made resolving his dilemma the focal point instead of centering his mind on the problem.  We will call him Jim henceforth.  Jim had been employed for several years as the main custodian of a church in Harlem.  By all accounts, he had performed with distinction; to boot, Jim is a likable guy who enjoys of the good graces and kindnesses of the people with whom he works.  As circumstances of life would have it, a new pastor was installed at the church.  This pastor insisted that all persons on the senior staff had to have a college degree.  Because Jim did not have one, he was terminated and wished well in his new endeavors.  On his final walk from the church toward his apartment, Jim made a life changing observation.  He noticed countless smokers within a forty-block distance.  But, there were no tobacco shops.  Evidently, all of these people who lived and worked in this area had to travel elsewhere to buy tobacco products.  Jim arranged his financial affairs and opened initially a tobacco kiosk on the street.  In time, he replicated this many times over.  Actually, Jim became a millionaire!  Had he not worked the solution instead of the problem he probably would have remained an underemployed and limited church custodian.

It is so easy to see the obstacles and thereby forsake the opportunities that are buried beneath the rubble of adversities.  After a major natural disaster such as a hurricane or tornado, does it make sense to count the pieces into which the house has been broken?  Likewise, can we effectively resolve our childhood injuries by incessantly analyzing them?  By getting the people who have harmed us to capitulate to the exact details their dastardly deeds, will we find the healing and liberty that we desire?  Rather, I posit that we stand to gain more from the experience when we determine that we shall convert our adversities into advantages.  “Tough times do not last; tough people do.”  Conquering and transforming difficult episodes builds character and hope within us.  Moreover, it assures us that we possess the internal resources to face every daily challenge with the fortitude that undoubtedly results in our success. 

Work the solution instead of the problem!

CSI of Faith - Luke 18:1-8 - Part One

The CSI of Faith – Luke 18:1-8

Perhaps, you enjoy the three versions of the crime show, “CSI” which air weekly on a major television network.  Based alternatively in Miami, New York and Las Vegas, this show centers upon the work of the Crime Scene Investigative Unit of the local police force.  Various officers “work a crime scene” as it were to determine how exactly how a murder, accident or some other type of crime was committed.  Moreover, they utilize the latest technology and scientific advances to simulate the actual crime and reliably demonstrate how perpetrated the crime. 

I found a recent episode particularly intriguing because of the use of trigonometry.  Using a few miniscule facts, the officers input this information into a computer program which ran this data mathematically and determined the exact location of the crime.  Heretofore, they had been guessing where the crime scene was.  This fascinating use of math made me realize that I was as lucky foregoing math in college as I had thought previously.  How I wish that math had been taught from such a practical perspective when I was in high school!  I most certainly would have taken more of it.  I have come to realize that owning a home and cars is a longstanding algebraic equation, considering all of the factors that one must balance to keep them functional and appreciating in value.  Nevertheless, I greatly appreciate the meticulous technique of these fictional police personnel in painstakingly following the trail of the evidence in order to accomplish justice.  Their methods of science and math are not my forte.  However, they lend themselves to spiritual appropriation and application.

Interestingly, there is a “CSI” of faith.  Instead of the techniques of a “Crime Scene Investigative” Unit, a believer can practice the mantra of “Consciousness – Spirit – Intentionality” when reaffirming his or her healing of past hurts.  As children of our loving Heavenly Father who seek inner healing and wholeness, we forget what lies behind us and strive forward, pressing toward the mark of the high calling of Christ Jesus.  We do not allow the past to define us.  We do not judge ourselves today by who we were yesterday, nor do we allow anyone else to do so.  Rather, we maintain the daily practice of spiritual disciplines which solidify our healing and make us whole persons before God and humankind.  The Christian mystic and hermit, Carlos Carretto, in his compelling book, Summoned by Love, posits that an unconditional acceptance of our position as a son or daughter of God is the most healing and liberating event in life!  In order to gain this acceptance, the eyes of one’s heart must be open.  One cannot see one’s self as a son or daughter of God with the natural eyes.  They too often look with the myopia of culture, consumerism and the free market.  In contrast, I suggest that one must be constantly vigilant with mental consciousness, sustained by the Holy Spirit and emotionally and psychologically intentional about seeing one’s self as a son or daughter of Almighty God.

The character of the persistent widow demonstrates perfectly the “CSI of Faith.”  This woman holds within her mental consciousness an idea of justice which she absolutely refuses to relinquish.  The chilling indifference of a judge who neither fears God nor cares about the thoughts of others does not compel her to surrender.  Myriad philosophers of the Stanford Philosophy Encyclopedia refer to the “canvass of consciousness.”  Practically speaking, one paints a very vivid picture of the dream, ambition or goal that one pursues.  A widow who probably did not have a son to take care of her, this woman might have been cheated out of the bequest that her husband left her.  Conceivably, she may be on the verge of poverty unless her money was restored.  The text does not divulge the specific details of her legal case.  Yet, she sears a definitive resolution for justice into her consciousness and unrelentingly pursues it.

Her example encourages us to look inwardly and view the canvass of our consciousness.  What lies on the emerging mosaic of our minds?  What pictures are we painting during periods of prayer and silent meditation?  What images fuel us toward action and achievement?  This widow’s mental consciousness defines her purpose for living until she receives the justice that she previously determines she deserves.  Similarly, a God given goal or dream will comprise our raison de’tre (reason for being or living).  It is simply amazing that we as believers in the risen Lord can wander aimlessly through life.  As a son or daughter of God, we emulate His love.  We have The Great Commandment which requires that we love the Lord with our whole being and our neighbors as ourselves.  The Great Commission instructs us to share the love of God with others in gratitude for is gracious gifts of inner healing and wholeness.  Unless we maintain this eternal purpose on the canvass of consciousness, we easily digress to the past with its old wounds, frustrating fears and broken promises.

Utilizing holy imagination, I suspect that this widow may have painted a grand picture of a purposeful, peaceful and prosperous life on the canvass of her consciousness.  After healing from her bereavement, she plausibly found a “new normal” and a need reason to live.  Possibly, she found some service to God and humankind to which she would devote the remainder of her life.  That resolution in turn gave her a new joy, freedom and happiness.  This peace, however, became contingent upon her ability to obtain justice in her case.  Consequently, her financial and material well-being are equally subject to the outcome of her legal proceedings.  In order to realize the life that she envisions, she must retain her quest for justice on the canvass of her consciousness until it manifests concretely.

CSI of Faith - Luke 18:1-8 - Part Two

CSI of Faith - Luke 18:1-8 Part Two

What sustains this widow as she persists in her multiple appeals for justice?  The parable teaches us “to always pray and never give up.”  This woman personifies perseverance.  I speculate that the Holy Spirit gives her the fortitude to “keep on keeping on” until she receives a just outcome.  I surmise that the judge probably says to himself, “This woman simply will not go away!  I wish she would just accept my rulings and leave me alone.”  Actually, I think that he may use language that I cannot repeat.  Nevertheless, the widow’s fortitude coerces the judge to give her what she wants.  We do not know whether the merits of her case and her side of the arguments are the most reasonable and just.  But, we do know that her ability to keep returning to court ultimately yields her victory.  Yet, I posit that she actualizes the power of the Holy Spirit each time she shows up for another hearing.  I do not think that she would have been able to return repeatedly on her own strength. 

Prayer resembles pictorially a stop at a gasoline station.  This spiritual discipline accomplishes within our minds, hearts and spirits what filling up an empty tank does for an automobile.  William Barclay stipulates that prayer centers more upon our personal empowerment that it does upon our expectations of God’s activity.  Periods of prayer equip us with the power of the Holy Spirit, literally the dynamite, necessary to annihilate the fear and hindrances that impede God’s will.  In the case of this widow, she prays each time.  Faithfully, the Lord honors her faith and supplies the courage and wisdom she needs to win.

Intentionality is more than a good concept.  The two ideas are not synonymous.  In its Latin origins, intendere, the word, intentionality, contains the components of “oughtness,” “action” and “directness.”  We successfully accomplish the things that we intend to do.  In a practical sense, intentions always lead us toward the actual achievement of our goals and dreams.  Whereas the canvass of consciousness contains the mental picture, our intentions are the compass that guide us toward the place where our hopes and aspirations reside.  One rarely attains any ambitions that one does not resolutely intend to fulfill.  One has to make up in his or her mind that he or she means to accomplish this task regardless of the costs and circumstances.  Again, intentions are not good concepts.  Many people entertain fleeting thoughts of grandeur about purpose, peace and prosperity all the time.  The American dream supposes that all of us can be rich.  Yet, those of us who are happen to be the ones who intended to become rich, excluding those persons who inherited considerable wealth.  Less than one percent of our citizens hold the Ph.D. degree.  The “ABD” (all but dissertation) failure rate in doctoral programs is upwards of eighty-five percent.  This statistics demonstrate that the people who have doctorates are the ones who intend to endure until they receive one.  This widow intended to receive justice.  She forged her resolve by following the leading of her heart.

This passage ends with a divine promise.  The Lord pledges to grant justice to His children similar to the favorable ruling that the indifferent judge grants the persistent widow.  In fact, Luke asks the rhetorical question, “Will not the Lord also grant justice to His children?”  We have the blessed assurance that Almighty God will orchestrate the myriad details of our daily challenges to bring about justice in our lives.  Admittedly, God’s timing often perplexes us.  Our natural eyes observe our perpetrators laughing, frolicking, and enjoying their lives as they disregard us and the harm that they caused us.  Yet, in the fullness of time, God fulfills His covenantal promises by ensuring that people reap the consequences of their actions.  In accordance with Galatians 6:7-8, God defends His word and His character.  He will not allow people to mock His divine attributes and unending grace.  A fundamentally loving God who loves everyone with an unfailing love, God imposes judgment and punishment as He sees fit and in His timeframe.  Like the persistent widow, we must persevere until we receive a just outcome.

The persistent widow seeks justice against her adversary in a legal proceeding.  Perhaps, you have a longstanding emotional and psychological difficulty that will not heal.  May be, you still possess some childhood guilt, shame and humiliation that seems indelibly blazoned upon your mental consciousness.  Some people make mistakes as young adults about which they fail to forgive themselves.  You can substitute any number of variables and factors to this story.  You can replace the persistent widow.  Nevertheless, inner healing and wholeness is possible!

Practicing the mantra of the “CSI of Faith” greatly empowers one to heal permanently.  You may ask the obvious question, “Can I heal once and for all from these past hurts?”  The answer is an emphatic and resounding YES!  However, healing is contingent upon the persistent practice of painting on the canvass of your mental consciousness an unwavering desire to heal.  You must begin to develop an image of yourself as a healed and holistic person.  I posit that obtaining this image and identity necessitates dwelling on the positive in all matters.  Arresting negative thoughts and words is concrete method of accentuating the affirmative.  Proactively defining yourself as you are today is another one.  Do not judge yourself today by who you were yesterday.  Do not allow your relatives and other people do so either.  Ask the Holy Spirit to empower you with the strength and willingness to embrace healing even when your will and power runs out.  Then, be intentional about pursuing actions that expand and fortify your healing process.  Consider how the persistent widow feels with each action that she takes.  It does not seen reasonable that she sees herself as a victim of circumstances.  Rather, she is an active agent in getting justice for herself.  Similarly, as we pursue new options to live the lives that we imagine, we find inner healing and wholeness.

Consciousness.  Spirit.  Intentionality.

Bible Study Notes - Gospel of John 4:1-26 - Part II

Bible Study Notes – Gospel of John 4:1-26 

Part II

• Her entrenched beliefs will be the basis of her defensiveness later in the conversation.  Like many contemporary Christians, this woman struggles to align her beliefs with her lifestyle.  When questioned about nay inconsistencies, she appeals to the correctness of her theoretical beliefs as justification.
• In an act of pure empathy, Jesus foregoes furthering any controversy about religion. He shifts the conversation to a discussion of genuine spirituality as it develops as a natural outgrowth of a vibrant relationship with Almighty God.
• In employing the symbolism of living water, Jesus demonstrates the limited ability of staid religious beliefs to affect positively someone’s life.  Just as anyone drinking from Jacob’s well at noon on a sunny day in this Middle Eastern town will thirst again, anyone relying upon theoretical religious concepts will still thirst for love, peace, joy and wholeness.
• In contrast, Jesus offers living water which is the Holy Spirit and His fruit which become an everlasting spring of abundant and eternal life within anyone who receives Christ.  The fruit of the Holy Spirit is faithfulness, gentleness, goodness, joy, kindness, love, peace, patience and self-control.  These attributes yield an unimaginable life!  Moreover, they naturally further a growing relationship with Almighty God.  Whether you adhere to orthodox doctrine or not, if you progress in a relationship with God, He will satisfy any existential thirst you have.
• The Samaritan woman immediately asks for living water.  Although, she still relegates her thirst to a physical need instead of spiritual or emotional ones.  Yet, her question ends with a desire to remove the need of returning to the well each day.  Perhaps, her statement signifies the limitations she sees in her religion.
• With loving empathy, Jesus incredulously responds by asking her to call her husband.  This conversation must have been one of the strangest ones the Samaritan woman ever had.  In reply to her request for living water, Jesus instructs this woman to retrieve her husband.  What does her marital status have to do with her desire for living water?  Actually, it is central to her ability to receive it.  Prophetically, Jesus knows she possesses a very deep thirst for genuine, unconditional love.  He senses her tremendous need which ritualistic religion cannot satisfy.  Significantly, Jesus does not raise the issue to condemn or demean her.  He addresses her deepest need and pain.  Practically speaking, he feels her need thereby showing her considerable and incredible empathy.  He switches places with this woman because His heart feels her pain.
• The Samaritan woman answers factually.  She says “I have no husband.”  This fact, however, cloaks her deep emotional, spiritual and psychological need.  Her limited truthfulness demonstrates the inadequacies of her religious commitment.
• Jesus acknowledges the truth of her statement.  Yet, he challenges her to examine the underlying and more significant truth which belies the factual correctness of her answer.  Having been married five times previously and currently living with a man, this Samaritan woman greatly desires love.  I imagine she probably is not older than forty if she has reached that age.  Consider her internal thirst for relational and financial security which she expects to find in marriage.  Imagine the cumulative emotional pain she suffers as she risks again and again to find genuine love.  Ponder the self-condemnation she imparts upon herself as a “serial monogamist.”  Think of the things her mother, siblings, childhood friends and neighbors have said to her over the years.  Then as well as now, society assuredly judges and dismisses someone who experiences this number of marriages.  In stark contrast, Jesus departs from this conventional practice.  He refuses to condemn this woman.  He loves here and desires inner healing and wholeness for her.  Jesus does not humiliate this woman; instead he genuinely empathizes with her hurt and seeks her restoration.
• Regrettably, she reignites the religious and ethnic argument.  She appeals to the mountain on which they are standing as her religious and personal justification.  Whereas she respects Jesus as a prophet, she believes his words emerge from his Jewish beliefs. 
• On the contrary, Jesus redirects the conversation toward genuine spirituality.  In the twenty-first verse, he dismisses her emphasis upon geography whether on Jacob’s mountain or in Jerusalem.  Without any definitive commitment to God with a heartfelt intention to strive for integrity, does it matter where you worship?
• In the next verse, Jesus declares salvation originates with the Jews.  After all, Yahweh makes His initial covenant with the Israelites who are to be a light unto every other nation.  Then, Jesus who is the Lord and Savior of the world is a Jew.  Accordingly, anti-Semitism is antithetical to Christianity.  I refer you to Romans 9 to 11 where Paul details God’s covenantal commitment to Israel even in the new covenant with Jesus Christ.
• The twenty-third and twenty-fourth verses arguably comprise the heart of this passage.  Jesus defines true worshipers as those people who glorify and honor the Father in Spirit and in truth.  Disciples develop a vibrant relationship with the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, the Triune God.  The Holy Spirit is not a religious concept.  He is a Person with whom believers relate in order to know His voice and receive His wisdom.  The Scriptures contain Christ’s truth.  Disciples adhere to the Bible in their lifestyles.  James exhorts us to be “doers of the Word” more so than mere “hearers of the Word.”  Our Heavenly Father seeks worshipers whose lifestyle accords with Christ’s commands. 
• Jesus says God is spirit.  This teaching relegates the enduring controversies about Christ’s physical appearance to meaninglessness.  Ultimately, we are eternal spirits who are born of the Great Eternal Spirit, Almighty God Himself.  To honor and glorify Him, we do so with love, truth, justice, joy and integrity.
• Still, the Samarian woman returns to her religious argument.  She dismisses Jesus’ teachings with a reference to the coming Messiah who will explain divine truth.
• Jesus concludes their conversation with a self-declaration as the Messiah.
• The Samaritan woman discovers genuine faith in Almighty God as she encounters Jesus.  God offers the same privilege to anyone who humbly and authentically receives Jesus into his or her heart.

The Power of Faith and Imagination - Hebrews 11:1 & Ephesians 3:20

“The Power of Faith and Imagination 

Hebrews 11:1 & Ephesians 3:20”

 “Faith empowers the soul to travel beyond where the natural eyes can see.”  That thought caught my eye the other day as I drove by a church sign.  I am glad to have memorized it given the rubber necking intensity of rush hour.  Yet, this particular saying on a church sign, of which there are many sophomoric versions, simply and practically defines faith for daily living. 

As I meditate upon this saying, I vividly recall leaving the home in which I grew up to embark upon my life’s journey on a blistery Sunday morning in January 1980.  Dressed in my best double knit polyester suit, a firmly starched cotton blend shirt, a matching poly blend tie and wearing a pair of black shoes which were probably less than thirty percent leather, I enthusiastically and firmly faced the dawn of that day.  I felt little anxiety.  I asked very few “big” questions about whether things were going to work out as I moved ten states away to take advantage of an amazing and gracious scholarship offer.  In the dead of winter, I did not have sufficient winter clothes for New England winters.  In fact, teachers in my public school system and others community leaders raised money to help me buy winter clothes, a plane ticket, and other essential items.  Buttoning a hand-me-down shepherd’s coat, I adorned my heat with a leftover straw hat that I had won during the previous summer at a regional amusement park and picked up a worn baby blue suitcase and walked across the threshold of the front door and onto the path of my destiny. 

My description of my attire and belongings undoubtedly leads some of you to question whether it was a good that I be allowed to attend an affluent, historic, private boarding school.  Ordinarily, someone from my impoverished background would not be able, for myriad reasons, to enroll at such an elite institution.  A usual analysis would have yielded a benevolent determination that it would have been best for me to remain in my environment and make the best of the hand that I had been dealt circumstantially.  However, the indescribable generosity of the good people of my family, church and town contributed greatly to enabling this irony to become a reality.  Moreover, I contend that my faith in Almighty God and in myself made the fundamental difference.

As you read the foregoing description, you doubtless see the limitations of my resources and the immediately evident potential problems.  Would I fail out of the school?  Would I have enough money to stay until I graduated?  How would I adjust to a different culture of students?  Would the harsh and merciless winters of Massachusetts run me back to the limited and comparably mild seasons in South Carolina?  Essentially, would I be able to make the relational, educational, social, financial, and geographical transitions to succeed?  Interestingly, I did not ask any of these questions or their variations on that Sunday morning twenty-eight years, six months and a week ago.  My faith would not allow me to do so.

Through the eyes of faith, I only saw the limitless possibilities and outstanding opportunities of the incredible blessing that I have been given.  Using the eyes of the soul, I saw a golden door opening for me.  I unwaveringly believed that going would mean a chance of a lifetime.  As I write today, I do not romanticize this experience because I did succeed by the grace, love, mercy and faithfulness of Almighty God.  I assure you that it was not a given that I would.  Actually, my late paternal grandfather who reared my siblings and me did not warm initially to the idea of a fourteen-year-old leaving home to explore vast horizons on his own.  Plus, members of my family, who were shook psychologically out of their existential complacency, weighed in negatively about whether I should be permitted to go.  Additionally, I soon discovered after arriving at Cushing Academy that the adjustments were harder than I had imagined.  Twenty-eight and half years later, I can share with you that I cried incessantly during that first quarter.  What had I gotten myself into?  Would I be allowed to return and readjust to life in Sumter, SC as if I had not left for greener pastures?  Probably, you reached the same conclusion that I did about how I would be received had I returned without a Cushing diploma.  Nonetheless, I straightforwardly focused upon the potential of a lifetime and saw its promises.

The Bible defines faith as the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen (Hebrews 11:1).  In our mind’s eyes, faith becomes the non-corporeal evidence of the promises, goals, and dreams until they manifest naturally.  Faith empowers us to look down the corridors of time and seen the emergence and fulfillment of our hopes and aspirations.  The spiritual disciplines of meditation and imaging enable us to seize success as wait its development.  As you expect a promotion, you may begin to envision a new business card and W-2 form showing the positive and upward change in your salary.  Grab an image of your dream house; move in mentally.  See yourself driving your luxury car.  Envision waking up totally free from fear.  Look in the mirror and see yourself having lost the necessary weight to maintain good physical, mental and emotional health.  Imagine yourself arriving in the airport of another country where you have flown for a missions trip.  All of the foregoing scenarios are possible.  In Ephesians 3:20, the apostle Paul declares that God is able to do “exceedingly abundantly more than we can ask or imagine according to His power that is at work within us.”  These two verses reassure us of the incredible power of faith and imagination.