How Do Disciples Respond When God Appears Silent?

 

How Do Disciples Respond When God Appears Silent?

 

How do you respond to God’s apparent silence?  The Psalter asks this penetrating question of faith.  The opening verses of Psalm 22 teaches us that hard questions are necessary in the journey of discipleship.  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day and you do not answer, by night but I find no rest.”  Instead of being disrespectful and sacrilegious, these questions reflect a deeply intimate relationship between God and the Psalter.  In addition to David, other notable biblical characters including Hagar, Gideon, Job and Jeremiah ask similar tough questions.  God’s inactivity and absence contradicts everything they were taught about His character and power.  Giants in the history of Christendom like Charles Spurgeon, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr. respectively pondered God’s inertia during industrialization, worldwide poverty in the prosperous twentieth century and intractable American Southern segregation.  Average disciples ask their personal versions of the Psalmist’s provocative questions.  Are there times when your life’s circumstances equate with incontrovertible evidence that Almighty God has forsaken you? If yes, how do you respond?

 

These startling questions are so aptly worded that they speak for any disciple experiencing a difficult time.  The Psalmist straightforwardly asks God, “Why have you forsaken me?’  Immediately, childhood Sunday School lessons resound within our ears.  “God does not leave nor does He forsake anyone who believes in Him.”  There are as many Old Testament verses that affirm this assertion as there are New Testament ones.  Consider Deuteronomy 31:8 and Joshua 1:8. Still, lingering unemployment compounded by sporadic health challenge and accompanying medical bills and intractable age discrimination combine to eclipse God’s presence.  Then, there is mounting bewilderment when a disciple prays fervently only to see his situation worsen.  How do you explain that irony?  How does a disciple pray faithfully and earnestly for God’s favorable intervention only to be on the receiving end of further silence and indifference?  Asking about being forsaken by God seems a reasonable response.  The Psalter also asks what explains God’s delay in saving him from drowning in the quicksand of emotion and being overwhelmed by the sudden and formidable rush of mighty waters.  What is the distance between the Psalter’s laments and shouts of anguish?  It is as if he sits and cries burning, angry, salty and countless tears and God does nothing.  After a while, those tears turn into bitterness and cynicism.  If God is indeed loving, gracious, kind and faithful, how can He be so indifferent to the Psalter’s pain and suffering?

 

Chances are billions of disciples relate daily to the Psalter’s feelings as they survive a global pandemic.  With the deaths of more than 260,000 Americans and comparable losses in other countries, grief and loss form a huge canopy over the Earth in the year 2020.  Death on the macro level inevitably becomes death on the micro level.  Each of these decedents belonged to families. Easily, bereavement permeates the lives of millions and tens of millions of citizens.  Those dark clouds block the sunlight of divine grace.  More personally, they intensify feelings of demoralization.  In lesser concerns, some disciples linger in the morass of aimlessness and agony.  These despairing feelings eventuate in feelings of mutual contempt.  God’s apparent absence and silence breeds such harsh feelings in a disciple as he suspects God has shown equal contempt for the disciple.  The Psalter indicts God with his eloquence.  “My God, I cry out by day and you do not answer, by night but I find no rest.”  Contemporarily, the Psalter views his life as a cruel joke by day and a never-ending nightmare during the hours of the evening.

Adamantly, I detest and resist the current impulses in Christian circles to squash questioning.  People who refuse to entertain hard questions of faith tend to characterize fellow believers who do as weak, insubordinate and faithless.  In some instances, fellow disciples yell at people who question God and biblical truths when their lives are incongruent with traditional spiritual promises.  Nevertheless, the Psalter’s questions were not accidentally included in the Bible.  There are times when disciples rightly resolve that God has forsaken them.  The corollary question remains, “How do disciples respond when God appears silent?”  As much as I disregard an unwillingness to wrestle with complexities, ironies, contradictions and mystery in believing in God, I disdain simplistic formulas and uninformed cliches.  Simple answers rarely satisfy complex questions.

 

To that end, I offer several experiential suggestions in response to the Psalter’s question.  First, gratitude always yields an affirming perspective.  Thankfulness focuses upon what a person earns and appreciates as opposed to concentrating upon what a person lacks.  Dwelling upon what is missing hardly emboldens anyone.  It forces disciples to compare themselves and their situations with other people.  As everyone is unique, personal differences are not comparable.  Consequently, acceptance of life’s realities is the first step towards resolving challenges.  Acceptance creates open-mindedness to God’s guidance and counsel from other disciples.  Third, clearing the mind and heart of resentments, failure to forgive and other toxic emotions is necessary to become a channel of God’s love and peace.  Harboring poisonous emotions and thoughts distorts a disciple’s perspective.  This regrettable state of mind prevents personal growth and spiritual progress.  Like cannibals who feed upon their own kind, negativity consumes the mind, heart and soul of its bearer.  Refusal to forgive victimizers particularly eats away at personal health, peace and well-being. 

 

Fourth, visualization of brighter, more rewarding and joyous days avoids paralysis and possible depression.  A disciple in crisis does not have to remain interminably in that predicament.  Envisioning the future with expectancy and hope are practical spiritual tools of progressing beyond today’s struggles.  Those spiritual disciplines are components of resilience which propels disciples toward mission, purpose and destiny.  Finally, hope as borne of affirmations spoken aloud, listening to music and hearing other people’s experiences of spirituality and faithful endurance is a powerfully stabilizing force when living through difficult and inexplicable days.  The belief that a disciple’s life can and will be better sustains him as he travels through “the valley of the shadow of death.”  Elsewhere, the Psalter boldly proclaims, “I am still confident of this, I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”  Summarily, he responds to God’s apparent absence and indifference with reaffirming God’s faithfulness which the Psalter wholeheartedly believes will emerge.

 

Seventh Pathway to Healing - Self-Acceptance

 

Seventh Pathway to Healing – Self-Acceptance

 

Recently, a coworker shared with me that he would turn forty years of age this year.  He asked me what it feels like to be forty.  I replied, “One of the best things I experienced in turning forty was realizing considerable lessening of many fears and freedom from concern about what other people think of me.”  Liberty from other people’s opinions creates greater self-acceptance.  This cardinal spiritual principle is one of the main objectives of spirituality.  Through DNA, fingernails, teeth and other biological distinctions, science and technology prove each human beings’ uniqueness.  Self-acceptance is the surest indicator of progressive healing and growth toward individuation. 

 

This inward journey includes reflection upon previous mistakes and termination of toxic relationships.  The resulting emotional health reignites a person’s ability to dream, create and achieve.  Healing remains dynamically contingent upon personal circumstances.  It is not etched in stone with a definitive date and time.  It is both an intrapersonal and interpersonal process that demands faithful practice of spiritual disciplines. Self-acceptance pragmatically empowers you to put the pieces of the puzzle together in ways that were previously impossible.  The life you imagine with new and amazing experiences, mysteries and joys is attainable!

 

Self-acceptance begins with unvarnished and unequivocal honesty.  It requires forthright recognition of hard and undisputed facts.  Examine life on life’s terms through the prism of reality not the fanciful myths and modern fairy tales of Hollywood.  For eighty-five years, the recovery community insists the beneficiaries of its twelve-step program unconditionally acknowledge their alcoholism and addiction.  To speak at meetings, attendees begin with a self-determinative introduction, “Hello, I’m Bill and I am an alcoholic.”  Whether sexuality, finances, education, cultural and racial origins, acceptance of these facts is critical to inner freedom and personal healing.  It is impossible to live with integrity and relate honestly with people without unconditional self-acceptance.

 

Stress arises when a person refuses to accept any situation for its hard reality.  Do you break into a damp and thorough sweat when you retrieve your daily mail?  Does the balance of your checking account exceed the sum of your current bills?  A negative answer undoubtedly causes paralyzing stress.  What explains the deficit between your financial resources and obligations?  Are you living beyond your means?  Your failure to accept this truth perpetually creates mounting stress in all dimensions of your life.  You are unable to fall asleep as you mentally juggle the payments of overdue bills.  Sleep deprivation undermines your job performance.  It threatens the quality of your driving.  It zaps your imagination.  It drains your energy to pursue your heartfelt dreams and goals.  It leads to repeated mistakes of judgement as you cannot clearly evaluate people and situations when emotionally depleted and physically tired.  Late payments result in higher interests, fees and lower credit ratings.  Those regrettable outcomes unsurprisingly compound your stress.  Unwillingness to admit unhappiness in a significant relationship whether personal or professional is a precursor to immeasurable stress.  Consider your sacrifice and intimacy toward someone or something that no longer enriches your life.  Simply stated, stress develops immediately when we fail to deal with realism.

 

Acceptance is the first step toward overcoming any dilemma.  Glare straightforwardly at your concrete circumstances.  Ironically, problems contain clues to prevention.  If we willingly embrace our problems, we learn to be more creative and effective.  In the Chinese language, the words, crisis and chaos, contain characters that hint toward creativity.  Natural disasters provide an opportunity to build better, safer and more durable homes.  Many survivors of Hurricane Katrina shared their re-evaluation of spiritual principles, personal values and everyday priorities.  Having loss every single material possession, these men and women stared at the abyss of destitution and realized they still had the most valuable things in life, love and relationships.  The need to rebuild their lives in the hurricane’s aftermath created a different set of values.

 

Seventh Pathway to Healing - Self-Acceptance - Part II

 

Seventh Pathway to Healing – Self-Acceptance – Part II

 

Suffering the ravages of extensive unemployment due to age discrimination equates with surviving a natural disaster.  It is as if one experiences a tsunami of mind and psyche.  How do make sense of a job in which you do not utilize any of your education, prior work experience or talents?  How do you reconcile a commitment of seventy hours or more to a position that absolutely drains your mental, emotional and physical energy?  You do not have any resources left for passions and hobbies that connect your imagination and dreams.  It is hard to read, write, study, create and meditate when your current job severely depletes your internal battery.  Nonetheless, were you willing to accept this hard, unfair and inexplicable reality, then the eyes of your mind and heart will open to new vistas.  Is it possible that this most horrible situation could become the very best opportunity for you? Conceivably, the loss of your job hurls you into your midlife crisis.  Were you previously squandering your time and talents like pouring water into a leaking bucket?  Acceptance affords you the chance to rewrite the script of your life and make significant edits. 

 

Unconditional acceptance is a precondition to seeing new possibilities.  Wallowing in bitterness and resentment imprison you to the past.  It yields an emotional drunkenness which prevents you from progressing with your life.  Complaining and arguing are just toxic.  A correlation exists between complaining and an inability to be creative.  Arguing absorbs illimitable intellectual energy that you could devote to entrepreneurial interests.  Debating leads to tunnel vision as you sanctimoniously defend your self-righteous position.  Acceptance empowers you to cease complaining in exchange for creative insights.  Howard Thurman, the premiere African American Baptist mystic theologian, offers “No one wins a fight.”  Consider the incalculable expense of time and money you lose within any fight.  Honestly, I wish I could rewind the hands of times and erase any lengthy fights.  Ultimately, I did not receive what I thought I justly deserved.  Moreover, had I “surrendered to win,” I could have used those resources toward more useful purposes.  Arguing and debating distracted me and distorted my outlook.  Had I accepted my powerlessness to change those situations and the people involved, I would have discovered new possibilities within myself.

 

Acceptance necessitates periods of withdrawal for self-discovery and self-mastery.  Many respected historical and spiritual persons retreated to the wilderness or desert.  There, they reconceived their understanding of God who became a living being to them instead of the conceptualization of a religious institution.  They established an intimate relationship with this Supreme Being.  Henceforth, they listen to Him rather than relying upon self-justifying religiosity.  Learning to listen to God begins within an isolated setting.  There, the noise and busyness of daily life cannot drown out His voice.  The wilderness compels self-preservation and survival.  Food is plentiful but requires skills to obtain.  Discernment is necessary lest you inadvertently consume poisonous items.  These natural images depict similarly necessary changes in our personal lives.  Living the lives we imagine demand self-discipline and self-acceptance.  To acquire these divine attributes, listen to the inner voice of God.

 

Living “one day at a time” and “accepting life on life’s terms” are two spiritual tools the recovery movement offers its adherents.  There is no legitimate excuse to return alcoholism and other forms of addiction.  “Liquid courage” and “colorful imagination” will not alter any hard past or present realities.  Accepting our experiences and limitations empowers us to heal from them.  The past is perfectly unalterable.  Healing from childhood and formative trauma necessitates unconditional acceptance of those experiences.  Were your grandparents and parents good, kind, giving and loving people?  Were they mean, hard, aggressive and demanding?  Did they consider your siblings and you as burdens to be borne to earn social respectability?  Did they tell you that you owe them?  Did their actions leave you wondering why they became parents?  Would you have had a better chance of actualizing your talents and potential had you been reared by someone else?  Did your nuclear family fail to appreciate you and your unique personality?  These are difficult questions.  I suspect they are frightening.  Accordingly, most people will not ask them.  However, asking these tough inner questions and accepting the innermost truths they yield are effective and substantial means of healing.  Hard answers often reveal new pathways to acquiring the life you seek.  If you affirmatively answered any of these questions, accepting those tough truths position you to forgive the people who harmed you.  Your forgiveness liberates you from the clutches of their influence.  You no longer need or desire their validation.  As an adult, you self-determinatively pursue the life you always imagined.  No one else possesses the power to decide for you.  You understand your inherent right make life’s fundamental decisions relating to work, love and beliefs.  Sifting through the debris of the past with hard questions uncovers inner assets which you may not discover otherwise.

Seventh Pathway to Healing - Self-Acceptance - Part III

 

Seventh Pathway to Healing – Self-Acceptance – Part III

 

“Keep It 100!”  That colloquial phrase is a millennial admonition to “face facts” in resolving any dilemma.  Young adults insist upon unequivocal honesty.  They will not tolerate misleading phrases or “double speak” from older adults.  That language reeks of deceptive motives.  Straightforwardness is preferable.  Otherwise, it is hard to resolve any difficult situation.  Millennials demand that people deal with them in good faith.  This spiritual maxim is as necessary within individual healing as it is within interpersonal relationships.  To heal, you must be one hundred percent honest with yourself! Dispense with tendencies to whitewash your pain or rationalize it.  Making excuses for people who deliberately harmed you does not erase their actions.  Giving deference to them because of their age, status or relationship is equally unhelpful.  Acknowledging their imperfections and incapacities does not absolve their deeds.  In unapologetically stating what was done and who did it, you interestingly recognize your inner strength that enabled you to survive.  Moreover, you harness resilience to transform your injuries and scars into assets.  This type of healing and its resulting rewards is only possible for persons who willingly embrace truth.

 

Avoid the pitfall of appearing in your own reality show.  Occasionally, it appears less burdensome to process the truth by embellishing facts.  As memory fades, it is easy to lessen the effects and emotions of trauma.  “Maybe things weren’t as bad as I recall them.”  “They did the best they could with what they had.”  “They truly meant well.  After all, they are my parents.”  “They didn’t know any better.  They did what was done to them.”  This revolting sentimentality hardly excuses the deeds of people who harm you.  Rehearsing them relegates you to be a perpetual victim.  Melodrama is not a substitute for life.  Creating a false narrative achieve nothing helpful.  Exchange this warped outlook for a clear “20/20” vision of your life.  Accept it as it emerged and continually unfolds.  In so doing, you receive God’s grace which empowers you to rewrite the script of your life.  Self-acceptance furthers your resolve to be who you are.  Pursue your dreams and goals without needing other people’s approval.  Maximize your potential.  Self-acceptance is the beginning of living the unique life that your Creator means for you to enjoy.

 

Beware of Hollywood and its profound ability to affect our thoughts and emotions.  Some people are unable to accept love and concern for their spouses, children and extended family because they are not the Cleavers, Waltons, Ingalls, Bradys or Cosbys.  These fictional depictions of nearly perfect families distort many people’s understandings of family relationships.  It takes tremendous and intentional effort to cultivate healthy, functional and supportive relationships within any family.  Blended families like the fictional “Brady Bunch” require a minimum of six years to establish genuinely encouraging relationships.  Television, movies and social media’s facile portrayals of love gloss over the pain of unrequited love, infidelity, betrayal and other hurtful components in relationships.  Pining for a fictional and ideal relationship accomplishes very little.  Instead, being present emotionally and mentally with another imperfect but honest and well-intentioned person is the surest way to grow in love.  Developing greater communication, trust and respect for each other, you and your significant other have the best chance to build the best possible relationship.  Longevity in romantic, familial and business relationships is the gift of persons who humbly accept each other.  Couples who celebrate silver, golden and diamond anniversaries learn to accept each other.  They cease fallacious attempts to change each other.  They relinquish silent and unreasonable expectations.  They discard lingering resentments. They extend the benefit of the doubt to each other.  In acknowledging their own character defects, oddities and limitations, they allow each other to be perfectly human.  Simply stated, as couples accept each other.  They grow gracefully together in the mystery, experience and joy of love.  Acceptance open the pathway to a “perfect love that casts out fear.”

 

Seventh Pathway to Healing - Self-Acceptance Part IV

 

Seventh Pathway to Healing – Self-Acceptance – Part IV

 

Self-acceptance remarkably eliminates internal and external strife.  A childhood and lifelong friend spent twenty years pursuing a heartfelt dream.  For most of that journey, he repeatedly engaged interpersonal battles inclusive of filing complaints, lawsuits and appeals.  It seemed he was unable to relate collegially and peaceably with anyone.  He lived for a fight.  He was easily offended.  He vociferously defended himself.  Inexplicably, he thrived in perpetual turmoil.  Its concomitant melodrama made him feel alive!  However, he overlooked his inner challenges and his neediness that demanded respect and desired affection from everyone. The vacuum created by his childhood trauma became so huge no one and nothing could fill it.  Amazingly, a day dawned on which my friend called me to share a personal revelation of newfound self-acceptance.  Previously, I suspected and accepted this aspect of his character and life.  His sharing was not news.  It enabled me to reaffirm my love as a friend and reiterate my best wishes that he enjoys love, happiness and peace.  More incredibly, once my friend achieved this dimension of self-acceptance, he immediately ceased fighting with the world.  Resolution of old battles unfolded quickly.  His insatiable thirst for conflict dissipated.  He made better choices relating to collaborating with people who would assist him in achieving his goals and dreams.  A favorable confluence of relational and professional circumstances permitted him to succeed in a fraction of the time he previously invested.  Interestingly, self-acceptance liberated him to live in harmony with everyone. 

 

As we cease striving for external validation, we release twisted perceptions that other people must compensate us for our childhood trauma.  Accepting the incontrovertible fact that life is fundamentally unfair is a prerequisite to achieving self-acceptance.  Why do some people begin life with clear advantages?  Why do other people suffer more than their counterparts?  Why are talented, intellectual and gifted people born in the poverty of Appalachia, rural austerity and inner-city neighborhoods?  Will fate be kind to these human diamonds in the rough?  Why are average and less talented people easily given positions of authority for which they are not qualified?  Nevertheless, God blesses each person with at least one unique gift that can change his or her life.

 

Self-evaluation is one of the most critical aspects of self-acceptance.  Highly respected spiritual persons withdraw from worldly affairs to examine themselves.  What is the state of their interior life?  Do they still harbor bitterness and other toxic emotions?  Do they suffer with unresolved emotions? Have they forgiven all persons who have ever harmed them?  If not, do they pray for willingness and grace to forgive?  Do they daily examine their motives relating to business, family and personal relationships?  Self-evaluation resembles the quarterly business practice of taking inventory.  At the end of each season, managers and owners examine balance sheets, merchandise, personnel and operations to determine assets, liabilities and profitability.  They strengthen and protect assets.  They neutralize and eliminate liabilities.  Their assessments yield the need for immediate changes in personnel and operations.  Are there unnecessary duplications of positions and procedures?  Should they consolidate or eliminate positions?  How can they streamline operations to increase efficiency, productivity and profitability?  How can they cut costs and lower overhead? If they make changes, will there be a marked difference at the end of the next quarter?  Applying these business principles to intrapersonal and spiritual living, you look squarely at your interior life for strengths and weaknesses as well as abilities and incapacities.  You accept your good traits while honestly recognizing disadvantageous habits.  In Jungian terms, you embrace your internal light and darkness.  Willingness to serve and share may be obvious components of your character.  However, clearly seeing the size of your shadow where you harbor toxic emotions and vengeful thoughts is equally important.  In accepting both sides of yourself, you relate to other people with integrity.  As you wrestle with your weaknesses and incapacities, other people’s opinions and judgments diminish in worth and influence.  The need for external validation evaporates.  Healing progressively unfolds in your life as you extend to other people the grace which you find inwardly.

 

Sixth Pathway to Healing - Peace

 

Sixth Pathway to Healing – Peace

 

A spectacular geographical setting near the southernmost tip of the African continent, Cape Good Hope, vividly illustrates the sixth pathway to healing, peace.  A major attraction of Cape Town, South Africa for international tourists, Cape Good Hope enjoys a Mediterranean climate of mild, rainy winters and dry, balmy summers.  Respective daily temperatures fluctuate between 68 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit.  This breathtaking and picturesque spot on the Earth enjoys a vast and diverse botanical life.  The region sustains more than 6000 types of plant life.    Wildlife, lighthouses and whales further adorn this natural museum.  Cape Good Hope is an impressive background to the city of Cape Town.  Most dramatically, the Cape is one of the places where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet.  These natural resources symbolize what happens to a person who willingly strives for and attains holistic healing inclusive of inner peace.

 

It is amazing to think of standing near the southernmost tip of the world and observing the convergence of two huge but disparate bodies of water.  The Indian Ocean is the warmest and accordingly has little capacity to support marine life.  The temperature of the water can be as destructive as lava.  In contrast, the Atlantic Ocean is the most supportive of fishing and marine life.  It also contains rich oil deposits and natural gas.  It is the source of sustenance of life for the four continents it directly borders.  This contrast between oceans parallels the internal duality of the human mind, heart and psyche.  To acquire inner peace, finding balance within your character is necessary.  You utilize your heat to neutralize or eliminate character defects.  The lessening of those qualities enables you to concentrate upon your creative and life-enhancing side.  However, if you fail to devote time and attention to spiritual development and energy to personal growth, you will experience eruptions of storms in your life.  The recovery community teaches us the uncompromising and unequivocal necessity of spiritual maintenance in daily living.  Balancing your assets and liabilities will yield unquestioned inner peace.  It will be as if you reside on Cape Good Hope.  Within that existential space, you will enjoy wealth, health, self-expression and peace.

 

Parenthetically, geographers deem the characterization of Cape Good Hope as the southernmost point of Africa as a common misconception.  The tourist business that perpetuates this idea will not yield to an exacting academic correction.  Human geographers concur that Cape Agulhas is the actual southernmost tip of the African continent.  It is a hundred and nine miles southeast of Cape Town.  Regardless of whether you agree with the commercially successful tourist industry of Cape Good Hope or the geologically and factually correct scientists, the analogy holds.  Whether standing on the edge of Cape Good Hope or Cape Agulhas, these marvelous natural and geographical places symbolize spiritual balance and possibilities for enduring inner peace. 

 

Nevertheless, to achieve internal peace, resign from the debating society and purge yourself of the toxic emotions of constantly fighting with others and yourself.  Conflicts inevitably have winners and losers.  Emotional turmoil is continuous as you replay every word and action looking for ways to defeat your opponent.  If you lose, you resent your adversary’s victory; you even resent yourself for losing.  Resentment accumulates as you lick your wounds and strategize for your next moves.  Chances are your battles with other people become personal even when no one intends any offense.  Convinced of their sinister motives, you resolve to recompense this insult and attack upon your character and dignity.  You obsess upon righting this wrong and balancing the scale. You refuse to swallow this humiliation.  This inner turmoil also includes anger, fear and bitterness.  Hot lava represents the furor that hardens within your mind and heart as you fight essentially every waking hour.  It is not surprising that you cannot experience any semblance of peace when you flood your being with this intensity of emotional toxicity.  If you genuinely desire peace, stop fighting with other people.  Also, stop fighting with yourself.  Accept other people’s incapacities and your character deficits.  Once you take off the gloves and step out of the ring, you can direct that passion towards more meaningful activities.

 

Once you cease fighting with people and causes, you invest previously squandered emotional and mental energy in acquiring integrity.  I no longer strive to be right about every subject.  Before, if I were right, then someone else by default was wrong.  Who determines who is right and who is wrong?  I now invest in establishing an opinion or position after a deliberative process of reading, research and evaluative synthesis of all ways of knowing.  Realizing I am a prisoner of my prism of experience, I accept that I suffer with a blindside as I engage any issue.  Unless I question my presuppositions, they will overtake my investigation and lead me to incomplete or intellectually dishonest positions.  Hopefully, I demand of myself that I explore available evidence and data.  As it relates to public policy involving average people’s lives, I need to hear from directly affected persons as their experiences are as reliable as documents, data and other evidence.  Instead of justifying myself, I commit to historical, critical and analytical methods; specifically, prioritizing people above ideology.  Rather than debating anyone, I choose to learn with other people with whom I can converse.  Seeking inner peace, I hold myself to a high standard of learning honestly.  I further cultivate humility to learn especially from persons with whom I disagree.

 

Fear, anger and resentment block your imagination.  They additionally rob you of any peace you may feel.  When you live in fear, you cannot enjoy life.  Your health, mentally and physically, suffers as you dwell in a prison of limited possibilities.  You want liberty.  You want your soul to sing openly and freely.  However, fear leaves you locked mentally and creatively within a cage with a wide-open door.  Its paralysis steals success, happiness, health, joy and liberty in addition to peace from you.  Fear and anger create a lethal cocktail that poisons your mind and heart.  These twins motivate you to make mistakes.  They ruin your relationships as you become suspicious of everyone.  In worst case scenarios, this warped thinking matures into revenge which is all-consuming.  This emotion enslaves you to squandering your talents, abilities and resourcefulness on settling an old score.

 

 

Sixth Pathway to Healing - Peace - Part II

 

Sixth Pathway to Healing – Peace – Part II

I know a disciple who once kept a resentment list of two hundred and fifty-six people.  He wrote down the names, dates, places and multiple offenses that each of these persons committed against him.  Averaging ten offenses per person, he had memorized nearly three thousand instances that thrust him into anger, fear and resentment.  What an incredible and immeasurable waste of this man’s intelligence, intensity and imagination.  Consider what he could have accomplished had he redirected his talents and time to other endeavors.  His creative channels were clogged with emotional vitriol thereby preventing him from producing anything constructive.  A correlation exists between creativity and complaining.  They cannot occupy the same mind.  If a person engages a creative project, he does not have time to complain.  If he begins to complain during the task, he will crease being creative.  Resentments which means to relive an experience compel a person to complain about the unfairness of a past injury.  Each time he thinks of the incident, he thirsts for revenge and justice.  Silently, he condemns God for doing nothing about the situation.  He burns with furor that the fugitives who violated him were never made to pay for their crimes.  Consider the inner turmoil that imprisons this disciple.  Within a flash of a thought, he descends at the speed of light into the quicksand of anger, fear and resentment.

 

To achieve inner peace, this man needs to purge himself of the oceanic toxicity that lies within him.  The first step of his catharsis is a fundamental choice to stop rehashing these memories.  He can burn the list and resolve not to make another one.  The positive emotions of that ritual will soon evaporate.  To lead a new life free of venom, he needs to accept himself unconditionally.  As he does, he will no longer need affirmation from others or punishment of victimizers to be content.  He will cease to be like Lot’s wife who looked back and turned to a pillar of useless salt.  Moreover, when this man accepts himself, his inner tempest dissipates.  I posit that external conflicts cloak inner strife. When a person stops fighting within, he finds himself embroiled in fewer if any outside battles.  Self-acceptance empowers a person with graciousness and compassion for himself which he then generously shares with everyone.

 

As forgiveness is another pathway to healing which I discourse upon in a separate section, I briefly mention its necessity in obtaining inner peace.  It is impossible to realize inner peace if you refuse to forgive anyone.  Any failure in this spiritual discipline means you continue to harbor emotional and mental sewage.  In the crevices of your mind and closets of your heart, you store anger, resentment and bitterness.  A part of you is a nuclear waste dump where potentially radioactive materials lurk in unseen areas, threatening your creative abilities and corroding your dreams and goals.  These hazardous thoughts and feelings slowly but surely poison your being.  They imprison you to the past thereby ruining your present and destroying your future.  To extricate yourself from this existential prison, you must unconditionally forgive anyone who ever injured, disrespected or offended you. 

 

If you have not yet forgiven some people, pray for willingness.  Almighty God will bestow encouragement and empower in response to your earnest prayers.  However, recall the reciprocal requirement of forgiveness.  To receive God’s mercy instead of His righteous judgment and punishment, you must extend the same to anyone who deserves it.  When you relinquish your right to retribution and restitution thereby agreeing to erase the offense, you release yourself from captivity.  I know several persons who would not forgive their offenders.  In time, their fury, vengeance and cynicism turned inward.  It metastasized into cancer and other lethal illnesses.  Forgiveness purges you of toxicity that erodes your inner being.  It further liberates you to enjoy your unique and creative life that God intends for you.  Knowing inner peace begins with forgiveness.

 

As it relates to monetary gain and wealth, good stewardship yields peace.  Debt indicates imbalance between resources and expenses.  In the United States, the banking class and complicit wizards of Madison Avenue trained average consumers to live in debt.  Over the last four decades, American citizens accumulated trillions of dollars of unsecured consumer debt.  This mountain of financial obligations siphons much needed resources from monthly budgets.  Debt is one of the most substantial threats to Christian families.  As I write, I add the interest that I have paid to creditors over the decades of my professional life.  I am ashamed to admit that I could have purchased and retired the mortgage on a nice house with the amount of interest that I have paid to creditors.  Nevertheless, as I dedicate myself to achieving debt-free living, I expect to live with a new peace and freedom.  I shall no longer cringe when my phone rings and vibrates.  I will not break into a sweat when I retrieve the daily mail.  Anxiety about unpaid and late bills will not commandeer my mental energy and imagination.  I will live with liberty to create, develop and produce to the glory of God. 

 

To dwell in peace as it relates to money and material gain, balance is important.  When do you have enough?  A study relating to happiness asked respondents how much money they would need to be happy.  Everyone stated a need to double their current income.  Persons who earn $50,000 annually wanted a raise of one hundred percent thereby earning $100,000.  The people who were earning at that level said they needed $200,000 per year.  Not surprising, within a year, respondents wanted to double the increase.  This survey indicates the lack of good stewardship and an inability to be grateful.  People increased their spending and raised their standard of living instead of saving and building wealth.  As they outgrew their houses, cars, clothes and other possessions, the raises led to doubling the square feet of their houses.  Their monthly mortgages and property taxes increased too.  If disciples fail to be grateful, they will continue to enslave themselves to debt.  Peace comes to persons who cultivate gratitude as a consistent spiritual discipline.  Thankfulness enables disciples to live debt-free which in turn empowers them with liberty to answer God’s call to myriad ministries because they are not constrained by the ball and chain of unsecured debt.

 

Another component of financial peace is having the resources to enjoy life as fully as possible.  A Christian spiritual teacher posits, “Absolute altruism is as worthless and meaningless as absolute greed.” God does not ask us to dwell in rachet poverty to do His work.  He also does not demand emasculation of our unique personalities.  He made us with our quirks, warts, oddities and preferences.  These characteristics distinguish us from other people and qualify us for tasks that only we can accomplish.  In our hobbies, passions and recreational activities, the Lord renews us.  Those periods of fun, laughter and sheer thrill from athletics, arts, culture, cuisine and entertainment refuel us for ministry.  One of the premiere twentieth century African American Baptist theologians loved baseball.  During the summer and early fall, he rearranged his schedule to accommodate his spiritual need to watch the boys of summer.  I once worked with a Belgium priest who was a huge fan of the New York Yankees.  He spent the summer on leave from his parish in Brussels to serve as a Catholic chaplain in one of the teaching hospitals on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  The parsonage where he stayed coincidentally was located twenty minutes from Yankee Stadium.  A very prominent Bible scholar, pastor and author of many books is an avid outdoorsman who hunts, fishes, hikes and camps. A mounted eight-point white tail buck and an authentic black bear rug adorn his living room.

 

Sixth Pathway to Healing - Peace - Part III

Sixth Pathway to Healing – Peace – Part III

 

One of the most popular Southern Baptist pastors in the United States possesses photo credits that rival journalists of major national newspapers.  This clergyman devotes his sabbatical days to spending time in natural picturesque settings.  He takes the most captivating photos placing the viewer within the brook, mountain range, valley, ravine and forest.  From angelically painted fall foliage to majestic ski slopes to verdant meadows teeming with colorful plants to the astonishing symmetry of perfectly sown beds of a tobacco field, he allows people to travel the world with their imaginations.  A Scottish born pastor with a charge in Minnesota often references his passion for golfing.  Whether baseball, hunting, photography, golfing or myriad other hobbies, these pastors find renewal and fresh ideas during this time away from ministry.  I suspect their creative muse joins them in these outings.  In their subconscious, they write sermons, essays, memoranda and books.  However, they need funds, equipment and resources to facilitate their recreation.  As they serve faithfully, they have the right to enjoy activities that rejuvenate them.  They need finances to purchase tickets, guns, clubs and cameras.  How sad and possibly resentful and bitter they would be if they could only imagine these hobbies.  There is nothing wrong with servants of God partaking of hobbies and expending requisite resources to enable their pastimes.  Excess and greed would negate this reasonable allowance.  Yet, there is nothing sinful about the foregoing men and their families having money, time and means to engage in activities that equip them to achieve and succeed in ministry.  Peace demands attaining balance between ministry and recreation as well as finances and fun.

 

Holistic health includes mental, emotional, physical and spiritual components.  A popular definition of insanity declares, “Insanity is taking the same actions and expecting different results.”  Sanity conversely is soundness of mind which equates with mental balance and rationality.  Extreme emotion means you are mentally unbalanced.  Rage and passion are two of the chief motivations of murder.  Their ferocity deadens the mind’s reasoning abilities.  Before an enraged person realizes his “insanity,” someone is dead.  To live in peace, it is imperative that a person systematically trains his mind to avoid overreacting.  As with the necessity of balance in the mind, it is equally required in matters of the heart.  Lust is more emotional than it is mental or physical.  Easily, it leads to sexual promiscuity and infidelity.  The maniacal desire to lay with someone eventuates in the loss of moral, ethical and spiritual principles.  Imbalance compels you to compromise yourself to your base instincts.  You digress to your animalistic dimension and forget your higher self.  Lust for position, power and money yields betrayal, deceit and theft among other crimes.  Unbridled lust can irreparably damage personal and professional relationships.  It results in duplicity whereby you can use someone for your own gain without any regard for his or her dignity. 

 

Physical health is necessary to maintenance of health in all other components of your life.  As corny as it may sound, health is wealth.  Without consistently good physical health, you experience severe limitations in actualizing your purpose and destiny.  Debilitating diseases such as diabetes, heart problems, high blood pressure and renal challenges undermine disciple’s creativity and contributions to expanding Christ’s kingdom and developing a more just and equitable society.  In the American Church, we face the hard reality that obesity and its residual causes of death threaten millions of good and loving Christian people.  Many of our brothers and sisters die young and early from preventable illnesses.  Good stewardship of the body which is the temple of God is as important as discipline and balance in all other areas of life.  To enjoy peace, you need good physical health.  Otherwise, lack of mental, emotional and physical health inevitably creates a vacuum which addiction readily fills.

 

“Live one day at a time.”  In the Sermon the Mount, Jesus teaches the crowd, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”  (Matthew 6:34 – KJV) Maintaining spiritual health is a daily practice.  In its most practical sense, spiritual health is integrity, which is the perfect symmetry of reason, principles and character. Inner healing and wholeness require diligent practice of spiritual disciplines.  Many people believe a dramatic and transformative conversion experience comprehensively instills integrity within disciples.  That experience is a catalyst as it begins a lifetime of change and progress.  The Apostle Paul did not become the great evangelist, teacher and church builder to the Gentiles on the Damascus Road.  He began his forward march toward fulfillment of his destiny on that day.  For the first time, Paul genuinely hears the voice of the Lord and listens to Him.  Ironically, in Paul’s blindness, he sees God and finally apprehends the basic theological doctrine that “God is love.”  With neophyte fever, Paul with restored eyesight enthusiastically preaches Christ.  He alarms other believers as they suspect Paul of duplicity.  In His infinite wisdom, God removes Paul from preaching and evangelizing.  For fourteen years, Paul leaves the public circuit for inner preparation.  In that time, the Lord taught Paul what His love really means and how disciples demonstrate God’s love with integrity.  Essentially, Paul learns the clearest knowledge of God’s love is practical demonstration of it.  Paul’s ceases his bloodthirstiness towards the Church and becomes one of its greatest purveyors.  His integrity emerges one day at a time.  Spirituality is a potent means of healing from formative and childhood trauma.  It empowers you to resolve daily adversities.  As you utilize your spiritual toolbox, you reinforce mental and behavioral patterns that yield spiritual health and inner peace.

 

Genuine self-expression is an outgrowth of peace.  In another section of this extensive discourse delineating seven pathways to inner healing and wholeness, I discuss self-acceptance.  It is rudimentary to holistic personal health.  The ability to accept yourself as unconditionally as God does is the main prerequisite to living happy, joyous and free.  You are grateful for the unique life which God gives to you.  You actualize gifts, talents, and endowments of your distinct personality.  You no longer need to apologize, explain, defend, excuse or justify yourself.  Self-expression is evident in your clothing, fashion, intellectual interests, vocation, mission, and artistic preferences that reflect your authenticity.  Moreover, self-expression increasingly develops as you acquire self- knowledge, love, mastery and acceptance.  Psychoanalysts use icebergs as symbols of the depth and substance of the human personality inclusive of the conscious, subconscious and unconscious.  They posit ninety percent (90%) or more of our characters is hidden.  Nine-tenths of an iceberg is hidden beneath the surface of the ocean.  Consider a huge iceberg that can sink a large cruise ship.  As it relates to human personality, the unconscious equals the undisclosed portion of an iceberg.

 

Achieving self-expression necessitates greater self-knowledge.  Essentially, you embark upon a treasure hunt within the oceanic depths of your being.  You find out who you are and what lies within you.  That knowledge emerges in theoretical, experiential, relational and entrepreneurial dimensions.  Reading books and taking classes will offer some internal insight.  Application of social science methods, philosophy and logic will further assist you in self-discovery.  Theories from various psychological schools of thought coupled with intellectually respectable ideas from prevalent self-help authors combine to offer additional techniques of self-analysis.  Then, your day-to-day experiences within work and other settings undoubtedly reveal previously hidden dimensions of your character.  You realize who you are when you reflect upon your choices and behavior within a crisis.  Arguably, experience is a more definitive teacher than any theory.  A corollary of experiential learning is relational knowledge.  Anyone can be perfect by himself.  Consider assets and liabilities of character that unfold with the crucible of your professional and personal relationships.  Entrepreneurial knowledge crystallizes as you tackle problems.  Whether personal or societal, problems coerce you to dig deeply within and cultivate resources to resolve them.  Your attempts to solve problems reveal what your talent and abilities are.  In its various dimensions, self-knowledge is a primary key to attaining inward peace.

  

Sixth Pathway to Healing - Peace - Part IV

 

Sixth Pathway to Healing – Peace – Part IV

Self-knowledge prepares you to succeed in self-mastery.  Periods of withdrawal from daily busyness and weekly routines are necessary to master one’s self.  You must know who you are.  Self-mastery demands a hard and honest self-assessment.  Straightforwardly, examine your assets and liabilities.  Accept light and darkness in your character.  Enumerate your strengths and weaknesses.  You evaluate your recent progress in healing.  Do the locusts of fear, anger, regret, and resentment continue to eat away your harvests of happiness and health?  Are there any persons whom you still have not forgiven?  Equally, are there any people whose forgiveness you need?  Do you owe anyone or any organization financial restitution?  Are there any relationships that necessitate reconciliation?  What would you need to do to accomplish restoration?  Are there items in the dream file of your mind and heart that continue to collect dust?  Is there anything that particularly bothers you? 

How will you neutralize or eliminate your weaknesses?  How will you expand your assets?  Are you happy, joyous and free?  If not, what would do you need to attain this blissful state in daily living?  Are there any lingering character defects that impede your progress in living the life you imagine?  Do you still suffer with unresolved formative and childhood trauma?  Are you unable to reciprocate verbal and emotional affirmation because you did not receive it?  Do you have difficulty with physical intimacy with your spouse or significant other?  Do you live in a cerebral cave to protect yourself from emotional harm?  Are you afraid to feel?  Do your passions scare you?  Are you one of the peculiar people who schedule spontaneity? I could ask a thousand additional questions.  Personalize them to enhance your periods of self-reflection.  Both questions and answers lie within the depths of your personality.  As you embrace self-mastery, you more greatly acquire the power of the Holy Spirit to heal past pain and progress toward limitless and unconditional peace.

 

Happiness is perfect self-expression.  Unless you accept the unique life that God gave you, joy will elude you.  God did not create you to be a cookie cutter impression of anyone else.  You have abilities and endowments which only you can actualize.  These gifts ideally complement your mission and purpose.  If you work outside God’s intention, you will fail.  It should not surprise us when we fail at jobs for which we are ill-suited and mismatched.  Well intentioned force fitting coupled with fierce dedication still will not garner success.  It is important to discern your purpose and work therein.  Further, it should not surprise you if you are restless and discontent when you do not pursue your heartfelt interests.  To achieve and maintain inner peace, you must embrace work, hobbies and other activities that make your life meaningful.  Be who you are!  Grab the proverbial bull of life by the horns and take the ride of your life.  Happiness depends heavily upon your willingness to understand and accept your divinely given and uniquely imparted life.

 

Self-love and self-acceptance fit together as a hand does in a tailored glove.  The seventh pathway concerns self-acceptance in detail.  However, self-love is intensely practical.  It includes pursuit of your wholehearted dreams and goals which connect to your spiritual and existential lifelines.  Knowing your purpose defines your life and gives it significance.  Learning to trust your gut and inner insight in defense of your creativity is good stewardship of your talents and abilities.  Reason, knowledge and passion are keys to knowing one’s self.  Self-awareness inevitably leads to inner peace. 

 

Peace is not the absence of outward conflict or internal turbulence.  It is sustained presence of perfect self-expression.  It is a divine gift emerging from an interdependent relationship with God that empowers you to persevere through life’s adversities.  Tranquility is a state of calm without noise, violence and anxiety.  It is an inner state of being that unfolds from unconditional acceptance. Make an alliance with the past wherein you do not close the door on it, but you utilize its lessons to help other people.  This act of emotional and mental surrender emboldens you to forgive anyone who ever hurt you.  Your acceptance of the past as complete and perfect produces the resolve to live an unimaginable life.  Endurance within your personal adversities culminates in triumph over them as truth and humility manifest in your character and life as integrity.  In its simplest form, living congruently with principles, passion, purpose and practice yields inner peace and wholeness which combine to be an effective pathway to healing.