Re-reading this text this morning, and just had to share it:

It’s an illusion created in part by our own conviction that our unrestrained natural impulse is in itself a good thing and that we have an unquestionable right to fulfill our natural impulses so long as “no one gets hurt.”  

Where have we gotten this idea about “doing what feels good”? The unrestrained hedonism of our own day comes historically from the 18th-century idealization of happiness and is filtered through the 19th-century English ideology of pleasure as the good for people. Finally it emerges in the form of our present “feel good” society—tragically pandered to by the popular culture and much of popular religion as well.

Isn’t the most generally applied standard of success for a religious service whether or not people feel good in it or after it? The preeminence of the “feel good” mentality in our world is what makes it impossible for many people now even to imagine what Paul and his contemporaries accepted as a fact of life. Our communities and our churches are thickly populated with people who are neurotic or paralyzed by their devotion and willing bondage to how they feel. Drug dependence and addiction is epidemic because of the cultural imperative to “feel good.”

Dallas Willard, Spirit of the Disciplines, 99-100

Whether you consider yourself conservative or liberal, if you consider yourself a Christ-follower, this quote should really give you pause and challenge you.

Have we so bought into the cultural mindset of “feeling good” that we have lost the ability to seek instead a common good that may actually be bigger than our own agendas?

If what we seek is spiritual growth and maturity, our drive to minimize our own perceived short-term suffering does us no favors in the long run.

For years I struggled to figure out my “why,” meaning my response to the question, “Why am I on this planet?”

For me, the why had to be more than money, or fame (wasn’t very good at achieving either), or even impact. 

Around 2002 I stumbled across a simple formula that pointed me in the right direction (by the way: the answer to this question can take years—and a fair amount of quiet listening—to uncover/discover), and continues to be a “north star” for me. 

It’s simply this: I found my why—or vocation, if you wish—at the intersection of my deepest joy and the great needs of the world. 

(“Deepest joy” is the reason that money or fame won’t get me there. Those things melt away. “Deepest joy” is a joy that is somehow immune or inoculated against the pressures of time and circumstance.) 

So what’s at that intersection for me? Just this: 

My deepest joy is creating, communicating, and teaching in order to serve people who desperately want to know that there’s Something More to life, and who are hungry for transcendence. 

That’s it for me. If you don’t know your why, I wouldn’t necessarily encourage you to take mine, but I would encourage you to do your own work, sit with your own story, and ask yourself what’s at the intersection for you. 

After prayer and meditation, there are three things that I consider non-negotiable and that I try to do each and every morning. 

1. I write daily gratitudes, mostly a reflection of the previous day. What has God done for me, either over the past 24 hours or even in my life in general? 
2. I choose, and write down, my intention for the day. What do I want to be throughout the day? How do I want to approach the coming 16-18 hours? 
3. I write down my three biggest areas of focus and concentration. What are my three absolute priorities in my life? FYI, these are bigger than mere “goals”. These are more like the foundations from which everything else stems. 

I remember hearing a Navy seal refer to each day of his life (even after he was retired) as a “24 hour mission,” and staying clear on the “mission priorities” is essential for me. 

Over the past year, Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God has been incredibly impactful and meaningful for me. 

This little book has called me back again and again to be challenged by the simplicity and directness of Brother Lawrence, a French monk who lived in the 1600s. 

I believe that any truly effective spirituality must be able to be lived anywhere, anytime. 

It should be simple (not easy), and not require a special time, or special place in order to be effective. 

(This is NOT to say that special gathering times and places are not HELPFUL; merely that effective spirituality should be day-to-day, lived out in the sometimes muck and mire of a “normal” human life.) 

Brother Lawrence came up with a version of that spirituality. 

You really should read the book for yourself, but regardless Brother Lawrence offers a short summary of his approach, which I’ll share here. 

(Brother Lawrence shares his “method” in a letter, but it’s telling to me that he writes to the recipient that he shares his thoughts, “only upon the terms that you show my letter to nobody.” How’s that for humility? Just to be clear: Brother Lawrence himself didn’t publish The Practice of the Presence. It was collected and published after his death by someone else.) 

So here’s how he describes it: 

1. He began with a decision to give himself wholly to God. 
2. He renounced everything that was NOT God. 
3. He began to live as if there was no one and nothing in the world except He and God. 
4. He occupied his mind with different aspects of his relationship to God, such as a Father to a son, or a judge to a criminal. 
5. He attempted to keep his mind entirely occupied like this (and yes, it was difficult), and whenever he found his mind wandering he returned to it, again and again. 

This last part is key, because our minds WILL wander. And when his did, Brother Lawrence just re-purposed his mind back to God, WITHOUT condemning or “troubling or disquieting” himself. 

Praying, “Your will be done,”

(Or “Thy will,” if you’re old school)

Can sometimes be easy… probably TOO easy.

But then you pause and reflect on what you’re REALLY signing up for.

Because the truth is I really, REALLY want my will to be done, most of the day, most every day.

And when my day doesn’t turn out perfectly, I usually have a strong—often negative—reaction to it.

… I get depressed, or angry, or resentful.

But as I think about it now, most (let’s be honest, virtually ALL) of that depression, anger, and resentment comes about because the word didn’t turn out the way I would have preferred.

So REALLY, my prayer is, in fact, “MY WILL BE DONE.”

That’s not healthy for me, nor is it what I TRULY desire, and I have to remember that:

a. Life is not about me-my comfort, my desires, my perspective
b. God either IS, or he is NOT
c. My job is FIRST to accept life on life’s terms, which means at least CONSIDERING the possibility that what might be happening to me, for better or for worse, might be God’s will for that day.
d. SECONDLY, my job is to ask—particularly in the face of challenging or disappointing circumstances—”God what should I be learning right now.”

That’s just for me. Signing on to “Thy will be done” is serious business. It’s not easy, but it’s simple. And I believe it’s the way to “true life” for me.

When all else fails in your day, you can fall back on this: 

Life is lived 24 hours at a time. 

You can’t control tomorrow, you can’t change yesterday. 

All you have is here and now. 

Biblically, you might say it this way, “His mercies are new every morning.” (Lamentations Ch. 3)

Some days, you just have to “call it,” and say, “I’m not sure I can do any better today…” 

(Making sure to ask forgiveness where necessary…)

“…But I can just close the door on today, trusting that tomorrow will come and I will have another chance to do/be better.” 

When all else fails, you still have another chance tomorrow. 

This is a way to keep moving forward and not get stuck in today’s failures (or successes for that matter.) 

There’s this great story at the end of John’s Gospel (“Good News Story”). Jesus is talking to Peter, one of his followers, and Peter makes some remark about a third follower, and wants to know will happen to this other person. 

Jesus replies to him, basically, “What’s it to you? Why should you care?”

Part of living in humility is surrendering our pathological need and desire to change other people. To debate them. To assume—without invitation—the role of truth-teller (prophet) or teacher. 

We think it’s always our job to correct error, or to share what we “know” in order to “enlighten” others and show them how brilliant we are and how wrong they are. 

(Yes, those quotes and italics are intended.) 

Some of us, at times are, in fact, called to be teachers and truth-tellers. 

But my sense is that most of the time I just want to tell people off and convince them (and myself) that I’m right.

But living a life of humility (and, I daresay, healthy spirituality) requires sometimes listening to the spirit of Jesus say to us, “What’s it to you? Why should you care?” 

Everyone is on their own unique journey. 

Furthermore, I am only human, and it shouldn’t be a shock or a reach to consider, if only for a moment, that maybe, just maybe I don’t have all the answers. 

Sometimes daily, tactical humility involves surrendering my “right” to teach or argue with others, and to trust that they are on their own journey through life. 

If humility has an “antithesis” or opposite, it’s pride. Certainly pride is having an exaggerated view of oneself, of believing that somehow you are better than others, or that somehow you “deserve” everything you’ve obtained in the world.

But there’s actually another, even more subtle way to think about pride. 

Pride is anything that separates you from other human beings. 

When you think about pride in this way, it opens up whole new (and often troubling) ideas to consider. 

Because it means that pride can happen, not only when we are dwelling on the POSITIVE things that set us apart from others, but also our NEGATIVE behaviors and personality traits. 

To say it another way, cultivating humility does not mean practicing shame.

When you are thinking that somehow you are the worst person in the world, you are dwelling on something that sets you apart—and makes you unique—from other people. 

True humility is not thinking of yourself as necessarily worse than other people, it’s actually not thinking of yourself at all. 

True, deep humility can be a whimsical, others-centered, way of being and living that is centered deeply in a secure peaceful awareness of a God who loves you. 

It’s almost counter-intuitive, but true humility—self-forgetfulness—happens when we are so sure about who we are in God that we are free to completely focus on the moment and on others. 

Humility is the “skeleton key” to spirituality. It opens the door to a journey of wonder, of transformation, of love and peace and contentment. 

I think that the reason that humility is so powerful is that humility seems to start with some version of “I don’t know.” 

At some level, it is a renunciation of our pride. 

We no longer have to have all the answers. We no longer have to be right. 

We can just “be,” and learn to know that being—with all of our imperfections and “lumps”—is enough. 

So maybe today can be a day when you begin to appropriate a little humility, not only towards God/the Universe, but also towards other people. 

(Which is infinitely harder to do, but bears just as much fruit as humility towards your Higher Power.) 

Release yourself from having the answers today. It’s a gift.