Do we use fire well?

In thinking about the use of social media, I heard this description of it:

"Social media is like fire. It is good when you are freezing and need to warm up a little and sit by it for a while. You can also use it to burn down a barn."

And this one was also useful:

"Social media is good for communication but connection happens between people."

Living courageously

I have just read the most brilliantly insightful book right now. Actually, the truth is I am reading and re-reading it, underlining in it, taking notes from it, quoting chunks of it to friends and recommending it to everyone I meet. The book in question is called, "Daring Greatly," by Dr Brene Brown. The sub title  "How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the way we Live, Love, Parent and Lead," and, in my opinion, is the second most transformative book I have ever read (the first being the Holy Scriptures, commonly known to us as the Bible).

Dr Brown is, in her words, a shame and vulnerability researcher. Her work, which is the result of wading through over 100s of pages of data over the course of several years, discusses why we human beings struggle with being vulnerable and letting ourselves be seen, really seen. A summary of the book might be as simple as this: realizing that no matter who we are, where we have come from, whoever our parents are (or are not), we ALL struggle and wrestle with the question, "Am I enough?" Dr Brown's conclusion is that people who believe in the depth of their souls that they are "enough" are the ones who live wholeheartedly. They live believing that they are worthy of love and belonging. She adds, all of us, every human being, will experience shame and the ones who truly believe in their worthiness, their "enoughness," the ones she calls, "wholehearted,' are those who have learned shame resilience. They are not shame resistant, they are shame resilient. They have learned that healthy connections with other human beings involve putting themselves "out there" and sometimes that requires unlimited amounts of courage and developed strategies

I believe this book is essential reading for pastors, teachers, leaders, CEO's, managers, artists, collaborators... in fact, everyone who has any accountability for people (including themselves). It ought to be compulsory reading, especially pastors, for whom I have a particular interest. It's brilliant.

In her introduction, Dr Brown says this:

"The Wholehearted identify vulnerably as the catalyst for courage, compassion and connection  In fact, the willingness to be vulnerable emerged as the single clearest value shared by all of the women and men whom I would describe as Wholehearted. They attribute everything...to their ability to be vulnerable."

It is brilliant. Straightforward, simple and clear. While I was reading and underlining so many words and sentences, I couldn't help but think that we already have a model who has already lived a wholehearted life as described by Dr Brown. 

More to follow on this Wholehearted life...

Getting my life back

In the past week I got my life back; not my physical life, but my entire life; my whole life. It’s 

taken a while, many conversations and reminders of the truth from God’s Word, not to mention some deep internal work and I have realized this by deeply understanding two things. The first is what it means to be a child of the Most High God; completely and utterly loved and there is NOTHING that can take that away from me. The second is connected to being fully loved. If that is the case then I can live free as a child of God through faith. My identity, worth and value do not come from human authority but from the God who has promised to never leave me or forsake me and LOVES me so much it was worth being brutalized and crucified so that I could have life and life to the full. 

The first sermon I preached upon my return to the USA in March 2012 was about the choice 

between life and death. It might seem like a strange concept but every day we are making choices for life or for death. John’s gospel records Jesus saying, “I have come that you may have life and have it to the full.” Jesus didn’t say I have come that you will, or you must or I will make you have life…. He said, “you may.” So it’s a choice for us. Light and life are 2 major themes in John’s gospel as are their opposites – darkness and death. John continues with the life and light theme in his letters. 1 John 1 begins with these words; 

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched, this we proclaim to you concerning the Word of LIFE. The LIFE appeared, we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal LIFE which was with the Father and has appeared to us.” 

What John is trying to help his readers to see is who this Jesus was and is – the Word of life. He wants us to know this and believe it for ourselves. We have to see it for ourselves and then believe that he is the LIFE; that life was the light of all people. John was one of those who got to be with and see Jesus up close for three years and it took some time for John to “get it.” But when he did, he uses every way he can to describe who Jesus was so that we get it too. God is light so live in the light – and LIVE. There is no other way of actually living a real life. Without the fellowship of the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, we are not living; we give the appearance of doing so because we are still walking around and we can still breathe in air and have a form of being alive. 

So John says this is what we have seen and heard and looked at – this is the WORD of life. But 

we have a choice; life or death. We make choices every day that lead to life or to death. We can get mad because something doesn’t work out for us. Someone hurts us and we can either retaliate or figure out ways to hurt back or we can forgive and move ahead. We spend longs hours on a work project and it’s rejected and we develop a complaining spirit or we continue to put in hours of excellence. We rub shoulders with people who don’t hold the values that we deem important and we allow them to define, categorize and label us and tell us stuff about ourselves that’s just not true. We can either allow discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissension, factions, envy, malice, hypocrisy and slander of every kind (acts of our sinful nature) to infiltrate our thoughts and speech and define us. Or we can make the choice of life and live by the Spirit being defined by love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. How much of either of those lists do you see in your 

life – is there more of the latter than the former? It is a choice – always. The more we practice it, the more we will choose life out of habit and that will lead to more life and more of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. 

Choose life – we are all children of God through faith. So if you know God – or rather are 

known by God, allow the Spirit to work abundantly in your life. Don’t do what you think the world needs: do what makes you come alive and that is about choosing life.