Wounded Heart, Tender Heart

January 15, 2013 — 1 Comment

“Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.” 1 Peter 3:8

If you are in relationship with people in any way, I know at least two things about you. First, I know that you have been deeply wounded by people you trust. Second, I am equally as certain that you have deeply wounded people who trust you. I know you’re probably wondering where I acquired this penetrating insight into your life experience. A phrase I’ve learned while in the City of Refuge ministry supplies the basis of my assertions: “Hurt people hurt people.” But that’s not all we do. Hurt people also go to extraordinary lengths to protect themselves. Continue Reading…

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Brotherly Love Is No Second-Rate Love

January 7, 2013 — 2 Comments

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“Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.” 1 Peter 3:8

“I love you, but like a brother.” With these seven words, the hearts of untold multitudes of starry-eyed boys have been hurled from the cloudy heights of true-love-found onto the merciless ground of reality. We can recover from the crash and even go on to form solid, lasting friendship with our not-so-true-love.  After all, being loved like a brother is a not bad thing. But it still comes as a major letdown when your heart is set on more. It’s a bit like trying out for the varsity team and being told you’d be a perfect fit for the junior varsity team. Continue Reading…

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With Sympathy

January 2, 2013 — 2 Comments

“Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.” 1 Peter 3:8

I’m not a very sympathetic person.  Mercy has always been the lowest ranked of all the gifts when I do Spiritual Gift inventories, a fact that solidifies my assertion that this is how God made me. I’m truly grateful for those bighearted people whom God has gifted with mercy. I’m also grateful I’m not one of them. Honestly, it’s not that I don’t care about people; it’s just that I don’t care for their emotions. Ask my wife. Before we benefited from about 150 hours of counseling, any time her feeling meter nudged anywhere north of a flat-line it triggered my internal spinning wheel of death. I’m talking complete deer-in-headlights shutdown. Sometimes my response was to vacate the premises as quickly as possible and lay low until she had reined in her unruly emotions. More often, though, I attempted to swiftly vanquish those unwelcome feelings with my best advice, correction, and teaching (I was a PASTOR, after all!). I’m fairly certain that if you had hooked me up to an EEG in those moments, I would have been declared legally brain dead. Continue Reading…

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Disciplining the Mind & Heart to Embrace Biblical Community

December 22, 2012 — 2 Comments

Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 1 Peter 3:8

The mystique of rugged individualism runs through American culture like my kids through a toy store- it’s everywhere all at once and even when you can’t see it directly, you can easily trace its disheveled path. We rightly revere the strength and resolve of those who heroically stand alone against overwhelming odds, and the “self made man” is one of the most romanticized characters in our national stories. While our staunch individualism is the root of numerous virtues including the American work ethic and spirit of entrepreneurship, unbalanced individualism has some serious liabilities. One drawback to our hyper-individualism is that we seldom seriously consider our roles as community members, if at all. Whenever we do consider our role in community, we do so through the filter of individualism. Viewing our role in community through the filter of individualism, we reason: “I am an individual; this is who I am, therefore what community works best for me?” Continue Reading…

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Praying Intentionally for Biblical Community

November 30, 2012 — Leave a comment

When I read the words of Paul to the Ephesians, as when I read most of Scripture, my feelings of fear and inadequacy are revealed by the thought, “There’s no way! I don’t have what it takes to do this!” Following this thought, my typical response is to channel my inner MacGyver and start feverishly improvising whatever “good” behaviors I can from the spiritual duct tape and paper clips lying around. Incidentally, it never ends as well for me as it always did for MacGyver.

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My Toughest Discipline

November 27, 2012 — Leave a comment

I know that it is essential to my health, but it’s really hard to get motivated. Besides, it’s next to impossible to find an open window of time to do it. When I do make time for it, my motivation quickly wanes and I’m torn by thoughts of all of the other pressing things I need to be doing. And it’s impossible to avoid the uncomfortably vulnerable feelings that always come: “I’m not sure I really belong here.” “What do the other people here think about me?” “I wonder if anyone sees how difficult this is for me?” “Am I doing this right?” “I feel ridiculous. I’m sure I look even more ridiculous.” “I hope no one sees what a pathetic weakling I really am.” To top it all off, most of the benefits are frustratingly long-term rather than the immediate results that I always prefer. Although sometimes I feel energized immediately afterward, usually I just feel exhausted. Still, I know how important it is, so I am once again re-committing myself to the discipline of authentic community.

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The Painful Reconciliation of a Famous Father & Son

November 17, 2012 — 1 Comment

CNN is running a story about the strained relationship and reconciliation of father and son pastors Charles and Andy Stanley. This excerpt was powerfully transparent:

Few would question Charles’ toughness, but during that time he revealed another side. He stopped treating Andy as his enemy.
He started treating him as his only son.

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The #2 Pencil As an Illustration of Community & Cooperation

November 15, 2012 — Leave a comment

This short video is a fascinating story of how complex something like a simple pencil is, and how it’s very existence is dependent upon countless the labor and resources of countless people.

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Thoughts for Thursday

November 15, 2012 — Leave a comment

In a message titled Love and Lust, Timothy Keller speaks briefly but powerfully about the significance of covenant in cultivating authentic relationships. He says that covenants create a “zone of security and safety, a place where you can always be yourself” in contrast to culturally more common “consumer relationships” in which one is “always marketing, always selling yourself, having to perform and meet the needs of others or you’re out.” Keller says that covenant creates the relational environment where we can stop spinning, marketing, and selling our “best” self at the expense of our authentic self.

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The Power of Vulnerability

October 24, 2012 — Leave a comment

A couple of nights ago I was browsing TED Talks and watched a very moving talk about shame. This was particularly providential, as an hour earlier I had returned home from meeting with a group of guys with whom I share the struggle of sexual brokenness. The main topic of our conversation that night? Shame. It was a brilliant and very helpful talk, which I will share at another time. However, the information provided for the Shame talk indicated that it was somewhat of a follow-up for an earlier talk on vlulnerability. That definitely piqued my interest. During the next twenty minutes, I could not scribble notes quickly enough. I promise you, if you can spare twenty minutes to watch this talk, you will be grateful for the time that you invested. It will challenge, and possibly help change, the way you relate to yourself and others.

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