Who's to navigate and who's to steer...?

On the treadmill the other morning, I was thinking about one of the couples I am counseling—pondering their issues, ways to address them, and approaches to help the couple work through them.

Once again, my Pandora “Oldies” station gave me some food for thought. This time it Dan Fogelberg’s song “Hard to Say.”  When he sang the words “it’s never easy and it’s never clear who’s to navigate and who’s to steer” it hit me. That was the problem! They were having a tug-of-war with the steering wheel.

Driving is easy if you know where you’re going. When you’re in a new place, trying to follow directions, trying to locate and read street signs, as well as operate the car in a safe manner, it can be a difficult challenge. It’s a great benefit to have a navigator. Working as a team—with each person fulfilling their particular task—the challenge is a lot less daunting and you arrive safely at your destination. Smooth as silk—right? Well, as one who has operated as navigator for my husband on multiple occasions, it doesn’t always go smoothly. So what’s the problem and how can we overcome the conflicts and obstacles that arise?

In the first place, it’s important to know your task. The one steering needs to know how to operate the car. The one navigating needs to know how to read a map. In marriage, we need to know the tasks, roles, and functions that are before us as husbands and wives. We come into marriage with an idea of how marriage is supposed to work (or not work) from our parents and our spouse comes in with their own idea (sometimes diametrically opposed to our own ideas). Discovering, examining, reassessing, and adjusting those ideas together as a couple can be a daunting challenge but a very beneficial exercise. If that doesn’t get figured out, there will be a tug-of-war over roles, functions, and tasks…and you’ll get nowhere.

In addition to knowing your task, it’s important to actually do your task.  Once on a long trip, when I was acting as navigator, I became enthralled with the beautiful scenery and forgot about checking the map. As a result, we missed our exit and ended up making about a twenty-mile detour. Yes, that made our trip a bit longer, but it wasn’t horribly drastic. In marriage, both partners need to be on board and contributing to the relationship in order to make it work. One person cannot carry the weight alone. Refusing, or just not bothering, to do your part can have drastic results.

The other side of that coin is that you need to let your partner do their task. Trying to drive and read a map at the same time is very stressful and certainly not safe. Having a navigator grab the wheel to force the car to turn where they want to turn could be disastrous. However, each one knowing and doing their own task and allowing the other to do their task produces teamwork that can accomplish great things.

This teamwork is what marriage is all about—two together, going in the same direction, working toward the same goals, arriving at the destination together. Some couples have gotten so tired of the tug-of-war that (to keep the analogy going) they’ve given up and each have their own car. Teamwork or togetherness only occurs when the cars are parked side-by-side in the garage at night. Separate directions, goals, and destinations.

How about your marriage? Who’s navigating? Who’s steering? Are you headed in the same direction? Do you have the same destination? Are you in it together—or just going through life side-by-side? Take time to talk about it.

Who Are YOU? Who? Who?

So in the mornings when I’m on the treadmill, I have my Pandora “Oldies” station belting out tunes from my teen years. I think it’s an attempt at denial about the years creeping up on me. But in any case, as I walk and have time to listen and contemplate the lyrics, it provides a lot of material for reflection.

One of the common themes I hear expressed nearly every day from my counseling clients—in a hugely divergent variety of ways—has to do with identity issues. They don’t know who they are. They are stumbling through life with no direction or purpose—tossed back and forth by difficult circumstances, traumatized by abusive people, terrorized by the uncertainty of the future.

All of these thoughts rattled around in my head one morning as I was walking and “The Who” belted out their famous song “Who are you? Who? Who?” Many of my clients have no answer.

Identity is intimately and intrinsically tied to purpose. Being able to identify various tools informs us of their use. You don’t try to pound a nail with a snow shovel or remove the snow from your driveway with a hammer. Well, I guess you can try, but it will only produce frustration and be very ineffective and inefficient in accomplishing the task at hand.

So it is with knowing who we are and being able to live according to our purpose. Stumbling along with no identity, no purpose, only produces frustration and heartache. We know inherently that we are made for something different or something more—but what? Trying to find a purpose without first knowing our identity is like using the wrong tool. Our lives are marked by ineffectiveness and are currently frustrating and ultimately unfulfilling. On the other hand, knowing who we are and living with intention produces purpose, productiveness, and peace.

For me—as a Christian— I know that I am fearfully and wonderfully made by a Father who loves me, designed me, and orchestrated every one of my days to shape me into the person I am to accomplish a specific purpose in this world. Knowing this deep within my soul gives me an amazingly solid place to stand as I establish my identity and explore my purpose.

What about you? Do you have an answer? Who are you? 

The Plague of Addiction

It is very interesting how my time of studying counseling has influenced my perspective on a lot of things—including what I see when I read Scripture. Today I was reading Exodus 7 – 15, the account of the plagues and the Israelites deliverance from Egypt. As I was reading about the various plagues and Pharaoh’s reactions to them, it occurred to me that this whole episode is very similar to the cycle of addiction. At first, Pharaoh is not impressed with the plagues and the hardships they present, then he begins to start bargaining with Moses. He says, “Take away the frogs and I will let you go.” But of course, as soon as the plague is gone, he changes his mind. As the plagues get progressively worse, he actually comes to the place where he admits that he has sinned, says that Moses and the Israelites can leave but, as soon as the hardship of the plague is removed, changes his mind once again.

So it is with addiction. Addicts will bargain and agree to whatever is demanded to get relief from the hard consequences, but as soon as the pressure is off, they return to the addiction. It is only when the addict “hits bottom” that true change and healing can occur. There were several “bottoms” for Pharaoh. In Exodus 10:7—after the plagues of the water turning to blood, the frogs, the gnats, the flies, the livestock dying, the boils, and the hail—Pharaoh’s officials say to him “Do you not yet realize that Egypt is ruined?” Everyone else could see the bottom, but Pharaoh could not and continued to insist on his own way. That brought the plague of the locusts and finally the death of the firstborn of all of Egypt, including Pharaoh’s son. That was finally the “bottom” for Pharaoh and he allowed the Israelites to leave.

But was it really the “bottom?” Unfortunately, no. Once the Israelites were gone, Pharaoh wonders how his country will function without the labor force that was represented by all of those people and he goes after them. That’s when he really hits bottom. His entire army is wiped out. There is no way to tell unequivocally, from what the Scriptures reveal, whether Pharaoh himself, was lost in the Dead Sea. We are told that Pharaoh pursued them with his army (Exodus 14:6) and “not one of them survived” (14:28). Regardless, his actions brought widespread death and destruction of a nation.

So what was Pharaoh’s addiction? When we think of addictions, our first thought goes to alcohol or drugs but in reality, there are a lot of non-substance addictions that are just as destructive. Whether it is work, food, shopping, gambling, sex, fame, relationships, risky behavior, or whatever—all of these things can wreak havoc and bring utter devastation to our lives. Pharaoh’s addiction—and understandably, since he was regarded as a deity—was power. Truly it is the same for all of us. “Our greatest addiction is our own personality.” We want what we want, when we want it, how we want it, and we will do whatever it takes, sacrifice whatever is demanded, to get it.

Ed Welch has written an excellent book, the title of which describes the circumstance of addictions extremely well. It is called Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave. The addiction seems to be providing all the good things we desire in life—security, significance, belonging, love—right up until it becomes the doorway to death. There is only one thing that can fulfill the longing and emptiness in our hearts. It is knowing God and knowing ourselves as He created us to be and living in all the richness, completeness, and fulfillment of what that really means. What is holding you back from experiencing that today?

Chains of our Own Making

Scotty Smith, one of my Facebook friends, posted a quote from Martin Luther the other day. It said: "How soon 'not now' becomes never." That struck a chord with me because I am a procrastinator of the highest order--though I like to tell myself it's because I work best under pressure. We can always find socially acceptable excuses for our sins and shortcomings.

Ron Blocki, one of Scotty's FB friends commented by posting this quote from C.S.Lewis' Screwtape Letters: " No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his will. As one of the humans has said, active habits are strengthened by repetition, but passive ones are weakened. The more often he feels without acting, the less he will ever be able to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel."

All of that reminded me of another thought that I came across somewhere a long time ago - We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions. So often we excuse our disobedience and failures by saying: "Well, I meant to..." Our intentions were good, so supposedly that makes everything okay. But it doesn't really, does it? Having the intention of getting up early in the morning to pray, read the Word, exercise, or simply have more time to get things done doesn't achieve anything at all unless we actually DO it and see the intention through to action. Having the intention of going to someone we have wronged to apologize and restore the relationship does absolutely nothing towards healing. Having the intention of going out and meeting neighbors, or helping someone in need, or reaching out to that lonely person accomplishes not a thing towards those goals. We simply must act and, to quote Nike, "Just DO it!"

The danger of being satisfied with good intentions is that, as C.S.Lewis warns, we feel without acting and eventually will be less able to even feel. At that point, we lose even the empty comfort of our good intentions.

And here's another great quote to add: "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteounsess?" (Romans 6:16,ESV) Having good intentions without following through with the necessary action simply makes us prisoners of our own inactivity, bound with chains of our own making.

May God grant each of us the will to obey.

Cultural Relevance

I just read a great blog by Walt Mueller entitled Shaved Heads, Goatees, and Other Misdirected Attempts at Reaching the World... The title basically says it all. These two paragraphs are especially great:

Because I study youth culture for the sake of effective cross-cultural work with kids, many people are surprised to find out that I oftentimes try to squelch our (the church) growing love affair and obsession with relevance. I think we need to stand back and take a long, hard objective look at ourselves and our ministries to see just what this pursuit of relevance might not only be doing to us, but doing to actually hinder the advance of the Gospel message...the noble desire and calling that has made us pursue relevance so passionately in the first place. A misdirected passion for relevance has fostered the increased use of the word "reinvent" when it comes to ourselves and our ministries. We run the risk of unintentionally allowing an obsession with style to eclipse what should be a passionate obsession with substance. Sadly, when we fall into it, we don't even know that this is what's happened. Eventually, our lives and ministries become a series of extreme makeovers, with the short time between each filled not with more and more reflection on the substance of the message, but with trying to keep up with the styles so that we're ready to jump when the next change is needed...something which is happening with increased frequency as time marches on.

It's for this reason that I've been speaking more and more about the seemingly subtle yet significant differences between pursuing lives and ministries marked by being culturally relevant and lives and ministries marked by being culturally informed. Being culturally informed--regardless of my age, shape, size, or hairstyle--means that I have taken the time to listen to another and their context. It means that I know them. It means that when I open my mouth to speak--regardless of whether or not that mouth is framed by a goatee--the person I am speaking to will kinow that I have listened and cared for them. Then they will be more prone to listen to what I have to say. We call this "relationship."

Check out the entire article and his blog at learningmylines.blogspot.com

The Idol of Safety vs the God of Safety

Years ago my sister was a high school AP Political Science teacher. After 9/11 she asked her supposedly intelligent, thoughtful students this question: “Would you rather be safe or free?” Every single one of them said they valued safety over freedom.

Now on one hand that is perhaps because having grown up in the U.S. and never experiencing the absence of freedom, they don’t really understand the value of it. On the other hand, I think that every one of us has, to some extent, made “being safe” an idol in our lives.

Just think about how fear dominates and controls your life. Each of us is different, so different fears control or, at the very least, influence us, but think about just a couple that are very common:
• Fear of physical injury – results in avoiding risky activities where we might get hurt.
• Fear of being alone – results in becoming involved in relationships and with people that we shouldn’t simply in order to “be with” someone, anyone.
• Fear of emotional injury – results in lots of casual relationships without becoming deeply involved with anyone in order to avoid getting hurt.
• Fear of what others think of us - results in living lives of pretense or hiding in order to make ourselves acceptable.
• Fear of not having what we need – results in workaholic, miser, or hoarder tendencies.

I first started thinking about how various fears dominate our lives after watching the movie “Big Fish.” Kind of a weird and wonderful movie, but basically, a dying father and his grown son are at odds because the father continues—even on his death bed—to tell the fantastic, unbelievable tales of his life and to insist that they are true. At the funeral, the son meets some of the weird and wonderful people from his dad’s tall tales and begins to realize that all the stories were true! But how could his dad have lived such a life? Well, when he was a young boy, the dad and a couple of friends had gone to the edge of town to see the “witch-woman” because if you looked into her glass eye, you would see the manner of your death. All the friends fled in panic when the woman appeared, but he stayed and saw how he was going to die--presumably as an old man in his bed. Knowing that, he lived his life taking incredible risks, trying the craziest things and experiencing the strange and unusual without fear.

In reality, not one of us can know the number of our days and we have no guarantee of our safety when we do risky, crazy, or strange things. None of us can know for certain when we say “I do” whether we’ll be celebrating a 50th anniversary, caring for a disabled husband, laying the body of a wife in the ground, or standing before a judge in divorce court. None of us can be sure how our lives will turn out despite all our intentions and machinations to determine our course and our destination. Life is uncertain and full of risks and no matter how desperately or diligently we try, we can never be completely safe from the things that would harm us physically or emotionally.

This “fear of life” consumes us--even, unfortunately, as believers. How many prayers have you heard--or prayed yourself--for safety, for health or healing, for desired or deteriorating relationships, for provision, for blessing and comfort? Asking God for those things certainly is not wrong, but what about boldly praying for the advancement of His Kingdom? praying for justice and mercy for the poor and downtrodden? praying that our hearts would be aligned with His, that our lives would reflect Him before the world, no matter what it takes? Ouch, the answers to those prayers might really hurt and they might put us in places that are decidedly NOT safe.

We can, however, pray and live like that and still be ultimately, completely and eternally safe. We can live our lives like the hero of “Big Fish”--passionately and completely without fear. It is said of Jonathan Edwards that “he was so totally committed to what appeared to him to be the will of God; he was not cramped by the tiny fears that make another kind of man cautious.” 1

In our Father’s hands, we are safe, we are secure. He is the God of safety. No, we do not know the future details of our lives and, realistically, some of them may be pretty horrific. No, we cannot control who likes us, who hates us, or what people think of us. No, we have no assurance that we will live out our lives in health, comfort and prosperity. No, we do not know when or how we will die. But, in the big picture, those are simply tiny fears that make us live cautiously when instead we should be living bold, brave, fervent, and passionate lives, safely held in the hands of our Father--the God of safety.

1) Taken from the letter of Dr. William Shippen to Mrs. Sarah Edwards describing her husband’s last thoughts in her absence, March 22, 1758.

Ten Ways to Tame the Worry Habit

We all love the "Top Ten" Lists and here's one that's not very entertaining, but it is eminently useful. I would love to be able to take the credit for this, but it comes from Joanna Weaver's book entitled Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World.

10. Separate toxic worry from genuine concern. Determine if you can do anything about your situation. If so, sketch a plan to handle it. Proverbs 16:3

9. Don't worry alone. Share your concerns with a friend or a counselor. You may receive helpful advice. Talking your fears out with someone often reveals solutions that were invisible before. Proverbs 27:9

8. Take care of your physical body. Regular exercise and adequate rest can defuse a lot of worry. When our bodies are healthy, our minds can handle stress better and react more appropriately. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

7. Do what is right. A guilty conscience can cause more anxiety than a world of problems. Do your best to live above reproach. Take care of mistakes quickly by confessing and seeking forgiveness. Acts 24:16

6. Look on the bright side. Consciously focus on what is good around you. Don't let yourself speak negatively, even about yourself. Ephesians 4:29

5. Control your imagination. Be realistic about the problems you face. Try to live in the "here and now" not in the "what might be." Isaiah 35:3-4

4. Prepare for the unexpected. Put aside a cash reserve and take sensible measures so you'll be ready if difficulties arise. Proverbs 21:20

3. Trust God. Keep reminding yourself to put God in your equation. Then, when fear knocks, you can send faith to answer the door. Psalm 112:7

2. Meditate on God's promises. Scripture has the power to transform our minds. Look for Scriptures that deal with your particular areas of anxiety. Answer life's difficulties with God's Word. 1 Peter 1:4

1. And the number one way to tame a worry habit? Pray! Joseph M. Scriven's hymn says it all: "O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry, everything to God in prayer." Colossians 4:2

Now if we could actually put this into practice!