Tag Archive - Character

Observations Of A Transition

April 17, 2010 in Faith, Life with 31 Comments

This is how I feel right now.

It is 2:00am and I cannot sleep.

So I’m writing.

Observations of a transition…

… like a trapeze artist, you swing and you swing…

… gripping tight, your focus forward…

… your mind calculating every millisecond…

… the next destination seems as close as a touch yet as far as the moon…

… but always just barely out of reach, for sure…

… so you swing…

… and wait…

… and swing…

… and wait for the perfect timing…

… when you know you have to let go of what brought you to this moment…

… what you’ve been holding on to…

… you know it’s impossible to fully grasp what’s next when your hands are still full of what’s been….

… you know you have to jump…

… so you do…

… your heart pounds as you let go…

… the instant your fingers leave the bar, reality hits you…

… you know you can never go back…

… you can’t tell if you’re stuck or flying because it feels like both…

… all the training you’ve had tells you you’re about to be caught…

… and that’s cool…

… but for now…

… at this precise moment in time…

… the clock stops…

… your breath escapes you…

… and there you are…

… in the middle…

My friends, I don’t feel that I have already arrived. But I forget what is behind, and I struggle for what is ahead. – Philippians 3:12

Gonna try to sleep now.

 

The Middle

March 16, 2010 in Faith, Life with 8 Comments

For as long as I can remember, I have felt like I was in “the middle”… no longer “here”, but not quite “there”; one hand in the past, one hand reaching to the future.  Not sure where I was headed.. somewhere between where I started and where I’ll eventually end up… just… in the middle.

By definition, a “transition” is

the process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another.

Transitions are often great, but it is usually our perspective of the transition that gives way to fear, discouragement and disillusionment.  This is understandable, but the challenge of a transition is understanding that the “middle” is necessary.

Transitions aren’t really known for making you look all that good.  You don’t really fit where you used to be, but haven’t yet locked into where you’re headed, and that’s a tough spot to be in.

One of my favorite scriptures for the “middle” is Philippians 1:6…

There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears. (The Message)

When I think of “the middle” I envision a cocoon.  That is the place where something emerges different than how it entered.  You can’t look at a caterpillar in a cocoon state and see the transition happening inside, but it will be seen by all soon enough.  Apart from what we already know about nature and biology, no one would look at a caterpillar and believe that it possessed everything it needed to become a butterfly.  But keep your eye on the cocoon.

Somewhere between the cradle and the grave, whether it is personal, spiritual, financial, relational, emotional, geographical or professional, you are probably somewhere in the middle right now.  Know that the middle is purposeful and has come to transition you, develop you and challenge you to become what’s next.  You are not stuck. You are being groomed and grown, pruned and primed for what you have yet to become.

In my experience, I have found God more in “the middle” than at any destination point in my life.  I believe He lives in the tension between… between here and there, between what we are and what we shall be, between what we see and what we don’t see.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. [2 Corinthians 4:16-18]

The great paradoxical challenge of the faith life is this: keep your eyes on what you can’t see.

Have you found yourself in “the middle?”  How has your perspective of your transitions influenced what you focus on?

 

My Story, Chapter 1: The Conflict

March 15, 2010 in Faith, Life, My Story with 18 Comments

I love a good story.  There’s something about watching someone experience, struggle through and grow from a challenge that does something unique for my heart.  I don’t know exactly when I realized it, but I’ve known for quite some time now that I’ve been living out a story, with the days of my life providing a narrative pointing to the glory and purpose of God.  I’ve believed this for awhile, but it was about a year ago when I was reminded that the story being told is always greater than the sum of the characters in the cast.

About this time last year, I experienced a key element of any compelling story: the conflict, or as I blogged about and alluded to before, an “inciting event.”  The conflict is a struggle between two people or things in a story.  Conflict is a vital literary device that takes a story from run-of-the-mill to rousing.  The main character is usually on one side of the main conflict.  On the other side, the main character may struggle against another important character, against the forces of nature, against society, or even against something inside himself or herself (feelings, emotions, illness).  Conflict is the opposition of forces which ties one incident to another and makes the plot move.

There are 2 types of conflict: external and internal.  External conflict is a struggle with a force outside one’s self while internal conflict is a struggle within one’s self.  In my case, I experienced an external conflict that served as a catalyst for internal conflict.

Honestly, I’m still trying to find the balance of exactly how much of this story I want to share and when, especially since I’m still very much walking it out.  In the interest of keeping focused on the main theme I want to communicate, I will just say that I experienced an external professional conflict.  Besides, the “what” is not nearly as important as the “why” that it brought to the surface.

I found myself in a situation that appeared to be a threat to what I deemed to be “success” in my career.  All other various elements and specifics aside, I went into a bit of a tailspin.  Actually, that’s an understatement.  My heart freaked out.

One night I found myself walking around in my back yard for about two hours, on the phone with one of my best friends, Tyson, talking through the particulars of the situation. Actually, I wasn’t talking as much as I was venting, searching for answers, grasping for any semblance of purpose in the midst of what otherwise appeared to be utter chaos and disorder descending on my life.

As I rambled on in my confused and fearful state, I will never forget what happened next.  Being the great friend that he is, Tyson heard me out and then asked me the following question: “what are you afraid of losing?”

It sounds simple enough, but that was the crack in the dam for me and the question that would ultimately change how I would see everything.

To be continued…

Have you identified a major “conflict” moment in your life that you can point to as the moment everything changed for you?

 

So Why “An Idol Heart?”

February 28, 2010 in Culture, Faith, Life, My Story with 31 Comments

It has been close to a year since I have blogged with any kind of consistency.  Since then, a lot has happened.

About a year ago, I experienced what writers and storytellers call an “inciting event.”  According to Suite 101, an inciting event is:

…the moment or plot point in a script that kicks the story into motion. It occurs after the set up or exposition and everything that follows the inciting incident should be a result of the inciting incident. It is where a story really begins.
It is that moment in the script where the protagonist’s world is turned upside down and he/she must then set about resolving the change in circumstances that the incident has brought about. It is generally a clear and defined moment that is easily identifiable.
Of “inciting events”, author Donald Miller says:
Characters don’t change without being forced to change. An inciting incident is the event in a movie that causes upheaval in the protagonist life. The protagonist, then, naturally seeks to return to stability. And in order to do that, he HAS to solve his new problem.
While we may tend to prefer comfortable, warm and fuzzy feel-good stories, those kind of stories can tend to be long on emotion but short on depth.  Ever the master story-teller, God specializes in character development.  It was in that spirit that God used this particular inciting event in my life to peel back the layers of my heart and show me what was really there.  It was not great and consequently, I was broken.

It was during this time that I was introduced to the ministry of Timothy Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, and particularly his teachings on idolatry in our hearts and culture.  Between his messages on idolatry, followed by the October ’09 release of his book “Counterfeit Gods”, which digs much deeper into the heart of idolatry, God pretty much wrecked my life and my heart.  The past few months in particular have brought with them a systematic deconstructing of so much stuff that I had given inordinate place in my heart to.

So, why “An Idol Heart?”  In “Counterfeit Gods”, Tim Keller says,

“The human heart is indeed a factory that mass-produces idols.”

Wow. That’s why.  Every single day I am learning to be more and more aware and in tune with what my heart is prone to, choosing to lay those things at the cross and looking to Christ as my ultimate source of worth, acceptance and identity.

This has been, and continues to be, a massive heart and life shift for me which is actively reshaping just about everything I’ve known or understood about sin, salvation and grace.  In fact, this is reshaping how I see and process, well, just about everything.
“I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.” – Ezekiel 36:26

This is the single most painful yet beautiful experience I’ve ever walked through.  I have changed… a lot.  I have let go… of a lot.  I’ve been learning a lot and I’ve been unlearning a lot.  I’ve been experiencing what it means to let go and also what it means to pursue.  I am still very much in the middle of this journey, but I’ve finally come to a place where I’m ready to talk about it to more than just my core group of close friends who have been walking through this with me.

I’m passionate about my faith, about life and about culture, and how all those things intersect.  So, this blog will be some sort of a collision of all those things.

I love God and I love people.

An Idol Heart.

This is me.

 
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