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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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