Facing and Embracing Fear
Have you ever been motivated by fear? Has that fear ever motivated you to do something potentially hazardous or ruinous? There is a great film based on a novel called The Human Stain that I am quite possibly about to ruin for you, even as I commend it to you. In it, the main character, played by Anthony Hopkins, finds himself trapped in a prison of his own making. He is an English professor and the chair of the English Department at a reasonably prestigious school. He spent his career cultivating that department, particularly fighting to make space for African-American people to serve as faculty members in the department and at the school.
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Disempowering Shame
How do you deal with trauma or tragedy? The question I place before you is an important one, both in light of your life pre-twenty-twenty—because “life under the sun”comes with challenges simple and life-altering—and in light of everything we have navigated as people since twenty-twenty alone—r.i.p. Kobe, civility, security, financial predictability etc. Unfortunately, trauma and tragedy can push us to do things we never imagined we would do, or at the very least, something that seemed far outside our character. And when that happens, the associated shame can be almost as crippling as the original event or events themselves.
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Legacy | Roadblocks
Recently I heard a powerful story about a beautiful vision carried by an unlikely candidate—a six-year-old little girl—Hattie May Wiatt.
As only a six-year-old would, Hattie May brought a problem to Russell H. Conwell, Grace's pastor at her church. The children's Sunday school was overcrowded.
He was delighted by her initiative and told her that one day they would have buildings big enough to allow everyone to attend without crowding. She replied, ‘I hope you will. It is so crowded I am afraid to go there alone.’ He replied, ‘When we get the money, we will construct one large enough to get all the children in.’ It was a wonderful tête-à-tête between a concerned congregant and her pastor.
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Legacy | God Owns. I Manage.
Believe it or not, I was not always a pastor. I have lived many lives—coaching, professional sports, high school English teacher, marketing and sales, and Financial Services. When I look back over the last twenty-plus years, I certainly see God's hand in my journey, and I can even see now things that He was teaching me about Him, myself and others when I was working in so many divergent fields. But no occupation taught me more about God and my heart than when I—very briefly—worked in Financial Services at Waddell and Reed.
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Dream Again. (Pt. 2)
There is a great deal in this world that we often delight in more than we do God. I know that to be the case for myself; forgive me if I am speaking out of turn concerning you. The reality is when we delight in lesser things over God, our hearts and minds get cloudy, and we cannot even rightly discern what it is we desire.
Inversely, when God is our great delight, and we embrace the wisdom of David's words, then either God will fulfil those dreams we have, or our hearts will shift toward even greater dreams because our desires will be more God-directed rather than me-directed.
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Dream Again. (Pt. 1)
When we face prolonged tragedy or trauma, the first thing we lose is our ability to dream. I know that is a hefty start, and I earnestly hope it is in no way triggering for any of you. It is, though, factually and anecdotally true. Prolonged tragedy or trauma robs us of our ability to dream, think that things can or will get better, or imagine the world differently or changed. If you study the psychology of survivors—dateline seems to cover something like this regularly—you will see this as a theme.
The heightened stress response, over a long period of time, causes us to push so much of our mental and emotional faculties toward enduring or surviving that the creative, forward-thinking, exploratory parts of our mind turn off almost out of necessity.
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