Love, Compassion and Christian Maturity

(this is a very rough draft, mostly used to get some thoughts “on paper”, but I’m publishing it now.  Please feel free to leave comments.)

Recently I’ve been reflecting on some issues that I’ve long believed plague the Christian church and, as I’m going to try to start doing, I’m going to explore those thoughts here.

Christian’s are referred to as being “born again”.  Born into a life, not free from sin, but a life that is supposed to be lived in forgiveness, reconciled to our God and seeking to grow to be like Christ.  I wonder, though, how many people really try to live like this.

I first entered into relationship with Christ when I was 12 and for most of my life since that day, I’ve lived the lifestyle of a religious idiot that just didn’t understand what it was all about.  Partly, this was my fault, because I didn’t take the time to read the Word and find out.  Frankly, at 12 years old, it didn’t make much sense and the Bible came with this certain stigma that made it intimidating for me to think about getting involved in reading.  I knew I should do it, but didn’t know why and, consequently, lacked any real motivation to do so.  Obligation will motivate someone for only so long before they start looking around and, seeing no one there to scold them for not doing as they ought, just stop doing it.

I lived this way for nearly 20 years and only about 7 years ago did I start really making an effort to grow up.  The first rule I learned about growing up spiritually was to stop looking at other people’s mistakes, sins and other miscellaneous transgressions.  As Christ taught, I started looking for the plank in my own eye rather than the spec in someone elses.  I learned 2 things from this process.

First, I learned that I wasn’t alone and a large number of people that call themselves born again Christians spend their time not looking inward and trying to develop themselves, but rather vent their rage at people committing the same sins they do.  I think these people know that things in their life need to change, but they’re unwilling to change them.  Not long ago, I read an article that claimed that the American church doesn’t have the revival that they say they want because they don’t really want it.  Revival requires personal change and people are to comfortable with their get out of hell free card to worry about changing themselves, all while being perfectly comfortable condemning others to hell over the aforementioned mutual sins.  I think at least part of this stems from people’s inability to forgive themselves for what they perceive as failure.  They have no compassion on themselves when they fail and it leads to further damage being inflicted on their already fragile egos.

Second, we hold people that aren’t Christians at a distance and refuse to show them the love and compassion that Christ showed the people he ministered to during his time on earth.  He absolutely told the truth on people but even those that rejected him were shown love and compassion.  Even those that put him on the cross were shown love and compassion; some of his last words on this earth were “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do”.  The president of the Barna Research Group, David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, who left the Barna Group to found Fermi Project (I think, he may have co-founded Catalyst after his tenure at the Barna Group, but I’ve not verified this point yet) wrote a book called unChristian (new window) that explores 3 years of research into the opinions and attitudes of people looking at the Christian Church from the outside (and thus called “outsiders”) that I’m only just beginning to read but promises to hold some interesting criticism of the church in America.

Anyway, this isn’t intended to go so far in depth, so I’ll sum up here and move on for the time being.  In a nutshell, I think that people need to grow up, as it were.  Christians need to mature in Christ so they can start showing themselves, their brothers and sisters in Christ, and the people we’re called to minister to the love and compassion that Christ showed every day of his life.  Those outside the church don’t care what we have to say until they’ve seen how we live and how we treat those we come in contact with and we continue to live our lives in self-inflicted condemnation for sins that we should really be forgiving ourselves for an working to overcome.

Lately I’ve become quite intrigued by the creative process.  I’ve made some observations about myself and how that process works for me, or how it occurs in my presence…  I’m not really sure about a lot of what happens where, but I’m reading and listening and thinking.  I think that last one is the biggy.

Merlin Mann has said that writing is sometimes going for a walk and sometimes goofing around and sometimes playing with your kids and sometimes pouring glue in your chair and putting your head down and getting it done.  Right now, I guess I’m doing something that vaguely resembles the latter while my wrist reminds me that I need a new ergonomic keyboard.

I’ve noticed that I never find my muse (for as cheesy as that sounds) when I’m near a computer.  I’ll find it on the john, or when I’m climbing into bed or when I’m driving home from work (with the radio OFF).  I find my inspiration in my musings about whatever topic comes to mind when my brain is free to wander on its own.  Certain things that I can’t predict or understand take root and spring up and become a source of thought for a while and I’m never in front of a computer when I do it.

Still, as I sit here, I realize that I’m normal for a “creative”.  I recently watched a movie that ended with a line that went something like “I’m going to go find my next story.  I hope you do the same”.  I don’t tend to tell stories so much, but taking the line as a metaphor goes a long way to producing the transition.  Sometimes I need to go find the story.  I need to go find the inspiration in my musings over topics that may not interest anyone but me.  I need to let my mind go for a walk even if I’m stuck behind the wheel of the family minivan in rush hour traffic.

It’s encouraging though, knowing that you’re not strange for being the way you are.  I read recently that minds that are allowed to wander or, more specifically, people that don’t force themselves to focus on a problem are more likely to experience a revelation; that a-ha moment that suddenly explains things.  I’ve long thought I was lazy or stupid and here I’ve gone and discovered after all my years on earth that I’m just normal.  That feels pretty good.

So I’m off to find my next story.  Hope you do the same.

Apparently I began writing this some time ago, saved a draft and then forgot about it.  I may revisit this post and complete it at some point, but I’m going to go ahead and post it with the disclaimer that it’s an incomplete rough draft and should be taken as such.  There is one addition to the draft at the bottom.

While perusing this article in the May-June 2008 issue of Psychology Today, I flashed back to one of my recent blog posts in which I wrote about some of my past issues with self-confidence.  It occurs to me that, perhaps, it would be beneficial for me to look at this from a slightly different perspective.

From the article:

But frustration is one thing; the decision to give up in the face of adversity is quite another. Why do many people simply surrender when faced with big goals and big problems? How did we acquire this tendency to feel hopeless in the face of a career setback or despair over ever recovering from a breakup (and so do nothing to move on from the relationship)?

The fact is that high-stakes situations demand a different calculus than do run-of-the-mill frustrations. When much is at stake—when, for example, we seek access to power, status, and mates—we often frame the problem as a binary choice, because for most of human history, time and options were severely limited in important matters. Do I go all out and fight for the corner office? Do I risk the relationship by declaring my need for commitment? Or do I do nothing at all and passively wait to see what happens?

On important and challenging matters, we hew to a simple heuristic: Fight, or don’t. Either we take on quandaries wholeheartedly or we feel defeated and immobilized. That heuristic also states, “If I choose to fight, I must win.” Helplessness comes from the idea that one must win at all costs, coupled with the fact that there is never a guarantee of a positive outcome.

A person with a must-win outlook creates an untenable demand that is immobilizing. We propel ourselves toward a goal with the all-or-nothing imperative only to feel a pervasive sense of defeat when we realize we’re not getting all that we think we must. This paradox explains why people often stop working toward the things they most desire.

It should be noted that performance anxiety isn’t really characterized by an internal struggle with our opinion of ourselves but rather by an internal struggle with an external idea, that being the approval and acceptance of others.  In a nutshell, if we do well we’re loved by those whose approval we seek and, conversely, if we do poorly the opinion of those people changes in kind.  I struggled with performance anxiety, but as I consider the quoted paragraphs, I see the same internal argument used in both situations.

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I’m not much of a baseball fan, but I do know who Ted Williams was.  Called the most successful batter in MLB history, he is the only player to ever bat over .400 for a season.  4 out of 10 times, he hit the ball.  6 out of 10 times, he didn’t.  The best batter ever failed more than he succeeded.  I’ll let you work out the implications.