Oh So Much . . .

Merriam-Webster tells me gratitude‘s antonyms are ingratitude, thanklessness, unappreciation, ungratefulness.

But in soul-terms, much more could be added to this list. On the polar opposite end of the scale from gratitude we find habits and mindsets like worry, bitterness, spiritual malaise, self-reliance, pride, mistrust, over-busyness, selfishness, consumerism, and self-centeredness.

When our hearts are full of a pervasive and interwoven sense of thanks — a conscious awareness that God has given us oh so much – we’re able to live soul-centered in the peace and joy of the abundant life.

When we don’t? We start to buy into the lie that we don’t have enough, that we just need what’s more or what’s next. We live a life grasping out in all the wrong places for an elusive “satisfaction” that cannot be found in material things.

When we train our sight on the many goodnesses God has poured into our lives — loved ones, friendships, sunrises, smiles, bonds of love, church family, and a multitude of rich spiritual blessings — we’re buoyed when hardship or suffering comes. We can trust God because we know how God has come through for us in the past. We can rely on God even if things turn out badly, for we know from experience that God is good.

When we aren’t strengthening our souls in gratitude? We instinctively respond to trouble with worry and anxiety. Rather than relying on God, we turn inward in self-aggrandizing reliance on our own abilities and efforts to work miracles. And if things don’t get better? We become people poisoned by bitterness and anger.

No.

There, I said it.

It felt great.

It’s a word that needs to be said often.

I’m not talking about disciplining children (my kids hear “no!” plenty in that context).

I’m talking about the personal spiritual discipline of saying “no” so that we can more fully say “yes.”

Consider these words from M. Shawn Copeland in Practicing Our Faith (Jossey-Bass):

“[S]pirituality is not a spectator activity. Tough decisions and persistent effort are required of those who seek lives that are whole and holy. If we are to grow in faithful living, we need to renounce the things that choke off the fullness of life that God intended for us . . . We must learn the practice of saying no to that which crowds God out and yes to a way of life that makes space for God.”

It’s a topic I’ve written about before, but I find it’s something I need to regularly remind myself about:

Cutting Back Part 2

I wrote a short article for GiftedforLeadership.com in December 2008 that is, essentially, “Cutting Back Part 2″ — a continuation of the discussion on the questions I asked in my last post. How, practically speaking, can we figure out if we are doing too much? How can we pare back our commitments to form a more healthy, focused way of life?

This article, “Taking a Sharpie to Your List,” candidly describes a moment I had when I was overwhelmed and needed to re-evaluate my commitments. It describes the painful conflict we feel between our need to please others and a determined focus to honestly ask God, “What do you want me to do, God? How do you want me to invest my time right now?” It involves letting go, giving up, being patient with dreams, and being content with God’s calling . . . for you . . . for today. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this article!

No offense, but I’m crossing your name off my list with a big black Sharpie.

I’m not crossing you out of my life — just off my list.

It’s not crossing you off because you’re unimportant or because I don’t care or because I don’t think you’re cool.

Blackening your name off isn’t easy for me, but I’ve got to do it.

It’s not you; it’s me.

And I’m not superwoman.

Sorry, but I’ve got to do this . . . 

 Screech!(Sound of Sharpie on paper.)

This one-sided dialogue was repeated in various forms in my mind throughout a revolutionary hour I spent with a blue index card, a pencil, and a big, bad, black Sharpie.

Before that hour, my life looked a bit like this:

There were the various groups I was already a part of: a book club, a ministry group, a home group, a Sunday-school-class group, and a few various committees peppered in here and there. Then there were the groups I felt interested in joining or guilty about not participating in or somewhat pressured to be a part of: women’s Bible study, a mentoring program, three more committees and ministry groups, and various parent volunteer groups at my kids’ schools.

There were also all sorts of various relationships I was trying to maintain: “outreach” relationships with neighbors, relatives, friends, international students, and a regular Jehovah’s Witness door-to-door visitor. Then of course there were the close friends who live far away in Portland and Boulder and Istanbul and Grand Rapids and Chicago. Then there were the Christian friends who are close by, from my present church, from my old church, from MOPS, from book club, from here, there, and everywhere. Then of course my family: my husband, my son, my daughter, my sister, my brother, my sisters- and brothers-in-law, my nieces, my parents, my parents-in-law, my aunts and uncles, and my fabulous seventeen-year-old cousin. Oh, and there were the people I’m trying to invest in and encourage, like a couple we go on double-dates with, the single mom I’m encouraging, a younger Christian I studied the Bible with on occasional Friday mornings, the mom-friends who I swapped parenting advice with and?well, trust me, I could go on and on.

 And along with groups and relationships, there were spiritual growth habits, exercise goals, personal aspirations, various other neglected hobbies, work commitments, and household tasks. I felt like Bilbo Baggins when he told Gandalf, “I feel… thin. Sort of stretched, like… butter scraped over too much bread.”

 Ignatius of Loyola outlined the spiritual practice of examen or “examination of conscience” in his Spiritual Exercises written in 1522-1524. In essence, examen is the habit of prayerfully reflecting, with God’s help, on your thoughts and actions during a given period of time and considering how your life matches up with what God desires for you. Christians from various traditions throughout the centuries have practiced the habit of examen in various forms, from formal Ignatian prayers to John Wesley’s brutal accountability questions to simple private reflection on the life-giving and death-dealing moments of one’s day.

 I knew I needed to assess more than one day. I needed to look with God at my pattern of living over weeks and months and years. I knew that rather than living with purpose, I was aiming for hundreds of targets and missing most of ?em. Rather than living richly, I was left spiritually and emotionally poor. Rather than enjoying deep and meaningful relationships, I’d become thin, listless butter.

 Hence, the appointment with the Sharpie for some lifestyle-examen.

 I filled that card with every commitment I’ve got, every person I’m trying to care for and encourage, every task or person I feel guilty about not attending to, and every dream I’m neglecting. I jam-packed every centimeter of that poor little card. And then I sighed.

 And then I prayed.

 ”Lord, help me,” I prayed. “Help me get a grip. Help me get a grip, first, on my outrageously huge view of myself. (I am not Atlas — nor do I want to be!) Then help me see your vision for my life and grasp onto it.

 ”Then Lord, help me loosen my grip on all those other things I’m holding on to and trying to do but just . . . well, just can’t.”

 And after some prayer and after some silent staring and after quite a bit of inner wrestling with self-imposed guilt, I put that Sharpie to work.

 I crossed several commitments and goals off that list. (That wasn’t so hard.)

 But then I literally crossed several people off that list. (That was hard. It felt very . . . mean.)

 But that blacked, blotchy, barely legible card became a target for me. A clear, defined target to focus on that freed me to obey and follow God’s leading rather than chasing after all my own notions of what it means to serve him and live life.

 So if I crossed you off my list, I’m sorry. You’ll never know you got crossed out because I’ll still be kind and I’ll still enjoy being with you and I’ll still meet you for coffee if you ask.

 But I’m called by God to invest my energies elsewhere.

 And if that’s fine with him, it’s fine with me.

Cutting Back (or The Spiritual Discipline of Dropping the Ball) part 1

No blog posting from me last week. I dropped the ball.

But no apology. I did it on purpose.

I was busy finishing up a manuscript for a new book series (more on that later) and I decided to let the blog slide.

Ironically, decisions like that are a key aspect of practicing simplicity for modern-day women.

The Bible primarily speaks of two types of simplicity: financial/material as well as simplicity of one’s heart-focus. They are intricately related.

Simplicity in our use of time — and the degree of commitments we take on in our lives — is also intricately related to our heart-focus and our soul-health.

Sometimes we need to make our lives SO simple that we can take a few hours or even a day to just be with God (a personal retreat). But as a general practice in our everyday routine, we ought always ask ourselves if we have too much on our plate. And perhaps the even better question is who put all that stuff there?

There may be times when God puts a lot on our plate. But there may be other times when we’ve put a lot on our plate (maybe thinking we were doing God’s will) — yet we end up living unhealthy, divided, stressed out lives!

God does ask us to make sacrifices, but I don’t believe he’d ever ask us to live in a way that damages our relationships, skews our perspective, saps our emotional health, and wears our souls ragged!

As modern-day women, having a lot on our plates is just plain reality. For some this involves parenting. For some this involves work outside the home. For some this involves ministry. For all of us this involves relationships.

But are there things we can cut back on?

In order to serve God well and live healthily, are we aiming to do TOO much rather than doing less but doing it well?

Could a simplified approach to life — to commitments, tasks, goals, responsibilities, hobbies, extras — help me better connect with and focus on God in my daily living?

These are difficult questions, ones that I ask myself often. What are your thoughts on this matter?

(More on this topic in “part 2″ coming in a few days…)

Love yourself? Deny yourself?

Kyria.com just posted a short article I wrote exploring service and the paradox of self-denial and self-care in the Christian life. If you’d like, you can check it out by clicking on the article title: “Spiritual Superhero or Stressed-Out Serve-aholic?”

(I’d love it if you’d add a comment to the Kyria site sharing your own thoughts!)