From Pops' Workshop

Author: dhammerslag

  • Hurrying Past Blessing

    Hurrying Past Blessing

    The 23rd Psalm starts by introducing us to God as the Good Shepherd who cares for us, guides us, and protects us.  We are then reassured that he is always with us, always caring for us, always protecting us, even when our path is dark and seems fraught with the possibility of evil and danger, even to the point of death.  The psalm continues with a shift away from the shepherding imagery and into a picture of how our lives can be when we are under the care of our Good Shepherd, beginning with a description of how he wants to bless us:

    You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
    you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
    Psalms 23:5-6, ESV

    The Lord wants to feast us, even in the presence of our enemies.  You are his honored guest. He anoints your head with perfumed oil. He makes sure your cup is never empty.

    If we are thinking only of fully bellies we are missing something here. This is not just about being fed, or even being fed well.  Table fellowship was indicative of an intimate relationship.  Who you ate with was important enough that Jesus was roundly criticized by the religious establishment for sharing meals with the “wrong sort” of people (e.g., Mark 2:16).

    Imagine sitting down to a banquet with Jesus; sharing a sumptuous and leisurely feast with him as your dinner partner. You share intimate conversation.  You talk about your hopes and your fears.  You laugh together; you cry together. The Lord wants to share his life with us and wants us to share ours with him.

    While we are being feasted as the Lord’s honored guests our enemies are powerless to intrude on or obstruct this divine friendship.  There is a deep and important truth there, echoed by Paul in Romans 8:38-39 (ESV):

    For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

    No matter what the enemy of our souls throws at us, no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in, it will not separate is from the God’s love. Even if we are walking through a valley of deep, dark shadows, we are invited to Jesus’ table to dine with him and fellowship with him.

    We can, however, allow ourselves to be too busy to enjoy the presence and fellowship of the Lord.  This feasting and anointing and overflowing cup assumes that we are slowing down enough to see what the Lord is doing; to spend time at the table with him – getting to know him as good friends know each other.

    The corresponding section of the 23rd Psalm for the Hurried Life is:

    The Lord prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies.
    I  may grab a quick bite on my way past.
    I anoint myself with accomplishments,
    draining my cup dry.

    The table is laid out for us; God stands waiting for us, inviting us to his feast.  Yet often we are so busy that we don’t even notice.  God’s invitation is lost in our overstuffed inbox.

    Instead of sharing a meal and fellowship with him we grab what we can, squeezing our brief devotion time into our overbooked agenda for the day. We try in vain to replace the anointing of the Lord with what can sometimes seems more important to us:  the accomplishments valued by the world; what we can give to ourselves: money, possessions, status, career achievement, power, etc.  We can hurry past the feast prepared for us, rushing right back into our enemy’s playground.

    Instead of an overflowing cup of God’s grace, which allows us to life our lives from the overabundance of God’s mercy and love, we find ourselves quickly running on empty and trying to live our lives out of our own strength – trying to draw up water from a dry well. We empty ourselves trying in vain to bless ourselves.  That is not what God wants for you.

    Why not take some time today?  Slow down. Quite yourself. Set aside your plans for what you will achieve today. Settle inand take the time to be in God’s presence.  Enjoy the feast he has prepared you. Take the time to notice how he anoints you. Let him refill your  cup, not with barely enough to see you through, but to overflowing so that you can live out of his his abundance.  Enjoy being God’s honored guest in his presence.

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

  • Slowing Down in the Valley of the Shadow of Death

    Slowing Down in the Valley of the Shadow of Death

    The first three verses of the 23rd Psalm reassure us with the description of still waters, green pastures and restoration.  Then, in verse four, we move from the scene of bucolic tranquility  to “the valley of the shadow of death.”

    Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.
    Psalms 23:4, English Standard Version

    I am not very comfortable talking about the valley of shadow of death.  I have walked through the death of parents and parents-in-law.  I have walked through a loved one’s serious illness and through my own health scares.  And yet I still feel unqualified to talk about faith in trials.  I have known many people who have faced more severe trials and often with greater faith.

    But the point here is not about the depth of the trial or even our faithfulness. It is about the loving care of the Shepherd.  Sometimes the path we must walk takes us literally to the shadow of death and death itself.  Other times our path takes to places “darkest shadows.”  Several Bible translations opt for that rendering.  Darkest shadows where unknown dangers may lurk; where we can’t always see clearly where we are going.

    Whether it is the literal valley of the shadow of death or the more poetic valley of darkest shadows, the Psalmist David reassures us that the good shepherd is still there, guiding and protecting us.  The shepherd’s rod is his defensive weapon – a club to protect his sheep from danger. His rod is used to guide the sheep – to keep us on the path, even when we can’t see where we are going or understand why we are in the shadows. David fears no evil.  Not because there is no evil or danger, but because he is trusting the protection and leading of the shepherd.

    When we are living the hurried life and find ourselves in the dark valleys we often hurry all the more.

    Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    if I stay busy enough I can pretend not to notice. 
    From the 23rd Psalm for the Hurried Life.

    The last thing we think to do is slow down.  We hurry to mask our anxiety and fear in a flurry activity.  We hurry in hopes of somehow speeding ourselves out of the valley.  We keep ourselves busy – too busy to even consider that we may be on the path we are supposed to be on.  We don’t notice the protecting, guiding hand of the shepherd.  We don’t reflect on where we are and turn to the Lord to see his provision, protection and guidance in our times of darkness.

    We can learn much from time in the valley of shadows. We can learn as David did that the Good Shepherd is there, leading, protecting, loving, and caring for us.  But we need to slow down enough to be aware of the Lord’s presence.  We need to quite ourselves so we can be attentive to what God would say to us in the valley.

    We all find ourselves in the darkest of shadows.  If you are not there now, you will find yourself there sometime. When your path takes you into the valleys of darkest shadows where danger and evil may lie in wait, what will you do? Will you keep yourself busy and distracted in hopes that you will be less aware of the darkness or will you slow down, taking the time to seek the Lord and see his protection and guidance, even when we can’t discern the path?

    [This is the third installment of a series looking at The 23rd Psalm for the Hurried Life.]

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

  • Restoration for your soul

    Restoration for your soul

    Who is God to you?  Is he the source all that you need or is he who you run to when your world seems to be falling apart?

    For David, the author of the 23rd Psalm, the Lord was his center; his guide and protector; his shepherd:

    The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
    He makes me lie down in green pastures.
    He leads me beside still waters.
    He restores my soul.
    He leads me in paths of righteousness
    for his name’s sake. (Psalms 23:1-3, English Standard Version)

    On my very best days I can begin to align myself with God as the center; the source of all that I need.  Unlike my namesake, most days, and certainly for most of my life, I’ve been in the other group, turning to God only when I had completely exhausted myself trying to go it alone without him.  What came to mind as I wrote the beginning of the Hurried Life version of the 23rd Psalm was all too true for me:

    The Lord has my back; I don’t have time to seek him.
    I hurry past green pastures and still waters,
    seeking restoration for my soul.
    I bypass the paths of righteousness,
    for productivity’s sake. (From The 23rd Psalm for the Hurried Life)

    It may seem to us like we don’t have time to seek God — to let him be our shepherd.  We think the problem is we are too busy, but we  have it upside down and backwards.  When we see God as our center and provider of all that we need we naturally spend time with him.  We seek him out to find out what good he has in mind for us.

    Our problem is that when we don’t know or trust God as our shepherd we are compelled to work out life on our own terms.  That is something we were never intended for. No matter how busy we are or how much we exert ourselves we will never quite make it. Not knowing or not trusting God’s goodness, we rush right past the green pastures and still waters that will restore our souls.  We skip the paths of righteousness, pursuing what we deem best for ourselves:  career advancement, popularity, money, love, etc. Trying to make our own versions of peace and satiety, we have no time for the only place they can really be found.

    What would it be like for you if you let go?  If you stopped trying to do it on your own?  If you were able to trust the Lord to provide all the you need.  I invite you to go to him in prayer.  Ask him about your business and what he really wants for you.

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

  • The 23rd Psalm for the Hurried Life

    The 23rd Psalm for the Hurried Life

    Hurry — it could be one the most damaging curses in our modern life.  Since the beginning of the industrial age we have bemoaned the pace of modern life.  As we have moved from the industrial to the information age, the pace of our lives only increased.  We live in a constant-on state; constantly connected and reachable.

    We commute, we work, we update and check our social media feeds, we stream our entertainment, we text, we email, we Skype and Face-time. In our state of perpetual connected busyness our attentiveness to our souls and to what God is doing in our lives — what he is calling us to — is one of the first casualties.

    God is always interested and active in our lives. He wants us to know him and his good plans for us.  We just need to learn to slow down and quiet ourselves so that we can hear him.  Earlier this year I attended a workshop with Alan Fadling, the author of An Unhurried Life: Following Jesus’ Rhythms of Work and Rest and the just released An Unhurried Leader: The Last Fruit of Daily Influence. During that workshop, I was inspired to write this “version” of the 23rd Psalm, for the hurried life.

    The 23rd Psalm for the Hurried Life

    The Lord has my back,
    I don’t have time to seek him.
    I hurry past green pastures and still waters,
    seeking restoration for my soul.
    I bypass the paths of righteousness,
    for productivity’s sake.

    Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    if I stay busy enough I can pretend not to notice.

    The Lord prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies.
    I  may grab a quick bite on my way past.
    I anoint myself with accomplishments,
    draining my cup dry.
    Surely stress and fatigue shall follow me all the days of my life,
    and I shall rush past the house of the Lord forever.

    Over the next few installments I’ll dig a little deeper, comparing the 23rd Psalm, what God wants for us, to the Hurried Life version.   Follow this blog and join the (unhurried) conversation!

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

  • Spinning Plates

    Spinning Plates

    If you are old enough, you might remember variety shows like the Ed Sullivan show.  These shows featured singers, comics, dancers, and one my favorites: plate spinners.  The plate spinner starts plates spinning, one after another, atop flexible rods.  To keep each plate spinning he had to manipulate the rod before the plate slowed down to the point that it came crashing down.  As the number of spinning plates increased, the performer had to rush from place to place, giving each rod a little jiggle to keep the plate going.  He was barely able to keep each plate going.  Here is a video clip of a plate spinner in action.

    It can be entertaining and a little exciting to watch, but many of us live our lives as plate spinners.  We have many “plates” we are trying to keep going.  For example, we might list  spouse, job, children, friends, and so on. Each of these can become a plate we need to attend to—to keep spinning. When we think we’ve got these under control…..we might be tempted to add a few more, for example: hobbies, volunteering and fitness.

    Our lives can become a frantic rushing from plate to plate.  We give each enough attention to prevent a disastrous crash, then we rush off to the next plate that is in danger of falling.  We make our lives more and more frantic, hoping that with this one last plate spinning in its place, it will finally be enough — we’ll be happy and satisfied.

    Do you ever feel like a plate spinner?  Maybe you hear yourself saying or thinking things like:

    • I really need to spend some time this weekend getting this project at work caught up!
    • My wife and I haven’t been out together in a long time.  If we don’t get away soon I don’t know what will happen.
    • I am starting to feel like I don’t know my daughter  I need to spend some more time with them.
    • I am really getting out of shape! I have got to carve out some time to get the gym.

    IF those sound familiar, you might be a plate spinner! We think if we can just manage to keep all the plates spinning — make sure none of them come crashing down — then we will be happy and contented.  Yet, even when we do manage it, usually for only a very short while, we end up feeling exhausted and unfulfilled.  We realize that our “win” is temporary at best.  Soon some of the plates will start to slow down and wobble, demanding our attention again.

    The plates become our masters.  We become imprisoned by the need to keep the plates spinning.  They command our attention.  We can feel like we have no choice but to keep them all going. But let’s suppose we have managed to reach some kind of equilibrium, we’ve got all of our plates spinning along nicely, we have it “under control”.   We are tired at the end of the day, and sometimes some of those plates are getting pretty wobbly, but we’re managing.

    And then…we realize that God wants something of us as well.  Oh great!  One more plate to keep spinning! We make our lives a little bit more frantic by trying to work our “God obligation” in along with everything else.  Daily devotions, Bible reading, volunteering at church: More plates to try to keep spinning. Needless to say, we generally end up a more stressed and frazzled and tired!

    Is that what Jesus had in mind?  Does he come to us so that we can feel more hectic, more scattered, more worn out?  No.  Of course not.  Jesus says just the opposite.  He said following him will give us rest for our souls.  In the Gospel of Matthew, 11:28-30, he says:

    “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
    Matthew 11:28-30, Message Translation

    Something isn’t adding up here.  Adding a few more spinning plates, albeit “God” plates, does not feel like a real rest.  It doesn’t feel like I’m living freely and lightly.  I am still running around trying to keep all the plates going.  It feels like anything but an unforced rhythm of grace.

    We approach the “God plate”   the wrong way.  We often look at it as another plate or set of plates we have to keep spinning along with everything else.  We need to come to grips with the idea that the God Plate is really the one worth attending to above all else.  It is not another plate – it is THE plate.

    In Chapter 6 of Matthew, verses 33 and 34, Jesus says:

    Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

    Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.
    Matthew 6:33-34, The Message.

    Jesus is not saying that all the other things, all the other plates, aren’t important.  What he is saying is that we should soak ourselves in that God is doing, right here and right now.  We ought not to be particularly concerned with all those other plates.  We should trust that the Lord will take care of them.  We should trust that our Good Father will give us the good he intends.

    Don’t take me wrong.  I am not suggesting that you not neglect your spouse and children or you not bother showing up for work tomorrow.  Jesus is saying we should not worry about those things.  We should not wear ourselves out frantically trying to make sure everything is going just the way we think it should.

    Only one plate that matters.  That is where we get stuck.  Do we really trust God to take care of us and our needs or do we rush away from him so that we keep all the other plates spinning?

    Whether we think much about it or admit it to ourselves, we usually act as if any good is going to come out of some situation, we have to get out there and keep those plates spinning.  We rarely look at a situation and say, “hmmm. I wonder what God might be up to here.  I wonder what he wants me to do.”

    I am quick to throw off the gentle and easy yoke of discipleship and jump back into the hard and difficult yoke of works. When God tells me he has something good in store for me, I am quick to doubt, unless I can understand how that good will come to pass and, most importantly, what I NEED TO DO to make it happen.

    As an example, I believe God wants me to write a book; that it is important for me to do so.  But I find myself asking the Lord things like:

    • Really, important? How so?
    • How will it be important? How important will it be?
    • Is it important that I write it or that people read it?
    • Will it be important for one person?  Ten people?  Thousands of people?
    • How will it impact me personally?

    God does not seem inclined to answer my questions. In fact, he reminds me that my desire to know all the answers is not faith.  Wanting to see the whole path I am to going walk and the specifics of the destination is not faith.  It is me wanting to choose.  It is me wanting to evaluate what God is planning on doing so I can decide if it is a good plan, if the path is one I want to walk, and if the destination is one I would choose.  If it all looks good to me, I want to make sure I know how to “Make it Happen”. I want to decide if I want to start spinning one more plate or not!

    I want to apply my reason and judgement over and above faith. I want to apply my reason to decide if I should start spinning one more plate. It may seem that faith and reason must oppose each other, but that is not the case.  We are created to reason and to have faith.  Indeed, faith requires reason.

    In the book Interior Freedom, author Jacques Philippe talks about the relationship between faith and reason:

    Faith cannot do without reason; and nothing is more beautiful than the possibility given man of cooperating in the work of God by freedom, understanding, and all our other faculties. Those moments of our lives when our minds grasp what God is doing, what he is calling us to, how he is teaching us to grow, enable us to cooperate fully with the work of grace.

    That is as God wants it. He did not create us as puppets but as free, responsible people, called to embrace his love with our intelligence and adhere to it with our freedom. It is therefore good and right that we want to understand the meaning of everything in our lives.
    Jacques Philippe, Interior Freedom, Kindle Ed. Loc. 527

    So, maybe it is OK for me to want to understand everything?  But Philippe is not saying we need to understand everything and every detail.  We need to recognize and be able to cooperate with what God is doing.  So I may be on shaky ground with my application of reason:  wanting all the details, so I can decide if I like the plan or not.

    Philippe continues…

    The motives behind our desire to understand may not always be upright. The thirst to know the truth in order to welcome it and conform our lives to it is completely in order. But there also is a desire to understand that is a desire for power: taking over, grasping, mastering the situation.

    The desire may also spring from another source that is far from pure: insecurity. In this case, understanding means reassuring ourselves, seeking security in the sense that we can control the situation if we understand it. Such security is too human, fragile, deceptive—it can be wrecked from one day to the next.
    Ibid.

    In other words, it is good, even necessary, that I can use my reason to hear and understand what it is that God is calling me into, writing a book in my case, and I can choose to cooperate freely in his plan, using my reason.  Using our reason is not the problem.  Why we use our reason can be the problem.  Do I want to choose what I think is best for me, or will I trust that God’s good is best for me.  Do I want to understand so that I take control of the process, to make sure it goes the way I want it to, or do I want to understand so that I can fully cooperate with God’s purposes?

    In my case, the desires to know all the “whys” and “hows” and “wherefores” of God’s plan is exactly what Philippe warns against.  I am seeking to understand so that I can I can control how the plan unfolds. I want to be the one calling the shots and making the decisions. I make God’s plan one more plate I have to spin and I want to decide if I should even bother to start it spinning.

    Being in charge is very distracting.  Trying to keep all those plates spinning necessarily pulls our attention away from God, away from what he is doing right here, right now.  We become disconnected from whatever it is God is up to at that moment; and he is always up to something!

    The only time we have any control over is the present.  When we are concerning ourselves too much with the future, wondering which plates I need to attend to next, we remove ourselves from whatever is happening right now.  Yesterday could have been a disaster and tomorrow may look pretty dicey, but the only time we can connect with God is now.  We need to break out of our prisons of spinning plates.

    It may sound counter-intuitive, but the desire to be the one that keeps all the plates going, the desire to be the one making all the decisions about the course to follow is really something that limits our freedom. The more we try to take on for ourselves, the less free we become. Taking the reins limits us to what we can imagine and work out for ourselves.  We reduce God’s initiative, the good he plans for us, to our size.  That is a pretty small size for God.

    Make no mistake, it is hard work, this trusting God to give us the good he intends for us—especially when we are in a hard place.  It requires us to realize that most of the plates we have spinning are not really vital and pale in importance when compared to God’s desires for us.  If they should fall they can be taken up again if need be.  There is that one plate that matters.  If we don’t attend to God, to our interior lives, if we don’t attend to our souls none of the rest of it really matters. We will continue our exhausting and frantic lives as plate spinners.

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

  • Pentecost

    Pentecost

    Pentecost is this Sunday, June 4th, and I am feeling a need to write about why we should care about Pentecost. I need to be honest.  I am a little intimidated to write about Pentecost.  It’s been written about many, many times by people much more clever and much more learned than I am. Do we really need something else? Yet, I am hearing the call from my Pops to write why Pentecost is important to me.  Nothing God asks for is without a purpose, so I trust that something I have to say will be what someone needs to hear.  Perhaps it is you?  If you are thinking, “I already know all about Pentecost — no need to read and further”, spend a moment in prayer to see if God move you to keep reading.

    If you don’t know what Pentecost is, here it is in a nutshell.  For Christians, Pentecost celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell believers. It is seen as the birth of the Christian Church.  After his death and resurrection Jesus spent time on earth with his disciples before ascending to the Father.  Ten days after his ascension, was Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was given:

    1 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they [Jesus’ disciples] were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Acts 2:1-4, English Standard Version

    For me, Pentecost belongs right up there with the “big” Christian Holidays of Christmas and Easter.  Christmas: when God became incarnate in the birth of Jesus; Easter:  when Jesus was raised from the dead and thereby conquered death that we may have live; and Pentecost, when the indwelling of Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, began for  believers.  That indwelling of Holy Spirit within us continues through today.

    It may be tempting to focus on (and debate!) the “[speaking] in other tongues”,  But that is not the central message of Pentecost.  If is a story of transformation and empowerment.  Peter, as an example of the early believers, who had denied even knowing Jesus on Good Friday; who had seemed to give up and returned to his job as a fisherman prior to meeting the resurrected Jesus; who, on Pentecost, after receiving the Holy Spirit, preaches an impromptu sermon that results in three thousand people becoming Christians!  That seems like a a pretty significant transformation.

    In some ways it reflects my own transformation. Not that I’m a world changer by any stretch of the imagination. But the very fact that I am writing this is an indication of my transformation.  My “natural self” would just as soon be left alone and leave you alone.  I would ponder the meaning of Pentecost, come to my conclusions, and then keep them to myself.  You can do your own pondering and conclusion drawing!

    However, I have the spirit of God dwelling within me.  And that spirit trumps and transforms the “natural me”.  He calls me to share my thoughts, in this blog, in the book I am writing, and in sermons I preach.  He calls me to share and to help guide others through the ministry of Spiritual Direction. It is not what I wanted to do; it is what I am called to do.  Jesus told his disciples Holy Spirit is the power given to us, so that we might make him known.

    But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:8, English Standard Version

    How important is the Holy Spirit to the Christian believer?  It is important enough that Jesus told his disciples it was better for them to receive the Holy Spirit then to have him remain with them.

    Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. John 16:7, English Standard Version

    Holy Spirit is not an optional extra to have along with your Jesus. He is the very spirit of Christ given to empower and enlighten us.  If you don’t know Holy Spirit, perhaps this Pentecost would be the time to invite him to make himself know to you!

    (If you were one of the people who needed to read this, and it spoke to you, would you be kind enough and brave enough to leave a comment?)

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

  • Vows and the Need for Healing

    Vows and the Need for Healing

    In a previous note I talked about how vows can hold us back and keep us from stepping into all the Lord is calling us to and wants for us.  My friend, Pastor Joe Johnson reminded me of the importance of understanding and healing the wounds that sometimes cause us to make vows in the first place.  He teaches on vows as part of emotional and spiritual healing and points out, “We wouldn’t need vows or run to vows to protect us from pain if there wasn’t a wound.”   (In all likelihood, I first learned about vows from Joe’s excellent teaching.)

    We don’t just wake up one morning and vow to never again allow ourselves to be hurt emotionally (as an example).  There often is some deep wounding that has happened, something so painful and traumatic that we seek to banish it forever with our vows.  Very often we are no longer aware of the the circumstances that precipitated our vows in the first first place.  They may simply be forgotten, or more likely, the the circumstances were so painful to us that we have buried them deeply, so deeply that we can’t even access the memories any more. The vows we made can be important clues to our past wounding.  Emmanuel Prayer can be an important avenue to discovering our often hidden wounds and bringing Jesus’ healing presence to them.

    If you are interested in Emmanuel Prayer (also know as the Immanuel Approach), Dr. Karl Lehman, a Christian and a psychiatrist, is a great place to start.  His website provides helpful resources for those seeking emotional healing.  On the topic of vows, two downloadable PDFs may be of interest: Vows: “Clutter” That Can Hinder Emotional Healing and a Sinful Vows Worksheet.

    Not all vows stem from past emotional trauma, but for those that do it is important to seek healing from those wounds with caring and qualified assistance.

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  • The Trouble with Vows

    The Trouble with Vows

    Have you ever made a vow?  Most of us have.  If you are married you made vows to God and to your spouse.  If you have ever given legal testimony you made a vow to tell the truth.  If you served in the military you made a vow to protect and defend the constitution.  In a few days I will be commissioned into the ministry of Spiritual Direction in my church and will vows to God about how I will function in that ministry. These are a few simple examples, you may have others in mind.

    These vows are not bad things, when entered into soberly and intentionally.  Quite the contrary, they can be very good things. A vow to keep yourself “only unto” your spouse may make it easier for you to remain faithful in the face of temptation.  Our legal system would quickly fall apart if we couldn’t count on honest testimony.  My vows as a Spiritual Director can help keep me grounded and pointed in the right direction.

    But there are other vows we make, often without sober consideration and sometimes without realizing what we are vowing.

    I will never be like my father!
    I won’t treat my kids the way my mom treated me!
    I’ll never hurt anyone the way I’ve been hurt.
    I won’t let myself be hurt again!

    These are vows that we make to ourselves. We make them when we are angry, hurting, and vulnerable.  Often we make them when we are young, when we lack perspective and don’t realize the power these  vows can claim. We repeat them over and over to ourselves.  They become part of our internal wiring, exerting control over us long after we have forgotten we even made them.

    Still, you may be thinking, “what’s so bad?”  Indeed, if you are trying not to carry forward hurtful behaviors that is, on the surface, a good thing.  But here are a couple of reasons why they may be hurting you spiritually today.

    First, the enemy can use them against us.  The vows we make to ourselves are very hard to keep.  We will almost certainly fail in them, at least to some degree.  When we do, Satan, the enemy of our souls, is quick to jump in and remind us that we are failures and are doing the things we vowed we wouldn’t; we are failing ourselves and failing others.  If we are not well connected to the heart of the Father, Satan will likely be able to convince us that our failure to keep our vow is an affront to God, above and beyond any sin we may commit, even though the vow was one we made only to ourselves.  Those rashly made, often broken vows become needless sources of accusation and condemnation.

    Second, they cause us to limit ourselves. One of the threads that is common to many of the vows we make to ourselves is that vow what we are not going to do or become or allow to happen to us.  When those vows we’ve made, that have been entrenched in our psyches, they tell us only what not to do, not what to do.  We pay so much attention to what we don’t want to do and limit what we will do.  We fence ourselves in.

    In our spiritual growth terms, those vows limit our spiritual freedom.  Spiritual freedom, means that we desire nothing above knowing and following the Lord’s will.  The vows we make, ingrained as they are, become our primary focus, over knowing and following the Lord.

    An example from my own history of vows may help here.  My father had many good qualities but he also had some not so go qualities.  Like many people with challenging parents,  I vowed that I would never be like him.  Part of that meant that I vowed to not be manipulative.  My wife and children could easily attest that my failure to live up that vow was epic.  However, as I matured in my faith and became more aware of my own sinful adoption of my dad’s ways, those vows kicked in anew.  My vow to not be arrogant or manipulative to shape as a desire to melt into the background. I so wanted to not be arrogant I actively rejected much of what I was being called to do and become.  I was hesitant and reluctant to engage in the preaching and teaching I was called to.  Being in the background is not inherently bad, but it was not what I was being called to in this season.  My vows were limiting my spiritual freedom.

    What is the solution?  It is to learn to pay attention to your interior life, to learn what it is that motivates you.  Where you find vows that are not appropriate to your growth and freedom, take them to Jesus.  Acknowledge them, disavow them, and ask Jesus to guide you into the freedom he desires you have.

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