Discovering Who I Am

I was recently asked, who are the three people who have had the most influence on my life.

The most influential person overall would have to be my father, Lonny. He has impacted who I am as a person and is responsible for imparting the values that guide me through life’s most important decisions. Among the many principles and values I learned from my father is that there is a difference between authority and position. He never needed a position or title to validate the quiet, confident authority God gave him. He taught me the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Being an artist as well, my father taught me how to create as a created being made in the image of the Creator. And one of the most critical principles I learned from my father is how to operate in God’s economy of giving and receiving as compared to the worlds economy of buying and selling. He gave freely and received graciously.

Second to my father, my wife, Jennifer has had significant influence in my life. I am privileged to have married a woman who has a special ability to see beyond the skin of the world to the deeper matters of the kingdom. Her keen gift of discernment has been a source of much needed insight and perspective in the midst of complex and often confusing seasons of life. She has consistently understood more about me than I seem to understand about myself and has encouraged and challenged me to become something greater every day. Jennifer’s willingness to embrace risk and make life work on less during the early years of establishing Harvest Media were a critical part of the success we enjoy today. I truly wouldn’t be the man I am today, nor the privilege of doing what I do, without her.

Third on my list would have to be my brother, Lance. The love for adventure and explorer’s heart I have today came out of scrambling to keep up with an older brother as he conquered the world Huckleberry Finn-style. He scoffed at risk and wouldn’t stop until he had found the end of every trail and seen the other side of every mountain. When an unfortunate knife accident resulted in the loss of my right eye when I was nine, the doctors prophesied I would never be able to live like other boys. With an absence of depth perception, I would struggle to ride a bike, to navigate rough terrain; I should be watched and protected. My parents responded by buying me a unicycle (which I learned to ride) and Lance continued taking me on adventures– challenging me to climb, swim, jump, fish, camp, ride motorcycles, water ski– everything I shouldn’t be able to do like the next guy, my brother taught me to do better.

I owe the vision to achieve to my father, the courage to take risks to my brother, and the support to carry through to my wife.

I am indeed a blessed man.

I have been listening back through The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen Covey. In habit one, he talks about principles of personal vision and three widely accepted theories of determinism.

• Genetic determinism holds that you inherit your personal tendencies and character.
• Psychic determinism holds that your upbringing and childhood experiences mold you.
• Environmental determinism holds that environmental factors are responsible.

I’ve been thinking about where our images of ourselves, of others and of the way the world is supposed to be, come from. Every day we are reacting to others and to circumstances based on conclusions we have made, and the preconceived ideas and expectations of the world around us that come out of those conclusions. I have come to attribute those conclusions more and more to what Covey referred to as the “social mirror”.

From the time we are born, we are receiving identity messages from those around us and from the experiences we have, and we subconsciously come to conclusions about ourselves based on those value messages. When a parent, at a time of anger, says things like, “You’ll never amount to anything unless…” or, “If you were more like your brother (or sister)…” or when we are teased at school, or the last one picked on the team, or bullied and called names, or just not good at something; or when we are abandoned or rejected– any experience has the potential to send and deeply establish an identity message, and we begin to believe what we see reflected back to us through the social mirror.

Recently, I found myself responding in anger to my children when they weren’t in bed on time. We had developed a consistent routine of them dragging their feet on the way to bed, and me reacting in anger and frustration and threatening and cajoling them to bed every night. I realized that we were ending every day on a bad note and began asking myself why I was responding so emotionally to the situation.

Upon some reflection, I realized the root of my anger. I was brought up in a very strict home where getting in to bed late was seen as showing serious disrespect for my parents. Dishonoring parents was a major offense. It occurred to me that I was subconsciously receiving their refusal to try and get in bed on time as a statement about my value and the value of my rules and felt disrespected and dishonored. Because I was translating their behavior this way, I was personally hurt and reactive, instead of just offering consequences in love and allowing them to make the decision whether they wanted to suffer those consequences.

Frankl, a psychologist in the Freudian tradition, contends that “between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.” Covey insists there are two different types of people, reactive and proactive. Reactive people are driven by feelings, circumstances, conditions, the environment. Proactive people are driven by carefully considered, selected and internalized values. Covey insists that Reactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern, and proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence.

When I experience a strong emotional reaction during curtain circumstances, or respond irrationally at times, I might stop to consider the source. Chances are, I will find at it’s root a conclusion or expectation made after looking in the social mirror and believing what I saw there.

Based on accounts in the Bible, Jesus didn’t ever seem to be effected by what he saw in the social mirror. He was called a bastard and judged and rejected throughout his life. But he was so connected to the Father’s heart, and who God made him to be, that he stayed grounded in the truth of who he is and was able to live his life on earth as a proactive person who wasn’t distracted by the circle of concern, but was focused on the circle of influence– and no man has had a greater influence on mankind.

In his book Not the Religious Type: Confessions of a Turncoat Atheist, David Schmelzer talks about a turning point in his life when he read a lecture by psychologist, M. Scott Peck, about the four stages of faith.

Peck talks about an odd thing he’d noticed in his practice. Some patients would begin therapy as deeply troubled, deeply religious people. He’d help them, and—to his mind—part of their clear growth would occur when they’d leave their religion behind. Other patients, just as troubled and then just as helped, would find faith as a result of their work together. What did that mean?

That question agitated Peck into proposing a four-stage theory of human spiritual and emotional development. He proposed that, in a perfect world, our spiritual development would exactly track with our emotional development. But, given our actual world, it rarely works that way. Traumas along the way can stop our growth in an earlier stage, which has implications not only on how we see the world but also in the way we regard other people and the purpose of life.

Schmelzer goes on to describe the four stages of faith as Peck saw them. He calls the first stage the criminal stage and corresponds it to the toddler years. Toddlers are completely focused on their felt needs and have no capacity to account for the needs of others or for how their behavior impacts others.

You could make the case that people who get stuck in the criminal stage are often best served by two institutions: jail and the boardroom. Jail for obvious reasons… but high-functioning stage 1 folks can often be quite effective businesspeople (or politicians or, God forbid, pastors), because they’re relentlessly focused on winning, on getting what they want, whatever it takes.

He describes stage two Christians as rule-based and corresponds them to age 6 or 7. During this stage, one realizes that there are a set of rules and behavioral expectations that, once embraced, offer a formula for life that works pretty well.

Two institutions might best serve stage 2: the military and the church. The military, again, for obvious reasons. It has famously been a transitional institution for people coming from chaotic backgrounds. It’s where they find discipline and boundaries. But it was the church part that grabbed my attention. Peck argues that most churches are stage 2. They exist to tell people the rules, to set the boundaries of life.

He takes great pains not to judge this. He emphasizes that whatever spiritual things happen at these churches are undoubtedly completely real and that, to his mind, the teachings there are effectively true. The heart and soul of America and most countries are right here in stage 2. These are the good people who get things done and raise strong families. The larger point rests, rather, in how this and other stages interact with each other. So let’s go on for a moment.

Stage three is described as rebellious and corresponds to the teen years. Read the rest of this entry »

I have been struggling through a difficult circumstance in my life lately, and it revealed some deeply established patterns of thinking. In the face of this ongoing struggle, I heard a little voice inside myself saying things like, “when I have learned what I need to learn from this, God will present a solution” or, “if it wasn’t for my failure to (fill in the blank) God would answer my prayers” or, “God is teaching me patience and humility.”

I was mulling over some of these thoughts as I was driving when I saw a bumper sticker on the car in front of me that had a skull and crossbones and said, “The beatings will continue until morale improves!” and it struck me… I am serving a pirateship captain God!

The beatings will continue until morale improves!

I thought to myself, Blimey, that explains a lot! No wonder I have been living my life in indentured servitude– never quite being able to do enough to earn God’s favor; seeing all the booty from the hard work I do seemingly benefit everyone else but me; living my life in the “brig” because I can’t quite live up to my captains demands; scrubbing the decks and swabbing the mainplanks.

Of course, the truth of the matter is that God is nothing like a pirateship captain. But somewhere along the way I have accepted a picture of God that looks a lot like a pirateship captain. I expect that when something bad happens to me it must be God disciplining me. I remain in a difficult or adverse circumstance, waiting for God to bail me out when He has already given me all I need to break free. I beg and grovel before God for a crust of bread. I accept my lot as an orphan who has been taken in by the ship’s crew when in reality, I am royalty.

It is kind of ironic when I turn to look at who is holding the Cat o’nine tails after a flogging and find that it is me.

In a recent blog post, Dr. Mariana Caplan shares 10 spiritually transmitted diseases that I thought were very insightful and some of which I have recognized in myself and the church at times.

1. Fast-Food Spirituality: Mix spirituality with a culture that celebrates speed, multitasking and instant gratification and the result is likely to be fast-food spirituality. Fast-food spirituality is a product of the common and understandable fantasy that relief from the suffering of our human condition can be quick and easy. One thing is clear, however: spiritual transformation cannot be had in a quick fix.

2. Faux Spirituality: Faux spirituality is the tendency to talk, dress and act as we imagine a spiritual person would. It is a kind of imitation spirituality that mimics spiritual realization in the way that leopard-skin fabric imitates the genuine skin of a leopard.

3. Confused Motivations: Although our desire to grow is genuine and pure, it often gets mixed with lesser motivations, including the wish to be loved, the desire to belong, the need to fill our internal emptiness, the belief that the spiritual path will remove our suffering and spiritual ambition, the wish to be special, to be better than, to be “the one.”

4. Identifying with Spiritual Experiences: In this disease, the ego identifies with our spiritual experience and takes it as its own, and we begin to believe that we are embodying insights that have arisen within us at certain times. In most cases, it does not last indefinitely, although it tends to endure for longer periods of time in those who believe themselves to be enlightened and/or who function as spiritual teachers.

5. The Spiritualized Ego: This disease occurs when the very structure of the egoic personality becomes deeply embedded with spiritual concepts and ideas. The result is an egoic structure that is “bullet-proof.” When the ego becomes spiritualized, we are invulnerable to help, new input, or constructive feedback. We become impenetrable human beings and are stunted in our spiritual growth, all in the name of spirituality.

6. Mass Production of Spiritual Teachers: There are a number of current trendy spiritual traditions that produce people who believe themselves to be at a level of spiritual enlightenment, or mastery, that is far beyond their actual level. This disease functions like a spiritual conveyor belt: put on this glow, get that insight, and — bam! — you’re enlightened and ready to enlighten others in similar fashion. The problem is not that such teachers instruct but that they represent themselves as having achieved spiritual mastery.

7. Spiritual Pride: Spiritual pride arises when the practitioner, through years of labored effort, has actually attained a certain level of wisdom and uses that attainment to justify shutting down to further experience. A feeling of “spiritual superiority” is another symptom of this spiritually transmitted disease. It manifests as a subtle feeling that “I am better, more wise and above others because I am spiritual.”

8. Group Mind: Also described as groupthink, cultic mentality or ashram disease, group mind is an insidious virus that contains many elements of traditional co-dependence. A spiritual group makes subtle and unconscious agreements regarding the correct ways to think, talk, dress, and act. Individuals and groups infected with “group mind” reject individuals, attitudes, and circumstances that do not conform to the often unwritten rules of the group.

9. The Chosen-People Complex: The chosen people complex is not limited to Jews. It is the belief that “Our group is more spiritually evolved, powerful, enlightened and, simply put, better than any other group.” There is an important distinction between the recognition that one has found the right path, teacher or community for themselves, and having found The One.

10. The Deadly Virus: “I Have Arrived”: This disease is so potent that it has the capacity to be terminal and deadly to our spiritual evolution. This is the belief that “I have arrived” at the final goal of the spiritual path. Our spiritual progress ends at the point where this belief becomes crystallized in our psyche, for the moment we begin to believe that we have reached the end of the path, further growth ceases.

Marc Gafni claims, “The essence of love is perception, therefore the essence of self love is self perception. You can only fall in love with someone you can see clearly–including yourself. To love is to have eyes to see. It is only when you see yourself clearly that you can begin to love yourself.”

Science has proven over and over again how powerful faith can be. Here are some examples of the power of belief from the book Biology of Belief, by Bruce Lipton.

Dr. Bruce Mosely of Baylor School of Medicine tested the power of belief on a group of patients suffering from Arthritic knees. He shaved the cartilage in one group, flushed out the knee joint in another group and made incisions and faked the surgery on a third group. All three groups improved & the placebo group improved just as much as the other two groups.
Dr Mosely said, “My skill as a surgeon had no benefit on these patients. The entire benefit of surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee was the placebo effect.” One member of the placebo group, Tim Perez, had to walk with a cane before the “surgery” but can now play basketball with his grandchildren.

Psychiatrist Walter Brown of Brown University has proposed that placebo pills be the first treatment for patients with mild or moderate depression. Studies have shown that even when people know they’re not getting a drug, the placebo pills work. Professor of Psychology, Irving Kirsch, from the University of Connecticut, had to invoke the Freedom of Information Act in 2001 to get information on the clinical trials of the top antidepressants on the market today. The data shows that in more than half of the clinical trials for the six leading antidepressants, the drugs did not outperform placebo sugar pills. Antidepressants have performed better and better in clinical trials over the years, suggesting that their placebo effects are in part due to savvy marketing. The more the media and advertisers have touted the miracle of antidepressants, the more effective they have become. People believe that antidepressants work, and so they do.

A California  interior designer, Janis Schonfeld, after suffering 30 years of depression, took part in a clinical trial in 1997 for Effexor. She was absolutely stunned when found out she had been on a placebo. The brain scans she received throughout the study found that the activity of her prefrontal cortex was greatly enhanced. She even experienced nausea, a common Effexor side effect.

Dr. Clifton Meador talks about his patient, Sam Londe, who was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus– considered 100% fatal at the time (1974). Sam was well aware that everyone in the medical community “expected” that his cancer would recur. No surprise when Londe died a few weeks after diagnosis. However, an autopsy showed no esophageal cancer. Dr. Meador concluded that Londe died because he believed he was going to die.

If what we believe is so powerful in the area of disease and physical health, I wonder how our views of God impact who we become and how we interact with the world around us. I have often heard the idiom, we become like the god we believe in. I believe in a God of love, grace, compassion and creativity; one who accepts and approves me regardless of my mistakes and flaws… or do I? If this is the God I believe in, then why do I not demonstrate the same love, grace, compassion and acceptance towards others?

David Kinnaman, Barna Group president and author of the book, UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity, conducted a study of young people, ages 16-29. He found that the vast majority of non-Christians — 87 percent — said Christianity was judgmental and 85 percent said it was hypocritical. Even the majority of active church-goers surveyed agreed, with 52 percent saying Christianity is judgmental, and 47 percent declaring it hypocritical. Is God judgmental? If most Christians were believing in a God of love and acceptance, would the majority of non-Christians see Christianity as judgmental?

Kinnaman said, “The anti-homosexual perception has now become sort of the Geiger counter of Christians’ ability to love and work with people.” If Christians response to homosexuality is any indication of the nature of the God we believe in, then I fear the majority of us are not seeing God as loving and gracious, but as judgmental and disapproving. Our inability to love and accept someone because of their sin is a reflection of our belief that God does not love and accept us when we sin.

Kinnaman said “When Jesus pursued people, he was much more critical of pride and much more critical of spiritual arrogance than he was of people who were sinful. And today’s Christians, if you spend enough time looking at their attitudes and actions, really are not like Jesus when it comes to that.”

Another survey of U.S. adults who don’t go to church, even on holidays, finds 72 percent say “God, a higher or supreme being, actually exists.” But just as many, 72% percent, also say the church is “full of hypocrites.” Most of the unchurched, 86% percent, say they believe they can have a “good relationship with God without belonging to a church.” And 79 percent say “Christianity today is more about organized religion than loving God and loving people.”

“These outsiders are making a clear comment that churches are not getting through on the two greatest commandments,” to love God and love your neighbor, says Scott McConnell, associate director of LifeWay Research. “When they look at churches … they don’t see people living out the faith.”

I would suggest that Mr. McConnell is wrong in his assessment. I believe that, too often, Christians are living out their faith– they are reflecting the very essence of their belief about God. And if it is true that we become like the God we believe in, many of us might want to reevaluate our view of God before we poison our own spiritual being and alienate others from the love of God. Are you becoming like the God you believe in?

We are all on a journey of faith, whether we know it or not. If we are not putting our faith in God, we are putting it in something else. Money, relationships, our career, ourselves. We put our faith in other motorists on the road every day as we trust that they will stay in their own lane. And we have all experienced the disappointment of being let down by all of the above. Each of us has a unique story of the journey we have taken in our lives from one faith to the next.

For those of us who have found the one true source of faith, the journey there has often been a winding road with many adventures along the way. The stories of that journey can be inspirational and encouraging.

I discovered a website that shares the stories of dozens of travelers on the road to faith. Take a few minutes to listen to some of these stories at I Am Second. You won’t be disappointed.

As I was driving through the downtown area on my way to work this morning, I was thinking about how I love catching quick glimpses of life happening along the way. From the lounging homeless men loitering in the park to the purposeful walk of a businessman to the determined focus of a cyclist to the socializing group of women sitting outside a cafe; snapshots of life being lived in all of it’s many forms can be seen wherever you look.

I wonder about the lives of the people I see as I pass by. Are they happy where they are at? Are they pursuing their dreams?

During a recent trip to Cambodia, our van broke down by the side of the road in a rural area far from any cities. For a few hours I had the privilege of observing the lives of a few Cambodian families who lived alongside the road. They had small business ventures set up in front of their homes. One family was selling fuel to the passing motos and motorcars. Another had a roadside food stand. Others moved up and down the stretch of highway selling wares, or food. None seemed to be in a hurry, and it was clear they lived a subsistence lifestyle; making just enough money today to cover the needs of today. It was surreal being such a close observer of a scene similar to thousands of others that had flown by the van window during that trip and a dozen others.

In a way I envied their slow-paced existence and their seeming contentment to spend their lives watching others travel by on their way to somewhere they had never been. I found myself wondering, if I had been born to one of these families, would I be content to live out my life in such a small corner of the world. I supposed that if all you knew was contained within a few square miles, and you had no access to TV or the the internet, you might live the extent of your life never knowing what you missed. And although there were clearly aspects to their culture and lifestyle that lent to strong family and community relationships, I found myself very grateful I wasn’t born to a third-world family.

But at the same time, I know that, despite my larger view of the world, I have limitations in my vision based on my subjective position. It is interesting how our expectations of life are so often determined by the limitations of our experience. Sometimes I look at others and feel like I am standing still; sitting next to the highway watching them fly by on their way to somewhere meaningful. I often ask God to expand my view so I won’t miss out on all He has for me. I believe all desires and dreams come from God, but we too often seek to fulfill our God-given desires outside of His provision. I burn with desire for a greater vision and to impact the world for His glory and I find that with each new experience; with each new trip abroad; with each book I read; with each new person I meet; with each new road I travel, the picture I have of God expands along with the vision for where I fit in.

I challenge you to discover a new road to explore today.

Here is a different perspective than most of us have received as Christians:

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

–Marianne Williamson from her book A Return to Love

Your thoughts?….

I am codependent. Every day I realize more how codependent I am. Codependency is generally defined as looking to others to meet a need that they could never possibly meet. Most of the conflicts in my relationship with my wife and others is a result of my codependency. When I stop to think about it, most everything I do in life is motivated by a driving need to fill an elusive void in my heart; a strong sense of lack. Some would describe the sense of lack as low self-worth. Others may use the word emptiness. Still others would call it loneliness. Thousands of phobias and destructive emotional patterns, when reduced to their most basic feeling, are rooted in the sense of lack.

The most frustrating thing about this feeling of lack and the unhealthy life patterns that result is that the harder I try to be a better person, the more lack I experience and the more of a failure I feel. I have spent my life trying to break free. I have gone to church consistently, striving to be a good Christian. I have prayed, read my Bible, confessed my sins and made myself accountable to others.

But recently I have been learning a new perspective. Religion makes rules and laws designed to lead us to perfection but instead take us deeper into the feeling of lack. We ignore the truth that says that laws can only make us more aware of our failures and can in no way give us power over sin.

Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. –Romans 3:20

…the strength of sin is the law. –1 Cor 15:56

In his book, Breaking the Cycle, Dr. James Richards says:

The sense of lack comes from not knowing, believing, and experiencing all that we have been freely given in Jesus. The church has been systematically trained to ask the wrong questions. Most of our questions are based on the presumption of lack. We do not really believe in the promises that come to us through the finished work of Jesus. When my beliefs are not based on the completed work of Jesus, I do not connect with the fact that I am complete in Jesus. Once I accept the idea that there is something God has not done for me, I abandon the promises and the power that makes it possible for me to live a victorious life.

My beliefs drive my emotions and my emotions drive my actions and I begin to be driven by fear rather than faith. What I focus on most is reproduced in my life and my feelings are validated and I begin to trust my feelings more than the realities of God and thus the cycle begins.

Dr. Richards insists that when my sense of wholeness and completeness (my feeling of righteousness) is based on the finished work of Jesus (His death, burial and resurrection and all that it purchased), I become free from the power of lack. True completeness comes from the sense of who I am, not what I have or what I do. When I believe that I am a new creation in Jesus I cease pursuing the destructive process of becoming. I focus on who I already am and by focusing on that truth, emotions follow, and I begin acting according to that truth rather than according to lack. Lack makes me the center of every equation. Faith, on the other hand, makes Jesus the center.

The more I understand God’s love for me and His desire to meet my needs, the less lack I will feel and less codependency will surface in my relationships. I am approved by God and He has already given me all I need for life and Godliness.