You are currently browsing the Bruce Smith weblog archives for January, 2011.
25. January 2011 by BruceSmith.
PAIN WRECK
Life Thought: In the aftermath of a train wreck, in-depth analysis, clean up, engine repairs, adjustment of conductor practices, track re-alignment, and new railway operations are stridently enforced for the future protection & vitality of passengers, pedestrians, workers, and the public at large. In the pain wreck of our lives, should it be any different? Unless we re-evaluate and adjust all the daily contingencies, we meet one crash after another. The scriptures are our tracks for safety and adventure. It is between the guide-rails of God’s statutes that we find not only a more desirable destination, but a more fulfilling journey along the way.
I remember, as a child, for many years, being intrigued by trains. Like lots of young boys, the whole idea of these masses of steel and steam, and power and speed, just really got my juices flowing. The conductor caps, the long journeys across the vast expanses of the world, the exciting duels fought out on the tops of moving trains in the movies, the shootouts in the westerns of the day…all really cool stuff. For a period of time when I was younger my mom would buy me train sets, some of which were really neat. I remember one year when I received an amazing set of steel tracks and a giant strong, fast, slivery smooth train set, led by a massive engine in front. The thing even blew real steam, and whistled! My mind would take me places, on this train, that enlarged my view of what life should be and where it should take me. One thing I came to know during this time, this life was built for something grand, something strong, something heroic, something beyond the norm. I think I’ve lived with that idea in view ever since.
That idea, that our lives are built for a bigger story, grips everyone, at least for a while. For some the idea lasts a lifetime. For most, the idea, the hunger, the desire for something more gets derailed, lost, crashed upon the pain of life. Many, in our world, have the adventure turn really ugly early on in life. The physical, mental, sexual abuse statistics and research demonstrate just how nasty and life-altering the train wrecks of our lives can be. Like a toxic spill, these wrecks leave residue for years to come. For others the fast-moving, scenic adventure turns ugly in the midst of a romance turned tragic. Amidst the mangled wreckage of betrayal, violence, sudden illness and loss, selfishness, addiction, death, or the fading of desire, lives come off the tracks, and families and hearts break apart like box cars unhinged from each other, colliding into one another with a gruesome force. Still, others, experience the pain wreck of life when a deeply planted dream dies. Professional ambitions are squashed, athletic quests are cut short, a desire for a loved one does not pan out. An educational dream is derailed by a pregnancy or financial realities or the realities of caring for a family. These things can hover over our heads like a helicopter news crew filming the unfolding carnage of a major spill.
I began to realize, early on, how the adventure could turn dangerous. Fundamentally, I understood, without even realizing it, that I had to choose to take responsibility for my journey if adventure was to be had. Like many, like you maybe, life gave me an early awakening to the reality of loss and pain. From the age of two, I grew up without a father, and then as a pre-teen, with a new family budding, I watched as my step-father, only twenty-seven years old, and the picture of athletic health, suffered and died with cancer. I had not, up till that point, and have not since, had a father figure in my household. That’s not the kind of journey we choose, but its part of what unfolds on the tracks of life. How we respond, I found out, by the grace of God, determines the quality of the ride from that point on.
When these events, these detours from our preferred journey unfold, how we manage our heart largely dictates the working out of the rest of our lives. Like another of the statistics, I could have taken the route of the child from a “broken and fatherless home”. The research is riddled with the reality of certain things characterizing the lives of those who do grow up fatherless and those who grow up in a severed family. Larger reported use of drugs and alcohol, less emotional stability, abuse, lack of focus, pathological patterns of compulsion, anger, workaholism, depression, a pattern of aggression, …on and on, the reports are catalogues of life wreckage. Thankfully, by the grace of God, and because of a healthy measure of love from family and close friends along the way, and because God brought me to Himself early in life, I was spared this kind of pain wreckage.
That is not to say I’ve ignored or not been impacted by the reality of that loss, and its not to say that pieces to my puzzle could not have fit much better if I had the gift of a vitally functioning and biblically thriving father in my life. Is that not true for us all? Surely that would have made a difference in ways I don’t even understand. This reality, in fact, was recently brought to my attention when, upon the “anniversary” of my grandmother’s death, I went to visit her gravesite, and then decided to visit the graves of each of my grandparents, on both sides (all in same small town and at two different cemeteries) of my family tree. After easily finding the sites for all four grandparents, I could not even find the site of my now deceased father’s grave (despite having been to the funeral and actually preaching the funeral message) which is somewhere in the same cemetery as his parents. For only the second time in my life (the first being his funeral) that I can remember, I cried “over” the realities that encompass my father’s own pain wreck and the aftermath it left for so long and still leaves for so many. Again, by God’s grace, I have the power and rest to walk in the joy and peace of understanding and purpose, and so, my life is not marked by a daily awareness of this reality. Life does bring us undesirable twists. Pain is there for each of us, waiting to flood our veins and impact every moment of our lives if we allow it.
But it does not have to be this way. How we view the pain of our lives, how we process it, and how we allow God to do His thing, is what will make us or break us. We make the choice to allow the shocking current of past pain to run through our everyday reality like an electric charge, always there, always just under the surface, ready to jolt us or anyone that would get too close at any moment. All of us are birthed into this adventure, all of us are given the opportunity to experience a bigger adventure. And all of us witness wrecks along the way. The key is found in our assessment, reaction, and submission to God’s work in the midst of it all. He is never derailed. Let me say that again. God is never derailed. His intentions for you are sure. He desires that you continue on the track, charging full-speed ahead, whistle blowing, scenery taken in, full of joy for the journey, and expectation in your heart from what’s around the next bend.
If your are to walk in that fulness, you must begin the cleanup, internally, spiritually, emotionally, and relationally. The longer you wait, the more difficult the laying of new tracks becomes.
Like a wreck site left unattended to for years, your heart, unkept, unhealed, becomes a darkened, dry, weary, and avoidable landscape. You will dread it all the more, and people will find routes that take them elsewhere in order to avoid the dangers there. As your heart darkens, you grow in your compulsion to hide it from yourself and others, you reinforce its death by false self-talk, a false-persona, and you commit in greater scope to an all out self-protection, refusing to allow God or anyone else to get in there and help you heal. This kind of pain wreck, like nuclear fall-out or a seeping chemical spill, can affect you for a lifetime.
The time to clean up and get back on the tracks is now. Don’t allow the pain, no matter how deep, to continue to impact your present. By doing so, your future is certain. You will die, right there, smothering, trapped, lying in the wreckage. Too often, those characterized by this kind of life, even as they have chosen to stay there, blame all the onlookers for there continuing choice. Pointing, screaming, yelling from beneath the rubble, they tell all the onlookers its their fault things are as they are. Even the rescue workers, those trained to care, those who are willing to get dirty and help rebuild, are, amidst the confusion and clutter and distrust of the past, told to stay way. Like a wounded animal, too consumed with the pain, they are unwilling to allow first aid to be applied and healing to begin. God always wants to heal your pain. He always sends others to help. He’s been doing it from the beginning. We must trust His heart for us and allow His hand to touch those wounds that are still bleeding even after so many years. He will never allow us to just move on. He is committed to moving in us, giving us insight, and restoring what is broken and hidden. He will not allow us to hide it away as if its just a part of us we can move, cover, disguise at will with no effects upon us or others.
…to be continued … moving from wreckage and pain to healing and adventure
Bruce Smith
optimuslife.org
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
25. January 2011 by BruceSmith.
PAIN WRECK
Life Thought: In the aftermath of a train wreck, in-depth analysis, clean up, engine repairs, adjustment of conductor practices, track re-alignment, and new railway operations are stridently enforced for the future protection & vitality of passengers, pedestrians, workers, and the public at large. In the pain wreck of our lives, should it be any different? Unless we re-evaluate and adjust all the daily contingencies, we meet one crash after another. The scriptures are our tracks for safety and adventure. It is between the guide-rails of God’s statutes that we find not only a more desirable destination, but a more fulfilling journey along the way.
I remember, as a child, for many years, being intrigued by trains. Like lots of young boys, the whole idea of these masses of steel and steam, and power and speed, just really got my juices flowing. The conductor caps, the long journeys across the vast expanses of the world, the exciting duels fought out on the tops of moving trains in the movies, the shootouts in the westerns of the day…all really cool stuff. For a period of time when I was younger my mom would buy me train sets, some of which were really neat. I remember one year when I received an amazing set of steel tracks and a giant strong, fast, slivery smooth train set, led by a massive engine in front. The thing even blew real steam, and whistled! My mind would take me places, on this train, that enlarged my view of what life should be and where it should take me. One thing I came to know during this time, this life was built for something grand, something strong, something heroic, something beyond the norm. I think I’ve lived with that idea in view ever since.
That idea, that our lives are built for a bigger story, grips everyone, at least for a while. For some the idea lasts a lifetime. For most, the idea, the hunger, the desire for something more gets derailed, lost, crashed upon the pain of life. Many, in our world, have the adventure turn really ugly early on in life. The physical, mental, sexual abuse statistics and research demonstrate just how nasty and life-altering the train wrecks of our lives can be. Like a toxic spill, these wrecks leave residue for years to come. For others the fast-moving, scenic adventure turns ugly in the midst of a romance turned tragic. Amidst the mangled wreckage of betrayal, violence, sudden illness and loss, selfishness, addiction, death, or the fading of desire, lives come off the tracks, and families and hearts break apart like box cars unhinged from each other, colliding into one another with a gruesome force. Still, others, experience the pain wreck of life when a deeply planted dream dies. Professional ambitions are squashed, athletic quests are cut short, a desire for a loved one does not pan out. An educational dream is derailed by a pregnancy or financial realities or the realities of caring for a family. These things can hover over our heads like a helicopter news crew filming the unfolding carnage of a major spill.
I began to realize, early on, how the adventure could turn dangerous. Fundamentally, I understood, without even realizing it, that I had to choose to take responsibility for my journey if adventure was to be had. Like many, like you maybe, life gave me an early awakening to the reality of loss and pain. From the age of two, I grew up without a father, and then as a pre-teen, with a new family budding, I watched as my step-father, only twenty-seven years old, and the picture of athletic health, suffered and died with cancer. I had not, up till that point, and have not since, had a father figure in my household. That’s not the kind of journey we choose, but its part of what unfolds on the tracks of life. How we respond, I found out, by the grace of God, determines the quality of the ride from that point on.
When these events, these detours from our preferred journey unfold, how we manage our heart largely dictates the working out of the rest of our lives. Like another of the statistics, I could have taken the route of the child from a “broken and fatherless home”. The research is riddled with the reality of certain things characterizing the lives of those who do grow up fatherless and those who grow up in a severed family. Larger reported use of drugs and alcohol, less emotional stability, abuse, lack of focus, pathological patterns of compulsion, anger, workaholism, depression, a pattern of aggression, …on and on, the reports are catalogues of life wreckage. Thankfully, by the grace of God, and because of a healthy measure of love from family and close friends along the way, and because God brought me to Himself early in life, I was spared this kind of pain wreckage.
That is not to say I’ve ignored or not been impacted by the reality of that loss, and its not to say that pieces to my puzzle could not have fit much better if I had the gift of a vitally functioning and biblically thriving father in my life. Is that not true for us all? Surely that would have made a difference in ways I don’t even understand. This reality, in fact, was recently brought to my attention when, upon the “anniversary” of my grandmother’s death, I went to visit her gravesite, and then decided to visit the graves of each of my grandparents, on both sides (all in same small town and at two different cemeteries) of my family tree. After easily finding the sites for all four grandparents, I could not even find the site of my now deceased father’s grave (despite having been to the funeral and actually preaching the funeral message) which is somewhere in the same cemetery as his parents. For only the second time in my life (the first being his funeral) that I can remember, I cried “over” the realities that encompass my father’s own pain wreck and the aftermath it left for so long and still leaves for so many. Again, by God’s grace, I have the power and rest to walk in the joy and peace of understanding and purpose, and so, my life is not marked by a daily awareness of this reality. Life does bring us undesirable twists. Pain is there for each of us, waiting to flood our veins and impact every moment of our lives if we allow it.
But it does not have to be this way. How we view the pain of our lives, how we process it, and how we allow God to do His thing, is what will make us or break us. We make the choice to allow the shocking current of past pain to run through our everyday reality like an electric charge, always there, always just under the surface, ready to jolt us or anyone that would get too close at any moment. All of us are birthed into this adventure, all of us are given the opportunity to experience a bigger adventure. And all of us witness wrecks along the way. The key is found in our assessment, reaction, and submission to God’s work in the midst of it all. He is never derailed. Let me say that again. God is never derailed. His intentions for you are sure. He desires that you continue on the track, charging full-speed ahead, whistle blowing, scenery taken in, full of joy for the journey, and expectation in your heart from what’s around the next bend.
If your are to walk in that fulness, you must begin the cleanup, internally, spiritually, emotionally, and relationally. The longer you wait, the more difficult the laying of new tracks becomes.
Like a wreck site left unattended to for years, your heart, unkept, unhealed, becomes a darkened, dry, weary, and avoidable landscape. You will dread it all the more, and people will find routes that take them elsewhere in order to avoid the dangers there. As your heart darkens, you grow in your compulsion to hide it from yourself and others, you reinforce its death by false self-talk, a false-persona, and you commit in greater scope to an all out self-protection, refusing to allow God or anyone else to get in there and help you heal. This kind of pain wreck, like nuclear fall-out or a seeping chemical spill, can affect you for a lifetime.
The time to clean up and get back on the tracks is now. Don’t allow the pain, no matter how deep, to continue to impact your present. By doing so, your future is certain. You will die, right there, smothering, trapped, lying in the wreckage. Too often, those characterized by this kind of life, even as they have chosen to stay there, blame all the onlookers for there continuing choice. Pointing, screaming, yelling from beneath the rubble, they tell all the onlookers its their fault things are as they are. Even the rescue workers, those trained to care, those who are willing to get dirty and help rebuild, are, amidst the confusion and clutter and distrust of the past, told to stay way. Like a wounded animal, too consumed with the pain, they are unwilling to allow first aid to be applied and healing to begin. God always wants to heal your pain. He always sends others to help. He’s been doing it from the beginning. We must trust His heart for us and allow His hand to touch those wounds that are still bleeding even after so many years. He will never allow us to just move on. He is committed to moving in us, giving us insight, and restoring what is broken and hidden. He will not allow us to hide it away as if its just a part of us we can move, cover, disguise at will will not effects upon us or others.
…to be continued … moving from wreckage and pain to healing and adventure
Bruce Smith
optimuslife.org
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
21. January 2011 by BruceSmith.
Perfection
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect” Matthew 5:48
Life Thought: Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.(Voltaire) If you are on the quest for excellence, stay at it. Perfection, morally, spiritually, professionally, relationally & otherwise, is an incremental devotion. Commit wholly to the journey, enjoy the ride, endure the stretches of unseen movement, trust Him who desires your fullness in it all, learn from the defeats, cherish the victories. Press on.
Have you ever seen a performance, listened to a piece of music, watched a flawless athletic performance, heard an amazing sermon, been in awe in the presence of a piece of art, eaten a fabulous meal, and just basked in the experience? At those moments, sometimes, the words just slip out, “That’s perfect”. And, we want more. Its a sublime sense. It just feels right. We thirst for more. That’s a God thing, a glimpse of what life can be, what we can be, what He IS.
From the outset, it must be recognized, biblically speaking, we cannot shrug off this admonition. These are the words of Jesus. It IS to be our quest. That being said, it is grace that gives life to the desire for perfection, the hunger for the goal, and the constant pursuit of its attainment. This is a quest not for self-gratification or exaltation, rather, its about being all the Father desires us to be. Attained, and in the process of striving, He is made much of, His greatness is put on display, and lives are enriched. It is a goal worth giving our all to. No, this side of heaven, we will not hit the goal fully, yet, He deemed it important to point us to the journey toward this quality of life.
Where does such a quest apply? Everywhere. Fundamentally, and most importantly, of course, this applies to our spiritual reality which determines the condition of our heart which in turn unfolds in thoughts, words, deeds, motives, intentions, feelings, emotions, actions, reactions, pursuits, time, money, pleasure, … Once the understanding of God’s intention is in place we cannot help but see its about everything. He wants the best, our best, His best, in ALL things. How we speak, what we speak about, why we speak, how we play, who we play with, what we aim for, why we aim for it, what we think, why we think, … again, its all in play. He desires we may know Him fully, perfectly, in order that we might function fully, perfectly in His call for us. In the truest sense, all of our failures and so much of our pain, results from a lack of knowledge of Him and/or a lack of living out the life He calls us to. This is not to say that bad things don’t happen to God-loving people. They do. Yet, clearly, so much of our personal and social difficulty stems from our lack of desire or follow-through on living by and in the Spirit. When we abandon His call to Love as the fundamental (though not simple and without definition) drive, this is when hurt comes in.
If you have taken the approach of those Paul rebuked for attempting to work the grace system (as if anyone really could?) when He said, “Shall we keep sinning so that grace may abound all the more?” you have missed, like those Paul wrote to, the point of it all. The Christian walk is not about following enough rules in order to keep God a little less mad, or to keep Him from throwing us into the pit of hell. The true believer has a perfect hunger (a hunger always being more perfected) to live for Him because one has seen the perfect beauty of Him, and life lived in Him. We desire to be fully alive because we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, He is good. To be fully alive is to desire the fullness of God in every moment of our lives. I want to love my spouse perfectly because it pleases God, and it enables us to experience the fullness of joy and life as we walk life out according to His plan. Perfection is in the plan. The extent to which two people make that the goal determines the level of intimacy and depth they experience with God and each other. The same is true of any area of life. “Perfect” (God-focused) business practices, perfect pleasure, perfect hobby pursuit, perfect appreciation for the arts, perfect presentation of our bodies, perfect embrace of life in the Spirit, … all of it, perfectly, for the love of a perfect God. All, it must be stated again, pursued under the banner of His perfect love and matchless grace. In the truest sense, the drive for perfection in all areas of our lives is a thirst for Him. For anyone, according to His word, to suggest they don’t want or need a desire for perfection is to question God. We want to get it right, to be set right, to live right. This is not a call to want to be right about everything. Rather, those who see the perfection of God and run toward it, just want the “rightness” or the righteousness of life to be ever flowing.
If you are discouraged today, fall upon His grace. If your desire to pursue Him and to pursue the perfect life has wained, allow Him, by His word to you, to re-ignite the passion. If you, like so many, have given in, amidst your failure, to the lesser ambition of carnal christians, get back on course. If God has instilled a fresh desire that has quickened your heart to the pursuit of perfect goodness, again, get after it with a perfect devotion. Keep getting up each time you fall short. Learn a bit more each time along the way. Grow closer with every attempt.
Remember, its His perfection, always available that enables us to have any desire to pursue the better way. Its His perfect love and His example of perfection in Christ which is our model and our hope. And its His perfect forgiveness that extends grace and power to keep on when we realize just how imperfect we really are and how doomed to failure we are without Him. By giving up on or calling this goal, His goal, into question, we merely set the stage for more unraveling. This is our route to the adventure He has for us. It is what the Psalmists sang about and pointed us to. This is the love more intoxicating than wine. His words are those words, perfect words, more refreshing than honey from the comb. His statutes are pure, reviving the soul.
Let’s get after it, and make much of a perfect God who desires fullness for us all. Let’s press on toward the mark to which we are called. Let’s enjoy the journey toward all He has for us, fully aware, we only attain it when we see Him face to face. There and then, the fullness of the dream life comes into view. Still, we can have glimpses of it here and now. Those glimpses thrill the soul, and ignite the heart of all who catch a glance.
Being perfected daily,
Bruce Smith
optimuslife.org
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
13. January 2011 by BruceSmith.
Disaster as a Turning Point: a tribute to Mamaw
“The bend in the road is not the end of the road, unless you refuse to make the turn.”
— Anon
January 13, 2005, was a turning point, a critical moment. On that date I had to deal with a significant disaster in my life. This disaster came at a time when all around me was chaos, uncertainty, and pain. I was going through major transitions in my family, finances, and the call of God for my future. All the difficulties had been in place for some time, and the level of stress was enormous at the start of a new year. Yet somehow, I knew deep within me that in the midst of this storm God was at work. January 13, 2005 was to be a day in which all the elements of the storm would come to a head, and the beginning of a new day of hope would begin for me.
“Unlucky thirteen” was to be a day of death in my family. “Mamaw,” the matriarch of our family, passed away and went on to be with her Maker. In her passing, I found pain and sorrow but also perspective. Mamaw’s passing was not a shock to anyone in our family, and we were all about as “prepared” as we could be for her last day. She had been diagnosed with cancer three years prior, and was told she only had six months to live.
We all expected this day would come many months earlier than it did, but as Mamaw was prone to do over and over again in her life, she thanked the doctors for their diagnosis, looked them squarely in the eyes and told them and us that she was in God’s hands and suspected she would be around a bit longer that anyone might assume. She proved herself and her God right, yet again. Mildred Findley was never one to place more faith in the wisdom of this world than in the truths she read in the scriptures every day. The many Bibles she had in her home were a demonstration to her source of trust. Each of them, of which I now have the last one she had been poring through, are a visible reminder of how she devoured the statutes of God, for they are full of notes, paperclips, and highlights.
Mamaw was not an accomplished academic, she was not a world traveler, she was not well known, she was not rich, and her contributions to life on this planet were not visible to most of the world. However, she lived a life of love and devotion to God and His call to grace and compassion. Mamaw rarely traveled more than a couple hundreds miles from her home. She was a simple woman prone to state things in a heart-felt country tone. While none of her daily sermons, anecdotes, or directives was recorded for posterity, her teachings are alive and well in the hearts of all of those who had the privilege of knowing her. To know Mamaw was to be loved, deeply.
Though I loved my grandmother a great deal, and though I knew who and what she was about, the full impact of just how important her contribution in my life was did not come until I had to prepare for her funeral. As I reflected upon this simple but profound life, I came to realize just how God used her to form me over the years. In my preparations for the sermon, I wept many tears, but not just tears of sorrow. The tears were coming from the great loss, yes, but also from the deep sense of gratitude to have had the blessing of God to grow up around this woman. Her life, I was now understanding in ways I had not before, had given me the foundation to withstand many of the intense tempests that have come my way. Mamaw’s life and death, a turning point for all who knew her, left a mark on me. Her legacy will live on.
What was this life about? What lasting good can really come from such a simple existence? Mildred Findley’s life was a humble one, but it was a life well-lived, and that’s the point. All of us want to know that our lives mean something, don’t we? I have heard it said that what your life really amounts to is not the dates on your tombstone, but the dash in between. The dates are on Mamaw’s tombstone, yet it is the dash that speaks so much to all of us who loved her.
That dash was filled with grace amidst struggle, compassion amidst sickness, care for scraped knees, a cold washcloth on the forehead on sick days, big buckets of bubble gum, and tons of loving words. Mildred was a woman acquainted with the disasters of this world, and yet she did not find herself consumed with her own pain. Throughout this well-lived life, she gave of herself to others with abandon. She cared for the elderly with unceasing compassion, she showed great love to the many she cared for as they struggled with terminal illness, and she always, without reservation, pointed the sufferer’s gaze upward to a compassionate God. Time spent in Mamaw’s presence was always restoring. No one who showed up at her house needed an invitation, and all were welcome. To know Mamaw was to know you were loved, loved for just showing up.
I will never forget the trips to the nursing homes when she would take me there to see Granny Findley. The huge Christmas and Thanksgiving celebrations that were so full of food, fun and family, and the countless days she cared for me and fought for me remain in my soul. The sleepless nights she spent for months on end caring for Papaw when he was nearing his end, and the nights she stayed up with my mother as my step-father lost the battle with cancer at the age of only twenty-seven are etched in my soul as well.
In the days leading up to January 13, 2005, our family kept an around-the-clock vigil. Mamaw was coherent and involved with us until the last day or two. It was staggering to see the peace, contentment, and certainty about her future that she demonstrated all the way through. Though we were there to comfort her, she was really the one comforting us. It was surreal. I think she hung on until she absolutely knew we were ready to move on even as she passed on to bigger and better things above. Literally, until the last day here on earth, she was full of grins, handing out treats to the kids (oh, that bubble gum!), and having all of us climb up in the bed next to her so she could love on us.
“Amazing love, how can it be?” I watched as she took her last breath. I held her in my arms and whispered to her that it was alright for her to move on. And as I sit here writing this with tears in my eyes, I can vividly remember those tangible moments. In those moments, ripe with the sweetness of God’s touch, I came to understand how living a life of value along the dash contributes to one’s ability to move on when all around is loss. In God’s scheme, loss is designed for a certain time, place, and purpose. Mamaw lived her life according to that design, she lived and loved like she knew where she was going, and she left a legacy for all of us to follow.
My life was so full of difficulty even as I lay with her in those last moments. And as I whispered to her that all would be right, she was still thinking about me, and whispered back, “I love you, I am ready, you will be fine, God is going to give you a new start.” As Mamaw stepped across the neck of the enemy into God’s arms, she was still encouraging, loving, and leading the way for others. My life and my future are richer because of her extravagant love for others, which came from the matchless love of God shining in her soul. The strength of force of God’s call on my life was renewed as I watched my grandmother deal Death his final blow. She went out swinging and went upward with grace. Her courage in the face of disaster, her peace amidst the storm, her love throughout years of kingdom battles give me the strength to overcome the challenges life sends my way.
Reflection upon her life has stirred me to remember that life is not about fame, money, attention, success, travel, and pleasure. Life is about how you love and impact others for God’s agenda. In the days since her death, God has lifted me and sent me in new directions with renewed passion for His purposes.
As Mamaw lay dying on the bed in my aunt and uncle’s home in Slidell, Louisiana (one of the many homes flooded by the waters of Katrina), the whisper of God came to me in a tangible way. It was as if I could hear the soft whisper of God telling me, “In this loss, Bruce, is the start of a new day.” This is a message that is true for all of us. Whether you have had the privilege to have a Mamaw in your life or not, God’s love reaches out to you in ways much like my grandmother reached out to me. He is faithful to send whispers of His grace if we are listening for His voice. Those whispers often come at unexpected and unassuming moments, but they do come.
The God of the universe longs to make Himself known to you amidst all the seasons of your life. I recognize that all too many people in our world are without the kind of loving support I found in my grandmother. God is able, however, to give you strength and a network of loving and supporting people. Some have seen families disintegrate amidst the pain of broken relationships, others have lost close family members to illness, still others have seen those they love move away to pursue the goals given to us by a mobile society chasing the all-alluring American dream.
Whether the network of loving relationships and deep friendships has been there or not up to this point in your life, God stands ready and willing to bring you to a new day. If all appears lost for you, if you have given up hope of being loved or giving love, God can and will provide if you take him up on it. In the restoration of family relationships or through an authentic and open church community, God is able to meet you. If we will take the time to allow God to speak to us, even the worst of disasters are the means by which our God will move us on to greater things. No matter how strong the winds, no matter how deep the waters, no matter how severe the destruction, amidst all the storms of life God can bring newness, a hope, a future.
We miss you Mamaw.
Bruce Smith
optimuslife.org
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12. January 2011 by BruceSmith.
The Rest of the Story
To be truly free in God one must let go of the outcome. To know His goodness and be counted as His kid is enough. All service flows from that reality, now present. The outcome of events, efforts, relationships…is of little consequence in light of knowing Him. Let go, love Him, and rest.
Surrounded by people, in this crazy world, caught in the hornets nest of predictably bad behavior, reaction, anxiety, fear, manipulation, bitterness, and broken habits, is it critical that we live and move in a different way. The scriptures tell us, children of God, that we can “live and move, and in Him, have our being”. To move and to live and to experience our “being” here on this planet in light of who we are, in Him, and whose we are, His, is a staggeringly sublime rest producing truth. Don’t look to the path and patterns of the majority to find a model for this kind of life. Its not there.
All around us the world is shaking, violently. Today, 1/12/11, in fact, is a testimony to this reality. This is the one year anniversary of the massive earthquake in Haiti. As in Haiti, however, many, internally, are still quaking violently, emotionally, psychologically, relationally, spiritually. Every bit as traumatic as the Haiti quake was for the residents there, people all around us are crumbling under the tectonic shifts in their own lives. Marriages broken, kids astray, jobs in peril, economic stress, physical illness, and more, …all these things shake a life, and threaten to undo what appeared to be a foundation built sufficiently.
For some, the quakes began early in life when those called to love them mistreated them instead. The tremors last years, decades, longer. For others the fissure was self-inflicted, one bad choice after another, like a stubborn little girl who refuses to back away from the hornets nest, continuing to poke it again and again, despite the obvious danger and recurrent pattern of pain resulting from such adventures. Others, live amidst the rubble of inner pain and confusion as a result of some mixture of mistreatment and self-induced misery. In order to escape the past, they run headlong into new dangers hoping eventually God will just give in and let them have their way. In turn, they have come to find, the God who lovingly and painfully allows the request as a teaching aid, longed to see them prosper and thrive. Moreover, the impending carnage directly attached to the unfolding of the request, did not deliver the relief from internal, relational, and emotional turmoil they thought it would. They continue to shake. They continue to shake others. Their malignant pain, uncontrolled, eats away at them, and causes them to eat away at others. The fatigue for all is a clue that the sickness will eventually kill if not healed.
All of our lives need a dramatic plot shift at times. We become weary and bored when life does not bring us anything new. Too often, however, we seek to force a re-direction of plot apart from God’s plan. When this takes place, when we attempt to manufacture the kind of life we crave, and separate ourselves from God’s way forward, and disaster sets in. Peace, rest, inside us, results not from our forging our own way but from trusting God’s hand and plan in the now. God is every bit, more actually, determined for us to have a bigger life. It is His plan that we have a life to the full. He knows, however, that this comes to pass as we walk toward that truth, following Him, as He leads us a step at a time. Worrying if the future will unfold well for us, filled with anxiety over the unknown, we rush forward only to mess it up and complicate it. We manipulate spouses, offend co-workers, distance family, and otherwise bring conflict where and when we take the reigns from God. He knows the end of the story, and we don’t have need of knowing, this He tries to help us see. The key is to see Him in the now.
The rest in our story comes as we live fully aware, in Him, in the now. The hope for a vibrant life giving marriage comes as we, now, daily, one interaction at a time, live as God would have us live in relationship. The extension of patience, grace, kindness, a tempered spirit, sober-mindedness, joy, and God-ignited love, is the way to find the dream. It is the brokenness of anger, rage, fear, and self-protection which invite quakes into our marriages and families.
The rest in our story presents itself, here and now, in our vocations, as we trust God to show up in our countenance at the office and to make His name known through us daily. Fissure results as we yell, kick, and scream our way toward our goals and tear away at others as we do. Rest comes in our work as we trust that God gives us work to pursue and that excellence in the work honors Him and draws others to Him. Likewise, the rest our souls need, and each soul does need it, comes as our work is removed from the expectation of soul-defining honor. Our work, given by God, as He gives it, is important, but it is not us. Fundamentally, we are His, we are here to worship Him and enjoy His Fatherhood, and we are called to love others radically. That should define us, and work should only be a place for that reality to unfold throughout the journey. This is true of all things, family, friends, play, all of it. It is all, fundamentally, just another arena where the reality of knowing and loving and living in Him is made manifest. Damage sets in when we treat work (or anything else) as another category separate from our calling to know Him and enjoy Him, and separate from our call to love others. We tend to use things, people, work, family, play, as a way to get our needs met. That’s wrong headed. We are to know Him, love Him, worship Him in it all, and serve in all of it as we go. As a note, if your work hinders you, by its nature, from truly loving Him and others, you need a different kind of work.
Today, begin to walk in the present reality of enjoying your being a child of God. That’s it. Nothing else. Every moment, be fully enveloped in the awareness that you are, quite literally, God’s little one. Think about it now for just a moment. Take it in. YOU, yes, YOU, are intimately known by the Living God of the Universe. He knows every pain you carry. He sees every attempt you make to do better (He wants you to BE made better, by the way. We DO more or DO better as we become more of what He wants us to BE. DO is a byproduct of being…we mess that up and get it backwards. The route to doing, again, is BEING). He hears every hope of your heart. He bottles every tear. He counts the very hairs on your head. In my case, He has less counting to do on that front lately! He sees when you hit a home-run for Him (He is at every game, He sees every play, He sees you on the field and He’s your dad when you are on the bench. He is there. Always.), He sees every error you commit. He knows the times you hurt others, He knows the weight of guilt you carry. He, every moment, today, right now, extends His love and direction toward you. Why not live in that? Why try, again, to poke the hornets nest? Why choose reaction over restful presence? Why choose guilt over confession and forgiveness? Why choose worldly strength and fight tactics over the wisdom and sweetness of truth? Why choose a worldly and broken way to a plot twist instead of inviting the all-knowing God to direct your movement in this grand production?
The rest of the story…now you know it, comes from living, moving, and being in His presence in the present. Life, lived properly in the present, presents us with a narrative of rest. The rest does not result from a problem or challenge free journey, but from an abiding joy in knowing we are His, and He has us, always, as His own.
The Rest is His,
Bruce Smith
optimuslife.org
soulstormsite.com
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10. January 2011 by BruceSmith.
Samsonized
Samson. A man called. A man selected. A man set apart. A man of extraordinary gifts, and God-given abilities. Solomon. A man called. A man selected. A man set apart. A man of extraordinary gifts, and God-given abilities.
Two men. Two callings. Two figures of greatness. Two who could have been more, but for the choices that brought them down, made them less, stole their uniqueness.
What sets men, and women, apart, scripturally speaking, is not their abilities, not their gifts, not their bodies, not their minds, not their accomplishments. According to scripture, its the heart, the character, the essence, the purity of desire for God above all, which makes all the difference. These two men, like so many men and women throughout history, and too many today, were brought down by a choice to allow something other than pure passion for God to sneak in and allure them.
For some its just an undue thirst for power. For others its the money. For others, weakened by the ego, its the compulsion for praise and exaltation that steals what could have been. And so many, like Solomon and Samson, are captured, tied up, distracted, and ultimately betrayed, by their own lack of focus amidst the scent of a woman, or women as it was for Solomon.
As John Ortberg so vividly unfolds in his book, Overcoming Your Shadow Mission, its all too easy, even with God-ordained abilities galore, to be taken off course. Its a process, over time, a slow-moving current, leading downstream, and ultimately over the cliff like a waterfall. You don’t really see it coming. You don’t really want to. You want to believe the water ride is leading to something exciting, something adventurous, something YOU can handle, whether God ordains it or not. Like Solomon, abandoning God’s plan for one wife, somehow eventually gets distorted into the acceptance of a thousand. Like Samson, the secret power given by God, which was more, far more about devotion than merely hair, one tends to fade away from the power of singular commitment and drift into the land of self-sufficiency. We get on the ride we never should have been on and then try to ride it for all its worth. Then, unaware, or rather self-blinded, the shadow of a lesser goal sets into one’s psyche, one’s hungers, one’s devotions. Its then the hair gets cut. Its then the kingdom is lost. Its then, with all the sexy abilities the world champions still intact, with all the worldly gifting ablaze, the true essence of a God-follower is smothered, darkened, imprisoned in the chains of momentary cravings.
The power to live a life above the level of the ordinary never resides in human abilities or accomplishment. We are dazzled by the bling. We, as a culture, swoon for the body and the beauty. We, a society mad for pleasure and fame, promote, even praise, what God weeps over when He sees it abloom in the heart of a man or woman. We alter our minds, our figures, our thoughts, our speech, our devotions to fit into the pattern of this world. We do it as we sit in our pews and sing our syrupy sweet ballads to our “savior”. And we, all too quickly, are willing to dismiss Him as our leader, King, and Lord. The very one who endowed us with the gifts, the one who alone calls and sustains, Him, we shy away from as the pull of other desires tugs at our lesser loves.
We do this in relationships when we war against those God calls us to handle with sweetness and care. Its because the unique character of God is gone and only human effort remains. We substitute relational strategy in place of the reality of true character which leads to God’s design for family. We embrace church attendance, but deny God access to our emotions, motivations, and pursuits. We want to lead, but we don’t want to learn of Him in order to actually BE leaders. We want depth in friendship, but we won’t be honest and vulnerable with those who need to see what’s really inside. We long for love, but we settle for lust, looks, and fun. We long for a deep sense of rest and peace inside, but we refuse to allow God to deal with the bitterness we carry and the rage which defines us. We try to find a way around all these issues with self-help, the advice of other ordinaries, and self-comparison to those we know don’t measure up to us.
Samson, Solomon, men of amazing ability and giftedness. Once unique, eventually just another predictable story. Consider the impact of that reality. Offered uniqueness, God-blessed uniqueness. Given a truly singular calling. They gave it up to embrace what they thought was their own entitlement. Super-stars in the eyes of their own cultures, men of men, men other men wanted to be, men women wanted, men about the world, men leading the world, men with the world at their feet. And yet, talent was not enough to make them what God wanted them to be. Forsaking devotion in light of a darkened and self-serving mission, they abandoned a uniquely satisfying and soul thrilling calling. And once calling is abandoned, as they and every one finds out, there is truly nothing left. A life without a calling is little more than an attempt for survival. Its a bad act in a play with no plot. No one enjoys watching.
Where have you heard God calling you? What is unique in you, about you, because God is at work in you? Who is able to see beyond your gifts and abilities into your God-ignited mission? These are questions that determine whether we thrive or fade. The answers to these soul-defining questions determine not just how we live, but what we live for. Is your life still about His calling for you? Are you settling for less? Have you loosened the passion for a pure pursuit of all He has? If so, redirect, NOW- before you join the list of once extraordinary men who become just another story.
There is nothing in life worth turning from God’s best for you. No relationship can even begin to measure up to the love and grace and nourishment God offers you. No title will ever offer your heart what God extends in His blessing. No amount of money, sex, pleasure, or power can ever replace the missing piece only God can fill. History is replete with those who have played that game. To this day, not a single one has found a way outside of Him. It does not work.
If you are young, I admonish you to choose wisely. Choose your passions wisely. Choose your spouse wisely. Choose your emotional life wisely. Choose your paths wisely. Choose Him singularly. When you get away from that “due North”, your voyage will become you will regret. On the seas of distraction the the soul grows sick. Amidst the waves of wandering souls are thrown overboard.
Look past your talent, and search your heart. Silence the noise of entertainment, and embrace the silent and thoughtful introspection of a soul wanting Him. Remove yourself from the clutches of the mirror, and get involved in the work of bringing beauty to those in need,suffering at the hands of violence, disease, oppression, loss. Stop playing the game called “church” and actually BE the Church. Stop hiding from the spotlight of God’s gaze as He searches out those things in you He wishes to change, and offer all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength to Him.
Don’t be duped for a lesser pursuit. Its never worth it.
Grace and Peace,
Bruce Smith
optimuslife.org
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