35@35 #7: Identity

TC's Guidelines and Principals for Life #7: "Don’t worry so much about where you are, focus on who you are.  Worry more about what’s happening in you than what’s happening to you." I learned this lesson when I found myself stuck in a corporate job that I didn't want. I'm grateful for the job, because it allowed me to provide for my family while I was working on attaining a graduate degree in Theology.

But the job didn't connect with what I felt God had called me to do, so I was pretty miserable.

One morning, as I was walking to the train to start my day (which also included a 3 hour commute), I felt God say this guideline to me. That I was so worried about what I was doing, that I wasn't paying attention to what God wanted to do within me. That the frustrating situation that I was in was actually causing me to become a different person.

A person who needed more faith and trust in God. A person who would have compassion for people who were stuck in the same type of situation.

I was eating manna in the wilderness because God was preparing me for the promised land he had for me.

Israel could have crossed from Egypt to Canaan in a matter of weeks or perhaps months. It took 40 years because God had to prepare them for their destination.

If you have areas in your life where you are frustrated, ask God what he wants to accomplish in you during that situation.

I found that God was dealing with specific issues within me that he wanted to deal with: pride, impatience, anxiety; and so he would put me in situations that really brought those problems to the front in my life. Then, he would go to work, helping me to confront those issues.

God is less concerned with getting us somewhere 'quickly' as he is with us being 'healthy' when we get there.

Elsewhere, I've made the analogy that God is more like a crockpot than a microwave.

God wants us to to grow as a person and connect more with Him before we start going off and trying to do something with it. And that's basically the opposite of what our culture tells us. Success means being the first to make it to a certain level.

But God isn't keeping score like some demented rat race. He's building relationships that make up his Kingdom of love and peace and joy.

And unless you become a healthy person, you'll never get to enjoy the benefits of that kingdom.

Stop measuring yourself against others, and instead time time to learn what God's agenda is for you.

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35@35 is a blog series by Thomas Christianson which involves 35 blog posts in 2014 on 35 things he has learned at the age of 35.

35@35 #6: Forgiveness

TC's Guidelines and Principals for Life #6: "Forgiveness is the core of Christianity." I've read several books in the last year plus that have talked about handling hurt and forgiveness.

No Freedom Without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu talked about post apartheid South Africa.

Evil and the Justice of God by N.T. Wright dealt with theodicy - the discipline of explaining the existence of evil in light of an omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient God, which delves quickly into the reality being hurt and offended in this life.

Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf, a Croat who wrote with a context of the brutal warfare his country engaged to examine how we can create true community with one another.

Out of these texts, one of the most sticking take away point was this: that the defining characteristic of Christianity is the call to love one's enemy.

“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.  ~Jesus (Matthew 5:43-45)

We live in a world of hurts, both great and small on a daily basis. You were out of milk for cereal this morning. You were cut off in traffic. Your boss/teacher criticized you in front of your peers. A rumor was started about you on social media.

Or maybe worse is going on. You're being abused. You were attacked. You've been robbed.

Our normal way of handling the feelings and frustration and injustice of these situations is to either pay it back upon our offender, or, when that isn't possible, to look for other ways we can vent our anger.

Often, this means we lash out at others who most likely had nothing to do with what wounded us. That's our nature. "Misery loves company" the saying goes.

When I have been hurt, if I cannot demand justice from the perpetrator because I don't know who they are, or they are too strong for me to hurt in the manner that I was hurt, then I will visit my pain on others. At least then others have to deal with my same issues and I can find shallow comfort in that.

When I was a child, I was taught that we should treat others the way we wish to be treated. My problem with this system was that a person who did not follow it would never be punished. I decided that the buck would stop with me. If somebody was being mean or selfish, I would give them a taste of their own medicine.

While my solution was foolish (I did mention I was a child, right?), I believe my logic still stands.

But Jesus answered this question in a different manner. He saw that at some point the tally sheet must balance. And instead of giving back to each person what they have stored up (though that will happen one day), at this time, he would stop the cycle of hurt and blame and offense and anger by failing to reciprocate it.

On the cross, his reaction was to forgive those who had hurt him (Luke 23:34).

By breaking the cycle of violence, and indeed offering forgiveness, he gave everyone an exit from the perverse merry go round of injustice.

That is why Jesus not only calls us to be willing to carry a cross, but he goes even further to say this:

"If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine." (Matthew 10:38)

If you can't make the choice to break the cycle of repaying hurt for hurt, you aren't able to build his kingdom. It would be impossible.

If you wish to follow Jesus, loving your enemy isn't optional. It's is absolutely central.

For that is what God did for each and every one of us.

Here's how Paul put it: "But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." (Romans 5:8)

If we wish to belong to God's kingdom, loving our enemies is not optional. Jesus wasn't making a nice suggestion or stating a hyperbole.

The message of the cross is this: God forgave you, now go forgive others.

When Peter bluntly asked Jesus how many times he had to forgive in Matthew 18, Jesus' response was essentially 'Don't stop forgiving'. Because when we stop forgiving others, we ourselves stop receiving it. (That's a pretty scary thought, right?)

That point, when you're no longer willing to carry a cross, is the point at which you can no longer follow Jesus. That doesn't mean he doesn't love you. I'm not going to talk about whether that affects your eternal destiny, because that is secondary.

If you're not following Jesus, you're missing out on what God has for you right here and right now.

Let us be careful each day to forgive. Not to become foolish doormats. If you're being abused, seek safe refuge. If you are attacked for a reason other than your faith in Jesus, seek responsible defenses.

But let us never stop offering the forgiveness that none of us deserves to those who have harmed us. In doing so, we expand God's Kingdom in a way that no violence could ever stop it.

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35@35 is a blog series by Thomas Christianson which involves 35 blog posts in 2014 on 35 things he has learned at the age of 35.

35@35 #5: Introspection

TC's Guidelines and Principles for Life #5: "Introspection is the most valuable tool in spiritual and emotional development." It's hard to come face to face with your own shortcomings.

Realizing that I'm not a pinnacle of righteousness in a fallen world didn't fit well into the 'me against the world' narrative that I carried for many years.

The day, when I was a teenager, that I realized that I hated my dad and that if I was going to follow Jesus, I couldn't continue to do that...was hard.

I wasn't some victim, or some innocent bystander. I was doing something evil.

The day when, as a graduate student in seminary, I realized that my faith had become a façade rather a living relationship with God was also hard. Realizing that I had hiked halfway up a mountain only to discover it was the wrong mountain left me a choice:

Pretend that I was actually doing the right thing and keep going, or head back down and start over again.

But this post isn't about what to do when you discover your mistake, or your fault, or your sin or your wrong perception.

It's about getting to that moment of realization.

I love reading the Psalms. David is always exploding emotionally all over God, and instead of smiting David, or sending a prophet to tell David 'Shut up', God instead describes David as a man after His own heart (1 Samuel 13:14).

One of the scariest, and yet most fulfilling, experiences I have in my life of faith is when, in the midst of

fear

or

anger

or

anxiety

or

frustration

or

despair

or

lust

or

greed

or

hate

or

selfishness

or

impatience

or

pride

or

anything that I know isn't life giving seems to be filling my head or heart; and instead of trying to shoo those thoughts and feelings out of myself like a man with a weak flashlight in the midst of a rat and roach infested house, I invite God into that place with me.

I becoming willing to see the darkness, the brokeness, the evil within myself rather than try to pretend it doesn't exist.

In those moments, I see the amazing work of the Holy Spirit, who breathes life into areas that were crippled by shame or embarrassment.

I receive healing and forgiveness and strength and life, and those places that were holding me back suddenly become places that are drawing me closer to God.

My emotional life and my spiritual life starts bursting forth with rainbow colors where there was only bland grayness before.

That is the power of being willing to walk about in the walls of your own life in the presence of God.

That is why David was a man after God's own heart. Nothing was off limits to God from David's heart. Well, except in an incident regarding a woman named Bathsheba. David closed God off from those feelings, and it led to multiple deaths (Bathsheeba's husband, and the child conceived by David's adultery).

To David's credit, when he was confronted, he threw wide the gates to his heart and begged God to come back in. (Read Psalm 51 to hear David's turn to God in the aftermath of his sinful choices).

That's the awesomeness of introspection. It doesn't guarantee that you won't mess up. But it means to don't have to stay in a downward spiral until you hit the ground in a fiery explosion.

You don't have to live in a house of rats and roaches, hoping to use your light to keep them off you.

You can take back those places within yourself.

The man who I've been pointing to probably said it best:

"Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

Point out anything in me that offends you,and lead me along the path of everlasting life." (Psalm 139:23-24)

That which are ignored do not improve.

If we want healthy spirituality and healthy emotions, we will have to summon our courage and open the door to the basement of our lives. Down in that dark, unfamiliar area, we will find the opportunity to apply the grace and mercy that God so freely grants us. And in doing so, can begin to see change in our everyday lives.

May we be brave enough to fight the darkness in our lives rather than to ignore it, or run from it.

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35@35 is a blog series by Thomas Christianson which involves 35 blog posts in 2014 on 35 things he has learned at the age of 35.

35@35 #4: Cost

TC's Guidelines and Principles for Life #4: "Everything has a price." When you walk into a store and you decide what kind of jacket or computer or which options you want on the car you're buying, at some point in this process, you're going to look at the price tag on these items.

Heck, the price tag may be the first thing you look at. No sense in deciding you like something if it's way out of your price range, right?

But say you see two jackets that you like equally. The tie breaker is probably going to be the cost, right? No sense paying $100 if you'd be just as happy with the $60 one.

Sometimes we look at the price tag last. A bride looking at wedding dresses is probably going to find the dress of her dreams and then look at the price tag after finding it.

The bottom line is that we understand when we go shopping that everything has a cost. We need to keep the same thing in mind with everything in life.

Want your dream job? Here's the (likely) price tag: time, energy and money spent on a degree and/or training; building a network of people to help you get jobs which prepare and qualify you for your dream job; time spent combing through job posts, creating resumes and participating in interviews; handling and fighting through rejection when it comes your way.

Want to play an instrument? The cost will be hours of monotonous practice each week. And if it's guitar, a lot of pain in your fingertips.

Want a healthy marriage/relationship? There's a great cost in denying your selfish wants and putting your significant other first. Going to movies you might hate (easy), caring for them in sickness (harder), having to work through arguments (varies), and so on.

Heck, being a blogger has cost me a great deal of time and energy. But it's been worth it to me. I have found and refined my voice through the hundreds of posts. A voice that I have then been given the privilege of using to share my thoughts in various forums: Relevant magazine, a national TV show, and as a teaching pastor at Abundant Life Church in Glen Burnie, MD.

When I go back and look at my first posts, they're not very good. Part of the price for me was doing something that I was so imperfect at in order to get better.

When I was in great shape, completing Tough Mudders and Triathlons, I assure you I was paying a great price in training - 600-800 miles per year.

Everything has a price. The questions is not whether you can do something. The question is 'are you willing to pay the price to get what you want?'

Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something.

Not everything I do will be something I've spent 10,000 hours doing. But the things that are important to me, I will put in that time.

I will put 10,000 hours into reading so that I can learn to see life from different perspectives.

I will put 10,000 hours into sharing my thoughts in public forums because I love being part of grand discussions.

I new somebody once who told me she wanted to me a musician. I asked her if she was taking lessons for singing or playing. She said no. I asked if she was making demos to share online. She said no.

It seemed that she was waiting for her dream to show up and knock on her door one day. I tried to tell her that it doesn't work like that. You have to go get your dream.

Looking in the front window of the dream store and saying you wish you could have the thing you love is never going to get you any closer to actually having it.

Because that dream you have of being a writer, or personal trainer, or painter, or professor, or bus driver, or minister, or CEO, or whatever has a price tag on it.

Go start paying that price.

Because people who reach their dreams are people who pay the price.

Al Michaels is a famous sports broadcaster. I heard him tell the story of how he used to do broadcasting at any podunk school or college that would let him do it so that he could learn. He got his big break when he was an announcer in Hawaii.

His comment in the interview I listened to is that sometimes you need a lucky break, but you've got to do the work so that you're ready for that lucky break.

I don't have a magic formula for you to be guaranteed of the dream job you want. If you tell me it's president, I would say it's unlikely, but I would also say that nobody ever accidentally became president. Nobody who fails to pay the price gets the prize.

And those who worked hard to become president learned valuable lessons and met valuable people that opened other doors to them.

The Superbowl is coming up in about a week. Nobody in that game came into the season fat and out of shape, wondering what their goal was.

Not everybody who prepares will be champion, but the champion will not be somebody who was unprepared.

Because, to quote one of my favorite movies, Remember the Titans:

Champions pay the price.

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35@35 is a blog series by Thomas Christianson which involves 35 blog posts in 2014 on 35 things he has learned at the age of 35.

35@35 #2:Belief

TC's Guidelines and Principles for Life #2: "What you believe isn't defined by what you say you believe. It's defined by what you do." Mars One, a non-profit organization based in the Netherlands recently started accepting applications for people who want to be part of the first manned space mission to Mars.

There's a slight catch with this mission, however: it's a one way trip. The people who are part of this mission will not be coming back. Ever. They will leave Earth and spend the rest of their lives on the Red Planet.

When they opened up for applications, they received over 200,000.

Two hundred thousand!

They have since started narrowing the search down and are now down to 1,000 viable candidates.

They are going to choose six teams of four people to start training in 2015.

Here's what I'm curious to see: how many of the people they choose to undertake this mission will accept it?

It's one thing to say 'I'd like to go to Mars'. It's quite another to step on a spaceship after saying goodbye to everybody you ever knew.

You can call yourself a Martian astronaut as much as you want, but until you're rocketing away from earth at 66,000 miles an hour, you're just talking.

Similarly, you can spend a lot of time telling people what you believe:

"I think every kid should receive a strong education."

"I feel like I'm supposed to be a musician."

"I think Jesus is God in the flesh."

The question is this: what are you doing about it? If you really believe something, isn't it going to have an effect on your actions?

If you think we as a society have an obligation to make sure kids are able to read, and write and learn valuable academic and practical skills, what are you doing about it? Are you tutoring in low income areas that need help? Are you involved in local schools that are struggling to achieve that goal?

If you believe you should be a musician, are you taking lessons? Are you practicing for hours a day? are you releasing material for people to hear?

If you believe in Jesus, are you doing the things he told us to do? Feeding the hungry? Clothing the naked? Visiting the prisoner? Caring for the sick? Giving drink to the thirsty?

In fact, a Jesus' brother in law, a guy named James, talked about this very thing in a letter he wrote:

“How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.” (James 2:18b)

We tend to judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions. From that viewpoint, it's very easy to see how you're a good person because of what you 'believe', whereas most people are uncaring because they don't demonstrate to you that they care.

It's an incredible level of hypocrisy that we can all easily fall into. I know I've often struggled with that.

In some instances, we even legitimize feelings like this. Once faith (that I won't call out, because I'm not trying to write an attack ad - and God knows we have enough problems in Christendom to solve) actually says that thinking about doing a good act counts as a good act, and actually doing it counts as 10 good acts, whereas doing a bad act only counts as one bad act.

With that mindset, I can act terribly, but if I consider doing good things, it all evens out in the end.

Another faith (again, I won't mention it) thinks that you can put up flags with prayer on it, and every time that flag flaps in the wind, it counts as a prayer.

With all due respect, this are cop outs.

What you do tells me what you believe. You may think you care about an issue, but if you never do anything about it you don't have a belief. You have an opinion.

That doesn't make you a bad person. We all have opinions. But just sharing them on Facebook doesn't change the world.

Figure out what it is that you believe in life.

And then go show everybody those beliefs.

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35@35 is a blog series by Thomas Christianson which involves 35 blog posts in 2014 on 35 things he has learned at the age of 35.

35@35 #1: Change

TC's Guidelines and Principles for Life #1: "People rarely change, and even then it’s never on their own." We are in the season of New Year's Resolutions. We want to work out more, eat healthier, do more charity, be a better parent or spouse, go back to school, quit smoking, save money, or perhaps all of the above.

These are great ideas. Surely things that would improve the lives of those who undertake these endeavors.

So why is is that only about 8% of New Years Resolutions are actually fulfilled?

I read a quote once (but now can't remember where) that said this: "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer because they both keep doing what they've always done."

This idea doesn't just apply to money: apply it to a healthy lifestyle. Apply it to your engagement as a parent or spouse, apply it to pretty much anything in your life.

So why is it so hard for us to change ourselves?

The simple answer comes from Isaac Newton's first law of motion which is often summed up this way: A body in motion tends to stay in motion, and a body at rest tends to stay at rest.

Unless an outside force exerts force on an object, that object will keep doing what it has been doing. (That's actually the third law).

In other words, if we want to eat differently, or stop doing something (like smoking), or start doing something (like saving money), we're going to have to exert force in that area of our life.

We quickly figure out that it's way, way easier to just let the thing do whatever it was already doing. And then we often give up.

For me to carve out time during my week to write a regular series of blog posts is going to require effort. And that's just a short essay. Being a better husband or father will take not only time, but energy, and sacrifice.

So the bigger the change (or the bigger the object we're trying to move), the more force it will require. No wonder we can give up so easily.

Honestly, some things are just to big and too heavy for us to move on our own. That is where a person of faith will need to engage in a relationship with God to help move the object. And because God is a redeemer rather than a genie, the process will still take time and energy.

This is why we so often fail: because it isn't easy. Who wants to choose the rocky, difficult path when the wide paved way is always right in front of us?

But that begs the question: why do we get so frustrated when other people don't change?

When we fail to change, we are often able to justify that failure (I was too busy, I was too stressed, I was too (fill in the blank)), but when others fail, we turn in to a results based person. I don't care why you didn't do a better job at X, the bottom line is that you let me down.

We recognize the cost of change in our own life and excuse ourselves when we are not prepared to pay that cost. We must learn to extend that same grace to others. If we are not willing to do that, we would be wise not to interact with other people at the point of that frustration we have.

(This is why it's so important to keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half shut afterwards, as Ben Franklin famously said)

It is possible for us to help somebody change: a friend asks you to help them go to the gym on a particular schedule, or asks for you to provide accountability over a particular area of their life.

But it must be noted that this can only occur when you have been invited to do so. The other person must want to change before you can help them in their journey.

So the bottom line is this: people rarely change because change is hard. It's much easier to stay in the rut we've carved out for ourselves.

But if we're ready to ask for help from a God who offers empowering grace, there is always hope.

"Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think." (Romans 12:2a)

"Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.” ~ Jesus (Matthew 19:26b)

35 Things I've Learned At 35: A New Blog Series for 2014

I have created two personal goals for 2014. First is to read the stack of books that has been growing on my desk for the past year. So I will probably need to read 20-30 pages a day minimum, which is totally do-oable.

Second is to write a series of blog posts. 35 of them to be specific, with 35 things I’ve learned now that I am the ripe old age of 35.

I’ve had a word document for over a decade that I titled ‘TCs Guidelines and Principles of Life’ that I like to think of as my version of Solomon’s Proverbs.

To be clear: I think Solomon’s are better, but hey, I’ve got what I’ve got.

Some of these are my own original ideas, some are adapted, some are cliches, and some are totally stolen from others. They are simply the list of idioms that I have put together which have helped me navigate life.

If you find something that works for you, please feel free to steal it for yourself.

Happy 2014 everybody!

#35@35