Tag: Spiritual growth

Top Ten Signs that You Need Renewal

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TOMORROW’S POST:
Reflections on God [or what happened with the Jesuits, part II] Click here for Part I.
(click for photo attribution)

Top Ten Signs that You Need Renewal 

1. Observable deficits in enacted Fruit of the Spirit. (i.e. less qualities of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, and self-control)

2. You find yourself perceiving things others say as personally offensive, or as direct attacks.

3. You are “venting” more online. 

4. You feel unloved.

5. Posting on your blog or being active in social media, or online makes you feel significant. (Accordingly, not getting that sort of instant gratification creates feelings of emptiness or frustration.)

6. You’re writing about your stuff rather than really working through it.

7. Increased tension in your face-to-face relationships, while giving greater significance to internet-based relationships.

8. You struggle with at least one of the “seven deadly sins”: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.

9. You feel spread thin like too little butter pulled across toast. Or you feel toasted, or similar to toast, in any respect.

10. You’re in a creative slump.

If some of these ring true, spiritual refocusing and guidance will create more creative (and general) energy and renewal in your life.

What is your tip off that you need renewal?

Thankfully, some help is near. Guidance is at hand, and it works for non bloggers too! Search the category “blogging” for some helpful articles. Visit again soon, too. More resources are coming.

For personal spiritual guidance (for the courageous), use the contact button to get started (lower right), or to find a retreat center click here.

Beyond this blogging series…is an alliance of committed bloggers to keep Christian blogging a ministry of integrity. Integrity is a word I love, because its literal meaning is wholeness. When we are emotionally and spiritually healthy, we are whole as message-bearers. As people. We lack for nothing.

So, if you enjoy reading or writing blogs, I hope you’ll join in with the interactive community at Facebook.

Click to go to FB page

It’s not a broken heart that kills you…

(by Chris O Brien click for CC source)

You can’t die of a broken heart. It’s despair that kills you.

Having a broken heart, means you are alive. It means that something matters, and you haven’t gone numb (which is what usually happens to people after a while…or escapism, which is sort of the same).

Having a broken heart means that risk was rewarded with pain. But not pain unto death. Pain that gives way to experience you can’t find another way.

I used to think God was trying to kill me of a broken heart. Dashing my hopes and dreams. Allowing my son, or my father, or me to suffer until I couldn’t take it anymore. It felt like the beatings wouldn’t end.

At the end of that bit of brutality (as I perceived it) I realized I could be borne out of it, like a phoenix. And that was the point. To come to a resurrection. On the other side was life, not death. All the scars would be a kind of beauty, not a pitiable shame.

Don’t worry about your broken heart. It has to break apart to get to the fleshy part. The part so tender that only God can hold it…and be the only one who can and will protect it in a way you never could understand before. In a way that you can never do alone. You are brave enough for that. You. are.

Do. not. despair.

Heaven is For Real, but is it as silly as they say?

On the recent topic of Heaven (and soon, Hell) here at the old blog, I must bring up the baffling and sappy rendering of the heaven that we hear about quite a bit in conservative North American Protestantism.

If a boy nearly dies, and then tells you details about heaven exactly as you have taught him, what’s next? I’ll tell you what, a best seller (for people who need a spiritual vitamin B12 shot for their excruciatingly literal translations of biblical passages, and who pay no mind to historical context, linguistic idioms, let alone Hebrew and Greek).

Now, I realize young children tell silly stories. That’s part of their job. The trouble comes when the stories get massaged and coupled with a near-death tragedy to elicit a faith response from the more gullible among us. I do want to think the Burpos are on the up-and-up, but something stinks.

I heard Pastor Burpo and his little boy on a television program. What a cute kid. Some of the story seemed amazing, if not miraculous, but I got a bad whiff of something when Colton (really his dad) detailed heaven as, well, super lame.

People get around on their huge wings. Okay, I hope that’s not how it works. Boobs have been bad enough. The proverbial pearly gates make an appearance. The word “wicked trite” comes to mind, but maybe I’m just too cynical. A blue-eyed Jesus wears a purple sash over his white robe, and rides a giantic rainbow colored horse. Okay, bad wardrobe, and how could the genuine biblical Jesus from the ancient Semitic region possibly possess a double recessive gene for blue eyes? (And don’t say, because both Mary and the Holy Spirit had blue eyes, ’cause I’m not buying it.)

I don’t think Jesus rolls like that. But, I give the kid credit: An elephantine rainbow horse is pretty cool. Of course, I would have to know if it pooped rainbow too. That’s awfully critical info. God (the Father) has a body and sits on the throne, with Gabriel serving as a kind of right hand angel man on his left side, in a smaller throne…as we might expect, right? It all sounds like a bad Star Trek episode. Well, sort of.

Reader reviews often complain that only 3 pages of the book speaks of heaven in any details. But the book has done well. Very well. It spent 52 weeks on the bestseller list, and the family has since produced a children’s picture book, and you guessed it, and movie rights have been purchased by Sony. Pretty sweet deal!

Possible movie title: “Heaven is for Reel: One Boy’s Near-death experience as re-told by his literalistic dad”

When the parents are asked about authenticity, their answers center on referring to the hope the story brings. This begs the question, is the point of the book to create hope in a plenty of people already know what they want heaven to be, instead of a faithful depiction of God (who, by the way, is non corporeal) and the Bible? (Which would be far more confusing.) Both can’t be true.

If you want to read a copy for yourself, and decide, here it is.

But, I offer you some thoughtful reflection on the the topic from arguably the foremost New Testament scholar alive today.

5 Reasons You can’t Fix People

creative commons photo. click for attribution.
  • (#1) Sorry to be blunt, but it’s just not your job. It never was.
  • (#2) You’re pretty crappy at fixing yourself.
    If you were good at fixing yourself, you would’t want to fix other people.
    In them (the “un-fixed”) you see yourself.
  • (#3) You don’t have that kind of power. It’s inappropriate to think you do.
  • (#4) People resent the condescension, so even if you try to be kind in the fixing it’s counterproductive.
  • (#5) People are supposed to have some unfixable spots.
    I write about “broken jars” here.

What are the alternatives?

  • Walk with people
  • Be a good influence
  • listen more
  • love more
  • learn more
What are some reasons or alternatives for you?

Welcome to Advent

The season before Christmas is a special one, and not because of great shopping deals. It’s not because we make gifts, or sing carols, or decorate, or bake special things, visit with family or light candles at the Christmas Eve service. It’s not even about giving more to others. Well, that’s just the tip of the Christmas iceberg.

Advent is about anticipation and hope. As Christians, we celebrate the things God has done and is doing in various seasons of the year. Creating a special time of year for focus on particular spiritual truths allows those truths to gain more weight and more meaning in our everyday lives. Advent lasts four weeks, and it’s a holiday season full of introspection, reflection, hope, and divine mysteries.

Rituals and traditions often cement social and relational bonds, ready our hearts for worship, and create the vital space and time for better adoring our Creator. Not only does memory solidify our perceptions of reality now, but it prepares us for future love, service, and devotion, to God and others.

In these four weeks of Advent I’ll feature meditations, reflections, art, and more (from me and others) interspersed among typical posts to focus our spirits on the good things of God, and the time we celebrate the most amazing gift of grace from our Living God, Jesus, the Incarnation. Our Redeemer, Savior, and King.

To participate in a richer way, view the Artists Advent Project page.

Blessings this season.