Sick

Hey, friends! I’ve been down with the flu this week, so I didn’t get a chance to finish up the blog post I was working on for today. But have no fear! That just means I’ve got more time to get it just right for next Tuesday.

In the meantime, the only reflection I have to share is this: Avoiding the flu for a few weeks, even despite the fact that everyone around me caught it, made me feel really good. Nearly invincible, even. So when it finally caught up to me, I was quite disappointed. I’m not special. I’m not immune. And when I start to feel a little too confident in myself, that’s when I’m ripe for a fall.

Fortunately, it only took a few days sick in bed to remind me to stay humble! If you’ve avoided the flu (or have otherwise started to get a little too self-confident), let my experience serve as a warning: We are all merely human.

That’s all I’ve got for this week! Check back next week for a new full-length post that I’m really excited to share. I hope you’re all doing well, and I look forward to writing to you again soon!

Hiccups

I’ve been at my job for a little over a year now, which means I’ve gone through the entire cycle once. I know what each part of the year, each major annual event, and each special service is like. Now that every single thing doesn’t seem so new and anxiety-inducing, I’m finally starting to feel like I can be proactive, get ahead, and excel at my work. This leaves me with a nice sense of confidence, accomplishment, and ultimately fulfillment.

But then, just as I’m getting into my groove, a hiccup comes along. Some small glitch sneaks into the system and throws everything off. Maybe I have to use a piece of software that I’m not familiar with. Or some lingering issue comes up that that I haven’t been able to solve for months. Or a new problem, something I’ve never encountered before, rears its ugly head. These hiccups come in all shapes and sizes, and they have a tendency to shake me to my core.

They don’t just occur at work, though. They happen everywhere. In my personal projects. My relationships. My schedule. Even my health. Just when it feels like everything’s going along smoothly, I hit a bump in the road. It happens without fail.

We refer to these types of issues as “hiccups” because they’re a lot like the hiccups we experience physiologically. They’re short, small, and seemingly benign. On their own, they aren’t too much cause for concern. But they’re also persistent, and they have the ability to build up and wear on us in a way that can be downright debilitating, not to mention frustrating and disheartening. Hiccups are small but powerful, and they can really bring us down if we allow them to.

And so I’m learning in this phase of my life to deal with hiccups in healthy ways. Maybe you are, too. If you’re like me and hate running into these types of problems, here are a few things to keep in mind.

Hiccups aren’t always your fault.

My first instinct when an issue like this arises is to blame myself. I think about the steps I took to get to this point and the things I could (read: should) have done to avoid it. I berate myself, doubt myself, and beat myself up to the point that this little hiccup becomes all I can think about. But here’s the thing: It usually isn’t even my fault.

We can’t help everything that happens to us. And as much as we like to think they are, our lives aren’t perfect. Hiccups are inevitably going to occur even if we do everything right. So immediately playing the blame game every single time probably isn’t the best approach.

And even if it is your fault, that’s OK. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, and those mistakes have consequences. Suffering those consequences is unpleasant, but beating ourselves up for it doesn’t help. It only makes things worse. No matter whose fault it is, we’re better off not even bothering with blame when problems occur.

Because no matter whose fault it is, the problem is there, and it has to be dealt with. Wouldn’t we be better off using our energy to solve the problem rather than getting stuck in our heads beating ourselves up? The only way to compensate for a mistake—whether it’s your own or someone else’s—is to fix it.

So that’s what I’m trying to practice when these hiccups come up. I’m fighting my instinct to blame myself and rather choosing to focus on a solution. There’s always time after the fact to analyze the situation and use it as a learning opportunity. But in the moment, I’m much better off dealing with the issue at hand, and no matter what, I’m going to feel better once everything’s back on track anyway.

Hiccups don’t undermine your previous successes.

Hiccups have a tendency to disrupt my flow. I’m feeling secure, watching everything chug along as it should, and then all of a sudden, it all comes to a screeching halt. When this happens, it breaks my sense of security and seemingly taints all of the good stuff that came before it. Rather than remembering the 99 things that went right, all I can think about is the one thing that went wrong. This is negativity bias, human nature’s tendency to focus on the bad things that happen to us. And in cases like these, it’s nothing more than a lie.

We are pretty terrible at giving ourselves credit where credit is due. Every day, we’re winning small victories that we don’t even perceive. When you complete that minuscule, daily task for the millionth time, you don’t pat yourself on the back. But maybe you should. Especially in the midst of disruptions and mistakes, it’s important to remember that most of the time, we’re doing pretty well.

Imagine what would happen at your home or your job if you just stopped contributing. If, like a light switch, your input completely turned off. Sure, everyone else would probably get by, but how much harder would it be for them? Even if you just skipped out on one simple thing, someone else would have to do it, which means they wouldn’t be able to accomplish their own tasks, and the whole system would be thrown out of whack.

Here’s my point: Your contribution matters. Your successes, as small as they may seem to you, are important. And they aren’t cancelled out by one error every once in a while. On the whole, you’re putting more into your family, work, church, or whatever else it is you contribute to than you’re taking, and that’s something worth celebrating. So give yourself a little credit.

I’m the worst at this, but I’m getting better. Whenever I mess up, I try to remember the dozen times that same day that I did something right. When something I’ve done causes an inconvenience for others, I try to remember all the times I’ve made life easier for them. One hiccup doesn’t undo all of the positive things I’ve done, and I’m trying to keep that in mind.

Hiccups don’t define your future.

This one’s the real kicker. Once I’ve stumbled, I get scared. I lose confidence in myself and give up on the idea that I can be successful going forward. Every move becomes a struggle because I’m afraid I’ll do something wrong again, and then everyone will really know what a failure I am. I let myself believe that the issue at hand is a precedent for everything to come after it. And that can be really discouraging.

It’s far too easy for us to become disheartened the second our plans get messed up. We think that if everything can’t be perfect, there’s no point in trying at all. And if one part of what we’re doing is flawed, then we should probably give up on the whole thing. But that simply isn’t the case.

Hiccups are an opportunity for course correction. They’re small problems that put us on our toes and force us to reconsider things before any big problems arise. Yes, they let us know that something is wrong, but they don’t ruin everything. They don’t undermine all the work we’ve done and success we’ve achieved. They don’t have to be the final word.

Really, what it comes down to is seeing hiccups for what they are: small issues that keep us humble but don’t have to defeat us. They remind us that we aren’t perfect and keep us from becoming complacent. They push us to be more creative, more diligent, and more committed to excellence. Sure, they’re disruptive, but don’t we need a little disruption from time to time?

If you think about it, these interruptions are actually a blessing in disguise. So there’s no need to dread them or freak out when they come up. With the right approach, we can overcome these issues and ultimately come out better for them. Hiccups are annoying, but they make us better, and I for one am committed to embracing them rather than resisting them going forward. If you’re struggling to get past the hiccups in life, I’d encourage you to try doing the same.

Deconstructing Faith

When I went away to college, I quickly realized something that alarmed me: I had no idea what I believed. Sure, I knew what I had been taught growing up in a conservative Christian context, but I’d never been forced to think deeply about those teachings because they’d never been questioned before. Suddenly, I found myself in a new place full of people who thought differently than I did and wanted to know why I believed what I believed. And I had nothing to tell them. I had grown up in a faith system, but that faith simply had not become my own.

At some point in each of our lives, we’re going to come to a place where our faith is tested. Whether it be a personal tragedy, a major life shift, or (like me) exposure to differing worldviews, something is going to eventually come along that forces us to look at what we claim to believe and think, “Is this actually true for me?” Until that point, faith may seem simple and straightforward, but once you come face to face with something that makes you question everything, nothing will ever be the same.

There is a huge difference between believing something because it was taught to you and believing something because you know it to be true. Whereas teaching is external, experience is internal. Both can be formative, but only one holds true in the face of these faith-testing events. When things get real, you start to find out what you truly believe, and everything else simply falls away.

For many of us, these faith-testing experiences actually serve to reinforce what we’ve already been taught. They give us an opportunity to take what we believe intellectually and put it into practice. You can’t know for sure that you believe God is in control until you find yourself in a situation that’s completely out of your control and have to trust in him. These can be positive experiences that leave us even stronger in our faith than before.

But they’re also edifying. They help us burn away the things that we thought we believed but were never really true for us. The things that don’t make sense when we really consider them. Maybe even the toxic things that held us back from loving ourselves and others the way we’re supposed to. When our faith is tested, we cling to what we know, but we let go of the rest, and it’s a beautiful thing.

And here’s another beautiful thing: You don’t have to wait around for some major life experience to start looking at your faith this way. You can create your own faith-questioning event right here, right now. It’s called deconstruction, and it’s the powerful process of taking your faith system apart piece by piece, questioning every aspect of it, and finding out what’s actually true for you.

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In the face of this newfound diversity, I started to question everything I believed about God, the world, and other people. I looked at every single teaching from my childhood and wondered, “Why do I believe that? Is that really true?” I considered how biblical, rational, and compassionate each teaching was and made a judgment call based on those criteria. Some of the stuff I kept, and other parts I threw out completely.

But for a while there, as I was questioning everything, it felt like I didn’t believe much at all. Sure, I clung to the very basics of my Christian faith. But everything else was in flux for a long time. It was scary in a way, but it was also really freeing not to feel weighed down by all of these beliefs that really weren’t mine. It gave me room to figure out what it was that I actually did believe.

People of faith often get freaked out by the idea of deconstruction, and part of that fear is understandable. It’s scary to doubt yourself. We all like to think that we have it all figured out, but the truth is that absolute certainty has never been a part of the deal with God. That’s why it’s called faith. There’s a lot we can know, and we’re called to seek out that knowledge to the best of our ability. But at the end of the day, many matters of theology are simply mysterious because we serve a transcendent God, so we have to be willing to accept the fact that we may not have everything down just right.

Far too often, we witness tragedies of faith when a person starts to question what they believe and eventually gives it up altogether. They think that if part of what they’ve been taught isn’t true, then it must all be worthless. This is a failure on the church’s part to teach nuance, foster humility, and make room for diversity of thought. The truth is that you can question major parts of your faith without throwing everything out, or giving up your faith community. And when we make people feel like they’re doing something wrong by asking questions, we’re setting them up to become frustrated and maybe even walk away altogether.

Wouldn’t it be better, then, for us to create a space within the faith community for people to ask these questions in a safe and loving environment? Instead of twiddling our thumbs hoping no one goes through anything that causes them to question things (which they inevitably will), we should be proactive and encourage people to go through this deconstruction process before life forces them into it. In that way, we can help prevent at least some people of faith from giving up entirely and instead offer them the ability to find and claim a faith of their own.

After all, that’s the whole point of the discipleship process anyway. We’re not trying to create copy-and-pasted, cookie-cutter Christians who robotically repeat what they’ve been taught. No, the goal is to form mature, Christ-following individuals who have experiences with God that have transformed them in ways that they can’t help but share.

And those experiences will lead us down different intellectual and theological paths. I may feel particularly convicted about social justice, whereas someone else’s journey might lead them to focus on apologetics. That’s perfectly acceptable. We don’t need uniformity of thought, but unity of faithfulness to God and his purposes, and that can only come from individuals who have truly experienced faith in their own lives.

Deconstruction is not something to be afraid of. It’s something to encourage and embrace. When we become scared to question our faith, we forget that the people who taught us had to go through this process themselves. They had to make their faith their own, and so do each of us. This process of questioning one’s faith, taking it apart, and finding what is true should be a part of every Christian’s journey into spiritual maturity, and it’s our job as the church to make room for it.

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By the time I got to seminary, my faith had been thoroughly deconstructed, which actually put me ahead of the curve. A big portion of my graduate education was made up of teasing apart each and every aspect of my theology and asking, “Why do I believe this?” But seminary also taught me something important: You can’t simply go through the process of deconstruction and leave it there. Before I graduated, I had to go through a rebuilding process, putting my faith back together piece-by-piece and forming something that was true for me. When I left school, I came away not only with an education, but with a faith of my own that I am now able to take with me into my ministry.

Deconstruction is valuable in and of itself, but it is not the end goal. After all, having no faith system isn’t much better than having one that doesn’t fit you. The purpose isn’t to create skeptics who question everything and never come to any conclusions. No, the whole point of deconstruction is to lead the way to something new: reconstruction.

Once one’s faith has been fully taken apart and questioned, a person is left with two things. The first is a set of basic building blocks, the aspects of one’s faith that have survived the deconstruction process. These are the things that you know that you know that you know, and no crisis, question, or alternative worldview could ever change that. These are important, as they form the foundation for one’s faith going forward.

The second thing deconstruction leaves behind is equally important: space. Now that all of the stuff that doesn’t fit has been cleared away, one has plenty of room to fill with things that are true. The basic building blocks of faith are essential, but we are called to move beyond those at some point. Reconstruction includes exploring different answers to theological questions, weighing their merits, and choosing the one that fits. Over time, this will lead to a genuine, cohesive faith system that’s true to you.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t still leave room for space. If the deconstruction/reconstruction process teaches us anything, it should be humility. There are a lot of smart, Christ-loving people who disagree on major theological issues, and that’s perfectly acceptable. As I said before, we’re dealing with mysterious, big-picture questions, so there’s always going to be an element of not knowing to it. But this process allows us to embrace the mystery rather than flee from it.

And that’s where we truly discover faith: in the place where what we know meets the mystery of the God we serve. That faith is authentic, it’s true, and it’s ours, but we can only attain it by going through the process of deconstruction and reconstruction. It’s hard, and it will take some serious time and effort, but once you’ve been through it, your faith will never be the same. I’ve been through a major deconstruction/reconstruction process in my own life, and I’m constantly practicing it in smaller ways, too. It’s been a wonderful experience for me, and I hope that you’ll choose to go through it as well and find it as meaningful as I have.

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If you’d like resources or someone to talk to about this topic, feel free to reach out to me anytime. It’s something I’m very passionate about it, and I’d love to chat with anyone who’s interested. I’m currently going through this process with my young adult Sunday school class and would be happy to share resources, swap ideas, and answer any questions you might have about my personal experience with deconstruction or my approach to teaching it. Thanks for reading!

Sequels

It happens all the time: A successful film hits theaters and takes the box office by storm. Everyone starts raving about it, and cries of, “You haven’t seen it yet?!” can be heard at water coolers everywhere. News comes out that the movie broke a few records and is set to make the studio a boatload of cash. And then someone inevitably makes the proclamation, “We’ve got to make a sequel to this!”

But the idea of a sequel comes with a big set of issues. How does one follow up something so successful? How can a creator make a film that measures up to the quality of an original idea with a concept that is in and of itself unoriginal? How can they remain true to the heart of the first film without repeating the same formula and thus becoming redundant? Therein lies the problem with sequels.

I’m not saying sequels can’t be successful, or that there’s no right way to do them. I’m simply saying that they’re hard and often underwhelming. Making a follow-up that is both groundbreaking and true to the original is a difficult thing to do.

I can sort of relate to that predicament right now in my own creative endeavors. You see, 2017 was a great year for the blog. Last year, I started writing on a regular basis again and put out articles on some topics that I’d been considering for a long, long time. Looking back on some of my favorite posts over that time, I started to wonder, “How am I ever going to follow this up in 2018?”

And really, that’s the situation I find myself in with my life as a whole. I’m sensitive to the fact that 2017 was difficult for a lot of people for a lot of reasons, but for me personally, it was sort of a banner year. I worked my first year in full-time ministry, at my dream job no less. I graduated from seminary. I worked through some personal obstacles and discovered the joys of living without anxiety. And I finished out the year spending time with the greatest friends, family, and girlfriend I could ever ask for. How could anything that comes after be any better than that?

When we find ourselves asking these questions, whether it be about a creative project or something in our personal lives, it can feel debilitating. It seems like there’s no way to do better than before, so why even try? One of my biggest fears—and I think one of the most fundamental fears of human existence—is peaking. What if we’ve already reached our highest point, and it’s all just downhill from here? It can be enough to make one want to give up altogether.

Or if it doesn’t make you want to give up, it might force you to cling to the past. Isn’t that why we often hate sequel films? They can get so focused on recreating the original that they end up telling the exact same story. That’s a natural temptation in life, too. If something worked before, we may as well try it again and hope that it turns out as well as it did in the past. But the thing is that doing the same thing over and over eventually gets old. You wouldn’t want to read blog posts about the same topics over and over, would you? I certainly wouldn’t.

Alternatively, one might be tempted to go in the opposite direction, throw out the whole thing, and start new. Forget the original and come up with a new idea that happens to share some of the same names and places. Completely change everything in response to a new situation. But is that really a sequel? That’s really more of a new thing in and of itself. And while starting over is sometimes necessary, it’s usually a lot more meaningful (and a lot easier!) to start with what you’ve got and work from there.

So there must be another way. A way to make a sequel that doesn’t break from the original but doesn’t just repeat the same formula either. And I think this is the key: maintaining what’s central to the thing while recognizing that aspects of it will have to change in response to new circumstances. That’s why series like Star Wars and Toy Story have been able to last for so long (and will continue to do so). They have a core identity that never changes, but they also adapt to new cultural circumstances and shifts in their audience in order to stay relevant while maintaining the heart of the original.

And that’s what we’re called to do in life, too. We can’t keep doing the same thing. Life is a series of events and follow-ups to those events. If we want to follow them up well, we have to consider the good stuff, find what’s central to it, and hold on to that while letting go of the parts that need to change as time goes on. This is what makes a great sequel in film, in writing, and in life.

So that’s what I’m going to try to do with the blog this year. There are certain elements that are core to what I do here: Compassion. Faith. My personal experiences. But there are lots of pieces, like the topics themselves, that will change in response to contemporary circumstances. I have an endless source of topic ideas because the world around me is always changing. One thing that won’t change, though, is me sharing my honest, deep reflections on current issues in light of everything I’ve learned and seen. That’s what this blog is ultimately about, and that’s what I’m doubling down on as I try to follow up a great year of writing with another one.

And that’s what I’m doing in my life, too. There are core things about me and my approach to life that won’t change. But the circumstances are inevitably going to change, and I’m ready for it. By staying true to what’s central to my identity while letting go of the thoughts and habits that were only necessary for a time, I think I can make this year a fitting sequel to the last. I’ve got my fingers crossed that it might even be better.

This process looks slightly different for everyone, but I’d encourage you to do the same. Whether last year was a big hit for you or more of a disappointment, you can follow it up with one that surpasses what came before it. By practicing stability in who we are while adjusting the nonessentials to fit whatever we’re facing right now, we can each create a sequel worth living. And that’s my hope for each and every one of us this year.

Beginnings

And here we are! It’s 2018. Every year, we get an opportunity to start fresh. This new year is a blank slate, and we each have the ability to make of it what we will. Whether your goals are vocational, educational, relational, or otherwise, you’ve got an entire year ahead of you to accomplish them in the ways that you see fit. No matter what life situation we might be in, we each find ourselves at a beginning point right now as we begin 2018.

Along with the new year, I’ve had a recent fresh start in my personal life: a new relationship. A few weeks ago, I asked my friend Katherine if she’d like to be my girlfriend, and a funny thing happened. She said yes!

Needless to say, I’ve been thinking a lot about beginnings as of late. As I take on the new year, a new romantic endeavor, and maybe even a new creative project or two, I want to make sure that I’m clear on what these beginnings are and how I can best handle them. And of course, I thought I’d share my reflections with you, because it wouldn’t be a real thought experiment if I didn’t blog about it, right? Here’s where I’m at when it comes to new beginnings.

The most salient characteristic of beginnings—and the one easiest for us to relate to—is that they are exciting. They’re full of unlimited potential and nothing to hold us back from fulfilling that potential. They can be whatever we want them to be. Looking out over a blank calendar, we get the sense that it can be filled with anything at all, and that can leave us feeling excited and motivated to make the most of these opportunities.

But that excitement isn’t without its hangups. You see, excitement is nice. It’s fun. It’s exhilarating, even. And it has the ability to lead to some amazing things, but only under the right circumstances. And that’s why new beginnings require a great deal of discernment.

To me at least, discernment is the process of taking an endless list of possibilities and narrowing it down to the set of steps that fits you as an individual. When I was preparing for ministry, I had to look at all of the possible areas that I could minister in and narrow it down to the one or two that I really felt God leading me to work in. That was a long, sometimes difficult, process of discernment, but we each have to practice this sort of discernment when we start something new.

Because as exciting as new beginnings can be, they can also be daunting. A blank slate means endless possibilities, but how are we to choose just a few? How do we know which potential path is the one that will lead us to where we want to be? How do we begin? If we don’t take the time to answer these questions, we end up like a child in the cereal aisle of a grocery store, basking in the plethora of possibilities but never able to commit to any one of them. And before long, we find that the opportunity to take advantage of the beginning is over. Suddenly, it’s March, and we haven’t even taken that first step yet.

And so we must be intentional whenever we come to a new beginning. Last week, we talked about endings, and one of the biggest takeaways was that endings give us an opportunity to learn so that we can do better next time. And beginnings are when we have a chance to put that learning into practice.

Trying to be healthier this year? What did you try last time that worked well (or not), and what do you need to change to make this attempt more successful? Want to start a relationship off on the right foot? What are your intentions for it, and what do you want it to be centered around? How are you ensuring that you’re in the mental and emotional place you need to be to set yourself up for success? These are the sorts of questions that tend to get rushed over when we’re excited about new beginnings. But they have the power to give us the gifts of intentionality and discernment (and all of the benefits that come along with them) if we’ll only take the time to ask them.

Please don’t get me wrong: I’m all about excitement. Believe me, I’m excited about my new beginnings, too. But I’ve started and failed at too many things to keep doing it the same way over and over. And I car way too much about these new beginnings not to give them the attention and preparation they deserve. As you’re thinking about what you want to accomplish this year, I hope that you’ll do the same. These new beginnings are opportunities to make lasting change, and we can each do it if we approach them with discernment, intentionality, and, yes, a healthy dose of excitement.

Thanks for reading, friends. Happy new year, and I’ll see you next week!