NEW TRUCK

I know the point of this blog for me has always been to educate, inspire and process. However, I just bought a new truck. The buying process is a well traversed subject and I am sure that my gleanings helped me out. However, I think that the most important information was gained through my buying experience with the X-terra. I walked out of that experience having compromised through poor preparedness and impulsivity. I then tried to cover that up with the true excitement I felt. Which worked pretty good for awhile! The main difference with this purchase was that I innundated myself with information over the last 6 months to the point that I could not really even go to website anymore because there was no point. I showed up at the car lot having a developed sense of patience that allowed me to really and truly NOT CARE if I drove right back off the lot in the same X-terra I drove in with. It would simply be another day that went past and maybe I would just go to a different lot?!? However, one thing I kept in mind too was what a friend of mine Bryan Rogers once said when I randomly went onto a lot looking for xterra's the first time. He said, "did you see how that guy said, 'what if I could do that for you?'" I said, "yeah..." and bryan goes, "IF." That's true that guy was slick and he was SOOO greeaaazey. Besides my inexperience I believe I missed it because the guy first asked me, "what do you need for your trade?" and I told him THEN he asked. Bryan had made his point.
So with good friendly advice and dertermination to not compromise I arrived and left having purchased a truck that is nicer in ride, comfort and look than any truck I have been in. To be honest it intimidates me somewhat like I am not right for it. Maybe I am TOO redneck for it! It is definitely CLASSY yet it will pull our trailer with no problem. I am blessed.

Speaking of which... Teresa asked me several times if I was praying about the truck throughout this process. By this I mean she asked me before I had purchased anything. The answer is yes. However, I have come to understand from the Lord that He really does not reward us with "stuff" He responds to our need and indeed does take joy in our triumphs. Surely I am trusting Him to continue to take care of us financially in the state that we are in by buying the truck. However, I do not NEED this truck in as far as I know. The Lord did not say, 'nate go buy this truck and make certain that it has a moonroof, power backslider, etc.' He simply said, "I hear you and it is a want and I have provided for it. If that is the way you choose to spend what I have provided so be it. I love you. I could shame myself and say, "you don't deserve this, you are not good enough for it, you could of sent that money to darfur to actually save people, you are a small human being" To be honest I struggle with thoughts like that. However, that is not love and God said, I love you. He is patient with me, kind, keeps no record of any wrongs I have commited and He is completely intent on helping...no loving me... to understand who HE says that I am. He will use this truck to do that, because he will use all things and people in my life to do that. The reality is this: God would not love me any MORE than he does right now if I HAD sent money to darfur. We cannot buy, sell, work or be lazy enough to change the reality of God's love toward us as His children. Indeed in looking at this purchase as a result of His provision I need to CELEBRATE. SO I AM excited and happy and thrilled, but it is going to have to wear itself in that I can really be in that fancy of a truck!

HE won't do it without us connecting to us

This pronoun soup is the quick way to say the following. I have several clients that have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Research shows that some attributes in the cause of OCD involve a person connecting more solidly to a controllable action or thought than to their own self. So what this means is, rather than being able to live well and/or self-soothe normally they use specific and most of the time random alternatives to achieve peace in their mind and body. This may come in touching a doorknob a certain amount of times or washing hands after touching something believed to have germs on it. Doing these actions are guaranteed to alleviate feelings of stress and fear in the moment.

However it is outside of our design to operate that way. We are designed to be connected in our humanity to each other in such a way that, through the Lord, we can solidify/unite/join/become one to each other and our weakness and fear will vanish. This is what is meant by "perfect Love casts out fear." When God looked at his creation of man and said that it was not good and created a helper (gen. 2:19) The helper was suppose to be for God's purpose not man's. God did not make eve to be subject to Adam but to be subject to HIM. Furthermore together, Adam and Eve would be capable of fulfilling God's purpose but without one or the other God determined it was NOT good. Therefore, HE won't do it without us connecting to us...

DOWN WITH THE CHURCH

In considering the nature of the design of man that God chose... Himself. I am struck by the odd mutation that "Christians" of western culture (Western Europe, Canada, USA) are debilitating themselves with. God chose to design us in His image. This being the case we are, by our design, more capable than anything in creation. We are capable of transcendance (being a part of both physical and spiritual realms) and a meaningful and influential relationship with the Creator Himself. We are capable of being in and living in paradoxes.

Paradoxes are at the root of the mutating gene that builds the acceptable Christian today. The bible says that God is the giver and taker of life and that God breathed life into us. Jesus said that he did not come here to judge us because we already had been judged and went on to say that flesh gives birth to flesh and spirit gives birth to spirit. Jesus said that it is better for him to leave so that the life giving Spirit can come to all who believe. Paul said that life is not through the law but through Jesus. This leads us to one conclusion then...metaphysically of course... that we are DEAD right now. That is of course unless you do not believe in Christ...

This is the paradox then: How can we be dead and be alive? because doesn't it also say that we are a NEW creation in Christ? My belief is that most of the church is indeed dead; however they believe they are alive and live between the poles of this paradox unwilling to take a hard look at the truth in plain sight.

The truth is that we are still dealing with the original temptation of the Garden...Serpent: "Eat of this fruit..." Eve: "But were not supposed to God said that we would die (paraphrase)" Serpent: "surely you will not die..." Seeing that it was good Eve ate it and then gave it to Adam...AND THEY DIED. The Life Giver took life from them. They were condemned for their flesh to give birth to flesh BECAUSE it was NOT a PART of their design to be the sustainer of their soul. That was the "mystery" of the unique and amazing connection that GOD himself chose to do. Likewise by that design God demands total submission due to the reality that apart from him there is nothing.

So here is the Christian Church holding the fruit seeing that it is good and saying, "how much can we eat before we have to talk to God again?" The miracle of it all is that because Jesus died God will listen if we throw the fruit down and admit that we actually don't know how to nourish ourselves. The fruit certainly is not going to do it. Our plea might sound like, please forgive us father we knew exactly what we were doing (I am assuming here that the folks praying actually are Christians and that the Holy Spirit, who convicted them, they ignored) and we did it anyway. We thought that we could give ourselves life when it wasn't ours to give. Please forgive our arrogance for putting ourselves as gods before you, we really can't do it.

Well it is about time for a new post. A lot has been going on and it has been hard to think of what to say. I have dedicated myself on this blog to try to give back a little. Not because I'm "cool" or a "know-it-all" but to share what I have learned as a counselor.

The one thing that I have come to conclude is that humanity is important and people seem to be very disconnected from the essence of humanity. Our design is not flawed, we are. Humanity has never not been the perfect stuff that God created. Jesus proved that by becoming human. God cannot BE imperfect; therefore he did not lower himself by being human, he humbled himself by entering the flawed structure of humanity that flawed humans created apart from God. This in-your-face identification with humanity was redeeming because he was able to remain in complete submission to the father while being in the complete fleshiness of our created order. Therefore it was not possible for him to experience death because the life creating/giving spirit need never depart from him.

Until and unless people connect to Jesus they have no hope of conquering death. Not only will they die inhuman but alone...The wrath of God is the pervasive experience of not connecting with who he designed us to be; because of our choice to not to agree with who he says we are. In him we live and move and have our being because we took our first breath from air that he gave us. In short I have learned that if people could disagree with their design and choose not to breathe, they would...

I have been writing a book for a few months now. It occured to me that getting feedback on here might be helpful. I am currently on the fourth chapter. Below is a snipett of the book. Please just tell me what you think. I am doing this for honest help. I truly do appreciate any criticism or praise you might have. Please no one word responses like "cool" or "what." With the book I am trying to integrate psychology and theology. This snippett has not been fully editted. ANYWAY (my wife hates it when I say anyway...heheh) tell me what you think.

Snippett

Kindness is an acknowledgement through action directly validating the image of God in another. However, a person cannot knowingly be "kind" w/o first being validated in the image of God that they themselves bear. Therefore it must also be said that it is because we are image bearers that allows us to exist in the awareness of any goodness at all.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. These are what Paul mentions after stating that love is kind. The importance of this truth in action gongs loudly through the course of existence in the image of God. Take for example Sarah.
Sarah was raised Catholic. She is the youngest child of three sisters. Not only that but there is two years separation in her two older sisters and six years between her and her next older sister. Each week Sarah would come in anxious and worried. In the first day of therapy she relayed to me that she had checked out my website and thought "oh great... No wonder my parents like this guy!"
Her parents had been sold based on my claim to Christianity; however, they had not relayed that bill of sale to their twenty-one year old daughter claiming that she was old enough to make her own decision. That was true. However making a different “purchase” meant not only trusting herself but placing a higher value on her decision tree than her parents. As hard as it was Sarah took a “make the best of it attitude” focusing on her subjective reality that all the worrying, panic and anxiety was simply making her crazy.
Sarahs’ problem primarily comes down to being insufficiently taught how to be kind to herself. For as far back as Sarah can remember her parents have tried their best to be involved in all their kids lives. Sarah will talk of times that she came home from school and mom would ask her things about the day. However, every time Sarah would answer a question there would be another. After awhile Sarah began to develop a heightened intuition into anticipating questions her parents might ask. Overall, she gained the sense that she was probably wrong no matter what she said. In one session I said, “Sarah you’re not who your parents have taught you to be.” She said,”oh no, yeah… do you think so…wait what?!?! But that’s all my parents have ever wanted. I have to give that to them.” To this I said, “Sarah…SARAH you can’t. It sounds like throughout your life you may have only got glimpses of who you are. You have never been able to be you. Sarah, I think ultimately you will never be able to give them what does not exist.” She immediately began to cry… Her parents are very nice people and upstanding in the community but Sarah was truly experiencing that “nice” is meaningless.

Remember from the New American Standard (1Cor. 13:5)“…Love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own…” This is part of the phrase that appears after “love is kind” that Paul used to put kindness into context. I think too, that it directly applies to Sarah. Sarah seems to be a victim of arrogance on a very basic level. Her parents wanted her to be who they wanted her to be. There is nothing wrong with that. However, they wanted her to be that way no matter WHO she was in her nature. Also, and probably worse, her parents were coming from the idea that they new better for her than God himself. They set their agenda in motion with obsession and determination. In a later session: ....

I know I am leaving you hanging..... This snippett is from one of my chapters on kindness.

Failure. More recently I have come to realize that it is even more important than I had first thought. When I think up what I believe is a great idea I will often invite a friend to join me. I have "bigger better friends" that will tell me "yeah man that sounds cool." I think that we probably all have them. They are the ones that will happily agree to do something but if something comes up that seems more fun to them they will change their minds even last minute to do something else.

This same thinking seems to be prone to people that have never been successful failures. In counseling people day in and day out it has occurred to me that when someone is presented with two options: one that they will certainly fail at and one that they may or may not; they will definitely choose the one that they have a chance in not failing at.

You might say at this point, "of course!" But what if that something that they were certain in failing at was being honest with how they felt about you. What if it was telling the truth about their deepest hurts. What if it was communicating to their child that they loved him/her. What if it was telling their spouse, "I don't like it when you say_____." These folks are certain that they will say it wrong or not get the response that they want, need, desire, expect, hope for, long for or...deserve.

The truth is that they really may not get what they expect. The reason for that is because they have never went far enough to see if what they expect is even realistic...They have NEVER failed. They have been taught by their parents that feelings are dangerous, people are not trustworthy, people will hurt you...the ones you care about the most are the most dangerous. AVOID these people. So they come and they talk to me because they are suppose to, they can't fail with me. But they won't try it back at home...so they keep coming to me. I end up telling them, "you need to fail."

Alright, so I just read a post my friend wrote (alifeunfinished.blogspot.com) and she was talking about tech problems with her computer. That made me think of this whacky time that I got ahold of Dell support. I was talking to this guy and he introduced himself in a very thick Indian accent as Ibrahim (eebruheem). After several miscommunications I said, "Oh I'm sorry Ibrahim I thought you said something else." and he said, "oh is no problem, but not Ibrahim Abraham" Don't forget that Indian accent (just pretend you're in 7-11) haha. So I said, "oh like Abraham Lincoln" and he said, "exactly" I said, "so is their a George Washington I can talk to in case I have another problem?" and NO JOKE, he goes "yes!" I say, "REALLY are you serious?" He says to me, totally deadpan, "oh yes, you may have noticed my accent (I'm laughing in my head here). We are taught that we need to pick names that Americans will more easily recognize." I almost swallowed the phone!

I honestly have nothing against Indian folks. When I was in college I developed a comaraderie with a man from India and yes he had the accent and we made fun of each others "accents." Of which we would both argue that we did not have an accent. BUT man that guy was clueless and I had almost forgot about him until Ithe other night when I was joking with our family about it a little. Then I read the blog and thought, I will write about that. HONESTLY Abraham LINCOLN! Talk about conspicuous. Can you picture Abraham from India giving the Gettysburg address... "Four score and seven years ago..." ahhahahahahahah