Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life                                      Proverbs 13:12 (NIV)

I recently saw a couple in marriage counseling, and at the end of the session, I wanted to give them some added encouragement. They have been struggling for some time, and I felt that they needed an extra boost. So, I told them that I have seen, literally, multiple hundreds of couples over the years. Based upon my experience, I told them that there was every reason that we could be successful in our endeavors, and that they have worked hard and shown perseverance. I further suggested that if they continue to work the plans we have all laid out, there is no reason that the marriage could not only be restored, but that it could prosper better than they had ever imagined.

I said this because I believe it. I also said it to give them hope, because they had seen little hope over the past several years. I noticed that the wife had tears in her eyes, and then she just let them flow. She thanked me for the confidence I had in them, and for saying out loud that this marriage could be renewed, and that it could prosper like it once had.

One of the most important jobs that counselors can do is give hope. The belief that things can get better is often just the impetus needed to make that positive change happen. Without hope, people can give up, and so, to the extent that we are able, we must continue to give people hope for a better future.

Prayer: Lord, you have given us hope for a future. Help is to spread that to others, Amen.

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.                                                    I Peter 5:7

Do you know a control freak? I do.

Me.

I bet you are one too. Don’t be alarmed about that. Wanting control of situations in our life is natural, and indeed it can be healthy. Strong, regular disciplines help to give us a sense of control. I can control my attitudes, my behaviors and my feelings. I am responsible for those things about me, and I need to control them.

But I cannot control yours, and that is where the rub often happens. When we try to control things that are NOT under our control, we get into trouble. We worry, we get angry, then we become more anxious. The art, of course, is knowing what we can control and what we cannot control.

I can’t tell you how often I have heard someone complain about another person in their relationship who is a “control freak”. Well guess what- we all are. Having control helps to lower anxiety- the more anxiety that is felt, the higher need for a sense of control. Ambiguity and surprises do not help people who have anxiety. They want predictability and control. I say, control everything that you reasonably can, but what you cannot control, you pray about. God then takes it from there.

So fellow control freaks, control all the things that are reasonably under your control, and let go of the rest- the stuff out of your control- to God’s provision and plan.

Prayer: Lord, give us the wisdom to know what we can and cannot control, then the wisdom to turn things over to you, Amen

He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him                                 Isaiah 53:3

We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love.

Sigmund Freud

“We are all in this together”.

Maybe that is the best way to sum up the stuff we go through in life. Pain, in some form, is inevitable. Physical pain, emotional pain, even spiritual pain- we have all experienced it. That is why reaching out to others in our time of grief and pain is so important. It is the common human experience.

Part of my job as a counselor is to be a “tear catcher”. That is a metaphor for being available to people in a time of grief and pain. Actually, people centuries ago would have little glass vials in which they collected tears of grieving individuals. When the tears evaporated, the time of grieving was said to be over.

So much for that theory!

The point is, at any given time, we are all “tear catchers” for those we care about. We are all acquainted with grief and pain, and to the extent that we can be available for one another at those hard times, the more human we feel. We are in a fellowship together.

Jesus was a man acquainted with grief. It was by his own decision that he made himself human and shared in the humanity of suffering. He did it to set us free, ultimately. He loves us and wants to set us free. Meanwhile, we do that for one another while we occupy this planet.

So, count it a high calling when you can be a “tear catcher”. That is when you can feel the most human, and the most in touch with God as his ambassador on earth.

Prayer: Lord, help us to understand that comforting others in pain is our own healing, Amen

And now, brothers, as I close this letter, let me say this one more thing: Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine, good things in others. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about.                                                           Philippians 4:8

One of the things that counselors do is to help people reframe situations in their life. Reframing is a useful tool to help people see things in a different light. For example, I recently spoke with a client who has been experiencing some painful family dissension. She has seen this a sad event which she believes is an indictment of her parenting. Through this, she has taken some hard looks at her behavior and her worldview, and has seen that she has expectations of herself and others which have cause her great disappointment.

After several sessions of discussion of her situation and behavior, I talked with her about her self-critical views, and how that affects her sense of joy. We talked about seeing these events as learning experiences, which they clearly are, and that she has grown a great deal from this. In fact, she has denied herself a sense of joy because she feels that she has not measured up the way she should.

By defining this period as a positive (though painful) learning experience, she can see that she is working hard to change, and that she is allowed to have joy, even if she has not performed perfectly. By accepting this period as a learning experience, she can put it into a positive light. It is growth, not failure.

I think this is what Paul meant when he said,

 And now, brothers, as I close this letter, let me say this one more thing: Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine, good things in others. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about.   

Prayer: Lord, help us to see things through the filter of your positive message for us that even as we are learning, you love us right where we are, Amen                                                      

“You flatter me by giving me this award, but I tell you here and now that I accept it for Brian Piccolo. Brian Piccolo is the man of courage who should receive the George S. Halas Award. It is mine tonight, it is Brian Piccolo’s tomorrow.. . . I love Brian Piccolo and I’d like all of you to love him too. Tonight, when you hit your knees, please ask God to love him.”

Gayle Sayers (Football Hall of Fame player)

Gayle Sayers was a remarkable football player. To see him run with a football was poetry in motion. Yet, for all of that athletic talent, his greatest fame was that of being a wonderful human being. The man he praised in the above speech was a lesser athlete, Brian Piccolo, his Chicago Bears teammate. Brian Piccolo too was a wonderful human being. He also was dying of cancer.

I was in high school when these two were playing for the Bears. For some reason, I always liked Brian Piccolo, who played football at a “non-football school”, Wake Forest University. I guess I always liked underdogs, and Brian Piccolo was certainly that. Brian Piccolo had a huge heart and great desire, if not great talent. He also had a history of making sure that his Black teammates and even his Black foes on other teams who came South to play were treated with dignity and respect. In those days, Black athletes often suffered cruel indignities when they traveled in the southern United States.

Brian Piccolo was a White man, yet he knew that treating people of all races and color with dignity was the right thing to do, even if it cost him something. He ended up being a roommate of Gayle Sayers, and these two men, one White, one Black, became fast friends. This would not at all be remarkable today, but in the mid 1960’s, that was newsworthy, and even provocative.

If you are not familiar with the story, watch the classic movie, Brian’s Song. Prepare to cry. However, the point of this story is not a maudlin, sappy story from ancient history. The behavior of these two men was heroic and inspiring. They lived out, quite literally, the Christian life. They loved one another and it cost them something to do that.

Love always costs something. There cannot be love without sacrifice- Jesus was the prime example of that. Remember these men who inspired us a generation ago.

Their story still teaches us.  

Prayer: Lord, thank you for people like Gayle Sayers and Brian Piccolo. They have taught us well, Amen

“I think, therefore I am”

Rene Descartes

I am always thinking of the Lord; and because he is so near, I never need to stumble or fall.                      Psalm 16:8

We humans have been given the incredible gift of sentience. Essentially, that simply means that we are aware of our own existence. Other members of this incredible creation on Earth do not possess this gift. Sentience is part of the God-breathed initiation of humans. God created other animals, but they do not have sentience. They exist, presumably enjoy that existence, but cannot place themselves in a world order larger than themselves or their own social order. Herds, and colonies and other groups of animal species cannot relate to their Creator. They function within a tight circle of existence that does not have a spiritual connection beyond their species.

I love animals, and I think that they are marvelous creations. Their diversity and creativity speak to the splendor of their Creator. However, they cannot relate to their Creator like humans can. Our ability to think, reason, and have higher aspirations sets humans apart from other animal creations.

We can think, reason, and have a complexity of relationships that other animals do not. We can worship our Creator, manage our environment (for better or worse) in ways that other creatures cannot. We are uniquely blessed.

So, as we relate to our Creator, we can recognize his superior place in our lives. But there is the rub. Some humans fail to recognize God as their superior, their Master. The natural tendency of this human creation is to place ourselves in the superior position. Ironically, when we do that, we are in the same position as beavers, foxes and crows. We have placed ourselves at the highest level of creation, in our own minds, despite the fact that God rightfully is in that place.

Our ability to think and reason is a beautiful miracle. Let’s make sure we keep God in the place he deserves.

Prayer: Lord, you have given us an awareness of you in unique ways. Thank you for that amazing gift, Amen

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.                                        Romans 12:2

From time to time we all need to take a look at where we are in life and decide if it is time to reinvent ourselves. What I mean by that is that we can get complacent, gradually, with our current life situation. It is often very subtle, but we as humans are made to be curious and industrious. If we have “mastered” a part of our life, (or at least we think we do), we may be looking for “what’s next?”

I have found that every few years in my working life, I felt a need for a change of some kind. I didn’t necessarily need to change jobs, but I needed to change what I did on the job. This involves taking responsibility for ourselves. It may not be the employer’s fault that we feel “bored” or need a new challenge. We need to own that our personal growth is forcing us to make some changes.

My theory is that early in a new job, the job is “bigger than us”. We need to scramble to learn new things, and we may feel completely overwhelmed. For a while. Gradually, we learn and grow, and at some point, we feel competent and successful. Not too long after that, we may actually feel “bigger than the job”, meaning, we need new challenges to stay fresh. Then we have a decision to make- change jobs or change what I do in the job.

Of course, many times, people do not have the opportunity to maneuver much in their job description. It may be very prescribed by the employer, and there may be little room to make those changes we may desire. It is then that we can decide that we could change our attitude about the job and the people involved in the job. We can make any position better, just by our attitude about it.

We can reinvent who we are in the job. We can make the job new by our own new attitude about it. It is something that can give us satisfaction, even when the job itself didn’t change.     

Prayer: Lord, give us the wisdom to be able to see your plans, and how we can make wherever we are a better place, Amen.

Whoever heeds discipline shows the way to life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray Proverbs 10:17

Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. Proverbs 22:6

When we were children, our parents taught us discipline. At least I hope your parents did. If they did not, you may be suffering quite a bit now as an adult. Parents teach children by implementing external rules and routines that children, hopefully, will internalize and claim for their own as they grow up. So, at first, discipline is external, that is, someone imposes it on us, until those good, healthy practices become internal.

 Initially, external discipline is rejected, typically, because we “want to do what we want to do, when we want to”. You know this to be true if you have ever parented a two year old. In fact, it is human nature to want to be independent, “do my own thing”, and feel free of restraint. While disciplined independence is wonderful, undisciplined independence is a disaster.

Personal disciplines are hard, but they are ultimately good for us, even life-saving. Good eating habits, regular exercising, and other basic health practices usually lead to good results for us. Then, as we mature, and realize that the world is much bigger than our own desires and comfort,  we come to realize that those personal disciplines are good for those around us too. 

So, in this seemingly endless season of COVID-19, and political and social turmoil which is stretching our physical and emotional limits, we fall back on the fact that doing the hard thing is typically good for us -because it is the right thing. As my daughter recently said in an interview, “Trust your training” when things are difficult. In times of pain and hardship, trust your training, your personal disciplines, to sustain you during the hard times.

Those personal disciplines also, in this inter-dependent world, help to save other people. Our own lack of discipline can endanger the health of others. We cannot resort to personal comforts at the expense of others. Loving other people costs us something. So if that cost is wearing a mask to protect others, washing our hands dozens of times/day, keeping social distance, or testing when we have been exposed to infections, then that is a small price to pay for everyone to be a little safer.

Disciplines are good for us, and they can save our life, and perhaps the lives of others.

Prayer: Thank you Father for loving us enough to extend disciplines in our life which give life and health, Amen.

George Orwell from the novel “1984”

And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.                                                                                                                                                                        Acts 17:11

This provocative and somewhat frightening quote from George Orwell applies today as much as it ever has. In a day when people read from headlines produced in abundance all over broadcast news and the internet, there can be a significant lack of depth of understanding about our current culture.

History is not a simple, linear parade of facts and dates. There is a context to our periods of history, and we need to read it from several sources and from several viewpoints. Americans have a proud history, but there is also a current of racism and division that has helped to shape our current culture.

Past actions such as the expulsion of Native Americans from their home lands, the evil of slavery and the subsequent Jim Crow laws, the land grab we called the Mexican War, and the colonial ventures we undertook after the Spanish-American War, are just some examples of a history often not explored deeply enough.

Honesty in looking at that past does not diminish us. Indeed, the truth can set us free to make needed changes. Being able to see that there were actions that disenfranchised many of the people who lived before us should be a sobering fact. When the Ku Klux Klan had a revival in the 1920’s, they helped to reframe a history that even found its way into many of our history books- the myth of the “Lost Cause”.  The movie The Birth of a Nation was a wildly successful early movie which some people actually took as a documentary film of the Reconstruction South after the Civil War. President Woodrow Wilson viewed the film in the White House and acclaimed it.

In fact, the movie was a sordid collection of racist tropes.

Unfortunately, some people simply assume that whatever they read in the headlines is true. Failing to explore a topic in some depth can lead us into some dangerous places.

George Orwell painted a very dismal picture of a leader that was able to lie often enough to make what he said sound true.  Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels used the tactic of continual promotion of lies which, after prolonged public exposure, began to be taken as truth.

The apostle Paul praised the Bereans because they took the time to search out the truth. They did their research and made sure that Paul was speaking truth, based upon the context of the Scriptures that they based their faith upon.

We would do well to follow their example.

Prayer: Lord, help us to search for truth, and to be diligent in that search, Amen

Oasis (def.)

1: a fertile or green area in an arid region (such as a desert)

2: something that provides refuge, relief, or pleasant contrast

Merriam-Webster

God, when you took the lead with your people, when you marched out into the wild, Earth shook, sky broke out in a sweat; God was on the march. Even Sinai trembled at the sight of God on the move, at the sight of Israel’s God. You pour out rain in buckets, O God; thorn and cactus become an oasis for your people to camp in and enjoy. You set them up in business; they went from rags to riches.                       Psalm 68:7-10

What can be more refreshing than a cool drink of water on a sweltering hot day? I remember as a kid playing baseball in the back yard with my brother, and we would be too preoccupied with playing ball to get a drink from inside the house. So, finally, we would turn on the garden hose, let it run for a while until the water was cool, then we would drink right from the hose. The cool water splashing onto our face made the experience even better. I can still remember the refreshment of that water!

It reminds me that when we face the heat of a busy day, whether or not it is literally hot outside, we need a break, an oasis. I tell my clients that there can be larger oases and smaller oases, but we must build them into our day.

For example, for me, a small oasis might be a fresh cup of tea in the afternoon to refresh me between seeing clients. A larger oasis might be looking forward to a nice long walk at the end of the day, or a show that I can watch with my wife in the evening. An even larger oasis might be that trip that we plan for a few months in advance when we can take a week or two off.

The point is, we need to make room for regular oases to refresh us daily, weekly, monthly. For me, it is the reward for having accomplished what I said I was going to do. Sometimes we lose sight of the need for the oasis because we think of it as a “big thing”. I believe that small and regular rewards keep us going better than looking for the “big thing”. But that’s just me. Whatever your preference, be aware of what your oasis might be. Build them in regularly.

It is that cold water out of the hose on a hot summer day.

Prayer: Father, you give us oases all around us, help us to see then, then use them to refresh us for our mission, Amen.