Releasing Control

This past week here in the Oregon Willamette Valley, we had a massive ice storm that caused us to lose power for several days. On day 3, I was sitting at home in the cold and feeling very unsettled. I couldn’t predict when the power would be back on. I felt at the mercy of my friends for simple things like charging my phone or having a warm place to sleep. And in that moment, I realized that my biggest frustration wasn’t being without power.

It was being out of control.

I think that in His grace, this past year God has allowed us to more deeply recognize just how out of control we actually are. We have faced a lot of unsettling and unpredictable circumstances including a seemingly unending global pandemic, immense political and racial unrest, and even some more local events here in Oregon including the summer wildfires and the ice storms of this past week. We’ve always been out of control, but this past year has made that even more apparent. We can’t control our relationships, the weather, the economy, our political leaders, and even our body’s susceptibility towards sickness.

I’m recognizing that when I feel out of control, my human inclination is to grasp for control in whatever ways I can. I find myself in the stories of numerous men and woman in the Bible who tried to control their own lives, all with disastrous consequences. For example, instead of trusting God’s promise of a son, Sarah took matters into her own hands and had her husband Abraham sleep with her servant Hagar instead. (Genesis 16:1-4). Rebekah tried to trick Isaac into giving his blessing to Jacob instead of Esau and caused immense discord between the two brothers. (Genesis 27). And when he feared getting caught for his sin with Bathsheba, David sought to control the situation by bringing her husband Uriah back from battle to cover up his sin. When this didn’t work, David planned Uriah’s murder (2 Samuel 11).

Personally, I have experienced the havoc that control can wreak in my relationships. I love the way Jon Tyson describes this:

“If a controlling spirit possesses us, we will not love others. We will use them as supporting characters in a story centered on us. We will see them only for the value they have in enhancing our own lives… this dramatic misperception shifts our relationships with others from a foundation of love to one of fear.”

-Jon Tyson, The Burden is Light

As Tyson suggests, when we put so much energy into controlling people and situations, we have less energy to love God and others well. Control makes us self-focused, while surrender turns the focus to God and frees us to love people authentically.

I want to share several ways that God is teaching me to release control in my day to day life.

Identifying Fear: I think that the first step is identifying our deeper fears. I’ve been taking a course in Biblical counseling that addresses the deeper reasons behind our struggles. The text we’re reading suggests that much of our sin is rooted in fear. And fear almost always leads to control. It reads:

“If pride’s primary expression is fear, then we will try to control in order to protect that which we hold dear. Using intimidation to keep people from hurting us, or telling a joke to avoid intimate conversations and vulnerability, or working 75 hours a week so that we don’t lose our job… In these ways we refuse to trust in God alone to protect what truly needs to be protected.”

-John Henderson, Equipped to Counsel

Therefore, when I find myself grasping for control, I try to ask myself: What is the deeper fear? Am I afraid of being vulnerable? Am I fearing abandonment? Am I scared of losing my material possessions and security? Do I fear releasing my independence and autonomy? We need to identify the deeper fear in order to expose why we so desperately crave control.

Looking to the example of Jesus: As I read the Gospels, I am struck by how surrendered Jesus was to His Father’s will. I love John 6:38 which reads:

“For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.”

-John 6:38

It’s clear that Jesus wasn’t tied to His own agenda or plans. He was surrendered to the will of His Father in the context of His day to day life. If His Father told Him to go to a certain village, He did. If His Father told Him to leave, He did. Even Jesus’ willingness to spend the first 30 years of His life in almost total obscurity is a testament to His reliance on the Father’s perfect timing.

And then on the cross we see the greatest example of His surrender. Jesus literally gave up every right He had as God and King and put Himself in the most vulnerable position imaginable, death on a cross. I love His closing prayer, “Father, into your hands, I commit my Spirit”. Even at His final breath, Jesus was surrendered to His Father and completely trusting Him.

Jesus’ example is so powerful and one than we should meditate on until it becomes true in our own lives.

Prayer: Lastly, I think that prayer is one of the most powerful ways that we release control. In his book With Open Hands, Henri Nowen suggests that one of the greatest purposes of prayer is to get to a place where our hands are truly open before God. He writes:

“To pray means to open your hands before God. It means slowly relaxing the tension which squeezes your hands together and accepting your existence with an increasing readiness, not a possession to defend, but as a gift to receive.”

-Henri Nowen, With Open Hands

One practice that has been helpful for me is to journal the things that I’m clinging onto. Then I physically open up my hands as a sign of surrender. In prayer, I am reminded of God’s faithful and consistent love. Only when we are truly secure in his love and goodness, do we have the courage to fully open our hands and let go.

I wanted to close by sharing a song by Rebecca St. James that has been so meaningful to me lately. This is such a beautiful song of surrender and I hope it encourages you!

Navigating Loneliness

This is a topic that I’ve wanted to write about for a long time, but I have struggled to articulate my thoughts until recently. I believe that our world is currently going through one of the loneliest seasons in human history and therefore the topic of loneliness is more relevant than ever before. The global pandemic is stripping away many of the social supports that people have depended upon. It’s driving people into isolation and disconnectedness. And whenever I ask people about how they’re doing, loneliness seems to be the strongest emotion that surfaces.

Loneliness is such a universal experience. In his book Together, an incredible book about the power of human connection, author and former US Surgeon General Vivek Murphy describes 3 circles of loneliness. He writes:

“Intimate, or emotional, loneliness is the longing for a close confidante or intimate partner—someone with whom you share a deep, mutual bond of affection and trust. Relational, or social, loneliness is the yearning for quality friendships and social companionship and support. Collective loneliness is the hunger for a network or community of people who share your sense of purpose and interests.”

-Vivek H. Murphy

Murphy’s theory is that if even one of these circles of connection is missing, we feel lonely. This perspective makes so much sense to me. It explains why someone can be happily married, but feel lonely because they don’t have quality friendships. Or someone else can have close friendships, but feel lonely due to a lack of community.

I believe that it’s even possible to be lonely while with other people. In fact, I think that this is the most painful type of loneliness. It’s possible to feel lonely in a crowd, lonely while with friends, and even lonely in a marriage. We are wired for connection— to know and be known. However, since we live in a fallen world, our connection with others is riddled with misunderstandings. We regularly miss each other’s hearts and even our best moments of connection fall short of the perfect intimacy God designed us for.

As a result we’re lonely.

However, I’ve noticed that we often avoid admitting our loneliness. In his book The Restless Heart, Ronald Rolheiser describes this phenomenon.

“Most of us are reluctant to admit our loneliness even to ourselves. All of us tend to have a congenital need to deny that we experience loneliness and that it is, in some way, responsible for many of our feelings, actions, and pursuits… We admit that we are lonely only with feelings of shame and weakness. Also, most of us feel that loneliness is not something that should affect normal, healthy persons.”

-Ronald Rolheiser

We tend to dance around the word “loneliness”, saying that we feel “sad”, “disconnected”, and “confused”. But I think that at the core, many of us feel just plain lonely. However, I think that there’s a social stigma around loneliness that keeps us from admitting this to ourselves and to others.

I believe that naming our loneliness and facing it head on is what limits its power over us. Loneliness can be a destructive force in our lives. But it also can be used by the Lord in beautiful ways if we’ll let Him. I want to share some strategies God has taught me for navigating loneliness when it pops up in my life.

Honesty with God: We never have to pretend with God. He knows our feelings and emotions before we even know them ourselves. When I feel lonely, I will simply tell God, “I feel lonely right now.” And the best part is that Jesus understands. We have a High Priest who understands our weakness. On the cross, Jesus took upon Himself all the loneliness in the world. When He said, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, Jesus experienced the deepest possible loneliness— separation from the Father. He understand loneliness in a way that no one else can.

Refusing distraction and busyness: When I feel lonely, I tend to throw myself into a flurry of activity and distraction. I try to have every weeknight scheduled and I make plans for a busy weekend. However, when I notice myself becoming flurried and frenetic, I need to slow down and ask God several questions: Am I feeling lonely? Did you ask me to do these things? Or am I just avoiding being alone? If I realize that loneliness is the root, I need to take that to Jesus and ask Him to fill my loneliness.

Pursuing intimacy with Jesus: This is by far the most important step. if we don’t look to Jesus first, then we will look to others to fill our emptiness. This puts a pressure on our relationships that they weren’t intended to bear. When I feel alone, the thing my heart needs most is quality time with Jesus. He knows us in a way that no human being can. Psalm 139 beautifully illustrates this truth. It reads:

“You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.

Psalm 139:1-4

Prioritizing relationships and community: Not only does God bless us with His presence, but He also invites us into the blessing of community. It is a beautiful gift to have tangible people in the flesh to walk beside us in life. When I used to feel lonely, I would isolate myself even more from people. However, this past year, God has been teaching me to reach out. I can spend time with my roommates, I can call a friend or a family member, or I can be intentional with my church community. Loneliness is a reminder that we need one another and aren’t meant to walk through life alone. Our loneliness can propel us into deeper connection with the people in our lives.

Noticing others who are lonely: I believe that the most painful experiences in our lives can be transformed into gifts when we allow God to use them. Seasons of loneliness increase our sensitivity and empathy for others who feel lonely. When I feel lonely, I ask myself, “What can I do to lessen someone else’s loneliness right now?” In times of loneliness, it’s so easy to get lost in ourselves and in self-absorption. However, God invites us to look out and see the people around us, to make them feel noticed and cared about.

God can transform our loneliness into a deeper understanding, compassion, and empathy for others.

And that is a beautiful thing.

Perfect Timing

“My timing is in all things. I am faithful in being, providing, arriving, communicating, and changing things at exactly the right time.”

–Blessing Your Spirit, By: Sylvia Gunter and Arthur A. Burk

The honest truth is that lately I’ve struggled to trust God’s timing. I know that God’s timing is best. However, sometimes it’s hard for my soul to believe this, especially when there are so many unknowns in the world right now.

As a 3rd grade teacher about to start the school year online, I want to know if I will be teaching online for just a few months or for the rest of the year. As I pray for several loved ones whom I desperately want to be saved, I wonder how long it will take for God to soften their hearts. As I become more aware of broken areas in my life that need healing, I feel frustrated by the long and often slow process of transformation. As I gain a deeper sense of God’s calling on my life, I want to know the timeline of the ministries He has placed upon my heart. And as I wrestle with several personal desires in my heart that continue to go unmet, I’m not hearing a clear answer from God about if or when those desires will be met.

This truly is a season of trusting and waiting.

The past couple of months, I have spent a lot of time meditating on Psalm 31. Verses 14 and and 15 have been especially highlighted to me:

“But I trust in you, Lord. I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in your hands.”

It’s such a simple truth, but one that I need to dwell on until I believe it in the core of my being.

My times are in God’s hands.

God’s perspective is so much bigger than ours. He sees the big picture of human history and is orchestrating events to fit His perfect plan. Therefore I have to trust that even when I don’t understand what He’s doing, His timing in the world is perfect.

And I know that the same is true in our daily lives. God cares so much about the people we are becoming and the character He is developing within us. He wants our ultimate good more than our immediate happiness. He knows us intimately and therefore knows the perfect timing of every detail of our lives.

I want to close by sharing a song that has really blessed me in this season. I hope it is an encouragement to you. Some of my favorite lyrics are as follows:

Take courage my heart
Stay steadfast my soul
He’s in the waiting
He’s in the waiting
Hold onto your hope
As your triumph unfolds
He’s never failing
He’s never failing

–Take Courage, By: Kristene DiMarco

The Healing Power of Beauty

“Beauty reassures us that goodness is still real in the world, more real than harm, or scarcity, or evil. Beauty reassures us of abundance, especially that God is absolutely abundant in goodness and in life… Beauty is such a gentle grace. Like God, it rarely shouts, rarely intrudes. Rather it woos, soothes, invites; it romances and caresses. We often sigh in the presence of beauty as it begins to minister to us— a good, deep soul-sigh.” -John Eldredge, Get Your Life Back 

When I read this quote, it resonated with me at a deep level. In his book Get Your Life Back (highly recommend!), John Eldredge suggests helpful practices for experiencing God in the midst of a chaotic and frenetic world. One of my favorite chapters was about the healing power of beauty. I have found beauty to be such a healing and powerful force in my own life.

I know from personal experience just how easy it is to lose sight of beauty. The past couple of weeks were an example of this. I felt like my soul just couldn’t catch up with all that was coming my way— constant news updates about the coronavirus, an insanely busy schedule, challenges to navigate at work, and complex situations in my personal life and relationships. I felt so profoundly aware of all that is wrong and broken in the world.

However, a few days ago, God gently reminded me that my soul was craving His beauty.

And I started to notice it again.

I recognized His beauty in the dear faces of my students laughing and playing at recess. I re-discovered His beauty in the dark silhouettes the trees made across the sky as I drove home from work.  I heard it in the beautiful harmonies of one of my favorite songs. And my soul felt back in sync with God and His goodness.

In a culture that seems to value efficiency, productivity, and usefulness above all else, simple beauty is often ignored. However, I think that beauty is actually very important to God. After all, He made a world that is absolutely teeming with beauty for us to enjoy and discover.

I think that appreciating beauty can look different for everyone. Since God has made us all so uniquely, we experience beauty in different ways. Personally, I experience God’s beauty most powerfully through nature, music, great stories, and relationships with others.

Sometimes God reveals His beauty to me in obvious ways— through a sunset at the coast, on a hike through the woods, or through an inspiring book or movie that captures my heart. However, God also reveals His beauty in more subtle ways— through the understanding smile of a friend, in the morning light streaming though my window, or in a simple melody I’ve always loved.

God’s beauty is all around us.

We just need to have eyes to see it and hearts to receive it as evidence of God’s grace and goodness.

Fixation

“What you give your attention to is the person you become. Put another way: the mind is the portal to the soul, and what you fill your mind with will shape the trajectory of your character. In the end, your life is no more than the sum of what you gave your attention to.”

-John Mark Comer, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

I tend to fixate on things.

This can show up in positive ways  for me. For example, I love to nerd out about topics of interest and can spend hours researching about anything and everything. I am a learner who loves to understand every facet of a topic.

However, this also can be a challenging part of my personality. When I’m wrestling with anxiety, I tend to fixate on my fears about the future. I analyze everything that could possibly go wrong. I obsess about the problems in my life, including difficult relationships or challenging work situations. When I become absorbed in problems and anxieties, I miss all of the beautiful gifts that are right around me. And the Enemy steals my joy.

At the same time, I think the opposite is also possible. The Enemy can also distort our good and beautiful desires. Sometimes I fixate so intently on the blessings in life— on things like my job, my family, and other meaningful relationships. This can be a problem, especially when I start to view these things as necessary to my happiness, safety, or security. Good desires become ultimate desires. And that’s the definition of idolatry.

As a result, I was deeply impacted when I read the above quote by John Mark Comer.

Our attention is one of the most powerful resources we have. And the things we give our attention to really do define who we become.

Recently I was talking to someone about my tendency to fixate. While they agreed that fixation can be dangerous, they reminded me that it’s always safe to fixate on the Lord. In fact, He’s the answer to all of our other fixations.

When I fixate on the Lord, my anxieties and problems seem to melt away. I gain His big picture perspective and realize how much energy I’m wasting trying to analyze and control my own life.

And when I fixate on Him, I become less attached to the good things in life that I think I need to be happy. I realize that He’s the only thing that will every fully satisfy the deepest needs of my heart.

I’m reminded of Hebrews 12:2 which says, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…”

Jesus is the only thing worthy of our fixation. And if it’s true that our fixations shape who we become, I want Jesus to be my heart’s fixation above all others.

Anxiety and Technology

The past couple of years, I have been considering how technology affects my anxiety. As I’ve become more mindful of my phone use, I’ve noticed a strong correlation between my anxiety level and the amount of time I spend online.

As I’ve pondered this, I’ve realized that we live in a culture characterized by information overload. There is so much digital content created every day and it can feel overwhelming to keep up with all of it. At the click of a button, we can learn about any news event happening anywhere in the world. On social media, we know intimate details about people we barely know in real life. And the amount of entertainment available at our fingertips is seemingly endless. As someone who struggles with anxiety, too much time online causes my already overactive brain to feel even more stressed and frenetic. Even more importantly, I’ve realized that an unhealthy relationship with technology hinders me from living life to the fullest in the real world.

As a result, I was deeply impacted by the following sermon by John Mark Comer from Bridgetown Church in Portland, Oregon. You can listen to it here:

The Case for a Digital Asceticism

I highly recommend his message. Honestly, he’s the only pastor I’ve heard dive deep into this issue. His message is so timely and relevant.

One of my greatest takeaways from John Mark’s sermon was the importance of developing a “digital rule of life”. Basically he suggests creating a set of rules and practices around technology in order to use it in a healthier way.

These are some practical steps that I’ve been taking to create my own “digital rule of life”:

Deleting unessential apps: First, I went through my phone and deleted many of my apps. I focused on the ones that regularly waste my time. YouTube was the first to go. I find that if I don’t have the app on my phone, I’m much less likely to spend time on the website. And if I do decide to intentionally spend time on sites like YouTube, I can use my laptop instead of my phone. I also consolidated my apps into a few simple categories so that my home screen is simple and less cluttered.

Putting boundaries around social media: I’ll be honest that I still struggle in this area. However, I’ve found it helpful to set time limits on my phone for social media apps (you can do this on the iPhone, but I’m not sure about other phones). I set a specific time limit for social media each day and then my phone turns off the app when I reach that limit. I’ve also found it helpful to take intentional breaks from social media when I notice that my soul needs it.

Turing off my phone: Sometimes I like to power off my phone completely. For example, when I’m at church or spending intentional time with God, it’s helpful to completely turn my phone off. When I’m spending one-on-one time with a friend or family member, I try to leave my phone in my purse so that I can be fully present with them.

I also love John Mark’s idea of “parenting your phone”. This means putting it to bed in another room each night and turning it back on the next morning only after spending time with the Lord. I recently bought an old fashioned alarm clock to wake me up (so I’m not dependent on my phone’s alarm). I’m excited to make this a part of my daily practice.

Limiting TV and movies: About a year ago, I stopped regularly watching TV. And it’s been one of the best decisions of my life. I discovered that TV was probably the biggest time-waster in my life. I hated the restless feeling I had after binge-watching a TV show. I also noticed that the twisted perspectives and worldviews of many TV shows were affecting me more than I realized. So I just decided to stop.

At this point, I’ll occasionally watch a movie or a single episode of a quality show. But I’m much more selective about what I watch. And if I do watch something, I try to include a friend or family member so that we can discuss what we’re watching together.

Keeping beneficial technology: I want to be clear that I don’t think all technology is harmful. In fact, I’ve found that certain types of technology actually enrich my life. For example, I absolutely love streaming music on Spotify.  I also get so much value from podcasts and listen to them daily. I use WordPress to express my thoughts creatively and to read the writing of others. I’m also a big fan of Pinterest. I regularly use it research topics of interest and find new and creative ideas. And I don’t know how I’d survive without the maps app on my phone!

We are all so different and so finding a healthy relationship with technology may look very different for each of us. What is beneficial for you, may be unhealthy for me. And what is life-giving for me, may not be helpful to you.

Therefore, I would encourage you to simply ask the Lord about your relationship with technology and be open to trying what He says.

Since I am very in process with this, I would love to hear from any of you. Have you noticed a correlation between technology and anxiety? What are some practical ways that you put healthy boundaries around technology?

Dealing with Disappointment

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”

-Proverbs 13:12

I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of disappointment. As human beings, God has made us with deep desires and longings. We are hardwired to hope for what is good. However, we also live in a fallen world where all is not as it should be. As a result, many of our dreams and ideals are never fully realized.

We all get disappointed.

In my personal life, I’ve noticed that disappointment is a word that has come up for me in many different seasons of my life. I’ve realized that disappointment is one of the main strategies the Enemy uses to hinder my relationship with God. I know from personal experience just how easy it is to get stuck there.

Therefore, instead of acting like a victim of my disappointment, I’ve been asking God to show me healthier ways to navigate the losses in my life. These are some tools He has taught me for dealing with disappointment:

Healthy grieving: I believe it’s important to grieve our losses. And it’s okay to feel sad. In fact, it’s absolutely necessary. We can’t truly get to the other side of disappointment without facing it head on and allowing ourselves to feel the pain.

In his book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Peter Scazerro talks about the importance of embracing grieving and loss. His perspective has been so helpful to me. He writes:

“Our culture routinely interprets losses as alien invasions that interrupt our normal lives. We numb our pain through denial, blaming, rationalizations, addiction, and avoidance. We search for spiritual shortcuts around our wounds… Sadly the result of denying and minimizing our wounds over many years is that we become less and less human, empty Christian shells with painted smiley faces.”

As Scazerro points out, grieving is both necessary and Biblical. Two-thirds of the Psalms are laments of grief. The Bible even describes Jesus as a “man of sorrow”and “acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). Part of being like Jesus is embracing grief and loss. I’m learning that grief isn’t just an annoying interruption to my life that I need to quickly pass through. Instead it’s an important process that has the potential to shape me, grow me, and deepen my intimacy with God. It is always safe to grieve in the presence of God. And there is something so intimate and comforting about letting God grieve my disappointments with me.

Refusing self-pity: There is such a difference between grieving and self-pity. In my experience, grieving draws me closer to God and His comforting love. In contrast, self-pity distances me from God and from others. When I dwell in self-pity, I start to doubt God’s goodness and guidance in my life. I compare my losses to the people around me and feel like no one can understand what I’m going through. Self-pity isolates me from the love of God and the very people who want to help me. Hannah Hurnard writes about self-pity in her book Kingdom of Love. She says:

“There is no prison house so cruel as the prison of resentment and self-pity, and the effect on those who languish long in that bondage is to suffer a progressively destructive influence on character, personality, and physical health.”

What a sobering truth. Self-pity has the potential to destroy me from the inside out. Therefore, I must actively refuse self-pity when I find myself dwelling there. 

Re-kindling desire : In seasons of disappointment, it’s tempting to shut down the heart. Chronic disappointment has the potential to harden us. It’s so tempting to kill our desires in an effort to avoid future pain. However, this is not the way to live. I love John Eldredge’s perspective in The Journey of desire. He says:

“The greatest human tragedy is to give up the search. Nothing is of greater importance than the life of our deep heart. To lose heart is to lose everything.”

It takes courage to keep hoping and desiring. But it’s so necessary. I never want my current disappointments to keep me from believing in what God can and will do in my future. Disappointment gets me in touch with my deep desire for God and for heaven. One day all will be restored and made right. And it’s good to desire that.

Thanking God for what is: When I get stuck in disappointment, I focus on what is missing. I obsess about the missing puzzle piece, while ignoring the rest of the picture. As I’ve mentioned before, gratitude and thankfulness are such powerful practices at times like this. When I shift my focus from what’s missing, I see all the gifts and blessings that surround my life. And even more importantly, I see the gifts and blessings that have entered my life through my disappointments. God loves to take even the worst situations that the Enemy intended for evil and transform them into something beautiful and redemptive. 

Looking for new appointments: Recently I was talking to an older and wiser woman about her experience with disappointment. She suggested that the “dis” words (like disbelief, discouragement, and disappointment) are all strategies of the Enemy. God’s invitation to each of us is the opposite of those words. For example, in our disbelief, God wants to give us deeper belief. When we feel discouraged, God wants to give us deeper courage. And when we feel disappointed, God invites us into new appointments.

I just love this perspective. Rather than seeing disappointment as a dead end, I can view it as a door to something new. When I feel disappointed, I’m learning to ask God, “What is my new appointment?” God won’t leave us stuck in disappointment. Whenever something ends, God invites us into something new.

Death means that resurrection is coming.

Endings mean that there are new beginnings.

And disappointment means that there is a new appointment.

We just need to have eyes to see it.

Obedience

A couple of years ago I had a conversation with my mom about my social anxiety. At that point, my anxiety was at it’s worst and I felt profoundly aware of how much it was limiting my life. As I talked to her, a startling thought came to my mind:

I realized that my world was shrinking.

I was missing out on opportunities because of fear and my world was getting smaller and smaller.

Recently I was thanking the Lord for His healing in my life. Although social anxiety is still a struggle for me, it no longer defines my life. As I was thanking God for this, I realized that my world is no longer shrinking. In fact, it is expanding day by day.

I considered what brought about this change and I realized a key component. God has been teaching me the importance of practical action.

As someone who wrestles with anxiety, it is so easy to get lost in my head analyzing, wondering, and planning. I can have great thoughts and ideas. However, if I never act on them, I get stuck.

The last couple of years, I have been on a journey of learning to simply obey what God asks me to do. And honestly, it hasn’t gone perfectly. I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way and learned some things the hard way.

However, I’m realizing that each small step of practical action builds upon itself. Every time I try to do what God says, even if it scares me, I become a bit braver.

And I’m more ready to say yes the next time He asks me to do something.

The Danger of Comparison

“Stay in your own lane.”

A mentor of mine gave me this advice a couple of years ago when I was wrestling with comparison. Her wise words come to mind whenever I’m tempted to compare myself to others. I think that to some extent, everyone struggles with comparison. After all, it’s just a natural part of being human. However, as someone who wrestles with social anxiety, I have to be especially on guard against comparison.

It amazes me how quickly and easily comparison creeps into my heart.  And comparison has the potential to wreak havoc on my relationships. Instead of rejoicing in the strengths of others, I am threatened by their abilities and gifts. Instead of focusing on my unique journey with the Lord, I waste time analyzing how my progress measures up to others.

I am becoming more and more confident that the comparison game is a complete waste of time. And it is a game I will never win. There will always be someone more connected, more adventurous, more attractive, and more successful. It doesn’t matter the marker I use to compare myself. I will always come up short to somebody.

So how do we get out of this deadly trap once and for all? These are some ideas for avoiding comparison that I’ve found to be helpful in my own life:

Staying in my own lane: This is a lot harder than it sounds. For me, staying in my own lane means knowing my comparison triggers and avoiding them. Sometimes this means taking a break from social media and limiting the amount of time I spend online. Other times I need to cut out TV shows or movies that give me a false view of reality and cause me to feel discontent with my own life. At work, I need to focus my attention on my own classroom rather than comparing myself to my fellow teachers. And in my personal life, I need to be careful when conversations with friends or family take a competitive turn.

Practicing gratitude: Gratitude is key. There is so much power in thanking God for all that is good in my life. Gratitude destroys pride because it reminds me that every good thing in my life is a gift from God. Gratitude also opens my eyes to all of the gifts in my life that I take for granted when I compare myself to others.

Lately God has been challenging me to take gratitude a step further. Instead of thanking Him solely for the good in my life, He wants me to also thank Him for the good in other people’s lives. This includes their gifts, strengths, and blessings. It’s hard to be threatened by the good in others when I view those things as an evidence of God’s grace.

Focusing on the heart: I’ve noticed that comparison is usually focused on externals. We compare our outward appearance, relationships, jobs, and other successes. I think that we tend to compare external qualities because they are measurable and observable. However, I know from personal experience that my externals can look polished to others while my interior life is dangerously suffering. In times like this, God graciously reminds me that He cares most about my heart. When I focus on the quality of my inner life, comparison seems to fade away.

Choosing to be inspired: This is a newer perspective for me. Rather than being threatened by success in other people lives, I can allow it to inspire me. For example, rather than being threatened by another teacher’s success, I can be inspired to pursue the same excellence in my own teaching. Rather than envying someone else’s relationship, I can gain a vision of the type of relationship I want to one day have. This simple shift in thinking gives me greater hope for my future and the potential that I have to grow and change.

Asking for God’s perspective:  I think that this is the real game changer. In order to truly let go of comparison, I need to see myself the way God sees me. Recently God challenged me to ask Him what He loves about me. At first I struggled to receive His affirmation of me. However, with time, this exercise has been so powerful in removing insecurity from my life.

God has made each of us so uniquely.

And He doesn’t just love us.

He likes us too.

God wants to reveal to each of us His deep delight in us. And when we are confident that God delights in us, we can be confident that He delights in the people around us.

This puts us all on an even playing field.

And there is no need to compare.

Embracing Reality

“The point of solitude is to be with God with what is true about me right now—whatever it is… We meet God in our present delight or our present sadness… Silence, then allows me to simply give God access to the reality of myself. With the same trust and lack of inhibition that a child demonstrates with her mother, I can rest against God and allow Him to care for my soul as only He can.” 

–Invitation to Silence and Solitude, Ruth Haley Barton

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. In Invitation to Silence and Solitude, Ruth Haley Barton writes about the importance of spending time in God’s presence, just being with Him. I love how she encourages embracing the reality of who we actually are and what we’re actually feeling. She suggests that God’s presence is the safest place to do this. However, I know from personal experience, that facing reality is hard.

I’ve recently been struck by how our culture makes it so easy to get lost in fantasy when reality feels too overwhelming. We get lost in TV shows and movies, absorbing ourselves in the problems of fictional characters, while ignoring our own problems. We use social media to curate idealized versions of our own lives in an effort to escape the mundane and ordinary realities of day to day life. We spend time and money improving and changing our appearances rather than accepting ourselves as we actually are. Our desire for fantasy is particularly evident in the explosion of virtual reality games that allow us to completely shut out the real world and play in an idealized fantasy world where anything seems possible.

The truth is that reality can be so hard to face.

But God invites us to embrace the reality of our lives as they actually are. We never need to pretend or conceal who we are before the Lord. After all, He knows everything about us and accepts us unconditionally.

He already knows every sinful thought and impure motive.

He understands the feelings we can’t even begin to articulate.

He isn’t shocked by our anxieties or fears about the future.

He isn’t scared of our questions or doubts.

He is big enough to hold our disappointments and frustrations.

He grieves over our losses with us.

And His unconditional love gives us the courage to embrace life as it actually is, a mixed cup of blessing and sorrow.