Still, I loved this video because it was easy to understand for someone who isn’t much of a historian or, for sure, an economist. His explanation of what lies behind successes and failures of nations seems to line up well with what is happening in the U.S. for sure.
These screenshots from the video give you an idea of what you’ll find should you watch it. So good.
Dalio alludes to economic principles that we can apply to help our nation slow its decline as a world power and possibly even reserve it. He goes into these principles much more in his book, but the two he mentions in the video are quite simple:
Don’t spend more than you make.
Treat people well.
Ridiculously simple, but do we do them? We have had national debt since the start of the U.S. as a nation. However, in recent years our debt has wildly ballooned out of control. Also the whole “treating people well”? The last time we were able to pull together as a nation was probably the attacks of 9/11…over 20 years ago. The division in our country is so deep, it is hard to imagine our being able to come back together. It could happen…and I will keep hoping that’s the case.Photo Credit: Ray Dalio, YouTube
On the graphic above, we see the steady decline of the US and the sharp rise of China. Is this the future? Or are other factors also at play? I think there might be…one in particular, the God of this universe. However, He may choose not to save the US from its own self-induced decline. Only time will tell.
[Postscript: There is a word of wisdom here: don’t spend more than we earn and treat others well. Sound counsel all around.]
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” – Matthew 28:18-20
When good news shakes up and transforms our very lives, we don’t keep it to ourselves. We can’t. In fact, in his last conversation with his disciples, the Messiah Jesus speaks of this in commanding terms.
The occasion for his words in the Gospel of Matthew was a gathering of Jesus’ followers with him. They were filled with both the comfort and joy of having come through His unwarranted death on a Roman cross and then having witnessed His resurrection from the dead. Nothing could keep Jesus in the grave. Nothing.
He took our sins to the cross. He died in our place. He gave himself for our sake that we could know His abundant life on earth and be with the Lord forever in Heaven.
In his commissioning (Matthew 28:18-20), he spoke to his followers but the words ring through the centuries to all of us and to those who come after us. Only he had the authority to speak them and to send us out. His authority came from the Father, we can speak the good news of Christ through his authority and the power of the Holy Spirit. He goes with us and is with us always.
So what is our commission?
Go – to our children, our larger families, our friends, our neighbors, our workplace, the marketplace, the world.
Make disciples – not by any coercion or bait-and-switch strategy. We live Christ before others and we speak the words of Christ to those he places in our path. We are not Christian from birth (as some think about Christians). We are also not saved by manipulation or parental persuasion. We are saved by reckoning with our sinful state and need for a savior. The Lord saves; we cannot save ourselves. “Making disciples” is to lay out the truth of our own experience in received salvation from Christ and inviting others to receive the same. It is not the Lord’s desire for anyone to die without an opportunity to come to faith in him (2 Peter 3:9). He has commissioned us to bring about that opportunity.
Baptize – in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus himself was baptized, (without need but as a witness for what he calls us to do). It is a public pronouncement of our faith in the sufficiency of Christ and our decision to follow him.
Teaching to obey. Obedience to Christ is not a peevish, demeaning thing. It is a beautiful alignment with all his promises, with all of who he is, and with all the good he brings out of our obedience – not just for ourselves but with a wide and generational ripple effect.
And that glorious promise: He is with us always. Glory!
[A note from my mom when we took a job outside the U.S. – she was a great pray-er.]
Have you received this Christ as your savior? Not an acknowledging of a form of Christ made popular across religions…but the One true God (three in one, in perfect unity). Not a “hope to get to Heaven” ticket…but through a personal relationship where God the Father sees us as we were meant to be – pure and beautiful sons and daughters, transformed by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
See my hands and look at my feet
It’s okay if it’s hard to believe
I have faith that you will do greater things
It’s my time to go, but before I leave
Go tell the world about me
I was dead but now I live
I’ve gotta go now for a little while
But goodbye is not the end
Don’t forget the things that I taught you
I’ve conquered death and I hold the keys
Where I go you will go too someday
But there’s much to do here before you leave so
Go tell the world about me
I was dead but now I live
I’ve gotta go now for a little while
But goodbye is not the
End of the journey
The end of the road
My spirit is with you
Wherever you go
You have a purpose
And I have a plan
I’ll make you this promise
I’ll come back again
But until then
Go tell the world about me
For I was dead but now I live
Oh, I’ve gotta go now for a little while
Hey, but goodbye is not the end(Go tell the world)
Oh, go tell them about me
(Go tell the world)
I’ve gotta go
(Go tell the world)
For a little while
But goodbye is not the end*
My maternal grandfather was a drunk. When he wasn’t withdrawn, walking trails in the woods, he could be mean to both his wife and his five children. How he and my grandmother, a pampered and passive woman, came to be married, I didn’t think to ask. Nor did I ask them or my mom about their childhoods.
My mom was an elegant woman. Beautiful, generous, selfless. She took the brunt of her father’s rages – standing between him and her mother or him and her two younger brothers. The two older brothers left home as soon as they could lie about their ages to join the military.
How she and my biological father married was less a mystery. She thought he was her way out of a hard life at home. It turns out maybe he thought the same about her. Whatever their affection before marriage, it cooled as the years and responsibilities folded on top of each other. It would turn out that although there was not so much violence in our childhood home, there was neglect. He wasn’t a drunk but he never cared to work. When Mom finally divorced him, her heart had become so wounded and weary, it was a matter of just having one less mouth to feed.
Mom would later marry my step-dad who was a sweet daddy to me. He was harder on my brothers…and on his own kids from his first marriage. It made me sad and a little frightened, especially for my older brother. He was old enough to have seen our grandfather drunk; he knew the dismissive behavior of our biological father; he felt the anger of our step-father. My younger brothers and I missed a lot of that.
Divorce and its fallout became something I would determine to avoid…even if it meant not marrying at all.
I did marry, and a wonderful man. We are very different from each other. We have different struggles and different childhood situations. However, from the beginning, we shared the personal experience of nurturing love of parents, faithful to God and each other. This has been a strong foundation for us to learn to love well and parent well (hopefully). It is not the whole of it though.
In all of this, there is still the puzzling over what we bring to our marriage from past generations…and what will would transmit to our children?
Looking into our pasts isn’t always inviting. Some prefer to “let sleeping dogs lie”. I’m learning that our past informs our future; in fact, our past can predict or prescribe our future. It seems wisdom then to examine what we can of our past, and that of parents and grandparents.
Not to blame. Not to lay responsibility for some present lack in ourselves. We all make mistakes as parents even when we deeply love our children. The look back is to help us to heal any harm and to guard from bringing past hurts to our children…without thinking… without intending.
When our parents experience trauma in childhood – or endure the consequence of sin from a parent – they carry that into adulthood and potentially will transmit it to their own children. Not all survivors of adverse childhood experiences will follow this cycle, but it’s rare to avoid altogether.
My mom was very intentional in showing us love after experiencing so little in her childhood home. She did bring some of her trauma forward and we experienced it…without her meaning for us to. I remember trying, from an early age, to be as good as I could be for my mom…and failing. She had tried to do the same as well, in her growing up years…but with harsher consequences than I had.
“The child speaks what their parents could not. He or she recognizes how their own experience has been authored, how one has been authorized, if unconsciously, to carry their parent’s injury into the future.” – Molly Castelloe, How Trauma Is Carried Across Generations
Have you discovered areas in your own life that if left unattended will transmit to your children’s lives? Fears, self-worth issues, anger, negativity, anxiety, perfectionism, sadness…or sin/trauma of all kinds that we have harbored (and maybe witnessed in our childhood). We can change the future, with God’s help, by taking a good long look at our past. Asking questions and considering what consequences are playing out in our current lives and our children’s.
We can break the cycle of generational trauma or sin, but it requires relentless intentionality on the parents’ part. Both for our own healing and for our children’s health. I didn’t want my children to be afraid or unsure of how valued they were. I wanted them to always know the experience of being safe, seen, soothed, and secure. Was I successful…? Not always…in fact, I was unaware of how generational sin clung to me. I didn’t have words for it then like I do now.
The Adam Young Counseling podcast has been a tremendous help to me in looking at childhood trauma and generational sin. He gives practical and reasoned helps in how to heal from our own trauma as well as how to curtail the repeat of generational sin in our children’s lives.
What are your thoughts? Please add to Comments. May God help us all to be blessings (and not cursings) to our children and to theirs.
1) Beyond the Guitar’s Spider-man Theme Mashup on Classical Guitar – Nathan Mills of Beyond the Guitar arranged and performed the three big themes of the three Spider-Man franchises of the last 20 years. So much to love in these movies, in particular the ones starring Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield, and Tobey Maguire. You’ll welcome the nostalgia and the heart-filling beauty of what Nathan does with the classical guitar.
Which did you love the most? Share in Comments.
2) Engaging a Person Who Has Harmed You – Who is this person? A parent…a spouse…a child…an employer…a supposed friend? We have a way forward toward healing.
I discovered Adam Young Counseling a few weeks back and have dived in to many of his podcasts. His 5-part series above on engaging with someone who’s harmed you was like sitting in a therapist’s office…a GREAT therapist’s office. We have all been harmed by someone, and we ourselves have harmed others, often without knowing or without intending. Still, to have counsel on how to take positive steps toward healing in such a scary situation is amazing. Adam Young has experienced trauma himself, and he has redeemed that trauma in so many ways, in particular his love and help for others.
In these podcasts, Adam Young distinguishes between the garden variety sinner, a wicked person*, and an evil person. I appreciated that he said we do well not to judge people as permanently in those states because God can move to transform any of us. He did however encourage those of us who have been harmed to determine if we are dealing with a wicked or evil person…and act accordingly. His helps are empowering and transformative if we have the courage to walk through them.Photo Credit: Alistair Begg, Truth For Life
*Dr. Young spends much counsel on engaging a wicked person who has harmed us. It helped me to be reminded that a person who is behaving wickedly can, on the whole, be a decent person. What causes a person to act despicably toward us could be generational sin – not to discount that person’s responsibility in harming us, but to strive for understanding and grace (which multiplies toward us, not just to the one who harmed us). Thoughts?
When we have been harmed by someone, we need safe people to counsel with in order to be wise in our engaging others with whom we don’t feel safe. Walling ourselves off from them, trying to just put the harm behind us, or claiming forgiveness when we haven’t – none of these things get us to healing. If you have been harmed by someone, spend some time in these podcasts. Seriously. It will make a difference.
3) True Community – We desperately need real or true community. Whatever the problem loneliness and isolation were for us before COVID has been severely compounded. We need one anther…not in a surfacy, thin-veneered way, but in a deep well of fellowship with each other. Jennie Allen has written a hopeful and provocative book about this in Find Your People.
The need for true community is neither new nor specific to our culture. It’s been written about, researched, and explored for decades. Two great thinkers and authors Jerry Bridges and M. Scott Peck (both now deceased) are quoted below.
“If we are to master the scriptural principles of true biblical community, we must master this one: True greatness in the kingdom of heaven involves serving one another. Jesus said, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant” (Matthew 20:26)…Fellowship is much, much more than food and fun and even more than reading and studying the Scriptures with another believer. Fellowship at times may involve blood, sweat, and tears as we stand side by side with our persecuted brothers and sisters…It implies a responsibility to fulfill our function in the body. We usually don’t think of fellowship in terms of fulfilling a responsibility, but that is because we have lost sight of the biblical meaning of fellowship. Fellowship is not just a social privilege to enjoy; it is more basically a responsibility to assume...But this is what servant-hood within the fellowship of believers is all about: being alert to the little things that need to be done and then doing them.” – Jerry Bridges
“In genuine community there are no sides. It is not always easy, but by the time they reach community the members have learned how to give up cliques and factions. They have learned how to listen to each other and how not to reject each other. Sometimes consensus in community is reached with miraculous rapidity. But at other times it is arrived at only after lengthy struggle. Just because it is a safe place does not mean community is a place without conflict. It is, however, a place where conflict can be resolved without physical or emotional bloodshed and with wisdom as well as grace. A community is a group that can fight gracefully.”~ M. Scott Peck
Do you experienced true community – where you are willing to serve sacrificially and receive that kind of care as well? We need to go after it for ourselves and one another.
4) Cleaning Closets- I’m not a spring cleaning kind of person, although, these days, we are so often called on to declutter, let go, and be free in the area of stuff management. Still we have two closets (among others) where things just get randomly tossed up onto the shelf. I decided to clear them out to know exactly what is stored there. One closet now contains my journals of the last 30 years!! Whew!
Haven’t re-read any of them but lined them up by date and found this little note from my sweet mama in the front of one of them (from many years ago). A treasure…
5) Spring Flowers – The month of March is bringing Spring along here in the US. With temperatures warming, trips to the park are becoming more regular. The glory of Spring is not lost on the kiddos.
I just want to share a few flower pics of recent days. Hope Spring is coming your way (of course, I get that’s only for the Northern Hemisphere…for you Southern Hem. folks, Happy Fall!
Thanks for a quick stop-by. It means a lot to me. Hope you’re surrounded by and creating beauty wherever you are…we sure need it in this world today…really every day.
Today is Ash Wednesday, marking the beginning of Lent. This 40-day commemoration is meant for us as Christians to look squarely at our sin before a holy God. We are to reflect on what He did, through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ to redeem us from that sin. Forgiveness is a huge theme of Lent, as we examine our hearts and deal with areas where we need forgiveness from God.
When we look at where we have done wrong, parallel to that is the reckoning with the wrong done to us by others. We ask forgiveness of God, we seek to forgive those who’ve wronged us, and we humble ourselves before those we’ve hurt, asking their forgiveness.
All this forgiveness talk! Asking for it, giving it, receiving it…and yet the key to it all for us is the tiny phrase Jesus spoke (John 16:33) “in Me”.
When we are so disturbed by the trauma we have experienced…or the trauma we have caused, our troubled thoughts stay focused on that wrong. That undoneness…that sense of hopelessness that it will ever be healed…that dark place in our minds we can’t seem to climb out. However…
He gives us a way forward through His very presence with us. Trauma isn’t easily remedied, but it can be got through, so to speak, as we tune our thoughts and turn our eyes onto Jesus.
A podcast I just listened to this week really spoke to my heart of the beauty displayed in the person of Christ. [Creating Beauty in the Bomb Shelters of Our Lives – Being Known Podcast – Season 4, Episode 1]. In the face of trauma, we too often forget His love and His presence with us. In the podcast, Christian psychiatrist Dr. Curt Thompson gives practical helps (writing our story, talking about our trauma with a person we trust, learning how we to take our trauma to God).
The biggest takeaway goes back to the phrase “in Me” – in Christ. We are truly known and loved by Jesus…our life, our being, all of who we are is settled in Him. We can have courage. We can have peace.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my older brother lately. He died at 61. When our parents divorced, he was old enough to have experienced the rupture of that relationship as well as the knowledge our dad (biological father) just didn’t care enough for us…he just didn’t care. I can only imagine how that haunted my brother growing up. What trauma my big brother would experience in life…some self-imposed… I wish I had tuned in better earlier… My peace and comfort about him and what he went through in life rest on the trust that he is now with Christ, in Heaven. The troubles of this life are forever behind him.
For today…on this Worship Wednesday…this Ash Wednesday, let’s focus on the hope we have, even in trauma…
In Him…in Jesus:
He is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see, to him be honor and eternal power. Amen. – 1 Timothy 6:15b-16
When we pull away from the noise of this troubled world and the dark thoughts of trauma, and draw near to the true Christ, our minds are renewed. The joy of being known and loved by such a God diminishes those things that hold us in bondage. Take heart, Dear One.
Listen below to the amazing 5 minute description the late Pastor S. M. Lockridge gives of our Lord Jesus…and take courage.
Quick take on favorites of mine over the last couple of weeks:
1) Beyond the Guitar’s Latest – Enjoy!
2) Parenting Pearls – So thankful for wisdom of others…especially in parenting and raising children to be mentally healthy and resilient. How other cultures parent is also intriguing. Below are some of both.
Mom blogger Becky Mansfield wrote a great piece on things we don’t want our kiddos to forget. Please share in the Comments what you hope your children don’t forget.
The situation with my mom (cancer and heart) and my dad’s (Parkinson’s and dementia) health has been making me so sad. I wish I could be with them right now. 😥 So my sister sent a video of them together tonight, dancing to Neil Young. 💙 Take a moment to love your loved ones. pic.twitter.com/y2fBu26NlP
4) Words – As much as I love words this quote from Jesus’ teaching gives pause: “But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned.” – Matthew 12:36-37
Words matter. Words mean things. We should be generous with life-giving words and sparing with words that destroy. Silence and restraint have their place.
Then, on a lighter note: there’s this sweet game that is all the rage right now. Wordle created by Josh Wardle (launched in October 2021). I love it because it is not time-consuming. You get one word puzzle a day that is challenging but doable. So fun.
5) War – We have all read and watched about the current invasion of Ukraine by Russia. How to respond? Who to respond? I won’t pose an opinion here because we have so many, and they don’t help really. Praying is the most important thing we can do. Below are some links I found interesting this week (well, links that weren’t behind a paywall). Praying…
“Think Little. Nearly every one of us, nearly every day of his life, is contributing directly to the ruin of this planet.” Berry went on to say that he was “ashamed and deeply distressed that American government should have become the chief cause of disillusionment with American principles.”
In a Jefferson Lecture in 2012, he quoted Stegner’s description of Americans as one of two basic types, “boomers” and “stickers.” Boomers are “those who pillage and run,” who “make a killing and end up on Easy Street.” Stickers are “those who settle, and love the life they have made and the place they have made it in.” They are “placed people,” in Berry’s term—forever attached to the look of the sky, the smell of native plants, and the vernacular of home.
He told the crowd that, as a member of the human race, he was “in the worst possible company: communists, fascists and totalitarians of all sorts, militarists and tyrants, exploiters, vandals, gluttons, ignoramuses, murderers.” But, he insisted, he was given hope by people “who through all the sad destructive centuries of our history have kept alive the vision of peace and kindness and generosity and humility and freedom.”
“A properly educated conservative, who has neither approved of abortion nor supported a tax or a regulation, can destroy a mountain or poison a river and sleep like a baby,” he writes. “A well-instructed liberal, who has behaved with the prescribed delicacy toward women and people of color, can consent to the plunder of the land and people of rural America and sleep like a conservative.”
“If two neighbors know that they may seriously disagree, but that either of them, given even a small change of circumstances, may desperately need the other, should they not keep between them a sort of pre-paid forgiveness? They ought to keep it ready to hand, like a fire extinguisher.”
“Jesus said, ‘Take no thought for the morrow,’ which I take to mean that if we do the right things today, we’ll have done all we really can for tomorrow. OK. So I hope to do the right things today.”
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. – Romans 8:1
For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” – 1 Peter 2:6
Turns out I’ve written a lot about shame. Strange for me, in that until a few months ago, I didn’t think shame was something that bothered me. Guilt, yes. Shame…no.
I was wrong. Even studying Scripture, I must have just skipped over all the “shame” passages. We are introduced to the experience of shame very early in the Bible as Adam and Eve (before sin) were described as “naked but unashamed”. Too soon, they tasted the bitter fruit of disobedience and couldn’t stomach the shame of their nakedness. Naked and, this time, ashamed…and wanting to hide themselves from each other…and God.
What are we trying to hide? What are we working so hard to bury or cover or avoid? Quick to judge someone else before we ourselves are judged.
Christian psychiatrist Curt Thompson helps us understand shame and find a way to healing and freedom. In his book The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves, he talks about how shamed people try to shame others. We don’t want our lives to be examined too closely…our secrets might be exposed. We hide. We isolate ourselves. We turn aside rather than be truly known.
“When we experience shame, we tend to turn away from others because the prospect of being seen or known by another carries the anticipation of shame being intensified or reactivated. However, the very act of turning away, while temporarily protecting and relieving us from our feeling (and the gaze of the ‘other’), ironically simultaneously reinforces the very shame we are attempting to avoid. Notably, we do not necessarily realize this to be happening-we’re just trying to survive the moment. But indeed this dance between hiding and feeling shame itself becomes a tightening of the noose. We feel shame, and then feel shame for feeling shame. It begets itself.” – Curt Thompson, The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves
The irony here is that none of us is exempt from this experience of shame. We have all endured the pain and sorrow of it. How we deal with it is to name it and take it out of the darkness into His marvelous light… Shame is not meant to be a tormentor. God gave us this gift, really, as a signal, a marker, that something is wrong and can be righted. We are to turn our eyes away from hiding our sin and look to Jesus to heal our sin.
“To this God, whom we meet in Jesus, we must direct our attention if we are to know the healing of our shame. We must literally look to Jesus in embodied ways in order to know how being loved in community brings shame to its knees and lifts us up and into acts of goodness and beauty.”
― Curt Thompson, The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves
Sometimes we feel shame not from anything we’ve done wrong but from what others have communicated to us about us…from childhood. Our “not enough-ness”. That communication gets wired into our minds and we recall it over and over through life.
We can derail that messaging when we name it for what it is, talk about it with a person with whom we feel safe, and give it to Jesus.
Just this week, I had the responsibility of arranging housing for a refugee family. Rentals in our city are often expensive, and even at that, hard to come by. I found an apartment that would work well (praise God!), then in the process of applying for a lease, the monthly rent went up (LIKE $50). It changes daily I was told. After venting my frustration with the rental office agent, and we ended our phone conversation with me answering his question, “Yes, I still want the apartment!!!” After a few minutes, the shamed bubbled up. What if I lost us the apartment? What if my rant meant we would have to keep searching for a home for this weary, displaced family? What if? What if?! Shamed turned my focus inward and I was terrified at being found out…being found wanting…being a failure.
The Lord, in His mercy, reminded me of all I had been learning about shame, and I recognized it for what it was. Processing it, I prayed… and I called Dave. Talking through it took away much of its power. In the end, there was nothing to worry about. We agreed to the rent offered (which was still within the budget…I overreacted!), and the agent had taken no offense, it turns out. God had quieted my heart and reminded me of the truth of His love. He provided. Period. Full stop. We take deep breaths, and look to Him.
“…Keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God’s throne.” – Hebrews 12:2
“Shame’s healing encompasses the counterintuitive act of turning toward what we are most terrified of. We fear the shame that we will feel when we speak of that very shame. In some circumstances we anticipate this vulnerable exposure to be so great that it will be almost life threatening. But it is in the movement toward another, toward connection with someone who is safe, that we come to know life and freedom from this prison.” – Curt Thompson, The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves
The key here in dealing with shame is to refuse to let it isolate us. In the dark of our own silent shame, we allow our thoughts to torment and accuse…or we tamp down those thoughts by dismissing them or turning on others in judgment. When we hide, we miss the comfort God means for us through fellowship with Him and each other.
“You did it: You turned my deepest pains into joyful dancing; You stripped off my dark clothing and covered me with joyful light. You have restored my honor. My heart is ready to explode, erupt in new songs! It’s impossible to keep quiet! Eternal One, my God, my Life-Giver, I will thank You forever.” – Psalm 30:11-12
Worship with me (Passion Music‘s Glorious Day – music & lyrics in link). Let’s celebrate the blessed freedom we have in Christ…
I was buried beneath my shame
Who could carry that kind of weight
It was my tomb
Till I met You
I was breathing but not alive
All my failures I tried to hide
It was my tomb
Till I met You
You called my name
And I ran out of that grave
Out of the darkness
Into Your glorious day
You called my name
And I ran out of that grave
Out of the darkness
Into Your glorious day
Now Your mercy has saved my soul
Now Your freedom is all I know
The old made new
Jesus, when I met You
You called my name
And I ran out of that grave
Out of the darkness
Into Your glorious day
You called my name
And I ran out of that grave
Out of the darkness
Into Your glorious day
I needed rescue
My sin was heavy
But chains break at the weight of Your glory
I needed shelter
I was an orphan
Now You call me a citizen of heaven
When I was broken
You were my healing
Your love is the air that I’m breathing
I have a future
My eyes are open
You called my name
And I ran out of that grave
Out of the darkness
Into Your glorious day
You called my name
And I ran out of that grave
Out of the darkness
Into Your glorious day*
For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”– Romans 10:11
I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. – 1 Timothy 2:1
When we lived overseas, one of my greatest joys was to pray, on the streets doing errands. In Cairo, Tunis, Sfax, and Casablanca. Just walking in and out of stores. Praying for people as they came across my path. Strangers with lives of which I had no knowledge. Except for those things we all hold in common. Work, health, family, and some understanding of God. I felt such a connection with these people who I might never really know…or maybe I would…one day.
Praying.
What a privilege also to pray for those near to us…family, friends, neighbors, colleagues. Near…and far. Those in power and those far removed. Those who deeply need prayer in the moment as well as those who discount their need…but it is still there.
My Mom was a great pray-er, and we, her children, are still buoyed on the wings of those prayers. Now, my praying mentor is my treasured mom-in-law. She is praying, early morning and through the day, for many somebodies…us included. [She won’t love the image below that I captured without her knowledge. For me, it is a beautiful, albeit early-morning-grainy image for me of one before the throne of God.] So thankful for her and for the God who draws her to Himself.
If you wonder sometimes if anyone is praying for you…take that wondering to God and with it your own prayer for someone else. Keep in mind that in our loneliest, most isolated times, Someone is always praying for us…His name is Jesus.
Who is there to condemn us? For Christ Jesus, who died, and more than that was raised to life, is at the right hand of God—and He is interceding for us. – Romans 8:34
Worship with me (lyrics and music in the link. This cover done beautifully by Ricky Skaggs).
Somebody’s prayin, I can feel it
Somebody’s prayin’ for me
Mighty hands are guiding me
To protect what I can’t see
Lord I believe, Lord I believe
That somebody’s prayin’, for me
Angels are watchin’, I can feel it
Angels are watchin’ over me
There’s many miles ahead ’til I get home
Still I’m safely kept before Your throne
‘Cause Lord I believe, Lord I believe
Your angels are watchin’ over me
Well, I’ve walked through barren wilderness
When my pillow was a stone
And I’ve been through the darkest caverns
Where no light had ever shown
Still I went on ’cause there was someone
Who was down on their knees
And Lord. I thank You for those people
Prayin’ all this time for me
Somebody’s prayin’, I can feel it
Somebody’s prayin’ for me
Mighty hands are guiding me
To protect me from what I can’t see
Lord I believe, Lord I believe
Somebody’s prayin’ for me*
Kids’ birthdays, weddings, babies, anniversaries. For sure.
How about mileposts in our careers? A job well-done?
Have workplace celebrations (even micro-celebrations) gone by the wayside? Even before COVID? Too expensive? Too hard to keep up with? Considered frivolous and unaligned with a stream-lined cost-saving workplace? Have these cost-savings cut losses or added to them? If this is your situation, consider re-instituting celebrations. Omitting them may have cost you more than having them.
I’m not going to go into the particulars (links below will support those). However, I want to give a shout-out to one recent celebration which we got to attend and soak up the joy of it all.
[This had to do with a church celebrating the 10th anniversary of their pastor couple. The elements of a beautiful milestone recognition follow in the pictures and brief description. Enjoy.]
Andrew and Marcie came to this job after a catastrophic health event forced them to leave the international work they were deeply committed to. A redemptive story followed in these 10 years since.
They are not the kind of people who are ambitious for center stage, but they find themselves there because of what (and who) they bring with them. They take the hard and display the good and the God in it.
We had the opportunity to be one of the out-of-town guests for a surprise celebration of Andrew and Marcie’s work (10 years so far).
This church covered all bases in celebrating them and drawing all of us into that circle of deep gratitude. #Snacks and #giftbags for the travelers (you planning milestone celebrations – keep this! – for all involved as far as your budget allows).
The surprise actually happened (for Andrew anyway. Marcie helped to keep him in the dark). The sweet first sightings were emotional.
Milestone celebrations must always have food. No need for it to be elaborate, but special is nice. From eating at local specialty restaurants to a potluck. There is something about eating together from time to time (and especially to celebrate a person or progress) that creates a bond between people. When is the last time you ate with your team? Your boss? Make it happen.
Then the words. They matter. Words of affirmation. Words of inspiration. Vision. Purpose. However, not just for the big picture but how the pieces fit together. Celebrations are about the pieces…and the pieces are people. If I may add: God puts the puzzle together. [Because this was a church celebrating their pastor, the Sunday service included all us life-long family and long-time friends – joining their local church family who love them with us. This celebration was a beautiful demonstration of that love. No holds barred.]
Celebrations are meant to honor both the person/project and the larger purpose that holds us together. If it’s work or family or something other. For Andrew and Marcie, it would have been very awkward for them if they were the focus of the 10-year anniversary. Their church family knew this and kept in view what mattered most to them all.
That was our weekend with all the feels of a celebration. It was inspiring. I’m looking forward to being part of a force that celebrates more. The doldrums of this cubicled and isolating season almost put me to sleep. This weekend woke me (back) up!
A pastor friend of mine, Dave Lyle, posted about an encounter he recently had with a homeless man. The man did not ask for money. He just wanted Dave’s opinion on something. As Dave came closer, he noticed a large kitchen knife on the bench near the man, so he kept some distance. It turns out the man was once a chef, thus his knife, and had come on hard times. Homeless for the last 10 years. In Dave’s post, he had noted several other people who passed the man without looking his way, treating him as if he wasn’t really there.
“To acknowledge another person costs you nothing” was Dave’s observation.
Pastor Dave’s story reminded me of a man who “begs” on a busy corner in our city. I put the word “begs” in quotes because he doesn’t really ask for anything. He stands there with a cardboard placard with words of encouragement and affirmation on it for those waiting at the traffic light or driving by. His words are the substance of “a rising tide lifts all boats”. I wonder if, given another set of circumstances, he wouldn’t be a department head or even a CEO. He has given me more impetus to always have food in my car to give to people, like him…especially him. He is a great example of how acknowledgement can affect mindset and action.
The world is full of people who deserve to be acknowledged…start by practicing your acknowledgment skills on people you don’t know very well, or even know at all. [Acknowledging those you most care about will follow easily.]
Acknowledgment builds intimacy and creates powerful interactions. Acknowledge the people around you directly and fully, especially those with whom you are in an intimate relationship. Look for ways to say how much you value them, and then be prepared for miracles!
Acknowledgment neutralizes, defuses, deactivates and reduces the effect of jealousy and envy! Acknowledge those you are jealous of, for the very attributes you envy.
Recognizing good work leads to high energy, great feelings, high-quality performance and terrific results. Not acknowledging good work causes lethargy, resentment, sorrow and withdrawal. Recognize and acknowledge good work, wherever you find it.
Truthful, heartfelt and deserved acknowledgment always makes a difference, sometimes a profound one, in a person’s life and work.
It is likely that acknowledgment can improve the emotional and physical health of both the giver and the receiver.
Practice different ways of getting through to the people you want to acknowledge. Develop an acknowledgment repertoire that will give you the tools to reach out to the people in your life in the different ways that will be the most meaningful to each situation and each person.
Acknowledgement is more than a compliment or positive feedback. It also has much greater impact that “criticism, finding fault, or saying nothing at all” (see links below). Acknowledgement demonstrates, whether talking to someone you know or a stranger, that you see the person. You truly see them and you see something they are doing that has meaning and gives meaning. You acknowledge, whether it is small thing or large, how that person, in that moment, had influence in your life…or that of others.
Acknowledgement communicates a genuine felt experience. To truly acknowledge someone, we must step into their space. We must pause our agenda. We must search for words to express what just happened for us. Finally, we engage bodily with our words (by this I mean our non-verbal communication aligns with what we are saying). We lean in, give eye contact, and tune our facial expression to what we want to express.
Acknowledgement then is best given in person. However…it can be done via other communication mediums. We can be creative, but the main point of all this is to go the extra mile and not let opportunities for acknowledging others pass us by. [The social distancing foisted on us by COVID has kicked to the corner much of the practice of acknowledgement. We are wise to shake off our doldrums and reestablish these practices.]
Is it your practice to regularly (honestly and in a timely fashion) acknowledge those in your lives who have made a difference? These may be close colleagues, near family, or even essential workers we see regularly and the occasional stranger we may meet only once.
To close, I want to give a shout-out to this one guy I know. He is an off-the-chart introvert, but he regularly and without hesitation uses his voice to give acknowledgement to folks in his work (and life). Often, it comes on the heels of praise he is receiving for some innovation or decision made at a point of crisis. He passes that praise on to those who, in his reckoning, made possible the culmination of an excellent work. I have actually counseled with him to take the acknowledgement himself from time to time, but he is unmoved. In a culture where we are elevated because of ownership of ideas and our confidence in ourselves, he and others like him give the most relatable picture of “it takes a village”.
So…are you the glad recipient of acknowledgements in your workplace or home space? How do you practice acknowledgement in these challenging days – when eyes meet less, heads are down, and we have too often insulated ourselves to task, tribe, or timetable? Please comment below.
Photo Credit: Ray Dalio, YouTube
Photo Credit: Ray Dalio, YouTube
Photo Credit: Ray Dalio, YouTube
Photo Credit: Ray Dalio, YouTube
