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Jesus Is Your Point of Reference and Your Peace of Mind

  As I write this, I just signed up for a race called Ragnar. It’s a 200-mile road relay race that you run as a part of a team of twelve. It has a specific route with some sections tougher than others. Team members take portions based on their ability. Each teammate runs three portions, totaling at least twelve miles over a 24-hour period.

  There are a lot of unknowns. I don’t know how my body will feel on race day. I have no idea what the weather will be. At this point, five months before the race, I only know one of my teammates. I don’t know what kind of runners they are or how they will respond to the challenge. As I understand it, I am the lone rookie on the team. They’ve all run other Ragnars. So, I can lean on their experience. I’m sure it will take great endurance. I’ve never run back-to-back-to-back 10k’s before.

  To compensate for all of this ignorance, I possess something invaluable, a critical point of reference, a map. I look at the map and see the route, distance, location, and elevation all neatly delineated. I know where we are headed. Sure, there will be twists and turns along the way, but if I study the map, I can anticipate every bend in the road and even the slightest incline.

  In like manner, I coach myself to fix my eyes on Jesus. In the beginning, when I am trying to discover my dream, in the middle, when I’m tempted to quit, and at the end, when achievement is within reach... I must focus my attention on Jesus.

  Let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith (Hebrews 12:1-2).

  Once a dream has been sparked, the way will be marked out for you, one step after another, as long as our eyes are fixed on Jesus. He both blazes the trail and smooths the path. He is the One who initiates and sustains our life of faith. He is the One who sparks and helps us realize the dream.

  On a deep sea fishing excursion off the Atlantic Coast I learned a valuable lesson. It was simple. Keep your eyes focused on the horizon. Don’t stare at the waves or look down. Do this and you won’t get sick. It worked. Three-foot waves did not shake me. Unlike some of the others on board, I kept nausea at bay.

  Keep your eyes focused on Jesus as you pursue the dream and you will get your sea legs, you will stay even-keeled.

  I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth (English Standard Version, Psalm 121).

  But I must confess something. Most days I find it difficult to maintain my focus on God. I catch myself looking down over the edge of the boat at the waves.

  My mind is frequently scattered and distracted. Any attempt to concentrate seems absurd. I can’t make my mind do anything it doesn’t want to do. Random thoughts pop in and join the dissonant chorus. Jumbled with words, images, and memories, my mind spins. I struggle to orient myself.

  It’s as if I’ve lost my map.

  For the Christian leader, dreaming BIG, dreaming CLEARLY starts with a liberated mind. That mind, cleared of its clutter and released to soar with God, is a remarkable place of creativity.

  You and I are not doomed to our usual self-defeating patterns. We can break free. And that freedom comes from God. He is your mind’s creator. He is the source of your mind’s freedom. He is your crucial point of reference. He will show you the way and keep you balanced.

  Sounds great. But, “How do I do this,” you may be asking? Like all of the Christian life, one must apply this lesson through intentional and disciplined practice. Consider the following spiritual practices: the 3 M’s.

  Marinate

  Sit with shorter sections of Scripture long enough that your mind settles and fresh insights from the Word reveal themselves. I use a methodology called 30 Things. I first learned of it in the Introduction to Timothy Keller’s book, “Encounters With Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions.”4 It’s quite simple. Sit with the short passage for 30 minutes and write down 30 things. They can be any combination of questions, observations, and insights. Then, pick one or two that really stand out to you.

  I rarely gain deep insight from God instantly. I have to earn it. Knowledge and discernment emerge only with time. They reside below the surface underneath layers of assumption. In order to uncover what is buried, I will need to sit and contemplate for a while.

  The key here is time.

  This is why I use the word, marinate. Meat must sit and rest awhile in the spices to assimilate them. In order for steak or chicken to soak in the spice and be really affected by the special sauce, it needs to be immersed in it. It’s the same for our minds. We have become accustomed to instant gratification. We must master the art of abiding. Pause. Linger. Tarry. Wait. Stick around. Remain. Dwell. It would be of great benefit for us as Christian leaders to marinate.

  Memorize

  I remember well my confirmation experience back in the late 1970’s. Attending my father’s confirmation class was quite formative in many ways. One way in particular was all the memorization: long passages of scripture committed to memory before I could move on to the next section of the catechism. He assigned one page of 50 passages per part of Luther’s Small Catechism. I practiced at home, usually reciting passages from memory to my poor mother in order to get that checked off my to-do list. As much as I sometimes resented having to do that routine, I really appreciate it today.

  Some 35+ years later, I can still call to mind many passages. I could be doing more today with this discipline. It would benefit me tomorrow by giving me the promises of God to hold on to. Tuck away the truth for use later. Inscribe it on the mind. Make it stick!

  The key here is repetition.

  We fill our minds with so many things. Why not the life-giving, Spirit-empowering word of God? In an age in which the opinions of men dominate our mental landscape, we need to make the extra effort to hold on to God’s truth. It would be of great benefit for us as Christian leaders to memorize Scripture. If you have never tried memorizing Scripture, here are a few to get you started:

  Romans 5:8

  1 John 1:1

  John 3:16-17

  John 1:14

  Isaiah 43:1-3a (if you are up for the challenge of a longer Section – this is one of my favorites!)

  Meditate

  Add to this a steady regimen of guided meditation, and you can train your mind to think on these things.

  And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise (New Living Translation, Philippians 4:8).

  Pay attention to breathing. Pay attention to where the body holds tension. Scan the body thoroughly and quietly. Legs, back, neck, jaw, feet, hands, arms, wrists, shoulders, even face. Observe the condition of your body and to what is happening in your mind. Pay attention to it. Don’t try to control it. Let it go and learn to redirect back. Allow breath to enter and exit. Healthy rhythms. Deep breathing versus shallow. Clear, bright light…filling the body, and with each out breath, tension and worries carried away and removed with each exhalation. In and out. Commit to this practice just a few minutes each day and you will see benefit soon.

  The key here is rest.

  Don’t try to do anything with what you are receiving at first. Simply hold it. Embrace it. Take it in.

  Breathe and Receive.

  Rest in the moment, in the present, and become fully alive with Christ.

  Enjoy breathing.

  Relaxed, but attentive posture. Upright, yet not tense. Pay attention.

  Breathing has been shown to help with anxiety, insomnia, restlessness, focus, pain, and a host of other ailments that affect our health and wellness. We are complete, whole beings. Our spirituality is not separated from our physical, emotional selves.

  This brief introduction to guided meditation is not in any way a comprehensive, or even expert discourse.

  It would be of great benefit for us as Christian leaders to meditate.

  Here are a few of the resources I like to use to help guide my meditation practice.

  A Christian Meditation Podcast5

  Pray as You Go6

  HeadSpace App7

  Marinate, memorize, and meditate. Spend time. Repeat Scripture until it sticks. And meditate.

  Try This

  Which one of the three M’s do you want to try?

  Marinate Memorize Meditate

  Pick one and try it for a week. What did you discover? Was it easier or more difficult than you thought? If you liked it, try it again for another week. Or, try something different.

  Tell a friend about one of the exercises or resources and have them try it and then get together and talk about the difference it made.

  * * *

  4 Timothy Keller, introduction to Encounters With Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions. (New York: Penguin, 2015).

  5 A Christian Meditation Podcast, http://christianmeditationpodcast.libsyn.com/

  6 Pray as You Go, https://www.pray-as-you-go.org/home/

  7 HeadSpace App, https://www.headspace.com/headspace-meditation-app

  Lesson 4

  I Wasn’t Born with a Self-Concept

  There are certain characteristics I was born with, that I have in my DNA. And there are many traits that I have acquired through the unique experiences in my journey. Among these is the opinion I hold about myself. It has been developing throughout my life.

  This is good news. It means that I can re-form it. Not everything I subconsciously hold to be true about my identity, self-worth, value, is true. Plagued by many negative and self-defeating thoughts about myself, I can train my mind to BELIEVE the truth. And, here is the truth: that training comes by deliberately and consistently taking in the identity-shaping words of my Creator!

  What has helped shape my identity to this point?

  Culture, family, circumstances (good and bad), words spoken to me or about me, replayed narratives that are on a never-ending loop, expectations of others, traditions, denominational heritage, education, diagnoses, all mixed together with God’s Word sprinkled in.

  Do you see anything wrong with this picture? Sprinkling isn’t enough. Only God has the full and true understanding of who I am. Therefore, I must seek Him to have an accurate and true view of who I am! I do not get some blessing from God in discounting myself. Neither do I get an accurate understanding of me without Him. Sprinkling isn’t enough.

  Perhaps you guard against the kinds of opinions that poison our own self-image. But it’s more likely that you, like so many of us, have listened closer to criticism than to praise and have given others’ damaging views of yourself a fixed position in your psyche. Many dreamers have. This reality can be one of the biggest dream wreckers. If I feel I am incapable, that I have nothing to offer, what happens when God puts a God-sized dream in my heart? I will need to wrestle with that dream as it comes up against my self-image.

  Whether or not I get this makes no difference in reality. I am who God says I am! I am who God has created me to be! Period.

  I can think and even believe the opposite, but my thinking or believing does not influence the truth. This is such a comfort for me. The reality of who I am is not actually impacted or changed by what I think. Truth is truth.

  There has often been a huge disconnect for me. It’s more of a tension of apparent opposites, and it shows up like this: I am a sinner in need of God’s saving. Sinner, guilty, AND a child of God, divine heir of the Kingdom of Heaven WITH Christ on account of Christ. In my tradition there is so much emphasis on the former that the latter gets missed. I think I’ve missed that part.

  Please don’t misunderstand me. I’ve always believed that I am an heir to ALL of God’s Kingdom enterprise. I’ve known it.... intellectually. However, I rarely embrace it, internalize it, adopt it into my psyche. I have not always lived my days or made decisions through that filter.

  It is not that we should adopt one or the other, sinner or child of God. Or even one over the other. Both are true. The fullness of the Gospel is found when we plant both of these in our self-concept. For, God has said so. Clearly and consistently.

  Thanks for forgiving me, Jesus. I sure am rotten, a blind beggar, lost without you. Yes, ALL TRUE because God has said so. Yet, incomplete. He also says this about me:

  “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpieces. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

  —New Living Translation, Ephesians 2:8-10

  “See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him.”

  —1 John 3:1

  “So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.

  We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.”

  —Colossians 1:9-14

  There’s plenty more where those came from!

  A self-defeating view of myself does not come from God. An incomplete view of one’s self is insufficient for dreamers. Disagreeing with God will not be helpful for us. We need His Word concerning our identity as much as we need His word for the direction of our lives.

  I have learned that my personality leans toward emphasizing a certain aspect of God’s truth. I am a sinner, flawed, imperfect, needing forgiveness, needing work, etc. This lines up with me being a Type 4 on the Enneagram. (The Enneagram is an ancient personality typing system based on 9 personality types. Those 9 types are represented by numbers. For more information on the Enneagram, see Appendix,

  p. 225.) The danger with filtering God’s truth through my personality type is that it gives me an incomplete view of myself. And, therefore, it also gives me an incomplete view of God. This is why I need to constantly allow space for His Word. I must listen to His voice speak to me about me.

  Try This

  Where have you consistently disagreed with God?

  As I listen to God, read His Word, are there things He tells me that are not lining up with what I believe to be true?

  So what do I do in those moments, make my understanding subject to God’s or make His truth subject to mine?

  Or is the problem that I don’t really even know what God thinks?

  Lesson 5

  Following Jesus Will Impact Every Aspect of Your Life, Not Just the “Spiritual” Part

  There is no “spiritual part” of you. You are a whole person. And, as a whole person you are spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, intellectual, and relational. God has redeemed ALL of you in Jesus. There is no part of you that is untouched by His presence, His provision, His power.

  Jesus cares about every aspect of your life. He cares about your waking life. He cares about your sleep. He cares that you are productive. He desires you to be free from the emotions that control you. He can help you with the management of your finances. He wants you to live in healthy, honest, and supportive friendships. He can help you learn how to have tough, but necessary conversations that yield harmony. He wants your business to thrive and be a blessing to others. He can do something about the long-held thought patterns that are keeping you stuck. He wants to see you using your gifts, time, and talents to benefit others.

  Where are you compartmentalizing your life? What “part” of the whole have you been keeping from His influence? Seriously, right now is there some part of your life that you think might be too small, too messy, too embarrassing to open up and let Jesus influence? What is it? It might help to speak it out loud. Better yet, write it down. Acknowledge your need for help. Ask for input. Bring it out into the light of truth: “I have come that they might have life to the full” (New International Version, John 10:10). “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” John 8:32. -Jesus

  He already knows ALL of it, every small detail. He created you. He knows you. He loves you. He is for you. Acknowledging it, making it public, bringing that hidden part out into the light helps you see it, and connect it to the whole of your life.

  So, what’s the hesitation? Why do we resist giving our Creator, Savior, Sustainer the pleasure of leading us? Why do we resist OUR own pleasure? Why do we resist the dream He sparks? I have discovered three culprits:

  1) False Belief

  Our understanding of God is limited. It is influenced by our finite experience. The result is a limited view of ourselves. We are also guilty of overemphasizing one part of God’s character while minimizing other parts. And so we miss accessing a gift that is available to us right now, not waiting for us some day. We know that Jesus came to save us from our sin and provide the gift of heaven after we die, but all too often we forget about what Jesus offers us in the life we’re living now. Think about it. If He is only our ticket to heaven and not also Lord of our day-to-day lives, what do we miss? Is He there only to bail us out? On the flip side, if He is our Model only and not our Savior, how will that affect us? Is He simply a guru? We must grapple with these questions, which may be painful as they cast a spotlight on our limitations. We must re-align our understanding of He who sparks and rekindles dreams.