Cultivating Gratitude

"We bring the sacrifice of praise into the house of the Lord," starts an old up-beat chorus from the 1970s, one which we sang frequently in the early to mid-1980s.  

Most people, when they think of the word "sacrifice", think about giving up something that is important to them (like money, time, etc.), or doing something they really don't want to do but they do it anyway, either out of a sense of obligation (or to send someone on a guilt trip) or - which is preferable - love. 

While that is true to a certain extent, it's not the entire meaning of sacrifice.  Sacrifices in the Old Testament were made to cover sins, to give thanks, to commemorate binding agreements, to show devotion. They could be animal (which is what we think of most when we think "Old Testament sacrifices") or they could be vegetable - like the first-fruits of harvest, and so forth.  When the New Testament author talked about the sacrifice of praise, he said, "the fruit of our lips giving thanks" - he was talking about the latter kind of sacrifice - the first-fruits - which stem from the heart.  Fruit cannot be produced without a richness within ... and I'll touch on that later.  

The sacrifice of praise means - in practical terms - that we thank God FIRST, right off the top!!  Something amazing happens and we are excited and pleased: we thank God first. Before we even do the happy dance, we acknowledge that it is He who gave us (or the originator of the 'blessing') the ability to create whatever has happened.  

Such gratitude, such praise can only come from inside, from cultivating an attitude of gratitude, in the hot and dusty days as well as the times of refreshing rains that nourish the parched ground.  This is where the other kind of sacrifice (the one we usually think of, the giving up something part) comes in.  Those slogging days, those difficult-to-understand circumstances, those times when nothing seems to come together for us ... those are the times when praise - or heart-gratitude - is an effort, a sacrifice we make to our Creator in the midst of confusion and weariness.  

Source (via Google Images):
http://www.shanewoodall.com/blog/2011/10/19/292365
-october-19-2011-crushed-rose.html

I remember one thing that worship leader Bob Fitts mentioned when he was in our city several years ago for a worship conference. He said something like this: "Worship is like offering God a bouquet of roses from our hearts. A rose smells wonderful; in its perfection it is delightful - and we can offer up our heart-roses to God when we receive blessings from life.  But when circumstances change, and our roses become crushed, and we offer them up to God anyway, it might be a mess, but the fragrance is all the more powerful.  The deepest worship and praise rises from our hearts when we transparently choose to be grateful to God, to worship Him in the midst of our own brokenness."  

His words have the ring of truth for me.  Those times in my life when I've chosen to worship and be grateful to God even when my heart is breaking - not to hide that from Him (or from myself) but to offer it TO Him - have been the times when I have sensed His presence most strongly.  

But it doesn't happen overnight.  It is something that is cultivated over time, a mind-set that believes more and more that above all else, God loves us unconditionally, individually, passionately.  That He's right there, that He's "for us" - that He has our best interests at heart. It takes practice - it takes the constant and vigilant use of those tools I talked about in my last post: honesty, openness, willingness, self-talk... to develop the ability and the tendency to use this tool of gratitude as much as all the other ones.  

All I can say is that cultivating gratitude - one day at a time - bears fruit that is far beyond and has more repercussions in our lives and the lives of those with whom we come in contact, than what we can possibly imagine.  

And I can imagine a LOT.

Toolkit

There is a quote from a well-used book, a quote which I hear frequently, that comes back to me again and again.  It says in full, 

There is a solution.  Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation.  But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it.  When therefore we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet.  We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not dreamed.   

The great fact is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe.  The central fact of our lives today is that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous.  He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves.  - the Big Book of AA, 4th Ed., page 25

Google Images showed me this photo at:
http://carpenterbelts.com/Leather-Carpenter-Tool-Belt.html

There are some pretty basic tools in this toolkit.  I just want to touch on a few that might seem obvious, but which are so very needed in order to remove those barriers to relationship with God, with the self, and with others.  

Honesty
It's pretty evident isn't it? We think of ourselves as honest people.  But are we? Are we hiding from things we don't want to face about ourselves, about our fears, our failures?  Can we take an honest and fearless inventory of our lives, not just that overall blanket-type statement that covers everything from soup to nuts ... but specifics?  Can we delve into the hurts of our pasts (whether childhood or even recent past) and face the messages we find there or take responsibility for the mistakes we have made?  

Openness
This goes right along with honesty but adds another component.  Sure, we might be able to be honest with ourselves, for example, but can we ADMIT what we find to someone else we trust? Can we open our innermost heart to scrutiny by God, or by ourselves? When it comes to others who are trustworthy, can we trust them enough to share some of our struggles? This may leave us vulnerable ... are we prepared to risk it?

Willingness
This is the next step along that path.  Are we willing to let God make those inner changes in us as we continue to open ourselves to Him and be honest with Him?  Are we willing to use the rest of those God-given tools in our toolkit to dig into our motives and our I-can't-help-it-that's-just-me excuses?  Are we willing to get outside our comfort zones and let God lead us into areas we never thought we'd ever get into?

Self-talk
The messages we tell ourselves can make or break us.  And if the messages we've heard so often that we believe them are false, where do you think we can find messages to counter them?  We can tell ourselves the truth, that's what! We can do what psychologists call "self-talk"! 

Yes, I can hear you now.  Enough of that psychological clap-trap.  But hold on a minute ... I can tell you one person who talked to himself and encouraged himself all the time, someone that God called a man after His own heart: King David!  "Why are you cast down, my soul? why are you disquieted? hope in God!"  "I commune with myself on my own bed."  "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name.... forget not all His benefits..."  The list is endless.  

Telling ourselves the truth about ourselves - instead of buying into the self-destructive lie that we are worthless - can counter decades of systematic programming to condition us to loathe ourselves.  This was never God's intention.  He delights in us, spent all He had to give us a way to come to Him freely without all the religious trappings in the way.  It might feel awkward and we might not believe it when we first tell ourselves that we are worth something... but if we remember that it took years upon years for the opposite message to burn its way into our psyches, then it will take just as intense a deprogramming to un-learn and (as a friend recently put it) un-believe those lies.  I only just started doing it a little less than 3  years ago.  And today, far from being egotistical, I can better receive goodness from God and from others ... and I have more capacity to give it.  

There are more tools in the toolkit of course.  But those are the major ones.

Get Real

I was talking with a friend of mine last evening who told me that a young person in their neighborhood committed suicide.  What a shock for the best friend to come in and find this person - and for the parents to realize that their beloved child was gone!  How everyone must wonder if things could have been different, if they missed any warning signs, if they could have said or done anything to prevent such a tragedy ... but all the "what ifs" in the world will not bring that precious youth back.  It is so very sad - and unfair - and wrenching.

The shocking news made me think very hard about something that I have said before, but which I think bears repeating.  Yes, we need to appreciate and show love to our children. Yes, we need to pray for them and teach them.  Yes, we need to show them the right way. Yes, we need to hug them and thank God for them.

But of all the things we need to do for our kids, I think the most important is to Get Real.  Primarily for ourselves ... but our kids will definitely benefit! 

In another conversation I had last evening with different folks, someone mentioned the "mask" that she puts on when dealing with people, the one that comes from a desire for others, even perfect strangers, to like her, to be impressed by her.  I remember that mask; I used it nearly constantly for many years.

Especially at church.

Or should I say masks - there are several.

Source of this image:
http://bythezacster.blogspot.com/2011/03/behind-mask.html

It took a lot of heartache and soul-searching to discover that the masks don't work. EVER. The "I've got it all together" mask succeeds in people putting you up on a pedestal.  Or it gives them the idea that you are so together that you wouldn't be interested in having a friend like them.  The "social" mask keeps things to a superficial level and never allows you to get close to anyone else, or vice versa.  The "religious" mask turns people off in droves because the watching world is completely 'weirded out' and dismisses an otherwise palatable message by your bizarre behavior (been there - on both sides of that).  Plus, it isolates you from the real world so that when something earth-shattering happens, (and it will; nobody is exempt) you don't have any foundation upon which to draw.  Just a bunch of rules and regulations, some platitudes that don't hold water, and a great deal of emptiness and misery.  

Sometimes I dust off one or two of those masks and use them, as if by habit - and every time I use them now, I end up hollow and unsatisfied inside.  

When I started to "get real" and be who I was instead of who I thought others wanted me to be, to be honest with myself (and with those closest to me) about my feelings, my failures, my foibles - life started to change not only for me but for my kids too. At first it was kind of awkward - I won't lie - after all, I'd spent so much time behind the masks that I didn't even know who I was, for starters.  And my kids were afraid to talk to me!!  But after a while, as I opened up to them and admitted that in a lot of things I was wrong to have said or done this or that specific thing, they came to understand that I was different - that they could trust me with bigger and bigger pieces of their lives, that it was safer to be with me.  

And God restored those relationships, gave me back my kids.  Is it perfect?  Well, no - I'd be crazy to think it was.  But is it better than before? can they come to me and talk to me more easily than they could?  You bet!  They understand that my new lifestyle of rigorous honesty is still in its beginning stages, that I'm changing, growing, maturing - and they're okay with that.  

My heart goes out to the parents of that young person whose life ended yesterday, to the friends and neighbors as well.  I have prayed for all of these people since last night.  

And I am all the more resolved to become more and more authentic.  I have the responsibility - to myself, to God, to others - to Get Real.

Two or Three

"Wherever two or three are gathered together in My name, there I am in the midst of them."  (Jesus - Matt. 18:20) 

Some of the most powerful times I've had in the Lord have been with one or two other people.  

Yes, I know I'm supposed to go to church ... even though the commandment in Hebrews 10:25 says simply to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together and says nothing about the number of people.  All I am saying is that sometimes the sheer numbers make it a little hard to connect with people, and sometimes they make it hard to connect with God.  For me, that is.  

I'm also not denying that I've had some pretty amazing spiritual experiences in church - and that I love worshiping God with my particular bunch of Christians that I hang out with on Sundays.  

Source of this photo:
http://www.chicagoicc.org/2006/08/prayerful-before-portland/

But there's something about an intimate gathering, isn't there?  In a large church setting, for example, sometimes I feel hesitant to ask for prayer for some personal needs I might have, because first of all I don't want just anyone knowing what those needs are... and second of all ... I don't really like the whole idea behind someone I barely know coming up to me and "laying hands on" me.  (Isn't there a scripture about not laying hands suddenly on anyone? ... but I digress.)  I guess I still have a touch of claustrophobia (fear of being enclosed, not being able to get away) - or is it demophobia (fear of people / crowds)?  Perhaps it's both.  

And perhaps it's just my perception, but I sometimes get the feeling I'm being judged in a large church setting, judged for my dress code, for my choice of seat, for my singing ability, for how often I attend - any number of things both positive and negative.  As an example of this idea, I am EXTREMELY uncomfortable with applause (something I've noticed has crept into the church and which seems to be done more and more for every little thing someone does).  I've been applauded both as an individual and a member of a worship team; I feel it robs me of the intrinsic reward of doing something I love doing for Jesus, and robbed - perhaps - even of my eternal reward.  What I do in church is not a "performance." And it's not a "job" (e.g., "Good job...")  It's ministry TO God.  Just saying. Okay, I'll get off my hobby horse now...      ;)

Being with one or two other people and sharing more deeply experiences, strength, and hope - in a totally accepting atmosphere - being able to pray in depth for things that "we three" agree upon - has been the source of much fulfillment, and has built close relationships with people rather than tearing relationships down with doubt and superficiality.  And it's helped me connect with God on a more intimate level, built my faith even.  I'm beginning to understand that two or three people sharing and agreeing in prayer about something that is close to God's heart have just as much spiritual power as two or three hundred, because that power doesn't come from the number of people.

It comes from the One in the midst of them.

Just Jesus

"That's all it takes, Mike?  Just Jesus?  Just ... Jesus?" And Mike replied with just one word... "Yup."

"Just Jesus" is the stumblingblock, the Scandalon, the rock of offense that Paul talked about.  It's wild and crazy grace, the kind that is totally unconditional to the one who accepts into his or her inner being, who applies to his or her total inability to live in perfection, the substitutionary death of Christ as perfect payment: once for all time and every missed bull's-eye ... past, present and future. 

Image taken from :
http://www.licoc.org/ACTS/pdoj.htm and
I highly recommend this site (link provided)

This kind of life belief flies in the face of organized religion. Religion is all about rules and keeping people in line from the application of external boundaries.  "Fence them in. Keep them busy. Exhaust them so they don't have time to get out of line." But this - this "grace thing" is about relationship, friendship with the Creator.  The sacrifice of the Supreme Agent of Creation, the God of the universe in human form, was more than enough to pay the penalty for every sin of every person that has ever lived or ever will live.  Every single one... just let your mind wander for a minute or so to the heinous atrocities that have been committed down through history - and a lot of them have been (and are) in His name.  That scandalous grace was available without reservation to even those people.  It still is available to the ones who continue today to dole out cruelty and hatred.  

Can we imagine, then, how ludicrous it is to God to have us come to Him and receive such a great and undeserved gift, only to turn around and say, "Thanks, God - I'll take it from here, I can follow the rules now"?? 

It's still Just Jesus.  It always was and it always will be.

"As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord," wrote Paul, "so walk in Him."  That's by grace.  It's a daily dependance on Him, a relationship that permeates every fiber of our being and works on us from the inside out.  The chains of religion drop from us more and more as we learn more and more the truth of this great, extravagant, wasteful, scandalous, no-strings-attached, exuberant grace.  

In the reality of such a great gift, gratitude and love have us in their grip.  We don't need the rule book; we have something better than that.  We have the same God who moved on the face of the waters at creation, the same One who directed Jesus' life and ministry while He was here, the same One who raised Him from the dead, the same One who blazed inside of the apostles and the early church members, living inside of us.  Not just resting on us, where He could leave at any moment (which is why David prayed that prayer 'Take not Your Holy Spirit from me'), but inside, changing our spiritual DNA, wooing our spirits, calling us to intimacy with Him, and giving us a storehouse of power upon which to draw.  

And He points to only one.  
It is Jesus. Jesus plus zero.  
Just Jesus.

Oily Noggins

Some time ago I remember reading W. Phillip Keller's "A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23" - a classic and amazing read to understand all the nuances that King David meant when he penned this most well-known psalm, full of faith and confidence in God.  

One of the lines in the psalm says, "You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over."  Keller explains that in the Middle East, shepherds put oil on a sheep's head and rub it into the wool and even down inside the ear openings.  They do this for a couple of very good reasons.  

First, flies are a horrible problem for sheep.  On a hot day, the flies can buzz inside the sheep's ears and not be able to get out, just make that infernal noise and cause all kinds of tickling from the movement they make  - which drives the sheep absolutely nuts!  They scamper about shaking their heads, not looking where they are going, and could easily hurt themselves.  The oil actually repels the flies and the ones that do get caught, suffocate in what oil there is left behind in the sheep's ears. 

Second, sheep have this annoying habit of establishing a pecking order.  They do this by butting heads with one another.  Especially the ewes (females)!!  They can actually cause each other's heads to bleed, drawing flies and inviting other types of bacterial and viral infection, by doing this.  The shepherd anoints their heads EVERY DAY with oil so that when they butt heads (and they will) the oil makes the blows slide off - - it deflects them just enough to not allow the sheep to make each other bleed.

He then draws the parallel with the Holy Spirit, for oil is a well-known symbol of the Spirit of God, used widely in both Old and New Testaments.  

When we allow the Good Shepherd to douse us really well with the Holy Spirit - rubbing Him in, allowing us to soak in that Presence DAILY, the little annoyances that the enemy sends our way don't bother us as much and our spirits can rest.  And when we enter into conflict with other believers (because face it, we're human and we won't always behave ourselves), if we are soaked in the Spirit and relying on Him, He doesn't let us hurt each other as we interact. 

I would recommend this old but still powerful book if you haven't read it already.  If you have, then why not give it a re-read? Here's a link to be able to purchase the book for cheap on Amazon if you are interested:
 
http://www.amazon.ca/Shepherd-Looks-At-Psalm-23/dp/0310274419/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325811391&sr=1-1 

Launch Out

I loved to watch the Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show when I was a child.  I still like to watch it.  (Shhhh...)


One cartoon that comes to mind is when Sylvester is trying to get Tweety who (for some reason) is in his cage out on a post in the harbour.  He takes a motor boat and heads in the direction of his prize.  But alas! the boat is still tied to the pier.  The boat stops suddenly, falls apart, and Sylvester skids ahead on the water, falling prey to cartoon gravity only after he stops moving and gives one of those "help me" looks, sinking beneath the water as the sharks circle him.  


My best friend and I were talking one morning this week about how some folks tend to have a difficult time letting go of the way they've always done things, of attitudes they have had for years, in order to go deeper into relationship with God.  And in one of those "God-moments" where God steps into a situation and provides perfect clarity, my friend said, "Yeah, well, it's kind of hard to let go when you're so busy holding on tight."  

Source:
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/2007/02/11/12-30-32-med.html

Indeed. It's hard to get where you want to go if you're still tied to what you thought you left behind.  Like poor Sylvester and his rope.



There is a scene in the gospels where Jesus was teaching large crowds from a boat, and then the teaching was done and the crowds dwindled away.  Jesus turned to the disciples who were there and said, "Launch out into deeper water, and let your nets down for a catch."  


There may have been some fish in the shallows that their nets would have caught. And they could have been satisfied with those and with the fact that Jesus was in the boat.  But He wasn't asking them to just catch fish.  He was asking them to go out into something they couldn't fathom - with Him - at a time of day they didn't normally do that sort of thing. (The fish would be closer to the surface at night, "easy pickings." This was the middle of the day.)  And He was asking them to trust and obey Him in the deeper waters with something they already thought they knew how to do.  


This is important. There is always MORE to God, there is always more IN Him: new depths we can't begin to understand, new heights we are unable to perceive.  If we look, if we really search and want to find, there are ever so many facets, layers, levels to Him - we'll never come to an end of discovering more of His heart for us.  Mining those riches all starts with doing something very dangerous to the status quo.  It starts with asking Him what He wants to say to us, and giving Him carte blanche to put His finger on things that might not be all that comfortable for us to face.  To challenge the way we've always done something because we think we already know how to do it - after all, we've been doing it this way for ages (like oh, I don't know, perhaps our own version of what it means to be Christian, which - to many people - means sitting around being RIGHT and nit-picking and judging those who dare disagree in the slightest).  To realize that we can't do anything on our own, that only He can.  To lose a whole ship-load of arrogance and to learn a little humility. To understand that He is God and we are not.  And to learn that we don't have a corner on the God-market.  He is ever so much bigger, deeper, higher than we ever thought possible. His grace has ever so much more room in it than our puny minds can fathom.  It is limitless - infinite - as infinite as He is. 

Launching out into the deep, losing our prejudices and bigotry, relying on Him and accepting and loving each other - can we see how a watching world could begin to say, instead of "What a bunch of haters, look at them devouring each other, guess their belief in God just makes them into a bunch of cannibals..." to say, "Look at how they love and care for each other, how they accept each other and help each other up when they fall. What a God they must serve to lead them to treat each other with that kind of respect!" 

Perhaps it takes launching out in vim and gusto with the rope still attached to the pier of our religious trappings and our self-righteousness - and suddenly finding ourselves in the water with the sharks circling - before we can get to that point of realizing how much we need Him. 

What if we stopped playing church? What if we stopped asking or expecting other people in the church, in our families, and among our circle of friends to meet the deep needs of our spirits that only God can meet?  What if we started admitting our own helplessness and asking HIM to fill the void in us with Himself?  to show us His heart for people, even the people we find "challenging"?  to treat them the way He does - with mercy, acceptance, and love?  to shed our spirit of entitlement and begin instead to be thankful for that limitless grace and extend it to others because He did it for us and we could do no less?

I wonder.