Month: February 2017

Why? Why will performance kill me? Because its the thing that tells me that I have to try to be who I already am. Performance tells me, “if I just behave right, then I’ll be changed, then things will go my way, I’ll get what I deserve.” Performance is the gateway drug to entitlement, and that thing will suck the life out of me simply because that lens keeps me focused on what isn’t happening and all the things that are happening.

In the last week I’ve discovered several people who are going on a trip that I am not able to go on. I’ve spent a few days really disappointed and I hate that feeling. I could feel entitlement daring me to look at these people with the eyes of jealousy and offense. Let me tell you there is nothing that makes me feel uglier than when my heart is leaning towards the wrong position. Like I physically feel ugly and don’t want to look in the mirror. And I don’t want to talk to God about it, because if I let Him into that, He’s going to see how ugly I’ve made what was His. What was that? Oh right, that’s shame, a nasty root of performance that gets a lot of credit in the world because shame actually gets shit done. Shame motivates, it gets people to hide their flaws, present their best selves and in general, try really really hard to get it right this time.

But shame is like a reverse blood transfusion, it steals life from me and my heart feels totally justified in letting it because, after all, when I experience the emotions of disappointment and ‘gasp’ jealousy, there must be an open door to sin and death somewhere. Folks, that mentality is religion and I think it makes me look fat. (insert laughing emoji here).

I learned something recently about emotions that when paired with a teaching I heard about the prodigal son, became revolutionary. Emotions are amoral. They don’t actually have a judgment value attached to them. Yet I’ve spent my whole life make judgments about myself (and other people) based on what I feel. And I’ve been a ‘feeler’ for a really long time (more on that whole subject to come). When I take the knowledge that emotions are amoral, they don’t actually have a value (other than that which I place on them), and pair it with the idea that God doesn’t look at us in our mess as right or wrong, but rather He sees only lost and found, an explosion goes off in my head.

Perhaps this is not new to you, perhaps you have come to this already and I’m just slow in catching up. No matter, my life is still changed and so is my thinking. I no longer view my emotions as good or bad, positive or negative, avoiding entirely now the exit ramp into self-judgment and self-hatred. Nice try shame, maybe better luck next time. Or not.

I’ve spent the last several months, perhaps even the last several years feeling like the walking dead. Let me explain what I mean by that, because I’m sure the first image that comes to ones mind is either a zombie or a vampire.  I will make use of these for the moment, as whenever I’ve seen them portrayed, they seem to be either mindless creatures who have lost all reason, in search of the thing that keeps them “alive” (zombies) or they are the being that waits in the shadows shrewdly, hoping for a chance to steal life from someone else, at great cost to the victim (a vampire).

I hope in my actions I’ve not been either, but my heart has certainly felt like its been searching for that thing that gives me life – those places where my soul is sparked with passion, passion that I once felt and lived in, passion that I held onto with everything I had. Its funny to be someone who has had a life-long relationship with the Creator of the universe, and yet I’m in this place where my heart is trying to remember what brings me life.

To the religiously grounded, I just need to read my bible more and I need to pray more. I tried that, but in the doing my heart screamed, ‘I’m dying!’ Please don’t get me wrong, I love the bible, and I read from it daily, even when I don’t feel like it. But I’ve stopped reading it because its what I’m supposed to do and I’ve started to read until I find Him. Sometimes I don’t like what I read- sometimes I don’t understand. So then praying more…actually, what if I listen more?

I pray a lot. I spend a lot of time, on my end, talking to God. And I have seasons where I do a great job listening, even a fantastic job listening. Yet, sometimes I think I’ve made God into a wooden idol, that if I say the right thing, if I have the right formula, then what I want comes to pass. But it doesn’t work like that. He’s a person… He came to earth and put skin on.

I have a relationship with a person, the Person. I don’t know about anyone else, but I just want to know Him, how He sees the world, where He finds life, where His heart becomes passionate again. I like to think that we human beings, each and every one of us are actually little slivers of His heart running all over the world with skin on. And I think the place I find myself in now is just me trying to find out how my sliver fits back into the whole.

So I sit back today, reviewing my calendar, excited for certain parts of my day and less so for others. And that is what it is. I’m alright if I’m not super excited for every moment of life right now. I’m happy that I’m still willing to sit still and listen. I’m happy that even if He’s not giving me what I want, I still connect with the Person. Because He’s not surprised by where I am and He’s not mad about it either. And He’s not waiting for me to figure it out. He’s just waiting for my stillness; in that stillness leaning over and whispering in my ear. I think of myself as someone who likes to do, to accomplish and to achieve. Yet, I can not help but be thankful in this season where my heart is tired that I just get to be still……and listen.