Low TA's

There exists a personality trait called "tolerance for ambiguity." A person who is a high TA enjoys and is able to deal with uncertainty and situations that are not clear. Low TA's struggle to perform well when instructions are not clear or someone expects them to make sense out of situations that are unclear or have incomplete information. I am a high TA an so I am not inclined to have to fully explain what, how or why something is to be done or is the way it is. Just cast out a few indications and trust everyone will figure it out.

This gets me in trouble with low TA's (sometimes called dogmatic). They need clear cut answers or instructions. I can always tell when a student is low TA because they will ask me before the first test, "now, exactly how should I study for this test?" I just smile knowing I have given all kinds of hints, but have not "spelled it out in black or white" for them.

I know many low TA's who are lovely and special people. But they tend to play life very close to the vest, take little risks. They stay safe, but miss out on opportunities that could enrich their life. High TA's put a lot of pressure on low TA's to move out (make decisions) when evrything is not known. Its very possible that some of your relationships consist of this mix of TA's. You cant change it but recognizing the differences can remove some tension and help each other understand the other in more productive ways.

Low TA's - go for it!!
High TA's - take it easy on and be patient with the low TA's 

Hey, control freak!!

              
                              the illusion we are actually in control

People of all ages, across all ages, and around the world seek desparately to have control. Some more than others but we all value it. Why? What is it we are afraid of? Not getting what we want or deserve? Keeping someone else from getting ours? Keep others from finding out who we really are?

While control gives us some sense we will be OK, control is pretty much an illusion (God is sovereign, we are not). But the problem is bigger than that!!! Control works against the very nature of a Child of God. God is relational and designed us that way too ("in His image"). All the objectives of control block intimacy, the sweet spot of joy in relationships. Control works against a thankful heart, for control over emphsizes possession, not stewardship. Control makes me the point and leaves faith out. God says "when I return, will I find any who are faithful?"

While we are real cozy with control, its our hidden enemy to the joyful life. Think about it!!!

real love

We know if love is real when it makes each person "better". The issue then is making sense of what "better" means!! To the carnal mind (Bible calls flesh) "better" is related to getting one's needs met. To the Kingdom mind (Bible calls spiritual) "better" relates to playing out what God has put in us.

In other words, LOVE brings out the best in us and the best is what was put in us (Grace), not what the lover wants us to be, that's Social Exchange!!

sometimes

one would think that after 61 years I would be ready to just let the mind rest, quit thinking about life so intensely, and just let situations and people be who and what they are. Afterall, God is plenty big to handle all that without me.

So, who invented blogging anyway????????

Passion

"that which propels us through obstacles as if they were not there in the quest for the object of our love"
Dudley Hall

"intrinsic motivation on steroids"
me

living beneath the privilege

I have a friend who is (self confessed) dominated by fear and guilt. She is a Christian and desires to know God, but these emotions are her constant companion. While this does not "steal" her salvation, they rob her of her joy, the provision and privileges of being in harmony with the Heavenlies. However, she is no different than most of us who live beneath our privilige as a child of the King.

We are adopted into our Father's family. We have been invited to come and live with Him in the big mansion on the hill. However, we listen to what the world tells us about ourselves and how we dont deserve to live in that mansion (satan's message to us using our own voice) and so we are often more "at home" being the orphan we were before we were adopted. The garbage heaps of the ghetto (fear, shame, blame, guilt, pride, etc.) too often feel more like they fit us than the clothes and banquest feasts provided in the mansion on the hill. So we keep returning to what seems more comfortable, leaving temporarily all the Father has to give us, freely with no obligation (that's Grace).

I want my friend back but God wants her way more. In fact He wants us all to remain with Him for our provision, going into the city ONLY to tell others what a great Father He is who lives in that mansion on the hill :-)

The ultimate Risk Management

The lack of understanding and interest in managing financial risks has led to the collapse of the world's financial system and many personal bankrupcies. Why is it that our nature wishes to ignore risks? Not sure - but the answer may be found in the confidence we have to control our own destiny. The illusion we can make life work on our own is at the heart of the human condition so we make sense of the future through lenses that discount or ignore risks.

The big risk question is "in what should we place our faith?" While the natural view is aligned with the notion of "the power of positive thinking." That is, if we are sincere and believe enough in something, then that something will happen. Our "flesh" wishes to think the risk is in our power to believe strongly enough, BUT just maybe our risk is in the validity of what we believe, the object or target of our faith.

Wouldn't it make more sense to believe that God is who He says He is and has done for us what He says He has than to trust that we can control our circumstances to meet our needs. Where does our risk really lay?
Think about it!!!

say its not so, John?

For some reason it seems quite important to human beings to be considered a “child of God.” Great leaders like Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr have been admired because they are so inclusive in saying “we are all children of God”. It seems to make sense for anyone who has a notion of God that His love must be such that “we are all in.”

Yet, John says something quite to the contrary (John 1). He challenges all of our sense-making about our relationship with God. He says that becoming a child of God is not a result of being born into the human race (by blood), nor is there some social exchange that we can have with God that creates such an outcome (flesh or human nature). John even goes further to say that mankind is not capable of choosing God as one’s father, for we know the will of man is constrained by self-sufficiency and is at enmity with God. 

John says that ONLY those who “receive Jesus” have the right to be called the children of God. Receive here means that one takes onto himself everything that Jesus embraces, the redemptive work of the cross. Again, making sense of our relationship to God, as a child of the King who is clothed by and feasts with the Master who lives in the big mansion on the hill, involves the model of Grace. That God has provided for us when we could not deserve it or really did not even want it (will of man). So how does this happen? Shouldn’t we do something more than just receive? There must be some obligation that we can fulfill? Surely we must contribute to this relationship in some way?

John ends this truth with the simple words “but of God”. That is even the desire to be His child must be given to us by God. After all, this is His sovereign will.

What makes our will "free"?

         

Eventually an addictive thinker like me has to talk about "free will". It is one of the more interesting topics people discuss, often serving as the foundation to one's "religious beliefs". I have noticed that it is quite common for people to be offended if someone challenges the notion of whether we have it or not. To think that we do not have "free will" goes against our sense of reality, but mainly it seems to diminish our concept of "self". It's just again another indication of the carnal mind, our human nature that drives our sense-making in contradiction to our faith in who God is and what He claims.

Let's look closer at the two words, "free" and "will", to see what we can see.

First, what is "will"? In human psychology the will is one of three elements of our soul, the part of us a doctor can't see with examination. In addition to the mind, our "thinker", and emotion, our "feeler", the will is our "chooser." So of course we have a will, the ability to choose. We decide what toothpaste we use, what time we go to bed. However, we do not choose our parents, where we grow up, or whether we get the flu. The question is not do we have choice, but to what degree is it "free."

In this case when something is "free", we don't mean it doesn't cost anything, we mean it is unconstrained. So, to what degree are our choices unconstrained? Well, we have laws and rules that put constraints on our choices. I guess we can choose to disobey them, but often at great consequence to us. Informal controls on our choices are cultural values and norms. Things that are important to and expected by society, family, and institutions that influence us, often in significant ways. On a personal level there are tendencies to behave in predetermined ways. All people are influenced by what others think about them, some more than others. Introverts will choose to hang back in social settings and not choose to engage others unless or until they are approached. In this way they are constrained by their personality. Thus, while we feel we can decide to do whatever we wish, our choices are obviously constrained by factors both outside and inside of ourselves, challenging the notion our "chooser is free".

Then there is sense-making about "will" from the Kingdom mind, what does God say about this? Scripture never directly refers to our "free will", but uses two different words or notions of God's will. One denotes God's desire for our choices, His commands to trust Jesus for our lives and to love each other. This "will" is open to our choices and we comply because we believe this is true and His best for us and is revealed to us, primarily is His word, the Bible. The second word for God's will denotes His sovereignty, the idea that His wishes will be carried out because no one can keep it from happening. This falls more into His mystery and is generally not known by or revealed to us. This is the opposite of Fox News. "He decides, we report!"

Therefore, not only is our chooser constrained by many forces on a human level (even carnal minds can acknowledge this), but for Kingdom people we fully accept and trust that "it is God that is working in us to will and to do for His good pleasure." (Philippians 2: 13). While challenging that our will is "free" generally offends the carnal mind, it is Good News to those who live in the domain of righteousness (Romans 6), who are free from the power of the carnal mind (sin), but slaves to things of God (the Gospel of Grace).  "AMEN" goes here.

I was riding along one day listening to a friend of mine share how his journey of faith has resulted in a growing freedom that God is accomplishing His purposes and really don't need us. He wants us to participate, and it is to our advantage to do so, but He is sovereign. When he continued to explain how freeing it is to understand we are not interfering with God by our mistakes and lack of competencies to get results, it dawned on me that this freedom makes "free will" fairly unattractive and something I would not want even if it were true I had it.

For instance, if having my way is not what creates the joy in my life, but actually aligning myself within God's will does, why would i want to have the final say? This is what Jesus meant by "blessed are the meek." The Greek word used for "meek" was the word used to refer to a domesticated animal that was completely trained and under the control of the pet's master. Jesus is saying 'O the joy of having every thought and emotion under the control of the master."

So even after a rational debate on why our will is not really free, the bottom line is that wanting "free will" is self defeating, not self exalting!!

Now that is an angle on "free will" that is worth pondering  .... it was for me anyway :-)

Purpose, ambition, and calling

           

I have been emphasizing how our carnal minds make sense of things different from our spiritual minds. This is never so prominent as in how we see our purpose. Natural man believes his/her purpose is to glorify or exalt self. Both when we are "doing good" so others will see or when we are in a self-abasing posture, we are making it all about us. The spiritual, transformed mind seeks to glorify God. To make Him the point. To be hidden and one with the Trinity (John 17:20 -22). If our purpose is us, then we structure our lives around getting our needs met through our circumstances or the world around us. We make sense of ourselves and our world through the eyes of self. When our purpose is to be one with God and to make Him known (that's what glorify really means; what carries the weight or gets noticed), then our ambition is to be pleasing to Him (II Corinthians 5: 9).

Well, then what pleases God? Hebrews 11: 6 says that withouf faith it is impossible to please God. I think what pleases God is believing He has uniquely made us and wills that we play out what He has put in us instead of fooling around with what others think about us. I call this "sucking the life out of us instead of living the life He has given us to live." First, we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). Then, regardless of what it feels like to us, the sovereign God is who "works in us both to will and to do for His good  pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). In the end "He who has begun a good work in us will complete it through the perfect work of Christ" (Philippians 1: 6).

I would put forth the notion that our calling is in fact just that. Playing out what has been put in us. The specific job, location, tasks, responsibilites, ect. are all the context for doing this. What freedom there is knowing that we are simply called to "scratch the itches of our soul" and God will take care of the results. This freedom comes to us in parenting, in careers, in recreation, in marriage, IN ALL of LIFE!!

The human pschologists call this intrinsic motivation but its just a fancy name for God's calling on our lives.