Weekly Blog

Tips, Tricks, Skills, Spirituality and Wisdom

Teresa McBean 4/26/18 Teresa McBean 4/26/18

Success and transformation: It takes a while.

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It can take a lifetime to make a very small amount of progress living into our God-given identity. Becoming a successful person means being willing to step out on a limb to simply try to accept this "new" self. It's an act of great courage- because our failures will give rise to doubts.

Are my efforts inauthentic? Am I really trying? Nobody is worse at submitting to God than I am. Does God love me? I'm too far gone. There is no hope for me. Have I rejected his love? Will he accept me back?

The courage comes in facing those questions head-on and pushing forward with our call to love ourselves, God, and others. We will fail. And yet, we proceed. Proceeding is our call. And it is an act of hope, particularly when are in the midst of despair.

Teresa McBean 4/25/18 Teresa McBean 4/25/18

Transformation is Un-intuitive

From yesterday: Success, from the standpoint of faith, means learning to accept this new version of the self that God is trying to offer. We learn to prioritize grace, mercy, forgiveness, love, gentleness, patience, and so on, because there is no more worthy calling than to point, in small, humble ways, to the new, hopeful reality God brings to the world. Click here if you need to get caught up.

Can I back up for a moment?

Let me just say "accepting" this new version of ourselves, the version God is trying to give us, is not an easy or simple task. We do not pray a prayer of submission and find ourselves overwhelmingly filled with meaning and purpose nor do we find our desires instantly transformed. (Well, to be fair, some people say they've experienced this. I do not find that experience to be particularly common, so I'll try to speak to those who have not been instantly transformed. If you were instantly transformed, you probably aren't reading this anyway.)

Our culture has (wrongly) taught us that anything intuitive is authentic. Intuitive can mean a few things in this context. It can mean something either "feels good" or "comes naturally" to us. I have heard any number of people express bewilderment at why, after their baptism, they felt exactly the same as they did before. If being welcomed into God's people is an authentic act, why am I not instantly transformed?

The answer is as simple as the question is confounding: Transformation isn't intuitive. And, that does not mean our efforts to live into our humanity are not authentic. We learn to accept the new version of ourselves God is trying to give us. Some of the work happens mysteriously through his spirit, and some of the work happens through the process of being in community with others who are trying to discern what it means to follow God with their lives.

Teresa McBean 4/24/18 Teresa McBean 4/24/18

Success and meaning

Where does meaning come from?

It depends. Some of the factors that contribute to the meaning in our lives are generalizable- they are the same for everyone. Some of the factors are specific to your personality. Some are specific to your interests. Meaning is the product of a confluence of factors from basic human needs (love, connection) to hobbies and interests. The launching point, though, is our submission to a power greater than ourselves.

Submitting to the God of our understanding (for us at NSC, the God of the Bible), orients us. God, as the giver of all good gifts, offers us a new self and works on our behalf to conform us to his image such that our lives are not defined by their "successes" or "failures" (as our culture sees them) but by our dedication to reflecting his love to the world around us. (Side note: I know plenty of us do not feel we are particularly dedicated to this. I do not say this so that we can shame ourselves for how we fall short of this goal- the simple art of trying to live into being a person crafted in God's image is the goal- not becoming a "perfect" person.)

Success, from the standpoint of faith, means learning to accept this new version of the self that God is trying to offer. We learn to prioritize grace, mercy, forgiveness, love, gentleness, patience, and so on, because there is no more worthy calling than to point, in small, humble ways, to the new, hopeful reality God brings to the world.

Teresa McBean 4/23/18 Teresa McBean 4/23/18

Successful living

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Successful living, becoming a successful human being, is a matter of pursuing meaning. It's important that we clarify what we mean by this. Drawing on yesterday, pursuing meaning is not a matter of chasing "good feels" in life. It's a matter of crafting a life which supports our intention to live out of our certain way of seeing (our faith, our guiding principles).

If we're not paying attention, we may choose directions in life that make it more difficult to live out of our certain way of seeing than others. For instance, if you are overworked and under-compensated in a job you hate then you will undoubtedly find it more difficult to reflect God's grace, mercy, forgiveness, and love in your various spheres of influence. Why? Because you're living on the edge. When we live on the edge, we're living without a safety net (in a bad way). We have no margin for error. Our filters that may prevent us from going completely off the rails are compromised. We have no "immune system," so to speak.

And so, as you think about the way in which your life is crafted, one question to consider is: Are the various elements in my life supporting my way of seeing?

The beauty of approaching "success" this way is that it allows a lot of flexibility in how we apply it to our lives. The down side is, we have to be intentional...perhaps annoyingly so.

More to come tomorrow.

Teresa McBean 4/22/18 Teresa McBean 4/22/18

Success and relationality

If we dedicate our entire lives to the pursuit of ambition, apart from other considerations, we will find our existence both spirituality and emotionally empty. Pursuing ambition is a form of pursuing pleasure, and the pursuit of pleasure alone is the lowest possible benchmark for human life. Pleasure is good, of course, and we all need some. If it's all we pursue, though, we'll find nothing but despair. Use Disorders, in all their forms, are the most extreme symbol or manifestation of a life lived in pursuit of pleasure alone. Those of us at NSC in recovery recognize what a ruinous existence that can be.

The pursuit of pleasure alone does not create a whole, unified person. It creates a temperamental toddler in constant need of new toys that provide stimulation. To become a person we must find ourselves in meaningful relationships. We must be meaningfully related to God, to ourselves, and to other people. When we're properly related in these areas we are given the capacity to discover something to pursue in life that stimulates us, provides us joy, meaning, and purpose, while fostering intimacy in our key relationships.

The thing is, that pursuit may not be something that makes us famous. It may not offer wealth or prestige. It may not "put us on the map".