Weekly Blog

Tips, Tricks, Skills, Spirituality and Wisdom

Teresa McBean 4/27/18 Teresa McBean 4/27/18

Success: A Practical Example

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.

Time for the practical. I promised nine days of theorizing. You got ten days. Now, we move on.

What does all this nonsense actually look like?

Perhaps we should work with examples.

We talked early on about the importance of refusing to limit our understanding of success to wealth and prestige. But, there is no need to be completely dualistic in our approach. One of the most successful (in all ways) people I know is one of my best friends. In fact, he is Norah's godfather. He has wealth and prestige in his field- but he has not let these things define him.

He is an attentive and supportive husband. A concerned and present father. A generous giver of his time and resources. He is always the first person to reach out and check on me when things have gone wrong- he practices the power of presence.

His wealth and prestige do not make him a successful person- but because he has them he is able to lean into his generosity in ways that someone less wealthy cannot. In other words, he uses his achievement to build up those around him. This is a key point.

Let's be clear- you do not need to have achieved great things in order to offer dignity and respect to everyone you meet. His achievement does not make him "better" equipped to become a successful human and, in fact, it may get in a person's way. After all, becoming wealthy and prestigious brings with it huge temptation with the strong potential to lead a person down a very dark path. He's been able to resist that temptation and become a successful human being in spite of its presence in his life.

Success is a matter of consistently living in accordance with our values, our certain way of seeing. It is about creating a life that fosters our ability to do that consistently. And, then, it is about allowing ourselves to be affected by those around us such that we're interested in helping them create meaning in their lives.

It is my friend's ability to do each of these things that makes him the success that he is.

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.)

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.