Month 11 of my route is over. I’m sitting in an airport in Singapore and final debrief has come and gone. As I begin the next leg of a long journey home, one question continually arises as it has for the past two months: What have I learned? Initially I fumbled with answers to this question. Where could I begin? I’ve been traveling through spiritually, politically, and culturally tumultuous environments with a group of 20 other people from every different background and Christian tradition you can think of, contrary beliefs more the rule than the exception among us. The lessons started on day one. But harkening back to the oldest and the earliest, I remember simplifying complex ideas and situations always makes them more understandable and easier to remember what’s worth taking from them. In this case, that means making a list, mostly for myself, but also for any of you that this could help in any way. This list is by no means exhaustive. It’s just some of the highlights of both new lessons learned, and old lessons that became more true in the crucible of experience over this past year.
1. Unexpressed expectations are disappointments in the making.
This one’s pretty straightforward, and it’s useful whether you’re in a position of leadership or just a member of any team or group. If you expect a certain caliber of performance or behavior from your fellows, but you don’t express those expectations, not only will they fail to uphold this invisible standard, it will also become that much harder to enact and enforce those expectations. So speak up. Share your mind and your vision. Vision is in short supply and it’s necessary to every team. Even if your expectations aren’t held as the standard, chances are some part of them will be adopted, which is leagues better than nothing.
2. Coping mechanisms aren’t solving mechanisms
Coping mechanisms – we all have them. In general there’s nothing wrong with them, unless your coping mechanisms involve three day alcohol benders or practicing piracy off the Barbary coast “just to get away from it all,” or something of that ilk. For me, when I get stressed, my mind usually turns toward where and when I can get a good cup of coffee and a hot meal without being disturbed. But all the coffee in the world won’t make my initial problem go away and, unless I’m tired or hungry, it won’t help in the solving process. Learn to recognize your impulses for what they are. If you need to do something to step away and take the edge off so you can come back in a few minutes to address your issue with clearer mind and steadier heart, that’s fine. Just make it quick and don’t hide away in coping, because prolonged coping is at best stagnation, and at worst a festering problem.
3. Inference is a gift
Reading between the lines, or connecting the dots from A to B without mention of A.5, is an ability possessed by fewer than I originally believed. Some people really do need everything spelled out for them. Some people are strictly literal when it comes to mental processing. There’s nothing wrong with that (unless you take your lack of inference as an excuse to argue semantics every chance you get, or to be pedantic. Don’t be surprised when instead of an explanation you’re given a John Cena style smackdown because you tried playing semantics with the wrong guy.) The point is, adapt to your audience. If you infer things easily, don’t get frustrated when your more literal friends either become confused or jump to astoundingly wrong conclusions based on what you say. Take a deep breath, and explain everything thoroughly and simply. If you’re more literal and pretty pleased with how logically you believe you operate, just remember that there is more than one way to look at any issue, and the unique perspectives offered by your more abstract thinking friends can provide unexpected solutions.
4. Confrontation avoided is disaster assured
It happens every day. The other guy makes a comment – maybe it sounds offhand and passive aggressive, maybe it’s a sharp outburst, maybe it’s just a look, or maybe they overstepped their bounds and went over your head. There are a hundred different ways it happens, but you get the picture. You’re confronted with it, your blood boils, but calmer instincts prevail and you begin to excuse the other person’s actions for them. Maybe they’ve had a bad day, or maybe you know they’re under a lot of stress because of something going on at home, or a co worker or team member’s inappropriate actions are angering them to no end. Or maybe you think your sense of offense would come off as egocentric or insecure. So you let it go without comment. And that person continues to overstep their bounds with those behaviors and comments day in and day out. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve lived it. As much as there are a hundred different ways for this situation to occur, there are a million different excuses we conjure to justify avoiding confrontation over those moments. But those moments pile up quick, and pretty soon what might have been a minor personal dispute becomes a toxic environment that tears entire teams apart. But, if you resolve that the buck stops with you and you confront the other guy the first time the comment or inappropriate action comes your way, even if you have to do it in front of others, no matter how awkward it feels, you’ll close the door on all the toxicity and negativity and anger and division that’s just itching to tear you and your team apart. It doesn’t matter if the feedback isn’t readily accepted. At the very least, the issue is out in the open instead of being left to fester, and the recipient has something new to think about. If they’re wise, they’ll take your feedback to God and see what good can be learned from it.
5. Everybody has wounds
There are no exceptions to this rule. Even Jesus has scars where the nails impaled his hands and feet. But I’m not talking about physical wounds, I’m talking about the wounds and the scars you can’t see on the surface – the kind found in the soul and spirit. When people say “nobody is perfect” or “everyone has brokenness” they often mean to say that no one is righteous, that everyone makes mistakes. They’re right, but the issue is deeper than that. Pain from wounds that shape our perception of others, God, and ourselves is often what drives people, believers and non believers alike, to make those mistakes or exhibit that brokenness. A more succinct way of putting it is the saying “Be kind, for everyone you meet is in a battle you know nothing about.” This revelation changed how I saw people and how I saw myself in a way that made it easier to extend grace to both. Even to those whose actions I not only disagreed with but also could not understand.
6. Rhythm is your friend
In a world of constant change, even the most disorganized among us must develop rhythms to keep their center and their sanity. The life I’ve lived over the past year is uncommon to most, living out of a backpack with a new home, a new country, culture, and language, and new sets of challenges to face and adjust to every month. Most people would resort to coping mechanisms to compensate for that much variability and unpredictability in life. Most people resort to coping mechanisms when faced with the rigors of an average life at home. I know I did. Now, I’ve learned a better, more fulfilling way. Pick 3 to 5 activities you find personally fulfilling. Bonus points if they are activities in which you would like to improve. Now make time to do those things each day, no exceptions. You will find a renewed sense of accomplishment, motivation, and personal fulfillment in each day. No matter how crazy things get, or how absurd your circumstances become, you will have these moments of consistency and fulfillment to help you find a recharge in the midst of trial, and a renewed sense of peace when other plans go awry. If you need an example, my rhythms are exercise, writing, time in the word, time outside or in some semblance of wilderness, and I’m working on meditation.
7. Strength is Discipline’s Gift
Everyone knows that to increase physical strength, you must diligently exercise what strength you have, usually via weightlifting or another exercise regimen. So why is it that so many Christians think that an increase in faith, or consistency in spending time in the word, or improvement in any gift or spiritual discipline should come instantly? Why are we so easily discouraged? If you want to become stronger in faith, you must exercise what faith you have with discipline – you must live it and choose to operate in it every day. Only then will your faith truly grow. The same is true for any spiritual discipline and spiritual gift in which you want to operate. Exercise what you have with discipline, and the increase in strength will come. God gives us these gifts, but we must choose to steward them well.
8. Don’t ignore your pain
If you feel hurt or angered or saddened by something, your pain is not meaningless and should not be ignored. I can’t recount how many times I have felt saddened or angered or troubled by something and decided that my own pain wasn’t worth the attention necessary to address it, either because I felt I needed to be strong in the moment or because I thought what I was feeling was ridiculous and I couldn’t understand why such strong responses were merited by the things that had conjured that pain. No matter how ridiculous you think the reason for your pain is, you should not easily dismiss it. Instead, face it and move through it with Christ. The fact of the matter is that your pain is there, it is legitimate, and it is here to stay unless you seek healing. Muscling it down will only hurt you more in the long run. Learn what your pain is there to teach you, whether it is to reveal a wound you haven’t addressed, an insecurity, a part of your heart you need to surrender to God, or a pain for which you have not allowed yourself the grieving it is due. Otherwise, that pain you discount as meaningless will eat at you and affect you in very meaningful ways.
9. Rest is a weapon
Rest is given a bad rap in western culture. In the rest of the world, westerners are marked for their drive to do, to work, to achieve, often to the point of grinding away at themselves and living to work instead of working to live. Good work ethic is a value to be sure, but we’ve exalted it at the expense of a necessary tool and spiritual discipline – rest. We see a problem or a need and we push ourselves to do more and more to fix it or fill it, and many times we find ourselves frustrated and tired at the end of our efforts while the problem remains. Sometimes we need to take a step back and recharge. You can’t pour out what you don’t have to give. To do so is like trying to run an engine with no oil – eventually you will break down, and recovering from that will take more time and effort than getting the necessary “oil change” would have. Proper rest keeps us healthy and able and stable, and it gives us an edge against the challenges we face, both spiritual and practical. There are three main kinds of rest that we need, in life in general but especially in ministry: physical rest, mental rest, and spiritual rest. Physical includes sleep and exercise and eating. Mental rest can include meditation or watching a movie or anything that helps you unwind in a healthy way (no, an entire bottle of wine isn’t mental rest). And spiritual rest is spending time in the presence of God, letting Him minister to your heart and spirit.
Rest is a weapon we have against the Enemy and the ways He tries to wear us down. It’s a weapon against sickness and fatigue and emotional despondency. It keeps us filled, so that we are better able to give love to those around us.
10. You have divine permission to fail
Whether you are in a position of leadership or you’re simply trying to walk with God as faithfully as you can, know this: He gives us permission to fail. Furthermore, you should expect to experience failure, probably often if you truly are taking the plunge into whole heartedly walking with Christ. Like a father teaching his son to ride a bike, God does not expect us to be perfect in our pursuit of His heart or in living by the Spirit. He guides us through these things, like the process of sanctification, and when we “fall off the bike,” He doesn’t scold us or get angry with us – He encourages those who are in Christ to get back on and try again, and He never stops providing opportunities to do so. His permission to fail is not permission to live or remain in sin, but rather an expectation that we will learn from our failures and that in repenting and listening to His voice, our hearts will be further transformed in Him and our spirits strengthened.
11. Wisdom can be found everywhere. It’s how you look for it that matters.
If you look at people and religion and the world through the lens of Christ, you will find some surprising sources of wisdom. I can explain this one best through an example.
When I was in Nepal, I had an up close and personal introduction to Tibetan Buddhism and its practitioners. It is a dark religion, in which those who become monks must spend anywhere from a year to 3 years in solitary confinement, reciting Buddhist scriptures over themselves 24/7 for that time. At night, they plug every oraface in their face to ensure that the demons who come will not enter them. It may sound like superstition, but many of them awake in the morning with scratches all over their bodies, or remain awake as the spirits harass and harm them. This is done in the pursuit of destroying ego or personal self in order to achieve enlightenment. As they progress to higher levels of achievement, each level is marked by a particular manifestation of supernatural power by the practitioner through meditation, I.e. Wrapping themselves in a soaking wet blanket while sitting in the snow and meditating to conjure a “holy fire” within by which they completely dry and in some cases burn black the blanket with their own body heat within a certain amount of time. So by now you’re asking “Where is he going with this?”
Imagine if you were able to look at practices like that and say to yourself “what is the Kingdom version of this?”
Everything of the enemy is a counterfeit of something from God, so what in this dark practice can I learn of walking with God? What in this points to Christ?
Well, for one thing, can you imagine what would happen if we as followers of Christ were as dedicated in speaking the scriptures and the promises of God over ourselves and over our communities, or if you meditated daily on God’s word guided by Holy Spirit? I can tell you much more than the drying of blankets would occur – you would meet face to face with the manifest presence of Holy Spirit.
But this concept of seeing by His Spirit and His Truth to learn wisdom can be applied even within our own Christian circles – maybe there’s a teacher or a pastor you don’t like because you often disagree with what they teach. Ask God to reveal to you what wisdom you can glean even from them. If even the demonic must grudgingly point toward Christ for those who see by the Spirit, I guarantee you that pastor with whom you disagree has something of the Kingdom to offer you in what they teach and present.
12. There’s living in Christ, and then there’s walking with Christ.
When you begin a relationship with Christ, when He is acknowledged as Lord of your life, you are welcomed into the family. Right then and there, you become a citizen of God’s kingdom and He welcomes you as His child. God begins transforming your heart and in that process, as you begin to mirror His nature, you’ll become a blessing to those around you. That’s living with Him in an oversimplified nutshell, but we are invited to do more than that. We are invited to walk with Christ, to go with Him in pursuit of His lost sheep, to go find His family – those around the world who don’t know God as their Father and Christ as their savior and don’t know the heavenly family to which they are meant to belong. We are invited to walk out our lives side by side with Christ, being filled with and led by the spirit, learning what it is to walk and work and love and fight as God’s sons and daughters, what it is to live out the spiritual gifts He has given us as an expression of His love in power to build each other up and to bring life and freedom to those who live in the darkest circumstances. It’s a life of radical, bold, life changing love, and it’s risky and messy and painful and yes, it is dangerous. But in walking with Christ and letting go of your own life, you’ll find the fullness of life in giving His love to others. So you can stay in the sheep pen with the 99 who are found and saved and safe, and that’s ok. Or you can walk out onto the waves with Christ through the storms of this world and find an intimacy and life with Him beyond your wildest imaginings. It takes courage and it requires you to die to yourself, but I hope you’ll join me in the latter.
I have a lot more that I want to share, promised blogs long in coming, and especially things I’d like to say to my supporters and friends and family. None of what has happened over the past year would have been possible without your support, encouragement, and prayers, and I want to thank you properly for that. So stay tuned and look out for a few more blogs over the coming days as I travel back home. For those of you who live near my family, I look forward to seeing your faces again and sharing with you what God has done through your faithful support and generosity. Until then, may God’s peace and joy be manifestly present in you and your families.
