"My Mission in Life"

To love Jesus…

To let Him love me…

To love others…

To build relationships…

To bring water to the thirsty…

To practice everything…

To play at life…

"What I Encourage Myself to Do...to Become...to Be"

Accept, choose, and embrace what is and whatever arises with enlightened wisdom—that is, without judgment, without resistance, without attachment. Welcome it with unconditional friendliness.

Forgive eagerly, completely, and freely all those who’ve hurt you in your life, and, in as much as it’s up to you, make your peace…with God, with everything, and with everyone—including yourself.

Cause no harm.

Deescalate your aggression (especially toward yourself and toward those you love and care about), and let go of all defensiveness.

Pay attention to your efforts to preserve who it is you think you are as well as your efforts to hold on to that which you think is yours.  Recognize, also, when you’re beginning to engage in abusive or discursive self-talk, and, in those moments, be kind to yourself, engage your wisdom mind, surround and rise above your thoughts, and make peace in and with the present moment by keeping an open heart and by not shutting down.

Breathe in the sufferings of others, and die again and again and again with each outbreath. Be a conduit of God's loving-kindness, joy, compassion, and equanimity.

Slow down, pay attention to your surroundings, acknowledge what’s happening and what’s being “put out there,” and, with uplifted head and shoulders, be who you are, and be mindful in every act.

Side-step attacks (if at all possible), absorb direct blows like water, and, when the storms come (and they will come), be like the willow, and bend with the breeze, looking to God and remembering that, as with everything, “this, too, shall pass.”

Practice. Practice everything…practice all the time…even when you’re distracted, discouraged, tired, or just don’t feel like it.

Discover the wisdom of “no escape”—that is, of staying on the spot, leaning in to the sharp things, and making friends with your hopes and your fears.

Go to the places that scare you, relax into your own groundlessness, hold nothing back, and be happy…all the time…without a reason in the world.

“Our Brokenness: The Building Blocks of God’s Redemption”

“And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter…” (John 14:16)

The Apostle Paul wrote (of Satan) in 2 Corinthians 2:11, “For we are not ignorant of his devices."  Other translations read, "For we are not unaware of his schemes."

How many of you can say that such is true for you?  I can’t…at least, not entirely.  Paul could, though, and others could, too—hence his use of the word “we.”

So…maybe we can’t say that we’re "entirely" aware, but, perhaps, we can say that we’re, at least, partially aware of his schemes.  Fortunately, through the Spirit’s power and the illumination of scripture, we have everything we need “for life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3).  In this post, I want to dive right in to one of the principle arenas of the enemy’s attack in our lives.  To do this, I want to go to Nehemiah 4:1-2…

But, before we read from Nehemiah, please allow me to provide a little context for the passage we're about to read.

After the Jews were carried into exile by the Babylonians and then, subsequently, released some 70 years later, a good number of Jews returned to Jerusalem only to discover their city lying in ruins and the great wall, that had once surrounded Jerusalem, destroyed by fire.  A man, by the name of Nehemiah (and Nehemiah means, “comforter”), was raised up by God to return to Jerusalem to help the Jews recover from their shame and to rebuild the wall around their beloved city.

Okay…let’s pick things up in Nehemiah 4…

“When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed.  He ridiculed the Jews, and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, ‘What are those feeble Jews doing?  Will they restore their wall?  Will they offer sacrifices?  Will they finish in a day?  Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble—burned as they are?’”  (Nehemiah 4:1-2)

Before we delve in too far, I want to ask you a question:  Are you familiar with the biblical concept of typology?  Typology is, in its simplest form, where something or someone in one portion of scripture can point to, foreshadow, or illuminate something or someone else in another portion of scripture.  In the book of Nehemiah, Sanballat is a type of Satan.  Now, with that in mind, go back up, and read the passage from Nehemiah 4 once more.

If you’ll look closely, this passage sheds a little light on one of the key devices of the enemy:  His accusation of God’s people at the point of their greatest weakness.  In Revelation 12:10, Satan is referred to as “The Accuser of the Brethren.”  Accusing the people of God is the enemy’s native tongue.  And, most often in scripture, the context of his accusations is the backdrop of our weaknesses and failures.  Haven’t you experienced this in your own life?  Here's an example of something I experienced recently in church:  “How can you even stand there and worship, Dave?  Just look at what happened this week—especially, on Wednesday night!  How in heaven can you legitimately worship God given the way you’ve been living this past week?  You hypocrite!  First, get your life together…THEN come and worship.”

Does anything like that sound familiar to you?

All of us, my friends, are broken.  All of us!  There are no exceptions.  All of us are in constant need for God to do for us something that we cannot do for ourselves.  It is okay to go to God with your brokenness, because, quite honestly, that's really about all we have.  After sinning with Bathsheba and then conspiring to have Uriah (Bathsheba’s husband) murdered, David wrote in Psalm 51, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”  Confronted with the depths of his own sin and personal weaknesses, David discovered that, in the final analysis, his brokenness before God was all he had, and, in the midst of that brokenness, I believe he discovered, maybe even for the first time, the depths of God’s grace, mercy, forgiveness, and loving-kindness.

I want to return, for a moment, to typology.  While in Nehemiah 4 we see Sanballat as a type of Satan, we can also see Nehemiah as a type of Holy Spirit.  As I wrote previously, Nehemiah means “comforter.”  What did Jesus say He was going to do after leaving the disciples and returning to the Father?  Here are His exact Words from John 14:16:  “And I will pray the Father, and He shall send you another Comforter.”  The interesting thing about Jesus’ Words here is His use of the word “another.”  In John’s gospel, Jesus is, quite deliberately, saying that He is going to ask the Father to send His followers (and that includes us!) “another” Comforter—One like Nehemiah—Who will come alongside us to help rebuild the walls of our personalities so that we will be empowered to “trust in the Lord," "to do good,” and “to dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.”  (Psalm 37:3)  That is the work of the Comforter in your life and mine:  to rebuild what’s been destroyed.

So…when the enemy of your soul comes in to attack you in your feebleness, you can, as Paul wrote, shoot right back at him with the following Words from 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, “But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power  is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

While we’re on the subject of looking at scripture, I'd like to leave you with five additional passages that have been particularly encouraging and life-changing for me in this whole area:

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  (Romans 8:1)

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”  (Romans 8:28)

"For God is at work within you both to will and to do His good pleasure."  (Philippians 2:13)

“For I can do all things through Christ, Who gives me the strength and the power.”  (Philippians 4:13)

“Now to Him, Who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His great power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!  Amen.”  (Ephesians 3:20-21)

There is one more thing that I want to touch on before I conclude this post, and that’s this:  Throughout Nehemiah, we read of the Jews as they work, under Nehemiah’s guidance, encouragement, and leadership, to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem.  Would anyone like to venture a guess as to what materials they used?  Go back and look again at Nehemiah 4:2.

Honestly, it brings tears to my eyes every time I think upon these things.  They used the rubble from the wall that had been destroyed by fire.  This is nothing but God’s grace, my friends.  He uses the brokenness in our lives to heal that very brokenness.  Everything that’s needed to restore your life and mine is already right there, and the Master Rebuilder, the Comforter, God’s Nehemiah in your life and mine, is right here, right now, working in you and in me and with you and with me to rebuild what’s been broken down and destroyed by fire.  Praise Him!

Bling

"A Warrior"

A warrior practices everything.

He relinquishes his pride, he lays down his efforts to orchestrate his life, he cleans up his habits, he lets go of attachments, he becomes increasingly mindful of his emotional states and of his connection to all things, and he takes responsibility for his thoughts, feelings, and actions (and nothing more than that).

A warrior allows life to express itself through him in whatever forms it might take. He uses his mind and his body in ways few people have the courage to. He meditates in every action.  He neither seeks nor runs from pain or adversity; when it comes, he embraces it and uses it to purify his soul.

A warrior keeps death and his life’s purposes in the forefront of his mind.  He’s genuine, authentically present, and open…to life, to God, and to those around him.

A warrior is infinitely happy, he’s at peace with himself, he’s frugal—yet exceptionally generous, he’s a gentle and approachable soul—yet extremely dangerous.

A warrior enjoys the simple pleasures of his own company as well as that of others, he smiles at death and laughs at himself, and he does what he loves.

Above all else, a warrior is a servant, a humble servant…dedicated not just to a great cause, but to all humanity, to God, and, at times, even to himself. A warrior fights for what he believes in and, when required, lays his life down gladly in the defense of those beliefs.

"A Game of 21 Questions"

“I was just wondering as I was walking along thinking to myself.”

—Winnie The Pooh

“You need to start asking better questions.”

—Socrates

Every day, I ask myself questions.

And—you know what?—it’s not so much how I answer them that really matters.  What matters, is that I bother to ask in the first place.  Questions challenge the way I’m thinking and feeling in the moment and, ultimately, the way I'm choosing to live in that very moment.

Provided below is a list of 21 questions that I started asking myself a long time ago.  In my "practice," I will pick one question from my list and think upon it for a day or two, maybe even a week or more.  The intention is not to see how many questions I can get through in one sitting.  Rather, it is to challenge myself, through my questioning, to awaken to life just a little bit more in each moment.

Consider adopting such a practice in your own life.  In time, you may find that questioning yourself in this manner has contributed significantly to your enjoyment of life simply because it has challenged and, subsequently, enabled you to stay present in your day-to-day, moment-by-moment activities.  Life is about "doing" and about "becoming" (or "rediscovering") oneself in the doing, and happiness in life is experienced in the here and now, and nowhere else.  Question yourself, and let it bring you back to this very moment.  Again, it is not necessarily your answer to any particular question at any one point that is the most illuminating.  Paradoxically, it is the practice of asking, rather than answering, that flips the light switch on.

God's peace,

Bling

The Questions I Ask Myself

Where are you, Dave?  (Here?)  What time is it?  (Now?)  What are you?  (This moment?)

Why are you doing what you’re doing right now?

What are your assumptions?

Are you being kind and caring toward yourself?

Did you see the sunrise today?  Did you watch the sunset last night?

Are you communicating completely and clearly, or are you withholding important information?

When you wash the dishes, can you just wash the dishes?

Are you running or staying?

What scares you?

Are you responding to the event at hand or to just an old memory?

Are you at home with yourself?

How comfortable are you with uncertainty, ambiguity, and paradox?

Are you willing to die to set others free?

What does being genuine look and feel like?

What would you do or how would you be if the opinions of others no longer mattered?

What would things be like if you stopped managing and regulating everything and everybody, including yourself?

From where are you deriving your sense of strength and power?

How do you want to feel tomorrow, next week, next year, five years from now, ten years from now, a hundred years from now, a thousand years from now, a million years from now, a billion years from now?

What makes you come alive?

How tied is your happiness to your circumstances?

Do you “know” that you cannot experience life fully unless you are willing to give everything away?  Willing to no longer hold anything back?  To no longer prepare for your escape?  To no longer look for alternatives to your current experience?  To no longer think that there will be ample time to do things later?

"Tonglen"

Tonglen practice is an ancient monastic form of intercession…not just a way of standing in the gap, but, in the Spirit, a way of filling the gap with the Presence of God.

Quite simply, Tonglen is drawing into oneself the difficulties of another (or a group of people, which can include oneself) and exchanging it with the loving-kindness of God.  It is a way of prayer that can be practiced for anyone you know or meet.

Here’s an example of such a practice in action…

I have two friends, whom I will call S and L, who have a daughter, whom I will call H.  H is in her early 20s and struggles greatly with anorexia.  My late wife, Brenda, battled anorexia for most of her life, and, quite honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a monster quite so powerful or as devious.  For those of you who have struggled with the disease yourselves, either directly or indirectly, you know exactly what I mean.  (And, for those of you who have, I am so very sorry.  May you experience God's peace in this moment.)

H…

When I pray for H, this is how I approach it…

I focus the eyes of my spirit on her and try to picture her in my mind's eye as vividly as I can.

I then ask, “What are you feeling in this moment?”

Almost immediately something will enter my spirit.  It could be just a word, or a feeling, or an impression.  Right now, as I am writing this and thinking of H, the word “ugly” just entered my mind.  I am feeling in this moment that H is feeling very ugly.  Perhaps she ate well for dinner, last night, and now all she can "see" in the mirror is how fat and ugly eating last night is making her "look" right now.

In my spirit, I am now concentrating on her and the ugliness she is feeling in this very moment.  It’s as though “ugliness” has become something very tangible, almost like a veil or substance that is covering her entire being.

In my spirit, I am, with everything that's within me, wanting to yank the veil completely off her.  And this will, of course, be one of the things I hope to see accomplished as I pray for her.  To begin, I concentrate on H and upon my own breathing, and I picture that, with each inhalation, some of the veil covering H is being pulled off and away from her.  But it's NOT me that's doing it.  No!  (I live 250 miles from H.)  It's the Holy Spirit, Who lives inside me (and inside her), Who's doing it.  I am, quite simply, just a portal through which God is doing His work of bringing relief to my friends' daughter.  So…I continue to breathe, and with each inhalation, I “see” God pulling more and more of the veil of ugliness from H’s very soul.  In my own spirit, I can picture Him pulling it toward Himself and absorbing it into the very Essence of His Being.  I continue to breathe in and out and to visualize all of this until I can sense in my spirit that God has removed the veil completely.

Once I feel a release, through picturing that the veil has been eliminated, I ask God, “What is it that You wish to give H in this moment, Lord?”  And then I listen.  Right now, I am hearing “The feeling that she is My Beloved…My Lovely One, in whom I find such delight.  The One that I love so dearly and so completely.”  That's pretty cool God!

In my spirit, I picture myself becoming an avenue, through which, this knowledge and these feelings can be imparted to and experienced by H.  Through God’s powerful, life-giving Spirit, I become a conduit of His loving-kindness toward her.  And it, once again, happens through my breathing.  But now, though, it's being funneled through each exhalation.  And, as I breath out, I picture these feelings being imparted to H, God’s Beloved.  Again, all of this is God’s doing; I am nothing but an instrument through which He is doing His work…His work of bringing relief to one of His children.  As I exhale, I picture H just being bathed in the light and warmth of these very personal feelings that God has for her.  In my spirit, it's as if I can picture H taking these feelings unto herself, wrapping herself up in them, and experiencing the intense pleasure that comes from being loved so completely by her Father.  Much like the pleasure she might feel wrapping herself up in a warm blanket she just pulled from the dryer.  The loving-kindness of God is THAT tangible, my friends, and it is always right there for us to receive…and to give to others--that we all might be healed.

This is Tonglen practice.  There are many different variations of it, which I will share with you in future posts.  For now, though, I urge you “to practice” these things by breathing in the sufferings of those around you and by dying with each out-breath as God’s loving-kindness is imparted to them.

God bless you and all those whom your heart holds dear.

In Him, by Him, and for Him,

Bling

"Warriorship"

Warriorship.  How often have you thought of such a thing, let alone read about it?

Being a warrior is, as I have come to understand it, all about living a life devoted to three overarching spiritual practices that fall under the banner of Jesus Christ, the Warrior of all warriors:

1. The acceptance of everything as it is;
2. The cessation of the practice of judging everything as either good or bad; and
3. The dropping of all attachments to outcomes.

Accept everything? you ask.

Yep, everything.  Meaning, accept that what is in the moment is what it is and that no amount of energy can ever change what is "right now" into something different than what it is right now.  This does not mean that you cannot strive in the present to bring about change in the future.  In fact, I greatly encourage it, but I recommend taking an aggressively non-aggressive approach to such things.

Acceptance is an attitude of simply choosing to believe and to accept that "what is” is, in fact, "what is."  It's a conscious choice to look at the way things are and to call them just that:  the way they are are.  One of the amazing things about acceptance is that once you've come to accept the FACT that things are what they are, any needed efforts to achieve future change can be initiated from a place of great equanimity, decisiveness, compassion, and prudence.

And judge nothing?

Yep, nothing.  Our notions of what are good and bad are so limiting and, often, inaccurate.  For what may seem bad now, may, ultimately, work out for your supreme good--or the good of someone you love.

Detach?  Completely?

Yep, completely.  Not having to have something you don’t have (or not having to keep what you already do have) can be very freeing, wouldn’t you agree?   

Accept, judge not, and detach...a path of awakening... 

Inside of you, inside of me, there beats the heart of a warrior.  The heart of one willing to plunge deep into the personal sufferings and pain of those around you…willing to embrace cheerfully the truth as well as the impermanence, sorrows, and joys of the moment (including one's own) for the sake of everyone within the realm of your influence and existence.

As difficult as it might seem, one can begin to practice these warrior disciplines from this moment onward.  And it always begins in this moment.  As a friend of mine has said so often, “Start where you are, Dave, for where you are is a perfect place to start.”  Even now, as I hear my friend’s voice in my memory, I can hear the responsive echo within my own heart as it reverberates enthusiastically with a hearty, “Aye.  And I shall!”  Starting where you are is the ground of the warrior’s life, my friends.  And it is, indeed, “a perfect place to start.”

On this blogspot, it is my aspiration, among many things, to be a conduit for awakening the warrior within you…AND within me.

Who am I?  No one special; and yet I am intrinsically valuable.  A long, long time ago, I gave my heart to Jesus.  He is My Hope and My Reason.  My Reason for living, and My Hope in everything.  I lack for nothing because I have Him.  In Him, I really do live and move and have my very being.  And that is who I am:  A being.   His being.  Nothing more; nothing less.  Neither great, nor small.  Just me, as I am:  an extraordinarily ordinary creation of the Great I AM.  I am a “follower of Jesus,” yes, for He alone is the Lord of Creation, the Savior of the World, and the Redeemer of My Life and Circumstances; I am also a “practicer.”  By that, I mean, I am a practicer of everything I do…how I eat, how I walk, how I listen to people, how I wash the dishes, and, yes, even in how I live in the present moment.  Yo-Yo Ma practices the cello.  My doctor practices medicine.  And me?  Well, I practice everything.  Does that mean that I do everything well?  By no means; I am but a kindergartner in a number of things and a toddler in most everything else.  A practicer is simply one who is present in whatever he or she is doing, does whatever it is it for the sheer joy of the doing, and pays curious attention to the feelings that arise while engaged in the activity.

I am now in my third week of operating this blog, and the responses from all of you have been nothing but overwhelming as well as humbling.  Thank you for allowing me to come into your lives in this way.  It is my earnest prayer that, above all else, the Everlasting Father will use these obscure and ordinary posts to illuminate and enrich your life in a grand and extraordinary way.  As I have prayed so very often:  May anything contained herein that is not of Jesus just fall to the ground and escape all notice.  In fact, may it fertilize the garden of God’s grace growing within you.

So…give these things a read, my friends, and “practice” whatever you feel like practicing.  And have fun, too—for that’s at least half the point!  Just so you know, I am keenly interested in your thoughts on any and everything…agreement, disagreement, whatever.  So…don’t be afraid to challenge or call me on stuff, okay?

May God’s graciousness and everlasting peace be with you as you, yourself, begin to practice…right where you are, right now.

Your friend and fellow warrior-in-training,

Bling