Dependence

I was joyful yesterday when my daughter called me from basic training. I knew she wouldn't be able to call but it is different going through the uncertainty of how she is doing.  She sounded so strong snd confident. I was so grateful to know she is safe and engaged in her life. 

I struggle at times with my faith in God. I wonder at times what he is planning and why when I see things that happen that I think are unjust and sometimes terrible. History has always had injustice and terrible events. Jesus and Moses grew up in a time when the children their age were mass slaughtered. Imagine growing up as a child in that environment.  Amazing things happened in that same time frame. Slaves were finally set free, one in physical form and the other in spiritual form. 

Yesterday I had a few conversations from different people around the state on the state of uncertainty and chaos in schools. It is disheartening to see and hear as an educator how much education is going through suffering.  Education is the shaper of humanity and stress spreads poison through the body both individually and in community. However, I know and believe God is good and works for the good of all who love him. He does not change, and that gives me confidence and peace. Those who do evil, lies, and destruction, who obviously do not believe that there will be an accounting, His Word assures that there will be. He is good to His promises. He promises to make all things right. He is trustworthy because He has shown his faithfulness to his promises. 

Fear at the Core

Is it fear at the core of our mistakes and suffering? Adam and Eve were afraid of being kept in the dark, then being found naked. It is fear thst bothers us every couple of minutes, "What if...?) It is fear that things will go terribly wrong in a situation or source of income that keeps me, and I hear many other people, thinking constantly until we are tired and sometimes bitter. 

If God is, as Jesus present him, a heavenly Father who gives good things to his children who ask, why do we fear? Who has more power than He? Or is it that we don't believe? What change could a person make to shift from unbelief to belief. That is a prayer for one person in scripture: "I believe. Help my unbelief!" Do we then pray for more faith. Those who pray must believe He exists and that He will reward those who trust in Him. Just praying, then, is an act of faith.

Being we are fallible, self-confidence isn't an error-free strategy. God confidence may be more psychologically powerful. How do we build more God confidence? Exposure to God? Praying, scripture, communion with other believers. Those make sense. 

How do you increase your God confidence?

The Battle of Doubt

The sermon today discussed the shield of faith. The image of a soldier every day raising his shield of faith and the sword of the Word of God.  I think a lot about confidence, the lack of confidence and the outcomes of losing confidence. I have experienced losing confidence different times in my leadership roles. I remember being unsure in a mock battle in training as tank platoon leader of what exactly was going on and I stopped communicating, asking questions for information and clarity, and coordinating. We won the battle, but I realized I stopped communicating and went quiet. It is a pattern that I noticed in different occasions in my leadership roles, of losing confidence, and then going quiet. 

I tell myself that it is better to stay quiet than say something that you may regret. I think that is a trade-off that is based on fear and protecting losses rather than confidence that you will say the right thing at the right time with God's help. It is selling myself fear as prudence. That is also loss of confidence. However, I remember the verse that even the faith the size of a mustard seed can make mountains move. That gives me hope. It takes faith to get in the battle in the first place. It takes faith to go to college, go through leadership training, lead, and learn and to do it over and over again, learning new lessons and refining practice. 

There is a scripture I am finding calling me that says faith comes through hearing and hearing by the Word of God. I read a lot of books, all at the same time. They all point back to the principles in the Bible: faith, hope, love - confidence, optimism, connection, collaboration, trust, inspiration. I feel like I am reading shadows of the truth that stem from the Bible. I will start reading the Bible and taking from that the direct root wisdom rather than the branches of wisdom. I remember a successful writer saying he takes principles in the Bible and puts them into stories that non-religious people can digest. That seems to me to say read the Bible for the root source. 

Hopefully, and faithfully, that should help in increasing faith. It should also help in increasing wisdom. It should also help in increasing peace. I will spend more time in God's word so that it becomes the overarching influence in my life. "If God is for us, who can stand against us?" It may be more accurate to say that if our thinking is aligned with God, who can stand against us.

Working Words

The magic of words is just amazing. The writer of the biblical book of John said "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God"... and the word WAS God.

In a book about human biology, the voice box was presented as odd anatomically, because it caused more chances for choking. Why then, would the voice box be there if it had no function for living? It does have the function to make sounds, and from sounds-words, and from words-meaning, and from sharing meaning- shared meaning. That, I propose, is the foundation of human superiority in the universe. The only known life we know of is on this planet and the dominant species on this planet are humans, and humans dominated species more physically deadly through words. We build relationships through words. We build agreements and community through words. We build products, solutions, services and transactions, all through words. 

In the beginning was the word. One of the first tasks man was given in the Bible was to name the animals. Even without the Bible, we have words for every species and subspecies. We have words in every language for every animal, every thing, feeling, idea, and concept. Pan back, take it in, and appreciate that. We have words for all of those things. Having words allows people to describe ideas, logic, persons, places, stories, laws, chisme, ...Chisme: the Spanish word for gossip, which is a great practice for story-telling. A person good at storytelling is interesting and informative, a source of inspiration.  Story tellers interest people through words because of their ability to capture attention and imagination, tension, and feelings, relationships, and context. 

Business writing has a new appreciation for storytelling, like it has been dormant and someone just tripped over it and rediscovered the very human dimension of the medium of interaction and interesting interpersonal verbal conversation. The English training you received in school in narrative storytelling has made a new genre of book writing, right there in the middle of books that were all written. I saw a scene in the TV series  Dutton Ranch of two leaders of two ranch families telling the story of each of their families creating their ranch business through generations and the challenges they faced and overcame. The buyer was so enamored with the cowboy culture, that he had natural interest from childhood, he was hooked into the business. That is an example of how a well-created story hooks human imagination and interest. Human interest and imagination are powerful, the clay of creation.

I love a good story. My mind pops when I read and come across an interesting idea, concept, or human drama and development.  I read the Game of Thrones and looked forward to every episode, the stories of the characters inside my mind, coming up with possible escapes and strategies. Lost was another series that stoked my imagination.  Reality and non-reality, backstories, the setting of the mysterious island and its secrets. Character development and decision-making.

All words. Set in different combinations. Relaying, bit by bit, ideas and feelings, linear unfoldings, relationships. How powerful words are. "And the word was God". How then do we master words and the power we have been given? Practice, study, trial and error, coaching, are all good approaches. How to form ideas and feelings into words. That is the work. The constant challenge and unending wonder. Songs are written even after all the songs that have been written. Articles and books are written, even after all of the paragraphs that have been written. An unending and limitless playground.