Change Your Lens

Give me Your yes for just one second
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me Your love for humanity
--Brandon Heath, Give Me Your Eyes--

How do you see people?

Well, maybe that's too general of a question. Let's get more specific.

How do you see the people who frustrate you? How do you see the outcasts, the misfits, the annoying people? How do you perceive the confident, the wealthy, the ones who appear to have it all together? How do you react to the ones who are below you? How about the ones who are above you?

Do you have examples in mind?

I try to see everyone in two ways:

1) As a broken soul, longing to fill core needs and in desperate need of Jesus, whether they realize it or not.

I try not to hold the seemingly confident and secure in too high esteem, because I know, deep down, they are searching for the same thing I am: significance, worth and acceptance. I try not to respond to a person's fit of rage with disdain. Instead I see a broken soul, longing for security and hope and intimacy.

2) As a beautiful creation with some amazing gift that benefits the Kingdom.

We all have one. We all have a niche where we can shine. That thing we were created to do - our wheelhouse. God didn't create anyone for no purpose at all. None of us is just ordinary, run of the mill or normal. We all have something unique to make the body complete. It may take longer to find it in some than others, but I try to keep looking. It's there.

The irony in seeing people through this lens is you may have to see yourself this way first. Otherwise, the seemingly confident will come across as demeaning and arrogant, better than you and always trying to make you feel insignificant. The fit of rage will seem personal and feel like a power play, threatening your worth. No one else will be able to show their gifts because you will always try to prove you can do it too - and do it better.

Think about the people who frustrate you, annoy you or rub you the wrong way; the ones who get you worked up. Don't ignore your response to them but acknowledge the dissonance. Why does that happen? What strings do they tug on?

First, come to grips with your secure identity in Jesus and see yourself in a new light.
Second, change your lens, so you can see others in this light as well.

Looking for more resources to lead you in this transformation? Check out Christ McAlister's message at www.chrismcalister.com.

Finding Your Wheelhouse (Part 2)

It's uncomfortable to see someone operate outside of his (or her) wheelhouse. The dissonance is unsettling. The disharmony is palpable.

Your wheelhouse is that place where your skills, your knowledge and your passion all collide; where the timing and the momentum and the focus combine for a grand slam. (see Finding Your Wheelhouse)

We're all searching for it. You probably call it your purpose or your mission. The question posed is, What am I going to do with my life? And so we dabble here and dabble there, searching for the pressure point. Trial and error until we fall into it.

It's likely you are already very close. You're probably involved in a similar task or project. You're making good contact, but can't quite get it over the fence. You're driving the ball but need to straighten it out and keep it in fair territory.

Sometimes you step out of the box. You lose focus for a brief instant, thus the unsettling dissonance and the disharmony.

You can feel it in yourself, and others notice it in you. Ask a trusted friend to nudge you back into place when you veer off course. Ask a mentor to describe you when you're at your best.

It doesn't make you a bad person if you can't do everything. You can do something. And you can do something great. But you can't do everything. You weren't created to do everything. You were created to be one part of a whole body.

Usually we distort our wheelhouse out of desperation. We dabble there instead of here because we think there will fill a core need. The enemy tries to convince us that what we do can fill our need for significance and worth, that who we are connected to can fill our need for acceptance or that another gift is more valuable than our own. And occasionally we fall for it.

It's not uncommon to seek acceptance from others. It's not unique to latch onto those who appear to be successful and secure. But it is unhealthy. It drives you away from that mature, complete relationship with Jesus. It drives you outside your wheelhouse. It disrupts that complete satisfaction in His presence.

Ask a trusted friend to nudge you back into place when you veer off course. Ask a mentor to affirm your wheelhouse.

Ask Jesus to expose your insecurity and to meet you there. What he gives you will become in you a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:1-14).

Exposing Holes in Pursuit of Wholeness: Part 5 (Innocence)

This is the final week of a five-week application of the first chapter of More Than Forgiveness by Steve DeNeff.

For the past four weeks we have been examining our own behaviors and habits, our own souls, for what is keeping us from that perfect, complete, whole relationship with Christ - what keeps us from holiness. The examination has been fueled by pastor and author Steve DeNeff's suggestion that there are five basic needs every human needs to fill and that we fill those needs either through the Fall (perverse and foolish ways) or through holiness.

Those needs are significance, security, intimacy, hope and innocence.

Appropriately, we close this journey with our need for innocence. As DeNeff describes it, innocence is our desire for a fresh start - a clean slate. We don't want to be bogged down by past mistakes or judged on past decisions. It is that longing for forgiveness when we mess up.

DeNeff identifies two ways through which we fill this need: confession (through the Fall) or repentance (through holiness).

Confession is a more flippant effort to obtain forgiveness. It attacks sin from the viewpoint of, "I messed up, I admit it, now let's move on like it never happened." There are two problems with this approach. First, it's a bit selfish, failing to take into account that God may have higher standards for us than we do; that he may be harder on sin than we are. We are quick to forgive ourselves without the assurance of forgiveness from God or others.

Second, it does nothing to address the nature that caused us to sin in the first place. It treats sin like an aberration of a perfect nature. We may have confessed or admitted the sin, but we did nothing to decrease the desire or likelihood of repeating it.

The problem with confession, says DeNeff, is that it "does not lessen the impulse to sin unless we are honest about the corruption of our nature that made sin possible in the first place."

Repentance on the other hand, confesses the sin, seeks forgiveness from God and from others, examines the fallen human nature that led to the sin, and attempts to transform that quality. Only repentance brings change.

From More Than Forgiveness: "It has been said that whenever people sin, there are two options. They must be either punished or forgiven. It is for want of forgiveness that many people punish themselves by sabotaging their careers, their marriages, or...their very lives." DeNeff made the connection to the child who pushes the limits until his father puts down the newspaper and spanks him. We, he said, will commit one sin after another until life finally spanks us!

Throughout these five weeks we have been exposing our sins as if God were setting the standard. It has probably not been easy, but painful because we are using God as the standard, not ourselves. And throughout the five weeks, I have not once implored you to confess. From the beginning I promised you this journey would spark transformation. I made that promise because this journey has been about acknowledging the nature that leads to sin and repenting of that nature. It has been about change.

So in our final week of exploration, do you confess or do you repent? Let these question instigate a self-examination:

-When did you confess a sin rather than acknowledge and repent of the fallen nature? "I'm sorry I said that." vs. "Wow, the tongue is a powerful instrument capable of doing harm. Lord, help me control it."
-When did you self-impose punishment in hopes it would even the score or rectify the situation and serve as forgiveness?
-How long have you knowingly committed the same sin, waiting for a time of punishment?
-When did you attempt to "confess and move on" or downplay your sin with no acknowledgement of a standard higher than your own?
-When did you forgive yourself for a wrong committed against someone else, but neglect seeking forgiveness from the victim?
-Which of the five needs explored in this journey did you disregard or diminish its importance out of denial that God's standard of holiness might be higher than yours?

For those who actively engaged along the way, I hope this journey was as influential for you as it was for me in 2009. Three years later, reliving the journey, I recognize personality traits that were formed and transformed by this very exploration. I also encourage you to never fear honest self-examination because waiting for you in the middle of your deficiencies is a mighty God ready to transform your heart.

Exposing Holes in Pursuit of Wholeness: Part 4 (Hope)

This is week four in a five-week application of the first chapter of More Than Forgiveness by Steve DeNeff.

If you have been with us from the beginning of this five-week journey, and have actively engaged each week, you are probably understanding what I promised from the start: this is not a five-step program to holiness. This exploration of holes that keep us from wholeness is about a growing relationship with God. Each new need identifies a quality about God which we can choose to either delight in or reject, ignore or find elsewhere.

Significance was the fact that God is significant and only through him, his choosing and his image are we, in turn, significant.

In security, we must live by faith and trust because God is in control of everything. We are not.

Through intimacy God wants us to feel complete acceptance from him while we actively pursue more of him.

This week we address the need for hope, which Steve DeNeff suggests we fill either through pleasure (the Fall) or suffering (holiness). In hope we are consumed by the Holy Spirit and feel at peace with the joy the spirit offers.

Have you ever played in a ball pit, like the ones in the play place at fast food restaurants? Those things have a way of swallowing anyone who enters. When you fall into it you can be completely overwhelmed, yet completely satisfied.

When we are wholly hopeful, our longing is not for Heaven but for the perfect relationship with God that we are pursuing in this journey. But in this pursuit, we are tested. That test comes in the form of suffering. Is our hope truly in the selfless pursuit of an intimate relationship with God, or are we using that relationship as our ticket to Heaven?

Suffering will cleanse the heart of selfish aims - or at least reveal them. If our pursuit is of selfish ambition we will not endure the suffering. "For in suffering," as DeNeff puts it, "God withdraws and leaves us without the warm enthusiasm and the happy company we are used to." Said John of the Cross, "He does this to determine whether we love God himself or only our feelings about God."

This week, examine your heart and your motivations. Maybe you are not suffering now but you have in the past or you can imagine a circumstance in the future. How do you respond to suffering? How do you fill your need for hope? Here are some questions to consider:

-Are you longing for the glory in the next world or for holiness in this one? Are you living the prayer "Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven," or are you just standing in line at the pearly gates?
-When did you think you were serving God? Was there suffering involved? Or were you filled with warm enthusiasm and happy company from God?
-What have you done despite the expected adversity or obstacle because it was the right thing to do?
-When did you feel hopeless? Did it seem like God withdrew? How did you respond? Selfishly?
-Is there a time when you noticed suffering approach and you avoided it?

Exposing Holes in Pursuit of Wholeness: Part 3 (Intimacy)

This is week three in a five-week application of the first chapter of More Than Forgiveness by Steve DeNeff.

We are on a five-week journey discovering what keeps us from that mature, complete, whole faith Paul talks about in the New Testament. This is not a five step process to holiness. Holiness is not a conscious decision, but rather a subconscious transformation. This is a five-week evaluation of our hearts and actions, exposing how we fill basic human needs through the Fall rather than through holiness.

There are five needs laid out by pastor and author Steve DeNeff in his book More Than Forgiveness. Each week we address one need and throughout the week, take note of how we fill that need; either through perverse and foolish ways (the Fall) or through holiness. We have already looked at significance and security. We will finish with hope and innocence.

This week we focus on intimacy. If the first thought through your mind is sex, write that down as your first fill through the Fall. Let me explain:

Every human being wants to be accepted. Yes, as simply as invited into the group and on the guest list, but also more than that. Every human being wants to come out from hiding and show himself completely to another. He wants to give himself away and matter to someone. He wants to be able to let down all guards and stand naked (figuratively speaking) before another, completely unashamed. He wants to be loved, accepted and invited, despite his mess.

We think of "being in love" to fill this desire, but as DeNeff suggests, "the modern person craves intimacy more than love." Romance is cute, but intimacy is real. It does not abandon despite a mess. It is an unbreachable safe; an unrejectable pursuit. It is complete trust and acceptance. Romance produces sex, but in the religion of intimacy, "sex is only a sacrament". It is this level of intimacy that we are all seeking.

Unfortunately, we first search for it among each other, and as we fail over and over to find it in human form, we give up on the search and settle for pleasures disguised as such. We dismiss the religion and settle for the sacrament. It's like drinking the blood without the confession; eating the bread without the forgiveness.

But you see, love - not the romantic love, but the intimate love described above - is the foundation of this whole Christianity thing. There is a direct correlation between our love for God and our love for others. The Lord provides a more complete intimacy than anyone else we will pursue. And until we fill that intimacy in solitude with him, we will never wholly experience it with others.

Have you experienced that intimacy with Christ? If you're not sure, how you love others and how you search for intimacy will reflect your relationship with Jesus. To evaluate, ask yourself these questions this week:

-When and in what ways did you mistake pleasure for intimacy?
-When, where, or with whom did you seek intimacy and get rejected? (The search for intimacy can be a delicate situation. How we respond to it and where we are searching for it is vital.)
-Who did you offer intimacy to and how did you do it? Did you honor it or shatter it with betrayal?
-Who did you reject because of their mess? Who rejected you because of your mess? If you can't accept someone else despite their baggage, it's likely you don't believe God will accept you with all of your baggage.
-To whom do you matter? Who matters to you?
-Who do you have to hide things from and who can you stand before shameless?
-What do you hide? It's likely you are hiding those same things from God.
-What avenues or tactics are you using to reveal yourself? (Even the most introverted are trying to open up and show themselves. Subtly they let it slip, testing the waters to see who will latch on and accept them and provide that intimacy.)
-Do you maliciously use another's confidence, trust or intimacy with you? Do you offer a piece of yourself in exchange for their whole heart?
-What artificial ways do you pursue intimacy with God rather than through love? Legalism? Rituals? Sacraments? Radical reform? Holier than thou?

I understand that this may rock the foundation of some of your relationships. Don't let that hinder an honest self-assessment. Turn to Jesus. He will provide intimacy through the brokenness and will lead you to healing; to wholeness.

Exposing Holes in Pursuit of Wholeness: Part 2 (Security)

This is week two in a five-week application of the first chapter of More Than Forgiveness by Steve DeNeff.

Every person is driven by needs; five of them as suggested by pastor and author Steve DeNeff. They are not distinctive to Christians and they cannot be eliminated. "These needs are the human being's trademark. They give him meaning and purpose. They make him human." These five needs are significance, security, innocence, intimacy and hope. And because we are affected by the Fall we seek to fill these needs in perverted and foolish ways.

In this five-week application, we take one need each week and examine how we fill it - through the fall or through holiness. The goal is not to achieve holiness in five weeks. The goal is to become self-aware and to begin building new habits that lead to subconscious transformation. At the end of each night, reflect on your day, making note of the holes that keep you from wholeness.

In week one we examined how we fill our need for significance.

This week, we look at security:

We are a people driven by fear. Not fear of spiders or heights, but deeper fears; fears that influence our decisions and actions and plans. We fear God. Only it's not a reverent fear as in "hollowed be thy name"; not the fear that inspires us to obey him. It's the fear that causes us to feel shame when we recognize he's watching, which results in us fighting for fleeing God.

When we fight him, we argue with him, redefine him, rationalize our actions or explain him away. We turn to science for answers and only to God to fill in the gaps. We turn to catch phrases like, "Life's not fair," or "That was then, this is now," and convince ourselves that's the truth. We make deals and promises we can't keep.

When we flee God, we ignore or avoid him. We plan our lives without factoring him into the equation. We use insurance to protect us from accidents, surveillance to protects us from terrorists and laws to protect us from each other.

The bottom line is we have come to fear the one thing we were told not to, "those who kill the body," and diminish the authority of "the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell".

All of this to fill our need of security. But as mentioned before, we can't make the need just go away. We must find a new way to fill it; through holiness. So instead of filling our need for security through greed and guarantees (through the Fall), we need to replace it with trust (through holiness). We must turn our fear into trust; trust in the one who knows "the plans I have for you...plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

This week, focus on ways you fill your need for security through the Fall. Here are some potential red flags:

-You demand a guarantee for something or from someone before moving forward
-You make a decision based on its long-term reliability
-You take more than your daily bread to save for tomorrow
-You avoid the path untraveled because it wasn't a "sure bet"
-You protect your treasures on Earth as if they actually belonged to you
-You take from someone else (tangibly or intangibly) in fear that they make take from you
-You refuse a challenge you are called to when the odds are against you rather than trusting that the Lord is on your side

Any others?

Exposing Holes In Pursuit of Wholeness: Part 1 (Significance)

This is a five-week application of the first chapter in More Than Forgiveness, by Steve DeNeff.

Every person is starving, thirsting, striving. We are human beings made in the image of God. We are fallen creatures with eternity set in our hearts. We are sinful, searching for holiness. We are broken, expecting perfection. Because of the Fall we experience emptiness inside. Because we were alienated from God we turn to anything else to fill those holes.

As pastor and author Steve DeNeff explains, those holes are identified by five basic needs: significance, security, innocence, intimacy and hope. These desires themselves do not make us evil. They are distinctive to every human being. It's that we seek to fulfill these desires in foolish and perverted ways; through the Fall. The needs won't change, but how we fill them can. We will experience wholeness in Christ when we meet these needs through holiness.

For the next five weeks we will select one need and examine our hearts for six straight days, deciphering how we meet these needs: in perverse, foolish ways (through the Fall) or through holiness. Please understand, this is not a five-step program to holiness. Holiness is a deeper transformation than conscious decisions. This is merely an attempt to become aware of the ways we fill these needs and when we are most vulnerable to succumb to the Fall.

Read the description of the need (adapted from the first chapter of DeNeff's book) and my predictions of how we may fill it perversely. At the end of each night during the week, reflect on your day and write down occasions when you filled the need through the Fall. By the end of the week, hopefully we can avoid these temptations and begin building habits that will lead to subconscious transformation.


We'll start with significance.


We all want to matter, to be acknowledged, to be important; we all want dignity. Through the Fall we fill this need through pecking orders and hierarchy; we climb the ladder through any means necessary; we build ourselves up and tear others down; we are competitive, suspicious and critical; we are busy; we are aching to impress others and ourselves; we fill our need of significance through power and pride.

But in holiness, we satisfy this need through service and humility. "We still want to matter, but to whom we matter is less important." We give credit to others, seeking only the praise of God. We don't think less of ourselves, we think of ourselves less. We carry each other's burdens, and at the same time, we are not a burden to others. We no longer want something else or something more, we accept what we're given and "seek only to accomplish what we were destined to accomplish."

The question this week: Where do you find significance? Through power and pride or through service and humility?

Here are some situations inspired by the Fall that may pop up this week:

--You verbally tear someone else down to elevate yourself. You may not raise, but they lower. And they may not even be present when you do it!
--You take credit for something you didn't do or without acknowledging those who made it possible.
--You announce your own accomplishments (Proverbs 27:2)
--You make obstacles seem larger than they were to inflate the magnitude of the accomplishment.
--You take ownership of something that's not yours.
--You order someone to help you rather than offering to help them.
--You point the finger rather than take responsibility.
--You seek praise and acknowledgement from the top of the food chain, and ignore those on the bottom.

Any others?

Don't beat yourself up, but take notice of how you fill your emptiness. This will be an incredible, transforming journey. Enjoy the ride!