blessing – I AM for You!

Listening is Life itself

Philippians 2:4 (NASB95)

4 do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

I thought I had learned to listen. But more times than I will admit to myself I think of what I am going to say to someone while they are still talking. Not as much as thirty years ago when I started on this listening journey but choosing to think about what I am going to say next still interferes many times with deep, empathetic listening and understanding. I have no trouble appreciating how important what I have to say is :>) But if I am going to treat others as I want to be treated why can’t I equally value what you have to say? Clearly I am still the center of my universe and have much to learn from Jesus about the value I truly give others in my crowded consciousness. Crowded by the Big Three: Me, Myself, and I. Crowding out you.

I can be watching the stupidest TV show and my son will start excitedly telling me something. I will struggle to look him in the eyes and give him my full attention. I will have the pull on my consciousness that something terribly important is happening on that stupid TV show the whole time my son is pouring out his heart to me, his only earthly dad. I value my son and what he has to share with me. The TV show is, was, and will be forever stupid. Yet I struggle in the moment my son is talking to me to see those values clearly.

In the movie “The Shift” the devil defines evil. And this is the only time the devil told the truth. He defined all evil as simple “selfishness.” Other people are an intrusion on My Plans and I just don’t have time for them. Not if I want to get what I want. That reminds me of Jesus saying, If you seek to save your life you will lose it, and if you lose your life for Me you will save it. If I get what I want I will realize it is worthless and it will crumble like ashes in my hands. But if I realize the interruptions of others are God’s divine appointments and it is where True Life happens I can listen to and truly hear others and share the love of Jesus with them and together we three (you, me, and Jesus) can reap joy.

How do you solve poverty?

4 Will evildoers never learn— those who devour my people as men eat bread and who do not call on the LORD?
5 There they are, overwhelmed with dread, for God is present in the company of the righteous.
6 You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor, but the LORD is their refuge.

Isaiah chapter 14, NIV84

Those with money many times prey upon the poor – check cashing charges, fees for “plastic” money and money orders, cash advance charges, ever rising rent when the costs to the owner stay the same, higher prices for those trapped in the inner city without transportation for the same goods that cost less in neighborhoods that have customers that can shop around, lack of the volume discounts the rich enjoy, higher interest rates for loans to those who have the least money to pay for it.

Satan’s kingdom (fear-based, selfishness-based and money-based) is founded on “what can I get out of you?” Jesus’ kingdom (love-based) is founded on “what can I give to you?”

I believe heaven’s economy will be the opposite of ours. We will dream of what we can do for others, ask Jesus for the resources to do it, work with those resources in His strength and give away what we make, our only payment is the joy we receive when we give joy to others.

What would happen if we stopped giving hand-outs that are barely enough to survive on, and we made helping the poor become self-sustaining the same priority President John F. Kennedy gave making the United States the first on the moon? What about asking those who are challenged what they thought we could do to help them? What if we stopped being prejudice and gave jobs to those who would otherwise end up in jail because they can’t find someone who will hire them for honest work?

What would happen if I actually went about tangibly demonstrating the actions of the love of Jesus instead of just singing about it in my church or car?

I invite you to discover how you and I can allow Jesus to lift our challenged brothers and sisters. I invite you to discover: The Open Table http://www.theopentable.org/

It took going "crazy" to discover what real sanity was

I am grateful to God for the mental illness He gave me. (But I would never want to repeat it). Looking back I was “crazier” when I was “sane” and sane now that I’m mentally ill.

Let me unpack that.

Before mental illness I wanted to be a aerospace engineer. I wanted to impress people with how smart I was. I wanted fame, fortune, power and pleasure. I had bought the whole commercial-driven American media world-view.

Most of the girls in my high school graduation class wanted to be social workers it seemed. I thought they were crazy. Helping people seemed like a colossal, boring, unrewarding waste of time.

It was at this point that God publicly invaded my private world. God told me I was a sinner, but I didn’t believe Him. What I didn’t know was that I was in love with myself, looked down on everyone else, and thought the world should serve me. That’s when God gave me mental illness. And my life and the lies I told myself, about myself, fell with a great crash. God humbled me. I couldn’t get much “lower” in superficial stereo-typed status than being intermittently locked up in mental hospitals.

For the next ten years I fought God and the meds. At the end of ten years God gave me the wisdom to take the meds. Then He sent Bonnie, who knew and loved Jesus, to tell me Jesus loved me. I wasn’t interested. Then Bonnie told me that if I rejected the love of Jesus, the only thing left for me was hell.

That got my attention.

I chose to turn around and follow Jesus.

He forgave me, loved me and gave me a heart that cared about other people. Now I am a Certified Peer Support Specialist working with others who themselves deal with mental illness. I encourage, give hope, and care. And I love it. It took most of my life to discover my life’s work. And it took going “crazy” to discover what real sanity is.

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