When Who Am I Meets Who Are You

MEETING someone else, heart connecting with heart, is a reality when first we’ve met ourselves. And meeting ourselves is a reality when we’ve met God.

God, first and foremost, is the connector of all things in Identity. If we have scant regard for God we cannot know ourselves and we cannot know others; let alone love ourselves or others.

Regard for God, on the other hand, is regard for life, willingness to learn, acceptance of our situations in humility, and generally accepting life. It’s never a destination we reach, for we’re always only ever ‘there’ for a short time of intimate contact before the wiles of the world entrap us in a reality of pride, once more.

Humility is a great indicator of acceptance, as acceptance is a great indicator of identity. When we accept who we are we have much less trouble accepting life as it is.

Oh God breed in me acceptance,

For the person you made me to be,

For the person that I am,

Help me with acceptance now to see.

Make this very day of days,

A day when I come forth,

In my acceptance for who you are,

So you can help take my life north.

You know it’s what I need,

To be at peace with who you are,

To be confident in your plan for me,

To help me feel up to par.

So, God, I do implore,

God, it’s you I entreat,

Help me to accept,

It’s you I need to meet.

Of all the years life’s made no sense,

I come to you this day,

Help me to accept,

It’s with you I need to stay.

A commitment to God is the blessing of acceptance — a wisdom of life for what we cannot ever change.

A commitment to God is a commitment to surrender — a wisdom of life for what we cannot ever change.

Everything starts with God, because everything of spiritual progress starts with acceptance. And human beings were created to progress spiritually; progress or rescind. Progress is blessing. Rescinding is cursing. And there’s the choice.

When who I am meets who you are we are both on the same page. But I cannot meet you properly or even desire same without first meeting God who brings me to an acceptance of who I am.

God, who teaches acceptance,

The blessing of life for me,

It’s the truth that sets me free,

Empowering me to be!

Acceptance is surrender. Surrender is knowing God. Knowing God is healing. Healing is blessing. Blessing is acceptance.

Acceptance is the healing we yearn for.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Don’t Judge Pain

JUST every so often there’s a life that comes face-to-face with its own death.

Total deconstruction of person, identity, and character. Let’s call him Job. (We never think to compare our journeys to Job, but, of a sense, his story was placed in our Bibles for a very good reason.) Job is a good person but he doesn’t know what’s about to hit him. He’s never been a bad person. Yet, what’s about to occur in his life will send him into an abyss of lament. He’ll hiss like a sissy. He’ll nark like it’s nobody’s business. We’ll see a different side to this righteous man. He’ll show his ‘true colours’.

Well, of course, that’s rot. One thing we can predict is that if calamity comes into anyone’s life it’s going to floor them. Job is a great example, because if Job can hiss and nark, then anyone will. Thank you, God, that you show us in grief there’s a grief response that looks like sin, smells like sin, and would be sin… if it wasn’t for the fact it’s grief!

It’s only when we face the deepest, darkest, most dastardly loss (or series of losses, as was the case with Job) that we realise we’re human and capable of being broken. Indeed, we only accept what has always been the case (that we’re broken) when we’re broken beyond recognition. Then we accept what was always the case. Suddenly out of the worst life situation we come face-to-face with the truth and we’re humbled enough to accept it.

A time comes upon a woman,

Or maybe it’s a man,

When life is nothing like,

Accordance with their plan.

What does one do,

When a life we had, it ends?

A calamity of being,

A death that life it sends.

All one can do,

Is hold on in hope,

Pray for poise to rebuild,

For sheer strength to cope.

And then come to God,

Who knows your crushing lament,

Acknowledge him and he’ll lift you,

Before your life is spent.

The years they’re coming,

If there’s any hope it’s this,

One of these days or years,

God will bring you a better bliss.

If there’s one thing we all must know it’s this. Any of us can have our lives crushed anytime. Many are so cruelly dealt with in life. Yet these are also the ones that rise from the ashes if they never give up on growing through it.

When loss swarms into life like a plague, touch the lintel of your heart with compassion, taking refuge in your grief. Then bitterness and resentment will pass over your soul.

Judgment of grief as sin is irreconcilable and maddening. The Bible tells us that.

But compassion works healing wonders in the realm of deepest, darkest pain.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

The Courage It Takes To Be Me (Or You)

RISING Strong, a book by Brené Brown, made me angry. Angry that I hadn’t picked it up a few hours earlier. Hours earlier, in conniption land, where nothing of life made sense in one large area of my life, I could have done with Brown’s astoundingly simple wisdom; a wisdom I often write about. I write about it because I need more of it — the strength to be weak, and the power to be vulnerable.

I’m so weak by nature, and so fearful at times, and I’d be ashamed to say it — a man of my forty-eight years — if I didn’t already know that my apparent weakness is its own strength… as I bounce back each time.

And we do bounce back. That’s the point of falling. Getting back up. The immediate impact of simply opening Brown’s book was revelatory. It’s no Bible, of course, but it helped me see how normal vulnerability is — or feeling vulnerable is, I should say.

Vulnerability, of course, is hardly normal.

Most of us have adapted to a life where we’ve found that vulnerability has not ever rewarded us. It’s been too much of a risk to be vulnerable. And vulnerability continues being a risk, in that many people will still want to squash us into submission because we have the audacity to present them a raw, honest, weaker-than-denial self. Well, up yours I say!

Being vulnerable is so countercultural it’s not valued; but we ought to know that God values our vulnerability, because it’s the truth.

I want to teach people to be more vulnerable, but that means I have to practice what I preach, and that means being less ashamed of myself when others reject my vulnerability. It’s just horrid being a scared little forty-eight-year-old, 100kg (220lb) to boot! But that’s me. It’s the ‘me’ that God’s made me to be.

What about you? What vulnerabilities do you have that tempt you into feeling embarrassed and ashamed? God wants you to embrace those very things, like he’s encouraging me to do the same thing.

There’s no shame in vulnerability, but we must remind ourselves often. That’s because the enemy is a snake in the grass. Satan works by shame.

So here’s the challenge, as Brown would also put it — fall, and fall with candour. Fall knowing that being vulnerable dignifies every fall. Fall with intent. Fall knowing you’ll get right back up again.

It takes so much courage,

To be me and you,

Courage means vulnerability,

A commitment to being true.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Through Crisis Comes the Courage To Change

TURNING points challenge perspective and turn perspective around, but not without considerable inner conflict.

From a within a crisis comes a fresh viewpoint, and, where we’re forced to make a new normal, we create a new hope for change. New hope sustains us into, over the cusp, and through transition to change.

Forging a way forward out of a crisis takes courage, but it brings lasting change.

Crises are good in that, as turning points, we’re brought to a precipice in order to see what we couldn’t before. Crises make us see what we wouldn’t otherwise.

So, Hold On… Through Crisis Comes the Courage to Change!

Hold on, hold on,

Through the calamity of change,

Hold onto hope,

When life seems strange.

Hope’s invisible,

Hope: in your despairing,

Know that hope’s indivisible,

Because God is caring.

When crises bring to an end,

All hope of control,

Know God can bend,

Hope toward your goal.

Change is so challenging,

In the midst of struggle,

In the hope of balancing,

Hope despite trouble.

Just hold on in hope,

For strength to rearrange,

Through crisis comes,

The courage to change.

Through crisis comes the courage to change. And courage brings hope for change. Change fully realised realises hope. Hope is both the means of getting through and an end, in itself, we aim for. But courage would never come into its own without first being pushed to the ascendency by crisis.

Pressure brings tension, a crisis for change,

Pressure brings apprehension, time to rearrange,

Pressure forces dissention, a crisis comes forth,

Pressure forces progression, a time to head north.

Pressure brings internal dissention. We must resolve this inner flight; a fight of inner discord. The tension that pressure brings forces us out of our comfort zones into a time and place for growth. The apprehension we feel must, however, be stayed by hope — hope for a moment’s coping; hope that sees us traversing from a choppy sea onto safe dry land. And when we cope with such dissention of being, being content enough in crisis to hold on in hope, pressure forces progression, and we can only head north, into a time of prevailing; a change that sticks; a change that takes us into the hopes of our dreams. Such a hope is worth all the work that’s gone into it. Indeed, this is our very basis for life! Hope. “Please hope!” says the Lord your God.

So, in summing up, through crisis comes the courage to change. Crisis is a catapult into change. It presents new data that we can no longer ignore. So crises are good!

Don’t panic in crisis,

Don’t panic when life’s strange,

God’s building you for more,

He’ll sustain you through change.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Is the Expression of Pain In Grief Sinful?

WHAT a great confusion is created by notions of sin in the theology of grief. This article is a direct response to this offering from The Gospel Coalition. The crux of this article is that it hones in on the sin inherent in the grief response — anger, jealously, envy, etc. The thing that troubles me with such articles is that, as a person reads it who may be deep in their grief, they don’t read it through the eyes of grace. Grace is certainly mentioned, but I often think of grace as a feeling — a good feeling of being cleansed anew in God’s favour. I didn’t get this feeling reading Miscarriage and the Confusion of Sinful Grief. What it said was true; that sin seems so representative in the normal grief response, but there was something missing.

What is missing?

In grief there must be room — for healing’s sake — for the person’s grief expression who’s grieving. There is a great deal of potential harm, not to mention false teaching, because it’s not the full theological story, in majoring on the ‘sinful’ expression of grief in loss. The ardent Christian wants to, no needs to obey their Lord. If they feel that their anger, bargaining, denial and depression — which are normal grief responses — are missing the mark, then they want to repress those normal responses. Such normal responses of grief, so inherent in the human condition that none of us can help them, and expressions so inherent for our healing, are not a missing of the mark.

***

People who are grieving must be journeyed with in non-judgmental ways that bleed compassion. Whenever we try and attend to responses as ‘sin’ we miss the mark, and that is, of itself, sin. Indeed, it’s a Pharisaic sin. The Pharisees would apply the law legalistically. Sure, envy at others’ blessing is sin. But if the envy is caused by a loss or a hope vanquished the journey to attributing it as ‘sin’ gets murky indeed. Who would want to go there?

A better response is to allow a person’s own attribution of their sin as they recover from their grief. But it’s personal. And grace needs to be implicit. Allusions of sin are incomplete post-Jesus without the imputation of grace.

Grief responses may appear sinful, but to call them sin is, of itself, a missing of the mark — a sin itself. But God’s compassion allows for what is normal and natural — the grief cycle so very well expressed in much of the Bible.

If there’s no room for grief to be expressed such expression is repressed and healing cannot occur.

Is the expression of pain in grief sinful, then? No. It appears sinful, but appearance is not always reality. Appearance is not the full story.

Now, that said, the person who can approach the sin in their grief response shows the capacity for God’s grace to heal them. And they’re growing.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

The Benefits Within and Beyond the Journey of Grief

WRESTLING is something we become accustomed to in loss; that, or we capitulate into a swimming mess. That teary puddle on the floor. And teary puddles are also part of wrestling.

Are there benefits in the grief we experience in loss?

I think there are…

I think they’re summarised in the love of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience that the apostle Paul talks about in Colossians 3:12-14.

***

1.     Compassion: God puts us in touch with pain. Not just ours. Others’ pain, in our region and all over the world, comes much closer, and then into direct view. Compassion is the power of perspective in the power of God that gives us a perspective of power: the broadness of hope, joy and peace. Compassion comes with perspective. Grief teaches compassion. It nullifies coldness.

2.     Kindness: we learn not only kindness toward others, but God teaches us kindness for ourselves. And we can only really be kind to others when we’ve learned to be kind to ourselves. When we’re floored by such a thing as grief, the kindness that God teaches us to have for ourselves becomes its own benefit. When we have nothing left of ourselves we should quickly learn kindness for ourselves. Paradoxically, self-kindness is at the opposite end of the spectrum of self-pity. Self-pity is self-destructive, but self-kindness builds us up in the experience of the gentle grace of God. Grief teaches kindness. It nullifies greed.

3.     Humility: we grow in humility. We’re expunged of our selfishness and our passions are tempered. Our learned compassion teaches us to be less self-absorbed. We can be satisfied in becoming nothing without getting upset about it. Life doesn’t have to be all about us. Grief teaches humility. It nullifies pride.

4.     Gentleness: tempered. In one word. What we do to take the brittle hardness out of the hardest metal is to temper it. Tempering metal makes it so its hardness isn’t a liability, but a strength; tempered metal is tough. Gentleness is a toughness that’s pliable and softly resilient. A gentle tongue can break bones (Proverbs 25:15; cf. Isaiah 42:3-4), meaning true gentleness is incredibly influential. Gentleness is toughness for functioning through further, future griefs. Grief teaches gentleness. It nullifies fury.

5.     Patience: acceptance is something we come to in grief, praise God. Our grief isn’t always found in those tortuous positions of shock, denial and anger. Patience is a competency of maturity; it’s a blessing for the hard work of growth; a reward for persistence. Grief teaches patience. It nullifies rile.

Grief teaches compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, nullifying coldness, greed, pride, fury, rile.

Grief is not all cost. The benefits of grief endured are spiritual as they’re eternal.

Five benefits from grief: perspective of compassion; genuine kindness; true humility; raw gentleness; real patience.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

7 Myths If You Believe Will Break Your Heart One Day

TRUTH is a gift no matter how hard it is to hear or assimilate. These are just a smattering of myths that proffer untruths to our detriment.

1.     “Won’t happen to me…” there are many things in life that we think won’t happen to us — the injury from a serious car accident, cancer, divorce, a mugging, a family member killed, etc. The trouble is there are a few things in all our lives that are in the category of ‘won’t happen to me’ that will actually happen to us.

2.     “What I don’t know won’t hurt me…” there are plenty of things in this category in life that will hurt us and we’re better off knowing sooner rather than later. This is close to another dangerous myth:

3.     “Ignorance is bliss…” sorry, it isn’t. Ignorance is generally hurtful in the final analysis; harmful, if not personally, then in our relationships with others, to them. Negligence is born from the womb of ignorance, and the midwife lacks diligence.

4.     “I can’t bear some truth…” actually you can. We all can. We all need to bear more of our truth; those things we don’t quite feel we have the strength for. The more courage we have to deal with our truth, the easier our realities are.

5.     “He/she will always be there for me…” not just limited to marriage, there are many people we feel will always be there for us. Then at the least anticipated moment we’re betrayed. Very few people in life don’t suffer at least one significant betrayal. And many of us perhaps have given people the perception that we are the betrayer. Human beings are inherently morally frail.

6.     “If [fill in the blank] happens I’ll be happy…” so many things we bargain with God for will never produce that everlasting happiness we might pine for. The truth is the only everlasting happiness is being happy in God. It’s the happiness that lasts because nothing we think of as happiness actually lasts. Getting our dream job or dream home or car, or getting famous or rich, are dreams that, if they ever materialised, would never last.

7.     “I know how my life will turn out and how I’ll feel…” what a stinker this one is! Whose life ever turns out as they plan it to? And, how many of us have been blindsided by the emotions of certain life-changing events? — Feelings of pain at an abysmal depth we never thought possible.

Life just doesn’t turn out the way we think it will. But, it turns out better if we remain real in the way we handle it.

Life is about dealing with reality. The more reality we can bear, the more joy we can muster.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Why the Wounded Healer Inspires Confidence

A WOMEN walks into a counselling room on a Friday morning, running 20 minutes late for the appointment. She’s met by a man about 15 years her senior. He’s a counselling pastor. He’s been praying for her and following her up for at least six months. She’s reluctantly come along this particular day. She’s very anxious. This is their first face-to-face meeting — an answer to his prayers.

How does this initial session go?

The pastor shares part of his journey that connects with the woman’s and she suddenly encounters a type of man she’s never met before. He shares his own material of marital brokenness. But not just that; he shares his material of marital wholeness, too. She is astounded at the vulnerability he’s able to show as he models to her how to share the deepest of struggles and learning. Having shared very much his experiences, she takes her turn and blossoms in the sharing. They spend 90 minutes together. Even though she’s touched by his honest vulnerability and by the witness of his noticeable raw faith, at no time does she feel vulnerable in inappropriate ways. She feels honoured like a sister or daughter in his presence.

During the session, she touches her brokenness, but also gains glimpses into an emerging wholeness. Her brokenness is not judged, yet the pregnant possibilities laden in wholeness are encouraged to be pondered. She feels safe to share anything with no fear for recrimination nor rejection.

When the session is concluded the woman goes home and on the way is struck with just how free she feels within herself. Something has changed. Something has shifted. Something is how it never was before.

***

The wounded healer inspires confidence because they share openly into their experiences of brokenness and healing. From their brokenness and healing comes the humility of vulnerability and the humility of learning. Their sharing models how their client can safely share to receive their own healing amid accepting ears. Both states of brokenness and healing require strength to bear and to procure.

Confidence is inspired because two things are proven: 1) the courage to be vulnerable is exemplary; and 2) healing is proof of courage to tackle brokenness.

The wounded healer shows people they help how to wrestle with brokenness to receive healing. Their honest sharing opens up in others the courage to wrestle.

Courage is the reason a wounded healer is able to inspire confidence in those they help. Courage compels us to be honest about our woundedness and it’s courage that encourages us in our healing.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Strength for Today To Keep Weakness At Bay

STRUGGLES swarm within days of trial and the littlest thing tips us over the edge. We find ourselves reacting irrationally even as we witness it in our incredulity. Many moments of life we can feel we’re on the cusp of a veritable insanity.

Or, perhaps it’s just me.

Some periods of weakness are more than a reminder of the pit we’ve fallen into; despairing as these remainders are. At other times, moments of plummeting weakness come as a shock — what made us go off the deep end like that? What else is my anger capable of? What do they think of me now? What do I think of myself?

All too normal… if you’re someone like me.

Then the Words of the Lord came to me as I tweeted, unconscious (as always) of what he was going to say through me:

When the pressure’s on and we’re simply dazed,

When we want to be strong but can’t,

God says, “Stand still and be unfazed,

I’m strong enough for you when you aren’t.”

There’s a great pressure that comes into some of our moments — the situation’s untenable, conflict between the ears, confusion on the ground, and then we hear just one more sound!

We’d be dazed if we allowed ourselves to capitulate. But, of course, we can’t. We’re dependable leaders, parents, bosses, employees, mentors… or, if that doesn’t cover us… mere human beings capable of shocking lapses of dependability.

Sometimes we want to be strong but can’t. Indeed, many times we need to be strong are the very times we feel weakest.

God knows as well as we do the anxious urgency of those situations. The Lord is in us by his Holy Spirit. His angels know. Even the enemy knows. We know, yet we think we’re alone. We’re not alone. God is for us. And where that’s true we have access to every help we need.

Standing still, even if we were sitting or lying down, is the poise that stops in the moment of panic, in the time of weakness, when we’re bereft of response, and we choose courage to not respond. We don’t respond. If others are pressuring us, we choose to slow the pace of the moment down, so we have half a chance. We experience the compassion of Christ in our flailing moment. We take shelter in the shadow of his wings (Psalm 17:8). That is our obedience.

Strength for today is a moment away. Keeping weakness at bay is about a little delay.

Strength for today is ripe for the minute. We need to pick the fruit of patience at the very time we most need it. Nurture patience by the priori of prayer.

Strength for today in weakness is about accepting that in weakness is God’s strength.

Bearing weakness requires the faith of patience, which is ironic in its strength; the strength of surrender.

It takes courage to bear weakness; to be strong enough to be honest. God blesses that acceptance of reality with more of his strength.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

The Uplift of the Spirit When You’re Down On Life

For… Yours, waiting patiently in hope.

BLUNDERBUSS, an awkward-loading rifle, fires its projectiles as effectively as any when it’s loaded adequately, by its design. It’s no ineffective weapon, unless it’s pitted against an automatic rifle like an AK47.

Unlike rifles, we’re all created for God’s glory, and yet there’s the full range of weaponry for the Kingdom at God’s disposal — in us, as a church, as we are.

Still, we are who we are. And we’ve landed in some pretty sticky situations in life. That stickiness is thick and effusive right now. It’s on the nose. You’re left wondering why… why me… why now… why does it have to be this way?

When you’re feeling spurned,

When everything’s burned,

When life’s turned from bright to grey,

When you’ve lost hope,

And you’ve no way to cope,

Reach out, reach up; seek help today.

Reaching out is about reaching our hands out to loved ones, counsellors, wise advisors, mentors and the like. Someone who’ll listen. Reaching up is finding a sense for where God is in all this.

Seeking help today is about reaching horizontally and vertically. Looking up, we sense that God would communicate something to us; his perception of events and how we feel about them. Looking out, we surely have one person that God brings to mind; someone who’ll sit with us, listen, pray with us, and be a kindly shoulder to lean on for such a time as this.

There can be no underestimating the power and Presence for God in the fellowship of someone there for us. But I want to devote the rest of the article to God’s Spiritual Presence through his Holy Spirit, in us, and all around us by his holy angels.

God of Spirit, breathe within,

Help me be acquitted of my sin,

Make a way for me out of this,

Restore me to your divine bliss.

The Spirit will breathe in us like a mighty wind that can come from nowhere else but God. Such a force of inspiration is possible when we depart enough from ourselves to surrender, even for moments. The more we debunk the default thinking — of staying stuck in the stickiness of our situation — the more we’ll be open to God breathing his Spirit again afresh through us.

Even as I stand there with nothing left inside,

Standing faintly as a deer pants for water,

Even as I ponder the Lamb at the slaughter,

Give me poise, Lord, and be my blessed Guide.

Spirit breathe, breathe deeply inside of me,

Wind of God usher life into my aching hollow bones,

Help me, Holy Spirit, as my soul within me groans,

Lord, make me to live, my soul inside me free.

Spirit breathe, breathe passion to revive my soul,

Lift me up as on the eagle’s victorious wings,

Until all the life within me finally flies and sings,

And then I’ll know you’ve lifted me out of Sheol.

Yours, waiting patiently in hope.

Make today tomorrow’s best yesterday,

Knowing what’s past is past,

Know that these feelings won’t last,

When you stay firm in today.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.