Posts in Category: down to earth believer
“What I Get Out of Depression”
A friend who knows that I struggle with depression asked me a very fine, probing question: “What do you get from being depressed?” Really good friends are the ones who ask you the tough questions that you don’t have the courage to ask yourself. This question was a dandy!
Hummm! What do I get out of being depressed? Two things come to mind right away.
First, when I’m depressed, I get some sympathy. One problem with this is that, after a while, even good friends and my wife (who is the best of friends) get weary of catering to my grey moods. Sometimes my depression is a colossal form of selfishness. I am not saying this about your depression, only my own. However, if the shoe fits and all that jazz.
Another problem with the sympathy that I get from others when I’m depressed is a strange phenomenon: When I’m depressed, I can’t metabolize the kindness and sympathy of others. Depression is a kind of Crone’s Disease of the mind and emotions. The more I crave understanding from others, the less good it does me. When I’m depressed, I find myself starving for the very things that those who love me are so desperately feeding me.
A second “benefit” of my depression (and I use the word “benefit” very loosely) is that depression gives me the right to do nothing for myself or for anyone else. Depression thus feeds my laziness. The net effect of doing nothing for myself or for anyone else is, quite predictably, deeper depression.
So, what I really “get” out of depression is . . . more depression! The best thing I can get out of depression is myself.
“Prepared? Or Just Lookin’?”
Are you prepared? Or are you just lookin’? What I mean by these questions will become clearer if you consider the following proverb that I listened to this morning.
Prov. 20:4: “A lazy-bones never plows during the fall, but he looks for a harvest—and there isn’t one.” (My paraphrase from the Hebrew)
“How foolish!” you say? “Why would anyone expect a harvest when he hasn’t planted anything or even plowed the field?”
Yes! But are we really so different from this man? Maybe you are, but I am not.
- I weigh myself, but don’t lose weight. That might be connected with the fact that I eat the wrong things and that I eat too much even of the right things. I’m looking, but I’m not preparing.
- I expect to sleep better, but eat and drink late at night, and spend too much time on the computer and my smart phone late in the evening. I’m looking, but I’m not preparing.
- I want to say that I’ve read a lot of good books, but I never actually read them. I’m looking, but I’m not preparing.
The list goes on. I will not.
Years ago, a good friend of mine and I were playing golf. He is a good golfer. I, on the other hand, find lots of balls in the woods and the weeds. (My idea of achieving a below par score is finding more balls in the woods and weeds than I’ve lost. And if you have to ask my what I’m doing in the weeds or the woods in the first place, you either don’t know anything about golf, or you have not had your coffee yet.)
I had just made an incredibly poor shot, but one with a lucky result. My friend (who is not big on offering advice), asked, “Are you more interested in product or process?” That cooled my jets! However, I actually wanted to get better at golf in those days, so I answered that process might be helpful. He gave me good counsel that improved my chipping game immensely.
“Product or process?” Committing myself to process is the name of the game. That’s true in golf and in life.
“Of Flourishing Tents and Destroyed Houses”
“The house of the wicked will be destroyed,
but the tent of the upright will flourish.”
(Proverbs 14:11 English Standard Version)
I’ve lived in both houses and tents, and I can make the following statement with great confidence: Houses are definitely more stable than tents.
When I was about eleven years old, I went through a camping phase. “Camping” meant my dad throwing one of his good tarps over the wooden fence that separated our yard from the pasture, and anchoring the tarp with ropes and wooden pegs. This worked well until it didn’t. One morning I woke to find that the cows had eaten the ropes on the pasture side of the tent and a good chunk of the tarp. (I thought that it felt a little cooler than usual, but I was a hearty sleeper back in those days.)
Needless to say, I wasn’t very happy about the ending of my roughing-it career. Neither was my dad, since that was his best tarp. The cows, however, were fine and never asked forgiveness.
I have to say, though, that I was glad to be back in my own bed. No mosquitoes, and evener temps. So, I decided—even at that early age—that houses were a lot more stable than tents. Cows generally don’t eat houses.
However, Proverbs warns that houses are not always preferable to tents. Apparently, it is the inhabitant that makes a dwelling place stable or unstable. To be wicked is to be unsubstantial no matter how sturdy your house. A tent can be a place to flourish, if the tent-dweller is living an upright life. And I am not convinced that, even if you’re upright in a tent for a long time, God is going to upgrade your tent to a house necessarily.
What does this verse mean by speaking of the tent-dweller as “upright”? The Hebrew word yashar suggests a person who is fair in his/her dealings, a person who is not twisted in character or behavior. Such a person is consistent and trustworthy.
A stable dwelling isn’t primarily a matter of a house that is built solidly. Nor is it mainly about paying off your mortgage. A stable dwelling is about being the right kind of person.
Even if the cows eat part of your tent!
“Love Binds. But is that Good?”
Years ago, my sponsor encouraged me to craft and live out daily affirmations. This practice remains a transformative habit in my day-to-day recovery and life. Today’s affirmation led to an interesting exchange with my sponsor. Here is the affirmation:
“Today, by God’s grace, I am welcoming love and also aiding its flow to others. I will choose to be madly in love with everything and everyone. This will be great sanity for me.”
My sponsor replied, “Love binds us all.”
I thought about his aphorism for a few moments, and then emailed him back, “Yes, it does. False ‘love’ binds us in chains. True love binds us in a freeing embrace.”
In other words, binding can be a good thing—except when it is not. There is a kind of binding that is done in the name of love that is not at all an expression of love. There is a binding that is an expression of fear, anger, and the desire to be in control. This kind of “love” is a very common form of human evil. Sometimes, it leads to terribly evil forms of bondage, but I suspect that we all participate in this kind of bondage in less dramatic ways. Less dramatic forms of evil are evil still.
But there is also the kind of love that binds us all in our common humanity. This is a freeing kind of love, not bondage. Paul encourages this kind of freeing binding in Colossians 3:12-14.
“Col. 3:12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” (English Standard Version)
Paul encourages his original readers, and us, with some difficult things: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, putting up with one another, and forgiving. Who is up to these things?! But then, as if that were not enough, he adds one more thing that binds all these other virtues together: love.
The God who loved the whole world so much that he gave his only son (John 3:16) calls on us to also love. God bound himself to the entire world in love in order to free us from our bondage to sin. Can we strive to do anything less than this?
“Of Longings Fulfilled and Turning from Evil”
Is God a celestial killjoy? Many people—some of them very religious people—think so. They seem to think that holiness is the opposite of having our longings fulfilled.
I’m not so sure about this. Of course, there are longings, and then there are longings. Some are good, and some are anything but. But the idea that all human longings are to be divinely squashed? No, I don’t believe that. And in fact, I have scriptural warrant for rejecting the notion that every time God sees someone having a good time, God says, “Stop that!”
“Prov. 13:19 A desire fulfilled is sweet to the soul,
but to turn away from evil is an abomination to fools.” (English Standard Version)
The first half of this saying speaks very positively about the fulfillment of human desires. There are other biblical proverbs that also speak of how wonderful it is when people get what they long for (13:12; 10:3, 24, 28; 11:7, 23; 13:4).
However, the second half of Proverbs 13:19 is surprising. I would have expected that the second half of this verse would say something like “but a frustrated desire is bitter to the heart.” But no! Instead the contrast is with those who think it a horrible thing to turn from evil—in other words, those who are “fools.” A corollary to experiencing the sweetness of fulfilled desire is apparently turning from evil. Perhaps turning from evil is even a necessary precondition for our deepest desires coming to pass.
So, far from being a celestial killjoy, God desires our joy. Jesus spoke of his desire for his disciples to be filled with his joy (John 16:24). And in the Old Testament there is this verse:
“Psa. 16:11 You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (English Standard Version)
Sin is the freely chosen frustration of our ultimate joy. Who in their right mind wants to sabotage their own joy? Unfortunately, sometimes, that is precisely what I do. Think I’ll stop!
“Starting and Ending with Yourself”
Starting and ending with yourself isn’t a good thing, except when it is. Take Psalm 103, for example.
“Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, . . .” (Psalm 103:1-2a)
The psalm ends with the same words: “. . . Bless the LORD, O my soul!” (Vs. 22)
Why does the psalmist begin with talking to his own soul? I can think of two opposite reasons. Perhaps the psalmist was so full of praise that he couldn’t contain it. There are people like that. And there are times like that. There are times when we are so full of gratitude and praise that, even if we don’t know God very well, our hearts are so supercharged that we have to speak to our hearts (or our soul) to encourage even more gratitude and praise. Today is such a day for me. It is a beautiful, cool, autumn day in the late summer, and my sweetheart is coming back home later today.
But there is another possibility. Perhaps the psalmist was struggling with some really difficult things in his life and had to talk to himself. Someone has said that “sometimes we need to listen to ourselves, and sometimes we need to talk to ourselves.” They have a wonderful saying in England that I’ve come to love: “Have a word with yourself!” Sometimes we all need to do that, to have a word with ourseleves. That is a frequent chorus in the song of my life.
Whatever the reason he had for encouraging his soul to give thanks, the psalmist had lots of reasons to praise God.
“Bless the LORD, O my soul!
and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. The LORD works righteousness
and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel. The LORD is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass;
he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments. The LORD has established his throne in the heavens,
and his kingdom rules over all.”
And then, as if his own soul’s praise wasn’t nearly enough, the psalmist encourages the very angels to praise God. Indeed, all of God’s works are told to praise God. And as C.S. Lewis said, “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.”
“Bless the LORD, O you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his word,
obeying the voice of his word! Bless the LORD, all his hosts,
his ministers, who do his will! Bless the LORD, all his works,
in all places of his dominion.
(Psalm 103:1–22, English Standard Version)
Nevertheless, the psalmist ends as he began: with telling his inmost being (his “soul”) to praise the LORD.
Gratitude and praise should embrace all of what God does for me, for us, for the universe. But it begins and ends with a personal decision to praise and give thanks.
“On Being Corrected and Being Stupid”
I used to think that if someone corrected me, that meant I was stupid. Just today, I realized that I was stupid for thinking this. This revelation hit me while I was listening to Proverbs on my You Version app, and shaving. I nearly cut off my ear when I came to Proverbs 12:1.
“Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,
but he who hates correction is stupid.” (Christian Standard Bible)
“Whoa!” I exclaimed. “Back up there! Did you just say what I thought you said?! Did you say that the stupid stick is what hits people who hate correction?”
Yep, that is what it says! It is not being corrected that indicates that we are stupid. Rather, it is hating correction that makes us stupid. It isn’t being wrong that makes a body stupid. It is refusing to allow oneself to be corrected that raises our S.Q. (Stupid Quotient).
I felt very foolish for not having seen this before—until, that is, I reflected for a moment. “Wait a minute: I just allowed myself to be corrected! Maybe there’s hope for me yet!”
Indeed, there is hope for all of us. Don’t be stupid. Be corrected!
“On Tending to My Knittin’”
My fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Manley, often exhorted her students to “tend to your knittin’!” I didn’t understand the metaphor, but I knew what she meant. I needed to stop talking to the pretty girl across from me, and concentrate on my writing assignment!
Distraction is at epidemic proportions these days. Much of what I call “work” is actually just scrolling through the internet looking for cute puppy videos or political news. I imagine some of you occasionally struggle with similar distractions.
Proverb 17:24 has an interestingly worded warning for people like me.
“The discerning sets his face toward wisdom,
but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth.”
(English Standard Version)
Fools look too far away. I sometimes do precisely that.
But aren’t we supposed to be concerned with what is going on the world? I would answer that with a definite maybe.
Here is the problem, as I see it. I tend to be more interested in knowing what’s going on in the world, than I am in actually doing something to make the world a better place right where I am. This sort of “knowing” doesn’t sound—or feel—like wisdom to me.
Goldingay has a vivid comment about this verse, and about the folly of looking too far into the distance. He says that folly “. . . is promiscuous in its interests (17:24) . . . .” And promiscuity is not a good thing in any area of my life.
“On Not Sleeping Well”
I haven’t been sleeping well of late. I don’t know why. Nothing obvious comes to mind when I look for reasons.
Yes, I know the stats: About one out of three adults in America does not get the rest he/she needs. I am part of a large fellowship of the sleep deprived. For some reason, this does not comfort me. Misery may indeed love company, but company doesn’t make up for the misery.
I am trying to function on five hours of sleep last night. I took the dog out before daylight and got aggravated with her for not getting down to her business as quickly as I thought she should. I apologized to her when we got back to the house, but I don’t like being the way I am when I’m this tired. When I have slept well, I get up full of enthusiasm and gratitude. Today, I am not filled with such positive attitudes. What I am full of is probably not suitable for anyone’s ears right now.
I don’t want my approach to the day or my interactions with others to be held hostage to my sleep patterns. (Or is it “sleep chaos,” rather than “sleep patterns”?)
Perhaps sleep, like happiness and many other things, comes primarily when we don’t think too much about it. Perhaps sleep, like in general, is a gift.
Apparently, sleep issues are ancient. The Bible talks about the problem a lot. For example,
“Psa. 127:1 Unless the LORD builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.” (English Standard Version)
The last line, the one about God giving sleep to his beloved, is the reason why I don’t have to work so hard or worry so much. So, I am asking God for rest. Yes, for myself, but also for you. Hopefully, you went to sleep while you were reading this post.
“Getting Over My ‘Sorry, But’”
A friend of mine said that a friend of his said something to him that was very demeaning. He talked to his friend about this the next day. His friend apologized, but then uttered a word that emasculated the apology: the word “but.”
We can apologize, or we can explain. But we can’t do both at the same time about the same issue. We need—I need—to get over our “Sorry, but-ness.”
Another friend of mine said that years ago he had trained himself to simply say that he was sorry, and stop right there. It’s a great practice, but difficult to pull off. I don’t remember, but I suspect that it took him a good while to get good at this practice.
I think that I might be able to learn how to do this, but it might take a lot of biting my tongue until it bleeds. But aside from such a radical approach, there is an even more radical approach. This more radical approach to my sorry but is to think how I feel when someone else “apologizes,” and then launches into a big, “but” that explains away the apology, though not the original offense.
You might accuse me of playing the Golden Rule trump card, and you’d be right. So much of ethics and good relationship skills boils down to treating others as we would like them to treat us. Not as they do treat us, but as we would like them to treat us.
Golden Rule or Sorry But—that seems to be the basic choice. Sorry! I wish it were more complicated, but it isn’t!
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
- God’s Specific Likes about Us April 25, 2025God pulled off a surprise love attack on me this morning. God lured me into the trap in a quite trivial way. I thought I would start my day, not by grading students’ assignments, but by reading and meditating on some Scripture. By the way, I am not saying that reading Scripture is trivial. The […]
- “Strange and Wonderful Creatures” March 28, 2025I did not sleep enough last night. Five hours of sleep may be enough for some, but not for me. However, when I tried for a while to go back to sleep after waking up at 1:00 a.m., I realized that it was not going to happen. I might as well get up and work […]
- “Even Computers Need a Rest Sometimes!” February 11, 2025Jumpy cursor! I was trying to grade student assignments, and my cursor was jumping around like a Mexican jumping bean. I would start typing something, and then I would be on a different line. Here is the sort of non-sentences I was ending up with: be Please see my respolownse video. Of course, what I […]
- “Lives as Well as Lips” February 5, 2025“Praise the LORD! Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Who can utter the mighty deeds of the LORD, or declare all his praise? Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times!” (Psalm 106:1-3, English Standard Version) […]
- DTEB, “The Wanna-Wanna Method” January 29, 2025“. . . work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, Phil. 2:13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12b-13, English Standard Version) In a text exchange with a friend, he confessed that he really, really wants to make some bad […]
- “Fun, Cat Videos, and Transformation” December 9, 2024“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17, English Standard Version) One of my twelve-step sponsors suggested that I need more fun in my life. He knows me well, but on this one, I was determined to prove him wrong. […]
- “The Enemy is Perfectionism” December 6, 2024“The good is the enemy of the best.” (A common saying.) “The best is the enemy of doing anything at all that is good.” (My take on the saying and my reality.) Some of you have been wondering why I haven’t been posting any of my musings in the past way-too-long. I am tempted to […]
- DTEB, “Getting Christ and Ourselves Back in Focus” November 11, 2024“Col. 3:1 ¶ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Col. 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Col. 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden […]
- “Search Me!” October 27, 2024“Psa. 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24, English Standard Version) I am participating in a Bible study, and this is a prayer […]
- “Christian Speech” October 26, 2024“Eph. 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Foulkes, in his excellent commentary on the Book of Ephesians, writes the following, which I quote at some length: “29. Now the […]
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