hubris and my turbulent sea

What if we could bring Heaven to earth?

What if we brought peace to earth? What if we treated all people with the love, patience and benefit we give those we hold dear?

I work in nursing homes for a living, interacting with certified nurse assistants, nurses, residents, doctors, and family members who are visiting their loved ones.  I travel close to 200 miles a day, and stop in various gas stations and restaurants as I go from nursing home to nursing home. My scope of influence and interaction runs the gambit and my opportunity for breathing love in others is diverse and ever present.

I have a new game I play, and it goes a little like this. What if I stopped and genuinely tried to treat everyone I come in contact with care and reverence? What if I humbly asked about a gas station attendant’s day, looked them in the eye and waited for their reply with concentrated curiosity? What if I tried to bring value to their day in that brief moment of time, instead of being a thousand miles away planning, thinking, or dwelling on obstacles in my path. Looking someone in the eyes and listening has the power to shake worlds. Allowing a stranger to merge on the road, not tailing people on the interstate, and holding the door for others even when it’s inconvenient – paying for someone’s lunch, smiling at folks. Practicing active patience, knowing that love travels, mends hearts, and is passed on – that is my new goal. Giving your time, resources and energy to others feeds the soul, and has a funny way of paying itself forward and back again.

This practice is hard. I’m naturally impatient, naturally self centric. Colin Powell’s recent email leak about Hillary Clinton makes me reflect on all the relationships and opportunities I often “screw up with hubris.” When I hear the word hubris I reflect on my disposition and daily touch points with humans of various socioeconomic, education levels and backgrounds. Joy and selfless attention to others in my community is characteristic of Jesus Christ.  Focusing on what and who delays my daily agenda, swerving and delighting in my frustration, stress and disgust with those who don’t do or act at the caliber I have magically deemed elite is death – death to others, death to my spirit – and only prolongs and enflames hate and hurt.  I think some of my community and past relationships would describe some of my behavior as hubris and self-edifying. The beauty of past categorization and judgment is we may choose to chart a different course. And I will audaciously choose to turn my ship on this turbulent sea of existence.

about the author

David Meigs is one of the founders and contributing members of Everything is OK blog and podcast. He lives in Hattiesburg, MS with his beautiful wife and two dogs Elliott and Esme.

to question our beliefs

I have had several conversations in the past few weeks with people who have walked away from the church. One of the things that proved detrimental in each of their stories was not being allowed questioning beliefs.

When we equate our religion with God, we lose the ability to question it without being accused of doubting God. This is unhealthy. For anyone who needs it, I would like to offer you permission to question your beliefs. To question your beliefs isn't a criticism of God; it is the awareness that our understanding of an infinite being is finite. We need to have the humility to be open to the possibility that our understanding of an infallible God may be fallible. If we refuse to question, we limit our ability to understand who God is and risk getting stuck in our misconceptions.

There is, of course, a group of Christians and churches on the opposite end of the spectrum. In this group, we question everything. Questions are a staple of how we interact with God. Where the first group values certainty, the second values doubt.

Questions are paramount to seeking God and allow for movement down the path of our individual journeys of faith. But the problem the second group has is that it has gone too far and worships questions above truth. I’ll steal a quote from the apostle Paul, who wrote,

“Question everything; hold onto only what is true.” 1 Thessalonians 5:21

Allowing this idea to inform how we structure our faith is the only way to have a healthy belief system. If we question without the purpose of finding truth, we never allow ourselves to actually know anything about God. We hold everything we used to believe in an open hand and then stop there.

Jesus described himself as the truth -- we should be wary of calling ourselves his followers if we don’t hold truth in any esteem. We as a church have to be willing to question and to search for answers.

about the author

James Isenhower is one of our co-founders, writers and podcast masterminds. 

you thought God was an architect

“You thought God was an architect, now you know

He’s something like a pipe bomb ready to blow…”

Jason Isbell, 24 frames

The story of Christianity, in its literal infancy, goes something like this: Young girl, maybe 12, maybe 14, promised to be married, probably an arranged marriage, gets pregnant, by God’s Spirit, and then, surrounded by the smells of hot manure and the bleating of beasts of burden, gives birth to a child called Jesus. The scandal of God in a diaper; this solidarity of heaven with earth in a moment of absolute vulnerability is staggering. Or at least it should be. Fredrick Beuchner in one of his early sermons says once we have seen God in the manger, “we can never be sure of Him again….never be sure where He will appear, or to what lengths He will go, or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation He will descend in His wild pursuit of Mankind.”

It seems, at every turn in History, when people think they have God pinned down and His purposes neatly staked out, He comes busting through their small minds and narrow scopes with a reckless behavior that leaves the senses reeling. Perhaps a very few roughhewn and surly, animal skinned prophets over the millennia have preached this untamed, un-cageable God, but very few of the rest of us have ever been truly comfortable with a God so outside our control. In fact, it might be that modern man, with all of our sophistication and self-reliance, is the least able to resist the urge to make God into an image we can possess. And even among the faithful, God has increasingly been remade into the image of the worshipper. He hates the same people we do. He champions the exact same causes.

When our imaginations, wonder-filled and expansive as they might be, conjure a God that can still fit inside the finite boundaries of our minds, we are still bigger than God. In fact, we have merely made God into the best image we can perceive. The danger in that should be evident, how can we ever be sure that God isn’t just in our imagination? How can a God we can explain ever solve the unexplainable? How can a possible God ever do the impossible?

If you’re the type of person that thinks on these things, if you, your heart and mind have all sorts of existential questions about God, or if God has become safe and tame and altogether ordinary in your mind, then maybe it’s time to unhinge your head and heart. Maybe it’s time to get alone, in nature and silence, and ask God to reveal Himself to you. You have nothing to lose, and perhaps everything to gain. You can say you don’t need God, or want Him, and that’s honest. Might I suggest you don’t have all the information to make an informed decision? Maybe you resist the little God of yours or someone else’s design. Maybe if you meet the pipe bomb that explodes himself into history and hearts you might just find all you’ve ever hoped for.

about the author

Mark Langham currently lives in Mississippi, but is more likely traveling the world loving people, making friends and working to stop child sex trafficking. If you would like to learn more visit conspiracyofhope.org.