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Finding the Life We’ve Been Looking For

Keith, I keep running into people who can’t seem to believe there really is a God—and honestly I don’t know if I do. These scientists are almost making fun of people who believe that God is real!  And if God is real, they ask, how can he change the basic character of people who believe in him?  Could you help me with this?

This is an excellent time to be asking those questions.  With regard to the reality of God—think about all the brilliant men and women who have claimed that they have had a relationship with God (e.g. C. S. Lewis, St. Francis, Luther, Augustine, Martin Luther King, Jr. and scientists like Blaise Pascal, not to mention all the men and women who were not writers but the witness of whose lives changed the generations in which they lived.  They wouldn’t all have to be right for there to be a God who interacts with people—if only one person in all of history was right about having a personal relationship with God, then God is real, and interactive.

There are all kinds of philosophical arguments for and against the hypothesis that God is real, but Christianity is about a God who has a “personality,” that is, a God who can be “known.”  And the New Testament makes the claim that if a person wants to know if God is real, the only way that person can know is to take the hypothesis that God is real [...]

Spiritual House Cleaning

Keith, I’m not a pious person and have never liked doing things that sound like they will look more “religious.”  But I was fascinated to hear that God wants to transform me into the person God designed me to be.  Can you suggest an approach to spiritual transformation that has its feet on the ground?

Great question.  In my case, before I could begin a serious journey toward the radical transformation that they said would follow the daily disciplines of living a new life, I needed to clear my path of the pitfalls and snarling vines growing out of the past that kept tripping me up, and also to inventory the assets and gifts I had.

When Jesus said specifically to “worry about the beam in your own eye,” (Mt. 7:4-5) I think he was referring to whatever is in my life that prevents (or hinders) God from working within me to transform me.  For me these blocks seem to come from the virtually universal tendency to put ourselves in the center where only God should be, which is Sin (with a capital “S”).  And in my case, all the other “sins” (lower case “s”) stem from that one act.  And these dishonest, petty or terribly destructive habits or controlling acts in relationships are what block God’s transforming work in me.

I needed to see clearly what was in my life now (and in my past history) so that I would have nothing mysterious (denied) to hide that [...]

Angry All the Time

Keith, in a group sometime ago I heard you say something about anger, and it got me thinking about my situation.  I have a problem with being angry a lot.  About the only feeling my father ever expressed was anger—he thought that real men get angry; other emotions were for women and wimps.  We’ve become Christians and my wife is all over me trying to get me to express more love to our sons.  But that makes me angry too, and yet down inside I hated it when my father was angry with me and was afraid of him.  I really would like to quit feeling so angry, but it always seems like my anger is justified by things people do or say.  Any magic bullets?

No magic bullets, but it’s a great question.

Most of my life it was not okay with the people around me if I’d get angry.  So I pushed a lot of my anger out of sight and said, “No, I’m not mad,” even when I was seething inside.  But it was like pushing a beach ball under water.  The farther down I pushed it, the greater the explosion when it suddenly surfaced—often about something someone said or did that was far too insignificant for the anger explosion.

I got on a spiritual journey with a group of men in which we make an effort  to be honest with each other in order to grow spiritually.  One of my mentors in the group told me [...]