Finding the Life We’ve Been Looking For

by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

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 and commit his or her life to God and to the discovering and doing of God’s will in that person’s whole life.

I understand that you are saying to take God that seriously is to take a big risk.  And of course that is true.  But even scientists have to take risks and face rejection sometimes when they take an idea and assume that it is true (when they take a hypothesis) and then scientists (and people on spiritual journeys) make experiments in the real world to see if the idea holds up in relation to things and situations the scientist already believes are true.

So how would you prove for yourself that God is real?

When I came to that place in my life, I was frightened.  I was afraid that if God were real and I surrendered my real life to God and to trying to live according to the principles attributed to God, then God might change me into some sort of pious religious nut that my family and friends wouldn’t want to be with.

But when I finally decided I had to know if God were real, and surrendered my life, my future, to God, that was when I began to realize that the life that God offers people who are in relation to him was the life I’d always been trying to find, to discover by becoming successful and prominent somehow.

A long time ago, a wise Christian told me that God doesn’t change us into something that we are not already.  Rather the truth is that we have almost from birth been adding unreal things to our lives, personal characteristics.  For instance, I tried to appear to be a strong, self-confident Western male—stronger and smarter than I really was.  It was as if I was wearing life like a suit two sizes too large, hoping I’d grow into it.

When I decided to surrender my whole life to God as I saw God revealed in the Biblical story, and began to do the disciplines of prayer and helping other people in ways I felt God would want me to do those things, it was more like taking old ill-fitting clothes off and discarding them.  Because I didn’t need the exaggerated characteristics in order to feel that I was enough.

As I met some strong beautiful Christians with integrity and humility, I realized that what God offers to do for me is not to transform me into something I never have been but rather to help me remove things I and the culture I live in have added to my natural self that I had used to cover up, to hide the person God made me to be.  And the unconscious fear of being revealed as the imperfect person I really am, tainted all my relationships—particularly my close relationships.

So the big news for me is that when I am being the loving child that God designed me to be, I am free not to hide or pretend to be more than I am.  And that means that I could learn to be myself and risk being rejected when I set out to become the authentic human being who was in one sense always inside me, waiting to get free enough to live and be happy being who and what I am.

That’s why I began to learn how to write as a vocation and finally left the oil exploration business—not because the oil exploration business is evil somehow, but because I was a writer hiding inside the life of an oil business entrepreneur.  This has not been an easy or trouble free journey, and may not be one that you should take.  But I thank God every day that I decided to trust God in this way.

It’s a long trip to the Beginning—clear back to Square One.

Lord, thank you that we already have everything we need to be the people you designed us to be.  Help us to learn how to remove the extra characteristics we have “put on” trying to be happy and successful, and to gradually discover and, where appropriate, reveal ourselves the way you meant for us to be.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

“For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, “I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom. What’s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it’s the same as receiving me.”

Matthew 18:2-5, The Message

Note: For a clear account of what actually happened when Keith made this beginning in his everyday life as a husband, father, and young business executive see the newly republished The Taste of New Wine.

Spiritual House Cleaning

by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

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 could jump up and scare me; because by this time I knew that my Sin would use anything that “pushes my buttons” to threaten me with: the specter of failure, fears, guilt, shame, rejection, and spiritual death.  For me it was crucial to make as clean a beginning as possible if I hoped to stay close to God.

So I was helped to begin by confessing what I could see of how I have hurt others.  I learned that when I began to think about these things, the natural response was to feel sadness and/or guilt about what I had done.  But as I kept focusing on the damage my controlling and self-defeating behavior had caused, the resulting sadness began to produce the motivation to turn away from a particular sin and confess it to God, asking for his power and help not to repeat the harmful behavior.  So I had to confess not only the act of putting myself in the center where only God belongs (Sin with a capital “S”) but also make explicit (in detail) as many of the shadowy deeds and thoughts as I could see at the time.  I was told to make a list of all people my behavior had injured. This act of confession of what I could see brought a number of hidden sins and unconscious self-centeredness and habits out of my unconscious and into my memory and helped expel them and their destructive power from my heart.

I had to find a small group of men on this spiritual journey to find the courage to even see much less confess before another person.  But I discovered that was evidently normative behavior for the early Christians (e.g. “Make this your common practice.  Pray together and confess your sins to each other so you can live together whole and healed.”  James 5:16, The Message).

Over the years as I confessed to God all the specific sinful acts I could recall, the past felt clean and not as painful.  I began to realize (and it took a number of years and different groups and mentors) that I am forgiven.  I could embrace the gift of a new chance at life.  It is as if God has erased the black board on which the sins I had confessed had been listed and handed over a piece of chalk and said, “Here, you can write a new chapter for your life.”  The peace, joy and motivation to live for God that come from these actions is incredible to me: one’s spiritual life can come alive!  But it has not felt like I was getting more religious, but rather more caring and sensitive—and real somehow—than I had ever been both to God and to the other people in my life.  And in looking back, I realize that the transforming work of God had begun to occur in my life.

In addition to the gift of a new life, God has given me the security of his love and forgiveness.  As a forgiven person, I don’t need to hide my Sin from God.  On the contrary, I can afford—and want to see even farther—even behind walls of delusion and denial—and begin to have a clearer and deeper view of the harmful behaviors and attitudes that have been brought on by Sin.  Then I pray sincerely for God to remove them.  I never thought I could do that.  Most of the things I’ve discovered about my selfish attitudes and behaviors were not even conscious to me when I began.

But how do we do this specific housecleaning today when everyone seems to be embarrassed by the idea of confession and horrified at the prospect of revealing anything that might make them look inadequate or sinful?  The saints have given us an answer to this dilemma regarding the exhuming of our buried sins—as a bathing and cleansing of the infectious self-destructive material.  But this course of action is so terrifying that many of us in contemporary religious denominations have discarded it as too severe a remedy—“exaggerated” by the writers of the past to pressure their disciples.  But this very attitude of thinking that they exaggerating their “righteousness” was an example of my projecting my own Sin of pretending to be better than I am.  And this hiding my own Sin by doubting the saints’ sincerity  is just another universal habit that is part of my Sin that has kept me from growing and finding the freedom and courage to receive and give love.

This is one way it works: we begin cleaning out the debris of the past by making a thorough examination of our own lives and bringing what we find out into the light (see 1 John 1:5-9).  We face these character defects and moral transgressions as thoroughly and honestly as we can—and go back and make things right where possible. (See Matthew 5:23)

And we also need to include the positive character traits and abilities that God has given us along with our list of sins.  Because these are some of the assets through which he will work to transform us into the people he designed us to be.

When we seriously commit our lives to God, it’s as if we are agreeing to transfer to him all the assets and liabilities of a business we own.  If we were doing that, we would take an inventory of the damaged goods and the valuable assets that are stored in the warehouse of the past.  And to transfer to God these things we must make the inventory very specific.

For instance, for years I would, on occasion, do something helpful for someone that might cost a significant amount of money or time.  I would tell myself (and sometimes the one “helped”) that I didn’t expect anything in return.  But if the person I’d helped did not express what I considered to be “reasonable” gratitude, I resented him or her—a lot.  I finally realized that my real motive was not just to be loving, but that giving of my help had been sort of an “investment” for which I expected a dividend: to feel like and look like a good  Christian.  My dishonesty about my expectations also set me up to resent people I wanted to help.  So my failure to clean my own house made me into a “generous” Pharisee.

This may sound bizarre to you.  It did to me for years.  But I was fortunate enough to get caught in a serious moral failure and that destroyed and/or almost destroyed my deepest relationships.  I hope you won’t have to do that to find the life, love and settledness about who you are and what you’re “designed” to do and be in your life.  Thanks for asking that question.  It made me feel closer to you, and my prayers come with this for this new chapter in your adventure with God.[1]

Lord, thank you that you forgive us our Sins, especially when we can become aware of them and confess them to you.  Help us to allow you to transform us into the people you designed us to be.  And Thank you for such an incredible opportunity.  In Jesus name, amen.

“This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God.” (Matt. 5:  23-24) (In other words this kind of honesty takes precedence for Jesus even over public worship.)

“If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves.  A claim like that is errant nonsense.  On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself.  He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing.  If we claim that we’ve never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God—make a liar out of him.  A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God.”

1 John 1: 8-10 The Message

Angry All the Time

by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

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 that he’d discovered that explosive anger was really the other side of a fear.  He suggested that I might ask myself “What am I afraid of?” when I get angry.

So the next time my wife gave me some suggestion that I interpreted as “being criticized” I started to get very angry.  But I remembered what my mentor had said and asked myself, “What are you afraid of losing Keith, or not getting, or feeling.”  And the answer to those questions was pretty clear.  I was afraid I’d look like a weakling to my wife (as my father appeared to me to be when my mother criticized him in front of his sons).  Other times I was angry because I was afraid my wife’s criticism was a veiled warning that she didn’t respect me as I am or might not want to make love to me.

In fact over a period of time I realized that most of my anger was because I was afraid what someone did or said that “made me angry” would make me lose something I didn’t want to do without, like respect, reputation, money or love—or the fear beneath my anger (at something someone did or said) was the fear that I wouldn’t get something I wanted very much to have (like a promotion at work or to be elected to an office in an organization).  I began to see my anger is often about my own fears that I am not enough (of a man, a father, a husband, a lover, a valued worker, or friend) or that I’m not a fair, generous and/or caring person.  (Of course that attitude made me a little more difficult to live with.)

My question then was, “How can I overcome the fear feelings of imaginary loss and shame that trigger my anger at people who say or do things I think might hurt my reputation as an intimate, unselfish and caring man?  I’ve discovered that my outbursts of anger only work to make me look precisely like the selfish, uncaring and week defensive person I do not want to be seen as.

In our group I learned the biblical truth that we could begin to get over our fears of inadequacy by confessing our attempts to control other people’s opinion by being angry, shaming the one trying to straighten us out, etc.  The writer of the book of James advises new Christians to “confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed.” (James 5:16, The Message).   And sure enough, by confessing to my small group my petty angry responses that shame or put down people who trigger my anger/fear, I began to be able to hold my tongue and listen to criticism aimed at me.  This has a wonderful effect in our home (when I finally really wanted to know what I was doing that hurt my family members so I could quit hurting them.)[1]

I guess what God has been doing for me is showing me through the men who are on the same spiritual journey I’m on, is that when I could surrender my whole life to God, then I was on a search to discover and offer to God the very things I’d been hiding and was afraid I’d be rejected for feeling or thinking.

This didn’t happen overnight, and it is only a part of the way of living for God in all areas of our lives.  This is a journey I’m still on after more than forty years, and it has has already transformed my life and relationships more than I would have imagined—even though I’m still seeing new aspects of my self-centeredness and lack of concern for others.

But the bottom line discovery I’ve made with regard to the anger question you wrote about is that it is not the courage I was looking for to face the fear I’d hidden from, courage that would cause the fears to be defeated.  I learned that when I began to pay attention and care about other people who were struggling with problems in their lives and relationships—when I cared about them that way—I was actually loving them.  I never would have guessed that when I was actually loving that way I would not be afraid.  Jesus said it this way:  “You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.” (Mt. 5: 7, The Message)

I know this may sound naïve or simplistic, but I don’t care how it sounds, because the honest truth is that this way of life some of us are trying to live is actually giving self-centered fearful and even angry people like me a whole new way to live and love, and let God and other people love us as we seriously buy into the process of living to help other people.  And although I am still just beginning to learn the power of God’s way of loving to make angry fearful cowards into caring and happy and helpful people, I can say to you from one who is only a work in progress that Jesus was really on target regarding the anger-fear problem when he said that it is “perfect love—not courage—that casts out fear.”

Lord, help us to put our lives in your hands—seriously to trust you to lead us into the courage and willingness that can transform us into the courageous lovers we—and people everywhere—are longing to be—beneath the anger that is driving us apart.  Amen

When Prayer Feels Like ‘Talking To Myself’

by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

Sometimes when I’m praying my rational mind jumps in and says, “Do you suppose anybody is really listening?”  Or I simply wonder if I’m talking to myself.  That often makes me want to stop praying until I feel clear about God’s presence.  But then I feel bad because I’m not praying regularly.  It’s a vicious cycle that seems to engulf me at times.  Does this ever happen to you?  And if so, what do you do to get past it?

As I read your question, I thought of the dozens and dozens of times this has happened to me.  And when it does, I almost invariably feel as if I must be doing something wrong and need to “straighten out my life” so that I can get through to God better.

But I came to realize a long time ago that this experience of doubt in the midst of prayer is just part of the human condition.  Yet many people I’ve talked with have been taught that it means some hidden evil is in our lives—and of course that can be sometimes.  But when that occurs to me I just ask God to show me anything that is blocking my relationship with Him—or other people—and to help me face what ever comes up—and ask Him to help me deal with it.

I suppose Paul is right in implying that we all will see through a glass dimly as long as we are in our human bodies.  But it also makes me realize that there are a lot of notions about prayer that are simply not true and distract us and tempt us to withdraw or sit in judgment of the real rough and tumble struggles that are evidently parts of everyone’s experiences of trying to communicate with the living God.

This notion that if I am really in a good relationship to God I will always feel the warmth of His presence when I am praying to Him is, for me, a gross misconception and was certainly not Jesus’ experience (he “sweated blood” praying in Gethsemane).  I am always reminding new Christians that Jesus did not say to me, “I will give you goose bumps.”  Instead, he said, “I will be with you unto the end of the age.”  Goose bumps represent physiological feelings, not faith.  If we have the goose bumps, we don’t really need faith to believe God is with us.  Faith has to do with believing when there is no physical evidence that convinces the mind.  In other words, on those mornings when I get up and do not feel God’s presence, I now thank Him that He is with me even though I don’t have a lot of excited feelings.  I tell him I want to give Him back the only thing I really can give Him and that is the gift of faith for this day.  I tell Him that I am going to try to live as if I had enormous feelings of His presence.  This may sound like some sort of autosuggestion, but in fact it is simply behavior based on a belief in His word in the scriptures that He would be with us “day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.”  (Matthew 28: 20 The Message)

Another closely related misconception I have to fight my way through is that if I committed my life to God and gave my whole future to Him, then I would be happy and contented and would avoid the usual pains and agonies of life.  The assumption behind this kind of thinking is that suffering and pain are punishments for misbehavior or lack of commitment.  I’ve come to believe deeply that much of what we call suffering and pain are parts of the fabric of all living and can be important blessings.  And that what Christianity does, instead of eliminating these things, is to give them meaning.  As I confront the universal problems, doubts and heartaches of life, I find that they can bless me by teaching me how to love God and people better and make me more sensitive to my own needs to grow as I face pain the way our Lord did.  “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.”  Matthew 5:3 The Message

What’s happened to me in my prayer life is that instead of praying “Lord, take this anxiety and pain out of my life today,” I might pray (on my best days) something more like, “Lord, help me to understand why I’m anxious and to learn from this pain and agony I’m going through something about the meaning of life, and how to love people more nearly as you do.”  Then I am not so frightened about the anxiety that comes into my life.  It’s not that I don’t still have anxiety, but I don’t find so much fear about the experience of having it as I once did.  I realize now that difficulties, pain and frustration are always to be experienced somewhere in the life of people who are growing and developing, leaving old securities and trying to establish new ones.  I am more at home in the world and feel better when I come to God with these problems openly, rather than trying to get them all cleaned up before I come to Him in prayer.  And of course this means that I can come to Him anytime, since I know that He is not going to be disappointed in me for continuing to have problems that are a natural part of the fabric of living and particularly ‘growing’.

In my opinion God has not given us a “status” of perfection when we are filled with the Holy Spirit, but rather He has given us a process that allows spiritual growth and maturity to take place.  The process includes an awareness of sin or incompleteness, a struggle not to admit our own responsibility in the problem, a confession that in fact we have sinned, a turning to God and asking His forgiveness, and then a thanking Him that He builds His kingdom out of the broken pieces of our lives when we bring them to Him in prayer.  After this process there sometimes comes an understanding or a grasp of the sin in which we’ve been involved that can sometimes help me recognize sooner and avoid this sin.  As I see these kinds of insights age over the years in people’s lives, their ‘troubles’ may eventually be transmuted into what the Bible calls wisdom and understanding.  And as soon as one receives the forgiveness each time it is as if—in forgiving us—God has taken a damp cloth and wiped off the blackboard of our cortical slate so that our minds are clean and fresh.  Then He hands us a new piece of chalk to write the next chapter of our life on that day, that hour.  And the process repeats itself again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again . . . and again.

Lord, thank you that we can trust that you are with us whether we can “feel” your presence or not.  When experiences of doubt enter our minds, help us to remember your promise.  And Lord, as we encounter problems, pain, and struggles, help us to know that we can bring them to you so you can teach us what we need to know about our part in these problems.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

“I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.”

Mt. 28:18b, The Message

“The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.”

Hebrews 11:1  The Message

“I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge… Is there no one who can do anything for me?…The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does… With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.”

Romans 7:22 – 8:2  The Message

“It does sometimes happen that my prayers degenerate into introspection.  I can soon sense the difference: I begin, in fact, to listen to myself more than to God, to concentrate on myself instead of Him.  It is then that the human dialogue can help to revitalize the dialogue with God.  Contact with other Christians, their witness, what they have to say about their own experience of the activity of the Holy Spirit, renews the quality of my own prayer life.”

Paul Tournier, The Meaning of Persons, 169

Back to Basics

by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

Happy New Year!  During the last week of 2009, Andrea and I made some plans for 2010, including plans about this weekly blog.  We will be starting 2010 by addressing how one might deal with some of the basic questions of life from the perspective of living one’s entire life for Christ.  I’ll be writing blog posts about making a beginning (or renewed) commitment, about finances, sexuality, parenting, work, relationships, prayer and meditation, and many other topics.  I’ll start with questions I have already received, but I’m interested in hearing what’s on your mind right now.  So send in your questions.  We’ll keep your question anonymous when I address it.  If you prefer to send your question by mail (unsigned), send it to me at: P. O. Box 203061, Austin, Texas  78720-3061

Today I’ll begin with making a commitment to live for Christ.  The material for today’s post is excerpted from a booklet called “How Can I Find God?”  You can download the entire booklet (at no charge) from our web site at www.keithmiller.com under “Free Resources”.

HOW CAN I FIND GOD?

What Makes Us Ask the Question?

“I’ll never see my husband again.  He’s dead.”  … This intelligent, haggard-looking woman sitting across from me in my office was saying that suddenly she had realized she didn’t know God personally.  She was looking down at her hands which were clenched into fists, one holding a tear-soaked handkerchief.  Finally, after what seemed like several minutes, she looked up and asked quietly, “Keith, how can I find God?”

As I sat there thinking about her question, I could remember the faces of dozens of people who had sat in that chair over the years and in different ways asked that same question.  I could see again the bewildered look on the lovely white-haired lady’s face as she told me through her tears that she had committed adultery—after having been faithful to her husband for thirty years.

I felt once more the numb despair of a fifty-seven-year-old man.  Without any explanation, he’d just been fired from a fine position he’d held for twenty years.  He could find no other job.  The world has no use for the old—and “old” is getting younger every year.

Then there was that long line of ancient-looking teenagers.  They seemed to be feeling blindly along the wall of life looking for a doorway, wondering if there is any entrance to a world with meaning for them.  Was there anyone anywhere who would love them specifically?  Many of these emotional nomads with the haunted cynical eyes said they did not believe in God. Yet their presence in my office made their agnostic pronouncements sound a little hollow.

Finally, I saw the stunned faces of women whose confidence had been shattered when their husbands had deserted them for no apparent reason, and who were trying to put the pieces of their personal worlds back together.  They silently cried out for some new support since all the props which had held life in place for them had been swept away.

And many times through the specific disappointments and despair of all these people I had heard the deeper question they had not had time for when things were going well: “How can I find God?”

The Problem with Success

But I can also recall another sort of person who, far from having failed, had succeeded marvelously in life.  These were the fortunate ones who had reached the material or professional goals on which they had counted to bring them happiness and fulfillment.  But to their surprise and confusion, the success many of them had sought so compulsively left them empty and alone.  The great purpose which had made their journey toward the top so exciting disappeared when the goal was reached.  Long-repressed anxieties and insecurities arose to fill their days and nights.  These men and women too asked, “What does it all mean?  Is there anyone out there beyond ourselves?  And if there is a God, how can someone like me find him?”

You may think I am painting a black picture of modern life—that I am exaggerating the problems, the loneliness and restless incompleteness around us.  But I do not think so.  … We seem to be caught up by forces both beyond and within us over which we have little control. …  And to people searching urgently for personal meaning and hope, the fact of God’s “existence” means very little if they cannot find him and know him personally.

A Case History

How does a person describe a new beginning with God as the motivating center of life without basing that experience on some vague mystical feeling?  How does an individual who wants to have intellectual integrity describe the experience of encountering God as the personal, the immediate, and limitless Thou in life?

(What happened to me that brought me to make a beginning commitment is too long to include here, but it’s in the booklet.)

Finding God Where You Are

I have become convinced that the things which keep us from finding a live relationship to God are often not the bad things in our lives, but the good things which capture our imaginations and which keep us from focusing on Jesus Christ.  I think this accounts for much of the frustration of moral people.  One looks around and says: “No stealing, no murder, no adultery!  Why, God, am I so miserable and frustrated in my life?”  But we have not seen the fact that we have never really offered God the one thing he asks—our primary love.

What do we do when we find out that we love something more than God?  For me it was rather terrifying, because that which was keeping me from the freedom of Christ was my desire to be a great Christian leader!  It seems evident that our decisions will ultimately be made to conform with whatever has truly captured our imagination.  My own decisions and sacrifice were not being made purely to love and feed Christ’s sheep out of obedience and love of him. Rather, my decisions were made to help the church’s work (my work) to its greatest fulfillment.  This led to chaos and frustration.

When we see and can honestly face the fact that our world is really centered in something besides God, in ourselves, I think we face the most profound crossroads in our lives.  Because this is to recognize that we have separated ourselves from God by taking God’s place in the center of our own little world.

What do we do?  For me the answer is paradoxically the simplest and yet the most difficult thing I have ever done.  In our age of complexity we want a complex answer, but Christ seems to give us instead a terribly difficult one.  I think there are basically two things involved in coming to God at the center of life: (1) to tell God that we do not love him most and confess specifically what it is that we cannot give up to him; and (2) to ask God in the personality of Jesus Christ to come into our conscious lives through his spirit and show us how to live our lives for him and his purposes, one day at a time.

But what if you recognize that you honestly do not want God more than whatever is first in your life?  I think this is where a good many perceptive people find themselves.  In that case I would recommend that you (1) confess (as above) and then (2) tell Christ that honestly you cannot even want him most.  Tell him that you want to want him most (if you do), ask him to come into your life at a deeper level than you have ever let him before, and give him permission to win you totally to himself.  This may be your first honest encounter with Christ, and he will take you wherever you are.  As a matter of fact I believe this is really all any of us can do — give God permission to make us his. I, nor anyone I’ve known well, could not be his by our own strength of will.

If you made this new conscious beginning in a conversation with me, this is what I would tell you: From now on you are not responsible to exert the pressure or to carry the burden of muscling yourself up to be righteous.  You are not promising to change, or to have strength, or to be a great Christian.  You have only confessed your need and turned your life over to Christ.  What a relief!  It is his responsibility to furnish the forgiveness and motivating energy for you to live in a new and creative way.

***

Now you can begin a whole new way of living—at your own address!

Dear Lord, Thank you for your never wavering commitment to be with us and guide us.  Help us to find the courage and humility to begin to recognize what we may love more than we love you, and help us to come clean and confess whatever it is to you, and give you permission to draw us more and more toward loving you with everything we’ve got!  In Jesus’ Name, amen.

Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got!  Deut. 6:5, The Message (See also Matt 22:37-40).

Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence…[and] love others as well as you love yourself.”  Matt 22:37-40 The Message

P.S.  If you would like to learn more about living your entire life for Christ, try the newly released Third Revised Edition of The Taste of New Wine, available at www.keithmiller.com/store/

Some Good News about Some Bad News

by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

Keith, just before Christmas this year I had my annual physical (which I’ve always passed with flying colors).  This time my Internist went over a shockingly long list of borderline results that indicated I need to watch everything I eat, get regular exercise and get some sleep. 

That evening I was stunned to realize that with no medical training at all my wife and my college football player son have been telling me—no pleading with me—for years to do virtually the same things.  The doctor’s conclusions have confirmed that they were not nagging but trying to save my life.  But I have just gotten angry with them, especially when my wife uses as her discouraged exit line, “You’re just like your father!” 

It’s true that I was very angry with my father for not taking care of himself and dying young.  Maybe I am like him!  But how can knowing that help me through this paralysis?  Help!

Horribly good question!  Look, I’m an old man and I’m realizing that a lot of “answers” and advice people give me just don’t work for me.  Even though I’m almost as old as dirt, I have noticed recently that my glasses are not as good as they used to be, I’m taking a fist full of vitamins and prescription drugs, the names of which I can’t pronounce, and in my gym suit I look to be about seven months pregnant—only I’m a man. 

On top of that, to find out what’s really going on with me I have to pay attention to the people who love me most in my family.  So I am familiar with people urging me to change.  All I can do that may or may not help you is to tell you how a memory about my father came to me in the office of a specialist my Internist sent me to because I was noticing that my family has been shouting at me.  This recent experience with the specialist reminds me of your situation because he gave me some pretty bad news about my future.

The doctor was being kind and yet direct, as good doctors often are when giving bad news to eighty-two year old patients.  “We don’t really know what happened but it’s apparent that you have lost almost a third of your hearing during the last few weeks.”

For a man who does a lot of counseling and consulting, that was not good news.

“What do you think is the cause,” I asked, “and, more important to me, what’s the prognosis?”

He wrinkled his brow and thought about that.  Then he said, “I don’t know.  There’s no tumor or the usual physical road signs that give us specific medical direction.  It may just be hereditary.  Were any of the old people in your family of origin deaf?”

“I don’t know,” I said.  “They all died when I was very young.  But I do remember that neither my mother and or my father was hard of hearing.”

As I said these words, however, a scene popped into my mind as I recalled how many times when I was a little boy I tried to talk to my father quietly when he was reading the paper or listening to the radio after office hours.  I saw again how he often didn’t even look up at me, and I concluded that he obviously just wasn’t interested in talking to me.  He kept his head buried in the newspaper as I’d walk away hurt and angry.  This is a very painful memory.

Then from the mists of that world long gone, I saw and heard another often-recalled scene: my mother was pleading with my father, “Earle, you are not even listening to me!”  And I saw again my father look up with that ambiguous questioning expression—neither acknowledging or denying what my mother had said.  I was about to get back into my childhood feelings of anger at my father’s “not caring for my mother enough” to answer her question or even acknowledge her having spoken to him.  Although I could still feel my own tight-chested feelings of shame at being ignored by that stony, silent man, I had repressed my own feelings and focused on the (more acceptable) anger at him for ignoring my mother, who did so much to make his life better.

Then without warning or reason in the doctor’s office seven decades later I had a clear and life-changing insight that had never even occurred to me before:  MY FATHER COULDN’T HEAR US!  He must have been going deaf and was too proud to let anyone know!  If that were true, maybe his not responding to my quiet attempts to interrupt his newspaper reading was not rejection as I had always thought at all.  And maybe his silent unsmiling  expression when he did realize someone was talking to him was a defensive move to give him time to try to figure out what had been said to him.  AND WE HAD ALL FELT REJECTED BY HIM!  (Except my older brother who had Dad’s total attention any time his oldest son was on the premises—because they were soul mates.)

The doctor was kind as he concluded his explanation of hereditary deafness.  “Keith, if it’s hereditary, there is nothing you can do except get good hearing aids, pay close attention when people speak to you, and put up with the irritation people sometimes have when an older family member doesn’t hear them.  It’s sad, but some of them may think you just aren’t interested enough to care what they are saying.”

But I could hardly hear what the doctor was saying because I was elated, smiling from ear to ear.  The doctor looked puzzled.  When I saw the doctor’s expression at my elated reaction to the possible death sentence of my hearing (which he knew was especially valuable to me in my life and work), I shook my head to let him know I wasn’t laughing at him.  And my joy was certainly not because I’m going deaf.

I was laughing because after seventy-five years of painful childhood memories of thinking my father ignored me and didn’t want to answer my personal daddy questions when we were alone—I’d finally just realized that my father’s problem was not disdain!  He just couldn’t hear my shy little boy questions—and when he did notice I was pleading with him, he was ashamed to admit that he was going deaf.

Suddenly my wife and kids didn’t seem so “nagging.”  In fact the Lord seemed to have been giving them injections of higher I.Q.  Although I can still hear many things with my wonderful hearing aids, I have gone public to my family and people I see regularly thanking them for their patience and perseverance in urging me to get help.  Also, I’ve admitted that I still miss a lot that is being said to me, and ask for patience.

As I’m writing this I am very grateful that whatever happens to my hearing—or my sight—at the heart of Jesus’ good news about God  the Father is that he will always be listening to and reaching out to love me—even if I wind up alone with Him in a soundless world.

I don’t know if this experience will help you, but it caused me to adjust my whole life and my exercise and sleeping habits to get in shape.

Dear Lord, thank you that you have promised that you will never leave me or forsake me if I call upon you from my heart.  Help me to learn to listen more carefully, and pay close attention to the people close to me so that they will know that I am listening and that I love them deeply and really want to change, and to hear them and whatever it is they are saying to me—even if they have to say it more than once.  Amen.

When troubles come and all these awful things happen to you, in future days you will come back to God, your God, and listen obediently to what he says.  God, your God, is above all a compassionate God.  In the end he will not abandon you, he won’t bring you to ruin, he won’t forget the covenant with your ancestors which he swore to them.

Deuteronomy 4:30-31, The Message

What was God Trying to Say?

by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

Keith, the stores have been full of Christmas decorations and the radio has been playing Christmas carols, songs and ads for it seems like forever.  Addressing Christmas cards, shopping for gifts for my family and friends—somehow I’m getting worn out with it all.  Do you have any ideas that could help me keep my focus on the real meaning of Christmas while inundated with wall to wall sound bite advertising?

As I began to reflect on your question about the almost urgent need to recover the real meaning of Christmas in terms that can break through the noise of the commercials, I let my mind slip into an imaginative memory world of midnight masses, children’s Christmas Eve services, the music of open-mouthed choirs mingled with deep resonant voices reading Christmas scriptures.

In my imagination, I saw again Scrooge, Christmas Past, and the transforming power of Tiny Tim on crutches. I saw tired, irritated parents wrapping presents.  Dancing in their heads were not sugar plums, but doubts about “Did we do enough?” or “Did we do too much?” And last, fathers alone at 2:00 a.m., trying to put together complicated toys or doll houses by sparkling Christmas trees, surrounded by layers of brightly-colored presents of all sizes and shapes.

And finally, near dawn in the blinking darkness of the tree lights, the small wooden figurines of the manger scene on the mantle seemed to come to life.

What had God really been trying to say on that first Christmas night?  Had the cultural acid rain of our anxious holiday energy-storm dissolved God’s purposes?

As I recalled the familiar biblical passages, I began to see that the story didn’t look “religious” at all.  It was a wonderful love story about a lovely, still teenaged young woman and a vigorous young man, who were engaged to be married.  But their romance was interrupted when Mary was visited by an angel named Gabriel.  His message—totally incredible to Mary—was that God Himself was going to make an extended personal appearance as a human being.  That would have been startling enough—since it had never happened before—but Gabriel went on to say, “Mary, you have been chosen by God to be the mother of a baby that is somehow going to be conceived in your womb by God!  And the baby’s name will be Jesus.”

This baby would grow up to deliver a remarkable, loving message—a personal introduction to God, an offer of intimacy with God.  In some strange trans-rational way, Jesus would be the Love, the Introduction, and the Intimacy—in a living person.  The Truth about Life was to be conveyed through a multiple progression of living, healing actions from Jesus to people, and from those whom He touched to others.

In a mysterious way, the Christmas story of this young couple seems to have been God’s way of saying that He Himself—as well as His Message—will come most fully into the human scene in the context of loving family, of intimate community.

From this unknown young family, God would send Himself forth in Jesus as a message of love and an invitation to all people everywhere to invite the people in the whole world into an intimate relationship with Himself as Father and with them as His children.  God sent Jesus to make sure that down the ages we would both hear His unique message and offer of caring, and in an unprecedented way, actually meet God personally in the behavior, the teaching, the personal sacrifice, and most of all in the character and personality and self-limiting love of Jesus.

And finally, as this reflection/waking dream is ending, I realize that something has happened to me while I pondered the story of Jesus’ birth and let it come close to my heart.  As I listened to and saw the Christmas story through the magnifying lens of prayerful imagining, it felt very different:  less like an olivewood manger scene, more down-to-earth, personal and interactive—yet paradoxically, more holy somehow.  I am seeing in a new way that God’s gift of His healing, restoring power is available to you and to me, now, through Jesus.

The question of Christmas for me is:  Even with His help can I dare to risk being really authentic and loving and to walk confidently in God’s way—as Mary and Joseph did that first Christmas—not knowing the outcome?

So my own response to your question of what you can do to help keep your focus on the real meaning of Christmas is this:  as you and I realize that God may really love us, we can look for people who are not feeling loved, and who may not be able to “afford” Christmas.  We can then find some personal way to help them in whatever way we can to have a better Christmas day than they would have had you not asked your question.

Jesus, thank you for showing me in living color how I can reflect God’s authentic, loving way of life.  Life’s stresses pressure me toward taking control, hiding from reality, and medicating my pain with purchases, food, and competitive present buying.  Thank you, thank you, that your healing power can restore us all to the authentic, loving way of living for which we were made.  As we think about the story of your entry into humanity that we will celebrate in a few days, help us to dare to risk reaching out and being more authentic and loving—even in our own families—even though we don’t know the outcome—if we take a step out of ourselves for You.  In Jesus’ Name, amen.

…God sent the angel Gabriel to the Galilean village of Nazareth to a virgin engaged to be married to a man descended from David. His name was Joseph, and the virgin’s name, Mary. Upon entering, Gabriel greeted her:
Good morning! You’re beautiful with God’s beauty, beautiful inside and out! God be with you.

She was thoroughly shaken, wondering what was behind a greeting like that. But the angel assured her, “Mary, you have nothing to fear. God has a surprise for you: You will become pregnant and give birth to a son and call his name Jesus.”
Mary said to the angel, “But how? I’ve never slept with a man.”

The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you.  The power of the Highest hover over you; Therefore, the child you bring to birth will be called Holy, Son of God.”

Luke 1:26-32, 33-35, The Message

People Experiencing Reorientation May Seem “Out of It”

by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

Keith, our teenaged son went to a summer camp a normal, interesting kid who was only interested in football (and, I assume, sex).  But when he got home last week he was a religious freak, spouting Bible verses out of context with his eyes shining like his team had just won state.  I’m a church going Christian and we’ve prayed he’d do the same.  But as you once said to me, about another matter, we must have “over-prayed.”  What can we do?

A funny thing happened years ago at our house.  One of my daughters (as a teen) was learning to drive.  She had always been aware of where we were and where we are going when we are out driving.  I am not.  I often drive for blocks past a turn-off, with my mind a thousand miles away.  This daughter was the one who often sat beside me and whispered, “This next block is our turn, Daddy.”  She knew our town with her eyes closed.

But when she got behind the wheel for the first time in traffic, it was as if we were in a new city:  “Do I turn here, Daddy . . . Is this the right street?”

I was amazed and thought at first she was teasing me.  But then I saw that she was not.  A town that she had known like the back of her hand as a passenger became a strange and foreign place when she became responsible for the minute-by-minute decisions of driving.  She had to look for a whole new set of objects and distances—cars backing out of driveways, dogs and children starting for the street, vehicles at intersections, all kinds of street signs, in addition to everything behind her in the rearview mirror.   With all of these new things on which to focus—which had heretofore been only a part of the background—she felt as if she were in a different world.

I started to tell her to “Pay attention to what you are doing!”  Then I realized that she was very serious and was paying attention.  But she was experiencing a reorientation in the same situation because of trying to focus on different elements of her environment.  So I said nothing and kept telling myself it was the end result of her training which was important.

As we drove along, I began to understand why it may be that newly committed Christians appear to be sort of “out of it.”  For a while, they seem to be like new drivers behind the wheel—in a kind of daze in which the world they have known appears to be totally different.  Because of accepting the responsibility of a new relationship with God and focusing on loving Him and his people, they seem to be unaware of things and people to whom they once paid attention quite naturally.  Many ministers or relatives are hurt and surprised when a church member gets “turned on” at some sort of lay renewal meeting and begins paying less attention to them while focusing on new Christian friends.  They often suspect that the new commitment might have been to a cult of some sort of self-centered pietists.  The temptation is to be very judgmental of people experiencing this reorientation[1].

I do not know how one really ought to handle this situation.  But by the end of the week (in our car) I noticed that my daughter knew where she was again.  And now she can include both the old things she used to see . . . and the new things she needed to see to grow up and get on down the road.

When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is. When we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.

Goethe[2]

as quoted in Psychological Foundations of Education

In training a horse, it is important not to break his spirit because it is his spirit, during and after the training period, which will determine his style and endurance.  Does education, we may ask, allow for the ex­pression of the wildness of vitality during the educational process, or does it repress vitality in the interest of form and conformity?

Reuel Howe

The Miracle of Dialogue[3]

Lord, help us to be patient with new Christians who seem to have lost their perspective as they have entered a new relationship with you.  If they become temporarily blinded to the ordinary responsibilities and the old friends around them, help us to provide an atmosphere in which this new relationship with You can be tested and translated into deeper relationships with people.  Help us in the church to let new Christians enjoy the excitement of discovery without our hypercritical judgment—even though there may be some anxious moments about their soundness and responsibility.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”  But others, mocking, said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Acts 2:12, 13

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

[2] Morris E. Eson, Psychological Foundations of Education (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965), 39.

[3] Reuel Howe, The Miracle of Dialogue, (Greenwich, CT: Seabury Press, 1963), 124.

A Living Library of Wisdom from God

by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional

Keith, how can I help people in trouble if I don’t know many Christian answers?

In the early years after I made a commitment to Christ I got the idea that I was supposed to have “Christian answers” to people’s problems.  So I repeated a few answers I’d learned from “old-timers” to people in trouble who came to me.  I was surprised to discover most people didn’t respond well to these “answers.”  It took me a while to realize that in the first place I can’t really help people as Jesus did until I at least listen to them and find out a little about who they are, where they came from before I met them and they shared their problem with me. I began to understand that God is almost the only one who is always ready to listen.  Many of us who are His followers are too busy talking to listen to people with the calm accepting love that God does. So now I try to listen longer and more carefully before I say anything about their “presenting” problem, even though it’s not easy to keep listening when someone says something that triggers one of my old “answers.”

I was surprised to learn that often the problem someone presents is not what is really bothering him or her, but more of a decoy—to see how I respond.  Will I be accepting or just spout pat answers? The real problem is usually something the person feels he or she should not have (as a grown-up or as a long-term Christian) and is afraid of being rejected because of having it. 

Sometimes by listening I discover whether the individual really wants to be healed.  Sometimes people unconsciously keep God’s kind of healing at a distance by enjoying always being the sick one, the abused one, the deserted one who has been wronged. 

But either way, as I listen I try to recognize how the person is feeling and to remember how I’ve felt when I have experienced that problem, or known about it.  I respond by briefly telling my own personal experience and how painful it felt or ashamed I was when I experienced it.  And when I do that, often something happens that changes the atmosphere that the person wanting help and I share.

The person may realize that he or she is not alone with this problem—and that what he or she is feeling is totally “normal” (though possibly very painful and guilt producing).  This realization may calm fears and anxiety enough so that we can discover together steps to take to resolve or accept the situation. Often it is the feelings of anger, shame or guilt about having the problem that blind one to possible new approaches to solving or accepting the problem.  

The simple idea (of listening first) led to a change of perspective that was very freeing to me.  I’m convinced that sometimes people want just to be heard, known and understood.  When they feel that they are known and accepted they may be able to set aside even painful feelings and experience the relief of a resolution or acceptance. If someone else notices the person’s improved mood and asks about it, my experience indicates that the person usually doesn’t say, “I’ve found someone with great answers.” Instead the newly relieved person is more likely to be thankful and tell his or her friends “Here’s someone who helped me see who I really am.” 

Lord, help us to learn to surrender our lives to you and pay attention to what is happening to us, so that we can learn from the painful experiences in our lives.  Help us to accept painful rejection and failure as a future drawbridge across which we can bring others into our lives to be introduced to Your kind of love and attention that transforms even the more devastating pain, loss and despair into Your kind of wisdom and healing love—that can become the most creative “solution” to life’s most difficult problems.  Thank you that these lessons can become parts of the living library of wisdom from You that we’ll need in order to let people know there is hope for them beyond the pain and fear they are now experiencing.

And thank You, Lord, that You waited for me to get through with all my rejection of You and then the superficial play-like commitments that I made early in my life.  Help me to keep listening to those other hurting, lonely and marginalized people in whom You said we’d meet You and find the Life You brought to share with us.  In Jesus’ name, amen.

Back in the village she told the people, “Come see a man who knew all about the things I did, who knows me inside and out.  Do you think he could be the Messiah?  And they went out to see for themselves.”

John 4:28-30, The Message