#Rethink - July 2020
#Rethink - July 2020
Hey there July! This month we are contemplating the Kingdom, questioning calling, and exploring holistic spirituality.
What if Believers were as passionate about the Kingdom as they are about their political side?
Worldly governments and politicians will never save us. And they can't actually usher in the utopia they promise (and that we long for). The drama, and anger, and reaction surrounding politics these days is frightening to me--especially when I see how passionately involved some believers in Jesus have become.
This world is broken! And human governments will never be able to fix that. Look at history; it's not gonna happen. People are too corrupted by sin. We love power, and money, and status too much.
But what if believers in Jesus truly believed in His Kingdom? What if all of their passion was funneled into helping other people to find a relationship with the Creator God and advancing the inside-out, backwards, and upside-down Kingdom of Jesus Christ?
What stops our passion for Jesus and His Kingdom?
Does God feel REAL real to you? Why or why not?
How can we take practical steps to advance the True Kingdom?
"So what if each crack in our hearts and every hole in our lives--from the loss of our health or status or power to our lack of a spouse or a child or a career--was the gap through which divine grace waited to flow? What if our humbled status made us ready for the using, our sufferings poised to bring little resurrections?" - Sheridan Voysey
I've been working my way through this delightful little book called The Making of Us: Who We Can Become When Life Doesn't Go as Planned by Sheridan Voysey. The book is simple, just chronicling an eight-day pilgrimage Sheridan took across England with a friend, but the truths it shares are profound. It's been like a refreshing drink on a hot day and I've found myself underlining and starring almost every time I pick it up.
Disillusionment. Have you been there? Things fall apart and we start to wonder about God and about ourselves. "I don't even know who I am any more." Have you ever thought that? I definitely have.
What if there isn't just one purpose for our lives? What if we don't have just one calling? What if we need to lose our identity in order to discover who we really are?
I finished my class on executive functions last week. It was truly eye opening. I've talked about this before, but as a reminder executive functioning is the ability to use a certain set of skills both to control your own behavior and to manipulate information so that you can achieve genuine learning. That's a mouthful.
As I explored these skills--working memory, problem solving, cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, planning, reasoning, and self-awareness--I wondered what it would look like if we saw our spirituality as holistic rather than separating it from the rest of our lives.
Too often in the realm of Christainese we tell people to "have more faith," or "pray more," or "read Scripture." But we don't recognize that problems won't be solved with just a quick spiritual band-aid. What if instead we saw ourselves as a creation that is a blend of physical and spiritual? What if we focused on building executive functioning skills within our spiritual journey? Imagine these skills being taught in discipleship and used in spiritual growth:
Problem Solving
Defining a problem
Generating possible solutions
Cognitive Flexibility
Changing perspectives
Being creative
Planning
Setting goals and managing time
Considering future consequences in light of current actions
These are just three of the seven categories for executive functions that I learned about and the skills within them are just a few examples. I love considering the possibilities for Christian discipleship in a holistic environment. What do you think? How would this be different from the discipleship you've experienced?
Thanks for taking a moment to #Rethink some of our religious traditions and beliefs. I know that it can be scary to deconstruct and reconstruct our faith, but finding the Real Jesus is absolutely worth it. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts, questions, or comments.
If you know someone who would love to #rethink, please share!
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