10 Habits to Break (and NOT live by) :: small.

Small.

I often look down when I walk.  I do the same when riding trails on my mountain bike or hiking wooded paths.  This is not good practice and does little to keep me aware of all around and ahead of me.

My concern paints the world small and keeps my eyes gazing down at the day known.  The trouble with living this way lies in much of life peripheral being threatened by my thin awareness.

If I only train myself to see now, tomorrow stays hushed and faded in hopes and dreams that remain foreign in the unseen distance just ahead and around me.

When all we see is 'smalled' to now, our effort, too, slows to the shape of what we see.  So if we are cornered by disappointment and let downs, possibility of things better and life bigger seem to belong to others reaching for more.

The future belongs to those able to see beyond now.  It is then that life isn't mastered by moments but always vibrant, even through swelling waves tossing unfavorable.

Seeing life further requires recognizing life bigger than now.

In a word, faith.

Now here's where faith gets a bit twisted: faith isn't indestructible belief that blooms from a strong heart.  Faith is the humble confession of those broken by life and unresolved by the realization that you cannot possibly do it in your own.  So we bow in the smallness of who we are and trust for more; we never stay in the smallness.

God dwells all around and outside of the small.  He is forever beyond limitations felt in small moments able to lift you to the broad expanse of all ahead and beyond now.

Otherwise, your eyes are trained to look inwardly to your heart and ambition and effort - small becomes your outlook.  That's when life shrinks around the immediacy of now and left to be counted good in easy times and bad in difficulty.

Proverbs 3 gives sound advice that you should paint on the walls of your heart and ring in your confession.  Our response to life high and low should be full trust in God, who adequately authors the story of who you are.  We fully trust in rejecting self reliance and holding to God's bigger in our lives.

After all, the story belongs to the author, not the character.

(*image credit: ikea.com)

10 Habits to Break :: procrastination

There is a rhythm to all that we do, and don’t do.

What we allow and avoid, what we do and don’t and how we invest in the day and waste apparent opportunities serves to give insight to who we are, what we believe true and even our trust in all that is bigger, in God.

Despite common knee-jerk response, procrastination isn’t a total package negative thing.  Quite simply, procrastination is to intentionally delay in doing something.  Not completing an assignment could be the result of not knowing how to complete the assignment.  The inactivity cannot be a fully bad thing if the alternative is to complete the assignment incorrectly.  This space, or pause, on the way to finishing the assignment can be the precise place of learning and maturity. Often, in difficulty, learning escapes us.

As we sat there angled across from each other at the dining table, she just stared at the problem, deadlocked in can’t and frustrated with my question.

“What do you think?” I asked.

Silence hung between us as if she didn’t hear my question so after an extended pause, I asked her again, and again.  Finally, she forced out a frustrated response making it clear that if she did know, she wouldn’t just be staring at the problem but would solve it.

Elizabeth, my oldest, is a lot like me, in that she fears not being able to measure up to who and what she should be in her mind.  I struggle with it as a writer, as a father, as a son and everything else that I set out to accomplish.  If I can’t win, I quit.  It’s the reason I quit writing my book hundreds of times before I thankfully finished.  Just as Lizzie was deadlocked in her inability to solve a new mathematical word problem, I disengage in times I don’t have the answer, can’t see the process to completion or don’t know how to handle myself.

Procrastination, in and of itself, is not the enemy, but a needful pause to impulse or incomplete thought calling for space to process.  And yet if inactivity is the only effort given, procrastination grows into habitual response.

More so, the cause for procrastinate behavior allowed and extended must be dealt with.  I have to overcome fear of failure, disappointment or inability, in times of procrastination to avoid habit setting in deep ruts and rhythms in my life.

Back at the table, in the paralyzing silence between us, I asked a new question, one that nudged her thoughts into action.  I didn’t give her the answer to her problem directly, but tried to lead her to fearlessly trying even though she was insecure in her ability to answer correctly.  The point wasn’t whether or not she answered correctly, but that she moved from inactivity to activity as to avoid procrastination only setting in as a defining habit in difficulty.

Simply, she solved the problem she thought unsolvable by continuing.  It’s amazing the things we could do if we only did not procrastinate them away.  Snoozing the alarm clock every morning could be just snoozing the alarm clock, or it could be a habit chosen, given space to grow and affect your action and aim in life.  Just as waiting until the eleventh hour to finish a project you committed to, avoiding responsibility while given to any and all available distractions, rescheduling meetings, pausing in pursuit of a dream bigger than yourself and shelving all hope that you can accomplish what you set out to.

Procrastination delays many abled men from doing what they ought to do - but it is always the man who determines himself not abled that habit of delay becomes a growing regular foe.

In breaking unwanted, unhelpful habits, it is not enough to just stop doing something.  That habit must be replaced with a better understanding.

In each moment I begin to fade from difficulty and withdraw to inactivity, I pray for the grace God has built into each day.  Whether I lack the creativity to transpose thoughts to paper accurately or parent my daughters through difficult waters, grace gives me the courage to pause properly knowing that God will be faithful to lead me through.

image credit: philnel.com

a note to fathers, and one for me to remember.

Unpack.

Unload.

Give up. Stop.

There is One who's valiantly walked a sorrowful path our feet could never belong to, who's shoulders bore burden alien to our own, who's heart swallowed life and death, fear and frailty, strength and worry and owns belonging both now and forevermore.  The role of hero forever defined in victim so there would be no more standing alone, no more holding the skies from falling, balancing plates spinning or attempt at making life better.

That role is taken, and dad, that is not yours.

Sweat of your brow, brawn of your hand, both feeble at best; wrong at worst.

The struggle to a better life is not in your own effort.  In fact, better life is not real but a fallacy we strain for measured in possession, power and position.  The more we acquire the smaller we become, dwarfed amidst maintaining all we own.  We forget value and what really matters.  Your family doesn’t need more.  They need you.  And the best of you.

Sure, we must work with diligence and effort, but God does not bless your hard work.  God blesses the humble of heart, the man whose hands lay open before Him with full awareness of limitation and broken heart.  Effort will never earn you anything in God’s eyes.  He recognizes humble hearts who confess their need for rescue, for help.

The most effective move you will ever make as a father is to stop the struggle and in holy pause, learn how to follow the path Christ pioneered for us all.

Your family needs a leader; one who leads fearlessly and follows close.

Give your family a better life, not in possession piling high and then forgotten, but in grace realized, love practiced and peace reinforced.

Start by letting go of the heavy day you know, the one that owns your time and affection.  Open your hands calloused by the ineffectual strain of earning a better life to a new way of dependence and reliance and following.

The happiest of Father’s Day to you as you rest in His immeasurable ability to give you all that you (and your family) need.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:17, ESV)

(image credit: unknown)

known and found together in NYC.

Our feet made similar stride patterns on streets ringing old with history and ambivalence. We were later than we wanted to be and rushed to capture the night earlier lost to slower moving crowds and tourists like us staring at all the lights and glamour that New York City boasts.  This weekend was to unfold perfectly.  Just the two of us trapped in time and space by our own accord and agreement.  

We happily wanted to be there together but had different ideas of what being there was all about.  Plans were set months before for us to set out on our own for the first time.  A new family tradition set in place with full eager agreement as she approached her 10th birthday.  I proposed we escape to an adventure of her choosing, just the two of us.  I did it for memory’s sake, but more so as one of the wisest investments I’ll ever make.

More than her never forgetting this adventure, she will always remember it.  After all, that’s really what parenting is all about, isn’t it?

. . . helping them to remember who they should be and not forget.

Every time we tossed around ideas and plans for our trip to NYC, a smile graced her growing face and reminded me of her younger.  She was not younger any longer - she is not.

Our weekend planned for just the two of us had to be perfect in my mind.  Never before had I been so careful to organize a trip.  We made a list of all she wanted to do and set a plan on how to get it all done.  I’ll be honest and say that I felt like quite the parent in the days leading up to our daddy-daughter trip.  In being further honest, I should also say that the idea is not mine originally.  In the book “Love Does,” I read about a simple, astounding father in Bob Goff as he wrote about this approach with his own kids.  Still I staked claim in my parenting genius until we actually set foot in NYC.

We landed a bit later, the cab ride from the terminal took a bit longer and our room was a bit further from our first stop had to be made prior to dinner at the enchanting place of her choosing.  After 14 city blocks and hundreds of slow moving tourists, I noticed a silence hanging between us.  I checked in with her a few times asking if she was okay.  She met my concern with a simple and unconcerned, “yeah, I’m okay.”

The distance sensed between us began to set uneasily in me.  I had envisioned long walks to magical places enveloped by deep conversation welling from her heart.  Silence wasn’t anticipated.  Block after block, 5 to be exact; I kept count, I wondered exactly how she hurts, what thoughts plague her in the aloneness of her mental space - the feelings she doesn’t always know how to put words to - how those thoughts resolve, if they resolve or just keep ringing with no clear space to land and so on into and through meandering thoughts about her thoughts held to herself.

She just hoped for a weekend to explore a city bigger than she’s ever known with her dad who is often busy with all 3 to afford this much time to only 1, her.

And so, again, the student becomes teacher or maybe more precisely, the teacher learns to be a better student.

My daughters don’t need a father constantly looking and finding ready set to rescue them from anything and everything.  They need a dad who knows them because of days and time actually lived together - there in the moment, learning who they are stride by stride.

Parenting is living today in spite of and because of fears presently founded in tomorrow.

boys, dating - mistakes, driving - misuse, college - goodbyes, career - security, purpose - meaning and belonging, family - heritage, God - wholeness

Leading children into tomorrow is a daunting task unfit for those unwilling to learn better.

This is the lesson I learned better walking down Park Avenue her hurried stride matching my longer one: she wants to be known more than found.

The little girl, Elizabeth, I’ve come to know as Lizzie - remade in the months and years following her mother’s death into a young girl transcending tragedy with a learned lean on God’s mysterious grace - walked more than spoke and with every step I knew her more.

An hour later than I planned for, we sat at our little window table surrounded by more pink and frilly things than I’d like to recall.  Her little face flashed a smile as she took it all in, the glory of her moment together with me living a dream playing in her mind.  We talked about all sorts of things serious and simple and ridiculous.  Mostly the ridiculous won out though in snippets of jokes traded and adopted.

Gratitude and humility found me warmly there.  It was I who needed to be found most, and found I was by God’s simple goodness.

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love, its leaving and infinite sadness || A Deeper Story

Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break. - William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Maybe, William, but maybe a heart broken isn’t all bad.

I’m one of three given to my parents.  Two of us remain and one lives forever.

Today, here, he would have aged to 39.  I was 5 years old when he left this life, three years his younger.  I often speculate life uninterrupted; to be fully sandwiched between siblings, not just in thought, dream and memory but in aging days shared.  Heated arguments burning selfish, fights against each other proving strength and stubbornness, fights alongside each other ending those set to prove themselves against one of us, long days lost in the woods, dares given and challenges accepted, our younger sister’s boyfriends enduring the intimidation of both not one of us; in life together, pocketed and adorned jointly.

A sadness crawls still aging in his stead.  Hearts broken, mended and torn open again in days aging.

I know my family still grieves today in every one of its passings. And now so do my daughters in their own terrible way of losing their mother.

continue reading my monthly feature at A Deeper Story . . .