March 2023 – Betty's Thoughts

Living Radically – in your everyday life (Part Two)

As promised, here’s the rest of my list – things that have helped me grow. (For the first six items see Part One)

7. Make no assumptions that your “normal” life will stay normal. Small acts of radical discipleship often lead to bigger leaps of faith.

8. Look for opportunities to be generous in non-financial ways. Be generous with praise, with time, with compassion, with little acts of assistance. Learn people’s “love language” as part of your generosity to them.

9. Experiment with doing things anonymously. Being invisible for a season can be stretching and can drive you closer to the Father when your other sources of affirmation become unavailable.

10. Disrupt your routine from time to time. Continually look for opportunities to get out of your comfort zone. Do little things regularly (e.g., spend time with someone you wouldn’t normally spend time with) but occasionally do big things as well (e.g., a mission trip).

11. Admit that boredom is not an option as a lifestyle. If you are bored, ask Him what Kingdom work you are not seeing right around you.

12. Distinguish between appropriate self-care/relaxation/leisure and self-medication, avoidance or numbing behavior. I believe in “down time” and “just fun”. I spend time on the couch in front of the TV from time to time. Learn your needs (what nourishes you and refills your tank) but also learn what constitutes an unhealthy or unproductive escape. Brother Lawrence, in The Practice of the Presence of God, says something along these lines: “How sad it is to trade fellowship with God for the trivial.” [My paraphrase. After all these years I can’t guarantee it’s an exact quote.]

13. Recognize that your time – as well as your other resources – belongs to the Lord. And that includes your “job” time, not just your “discretionary” time. Do you feel a sense of call – either directly or indirectly – in what you do? Does your job allow you to accomplish or provide for things related to the Kingdom? Or does it interfere with your Kingdom call? Is there a persistent nudge from the Spirit that things are not right? Is there a nagging sense of “something more” that doesn’t go away. Pay attention. Ask the Lord what it means. Is the “location” not right? Is the work/family balance not right? Is timing/season of life an issue?

14. If hard things – job losses, economic shifts – occur, look for God’s hand and consider whether you’re being pushed out of the nest, being forced to do something you wouldn’t do on your own.

15. Hold “things” lightly. This is not an “anti-wealth”, “anti-nice things” statement. It is about availability, about not blindly buying into our culture’s view of consumerism. Be ready and willing to sacrifice “things”- if called to – for the greater joy of serving the Kingdom.

So, what have I missed? Any thoughts that should be added to the list?

Living Radically – in your everyday life (Part One)

[This was originally posted on March 18, 2012. The World Race, referenced here, is a program of Adventures in Missions, the organization I work for. Young adults, from 18-30 years old spend 9 or 11 months traveling around the world with just their hiking backpack, working with ministry partners.]

I thought about titling this “How to be a radical disciple without going on the World Race”. There are circumstances – such as the World Race – that seem inherently “radical”. The steps of faith, the ministry opportunities, the challenges and the Kingdom impact are all clear. The routines are less settled. The stories and pictures “prove” you are living radically.

But what if it is not that clear cut? What if you have to look for opportunities within your “ordinary” life? The desire to be a radical disciple stirs in many of us who live more “normal” lives, constrained by full-time jobs, family commitments, stage of life issues and the like. So how do we live as radical disciples?

I recently found a journal where I had begun to jot down thoughts. This isn’t a full discussion with all the appropriate qualifiers. It’s merely some thoughts from years of wrestling and seeking.

How to live as a radical disciple (the first 6 thoughts – with the rest of the list coming soon):

1. Take listening prayer seriously. Make a commitment ahead of time to believe that God will speak to you. Work toward instantaneous obedience when you know it is His voice. Believe He speaks in the little things (“go talk to that lonely person”) as well as the big things (“move to Africa”).

2. Do not disguise fear as wisdom. Be brutally honest. Resist the temptation to dismiss things by saying “I don’t think it is wise to …” when you really mean “I’m afraid to ….”

3. Don’t live self-protectively. You’ll know what this looks like in your own life. Maybe you begin to make decisions that the world might consider foolish. Or when you feel the Spirit’s nudge, you give away more than you think you can afford. But you make a daily choice to listen to Him first and then to trust Him to provide what you need – physically, emotionally, financially and in every other way. It is no longer primarily your responsibility to create security in your life.

4. Consider whether you want your life to be characterized by supernatural gifting or only by “inherent talent”. Obviously there is a lot of overlap. But I want a ministry in the Kingdom that cannot be explained by my “natural talent”. I want there to be a component that can only be explained by the presence of God. Have the courage to ask for that, knowing that it is like jumping off a cliff.

5. Spend time thinking about the difference between desire and call. I believe there’s a big overlap but I don’t think they are exactly the same. Learn contentment where you are called and ask Him to open your eyes to see why He has you there. Commit to His ministry – even if you would have chosen a different one. Ask Him to align your heart with His in this particular place and this particular season of your life. [Note: Part Two will have the balancing thoughts on being open to changing your circumstances.]

6. Ask the Lord to show you where you still hold on to a sense of entitlement. It can be overt (“I’m entitled to a certain lifestyle”) or it can be subtle (“Because of all I’ve gone through, I’m entitled to have it easier for a while”). A sense of entitlement will rob you of joy.

Part Two coming soon …

Why look back now?

[Note: I originally thought I’d hold off on new content – aside from a bit of context/updating – until I had revisted my journey of the last 11 years. But as I’ve looked back at where I’ve been, I find new thoughts stirring. For instance, it feels right to explain what prompted me to do this at this time. It’s a new part of my story. So I have decided to occasionally interject new content. I will generally identify it as new and it will most likely appear as the featured post, pinned to the top of the blog. This will allow new thoughts to be added, and given attention, while still providing a way to retell the other parts of my journey. Those older journey posts will likely come pretty often. If you’ve already followed that part of my story, feel free to ignore those notifications. If my story is new to you, just know that fairly constant posting will only be for this beginning season.]

One of the things I love about Scripture is it’s ability to impact me differently in different seasons of my life. Not that truth changes. But I see things I hadn’t noticed before. My life experiences give me new filters for looking at it and additional context for processing it. In some cases, with elapsed time I’ve stripped away some inappropriate cultural reading of it. Different things jump out at me depending on my level of woundedness or healing. And so on.

Last fall I was part of a Bible study group that looked at the Old Testament book of Joshua. It’s the story of the Israelites settling in the promised land after 40 years of wandering in the desert. I’m familiar with the events. The book contains the first Biblical character I ever identified with as a quiet teenager just trying to faithfully follow the Lord. There’s a lot of richness in the stories – and plenty of things to wrestle with as well.

I was expecting a good study. I was not expecting a strong challenge.

Over and over in Joshua, we see Joshua encouraging the tribes to “fully inherit” the land. They were occupying it. They were raising families there. They were planting crops and tending livestock and making it home. But the instruction still came to “fully inherit” it.

It was that sense of “there’s more” that struck me, that felt like a new observation. They had stopped short of what God had for them. They were missing out – and I believe they were missing out on both the personal level (God wanted to bless them) and on the role God was calling them to in the world.

In my life, I often feel prompted to “spend time with the Lord”, asking Him a particular question or about a particular subject. I don’t believe there’s one set format for doing that. For me, it might be journaling – writing the question and then writing whatever comes to mind, trusting that any necessary sorting out or discernment will happen as part of the process. It might be taking a walk without listening to anything as I do – just talking to myself in my mind while I try to listen to what the Lord might be saying. Or a similar process while driving. It can be more prayer-like, in the way people tend to think of prayer – but with times of quiet so that I can listen.

And how the Lord speaks to me can vary as well. Impressions, thoughts that feel out of character for me, what comes out during journaling, a sense of peace as I think about certain options, things jumping out at me as I read Scripture or other authors. I’ve learned to be honest with myself and that’s part of discerning what I hear – I tend to know when a challenge is good and right for me, even if I’m tentative or fearful. I also have others that I trust and I can turn to them for their wisdom, discernment and confirmation.

During and after the Joshua study, this was the one of the areas I felt prompted to ask the Lord about: What do You have for me that I have not fully stepped into? Where have I stopped short of something you want me to do (or that you want to bless me with)?

That’s where this blog comes in. For a few months I’ve felt the answer was “writing”. When I first started blogging 11 years ago, I was fairly consistent. It faded over the years – 8 posts in the last 5-1/2 years. I still don’t anticipate blogging on a specific schedule – as I say in “About Me” I only share when I think it’s worth sharing. I don’t have plans to grow this through my own efforts – although I love when friends and readers share it with others. I just believe I’m supposed to start writing again – and since the blogging platform at work has been through some substantial changes which make it more inaccessible, it felt like time to launch on a new platform.

I do know that at times my thoughts, my experiences and my journey resonate with others. It has opened up individual conversations at times in ways that I hope bring encouragement. And it has invited challenges from those whose experiences are different from mine. I love that as well.

So once again I’m stepping out in faith as I relaunch my blog.

The Restlessness is Gone

Update: This was originally published on 3/4/2012. I was less than a year into my new venture – the one I had tentatively stepped into, in large part because I could no longer ignore the restlessness I felt. This describes what I was beginning to feel and I look back with gratitude for the amazing journey it has been.

I realized that the restlessness I referred to in my previous post was gone. The restlessness that nagged at me for years, that ebbed and flowed but never completely went away, and that was a large part of making the decision to move to Georgia – I hadn’t felt it since I arrived. I don’t normally make shifts quickly or easily – so the ease with which I slipped into life in Georgia was an unexpected gift.

The previous year I was still hoping that this move was the “next step” I was supposed to take. How it would work out on a daily basis, or whether it would take care of the restlessness, was still unknown.

I needed moments like this – when I realized I wasn’t in the same place I was before. It’s not about moving toward some unattainable perfection or even just “being better.” It’s a remembering that enriches my relationship with a Father who loves me enough to walk through all of these things with me, who knows who He created me to be and gently moves me more fully into that, a God who says that bringing the Kingdom is an ongoing journey and He needs me fully engaged and prepared and that I don’t have to do that on my own.

And in this particular instance, the end result was this: My heart felt at home.

Even in the day to day shifting of responsibilities that characterized much of what I did in the early years of this new season, I didn’t find myself wondering about whether there was a “next step” I was supposed to take right then. I still expected to be stretched, to have hard times and easier times. I knew there would be ministries and calls that would grow and unfold in unexpected ways and that would require me to step out in faith. But there wasn’t the restlessness I felt before.

Much of what I did in these early years looked “ordinary”. I was not “on the field” or doing “front lines” ministry in the way that most people would define it. I didn’t have an abundance of pictures that captured the work I was doing. I didn’t get to hold orphans in my arms on a daily basis or build relationships with those hurting in far corners of the world. In many ways I could have been working in any office in any organization.

But I wasn’t working for just anyone. I am working with Adventures in Missions. And in the coming years I would build a ministry to the parents of our participants.

More on that, and on my heart feeling at home, coming up …

Fear Not?

Update: This was originally published on 2/23/2012. No longer operating with fear as the largest controlling factor in my life is probably the biggest change of the last 15 years.

I am not, by nature or inclination, a risk taker. Those who knew me years ago would not list that among my traits. Current friends probably wouldn’t either – but there’s a subtle difference and it’s the role that fear plays. For most of my life, fear consistently got in the way. But then an interesting thing began to happen – both before I originally wrote this post and in the years since then.

The grip that fear had on me, the role it played in my decision-making, changed.

As I weathered devastating personal storms, drew closer to Jesus, became more aware of the profound needs and injustices in the world and began in deeper ways to yearn for God’s kingdom to grow on earth, I found myself restless, wanting something “more”. The “more” was not about things, job, security, or leisure time. Instead, I yearned to be fully engaged in the adventure of what God is doing in the world – and in me.

To pursue this meant some big changes. It meant my life could no longer be ruled by fear or by the lies that would derail me. I could no longer be immobilized by a list of “what ifs”.

The outward look of what I do was not what determined this. It was an internal shift that said I would not let fear put constraints on whether I would say ‘yes’ to the Holy Spirit’s nudge, and I would not let complacency set my life’s path.

I originally wrote much of this in early 2011 – as part of my initial fundraising materials. (To be on staff at Adventures in Missions, I must meet a fundraising goal that offsets my salary.) I took significant steps during 2011 and early 2012. The move to Georgia to join the team at Adventures was a huge one. Starting the blog was a smaller step. When this started I not completely overcome fear – and 11 years later I still haven’t – but I’m SO much further along. I still move slowly and cautiously in some things. Part of that slow and cautious approach is okay and it’s part of the value that I can “bring to the table.” But other parts may still need to be broken loose. And as I revisit this journey, I will talk about the process I’ve gone through.

When I started the original blog, there was a lot I didn’t know about what was ahead, but this much I did know – I hoped to spend the rest of my life taking new steps toward fully saying “yes” to Jesus.

Looking Back at the Beginning

In early 2010 I was getting serious about the possibility of a major transition. I had danced around this for years – feeling a restlessness that never completely went away. Do I make a change or not? How do I know if there’s “something else” out there? What’s the wise thing to do? I had lived in Connecticut longer than I had lived anywhere in my whole life. I couldn’t imagine leaving my friends. What if I failed? The list went on and on.

In January of that year, I discovered this prayer and it put into words what I yearned for: Lord, help me now to unclutter my life, to organize myself in the direction of simplicity. Lord, teach me to listen to my heart; teach me to welcome change, instead of fearing it. Lord, I give you these stirrings inside me. I give you my discontent. I give you my restlessness. I give you my doubt. I give you my despair. I give you all the longings I hold inside. Help me to listen to these signs of change, of growth; help me to listen seriously and follow where they lead through the breathtaking empty space of an open door. (Prayer for a Major Life Transition, from Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne)

In the weeks following this prayer’s entrance into my life, I did move forward. The restlessness and the sense of call to move into a new ministry phase could no longer be ignored. It was time to say “yes” without holding back. Even with the scary parts. So by July I had sold my house, packed my stuff into storage pods, loaded my car and I found myself at Adventures in Missions.

It was the beginning of an amazing journey. About a year into it, however, I felt the Holy Spirit’s nudging toward another leap of faith. That is what this blog was for me. I knew it was a smaller leap of faith than leaving friends and moving 1,000 miles, but I tend to over-analyze things – and that can immobilize me. What do I write about? How often? Is it an update, a devotional, a connecting place? I didn’t know. And that was my leap of faith – starting something that I didn’t have figured out. This much I did know – it was time to leap. And for now, that has to be enough.

[This was my first post, in February of 2012. The next few weeks/months on this blog will largely be revisiting the previous posts I’ve written, editing them and moving them to this new platform. New material may occur from time to time but will largely be after I get everything else transferred.]

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Reflecting on a Journey

I blogged for the first time about 11 years ago. Months before that I had made a major change – uncharacteristic for me. I moved away from deep, deep friendships and a church that had been a lifesaver for me and landed 1000 miles away working for a non-profit, faith-based missions organization.

My life and emotions had been on a roller coaster. My husband had left after 25 years of marriage. I had to re-enter the job market after years of being a stay at home mom and volunteer. My kids were (appropriately) leaving home for college and other pursuits.

I felt a restlessness. After years of feeling I could barely breathe, I was feeling stronger and healed, less timid and fearful, and ready for a future – in many ways on my own – that looked very different from what I had anticipated for my mid-50s.

Blogging became a way of processing life and change. It was a way to share a story with others – hopefully a story that encourages them to believe that hope is possible even after deep valleys. That healing journeys toward wholeness are worth the pain and effort of taking them. To help people feel understood (they are not alone) and to help others understand people going through experiences they haven’t.

Since making the move in 2011, I’ve built Parent Ministry at Adventures in Missions – a chance to help parents vet us as an organization, understand what we do and why we do it, and to encourage them to see their son or daughter’s extended mission trip as an opportunity for a journey of their own.

So along the way, I’ve written some for parents as well.

I’m an inconsistent blogger. But I’m looking back at these years and it seems time to move onto a new platform, revisit the blogs I’ve written (do some tweaking and editing) and re-launch the story.

For the first few months, the primary content will post with little time between posts and it will be previously written material with some updating and additional reflection as appropriate.

After that, I think I have some new thoughts to share.

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