Life is Not so 'Black and White' Anymore

It was so much easier when life was black and white, there were very clear answers to the problems that we faced.  ‘The bible says’….and we quote a favorite scripture that puts the other person in their place.  How do we navigate the inner discussion we have when we don’t measure up to our own standards?  How do we deal with the hidden secret sins that prevail in our lives?

Life used to be so black and white.  There were right answers and wrong answers to everything.  My Dad always had the right answer, or at least he thought he did? That was partly because he was Dad, he was part of the ‘Greatest Generation’, and just the overall sense that he had to have the right answer (whether he did or not).  There was an interesting point that happened when I was in my 20’s.  I went to college and started hearing different ideas about what truth was.  In some cases they directly contradicted what Dad had told me.  It was a time of great confusion.  Who was right?  Was it Dad who I depended on and trusted or this college professor who was educated and should know the truth?  It started a series of questions and inquiries that forced me to look at things much more critically.    In addition those answers that I was so convinced of were proven false or at the very least flawed.  

            Have you found that what used to be so black and white to you are more shades of gray?  I think age does that.  The more I live my life; I see that there are many more nuances to situations and problems. For me it comes from more experiences with life, seeing other people’s pain and struggle and realizing that I could just as easily have been in their situation.  Once I realize that there is another point of view, all of my curt answers come up short, they are less than valuable and often quite ignorant.  

The political season has illuminated these dichotomies in a more profound way.  The ‘inconvenient truths’ of people experiencing pain, challenges, opportunities and struggles has impacted me deeply.  I would like to have everything in a nice, neat, black and white package. It would be so much easier, require so much less of me, and unfortunately, leave so much more devastation than an honest, grace filled, incarnational approach to these problems.  I want to do this well but find it is very difficult.  

Challenge of Personal vs. Business Spirituality

We live in a very broken and sinful world.  There are countless examples of depravity that pervade our lives.  We find it in politics where power and influence is the order of the day leading to decisions that benefit the powerful at the expense of those who don’t have the power.  In the marketplace we are overwhelmed with advertising that tells us we aren’t happy and our life is not full because we don’t have what they offer.  Even in the world of sports we find allegations of cheating by doping and trying to gain an unfair advantage.  Unfortunately this broken world is our home.  It is the place we dwell and it is not only impractical but often impossible to escape its influence.  

Juxtaposed to that is our spiritual life.  We are called by Jesus to live counter-culturally; the way Jesus lived his life.  This means being a servant leader, laying our life down for and sacrificing on behalf of others.  I find that I am either not willing to do that or just can’t do it.  Understanding my sin and coming to grips with being in a place where I have to make choices is hard.  I have often been put in a place where I have to make choices that forced me to choose between two bad options. I am going to hurt someone either way. I hate being in this place. There are no good choices.  The tension that resides there is at times ‘gut- wrenching’ and ‘stress generating’.  I am convicted by God’s word to live the incarnate life of Jesus but working that out is not black and white but a vastness of gray.  Being the messenger of pain, not doing what you CAN do to alleviate that pain, taking advantage of others for your own benefit are some of the challenges of being a leader 

Helping others navigate this minefield is one of the challenges that God has set before me in this new ministry.  So many business people I know are unprepared for these challenges.  They prefer to leave their spirituality at church on Sundays and then live their business life without reference to their faith.  It just seems easier not to ‘go there’. The problem is that Jesus asks us to ‘go there’.  That is what I intend to explore in the months and years to come. 

The Top 1% Challenge

Recently I was doing one of the L.C.I. Exercises on gratitude and God impressed upon me where I am in the overall social order of the world, not something we think about very often, today was one of those days.  When you consider that there are over 7,000,000,000 people in the world (that’s a lot of people) I am very much in the ‘privileged few’.  Let’s look at the facts: I am a 61 year old, healthy, white, married male, living in the United States. I graduated from college and completing my master’s degree.  I was a pilot in the U.S. Air Force, own my own business with employees, and a pension.  I own 2 cars, a house, an office building and more personal property than I can use. We have 3 successful married children and 7 healthy grandchildren.  The death of my father 7 years ago is the only immediate family member I have lost to date. 

 

In other words I have economic capital, social capital, political capital, emotional capital and physical capital.  When you look at the vast majority of the other 7 billion people and their circumstances, I am in the unique position of literally being in the top 1% of all this world’s citizens.  Here’s the catch; I can look at this like many people do saying “I am where I am because I am smart, hardworking, diligent, gifted and wise”.  That is certainly one paradigm that many people like me use to explain why they are where they are.    For many years I believed all that, I thought that was why I was successful. There is a problem with that paradigm; it is void of the grace and work of God.  That view was foundationally rooted in pride, arrogance, self-righteousness and egotism.

The ‘truth be told’ I did learn how to work the system, was incredibly fortunate to have been born into the family and world I was born into and was surrounded by countless numbers of people who loved, supported and encouraged me.  Most important I have a God who was protecting me and guiding me through all the various phases of my life. Quite literally, much of what I have is an unwarranted gift from God.  I really didn’t deserve any of it. 

The bigger question for today though is; what have I done with this incredible gift that God has given me?  How have I ‘paid it forward’ and given this gift to others rather than consuming it on myself?  These ‘dark-side, ego-based’ sins are at the foundation of my soul.  In and of myself I fall very far short of giving God the glory and extending His grace to those around me.  He continues to convict me about all of these concerns. He is progressively moving me toward a greater care and compassion for all those who are less fortunate, who have less capital than I do, who are suffering through life because of lack and depravity.  I am only beginning to understand how a top ‘1%er’ might live into this truth.

Keeping the Plane in the Air

     Flying is an inherently dangerous activity.  There is an adage in flying that I live by, “it’s better to be down here wishing you were up there than up there wishing you were down here”.   You can get hurt if you are not prepared, fit, aware and wise.  In pilot training they were very serious about emergency procedures.  We would be drilled on them and ‘grounded’ for the day if we got even one wrong.  There were 3 universal procedures that applied to ANY emergency you had:

      1)      Maintain aircraft control

      2)      Analyze the situation and take proper action

      3)      Land as soon as conditions permit

           That pretty well covers most situations.  If you miss rule number one the rest of them don’t really matter.  If   you don’t do 2 very well you make take an action that actually puts you in worse shape than you were in.  Rule number 3 sometimes goes without saying but others times is not quite so obvious.

With flying situations emergencies tend to be pretty cut and dried. An engine quits, the gear doesn’t come down or a piece of equipment quits running.  There are nuances in some cases but for the most part the diagnosis is obvious and the procedures are straightforward.  The ‘noise’ of the situation like severe turbulence, a thunderstorm, zero visibility, or personal problems cloud the issue and make it much more difficult to diagnose the problem.  Emergency procedure and extensive training help pilots correctly determine the problem and either fix or work around it. Captain Sullenberger responded well in a very dire situation.  He didn't panic or react poorly.

 

Life is not unlike flying from that perspective.  How many times have we lost control of the situation?  Do we increase the tension in a conversation rather than quieting it down. Do we have a panic or anxiety attack because you don’t know what to do with the situation?  Do we really know what the problem is or are we reacting to the wrong issues or symptoms.  The more I experience servant leadership I find there is a growing wisdom about the symptoms and causes of problems.  Isn’t that really the heart of the matter? When a pilot reacts to an engine fire/failure by pulling the wrong shutoff ‘T’ handle he has forced himself into a devastating response, one that could lead to fatal consequences for everyone on board.

 Do you react or respond when life’s crises hit you?  Do you seek God for His still small voice when everything around you seems like noise and distraction? Practicing on the small challenges prepares you for the larger disasters.  Learning the emergency procedures of spiritual disciplines prepares you for those when you don’t know how to respond.

A Process of Faith and Finances

         Moving into full time ministry has been a ‘faith’ transition for me.  I have had a stirring for quite a while about moving into full time ministry but for a number of reasons and personal resistances I wasn’t able to make that move.  The decision to make the move was precipitated by a couple of significant conversations with my brother and a friend from the past who had recently made the move into full time ministry.  They were within 2 days of each other and was a wake-up call that God had something new and different for me.  There followed lots of prayer and seeking God’s direction and within a month we had made the decision that I would retire from the insurance business and move into full time ministry.  The problem boiled down to ‘when’ that would happen.  

              

       I set an arbitrary date associated with my 62^nd birthday because my pension would be at it’s fullest and I could contribute for another year into my 401(k).  I received my Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation 10 years ago and have focused on helping people with retirement planning.  I know what that needs to look like for someone to retire and do the things they want to do.  I figured by then we would be okay but the problem lay in that I left God out of the planning.  He had a different timetable for me. 

      With the encouragement from my friend Brian I sought God as to the right date.  I did that and went through an interesting process where God helped me acknowledge that I had done well with my retirement planning but when it becomes His plan it might look a little different.  First, I have no idea how long I am going to live or how much I am really going to need in retirement.  Second, with the fragility of the market God could take away the entire amount in the matter of a day or two leaving us totally dependent upon Him.  Third, that dependency would require that I have to trust Him for providing our resources totally and possibly permanently.  Fourth, if He did that it would be for my growth and development and would have a redemptive nature to it. 

      It’s kind of funny that once I was able to make that connection the worry and fretting about finances disappeared, my level of faith in God’s provision increased dramatically and there was a renewed zeal to make this change sooner than later.  It was a great experience to give the balance of the  process to God and be able to have faith in His ability and desire to provide for us and lead us into a deeper walk with him.  A hard bit of wrestling with God but the outcome has been peace and a greater confidence in His provision.