Chris Howlett

What Are You Trusting?

Photo - U.S. Coast Guard

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” – Corrie Ten Boom

The Coast Guard Station in Juneau, Alaska, picked up a 32-year-old man in Gastineau Channel on June 7, 2017. He was attempting to cross the channel in an inflatable homemade watercraft that was being held together with duct tape. Unfortunately, it wasn’t held together very well because he was taking on water and would have sunk had help not arrived. When the Coast Guard reached the sinking boat they rescued him and his dog, then took them to the safety of dry land.

This man didn’t have a life jacket on board, yet he trusted this flimsy craft with his life and the life of his dog! Is there anything in our lives on which we rely to give us health, happiness, and meaning, that might be unfit for the high seas of life? Are we putting our hope in things that don’t have the capacity to deliver?

There’s a ship that will never sink. You can entrust your life, your hopes, your dreams, your security and safety in this Captain. “I will say to the LORD, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust’” (Psalm 92:1 ESV). Place your heart in the hands of God, he will give your life hope, health, happiness, and meaning.

Do You Need a Vacation?

“Vacations are necessities, not luxuries.” – Linda Bloom

Bernard Lagat knows a lot about long-distance running. He is a four-time Olympian. He owns seven American records, ranging from the 1,500 to the 5,000 meters. In the 2012 London Olympics he finished fourth in the 5,000 meters.

Even in the midst of his rigorous training schedule, every fall Lagat does something completely foreign to most elite runners: he takes a five-week break. He tosses his running shoes in the closet and eats pretty much anything he wants. He also coaches his son's soccer team. Peter Thompson, a longtime track and field official and coach, claims that Lagat's approach is unique. Thompson said, "In the U.S., runners are very obsessive about not letting go of training." But Lagat stands by his need for sustained rest. Lagat said that every athlete is different, but his schedule has been very effective. "My runs are very hard," he said. "Everything I do is hard …. [But] the body is tired. You're not a machine. Rest is a good thing."

Indeed, rest is a good thing. It’s summertime and many of us are gearing up for vacations. Some will travel far and see great sights. Some will take a staycation. All of us need a break from the routine and real rest. God designed us to rest. The first full day of humanity’s existence was a day of rest. Rest helps the body and mind repair itself and enables us to work with renewed energy and focus. When we rest we can reconnect with God and rediscover what’s most important about life. This summer, if you take a vacation, I hope you’ll remember not to take a vacation from God and enjoy resting in his grace. Rest is a good thing.

Are You Pursuing Happiness?

This is a loaded question because everyone pursues happiness. It’s built into our psychological makeup to desire a happy, fulfilling, and satisfying life. No one purposely pursues unhappiness. Yet, many of the choices we make and the emotions we cultivate diminish our capacity for happiness. Here are a few examples of destructive emotions:

1. Envy. When I perceive another person has a superior possession, quality, or achievement and focus on my desire for it or my desire that they lose it, this is a negative emotion that will rob me of happiness.

2. Resentment. Mirriam-Webster defines this as “a feeling of indignant displeasure or persistent ill will at something regarded as a wrong, insult, or injury.” See here. This emotion can become obsessive and has obvious negative consequences for my capacity for satisfaction in life.

3. Unforgiveness. To forgive is to acknowledge someone has wronged me and decide to free them from responsibility, as if the wrong never occurred. It’s not forgetting, for that is impossible. Forgiveness does say “I do not hold you responsible.” Unforgiveness continues to punish the offender (even if in my own head and heart) for the perceived wrong. Unforgiveness is perhaps the greatest obstacle to happiness.

All of these represent a failure to love. We withhold love from certain persons because we believe they don't deserve love. And if we examine another life close enough we’ll find ample evidence to reinforce our belief. So, we chose not to love. Our blind spot is the belief that we, ourselves, deserve love. If we applied the same standard to ourselves we would soon find that we, too, are undeserving. The good news is that deserving love is not one of the considerations for God to offer love. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8 ESV). God loves proactively.

Proactive love leads to our own happiness and the helps inspire happiness in others. Am I pursuing happiness? I am if I am practicing proactive love, the kind of love God shows me.

God Made Us for Happiness

God wants us to be happy. This statement has become controversial in Christian circles as of late. I think people are reacting to the resurgence of popularity of “the power of positive thinking” type of preaching and teaching. There certainly is an unhealthy focus on the self in our society. Too much self-fulfillment, not enough self-sacrifice. That being said, it’s important not to confuse an unhealthy and unholy emphasis on individualism and consumer-Christianity with the Biblical witness that clearly and consistently teaches that God created humans for meaningful, purpose-filled, happy lives.

Happiness represents God’s hope for the creatures he made in his image. The Book of Psalms, that wonderful collection of poetry that is handed down to us from ancient Israel, through the Church, is a rich tapestry of praise, thanksgiving, supplication, complaint, lamentation, and prayer. The Psalms capture a full range of human emotion and reaction to God and life circumstances. At times the Psalms are exultant, other times they are depressing. This “prayer book of the early church” begins with the word “Happy.”

“Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves to not wither. In all that they do, they prosper” (Psalm 1:1-3 NRSV).

The psalmist describes the kind of flourishing life we find if we choose to follow the revealed will of God taught in Scripture. God wants your life to be filled with happiness, he made you, he knows how life works, he desires that you would thrive, prosper, and experience a life of blessing. When we rely on our own limited wisdom and understanding, we fall into selfish, sinful, and sad ways of living. We don’t want that!

So, you want to be happy? Everyone does. God’s way is always best. He loves us and wants us to discover a life filled with blessing so that he can use us to be a blessing to others.

What Will Change in the New Year?

“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better person.” – Benjamin Franklin

What’s going to change Saturday night? Think about it. The day will move from Saturday to Sunday, the month from December to January, the year from 2016 to 2017. It will be a change of date. But there’s something about it when the year changes. We have a sense of hope, of new beginnings, new possibilities. We’d like to think something might change.

The Christian faith is about change, continuous change, really. First, we’re called to repent and turn to God. When we commit our lives to Christ it’s a huge change. This change ushers in more change as the Holy Spirit begins a process of transformation. The Apostle Paul wrote: “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 For. 3:18 NIV). And, just like any New Year’s resolution, the process of transformation called discipleship requires us to exert effort.

What does God want to change in you this year? What vices or bad habits might you be called to leave behind? What negative emotions are needing to be evicted from your heart? What life-giving habits might you be called to begin? What kind of impact does God want you to have on those around you? God’s love can transform us if we’ll be open to it. What’s going to change this year? We can!

Do You

“A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe.” – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

God creates individuals. We’re all different. If you were to meet all seven billion or so people on the planet you’d never meet yourself. You’re one of a kind. And that’s a good thing! Imagine the creative potential God possesses. He doesn’t ever need to copy himself. His creativity is endless.
Because you’re an individual, your path to joy and fulfillment is as individual as you are. Obviously there are parameters within which God calls us to live. There are boundaries that, if crossed, deprive us of the hope of joy-filled lives. We’re prone to engage in self-destructive behavior. But, when we turn to God and discover our true self, our self that is created in the image of God, thoroughly unique, we find that individual path God has laid out for us to find personal empowerment, influence, and fulfillment.

Though each of us is unique, we’re not created for isolation. In fact, it’s in relationships that our uniqueness truly shines as we learn to make our own individual contribution to the good of the whole. Again, this is God’s design. You have talents and strengths, these are God’s gift through you for the benefit of the world. Your happiness is found in discovering how God made you so you can be a blessing to the world. When God called Abraham, God knew that Abraham had something that God had placed in him to offer to the world, to be a blessing to the nations. As children of Abraham, so do we.

Positive in a Negative World

“When someone does something good, applaud! You will make two people happy.” – Samuel Goldwyn

Be a positive person in a negative world. Negativity seems to be the Modus operandi of many of us. I see it in parenting, in managing businesses, and even in the church. What is it about humans that causes us to focus on the negative?

How can we switch gears and join Samuel Goldwyn in his positive approach? I suggest we look at Jesus.

Jesus spent most of his time uplifting people who had plenty of negative things in their lives. Jesus could have focussed on the negative. Instead, Jesus made the hopeful choice. “Where are your accusers?… Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” Amazing! See how much hope Jesus had in a woman caught in adultery! He didn’t dwell on her past poor choices! He looked to the future with the immense possibilities it holds for joy, peace, and wholeness. You can do great things with God’s help!

Pick one positive to point out to someone today. Just one thing. How do they feel? How do you feel? This behavior, following Jesus’ pattern, always brings out the best in everyone.

Challenges and Choices

“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” – Stephen Covey

Tom Schumm claims that brain cancer is the best thing that ever happened to him. In 2002, just five months after he was married, he was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. He was furious at his circumstances and with God. For the first time in his life he believed he had achieved a semblance of happiness and now he was very shortly going to die a painful death.

He thought about his choices. He could continue in his outrage and negative thoughts and die a lonely, bitter man, or he could decide to make the most of whatever time he had left and die a happy man. He chose the latter. He began to treat people graciously and positively, he chose to truly enjoy his relationships and squeeze all the joy he could manage to experience out of life. He says that at that point he stopped dying and started truly living.

Thankfully, the experimental treatments he endured led to remission and he has enjoyed many more years of health. Recently, his cancer returned, but he still maintains a positive attitude, believing no matter what his circumstances, he’d rather face them with joy than with bitterness and regret.

Circumstances can tempt us to want to give up. We can feel defeated and let down. We can feel overwhelmed and unappreciated. We can feel like life just isn’t fair. We can feel all of these things and more. However, if you step back and think about it, who ever said life was fair? Where did we get the idea that the universe is supposed to conspire to make life match our dreams? How did we ever believe that our feelings are the primary motivators of our lives?

God has gifted us with freedom. We have a freedom to chose our attitudes and make positive, God-honoring decisions every time, regardless of the crowd or our circumstances. Those decisions, not our circumstances, shape our character. What kind of character do you want to form moving forward?

(Tom shared his story in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Think Positive)

A Virtuous Life is a Happy Life

I’m struck by how many people arrive at mid-life and discover what they thought would make them happy has utterly failed. They pursued the American Dream only to find that it turned, not into a nightmare (at least that would be interesting), but into a ho-hum, boring, uninspired existence. So, they do the typical midlife crisis sort of things, trying to prove their lives have some meaning, purpose, or impact. They engage in extra-marital affairs, buy sports cars, switch careers, undergo plastic surgery, go skydiving, etc. (The list goes on and on). 

The problem with all these is that none of them have the potential to produce lasting change in a person’s sense of well-being, or happiness. We all pursue happiness, often forgetting that merely engaging in the pursuit doesn’t guarantee the desired result.

What does produce lasting happiness? Well, there are several things, but I want to focus on one of them: leading a virtuous life.

Yes, a Virtuous Life

The New Oxford American Dictionary defines virtue as “a behavior showing high moral standards.” How boring is that? First, it’s totally focused on behavior, though it does mention standards. Of course, what would be a high moral standard? Who gets to set the standard? Who decides what’s moral?

I think virtue has to do with character and the attitudes and behaviors that flow from that character. A happy life, a life of lasting meaning and satisfaction, is a life of character. Jesus says “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the hart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45 ESV). The heart that is virtuous produces virtue. The heart that lacks virtue produces evil and evil is in the life-destroying business.

What are the Virtues?

The classical virtues are prudence, justice, temperance, and courage. However, Christians were never really satisfied with this list, so they look to Scripture and found what has been labeled the “Theological Virtues.” These are: Faith, Hope, and Love. But, perhaps there are more. The Fruit of the Spirit seems to be quite a good list of virtues: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, and Self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). From all of this and from other sources I have developed my own list of Twelve Virtues that seem to combine other lists into a comprehensive whole:

The Twelve Virtues: Love, Faith, Hope, Wisdom, Justice, Self-Control, Courage, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, and Goodness. In a future post and book, I will explain these in greater detail. For now, they are relatively self-explanatory.

Pursue Virtues and Experience Happiness

Pursuing and cultivating the virtues has a kind of instant and long term payoff. Not only will you be aligning yourself with true north principles, but you will be producing the kind of life that you truly desire, a life of wholeness, impact, and the joy of leaving a lasting, positive legacy in the lives of others. Want to produce and enhance positive emotions in yourself and others? Love yourself and others. Cultivate faith in something or someone bigger than yourself (try the Creator God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob). Develop a hopeful, optimistic outlook. Work on gaining perspective and wisdom and offer it to others. Live in a way that promotes a just world. Enhance your self-control, minimizing emotion-driven and impulsive behavior. Act courageously even when it’s not popular. Revel in the joy of living, even during challenging times. Pursue a peaceful demeanor. Practice patience. Be kind. Live a good life (a morally upright life). These virtues and the choices, attitudes, and behaviors they embody will go a long way to enhancing the experience of happiness that you desire and will promote happiness and wholeness in others.

Like I said earlier, there is much more on this to follow, how to cultivate the individual virtues, how all of this flows out of our true identity, and how a life of virtue is a happy and fulfilling life worth living.

 

I Dreamed a Dream...

“Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind.” – The Rolling Stones

Fantine, the lovelorn tragic character of Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables" lost her dream and her life lost meaning. She succumbed to hopelessness and died. Dreams can disappoint and leave us feeling lost, without purpose in the world. If we lose our purpose, we feel we lose our reason for being.

That’s the problem with dreams. Though dreams possess tremendous power to inspire, they can also disappoint, driving us to despair. Sadly, many avoid the downside and settle for mediocre. If I can’t have my dream, then at least I won’t have my hopes dashed.

Dreaming is part of what makes us human. Dogs, horses, and cats can’t dream. They can’t imagine a new future filled with fresh possibilities. But God has put it in our hearts to dream, to aspire, to drive, to work, to desire bigger and better things! I think this is part of what it means to be imprinted with God’s image, to live as created, creative beings. God is the ultimate dreamer, the ultimate creator, and he invites us to join him in his creative enterprise.

It’s important to capture the dream God has for us. So many times our dreams are founded upon the shaky foundation of egoism. We want a better life for us and ours. There’s nothing wrong with aspiring for something better, but are we pursuing a limited, self-centered dream while God’s dream is for a much more significant impact? God’s dreams are always better than our dreams.

Dream God-shaped dreams and pursue them with God’s help, in God’s love and power. You will never be disappointed if you do.