Tag: Emotional GPS

Attitude, Risky

The Upside is Fantastic!

Reality Check.

God? Who needs him?

Measuring against God is risky business. I would rather measure myself against someone else. (Previous two blogs.)

The problem? If I accept God, I have to take his standard and be subject to his rules and authority. This immediately puts me at a deficit of magnanimous proportions. If I am standing on my own accomplishments and pride, I need to find another way, any other way out of such a standard. In all reality, that is the issue. Unmasked, unpopular, and undone pretty much sum up the feelings connected with such vulnerability, so why would I engage in such a journey?

Why would I go through such a feeling of smallness and weakness?

Rather, I want something that affirms my prowess. I want someone who affirms me and lifts me up. I want my personal graph to move up and to the right. I don’t want to talk about an accurate reading, and accurate emotional GPS especially when it includes words like; deficit, deficient, shortfall, need, help, or weakness.

So, why? The upside is fantastic!

The provision that God makes for those who fall short (of his standard, not ours) is unbelievably generous. He has known all along that we do not measure up. We cannot. He has just been waiting for us to realize and recognize it. Nothing in our life changes, nothing can be appropriated, nothing will genuinely transform until we do.

It is that simple. Recognize our need and receive un-proportional grace (God’s own enablement) to help.

Hello God, my name is Phil, I am so bent on doing my own thing, my own way on my own terms. I need help.

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You Don’t Have to Live; You Get To!

Attitude, Comparisons

Compared to Who?

To whom do you compare yourself?

I find it interesting in my observations that we sometimes find incongruent people to compare with ourselves. We either look for the win in which we would compare our strengths against another’s ‘obvious’ weakness, thereby generating a feeling of good at their lack. Or, we take the other extreme of measuring our failing against someone else’s perceived strength. An example of the first is to reach down to an individual who is in need, where the reaching down is proudly evident. The second would be where we look at some “super blessed,” model, movie star or another achiever and look at our ordinary against their luxury, whether in looks, assets or abilities. Comparisons internally happen from the flagrant to the obscure. If our filter is off, we may engage in this process without realization.

Comparing with another is the arena of judgment when it comes to our interactions. When it isn’t masked with smiles or faked relationship, it is as ugly and stark as it looks in print. Usually, we aren’t so blatant in this process because blatant would clearly be wrong, but we subtly self-talk of our ‘arriving’ or conversely our improvements or lack thereof against an impossible standard.

The problem? We were never meant to compare ourselves to anyone else. Scriptural text supports this. “… When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.” (2 Corinthians 10:12, NIV)

So, how do we get wise? How do we improve and get better? How do we measure and be accurate in that measurement? How do we define and get our personal emotional GPS properly established?

That is where I want to go next time.

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You Don’t Have To Live; You Get To!