My mom died this last summer, and a few months before she died, I was reminded once again of being enough. She was the voice that echoed to me that I was enough. I shared with her my newest adventure into becoming certified in professional coaching. She did what she did best with her kids. She looked straight into my eyes through into my soul, lightly wrapped her hand around my wrist, and said, “You will be great at that.”

I am reminded today, a day in which she would have turned 82, that she gave me the gift of being enough. She believed in me when I didn’t. This was her gift, and it is her legacy.

My youngest son is 8. He recently has gotten into learning how to throw a Frisbee. After every throw, he yells out, “Is that a good one?” The dutiful, worry wart, dad that I am thinks maybe he lacks self-esteem. As we are walking into the house after a Frisbee toss time, he looks at me and says, “Dad, do you think I am getting better?” Worried about his self-esteem, I ask him what he thinks. He immediately with a big smile says, “I think I am getting really great at throwing the Frisbee!” He is enough! And his Grandma’s legacy of being enough carries on in him and in all of us who she touched.

Are you enough? You are more enough than you could ever imagine. God said that you are His beloved. Can you feel His warm embrace? Can you hear His whisper in your ear, “You are my beloved. I adore you.” Even though my mom gave me the gift, I continue to live with the wound of feeling that I am not enough. It has only been recently that I have begun to embrace my enoughness. Don’t settle for the dial tone of not enough. Listen to the gentle voice that KNOWS that you are enough and so much more.

Mom is finally in a place where “I am not enough” doesn’t even exist. I am so grateful today, her birthday, for her gift. I am enough, Mom. I will always be enough. I am beloved, embraced, and delighted in. Thanks Mom. I miss you.

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He did not mention one of my favorite examples: Saint Patrick.  Patrick STARTED his ministry at age 40, and he ended his ministry 40 years later after founding an estimated 800 churches! WOW! Old guys rule!

The post The Village Elder by Rob Bell appeared first on LAWSON COACHING & CONSULTING.

Unnoticed Wonders

Dedicated to the small things we love, but never pay attention to

A brand new box of sharp, colorful crayons

The way the ocean feels on bare feet

A leaf’s delicate design

The taste of fresh, red apples

A puppy’s velvety ears

The smell of a new book

The wind blowing in your face

Splashing in puddles

The birds’ chirping

Roasting marshmallows

A sense of accomplishment

Laughter

Dessert

The way your hair floats around you when you’re underwater

Riding a roller coaster

Being told that you’re good at something

Catching your first fish

Swinging on a swing

Being with your friends

Dressing up

Getting a present

Doing a fun craft

Sitting by the fire

Watching lightning flash across the sky

Drinking cool lemonade on a hot July day

Imagining what it would feel like to fly

Playing an exciting game

 Staying up late

Watching a movie while eating popcorn

Jumping on the trampoline

Playing tag

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Please enjoy my short audio about my “trial” and what it has taught me about thankfulness.  And as always please leave a comment!

The post Trials, Temptations, & Thankfulness (James 1) appeared first on LAWSON COACHING & CONSULTING.

“This piece was originally created by Jackson Potts II, for a collection of works hanging in Xnihilo Gallery. The installation is a modern take on the traditional Stations of the Cross, and the gallery requested 15 artists to each depict one of the stations. Due to reasons which will be explained in subsequent posts, the gallery was not able to hang this piece. We invite you to view it here and to comment upon it.
Here is Jackson’s artist statement.

Jesus Falls for the Second Time.
When I came up with this idea for my piece, one of the things that I wanted to show was that Jesus was innocent, and the crowd still wanted him to die. So I used a child (my brother Dietrich) to show the innocence of Jesus and how wrong it was for him to be treated that way. The police officer was just doing his job, as was the guard that was escorting Jesus to Skull Hill. The crowd was angry and violent except the one girl in the blue dress, who represents the people who loved Jesus.”

Here is the link to view the photo (it is brutal but thought provoking):

http://jacksonsstation.blogspot.com/2012_03_01_archive.html

The post The Suffering of Christ for us: Station 7 of the Cross appeared first on LAWSON COACHING & CONSULTING.

Tozer points out one final source of burden: Artificiality.

“Another source of burden is artificiality. I am sure that most people live in secret fear that some day they will be careless and by chance an enemy or friend will be allowed to peep into their poor empty souls. So they are never relaxed. Bright people are tense and alert in fear that they may be trapped into saying something common or stupid. Traveled people are afraid that they may meet some Marco Polo who is able to describe some remote place where they have never been.This unnatural condition is part of our sad heritage of sin, but in our day it is aggravated by our whole way of life. Advertising is largely based upon this habit of pretense. `Courses’ are offered in this or that field of human learning frankly appealing to the victim’s desire to shine at a party. Books are sold, clothes and cosmetics are peddled, by playing continually upon this desire to appear what we are not.”

Finally to conclude our miniseries, Tozer points out the solution, once again, to our artificiality, pretense, and pride: meekness.  Only through meekness will our burdens be lifted and only then can we find rest for our souls.

“Artificiality is one curse that will drop away the moment we kneel at Jesus’ feet and surrender ourselves to His meekness. Then we will not care what people think of us so long as God is pleased. Then what we are will be everything; what we appear will take its place far down the scale of interest for us. Apart from sin we have nothing of which to be ashamed. Only an evil desire to shine makes us want to appear other than we are.The heart of the world is breaking under this load of pride and pretense. There is no release from our burden apart from the meekness of Christ. Good keen reasoning may help slightly, but so strong is this vice that if we push it down one place it will come up somewhere else. To men and women everywhere Jesus says, `Come unto me, and I will give you rest.’ The rest He offers is the rest of meekness, the blessed relief which comes when we accept ourselves for what we are and cease to pretend. It will take some courage at first, but the needed grace will come as we learn that we are sharing this new and easy yoke with the strong Son of God Himself. He calls it `my yoke,’ and He walks at one end while we walk at the other.”

The post Part #4: Burdens, Rest, and Meekness: Matthew and The Pursuit of God appeared first on LAWSON COACHING & CONSULTING.

Tozer proceeds to share another of our burdens: Pretense.

“Then also he will get deliverance from the burden of pretense. By this I mean not hypocrisy, but the common human desire to put the best foot forward and hide from the world our real inward poverty. For sin has played many evil tricks upon us, and one has been the infusing into us a false sense of shame. There is hardly a man or woman who dares to be just what he or she is without doctoring up the impression. The fear of being found out gnaws like rodents within their hearts. The man of culture is haunted by the fear that he will some day come upon a man more cultured than himself. The learned man fears to meet a man more learned than he. The rich man sweats under the fear that his clothes or his car or his house will sometime be made to look cheap by comparison with those of another rich man. So-called `society’ runs by a motivation not higher than this, and the poorer classes on their level are little better.”

Tozer then points the solution to our pretense.  The way of the child.

“Let no one smile this off. These burdens are real, and little by little they kill the victims of this evil and unnatural way of life. And the psychology created by years of this kind of thing makes true meekness seem as unreal as a dream, as aloof as a star. To all the victims of the gnawing disease Jesus says, `Ye must become as little children.’ For little children do not compare; they receive direct enjoyment from what they have without relating it to something else or someone else. Only as they get older and sin begins to stir within their hearts do jealousy and envy appear. Then they are unable to enjoy what they have if someone else has something larger or better. At that early age does the galling burden come down upon their tender souls, and it never leaves them till Jesus sets them free.”

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The first burden that A.W. Tozer discusses in Chapter 9 of The Pursuit of God is PRIDE.

“Let us examine our burden. It is altogether an interior one. It attacks the heart and the mind and reaches the body only from within. First, there is the burden of pride. The labor of self-love is a heavy one indeed. Think for yourself whether much of your sorrow has not arisen from someone speaking slightingly of you. As long as you set yourself up as a little god to which you must be loyal there will be those who will delight to offer affront to your idol. How then can you hope to have inward peace? The heart’s fierce effort to protect itself from every slight, to shield its touchy honor from the bad opinion of friend and enemy, will never let the mind have rest. Continue this fight through the years and the burden will become intolerable. Yet the sons of earth are carrying this burden continually, challenging every word spoken against them, cringing under every criticism, smarting under each fancied slight, tossing sleepless if another is preferred before them.”

Tozer proceeds to point out the link between Jesus wisdom in Matthew 5:5 regarding the meek, and His ability to lighten our burdens (Matthew 11:28-30)

“Such a burden as this is not necessary to bear. Jesus calls us to His rest, and meekness is His method. The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort. He develops toward himself a kindly sense of humor and learns to say, `Oh, so you have been overlooked? They have placed someone else before you? They have whispered that you are pretty small stuff after all? And now you feel hurt because the world is saying about you the very things you have been saying about yourself? Only yesterday you were telling God that you were nothing, a mere worm of the dust. Where is your consistency? Come on, humble yourself, and cease to care what men think.’

The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto…As he walks on in meekness he will be happy to let God defend him. The old struggle to defend himself is over. He has found the peace which meekness brings.”

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I started the New Year resolved to read through the Bible (again).  As I read Matthew chapter 5, I was struck (again and again) by its beauty and transforming power.  On the same day, I just happen to pick up A.W. Tozer’s book: The Pursuit of God that I have been reading for months and turn to chapter 9 which starts with a discussion of the beginning of Matthew chapter 5–‘coincidence’? Unlikely.

Tozer points out that most of what constitutes evil, pain, and suffering in our world comes from you know who….you and me!

“In the world of men we find nothing approaching the virtues of which Jesus spoke in the opening words of the famous Sermon on the Mount. Instead of poverty of spirit we find the rankest kind of pride; instead of mourners we find pleasure seekers; instead of meekness, arrogance; instead of hunger after righteousness we hear men saying, `I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing’; instead of mercy we find cruelty; instead of purity of heart, corrupt imaginings; instead of peacemakers we find men quarrelsome and resentful; instead of rejoicing in mistreatment we find them fighting back with every weapon at their command…these are the evils which make life the bitter struggle it is for all of us. All our heartaches and a great many of our physical ills spring directly out of our sins. Pride, arrogance, resentfulness, evil imaginings, malice, greed: these are the sources of more human pain than all the diseases that ever afflicted mortal flesh.”

His words are oxygen to a patient gasping for air.  Christ alone knows how to ease our suffering, our pain, our burdens…

“Into a world like this the sound of Jesus’ words comes wonderful and strange, a visitation from above. It is well that He spoke, for no one else could have done it as well; and it is good that we listen. His words are the essence of truth. He is not offering an opinion; Jesus never uttered opinions. He never guessed; He knew, and He knows.”

“`Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ (Mat 11:28-30) Here we have two things standing in contrast to each other, a burden and a rest. The burden is not a local one, peculiar to those first hearers, but one which is borne by the whole human race. It consists not of political oppression or poverty or hard work. It is far deeper than that. It is felt by the rich as well as the poor for it is something from which wealth and idleness can never deliver us. The burden borne by mankind is a heavy and a crushing thing. The word Jesus used means a load carried or toil borne to the point of exhaustion. Rest is simply release from that burden. It is not something we do, it is what comes to us when we cease to do. His own meekness, that is the rest.”

In coming posts we will examine our burdens…

The post Part #1: Burdens, Rest, and Meekness: Matthew 5 and Chapter 9 of The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer appeared first on LAWSON COACHING & CONSULTING.

To quell or not to quell?

To Quell:  YES! Join the crowd of men with distant non-emotive fathers from a family of origin of quellers.  This is me.  I am a queller.  I have been well trained in the art.  I even get a small whiff of emotion and I run for cover.  The problem: Quelling leads to men (and women) who don’t know what to do with their emotions.  We try to stuff them down deep, hide them, pretend they don’t exist, cover them with logic and hard work, but they are there in a very powerful way.  We hide them only to realize that they direct so many of our actions.  Even worse, the queller is prone to incredible outbursts of emotions often acting shocked, “Where did those come from?!”  Under extreme stress emotions boil over into rage and angry explosions.

The queller has been trained in the art of disconnect.  We are the superhero’s that are calm powerhouses of intellect and logic within our families of origin that are unraveling by alcohol and dysfunction.  Robotic, we move through life seemingly unphased.  Our war cry (sorry whisper):  “I don’t need people! I don’t need emotional connection!”

When in reality that is what life is ALL about: Connectedness, relationship.  Only when I was dropped to my knees by catastrophic circumstances in my own life was I finally forced to lean on my wife and others.  And it was extremely painful for me to reach out to others.

Not to Quell:

“…listening to your emotions ushers you into reality and reality is where you meet God”-Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

This is the way of true life:  Knowing and embracing the reality of our emotions.  The key is to be aware of what I am feeling, being aware of my emotions because otherwise we let our emotions fester and smolder and control us.

How do we listen to our emotions?  How do we embrace and welcome our emotions as the window to reality?

We need to learn to get into a rhythm with our emotions.  A few ‘tricks’ can be used.  The first is called ‘tagging’.  Recognize when anger, frustration, and other emotions are starting to boil and ‘tag’ then to discuss and retrieve them at a later time.  Develop a pattern or rhythm of checking in with your spouse or close friend to discuss these ‘tagged’ emotions.  The other ‘trick’ is to recognize your emotions before they overtake you.  Recognize the situations and times when you can start to feel your emotions bubbling over and intervene at that moment.  Recognize and analyze why the situation is giving you that emotional response.  In time, this approach will allow you to acknowledge your emotions and address them in healthier ways rather than waiting until they sneak up and explode on you and those around you.

Finally, what can I do when my emotions (anger, frustration, etc) start to boil over?  Here is the challenge as Teresa Avila said, “…learn to sit in the weeds (of your emotions)…”  What is God trying to say to me through this emotion?  Why am I feeling this emotion in this situation?  What is the emotion saying about me?  Emotions are simply a guide.  Take a ‘time out’ to listen to God’s whisper, and remember that He is ALWAYS whispering to YOU that He loves and adores and DELIGHTS in YOU!

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