Effort and faith

I think a lot about what's my part and what's God's part. Like when it comes to becoming a mother who is kind to her kids, what's my part and what's God part? Kindness is very hard to fake, in my mind. So it's probably going to involve an inward reorientation and that always makes me think of something God has to do.

Lately, the Dallas Willard stuff has been making me think hard about what's my part. Willard's model for change requires "VIM": Vision, Intention, & Means. What vision do I have about my relationship with my children? For starters, I want them to experience grace from me that they can hook up to the grace they've received from God. I can't imagine memories of their mom yelling impatiently at them is really going to help. As I understand it, by intention Willard means the focus of our will. When I come to the point of yelling or not yelling, will I force my will to override my emotions and choose kindness?  Means, in the case, the means are very easy. My vocal cords and lungs can modulate my volume and my tone easily. There's no physical reason why I have to yell.

This notion of forcing the will to override emotions is the most unnatural part of this to me. It feels a little godless, like all I'm going to do is muscle up and sit on my yell button so I can't hit it. But as I think about it, for my example, it's probably the place where I need to be most disciplined about calling God into the process. "God, help me to carry through with not yelling, with having an attitude of kindness."

I think I question the what's my part, what's God's part because God is so obviously more able. So why should I expend my puny effort or how can I believe  that my relatively puny effort will be necessary or productive? Here I think the answer is that I need to ruthlessly apply my effort not because it is big in God's world but because it is big in my world. My efforts represent my desire for "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done." Is it more important for me to get my way, or is it more important for God's will to prevail, and surely his will is for me to be kind to my children? Who sits on the throne of my life? If I'm to allow God to sit on the throne and run my life then surely it's not surprising that I have to spend my effort to keep myself off the throne.

Lent: Giving up Contempt

It's that awkward time of the year again where Lent starts and I never know what to say, "Happy Lent?" That just seems weird.

Anyways, in brief, since I have dishes that need to be washed and a bed calling out to me, I've been listening to Dallas Willard's lectures on his book the Divine Conspiracy and one of this themes is a reading of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5-7) as Christ calling us away from contempt, arguing that what Jesus does in those passages is redeeming the contemptible. I haven't read the book, but the notion has given me pause.

So for Lent, I'm giving up political news which always stirs up my contempt-o-meter. I've done this before with a general sense that my news addiction was unhealthy, but this year I feel I have a bead on the problem: when I read news, I'm not really just encountering information I'm judging and condemning. It's ugly.

Sadly, however, the news is really the least of my problems. What I have realized recently is that the object of my regular contempt is my children. When I get impatient and raise my voice, when I feel I can't take it any more, what has happened in my heart is that I am holding my children in contempt. So while Lent is frequently about foregoing something and I am doing that, this Lent, I want to dig in an embrace kindness and embrace my children.

Close

I deadlifted 150lbs today. A deadlift is where you pick the bar up off the floor until you're standing straight up with the weight hanging at the ends of your arms.

That would have been lifting my body weight, but I've gained weight since I started. So I should get to lifting body weight next week. Meh. I guess my next goal is 1.5 X bodyweight or ~225-235 lbs.

At the other end of the spectrum, my squat and press are at 37 lbs. I'm not even at the 45 lbs that makes up the standard empty bar. As far as the press goes, I'm not surprised since 1) it's an upper body movement and 2) I have a tear in my left shoulder socket.

The squat, however, is a total disappointment, especially since my deadlift is triple the squat. Well, it turns out that the hip flexors in my post-surgical hip are super weak, but I don't use them in everyday life so I never noticed. The hip flexors help bring the knee up toward the chest. Not a huge set of muscles but clearly the limiting factor in squating.

This kind of makes me wonder what other niggling little weaknesses I have in my life that preventing me from doing what I should be able to do.