Becoming Yourself

Developing a Better You

Category: Spirit (Page 9 of 51)

Why Pray? My Struggles

June 8, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I’ve often struggled with prayer. 

I’ve been plagued by questions like, “What is it really?”, “What does it accomplish?” and “Why am I so bad at it?”

I completely understand if prayer is irrelevant to your life and worldview.  Please feel free to stop reading and catch the next post. But if you’ve ever wrestled with these questions, I hope my story will help. 

At a conference on prayer I attended many years ago, I learned two helpful concepts that have stuck with me:

1. I don’t pray for how it changes the world. I pray for how it changes me. 

I don’t claim to know how God answers prayer. There are examples in the Bible and my own life where prayer seemed to have effected earthly outcomes and other times when it didn’t. I believe God answers prayers in the way a parent answers requests from their children—sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes not yet. Answers from a good parent, however painful, are always given with the child’s best interest in mind. That’s where I land—I trust that God knows what’s best for the world and for me. My final prayer is always “Let Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” (The Bible, Matthew 6:10)

Regardless of the outward influence of my prayers, they change me in good ways. When I pray for others, I’m more motivated to help them, and I’m jolted out of my obsession with my own problems. As I meditate on the struggles of others, I’m reminded of the sweetness of my own life. When I pray for myself, I’m reminded that I need help from Someone bigger than me to become who I want to be, providing a healthy dose of humility.

2. Prayer isn’t something you do, it’s Someone you love.

Rather than ask “Why should I pray?”, try “In a relationship, why should I talk?” You talk to get to know each other. To share information, thoughts, feelings, fears and anxieties, hopes and dreams. To deepen your connection. Because you enjoy each other’s company. That’s how I feel about talking with God. At its core, my relationship with God is just that—a relationship. What better way to grow and maintain a relationship than through talking?

Obviously communicating with God is different than communicating with another human being. The conversation often feels very one-sided. I believe there are ways to learn to listen to God’s voice, but that’s beyond the scope of this post (You can read my post on how I connect with God here). Different though it may be, prayer is the most effective way I’ve found to deepen my relationship with God.

The following excerpt from the late author, professor and theologian Henri Nouwen beautifully addresses this topic. Read his words. Try prayer, in whatever way works for you. Pray for others. Pray for yourself. Be honest. Be vulnerable. Be specific. Be grateful. If you do, I believe you’ll find a deeper, more satisfying life, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.

Why Pray? by Henri Nouwen

Why should I spend an hour in prayer when I do nothing during that time but think about people I am angry with, people who are angry with me, books I should read, and books I should write, and thousands of other silly things that happen to grab my mind for a moment?

The answer is: because God is greater than my mind and my heart and what is really happening in the house of prayer is not measurable in terms of human success and failure.

What I must do first of all is to be faithful. If I believe that the first commandment is to love God with my whole heart, mind, and soul, then I should at least be able to spend one hour a day with nobody else but God. The question as to whether it is helpful, useful, practical, or fruitful is completely irrelevant, since the only reason to love is love itself. Everything else is secondary.

The remarkable thing, however, is that sitting in the presence of God for one hour each morning—day after day, week after week, month after month—in total confusion and with myriad distractions radically changes my life. God, who loves me so much that he sent his only son not to condemn me but to save me, does not leave me waiting in the dark too long. I might think that each hour is useless, but after thirty or sixty or ninety such useless hours, I gradually realize that I was not as alone as I thought; a very small, gentle voice has been speaking to me far beyond my noisy place.

So, be confident and trust in the Lord.

This post was originally published December 4, 2021.

Daily Meditation posted by the Henri Nouwen Society, Nov 20, 2021. Text excerpts taken from “You are the Beloved” by Henri J.M. Nouwen (c) 2017 by the Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust, published by Convergent Books.

A Surprising Secret to Increased Joy and Productivity

March 9, 2024 / / 0 Comments

“See what happens when you tune your pace to the trickle of a stream, or the waft of a lazy breeze.”

chris advansun

This one is tricky for me.

I’m a list person. Few things give me more satisfaction than crossing things off my to-do list. I have a hard time relaxing when there are daily tasks left undone. So I often unconsciously drive myself through each one, trying to grind it out, mark it off and move quickly to the next.

That’s not a fun way to live. It can be productive, for awhile. But that approach often leaves me tense, exhausted and short-tempered. And when I finally do reach that free time at the end of the day, I’m often wired and irritable.

When I first read the above quote, my honest thought was, “That sounds nice, but you won’t get much done that way.”

I think I was wrong.

I’ve been experimenting with this approach. Moving more unhurriedly. Pausing more frequently to gaze out the window, chat with my wife or make an extra cup of tea. In short, taking my time.

It will come as no surprise to learn that I find those days far more relaxing and enjoyable than my striving ones. But I’ve also discovered that I get an amazing amount done. At the end of the day, I look back in astonishment at my productivity, especially because I often feel good versus feeling like a wrung-out sponge. It seems so counterintuitive.

This approach reminds me of my Uncle Fred. He’s a soft-spoken southern gentleman, kindhearted and full of simple wisdom. He talks seldom, but when he does, everyone listens because he only speaks when there’s something worthwhile to say.

My dad used to work construction with Uncle Fred. He told me that Fred was the most deceptively fast worker he ever saw. Whenever he’d see Fred on the construction site, my uncle was never in a hurry, always moving through the job with a casual grace. But at the end of the day, he’d done more work than anyone.

I could conjecture about why this approach to life works. How a gentler pace helps you think more clearly, lessons stress, increases motivation, and aids in connecting with others and with God or your Higher Power, if you have one. But the point is that it works, at least for me.

So I’m trying to make this my new normal. It’s not easy to recode fifty plus years worth of programming, but I’m making slow progress. And the rewards are motivating me to keep going.

How about you? Is your approach to your daily tasks more like a trickling stream or a raging river? Closer to a lazy breeze or a hurricane? Pause often. Take a few deep breaths. Gaze out the window. Play calming music. Imagine a stream or a breeze. You’ll find a more enjoyable and productive life, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.

This post was originally published Nov 13, 2021.

How to Be Happy

January 13, 2024 / / 0 Comments

After twenty-six years, I was tired.

Being a professional musician was my dream. My focus. My passion. I’d fought, scratched, and clawed to make a living doing something I craved. Something I believed in. I loved it.

Until I didn’t. The passion faded, and I found myself going through the motions. I still had the skill, but I’d lost the heart. So I made one of the toughest decisions of my life. After thousands of performances, I walked off the stage for the last time.

Being an author was something I’d dreamed about since I was a kid but never pursued. When I chose the music path, I left the writing path behind me. 

But decades later, life led me back to that fork in the road. Walking away from music gave me the opportunity to walk toward writing. Tentatively, fearfully, I took my first halting steps toward my long-delayed author dream. It was hard. It was scary. It was daunting.

And I was alive again. It filled my thoughts, made me bound out of bed, and lit my heart on fire. The passion that once fueled my music career burned bright for my new creative pursuit. I went from a high level in my first career to the bottom rung of my second. And I was happy.

If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.

andrew carnegie

Are you happy? Fulfilled? Do you have passion? Excitement? If not, follow Carnegie’s advice. Set a goal that commands your thoughts. Liberates your energy. Inspires your hopes. If you do, you’ll feel alive again, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.

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