More on Limits

I’ve set aside today as a day of rest. It’s the first day I’ve allowed myself a full day of rest in eleven straight days — and let me tell you, it’s been a difficult morning so far, keeping this commitment. I keep wanting to write e-mails or make plans to schedule my upcoming week. I keep thinking about deadlines and how much I want to keep working in order to meet them or get ahead of the game. 

But so far this morning, even though there have been great surges of struggle to let go of work and sink into rest, I’ve been able to remain committed to what this day is about for me. I haven’t written the e-mails. I haven’t opened my notebook and planner. I’ve rested — literally gave myself permission to sleep a little bit longer — and I’ve continued to let myself actively embrace the plans I’ve made to spend quality time with a very dear friend today. 

But the struggle has gotten me thinking this morning more about the limits of our humanity.

What is at the root of that drive in us that wants to burst through our limits and not be stopped short by anything? What is it that keeps hounding at me to do more and more and more, not welcoming that still small voice in me that pipes up to say, “What is done is good and will have to be enough for now, and now I need to rest”?

I don’t know about you, but for me, the root of that striving drive and that hounding voice has a lot to do with fear. 

I fear falling short. Failure. Not being enough. I fear letting people down or creating some inadvertent catastrophe by a moment’s lack of vigilance. Plainly put, I fear whatever might happen — via circumstance or relationship — from my not being perfect or all things for all people or situations.

Can you relate to this?

I remember another season in my life when I began to recognize this tendency in me as something possibly unhealthy or other than God intends for it to be. I started seeing this drive in me as a tendency toward what I called the superhuman. It was so helpful to even call it that because then I could step back and say, “What does it mean, then, to be merely human?” 

Being human means not being God. It means having a body that can only be in one finite place at a time. It means having a brain that can only hold so much. It means having systems inside me that need nourishment and rest in order to thrive and get rejuvenated.

Being human is an invitation to grace. 

Perhaps it will help you to hear, as it helps me, that when we try to be superhuman, we’re trying to be other than what we actually are and what God made us to be. When we’re aiming for the superhuman, we’re actually trying to be what God alone can be, which is to say without flaw or failure or misstep.

When we’re trying to be superhuman, we’re more than likely trying to protect ourselves from pain or judgment or rejection or disappointment in some way. More often than not, we are acting out of a fear of what might happen if we don’t do it all, whatever “all” might be for us. 

Right now, in this moment, with what you’re facing, what do you fear will happen if you allow yourself to embrace the reality of your limits? If you played out your worst fears to their imagined conclusion, what might that look like? What is it like for you to hear that God made you human, not superhuman?

Acknowledging Our Limits

I’ve been thinking a lot about limits lately — specifically, the kind of limits that keep us from accomplishing everything we set out to do. 

For instance, in late May, I made a commitment to God and myself that I would post a contemplative reflection for you in this space every weekday (save holidays), and last Friday was the first weekday I didn’t uphold that commitment. I was on an all-day film shoot that began at 8 a.m., and the previous two days had been filled with similar day-long commitments, and I just couldn’t get it done before leaving for the film shoot that morning. 

As I drove around that day, the post left unwritten all day, I struggled to accept that I simply didn’t have the bandwidth to get it done.

Here’s a second example. My husband, Kirk, and I have recently begun guarding our Sundays for rest. We both work hard in our respective jobs, and our work lives and commitments often bleed into the evenings and weekends.

Recently, we realized the need to make a change.

Now, Sundays are for Sabbath rest for us. We take the day slow. We take a drive, go for a walk, read, or work on creative projects that bring us life. We attend a contemplative eucharist service in the evenings, and usually I’ll play with my iPhone camera and take photographs of things that inspire me. 

But this past weekend, I woke at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday with my to-do list running through my mind. I got out of bed and worked in the quiet of our house for three solid hours, and that evening, I worked another several hours getting some other items checked off my to-do list. 

I’m still learning how to rest on Sundays. 

And here’s a third example. About two weeks ago, I agreed to copyedit a book manuscript for an author whose book I looked forward to reading. I dove into the project and made great headway right from the start. But over the last week, other important commitments have cropped up requiring my immediate attention. That copyedit project languished on the side, and the day I’d hoped to have it finished came and went. 

This morning, I e-mailed the client and apologized. “I’m so sorry for getting behind on this,” I said. Life happened, and I couldn’t do it all. 

I’m still fresh inside this learning curve. I’m learning how to rest and say, “I’ve reached the end of what I can do today, and that has to be okay.” I’m also learning how to say, “I’m sorry. I overcommitted myself. I need to change the plan.”

Can you relate to bumping up against your human limits? How do you normally respond to your limits when faced with them?

What Do You Believe About God?

We’ve talked quite a bit about the process of formation this week — about how formation happens in two different ways, that what we’re trying to secure on the first level of formation is ultimately meant to be given to us by God, and that such relief from the heavy burden of our ego is found when we’re able to place our cares in the hands of God.

But doing so doesn’t happen automatically. How do we know God is worthy of that trust? 

So much of this has to do with what we believe about God and what we believe about ourselves. For instance, if we don’t believe in God, that second level of formation won’t exist for us. In that case, the first level — how we interact with the world and what we come to believe about ourselves and other people in it — is all we’ll have. 

But if we do believe in God, that shifts things around a bit. What do we believe about God? What does God have to do with us? What kind of entity is God? 

Our beliefs about God inform our beliefs about ourselves. These are the existential questions. 

When I write reflections for you to consider in this space, I come from an orientation of belief in God. Specifically, I am a follower of Jesus. This means that the person of Jesus — his life and teachings — do much to inform my understanding of who God is and who I am. 

I believe that the more we get to know Jesus, the more we come to know God and ourselves. (This is one reason I’m creating the Gospel immersion course, to be offered here in the fall: so that we can better get to know the person of Jesus, and therefore better get to know God and ourselves. Can’t wait to share this with all of you!)

But what about you? What do you believe about God? How does that belief inform your understanding of yourself? 

Trusting God with Our Ego

Yesterday and today, I woke with a feeling of heaviness that seemed to show up out of nowhere. As I have carried the feeling around with me and tried to understand it, the only word that has resounded again and again is the word sad. 

For some reason I didn’t fully understand, I felt sad. 

This morning, as I came before Jesus in prayer with these feelings, I hardly knew what to say and barely had the energy to stay with him in prayer. I just kept coming back to that same word: sad. 

So I told him I was feeling sad.

And even though our prayer times lately have included a lot of walking and talking together, this morning I just wanted to stop and have him look at these feelings of sadness I felt. I didn’t understand them, but perhaps he would help me see what was there and why it was there.

I stood before him and looked into his eyes and just told him, “I’m feeling sad.” I told him I didn’tunderstand where it was coming from, but there it was nonetheless. And slowly, slowly, I heard him speaking to me. 

My grace is sufficient for you. My yoke is easy. 

Jesus helped me see that my sadness stemmed from getting twisted up inside the first level of formation these last few days. Without realizing it, my ego has gotten mired in the things I have been given to do. When the stakes seem high or the way unclear, when the plans have gone awry and I have needed to keep moving forward, I have feared failure. I have feared my intentions won’t matter and my efforts won’t be enough. 

And then the world seems like a huge and scary place. 

But Jesus looked at me this morning and said, “My grace is sufficient for you. Cast your cares upon me and let me care for you. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. This is my work through you. I will see it through to completion in the way I intend it to be done.”

There is something immensely relieving about not having to hold all the pieces of our worlds together. It really does create a lightness of being that’s a bit inexplicable, a sense of participating in something larger than us for which we are given an easy role to play. As it turns out, our worth and performance is not on the line as we’d imagined they were. 

This is what comes from trusting our ego into God’s hands instead of holding on to it ourselves. 

Can you relate to this struggle with the ego? Does it ever feel like a huge and unbearable burden to bear and maintain? What is it like for you to consider trusting God with your ego instead? 

How Do the Two Levels of Formation Interact?

Yesterday we explored the concept that formation happens on two levels — one level concerned with self-protection and one level concerned with discovering and recovering the truth of ourselves in God’s eyes. 

In the comments section, Katy asked a great question: 

How do you think those two types of formation interact with and inform each other? 

I think there are probably many layers to the answer. I suspect in our times of reflection together in this space, we will continue to revisit these two levels of formation to consider concrete ways that either level is or has been at work in our lives and to discover ways in which the two interact. 

But today, as I considered this question, I did land on one way that I believe these two levels speak to one another and teach us something about who we are and the quest each of us are taking toward wholeness and ultimate security in God. That way is this: 

The first level of formation that is concerned with protecting and promoting the self — when examined — teaches us much about the identity and security we ultimately will find in God. 

The thing about the first level of formation is that it is wholly devoted to acts of self-preservation. All that we believe and choose and seek on that level has to do with our ongoing longing and hope for security, acceptance, and love. On that level, our greatest fears are being alone and lacking significance. Everything we choose to believe about the world and how we then interact with it is geared toward self-preservation and a hope that we truly matter. 

The recovery work on the second level of formation — the level where we continually discover who we are to God and begin to abide in relationship with God — eventually teaches us that everything we sought so valiantly to attain and keep on that first level of formation already exists in our relationship with God. 

With God, we eventually discover the reality of full acceptance and love that never ends and can never be taken from us or lost. With God, we discover the reality of always being wanted and sought out. We’re never left alone, and are our value is immense and esteemed and unchanging. Our existence carries intention and meaning to God.

These are, paradoxically, hard truths to grasp.

Although in God we ultimately find all that we sought with all our might on the first level of formation, such reality is not readily apparent. It takes time to discover. We must get to know God and get to know ourselves. Eventually, those two entities — God and ourselves — must begin to interact and form relationship in order for us to eventually receive and settle into these gifts of security, acceptance, and love God has to give us.

And again, discovering and settling into the truth of ourselves in God is a process that lasts our lifetime. 

What is your response to this idea? Where are you in your process of understanding yourself on either level of formation? 

Formation Happens on Two Levels

I’ve been reading a little book by David Benner called The Gift of Being Yourself — a very profound and rich little book, I might add — and it has me thinking a lot these days about the self and how it is formed. 

This morning, for instance, I got to thinking about that moment when I was 19 that I’ve mentioned here before when it felt like scales fell from my eyes and I realized everything about myself, my life, and my faith was quite different than I’d always thought it was. In that moment, I began a more conscious understanding of and participation in my formation as a person on two distinct levels. 

The first part of that process was learning how I’d been formed over the course of my life in conscious and unconscious ways. Who had I become, and why? 

This level of formation is happening all throughout our lives whether we know it or not. We’ve talked about this previously, too, but in each moment of our lives, depending on what we choose to do, how we choose to respond, how we spend our time, and even the feelings and thoughts we have in response to different situations, our personhood is being formed. 

Ultimately, this first level of formation has to do with beliefs we form around the experiences we have.

It’s a kind of formation we dictate and control — whether we’re aware we’re doing it or not — based on the kind of person we want to be or the quality of life we want to have. It is most often concerned with self-preservation and self-advancement.

But there’s a second level of formation, and our awareness of this second level emerges like a process of recovery. 

Think of it like cleaning a window that has been coated with thick paint that’s been there for years. We take a rag and pail of solution to it, and slowly, slowly the window becomes clear. We eventually can see the window as it was originally created to be seen, rather than the years of paint coated over it. 

This second level of formation is like that. It is a process of discovering the person we really are that was determined about us by God before we were born. It is the person God intends for us to be and knows us to be at our core, and it is the person God is steadily desiring to bring more and more to the surface. 

I say it is like a process of recovery because who we are at our deepest core level, as created and determined by God, already exists in the fullness of God’s awareness but not the fullness of our own. Our lifetime with God in Christ is meant to be an ongoing process of recovery of the person God made us to be.

In reading this, do you have any sense of connection to either level of formation at work in your life? What has been your understanding of the process of formation that happens in us over a lifetime? What is your response to knowing these two types of formation exist?