A Burden's Rest...

Today at FLI...

...I received a letter from my dear friend Bethany back in NY - it was a nice little thank-you card with encouraging verses and attributes of the awesome God we serve.  One of the verses really spoke to me - it was Matthew 11:28-30, where Jesus talks about burdens:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

I took a few minutes to let the weight of its significance sink in.   I've had a tremendous amount of burdens to bear this semester - this could not have been more timely or fitting.  It inspired me and gave me hope to carry on.  But before I did, I had to celebrate with a creative outlet - (I can be one of those crazy artsy people from time to time... I just hide it well =)... It's not much, but with my very limited budget (free) for art supplies (including artistic software), this is about what I can do in a few minutes with freeware; but it's comforting and reminds me to cast all my cares upon Him (1 Peter 5:7, para) as it now sits as my desktop background:

In usual fashion, I've added inspirational text to an existing image. The original image is a piece of American
art painted by Harvey Dunn (1884-1952) entitled Team Of Oxen Plowing The Prairie. Source:Greatest
American Painters, American Gallery, WordPress.

~AK

The Cowardice Smackdown

Today at FLI...

...during my intense 2-day paper-writing escapade I took a short break and stumbled across an interesting video.  It was actually a webcast - a sermon on dating from Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA.  It was the most candid talk on the Relationships/Dating/Courtship topic I've ever heard.  It was great - until the end.  Then he said something that really struck me.  He didn't mince words, apologize, stutter, or forewarn the audience - he just laid down the smack:

"Some of you are here... and you’ve lacked courage and confidence... and particularly you men.  It’s time to repent of your cowardice.”

Whhhhhat? Repent of your cowardice? Oooouch! *sting, burn*  Since when is lacking confidence considered cowardice? Who does this guy think he is?!?! Is he %$@$#%* serious? I’ve heard dozens of seminars and talks on this stuff - and never once have I heard anyone talk about repenting of a lack of confidence or even mention the word cowardice.  That's just wrong.  I've read tons of books on relationships, courtship, dating, engagement - the whole shebang.  Not one of them said anything about repenting of cowardice.  Heck, I’m even taking an entire course on the subject - nothing about cowardice there either.  I've read enough that, if you can name it, I’ve heard of it, probably read it, and got the workbook. But this! A call to repent of male cowardice? I'd never heard such a thing - not in a dating context anyway.

Preposterous. It was so far from anything I'd ever heard that, as I began to really think about what it might mean in the context of my life, it started to sink deep.


Overall, the message was short, engaging, funny - and compelling. And with that, it was a smack in the face in a way I've never heard it before. This slap was to men: to wake up!  I thought I was awake! I thought I was doing everything I should be doing as a man! I study leadership, I practice integrity, I work hard, I steward my resources well, and I put God first. I live by honor and respect! Well, apparently not if cowardice is on the radar. Geez, God? Really? Now? Above all other times, now? I am NOT feeling the love here bro... you're telling me: I've got another issue to deal with? On top of everything else that's going on!?!?  One more thing? Really? You have got to be kidding...

I paused. Wait a minute...Who the heck is this guy anyway? Well, that thought didn't get far.  Turns out, "this guy" was actually Mark Driscoll - pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle; this church has satellite churches in 9 cities, is reaching millions of people all over the world for the kingdom of God, and online 24/7.  A few quick searches on Driscoll showed what this Godly man is made of - a mean, lean, God-believing, Word-preaching machine!  He speaks truth like nobody's business. To make me feel worse, a few quick searches on BibleGateway revealed to me what God says about cowardice.  Oh no... Here we go again, I thought, and braced myself.  God's getting ready to convict me... I just know it.

And he did. Of the 25 demonstrated occurrences of cowardice in the Bible, all 25 involve men (Nave's Topical).  Only 4 instances involve men and women in a mixed group, while 21 acts of cowardice were committed by men alone, or groups of men together.  In each of these contexts, it is also very clear that cowardice does not please God, nor does it constitute obedience to his will. Cowardice is not godliness. Cowardice is not leadership. Cowardice is not acting with integrity.  Cowardice is a shameful, low-blowing, scumbagish, spineless act of fear.  Acts of cowardice are 6 times more likely to be committed by men than by women, so this message was clear:  Driscoll tells the cowardly men to repent, to grow up, and be the courageous men God desires they be.

Why Teamwork? Because a little humor goes a long way.  That and pictures
describe powerful principles so much better than words sometimes.
Meat shields are an act of cowardice. Booyah!

So - it looks like God is saying it's time to face the facts: cowardice has been an unwelcome guest in my life for a long time.  I first felt its grip when I was 11 years old - fear swept over me like a plague before I stood up to give my first book report in 1995.  Somehow, that fear resurfaces every time I present.  It feels like it never left.  Cowardice grips me in two key ways - and interestingly enough - in only two ways: 1.) while initiating dates, and 2.) while speaking in front of a large group of people.  I didn't plan on doing either of these things when I came to FLI because I felt like I had enough on my plate already. (NOTE: I even mentioned avoiding these things in my application.)  But it looks like God had other plans - two weeks ago I asked a girl out and learned after the fact the reason why God arranged that occurrence - it was to deal with my fear. Afterwords, I felt so free, but I still didn't like God keeping me in the dark about the whole thing until after it was over. Ugh. So embarrassing.  Then, this week I stood in front of a group of 43 peers to speak - and I buckled under that same gripping, paralyzing fear I felt 15 years ago. That's 15 years too long.  I'm kinda sick of it. Enough is enough.

If God keeps bringing these things up, it's time to deal with them.  No more will I idly sit by and let fear compromise action.  I choose to repent of the cowardice I've complacently let take root in my life like a garden that hasn't been weeded in a decade.  Even in the 10th week at FLI, God continues to stretch and grow me in ways I didn't know were even possible.  This is the third time this same issue has popped up within the last few weeks - and I know what that means: he's tired of seeing the cowardice in my life, and he's taking out the trash.

Thanks. Thanks a lot, God.  Just what I need.  One more thing to work on.  God, I know you're good... but you're soooo inconvenient sometimes.

~AK

When Confession Turns to Frustration...

Today at FLI...

I confessed before the Lord and spoke out of my frustration...

Forgive me, father – for I never want to spend time with you until… until I have other things that I don’t want to do (like writing a paper) before I decide – I haven’t had my QT today… and then I foolishly use not having my quiet time to procrastinate on my paper.  Truth is, I’m guilty of not wanting to do either one, lately.  I’m so frustrated.  I’m losing motivation like a sinking ship.  God, please change my heart.  I don’t know what’s gotten into me.  This is not like me, to be unmotivated.  I love challenge – I thrive on the prospect of attaining the impossible – but not today.  Not recently.  I’m just so burnt out – I feel like I’m dying inside.  It feels like permanent damage is being done to my motivational capacity.  I feel – depression setting in.  I haven’t felt this way since I lived in my parents’ house 9 years ago.  This sums up the conclusion of the last few months: I know something is terribly wrong in my life – yet I feel powerless to change.  Nothing I’ve tried has worked.  No amount of discipline, new habits, breaking old ones, rearranged priorities, upheld or replaced values – nothing.   No tangible breakthrough has yet to occur – and need I remind you, God, that’s the sole reason I came here to Colorado.  I’m still struggling with the same things I have for years.  Not fair.  We have 31 days left – and you know how much I hate having things wait until the last minute.

I unashamedly stole this angry fist in anger from a foul-mouthed blogger's website.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Show yourself and let us wrestle it out!  I'll show you how frustrated I am!  I will not be mastered by momentum in the wrong direction!  Things will change! I will see change before the sun sets at FLI!   I WILL SEE CHANGE!  You stretched my faith on my drive out here – and this is the result of that stretching!  I have more now.  In faith, I’m making this statement: I will be changed.  I will leave a different person than when I came.  I will press in, press on, and wear rug burns into my knees if necessary – I. Will. Leave. Changed.  Remember me, Father, for I have endured for your sake.  I have not given up.  Remember the sorrow of my youth.  Remember the years the locusts have eaten. Restore them.  Restore me, my God, for your sake.  And I will worship you, for you are my Lord.

Rarely do I yell at God - today was one of those times.  Never in our 18 years together have I ever become angry with Him - but if I ever did come close, today would be that day.  In times like this I'm grateful for his stubborn love.

~AK

Communication, Modulation, and Standardization...

Today at FLI...

...I dealt with some communication disturbances; however, I have a feeling these disturbances are not over yet because similar ones have occurred for what is now the third time and are shedding light on a recurring and unhealthy pattern.  I prayed about it.  I sought counsel.  I took time to be silent and wait upon the Lord.  I sought more counsel.  I consulted experts.  I set appointments to preempt the next strike before it happens.  And I drew some comparisons while thinking through all these things in light of the existing problems - then parsed them out below in a journal entry.  I am an external processor; it is my modus operandi. Much of this is actually for me (because it is necessary to get this issue off my chest so I can focus on my homework for the night) but I post it publicly because 1.) I value transparency in relationship, and 2.) it allows others to better understand and relate to what I am dealing with in this season of my journey in life at Focus.

Several weeks ago in Marriage and Family Studies we learned about- and took a quiz on- emotional intelligence (the Emotional Intelligence Quotient, EIQ or EQ for short, as opposed to IQ, the Intelligence Quotient).  Based on the extensive work by Daniel Goleman and others, we launched into discussion about how EQ has been studied and its relationship to success in general - but also specifically how it relates to relational success.  Having the ability to be aware of how you come across to other people while being confident and unafraid to be true to yourself along with how you relate to others helps to define one's EQ according to Queendom, one of the a few online administers of a free and standardized EQ battery.

(Image borrowed from The Natural Learning Company. All Rights Reserved ©2010,
who referenced the chart from an earlier chart by Salovey & Mayer, 1990,
titled The Conceptualisation of Emotional Intelligence.)

If high EQ is more closely correlated with general and overall success in life than simple IQ, then the correlation holds true, that in general, if you find a group of fairly successful people, the EQ of that success group will be on average higher than that of the general public.  That said, if you typically deal in circles of successful people, you will be dealing with people of higher average EQ.  This connection was curicial to understanding some of the communal integration differences I've been experiencing since I arrived at focus 8 weeks ago, as I've noticed this thought running through my head quite often: I'm not able to fill my usual role in a given group here as I usually do in most other places I've ever found myself.  This is odd... why is this?

This correllary understanding was crucial, as I think it has finally served to answer this disparity of communal bonding experiences.  For example, if my community back at my home institution is made up of individuals who have achieved a moderate degree of success in their academic lives, are relatively ambitious, driven and/or highly motivated to succeed, then it is fairly accurate to say the Rensselaer community as a whole is made up of a group of fairly well-adjusted individuals with a high EQ.  Being immersed in this college microcosm where higher IQ’s and EQ’s are common for long enough can then falsely lead someone to think of this higher level as average and normal.  This poor assumption can lead to problems when, the immersed individual suddenly emerges from this select microcosm and into the real – the everyday world.  This could become culture shock in a number of ways – common symptoms might be to think of the rest of the world as developed to a lesser degree, or less mature than what is perceived to be “normal” based on a “shifted normal” of the microcosm to which one is accustomed.  Assumptions – and worse, second-natured assumptions – they get you every time.  Sobering, isn’t it? You can’t know what you don’t know, until it is brought to light through something you do know.

Similarity of communication style precipitates good communication.  Good communication lays the foundation for good understanding, and without, often leads to misunderstanding.  Reciprocating a given communication style or preference is a method of communication I both identified as helpful and began to practice years ago because I saw firstly how much it improved mutual understanding and accelerated relational trust and ties.  Over the years I’ve worked on and developed a fairly proficient repertoire of communication styles to facilitate a wide variety of people and their communication preferences.  As a result, I’ve been able to build relationship with people from all walks of life and from a diversity of ages, experiences, cultures, and backgrounds.   

Differences in communication style is a lot like frequency modulation:
  both mediums carry signals, are dependent upon a transceiver to be properly "tuned" to the
right "frequency" for correct operation, and where transmissions can be hampered
by many factors, including transmission errors, interference disturbances, & receiver errors.

Given this rich background I feel very blessed to have understood this foundational communication principle so many years ago that I have now met what I can best tell as over 50 thousand people throughout the entirety of my life thus far – and I’ve had the privilege of getting along with a vast majority of them.  But, as today and other days recently have seen, none of us is beyond leanring how to deal with new and different issues.  Now, from my experiences in communication over the years I could make several statistically significant observations about the people groups and demographics of the relationships I’ve been able to establish – some better than others – but I will be brief in those observations, as that is not my point here. My point is to recognize the source of the recurring issues, pray and seek counsel, and develop a working plan with hope for resolving the issues in a peaceable manner.  The observations are blocked out, below:

In summary, I’ve found my native communication style and preferences at home in the middle-aged adult demographic, but that does not mean 1) that I get along with all middle-aged adults, or that I have explicit difficulty communicating with other age groups.  What I do find interesting, is that I have consistently had more difficulty communicating with and relating to high school, college-age, and young professional age groups specifically when they are also peer groups than any other group at any other time.  This is interesting, because if the “in my peer group” filter is removed (i.e., relating to college-age individuals while in high school, or relating to high-school aged individuals while in college) these difficulties almost disappear.  All this to conclude: it is the combination of a “peer group” and “Generation Me” that seem to exhibit the majority of communication difficulties in my experience.   This is highly unfortunate, because, whether I like it or not, I was born into the tail end of Generation X and the early part of Generation Me, and while born slightly closer to Generation X, I’ve been more associated with Generation Y (the “Me” Generation), therefore, it is my generation.  And it will be with me for the rest of my life.

I’m also grateful for books by people like Deborah Tannen, professor of linguistics at Georgotown University, who make it their job to deal in these very areas of communication styles, differences, and difficulties.  I'm also glad I had a short discussion with Professor Mr. Steve Lee this afternoon, learning that there are apparently 9 possible places for a communication breakdown to occur between two people!  Nine!  Now maybe I don't feel so bad - there are so many ways in which communication can go wrong.  Boy is there a lot to be learned yet.  Please pray for mercy and patience on the part of all involved - we need it!

In the mean time, I'm not without action: it looks like it is time to dig out “That’s Not What I Meant!” from my bookshelf and buy a copy of “You Just Don’t Understand!” for aid in these current communication connundrums - or maybe "First Aid" would better describe their role after what's been happening in my small group recently.  These books both deal in the interpretation of others’ communication signals and preferences, but more importantly, identify common pitfalls.  In the upcoming weeks I'm also going to need to learn how to adapt relational preferential dichotomies (Myers-Briggs), love language (Chapman), Strengths 2.0 (Gallop), and EQ (Queendom) to the communication "soup" if you will.  Hopefully, with new ingredients in the communication soup there will be enough electrolytes to conduct a meaningful and measurable signal within the challenge demographic, and specifically, the small group.

~AK

Breaking Point..

Today at FLI...

I was stretched to my ultimate tensile limit - or in common speech - my breaking point.  Up to this point I had been trying to achieve what was both my goal for the semester (trying to win a bet against God) and his goals for me being at FLI this fall.  Say what?  yeah... so here's how the story went.  In my charicteristic metaphorical, engineering sort-of-way, I'll compare a picture to what I mean.  Ladies and gentlemen - consider, the charicteristic Tensile Stress-Strain Curve for composite material:

The Stress vs Strain curve for a material subject to test failure loads of tensile force. Source: Nanopedia.

Right now I'm just before the red X of Ultimate Tensile Strength.  The last 4 weeks have been the Plastic Region where things have been slipping further and further into disarray, and before that was the Elastic phase of the first two weeks.  Pictures.  I worth a thousand words for sure.

On the third day after we settled into our new apartments, God and I had a short conversation - about grades.  It was after the end of our first official day of classes and after the 2-day Leadership Intensive; We had just gotten a personal introduction to what would be a curriculum based on the Truth Project by - that's right - by Dr. Del Buford Delmont Tackett the third himself!  Anyway, my discussion with God went like this as I was planning out my reading and homework schedule in my head: You're going to try and get all A's this semester in each of your classes, aren't you? God said, interrupting my train of thought.  Umm... yeah... and why should I not at least try to produce excellence in my studies? I sheepishly replied already knowing what was wrong with that question.  Because it's not why you're here - you didn't come here to get good grades.  You came here to balance priorities.  So, balance priorities - and don't get A's.

Well, needless to say, I tried to ignore these words or act like I didn't hear them - but I think subconsciously I knew I was supposed to heed his comment.  Therefore, the next 6 weeks would be a blur of mixed priorities - both mine and Gods - and until this week there was some semblence of hope that I could still have both while holding on for dear life.  Maybe, just maybe, I could still "have it all" as it were, and survive.  But not now.  Not this week - it's week 7.  Week 7 means midterms.  It means presentations, project deadlines, and cumulative work assesment.  Essentially, it's the checkpoint to make sure you're keeping up with the pack of work - and it comes with a bucketload more work.  "OK God, I'm at my breaking point... I can't do this anymore.  By sundown Wednesday this week I'm going to crack unless something happens.  God, I've come to the end of me; help?"

Well, I'll let you know about any developments... but I have a feeling it's going to be a good dose of God saying, "I told you so" along with "I love you so" while reminding me that "you should rely on me, you know?"
~AK