the pursuit of happyness: or, why I've been getting it all wrong (and you probably have, too)

Intended Audience: people looking for fulfilment in their lives

I have been in a season of making Decisions, and today, I realized I've been doing it all wrong. The example I'm about to give may not resonate with you - you could be in a totally different phase of life - but in terms of the search for fulfilment it's the most pertinent in mine own, so stay with me.

The Case In Point

I've been thinking for some time now - about fifteen years, maybe longer - about What To Do With My Life. Here is a partial list of the ideas I've entertained and actually spent some time pursuing: concert pianist, novelist, doctor ('cause my dad is my hero), lawyer, truck driver, sailor/captain of a sailboat (Bring Me That Horizon!), rock and roller, preacher, missionary (check), President of the United States (when I'm feeling down, I settle for foreign diplomat), Hollywood actor, Navy SEAL, English teacher, professional triathlete.

Now, I am convinced I could do any of the above to the glory of God and know people in almost each of these professions who does or has done so. The problem isn't, therefore, that any one of these professions is holier than another. But this doesn't help me toward making my decision.

I'm also convinced that God has a plan for my life. One of the things I do in trying to make this decision, then, is look back over my story - the story he's been telling to me and through me - and try and look for clues as to what he's doing. This kinda helps me to narrow down the list and kinda doesn't. I'm just interested in too many things.

Well so in response to all this, I've done two things: 1) read, and 2) bore anyone who will listen (mostly my poor parents) for hours on end and then ask them for their advice. The books and articles all say something along these lines: 1) figure out what you wanna do and do it, 2) poor us (my generation talking to my generation), we have too many options, and 3) poor us (my generation again), we were told all our lives that we were special and unique flowers, that the sky was the limit, and we found out that's not true, boohoo, etc.

Number one is great advice, and that's what I try to do. (Numbers two and three are just complaints.) But there's still something bugging me, and so we finally get to it:

I've been doing it all wrong.

The issue here isn't the making of the decision. The issue is why I can't. (Or more accurately, haven't been able to.)

Why I Haven't Been Able To Make The Decision

This is frustrating, because I've known this answer for ages - God has shown this answer to me in the Bible more than a few times - but I keep forgetting. Today, he reminded me again, and today, in an effort not to be like the man who looks at himself in the mirror and then goes away and forgets what he looks like, I'm writing it down.

"Delight yourself in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart."
Psalm 37:4

Translation: I haven't been able to make the decision because I've been hoping to be satisfied by whatever I end up doing with my life instead of being satisfied in Jesus. And I will never be satisfied by ANYTHING I'm doing if I am not first satisfied in Jesus. Because he's the only one who can satisfy. He's got the Good Stuff. And if I will be delighted in the Lord, if I can get my soul to really want him above everything else, all the rest falls into place.

[Post Text: Still doesn't answer the question about What To Do With My Life, but the answering of it becomes a whole lot more fun without all that needless weight.]

for friends of Bill W

I'll remember for the rest of my life the first time I said it. I wonder sometimes about starting my testimony that way, but I choose not to because I'm distrustful of the sensational (mostly because I want it so badly). I have quietly observed as people who have never attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting laughingly role-play introducing themselves like they see in the movies.

It was a really powerful moment for me. I'd arrived at Hazelden's outpatient clinic in Minneapolis and walked into the room I was supposed to be in and sat down in one of a large circle of chairs, glancing quickly around the room to see if my suspicions were correct - they'd all be people off the streets, surely, because that's what drug addicts are and I'm still not sure I am one - and seeing C and A and J and M, nervously looking down at the ground again.

The facilitator - I don't remember her name now, but she was kind of a harsh older lady - the facilitator had us all introduce ourselves. I don't remember who started, but they were using that same structure - inserting their names and addictions where necessary - and as each one of them spoke it out, a kind of warm, golden energy mounted up inside the words, barreling into the next person to speak, setting each of them free as they spoke truthfully about who they were in their innermost beings, and suddenly it was upon me and I said, "Hi. My name's Ian, and I'm a heroin addict..."

And I stopped.

I think we were supposed to say something else about who we were but I forgot in this moment, and said instead-

"...and that's the first time I've ever said that."

And then I said something like, "And I'm really surprised to see that you are all normal people, nay, lawyers, doctors, college dropouts like me, because I thought you'd all be homeless and I would continue to feel totally alone because I'm not homeless, never have been, and yet I have this thing eating me up inside..."

I don't really remember what I said. That probably all happened in my head. It was a volatile time.

And that's what was - is - so powerful about Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Suddenly, you're a part of a community. In fact, you're a part of a community of people who know they're broken, which is way more powerful because we all know we're broken but most of us don't know how to admit it. Or don't want to. But then you get into this community of people who knows, they really know, they're messed up - nobody's putting on airs, nobody's self-righteous - and it's powerful.

I remember the first time I heard the phrase "terminally unique" and how it just opened me right up. That's what I thought about myself. It seems insane now (and I was, at the time), but I really thought I was living something that no one else had ever lived - I mean, let's be honest: heroin's no laughing matter - but those two words summed up that whole feeling and suddenly I realized no one could have verbalized them without understanding the feeling behind it which means... I'm not alone. That's it. I'm not alone.

I heard a story once - I think it came from the Big Book - about an alcoholic in an airport. She was in recovery, traveling alone, walked past a bar, and started having that craving. Somehow, she got a person on the intercom to ask for "friends of Bill W" (one of AA's founders) to meet in such-and-such room, and a whole bunch of her fellow alcoholics and addicts showed up and they had themselves a meeting. That's community. That's what I live for. That kind of I'm-gonna-be-there-for-you-no-matter-what brotherhood.

I thank God for C and A and J and M and D and S and B and all the rest who were in that room the first time and then took me to my first meeting afterwards. I miss you guys.

How To Survive

Get up in the morning. For you, that means 7:30 or before. No matter how late you've gone to bed. If you need to, you can catch up on sleep by retiring earlier tonight.

Eat good food.

Remember that you are being affected by your actions. ACTIONS. (Did you hear me?) Actions: The actual things you do. If your actions are in line with what it is you know to be True, you will feel good. If your actions are not in line with what you know to be True, you will feel bad. (It is possible, therefore, that when you feel bad, it's because you've either done something out of line or left undone something in line. This won't always be the case - that would be simplistic - but it's a good starting point.)

Don't give up a single moment as lost. As soon as you realize you have failed to live in harmony with Truth, realign yourself with it.

Talk to people. Be as honest as possible, but be careful about appropriateness. If, for example, you plumb the depths of your being with the person you just met five minutes ago, you will end up with a feeling of emptiness or spread-too-thinness.

Be humble enough to ask for help when you need it. If you feel inadequate to every task put before you, it's okay. You are in a phase of learning. Others have had to learn before you, and, when you come out on the other side, you will be able to help others after you.

As soon as you think of a healthy or good thing to do, do it. Having good thoughts is not the same as doing good things.

Be thankful for what you have. It's ok to pursue better things, but the pursuit will be made happier and healthier by the recognition of the abundance in which you already live. The pursuit will become a joy unto itself rather than a vainglorious burden.

Work hard. Even and especially when the outcome of the work doesn't directly benefit you. It has become abundantly clear by your life experience that working for the benefit of others is itself a benefit to you. If the parameters of the work aren't clear, clarify them, but then work.

Appreciate beauty. For you, this means a live classical music event should always be in your near future. Also, stop in that spot of sun long enough to really feel it.

Make time for people in need. You were made for others, and you will find the fulfillment you so ardently seek in being for them.

Meditate about how all of this has gone today. If you have failed in any way, meditate also on the challenges you will face in succeeding tomorrow. Then, resolve to do so.

[A note to the reader: I'm a Christian. I've left out mention of God in part because this was originally a letter to myself and therefore God is presumed, but also in order to demonstrate that what he requires of his followers - granted, the above is not a complete list - all happens to be directly in line with human flourishing (a beautiful two-word phrase I've stolen from Tim Keller). The greater purpose is not our flourishing but his glory, but he made it so that our flourishing would be to his glory (which is an derivation of John Piper's thought that "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him"). He's a good God. Again, this was all running through my head as I wrote and is, if you think about it, the only way doing any of the above makes any sense at all.]

Crooked Deep Down

Ok, Bonsai.

I'm a really big sinner. And I forget. Especially being in full-time ministry (whatever that means). But the reality is, I am really, radically, awfully sinful.

Let me define terms real quick: to sin is to miss the mark. To aim for something and to miss it. In my case, if the target were the broadside of a barn, to (accidentally) shoot the cow.

How do I miss the mark, you ask? Yes, I know you: you want the juicy details.

Well for starters, even my honesty is crooked. I share all this in hopes that in the sharing I'll be forgiven my shortcomings.

But what led me to write this at this moment is that I decided to do a fast yesterday. I decided I was fed up with my inability to make decisions. (The problem, you see, is that it's never just about the decision itself, nor even about honoring God. It's about money. It's about finding a wife. It's about nice clothes and leather shoes. What in the world am I doing in ministry!) So I decided that I wanted to hear from God about these things I'm facing, and the way in which I was going to hear from him was in fasting and in prayer. So off I went.

But I messed up. I don't demand things of God, and I don't, by my right actions, cause him to act. But it was with that attitude that I started a week-long fast, and with that attitude that I made it about 24 hours and fell flat on my face and ate some peanut-butter toast.

Yes, yes, yes. You laugh. I did, too, to be honest. But that assessment - that I messed up - doesn't address the real issue. I didn't just mess up. I messed up because I AM messed up. Even in fasting, my motivations were (are) all wrong.

No, no, no, you say. You're too down on yourself! Self-esteem is the answer!

Well, it hasn't worked for me. In fact, self-esteem has been perhaps the most dangerous path of all. Why? Because God has given me so much. I have much to self-esteem about. I'm a decent musician, a decent writer, I'm emotionally intelligent (when I manage to get outside myself), I know a good amount about the Bible, I can think deeply about things and grasp complicated concepts with relative ease. For what? How does any of this help me? I'll tell you what self-esteeming about all that does: it destroys me when I encounter musicians who are better than I am. It destroys me when I think about how I'm only decent, how much better I could have been by now with a little discipline, which I can never seem to muster.

Ever waiting for the moment when there won't be that inner sense of dread about being found out. When I'll finally reach that next level of holiness in which I might actually feel capable of helping someone toward freedom.

No. Self-esteem and all the motives for which I could have it is just a heaping pile of poop. The only freedom I know doesn't come from what I'm able to do nor what I've been able to accomplish. It comes from recognizing my devastating insufficiency and saying to God that HE is my sufficiency. For real. And this act, this turning over of my insufficient sufficiency, is made possible only by the recognition and acceptance of my faults. (So many good words for failure.)

That's why self-esteem doesn't work. Because of reality. You know it and I know it. Something's not right, and it doesn't become right because we tell ourselves it actually is right.

And it doesn't end at self-acceptance, either. (Thank God. That would be depressing.) It ends with GOD making it right. Oh, how he loves to restore the broken-hearted! And then he changes our desires so that we want good things! Honestly, if I back up for a second, I am, in fact, far more disciplined than I was a few years ago, and that hasn't come from me. How could it have, if my own efforts continue to fall flat on their faces at every turn and bump (or hunger pang).

Bad behavior is a symptom and correcting it is a bandaid without disinfectant. The real issue is that we are all crooked, deep down, and unimaginably needy.

(This will preclude judgment, by the way.)

"This is a song about me and you and Billy Graham and Mother Theresa and Charles Manson and everybody. Everybody." -Derek Webb

(The end of the story about fasting, for those who want to know, is that I'm gonna go ahead and keep trying, because I'm still tired of not being able to make decisions/see clearly/whateveritis, and I think God sees and appreciates my heart.)

Questions about "Relational Evangelism"

I'm scared, y'all. Well, maybe "worried" is a better term. I'm worried that all of my thinking about "relational evangelism" or "ministering to the post-modern man" is really just a cover up for not wanting to share the Gospel. I'm afraid that underneath it is a sneaky seed of wanting to be cool, wanting not to offend - basically being ashamed.

Yeah, I suppose there are cases in which it is necessary to build trust. But if we are trustworthy people, won't those in our vicinity see it? If we aren't seen to be gossips, if we are joyfully hard-working, if we are good bosses - isn't that the stuff of trustworthiness?

Are you sure that you're being guided by the Spirit in the putting off of the sharing of the Gospel - and I mean directly, like, "You're a sinner and God's angry about it, but good news! He showed up on Earth and took care of the consequences himself and now we can be saved from his wrath!" - or is it more that it just doesn't feel "natural"?

Bad news: I'm a missionary and it still doesn't feel natural. Perhaps this means I don't have the gift of evangelism, but I'm still called to evangelise. You are, too, Christian. And don't quote St. Francis of Assisi to me - you know, that share the Gospel at all times and if necessary use words quote - because St. Francis of Assisi did an awful lot of sharing of the Gospel with words. Have you?

Here's the major danger I see: that this methodology of relationship-building-toward-the-end-of-evangelism turns into a Spirit-less (and thus self-righteous or human-powered) one. Are we walking in the Spirit? Asking for his guidance (please God! people are DYING!)?

Hey, and I'm a big fat hypocrite in all this, just so you know. We're in this together. I've just been really affected recently by the sight of some of my friends here in Spain just outright sharing the Gospel. Take my friend Joel, for instance: He loves to talk, he's very philosophical, but as soon as he reaches the point in a conversation with someone new in which he figures out they aren't a Christian, he starts preachin' to 'em. (Notice I didn't say "at 'em.") He starts giving them the Good News! It's been so refreshing to watch.

Well, and I'm tired of watching. Who's with me?

(NOTE: I'm willing to believe that not every "relational evangelist" is falling into the same trap that I did/do. I also don't believe we leave it at "saving souls" - that is, the call is to "make disciples", not leave 'em high and dry once they've prayed a prayer.)

Reflections on Being Clean for Four Years, Part One

Today I celebrate, by the grace of God, four years clean. Prepare yourself for lots of CAPS, boldness, BOLD CAPS, suave italics, and exclamations, 'cause I am one excited dude today! Also I've had lots of chocolate. Anyway. This is my first think in a series of thinks about it. (Being clean, that is. Not the chocolate.)

Why I Did It (Got High, that is)

This is a doozy. People ask, you know? They wanna know why. As you might imagine, I did, too, but it's not an easy question to answer.

For a while, I thought it had to do with a few concrete things in my past. To some degree, I'm sure they played a role, and there's no doubt in my mind that facing such things was a very important step in my recovery. That being said, a piece of advice: face yer demons but keep the train a'chuggin'. After spending too many years in the tangled thought-maze of Cause and Effect, I found no escape but the obvious one, namely, that the maze wasn't real, that it had at some point become a false construct to mask my inability to face myself. Deep, I know.

Well, so I moved on to accusing my upbringing. Life is easier when you don't have to take responsibility for it, and since I decided those few concrete instances in my past, while terrible, couldn't be blamed for it all, my parents were the next likely target. But my parents, you see, are human, and as humans are known for making mistakes from time to time, I decided this, too, wasn't going to provide the answer I sought.

But what about the Church! There's a place FULL of bad, hypocritical people entrusted with teaching Sunday School just begging to be maligned! I did this for a while, and with gusto. Unfortunately, while I don't hold to every piece of the Southern Baptist doctrine in which I was brought up, the Church, too, is full of humans, and as humans are known for making mistakes from time to time... yeah.

It was me, folks. I was the problem. More accurately, what I didn't do was the problem. Jesus gives this caveat at the end of his revolutionary Sermon on the Mount: "Listen, y'all. If you do what I've told you to, you know what you'll be like? You'll be like wise and discerning men who build their houses on FOUNDATIONS (Does anyone else hear an awful lot of irony in this statement?), so that when hard times come - storms and floods and wind and whatnot - their houses don't fall down. If you don't, however, you'll be like the unthinkably foolish, who decide it'd be fun to have a house right there on the beach..."

Here's the thing: his words are so good! They're for our good, not to put up some unnecessary red tape. They're words for flourishing, for health, for life. From beginning to end, the Bible talks about people choosing either life or death. EDEN: all kinds of awesome fruit to eat, but Adam and Eve have to have the forbidden stuff (in other words they choose death) and they die for it. THE JEWS: sometimes they choose life (following Moses out of Egypt), sometimes they choose death (makin' cows outta gold in the desert and then worshiping them, because that makes sense), and God's always telling 'em stuff like, "I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse... so choose LIFE that you might LIVE!" I wanna LIVE! Don't you? DAVID: gets off to an incredible start killing a giant, for God's sake, but ends up choosing death - the death of his first, precious, baby son - all because he can't keep it in his pants. SOLOMON: super smart, total disaster. ETC.

And then Jesus comes along and says, "You guys! I really want you to get this! I want you to have what I intended you to have from before Time began, and I want you to have it SO BAD I'll die for you to have it." And he did. He chose death for our life.

But then he got up! Can I get a Hallelujah?! But that's another sermon.

In short, I heard the words of Jesus and I didn't do them and my house fell down. And GREAT was the destruction of it. And LONG-LASTING the pain it caused, to me, to my family, to everyone I loved, and to lots of people I didn't. I know it's not in vogue to talk, in moments like these, of the danger of hell, but whatever. Heed my warning: The same destruction, the same growing, gnawing emptiness which ended with me and a needle full of heroin in my arm stares you in the face even now if you neglect Jesus' words.

Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.

the way out

First of all, to my brothers from Wayside, I miss you a lot and I think about you often. I'm sorry I'm not better at keeping in touch.

Now I'm writing to everyone.

I have a problem from time to time: I forget who Jesus is. I also sometimes forget who I am.

It's dangerous, you know. It's one of the reasons I started doing drugs. Had I known, had I really understood the Gospel, I wouldn't have felt the enormous weight of guilt and shame from which I was trying to escape because it wouldn't have existed. I'd have known that Jesus loved me anyway, that he bore all that weight so I wouldn't have to, that I'm actually and finally safe/accepted/loved. And I did, in my head. I knew it. I just didn't believe it.

How did it happen, you ask? How in the world did I actually start believing it so that things changed? So that I changed?  Well, as I said, I still don't believe it all the time; but the way I sometimes catch the fleeting glimmers I do is by listening to him, to Jesus.

Somehow, I developed this habit over the years of always reading about him. The Bible was more like a history book instead of Words That Are Alive. From time to time, I would have experiences while reading where it felt like it was really real, but those were few and far between. (To be honest, they still are.)

But when I remember to read as though the things about which I'm reading actually happened, as though Jesus were actually a person, things begin to change. I sit down to read and I imagine the whole scene: there he is in the middle of a crowd, walking from person to person, looking into their eyes and smiling at them, healing them and loving on them, trying to teach them things which most of them totally miss, and this young guy wearing a three-piece suit made from Italian wool and some expensive-looking leather loafers comes up to him, hands in his pockets all casual like, and he says, you know, Hey, I like what you've got, so what do I need to do to get it? And Jesus looks at him with that piercing gaze of his, cocks his head to one side, and says, Love God and love your neighbor. And this young, successful, arrogant guy inflates his chest a little and says, Yeah I'm doin pretty well with that actually.

I'm not gonna tell the rest of the story because most of you know it. I'm just trying to say when I read it like that, when I'm listening to him, he's different. He says stuff that doesn't make sense. He rarely answers questions directly.

But that's just it: we know too much. I mean we know, don't we, that he was answering their hearts, answering their real questions, or what their questions should have been. That's what you were thinking as you read that last bit, wasn't it? Try and forget all the stuff you know and just listen.

There was an exercise we did at Wayside - the fifth and final rehab I went to - where we went through the Gospel of John and summarized every chapter, wrote it down in our own words. That's when it happened for me. That's when I met him again.

So my submission to you is that if you find yourself having the same problem - you've forgotten who he is, or you just want to change so badly but you can't - try it. Even if you've done it before, do it again. You'll start to believe he can actually change things. You'll start to believe he wants to. And actually, he's so good that you'll start to change just by getting to know him better.

"And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another." That's from the Apostle Paul's second letter to the church in Corinth, and you know what comes right before it?

"...where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."