Recently, I read this quote by Mother Theresa, “God cannot fill what is full. He can only fill emptiness – deep poverty – and your “Yes” is the beginning of becoming empty. It is not how much we really “have” to give – but how empty we are – so that we can receive fully in our life and let Him live His life in us.”

Brennan Manning, a former Franciscan priest and wonderful writer says, “Poverty of spirit breaks through our human pretenses and frees us from the snobby sense of spiritual superiority and the need to stand well with persons of importance.”

Our faith, our relationship with God, our lives are not to be measured by how much we have, by how full our lives are, but rather how empty our lives, how poor in spirit we really are.

How empty are you?

Until our lives are empty, we can not fully receive Christ and let Him live His life in us. Until we are poor in spirit, we will not experience Christ’s Kingdom in our lives!

You and I live in a world that is hungry for Spirit. The more we have and have to do, it seems the more hollow we are. With the increase of technology, we “know more,” but we don’t know “why.” This has lead to an increase in people talking about “spirituality.” Just check Barnes & Noble. Spirituality sells because people are searching for Spirit.

Phil Jackson, coach of the LA Lakers basketball team wrote a book, Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior . He grew up in Montana and North Dakota, the son of not one, but two Pentecostal ministers. He describes his mother as being “as passionate about spirituality as anyone I’ve ever met.” He talks about his father as a gentle man, stern disciplinarian, a literalist of the King James variety. According to the Pentecostal tradition, true faith was having an experience like the first Pentecost. And yet at the “appropriate time” it didn’t happen for him.

“It was agonizing. I worked hard for the next two or three years, praying long hours, asking forgiveness for my sins and ‘tarrying in the Spirit’ after services. Still nothing. I felt like a failure, and yet I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. Was it my sinful nature? If so, I didn’t feel like a sinner. Was it my lack of faith? Perhaps, but I was no less committed than my brothers. So, rather than reject the faith outright, I avoided the issue. I dodged services and started working on my jump shot.”

His quest for Spirit never left him, and it intensified after his marriage ended. On a road trip to New York to play the Knicks, he picked William James’ book, A Variety of Religious Experiences . He says,

“I couldn’t put it down. Reading (these) stories, it was clear that mystical experience didn’t have to be a big production. It didn’t require hallucinogenic drugs or a major Pentecostal-style catharsis. It could be as uneventful as a moment of reflection. When I finished the book, I put it down, said a prayer and, all of a sudden, experienced a quiet feeling of inner peace. Nothing special – and yet there it was. This was the experience I had longed for as a teenager.”

The world is full of God’s Spirit and our experience of Spirit may be profound or it may be quite… well, nothing special, just a calm, empowering, energizing presence that moves us out of our selves and into caring for others in Christ’s name. The key to it all is to be attentive to Spirit within us and in our world!

In John 17, Jesus was on the way to the cross, in the Upper Room with the disciples, when he revealed his life’s purpose in a prayer, “I know You… and I have made You known to them.” The Message puts it this way, “Righteous Father, I have known You and these disciples know that You sent me on this mission. I have made Your very being known to them – who You are and what You do.”

Laurie Beth Jones in “Jesus, CEO” writes:

“Jesus knew his mission statement, and he did not deviate from it. He declared that his mission was, in essence, to teach people about a better way of life. He saw himself as a teacher and a healer.

An ancient adage says “If you want to defeat them, distract them.” In the wilderness Jesus was given several “business opportunities” that did not relate to his mission.

Each of these opportunities was related to talents that Jesus has, and used, in some form or another during his tenure. But he resisted them because they did not fit his mission statement.

Pause for a moment and consider the things Jesus did not do. Here is someone endowed with limitless power from on high. He could have done literally anything. Yet he did not build a temple or a synagogue. He did not write or distribute books. He did not even heal all the sick people in the world. He did not go down to the graveyards and raise everyone from the dead. He did not build shopping malls. His mission was very specific.

Jesus stuck to his mission.”

Do you know your personal mission statement? Until we know our mission we will never know if we have accomplished what God desires for us!

“It is far from easy to enter into the painful experience of loneliness. You like to stay away from it. Still it is an experience that enters into everyone’s life at some point. You might have felt it as a little child when your classmates laughed at you because you were cross-eyed or as a teenager when you were the last one chosen on the baseball team. You might have felt it when you were angry about non-sense rules which you could not change. You might have felt it as a young adult in a university where everyone talked about grades but where a good friend was hard to find. You might have felt it as a teacher when students did not respond to your carefully prepared lectures or as a preacher when people were dozing during your well-intentioned sermons. And you still might feel it day after day during staff meetings, conferences, counseling sessions, during long office hours or monotonous manual labor, or just when you are by yourself staring away from a book that cannot keep your attention. Practically every human being can recall similar or much more dramatic situations in which he or she has experienced that strange inner gnawing, that mental hunger, that unsettling unrest that makes us say, ‘I feel lonely…’

But what then can we do with our essential aloneness which so often breaks into our consciousness as the experience of a desperate sense of loneliness? Instead of running away from our loneliness and trying to forget or deny it, we have to protect it and turn it into a fruitful solitude. To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. This requires not only courage but also a strong faith. As hard as it is to believe that the dry desolate desert can yield endless varieties of flowers, it is equally hard to imagine that our loneliness is hiding unknown beauty. The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it is the movement form the restless senses to the restful spirit, from the outward reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search…”

May our restless senses be transformed by Christ, and may we find “peace that passes understanding.”

It was like a light bulb being turned on in a dark room! Recognizing the risen Christ was what happened after Jesus walked the Emmaus road with two of the disciples and as he “took bread, blessed and broke it and gave it to them (Luke 24:30).”

Recognizing Christ is what it is about! Recognizing what Christ is doing and orienting our lives around it is so different than doing a lot of things in the name of Christ.

I find myself now more centered, more peaceful, more focused! It is one thing to follow the lead of the risen Christ and it is another to create a spiritual community on your own!

Do we recognize His presence?

I was reminded recently of the following story:

A wise, old Middle Eastern mystic said this about himself. “I was a revolutionary when I was young, and all my prayer to God was: ‘Lord, give me the energy to change the world.’ As I approached middle age and realized that my life was half gone without my changing a single soul, I changed my prayer to: ‘Lord, give me the grace to change all those who come into contact with me. Just my family and friends and I shall be satisfied.’ Now that I am an old man and my days are numbered, I have begun to see how foolish I have been. My one prayer now is: ‘Lord, give me the grace to change myself.’ If I had prayed this right from the start, I would not have wasted my life.”

“Lord, give me the grace to change myself!” Or, as the Serenity Prayer says, “Grant me… the courage to change the things I can…”

The person I was listening to suddenly realized that he could not change his family situation, yet he could change how he dealt with it, how he acted… He bagin to realize that by changing how he acted that he could potentially bring about the greatest change in his family.

Where is your focus?

And if it goes on long enough, I feel like I’m in a valley of dry bones, where the life and Spirit are gone and I hear God asking, “Mortal, how can these bones live (Ezekiel 37:3)?”

How can our spirit be encouraged? How can we regain a sense of purpose? How can we get motivated again?

About three years ago, my family and I visited Cozumel. A friend told us of a dive shop that he knew. My wife, son and I decided to take scuba lessons. I remember getting suited up after some instruction and going under water for the first time. The instructor’s words before I went under were, “Remember to breathe.” It was easier said than done, however.

Ezekiel reminds us, “Remember to breathe.” God said to Ezekiel, “I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.” Wherever we are dead, dry, broken, hurt, remember to breathe and let God’s Spirit bring life.

Often at funerals, one hears the words of Psalm 23. As I read the psalm now, my mind’s heart goes to the words, “He makes me lie down in green pastures.” I am told that sheep will not lie down unless the conditions are right. Right meaning:

1. Free of fear

2. Free of friction in the flock

3. Free of pest

The presence of a gracious, caring shepherd provide s the sheep with the opportunity to maintain strength.

The presence of the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, provides a calm in the midst of the storms of life!

I clip articles and file them for later use. Well, in March 2006, the Fargo Forum published an article, “Role Players Drive a Team,” by Tim Wendal. In the article he says, “When the stakes get as high as they are this weekend in college basketball, with a national championship at stake, a team of all-stars at every position often doesn’t win. The champions, like the best companies, church groups or community organization, often have the best role players – the people who are willing to give up their individuality for the good of the team.”

Wendal quotes Barry Posner, Professor of Leadership at Santa Clara University, “Cooperation beats competition hands down.” Posner adds teams often fail because the star players try to do it all. Teams are most effective when people are synergistic – working in conjunction with each other. Posner says, “Professional hockey has it right when it rewards players not just for goals scored but for assists on goals scored by others, too.” The apostle Paul wrote, “We are God’s servants (synergoi), working together.” (I Corinthians 3:9)

This week, I am experiencing that I don’t need to be a star-studded nail driver, but I have the role of gopher, assistant, encourager, etc.

Our teams – church, community organizations, etc. – don’t need just star leaders, but key role players. What is your role on God’s team and have you stepped up and joined in?

That reminded me of how much I need a safe place to be myself and share my thoughts and feelings to know that people will respect and support me.

I am reminded of Valdez, Alaska. It is a commercial fishing town, and as such, many of the population are fishermen. They pack their fishing boats, say goodbye to their families, and they fish the open waters for days and weeks at a time. They endure hardships and they work hard. After a while, they get tired and worn down. Then they head back to Valdez, for Valdez is their safe harbor. It is a place where they can come back to refresh themselves, to repair their gear, to share stories of success and failure and to connect with each other. Valdez is a place where they are accepted and understood.

Where are the safe places in your life? Where can you share your problems? Where you can dream God’s dreams? Where you can be yourself? Where you are supported and loved in good and bad times?