Stop Complaining Start Praying (Growth Maxims Pt.2)

Commit to stop complaining and start expressing your
thankfulness for everything that is good in your life.

A few days ago I posted the first part of this and promised that I would give explanations as to how they work, so here it is. I am convinced that anyone who applies these principles will find the process of pain, loss, and grief to be be very fruitful and productive. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. So here we go

1. Complaining poisons my perspective.

Two verses, one concept. "In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you" (1 Thess. 5:18). "Rejoice in the lord always, and again I say rejoice"(Phil. 4:4).

The verses are very clear and the concept is very simple. Stop complaining and be grateful. It's very easy to say, but not so easy to do. But the reason why this is so important is also very simple and clear. No matter what has happened to you, whether you have lost a loved one through death, whether divorce, car accident, sickness, lay-off, lawsuit, or some other terrible circumstance; it could be so much worse. I lost my dad last year, and the way in which I lost him made the circumstances so much more devastating, but then I met this lady just a few weeks ago who in the span of a few months lost her mom, dad, and husband. True story. Losing my dad was hard, but the thought of losing all three of them at once is too much to stomach.  I couldn't imagine losing my mom right now. And I won't even attempt to think what I would do without my wife. So again no matter what's going on, it could be so much worse.

Imagine for a moment what its like to have been born in abject poverty of a third-world country. The images abound of young orphans scavenging for food in the landfills. Their entire day is one long quest to find food and survive. Then there are the countries where the ravages of war are constantly tearing communities, villages, and families apart. Imagine what it's like to live under the constant threat of tyranny, disaster, and the impending doom of war. No matter where you are, it could so much worse.

Commit to stop complaining! A couple years ago I started this campaign at my church where I said we were "campaigning against complaining". That's it! We have be determined to restrain ourselves from the temptation to complain. No matter what we have or where we are we can be thankful and grateful for something. Even in hardship and difficulty there is something to be grateful for. Even in death I can be thankful for the memories and the life that was. Even if the person who died was not a personal of good moral standards, we can be grateful for the lessons that we learned from their life. It is a stretch, I know, but that's what a commitment to gratefulness requires; scrounging for the glimmer of goodness and hope to celebrate with rather than focusing on the negative.

2. Prayer positions us for peace.

Instead of complaining to/with your
friends, commit to praying with them.

This second one is closely related to the first. Misery loves company. So when we're having a rough spell we'll call up one of our friends and vent to them. The problem is, that's normally where we'll spiral into a negative spirit. Our friends chime in and we go back and forth with the toxic talk. Venting to our friends is complaining. Venting to God is prayer. Now don't get me wrong, sometimes it can be healthy to call up a friend and get it all out the system. But once I get it out, then my next move (especially if I have a godly friend) is to turn to God in prayer and lay all my burdens at His feet. The true friend will do just that. "Okay, I hear what you're saying. So let's pray." We need to pray and trust that God knows, God hears, and God answers.

However, there is a formula for prayer that is extra significant here. "Be careful (anxious) for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God" (Phil. 4:6). It's so important to lay everything before God, to "pray without ceasing," and let every stressor be given over to God (1 Thess. 5:17). But it's just as important that when we pray and lay our burdens down that we would thank God and acknowledge what he has already done. We must pray with thanksgiving so that the work of God is always prominent focus. Our focus is nor primarily what we want or how we feel, but rather who God is, what He's done, and what He wants. We are blessed, and our prayers should always reflect our gratefulness more than our gripes.

In the next post I will deal with the last two. As for now, take these two and call me in the morning. I challenge you to do them and watch how your joy will flourish in the midst of hardship.

30 Years 30 Lessons

Today I celebrated my 30th birthday. ♪♫Happy Birthday to me! ♪♫Happy Birthday to me!♪♫...

I am always very reflective on my birthday, but this one even more so (for obvious reasons). I've been thinking quite a lot about my own development and so I thought I might compile a list of proverbs, concepts, maxims, and ideas that have become valuable to me on my journey. I thought to spend this entire week leading up to today reminding myself and sharing with others these wonderful truths that I have gained so much from. Thus I spent the entire week tweeting and facebooking (is that a word???) about them. Many of you have responded and expressed thanks and even requested the entire list. Well, here it is. I must add that this is by no means an exhaustive list. There are so many wonderful lessons I've been given over the years and I have listed here a mere sampling. I struggled to determine which ideas I might include and which should be set aside for another time (like say...40 at 40). Nevertheless, feel free to take them, share them, and make them your own. More importantly, use them in you growth journey, As I have in mine. Even as I wrote them and I review them I am reminded of how far I still have to travel. He's still working on me. So then let's grow together. Here's 30 lessons from 30 years.

1. Mentors are like living cheat sheets. Use them often.
2. Academic preparation is like sharpening a knife. You don’t have to do it, but it’s so much easier if you do.
3. The Bible is the most entertaining, intellectually stimulating, and spiritually invigorating book you will ever read. Read it often.
4. Everyone who follows you, accepts your friend request, works with you, talks to you and smiles at you, is not your friend.
5. You don’t have to be an expert at everything, but you should be in expert in something and then know a lot of other experts.
6. Be Nice! People will do anything for you if they like you.
7. Concerning love, be patient. In time you will either grow closer together or further apart.
8. Sex is not for kids (people who don’t pay their own bills). Unmarried Adults have more resources to deal with the consequences. Kids don’t.
9. The people who are cool in real adult life are usually not the people who were cool in high school.
10. We have 2 eyes and 2 ears and 1 mouth so that we can watch, listen, and learn twice as much as we speak up b/c we already know the answer.
11. If you make this decision now, think how will it affect your life 5 mins, 5 days, 5 mos., and 5 yrs from now.
12. Readers are leaders. Writers are fighters.
13. You're a sucker if you don't save. Debt is slavery. Stop begging banks for money.
14. In marriage, appreciation goes a long way. Say thank you.
15. A lot of what we think is love is actually lust, or at least infatuation.
16. Setting goals is a lot like writing history before it happens.
17. Plan your work and work your plan because those who fail to plan, plan to fail.
18. School & work are investments into your own future. Your work seals your wealth.
19. Devotion is like breakfast. You can eat it anytime, but it's best in the morning.
20. God is never in a rush for anything. Jesus never ran anywhere. Be patient.
21. Complaining is contagious. Don’t contaminate the air.
22. The best sex is actually a really deep private conversation (between married people) that turned into body language.
23. Do your best to say the right thing, the right way, at the right time.
24. Do your best to be in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing, for the right reason.
25. Family first. If you die your employer will just replace you; your spouse and kids can’t live without you.
26. Children need answers to two major questions (1) am I loved? and (2) can I do whatever I want?
27. Children are little mirrors. They’re also our little teachers (it just stinks when they think they know more than adults).
28. Straight A’s come from diligence, not genius. Anybody can earn them.
29. Know it alls are sometimes impressive, usually ignorant, but always annoying. Don’t be one.
30. Fear no-body and no-thing. God is in control.

Growth Maxims for Grieving

Me along with J.R. and his media manager Cynthia Snyder
J.R. exhibits a kind of radiance and resilience that is very rare.

A few weeks ago I sat down with 2011 Dancing with the Stars champion J.R. Martinez and we talked about his life, his struggles, and his victories. I wrote an article about our exchange which will appear in an upcoming issue of Message Magazine. After I wrote the article the editor contacted me and said, "We need a practical component to your piece. We have to add some practical tips to help people get through their rough spots. What makes J.R. tick? How did he overcome adversity?" My reply was, "Great idea!" And back to the drawing board I went. If you wanna know more about his life, check out my previous post about his story. If you want his secret tips, you're gonna have to get the magazine when it comes out and read the article.

Nevertheless, I recognize great value in the venture. People need tools they can use. After a tragic event they ask the question, "What am I supposed to do now?" I hear you loud and clear and I want to equip you to grow while you're grieving. So I'm going to offer you four principles for processing pain, or rather four growth maxims.

4Growth Maxims for Grieving

1. Complaining poisons my perspective.
2. Prayer positions me for perfect peace.
3. God's grace is more powerful than my pain.
4. God is the most precious possession.

There you have it! Pretty simple, yet powerful concepts that will help ensure that you're growing through it when you're "going through it." Over the next couple posts I'll flesh them out so that you can get a good idea of how they work. Until then, keep going and keep growing. 

FLIGHT

Yesterday, my wife and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary. Among my gifts to her was a night off to do whatever she wanted to do--whether shopping, talking, or skydiving, the night was hers to decide. We left our son with some friends for a few hours and off we went. After dinner, she made her choice. "I wanna see a movie." And so despite the fact that movie-going is not on my idea list for anniversary date night...off to the movies we went.  There was not much that we cared to see so we chose the newest film starring Denzel Washington, Flight. I remember seeing the preview and thinking to myself, that looks good. But boy was I unprepared for the emotional roller-coaster that this film was gonna take us on.

On the surface, flight is about well...flight...and (in particular) a gifted airline pilot named Whip Whitaker (Washington) and his heroics in a plane crash, but the movie is really about addiction and how that same pilot (gifted as he is) is a reckless, yet functional alcoholic, and drug addict. I was disturbed that I related to this concept all too well. I have known many functional drug addicts, but I was unaware of the depth of difficulty of such a thing until I met my father.

(Even now I am reluctant to share this, but I write with the hope that someone might benefit.)

I met him in 2004 and as we parted from this our first real meeting, he asked me to borrow $10 and then for a ride to a seedy neighborhood.  I dropped him off with a puzzled look, but without a second thought. I was just happy to finally meet the man. Hindsight is 20/20. He was battling a serious drug habit, yet was surprisingly functional. At the time he was serving in the student life department at Morris Brown College (an HBCU) and when it lost its accreditation he moved on to Morehouse College. As far as I know the bottom fell out in 2006 when his dad (my grandfather) died in 2006. I don't know all the details but I do know this. When you mix broken relationships, unemployment, grief, depression, and drug addiction, you get a dangerously deadly cocktail. Back to Denzel and Flight.

There was a very strong theme in the movie that suggested that the plane crash was "an act of God." Then, a number of characters (on numerous occasions) attempt to put it in perspective for him suggesting that the tragedy made manifest God's intention to save his life and help him save others.

I wanna take a second to clear up one thing; especially in the wake of the terrible tragedy in Newton, Connecticut last week. God does not cause disaster, tragedy, and trauma. Nevertheless, with limitless power He is able to orchestrate all events so that it may result in greater good than grief (see Rom. 8:28).  God is a big boy. He can handle the accusations and blame leveled at Him by those who know Him least. But that still does not make Him distant, vindictive, malicious, or maniacal.
(Narrator steps down off of soapbox)

Now back to Flight.

I don't want to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it, but would like to see it.  However, I will say that this was the most vivid portrayal of the dynamism of addiction than I have ever seen. I highly recommend it. It is very difficult to watch in that it has some very "graphic" scenes, but it is still a very important and powerful story. I fear that I will actually spill the beans, and so I should probably go ahead and close this, but let me first say this. Over the past few months, I have been doing a lot of writing and work about trauma, grief, and the like. I am convinced that God can use any event or experience to take us to higher heights and to draw us closer to Himself.

My father Charles T. Charlton Jr. pictured
here ca.1982, committed suicide on 1/4/11. 

There are so many unanswered questions I have about Whip. What led him to drink? Why couldn't his family help him? How did he fall so far? Why didn't he get help sooner? But I think that's the point of the movie. Those questions are left unanswered to inorder to painstakingly illustrate what rock-bottom looks like. And so with that said I must say, if you are experiencing difficulty coping with life and the hand that you've been dealt, please get help. If it's something considerably small (yet difficult still) like worrying or doubt, talk to someone like a friend or family member. If the trouble is more serious like insomnia or depression, or even more serious as with drug abuse or domestic violence, please seek professional support. Take it from me, there are many people who will thank you later.

When my father committed suicide it rocked our family. No one close to him could say that they didn't know he had some struggles, but we were all still shocked and devastated by losing him. We all still miss him, and we wish he could've gotten the help he needed. He would have loved to see how smart little Christopher is becoming.  He did see me get my masters degree, but when I receive me my doctorate, he wont be in the stands. He can no longer visit me on spring break. And I can no longer call him when the class assignments are piling up. You can get help. You can win at life. You can beat this thing...no matter what it is.

Your wings have been clipped by circumstance and tragedy, but you can...you will learn to fly again. You've been grounded and your flight delayed because of the the things you have done and because of the things that have happened to you, but maybe God allowed it because He wants to teach you how to truly fly high. You just wait and see. "But they that wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint" (Isaiah 40:31). God specializes in bringing good out of your grief. He loves to see you gain victory over hardship. He longs to get you your wings back. He wants to get you back to FLIGHT.