The False Path of Failure

As a spiritual director, I have been reflecting a lot about failure recently. I see the ways our perspectives on failure interfere with our relationship with God, and I’m discovering a different way to approach failure, one that leads us to God. Here is part 1 of a series of blog posts on failure and the spiritual life.

Failure surrounds us. Pressure to perform. Pressure to succeed. American culture teaches us that we are supposed to be able to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. Disney movies tell us that we can fulfill all of our dreams. More than ever, we start building our resumes in childhood, anything to get into the right school, the right career, all to have a successful life.

All the while, in the shadows something is lurking, the specter of failure. What if I don’t succeed? What if I don’t fulfill my dreams? What if I don’t get into that school? What if I fail? What if other people see me fail or see me as a failure? Failure is terrifying. We will do anything to avoid it. And so we push it away, distract ourselves, seek social media affirmation, tell ourselves lies.

But still, this nagging fear gnaws at us. What if I am a failure?

Surely our faith can help us with this… but unfortunately, our faith is infected with the same sickness. We become good Christian people and suddenly our standards for success are even higher. As a Christian, I’m supposed to have my daily quiet time and love it. I’m supposed to be full of the fruit of the Spirit. I’m supposed to have a wonderful marriage and perfect kids. I’m supposed to be loving and generous and forgiving. I’m supposed to be someone that people will look at and say, “look how successful and wonderful that Christian is, I want that. Tell me how I can become a Christian too, to be a success like you.” We even start thinking that eternal salvation, rides and falls on our success.

And our churches become places where have to work hard not to show our flaws, always presenting our best selves. And then in our spiritual lives, we feel ashamed of our sins and failings and hide them from God, like Adam and Eve in the garden. We only go to God when we feel righteous. We begin hiding more and more of ourselves from God.

And God becomes our success evaluator, our judge, a harsh taskmaster, always requiring more, always seeing the ways we fall short, always frustrated with our failure. It’s no wonder we don’t want to pray, we find ourselves avoiding intimacy with God.

That’s all completely the opposite of the gospel. The gospel is that we are failures and God loves us, meets us in our failure and offers us new life through our failures. Such good news! Our failure doesn’t separate us from God. Instead, our failure is an opportunity to grow close to God.

Read more about failure in my followup post entitled Failure as Spiritual Opportunity

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

Poem: Comfort Me

Comfort me

Comfort me, Lord

This life swirls around me

Pressures, responsibilities

All these desires

Conflicts, antagonisms

Rubbing raw

Exposing fissures

Needs

For you

And if I opened my heart

Unveiled my soul

Such sorrowful Joy

With you to comfort me

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

Poem: Poor In Spirit

Jesus

You called me and I followed

Not knowing where you would lead

It wasn’t glorious or heroic

But deeper into poverty of spirit

So many things on the journey were broken, fallen, twisted

Things that you hope to redeem

But have not

Yet

There’s never enough time to mourn all the destruction

Nor could I bear it

So, one foot in front of the other

Persevere

With as much love as I can muster

And when perseverance wearied my bones

You called me on a deeper journey

Into You

Met with compassion, befriended

Drawn to living water

Companioned

The time of redemption begins

When You make morning flee

And wipe away tears

Plant trees that heal

My soul

Blessed to receive the kingdom.

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

This prayer was inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me.

Celebrate

In the story of the woman and the lost coin, God celebrates when the one who was lost is found. Jesus the Good Shepherd rejoices over the lost sheep who is rescued. The Father throws a party when the prodigal returns.

As a spiritual director I am privileged to be able to see the amazing work that God does in people’s lives. And when I see God’s miraculous work, I often sense that God wants to celebrate, throw a party.

And so, when God overwhelms you with His love, heals you, frees you from a burden, forgives you, takes away your fear or shame, go and celebrate. You can’t celebrate too much.

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

Dutiful Faith Versus Joyful Faith

I’ve been a very dutiful person. I have wanted to know what is right and true and to live it out. And there’s a real value in this kind of serious discipleship and faithfulness. But I think there is a downside. Have I and have we become dutiful Christians versus joyful Christians?

Let’s explore this in the context of prayer. What kind of prayer does God really want from us? Well, God, of course, wants us to spend time with Him, but it also matters the spirit in which we spend that time. I think that God longs for us to have our hearts in it.

While we all have times where we have to make ourselves pray, ultimately God wants us to want to spend time with Him and enjoy spending time with Him. Do you like spending time with people who are making themselves spend time with you? I don’t, and I think it isn’t God’s favorite either.

The Ignatian Exercises rocked my world in this. I as I prayed and encountered Jesus I discovered that I wanted to be with Jesus. I loved Him and loved being loved by Him. I wanted to care about the things he cares about, and love the people he loves. I found my experience of God transformed from a demanding taskmaster to a God that I wanted to be with and who met me daily with comfort, challenge, encouragement and joy. I would hear Jesus asking me “What do you want?” and I found myself answering that what I most wanted was Him and to give myself to Him.

I am blessed to be surrounded by Christians and be a spiritual director to Christians who take discipleship seriously and have attempted to make their lives about following Jesus and give their lives to the body of Christ. I am truly grateful for that. However, sometimes I see much more duty and obligation than I see joy in the Lord.

One of the biggest things I do in spiritual direction is to walk with dutiful Christians as they grow in having desire and joy become more their motivation. I don’t want them to throw out serious discipleship, but instead want to help them find a new motivation for their serious discipleship, desire and joy. The Ignatian Exercises are designed to do this and Jesus Himself always seems to call people to deep desire and joy as they pray through his life. Maybe that is why I love the exercises so much.

I have a long way to go in having desire and joy be my motivation. But it is a journey I am glad to be on with the Lord. It is easy to fall back into duty, but Jesus loves it when I step into desire and joy.

“Dale what do you want?” “I want you, Jesus.”

“Give me only your love and your grace. That’s enough for me.” -Ignatius of Loyola

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

This reflection was inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me.

Poem: The One That I Love (Jesus)

The One That I Love (Jesus)

I watch You with the intent to know

What motivates You

What is that inner passion that stirs in You?

Spirit blessed and directed

You look at me with eyes that are full

Of laughter, joy and longing

But what I notice most is Your eyes for others

You see, know and love

Love, for the good

Love for the weak

Love in brokenness

Love in the very heart of God

Your heart which overflows

You overflow me

Let me watch the One I love

Loving that I may love

Seeing with Your eyes

Your compassion flowing through my heart

Speaking words of freedom

United

At home with You.

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

This prayer was inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me.

Poem: A Journey of Soul Restoration

Lord, my hands are your hands
I give them to you

But your Kingdom does not stand or fall on my work
You have your own power and your own ways
You can raise up hands to serve you from these stones

Save me from the sin of self-importance
I can only receive what is given
I can only give when you invite

So I desire to trust you
And let you lead me amid the brokenness 
On a journey of soul restoration
Knowing that you are far better than what I can imagine
And more with me than I could dare to hope

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

Thoughts on the Exercises: A Generous Heart

I'm always encouraged when people connect deeply with Jesus and find that He's given them a generous heart. In Scripture, we see it in the story of Zacchaeus. He encounters Jesus and suddenly his life is transformed and he starts thinking of others.

Sometimes in the Ignatian Exercises, or when a directee encounters Jesus, they discover generosity welling up within them, looking for a place to flow out to others.

Has God ever given you a generous heart? Would you like to have a generous heart? It's a wonderful gift to be given.

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

This reflection was inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. If you are interested in praying the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius with me starting in September, please contact me. You can also read more here.

Reflection: A poem inspired by St. Francis

Reflection 
In light and dark
Breathed into existence
Spirit bursting in colors
Bathing eyes that are opened

Which is more beautiful
You or your reflection
In all that You make

What would I abandon for this
Oh such gifts You give
To the abandoned
Receiving in poverty
Brother, sister, mother

Father
I see in reflection 
Your upside down kingdom
Generously offered

So grateful

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.

Deeply Beloved

Who are the Deeply Beloved? We Are!

From the beginning God has loved us. In Eden, God delighted to walk with us in the cool of the evening. Then God formed a people, revealing himself to them, leading them out of slavery, dwelling with them. Though God’s people often turned away, God sought them out and called them back into right relationship.

In Jesus, God is Emmanuel, deeply with us. Jesus accompanied His people, healing them, teaching them, loving them. Jesus showed us the greatest love by dying on a cross to save us, breaking the power of sin and death. And He rose from the dead, alive, to comfort His disciples, calling them to welcome people from all nations into the church.

When Jesus ascended, He sent the Holy Spirit to dwell with us, lead us, comfort us. The Holy Spirit continues to dwell in us today, and Jesus befriends us and continues to call us as disciples, while the Father continues to pour out great love upon us. We long for the day in the new creation when God will dwell with us, wiping away the tears from our eyes, and sorrow and suffering will be no more.

Though our lives are full of failure, though struggle surrounds us, though we constantly need grace and forgiveness, God seeks us and invites us to abide in the vine, entering deeply into the love relationship of the Trinity. We are met by God with compassion and tenderness as beloved daughters and sons. We are Deeply Beloved.

© Dale Gish 2019. All Rights Reserved.