Artie Sposaro

I have a new fears resolution. It’s simple. I don’t want my fears to control me this year. Who does? It’s not that I was inordinately troubled by fear last year. I just recognize that nothing can derail my life or yours like fear. When fear guides us, we don’t act like our true valiant selves. We become timid self-preservationists or angry and defensive…or all of the above.

Fear sneaks up on us. Primarily, it manifests itself in everyday life as worry. This worry-fear burdens us and in more extreme cases it cripples us. Of course, we all have some overt fears, but more often than not our fears are subtle undercurrents that slowly but surely move us…or keep us stuck.

Fear hijacks our thinking. It steals our peace. The irony is that we become consumed over events that haven’t happened. By definition, fear is focused on what hasn’t yet occurred. Fear is built on what we think is impending, a rational or irrational threat. We worry about what might happen. Every human being has plenty to worry about. We may lose our employment, our house, our health, a family member, or a friendship. We may get robbed, taken advantage of, or even killed. Or to the opposite, we can worry about nothing ever happening. We may hope endlessly and nothing happens.

This new fears resolution is not a ‘try harder’ resolution. Waking up each day and straining to defeat fear isn’t a suitable approach. This approach would make it worse. To the contrary, the solution is an internal affair. It’s a God job. The solution to dealing with fear is not to establish and commit to a resolution. Instead, it’s surrender. It’s a continual surrender to the love of God. It’s learning to fully lean into the graceful empowerment of a God loves us completely, no matter what. It’s living with a raw, real, Christ in us faith. It’s a ruthless trust that leads to an incomprehensible assurance. The substance of this assurance is that no matter what happens all will be well.

Surely, 2012 will bring some unpleasant events of some form or another. That’s life. Fear not, God is always present, in control, and he cares. Plenty of passages in the Scriptures convey this message. A couple of my favorites... Jesus tells his followers not to fear people. The worst they can do is kill you. Nice, huh. He emphasizes that God is sovereign and he cares for you (Matthew10: 28-30). In another passage Jesus says don’t worry, period. It gets you nowhere. Intensely seek God, and don’t worry about anything (Matthew 6: 25-34). God will take care of the details. The devil isn’t in the details, God is.

God’s grace will empower us to surrender our fears. We are meant to admit our fears, release them to God, and move on. Flush fear and keep on living.

In 2012 and always, rely on the power of God to carry you through your fears to freedom. Remember, fear focuses your attention on negative events that haven’t happened. There is no grace for what hasn’t happened. It’s not reality. God grants us grace in the moment, no matter how happy or horrific the circumstances. God is in the present, live there with him. Take it one day at a time, relentlessly trust God, and all will be well.

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. - Julian of Norwich

Back in July of this year my wife and I lost a child. My wife was five months along in her pregnancy when our fourth child, another son, died. It was excruciating for us. We are still not over it, may never be. I recognize that many people have suffered significant loss in some form or another this year.

It’s easy to get stuck in grief when we lose something significant or simply when our expectations are not met. We may find ourselves in a seemingly endless downward spiral or fighting hard to put on a good face. We suck it up and try to move on. In the midst of these times we need support. Actually, loss or no loss, grief or no grief, we all need genuine support in life. Often we get sympathy but we need something deeper. We need empathy.

Empathy is not a word that most of us use in our everyday vocabulary. Empathy is the identification with or experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. It’s not feeling bad for someone; it’s feeling bad with them. It’s recognition, connection, and solidarity. Their pain becomes our pain.

Empathy is the ministry of presence. To some extent, those who empathize with you experience what you experience. They fully understand. When someone empathizes with you, they are nonjudgmental, safe, and supportive. Empathy helps us become and stay whole.

But what does empathy have to do with the advent season? Advent is a time of preparation and renewed expectancy. Literally, advent means a coming into a place, view, or being. It’s an arrival, onset, commencement, or start. Advent represents our expectancy of God doing something new and profound. The birth of Jesus brought the presence of God to humanity in a new and profound way. It was the birth of a new, more intimate way of relating with God, one in which we experience divine empathy.

God came in humility and vulnerability. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, a rural town of little consequence. His actual birthplace was most likely a lowly basement cave. Jesus spent his first nights of sleep in a feeding trough. He grew up in a working class family at an incredibly difficult time in human history. Despite all this, Jesus modeled what it means to live in intimate connection with God and offered himself as a bridge to make this intimacy a reality for us. Ultimately, God proved in Jesus that he empathizes with our every situation.

The advent season is a fitting time for us to pull back and reflect. We consider past expectations against what has actually happened. We face current reality, make adjustments, and look ahead. Hopefully, we look forward to what might come next.

During our advent reflection, we may consider God’s consideration of our pleasure and pain. How close is he to it? The advent of empathy is the advent of compassion. God understands and identifies with us…completely. Empathy has come. God feels with us.

Take some time to consider the advent of empathy. During this advent season, expect empathy. Entertain hope. Embrace the empathy that came in the birth of Jesus. Hope is here.

Merry Christmas!

For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And we will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.   - Isaiah 9: 6

Artie @ the finish

Back in late May I completed a triathlon. The race consisted of swimming just short of one mile, biking twenty-five miles, and running six miles. This was my third triathlon at this distance and the best experience I have had to date. Learning from seasoned racers and past painful experiences helped me have a better race. Endurance racing is difficult. To succeed takes wisdom. Wise racers create a good race strategy and stick to it. It may be a flexible strategy, but a strategy nonetheless.

Establishing a plan encompasses training smart, having adequate gear, and self-management during the race. Training smart means not over or under doing exercise. We need to train and rest with reasonable intensity and consistency. As for equipment, we don’t need the best gear, but we need it to be functional and dependable. Self-management during the race means maintaining a healthy pace and staying hydrated.

In our faith-life, like an endurance race, establishing and staying with a ‘race strategy’ takes grace, courage, and focus. New Testament writer Paul encourages us to run in such a way as to get the prize. We grace-race with a purpose rather than aimlessly. In a word, our faith strategy is trust. We race along wholly trusting God for guidance and strength…and everything else. We betray trust when we self-sufficiently push too hard or irresponsibly lay back. This leads us to burn out or drop out. Either way, we’re out.

So, what’s the prize? The prize is eternal life. Eternal life is not simply pie in the sky, flying high, be with God someday when we die. The Bible tells us that God has given us eternal life in his Son. He gave us the life, Jesus. Eternal also means now, here. The race is not merely to get somewhere, but to know and experience God now, during the race.

God desires to guide our race and empower us. He is our endurance for whatever we face. A triathlon reflects life in that it entails activity in various contexts or events. In every circumstance we have an opportunity to keep moving or quit, to experience God or withdraw. We’re meant to keep on keeping on at a divinely inspired pace.

In order to be a successful endurance racer we need to closely monitor our heart rate and continually hydrate. We don’t want to blow our cardiac engine or dry out. Either can slow us to a crawl and damage our health. The same is true for everyday life. The Bible repeatedly tells us to watch after our heart and guard it…from it flows the wellspring of life. Heart health is vital for the long haul. Hydration is critical as well. Life easily dries us out. We keep our souls hydrated by trusting in our intimate connection with God, the ultimate thirst quencher.

God uses others to refresh us as well. We’re not going it alone. Community plays a significant role in endurance racing. There’s a distinct, “we’re all in this together” camaraderie among endurance racers. During races, participants often encourage each other by saying things like, “keep it up,”  “great job,” “just a little farther,” “you’re going to make it,” and “hang in there.”

The faith-life is an endurance race. Are you heart healthy and hydrated? If not, slow down and drink up. Are you experiencing God along the path? Is God guiding and empowering your race plan? He delights in doing so. You can enjoy your race or despise it. Actually, endurance racing can be fun…yes, fun. You have the choice every day to flourish or flounder, thrive or just endure. God desires for you to run a hearty race and finish well.