On Possessing: Part 2

We seem to think that we most truly possess something if we own it. And we believe that the things we want to own can’t offer us their greatest worth until we can claim them for our ourselves and enjoy everything they have to offer us on our own terms. That ‘on our own terms’ is meddlesome.

Owning something and having it ‘on our own terms’ frequently works against our ability to truly possess the goodness that the ingredients in our lives are meant to offer us.

There are many things that serve to bless us without being owned. We cannot own people. We cannot own time. We cannot own nature… but we have imagined that we have a proprietary claim on these things. We believe we have earned them or that they are by nature, ours. We have offered sweat and tears to obtain them. We have paid money for them. We've invested in them and have intentionally pursued them.

Each of these particulars – the elements of our lives – have a unique gift to offer us. The tighter we hold on to them and manage them – the more we try to make them conform to our idea of them and our purposes for them, the less we will be able to possess what it is that they naturally have to offer us.

‘Owning’ has very little to do with possessing the true benefits of these gifts. Whether the beauty we crave is comfortability, pleasure, security, love, redemption, deep and lasting relationship, or healing, the individual who strives for these through brute strength and determination creates their own barriers to truly possessing them.

Trying to take ownership of something beautiful often has an inverse relationship to our ability to possess its true beauty. And enjoying things on our own terms often stifles our ability to receive the gift that they were waiting to offer us.

– T.Brygger

On Possessing: Part 1

It’s always a struggle to keep the season of giving from becoming the season of having, and it isn’t simply ‘things’ that we want to have. Material things are only a part of what we attempt to obtain.

Material things are typically the ornaments on the personal ideal that each of us are trying to take hold of – trying to possess. One person’s ideal might be best served with few material things while another feasts on many, but both lust after their ideal. Whether minimally ornamented or highly ornamented we seem to think that if we could obtain that ideal – whatever it might be – we might finally be content.

True contentment in a thing, an experience, a relationship or any ideal goes far beyond whether it is categorically ‘physical’ or ‘spiritual’. True contentment requires that we regard everything with respect for its essence – its true nature, and this is frequently (if not always) physical and spiritual.

In the 19th century novel, Donal Grant, George MacDonald offered us a hint of what it means to truly ‘possess’ a thing. Let’s see what wisdom we can find in this conversation between Lady Arctura, Davie, and Davie’s tutor, Donal Grant.

"What makes a thing your own, do you think, Davie?" she went on. 

"To be able to do with it what you like," replied Davie.

"Whether that be good or bad?"

"Yes, I think so," answered Davie, doubtfully. 

"Then I think you are quite wrong," she rejoined. "The moment you begin to use a thing wrong, that moment you make it less yours. I can't quite explain it, but that is how it looks to me." She ceased, and after a moment Donal took up the question. 

"Lady Arctura is quite right, Davie," he said. "The nature, that is the good of a thing, is that only by which it can be possessed. Any other possession is like slave-owning; it is not a righteous having. The right and the power to use it to its true purpose, and the using it so, are the conditions that make a thing ours. To have the right and the power, and not use it so, would be to make the thing less ours than anybody's.—Suppose you had a very beautiful picture, but from some defect in your sight you could never see that picture as it really was, while a servant in your house not only saw it as it was meant to be seen, but had such delight in gazing on it, that even in his dreams it came to him, and made him think of things he would not have thought of but for it:—which of you, you or the servant in your house, would have the more real possession of that picture? You could sell it away from yourself, and never know anything about it more; but you could not by all the power of a tyrant take it from your servant."

It would be worth pondering the salient points that George MacDonald is offering his readers. I’m sure there are more, but thus far I’ve found these four:

• We needn’t physically own a thing in order to possess the value of it.
• In order to truly possess a thing, we must know what its true ‘nature’ is.
• The goodness of a thing is a gift to us as long as we maintain a right relationship to it.
• Lastly, when we try to claim possession wrongly, we become a tyrant.

These aren’t concepts that are solely metaphysical or abstract. These are necessary contemplations that can bring authentic contentment and satisfaction to every corner of our lives. These thoughts can bring us to understand what we truly ‘need’ and ‘want’ to possess physically, but also what we ‘need’ and ‘want’ to be and to do in every part of our living.

– T.Brygger

Self-Help

It is ironic that we are so resistant to Christianity becoming a self-help religion, and at the same time we insist that the Bible can cure us. We have it turned upside-down.

Christianity is indeed a self-help religion; the motivation for anyone to be a ‘seeker’ of Christianity is their desire to be helped. But we can’t think that the Bible is a self-help book. When we regard “applying scripture” as implementing biblical change in our actions and behaviors, we only give ourselves an appearance of our being helped – and we can be quite convincing.

Resting and dwelling with Jesus in His Kingdom is the only help for any of us – it is to this that the Bible is always instructing us toward.

[John 5:39-40]

~ T.Brygger

Discipline: The Addiction to Virtue

Why is it that we desire to be disciplined individuals? Why do we look at others we believe to be disciplined and wish that we could be like them? It is likely that by wishing to be disciplined we are in actuality wishing to reap the results of discipline: a clean home, an orderly schedule, or consistent goodness in relationships.

Unfortunately, many of us try our hand at a life of one or two disciplines and when the results don’t come easily we throw up our hands and revert to the life we knew in comfort. We say to ourselves and others that we just weren’t ‘wired’ that way, but deep down we know that what is worth being disciplined in, is worth a little rewiring. We know that others have achieved what we desire and that they have overcome great obstacles on their way to an intentional life. Were those others more determined? I would say that they were, though not likely in the ways we attribute to them.

A person who pursues discipline, may pursue it for two reasons. The first has already been mentioned; that of the end results. The second reason a person pursues discipline is that the discipline itself is what holds the value, and this is where successful discipline finds its motivation. Let us view it like this: Discipline, is finding the value in a thing because of the repetition and intentionality, and not an action repeated merely to achieve the end result. Value is discovered in each moment with the discipline, by engaging the thing with purpose, over and over again.

The person who pursues discipline in prayer, finds that, focussed on that moment, it is the time with God for that moment that holds value. Their focus is on the immediate moment and on the intentionality of submitting to God their schedule, their want, their worries and their view of all things. The individual approaching prayer as a repetition will end up repeating their requests, their wants, their worries and their own views of all things, and will then wonder when God will show up to impact that list of items. These people are hung up on hearing from God a “yes”, “no” or “maybe” rather than looking for true relational interaction. 

The point of the repetition is creating ongoing intentionality in our hearts and minds so that there begins to be such a difference in the depth of those times, and the peace during those times, that we hunger for it over and over and over again; even pursuing it throughout the day, always knowing that depth to life and secrets of God’s Kingdom are a thought away.

All disciplines follow in this manner: healthy eating habits, exercise habits, strong marriages, loving parents. All of these ends are achieved, not by devotion to a rigid mind, but a devotion to engaging each moment with an intentionality that leads to healing and beauty.

~ T. Brygger

Intentionality Over Discipline

I am not a disciplined person. I wish that I was. I strive to be disciplined, and I revel in those times that I achieve it in some part of my life, yet inevitably it falls apart. Something always throws my disciplines off the rails.

It seems that we look around and we imagine others to be disciplined, and looking into our own lives we see that we are not. We chalk up our lack of discipline as being intrinsic to our personality or our ‘nature’. 

For those of us who appear disciplined, it matters little what others think, we know where we need improvement and where we let ourselves off easy time and time again. No, even the many who appear disciplined, are not. For these, intentionality is more important than discipline.

With intentionality, we take our awareness of our shortcomings and put that awareness to use by plying our will toward betterment in the moment. With intentionality, the disorderly can in a matter of minutes become orderly. By being intentional, an angry man can be patient. Intentionality can save a relationship for the moment; and when intentionality is a habit, these things are changed time and time again. Before long, although you know that you are not disciplined, you have been intentional in your weaknesses time and time again. You have become both aware and changed, and although your nature is no different, your apathy has taken a turn.

Discipline, it turns out, is nothing more than intentionality applied over and over again. I would never want to be truly disciplined, the way an engine fires in a mechanical and disciplined repetition; how cold, how impersonal, and a person who is disciplined in a obsessive way kills that which makes disciplines valuable; the value of the introspection that precedes intentionality.

I do not pray regularly for the sake of regularity; I often don’t pray regularly at all, but a life that looks inward is a life that is in prayer in many ways, always being intentional, wanting to submit to the better way; the way of God.

~ T. Brygger