Tag: Relationships

Be Quiet My Soul

~ Joseph McBee ~ Leave a comment

Be quiet my soul, you’re talking too much. – Guigo II, The Carthusian

I am quieter now than I was as a younger man. That may shock some people who know me, but it’s true. I used to talk way too much, dominating conversations, showing off, trying to be the center of attention, and keep everyone entertained and engaged…with me, of course.

My journey to keeping my mouth shut started when I was playing Bible Trivia with a group of friends in college. I regaled them all with my knowledge of the Bible, answering every question correctly. No one stood a chance.

The problem is that I had not been invited to join them. I just inserted myself into the group and started playing. Another problem was that I wasn’t giving anyone else a chance to play.

Yeah. I was THAT guy.

Finally, a girl in the group, clearly tired of my bombastic attitude shut me down hard. Glaring at me she said, “This would be a lot more fun if someone didn’t take over and we all had a chance to play!”

No one contradicted her and no one defended me. They just looked at me. Clearly, they all felt the same way.

I offered my apologies, and made a hasty exit, tail tucked between my legs, my face red from shame.

Could the young lady have handled the situation in a more gracious and kinder way? Of course. But she wasn’t wrong. I was an unwelcome guest, and worse, I was a rude guest.

The event caused me to think about how I came across to others and that I did not make room for them. Bottom line: I talked too much and listened too little. “[L]et every person be quick to listen, SLOW to speak” James reminds us. I was the opposite.

I wish I could say I learned the lesson once and never had to learn it again, but that would be a lie. I still have to remind myself to be still and quiet and to make room for others. To welcome others to open their hearts and let me truly HEAR them for a while. And in doing that, I am loving them.

A quiet soul helps us live a quieter life. A life that makes room for others. A quiet soul also makes room for God. It’s hard to hear the voice of God when our soul is talking too much.

I was on my way to church, where I was scheduled to preach as part of our Summer series, Saved: Stories of Redemption and Grace. I was wrestling with an illustration I included. I wasn’t sure it should be in there. It felt contrived to me but I couldn’t convince myself to cut it. I was beating myself up because I assumed I was being prideful (which is not a bad assumption to make, really) but I could not get a peace either way.

Finally, I quieted my soul and listened for a moment.

And that’s when I realized that the story was fine. It was just missing a piece. It was missing the part where I pointed back to Jesus. Once I realized that I gave thanks to God and used the story with a sense of purpose and peace.

I just had to be still and quiet enough to listen.

A quiet soul, the one that hears God’s voice, is one that is still.

Tyler Staton writes:

Stillness is the quiet space where God migrates from the periphery back to the center, and prayer pours forth from the life that has God at the center.

Prayer, that conversation between us and the one who created us and loves us.

A still and quiet soul is hard. It has always been hard, but it seems even more difficult in our cultural context. As R. Kent Hughes writes.

Americans seem obsessed with the need for unending sound…But silence slows the frantic pace and gives time for reflection and individual dialogue with God.

When was the last time you sat in stillness and silence? No screens, no people, no projects or books or journals or music. Just still and silent?

A dear friend of mine said he tried that recently for just two minutes and he felt overwhelmed by the experience.

It’s harder than you think. But everything worth doing is.

Of course, being still and silent does not magically make God show up and speak to your heart and mind. He is God. He cannot be coerced or manipulated or forced. He will do what pleases him and what pleases him is always right and perfect and loving. What we are doing in stillness and silence, is making room for him. We are making him the priority. We are letting him set the agenda.

Brennan Manning was telling his friend Larry Crabb about a silent retreat he had coming up. One that he did every year. Crabb questioned him about the retreat.

“What does God show you on these retreats? What has he said to you in your silence?”

“You know…I don’t think God has ever spoken to me during one of these retreats.” Brennan said.

“Then why do you go?”

“I think God just likes it when I show up.”

I am DONE with “Self-Help” Books

~ Joseph McBee ~ Leave a comment

I have read my LAST self-help book and, honestly, I should have quit reading them a long time ago.

I’ve wasted countless hours and dollars reading what I now see as garbage books and what finally killed it for me was Mel Robbins’ latest best-seller, THE LET THEM THEORY.

The book is really about emotional intelligence, specifically self-regulation and relationship management skills. The premise is that we should just let adults act how they want to act (Let Them) and then we choose our response because that is all we can control anyway (Let Me).

That’s all fine. I don’t have an issue with the premise. It’s true, I cannot control how other people act or how they feel or what they think of me. I can only control how I respond and how I treat them.

That’s called being an emotionally mature adult.

And Robbins makes some decent points throughout the book, but they are just a few nuggets here and there and you have to wade through a lot of junk to find them.

Here are my problems with self-help books in general and why I will absolutely avoid them all from this day forth!

First, every one I have read, and I really mean EVERY ONE, has at least 20 to 30 pages of the author making their case for why you should listen to them and why, even though they have no formal learning in the area they are writing about, they are still an expert and have loaded their book with anecdotal evidence that proves it, and besides, everyone else says they are awesome and that the advice they give is “life changing.” Just look at how much money they make and how many speaking gigs they book each year and how many downloads their online content has.

Robbins even posts pictures of people with “Let Them” tattoos as proof that her ideas work.

Second, self-help books are all about…

  • Reclaiming your “personal power”
  • Living your dreams
  • Making life work for you
  • Dumping people who drag you down
  • Achieving success beyond your wildest dreams
  • And other hyperbolic nonsense

Third, self-help books are fluff. They are the cotton candy of books. They are pretty tasty, but there is nothing nourishing about them and they leave you feeling a little sick when you’re done with them. Usually, they are a blog post stretched over 200 plus pages with lots of stories about how successful the author is at whatever it is they are trying to hawk.

I experienced that with Robbins’ first book THE 5 SECOND RULE. It is an entire book about how counting down from five and then “blasting off” into whatever it is you are avoiding can change your whole life.

Finally, and this is really the clincher for me, self-help books cheapen relationships.

On the surface, THE LET THEM THEORY is an exception to that rule because it’s all about our relationships with others. But is it really?

Robbins’ book is all about YOU and how to reclaim and hang on to your personal power no matter what the people in your life do. And, like ALL self-help books I have ever read, if any relationship in your life is not working for you, dump them and move on because you are more important than anyone else.

That’s the inevitable conclusion. If it’s all about me, and you are not serving me and my goals, then you are gone.

It reduces people to obstacles to be destroyed or moved around, or tools to be used to get the life I want.

I used to be able to overlook that and try to hang on to the few nuggets I found in the book and just ignore the relationship advice.

I can’t do that anymore.

Maybe that’s because I’ve been on the receiving end of being pushed out because I wasn’t serving someone else’s happiness anymore.

But I’d like to think it’s because I am being formed more by my faith in Christ than I am by anything else.

“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Colossians 3:13)

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8)

“Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” (Romans 12:16-18)

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” (Philippians 2:3)

And so many others.

Am I suggesting that someone should stay in an abusive relationship? Of course not. But I think we are too quick to label situations and people as toxic, abusive, and traumatic, just because we get our feelings hurt or someone acts selfishly or because a relationship is a challenge.

Of course relationships are a challenge. And of course people can be mean and selfish and unloving and unkind. I know I can. So can you.

That’s where loves comes in. Not self-love, love for God and love for others. Those are the two greatest commandments after all. Jesus said so. (Matthew 22:36-40)

All this to say, I am finally done with self-help books. Better late than never.

Don’t Live in the Destination

~ Joseph McBee ~ Leave a comment

In our hustle culture we are rarely where we are, we are almost always where we are supposed to be next.

We are having lunch with a colleague but we are thinking about our next meeting.

We are talking with our spouse but we are thinking about the project we need to finish.

Our kids are telling us about their day but we are thinking about the game we are missing on TV.

In her book, IF YOU WANT TO WRITE, author Brenda Ueland calls this living in our destination.

We are not present where we are, we are living where we are supposed to be next. And in doing that, we never experience anything. We never arrive anywhere.

What are we missing? More importantly, WHO are we missing?

A concept I have been thinking a lot about as I write my next book is that love lingers. When we truly love someone, they have our full attention in the time we are with them. We are not in a rush to get to the next thing, we are there, in that time with that person.

I have a friend who is dear to me and we’ve had trouble recently coordinating our schedules to get some time together. One afternoon he had window of time between meetings.

I said no. Not because I didn’t want time with my friend, but because I didn’t want to be rushed. And I told him that. He agreed with me.

If we had met, he would be living in his destination, and I would have been living in his destination too because I would be thinking about how he had to leave soon to get to his next appointment.

It takes discipline to be in the present moment with others, but it’s worth it. If you want to build real fellowship and community. You must linger.

The Institute on Aging conducted a study on the Top 5 Regrets of the Dying and here is how the doctor who conducted the study summarized their findings:

It all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks — love and relationships.

The next time you are with someone, anyone, try to be in that moment with them. THAT is your destination, not what’s next, but right there, with them. It will be uncomfortable, and it will take practice, but it will also be worth it.