Bowling day with Faithful Heart. Focused!

What do you do after returning from time with friends, family, and tons of people who are always looking to encourage and build you up?

You take a reality check.

We need encouragement, and we need people in our lives who believe in us, and cheer us on.

But we need to come back down too---to deny any hype about who we might appear to be vs. who we actually are.

We are far too ready to believe ourselves better than we are.

This is especially dangerous if you work in the nonprofit world, or are religious, or have strong moral opinions.

Ironically, even if we profit from our nonprofit work, it is still remarkably easy to feel a little proud, and even a bit superior to 'those' people working just to make money.

Sadly, in my faith family, it is far too common to hear of someone leaving a good vocation to follow a "call to ministry."

What this usually means is they are leaving the people who are not believers, in order to go work  among the already-believers.

Which is sort of like a doctor leaving his patients to go work among other doctors.

With zero bowling experience, these boys picked it up quickly and were getting close to 200 by the end.

Becky working on her form :)

Thankful for a fun day together!

Regardless whether we consider ourselves religious or not, for all of us there is a terrible risk of beginning to believe our own hype and starting to think we are better than we actually are.

It is a terrible risk because it deludes us into complacency and usually, indifference.  And complacency and indifference are the enemies of all goodness and greatness.

Instead of continually struggling to become the better versions of ourselves God has made us and called us to be, we settle down with comfortable illusions of our own goodness.

And nothing crushes compassion for others like the belief that we are already good enough, already doing enough.

People love to deny their perfection, but boast of their goodness.

Sometimes what we need is to spend time with someone who is so far above us in love, service, humility, and giving, that we are ashamed to bring up any of those flimsy justifications we use to try to convince ourselves that we really are "good people."

(Or to meet someone we don't like, but who is remarkably similar to us.)

Ploy nailed it!

Yay was having a good time!

But comparison is not the answer.

If we fall into this trap, our goal becomes to be merely better than.

And how can you measure goodness that way?

If I am better than 40% of people, am I good?

That still means I am worse than more than half the people in the world; not so good.

No, you can't measure yourself be looking at the person next to you.

The key is to relentlessly strive to be the best version of ourselves.

The only measure is against the person you were yesterday.

But so long as even a hint of self-satisfaction remains in us, we will be quick to give up the hard work of growing better, and settle instead for the easy assurance that we are already good enough. 

We become stunted people---never living up to our potential, to what we might be, and what we might do for our world.

It robs us, and it robs our neighbors, of our unique contribution to the world and our human family.

Preparing for baby girl at our house! She's not even here yet and Ez is already all up in her space! :)

Ezra really liked Thai Sunday school.

Always a hit with the ladies!

Healthy self-esteem is not believing you are better than you actually are, but believing in the potential inside of you.

The first step to healthy self-esteem might just be admitting you are not as good of a person as you think you are.

Then you can also admit honestly, that you don't have to stay that way, and in fact, your life can become something beautiful and useful that blesses others.

And that is the key to a happy, meaningful life.

You have to start with the truth of the present before you can go anywhere new in the future.

Imagine starting a journey without knowing where you are starting from.

You might know how to get from Cleveland to Chicago, but if you think you are starting from Cleveland, but actually you are in Cincinnati, you will have problems.

These girls were impressed with the machinery

This guy just needed a seat

54 babysitters is just about enough to keep an eye on Ez

Too often people of my faith family have developed an unhealthy obsession with their own badness.

Which strangely, usually leads us right back to thinking we are better than we really are.

This is not a call to wallow in your wretchedness, but to recognize your own tendency to believe you are better than you actually are.

Once you recognize the delusion for what it is, you can enter into the realm of reality and start making real changes in your life.

Religion has often sounded the trumpet that people are bad, but how often they have failed to remind them that they can be good, or at least better than they are now.

Singing Happy Birthday to August Birthdays at Thai church!

Our house mother Bpan was sick last week, but thankfully is back home and feeling better.

These girls are so much fun!

Perhaps our greatest point of danger is when we begin to make some real progress.

It is right after we buy a homeless man a $5 meal that we begin to feel that good, warm sensation of helping a fellow human being, that quickly transforms into the sensation of how good a guy I must be to do a thing like that!

(Never mind that without a hesitation, I bought a $100 toy for myself only hours before that I have no real need of).

Was it right to buy him the meal?

Yes, a thousand times Yes!

Was it right to believe that I am a good person for doing so?

No, a thousand times No!

Why?

Because the minute you believe you are already good, you will stop making actual progress becoming better. 

Celebrating Ezra's 2nd birthday with Nana and Papa in Thailand!

Some people who made actual progress becoming better in their lives, almost always said less and less about it.

St Vincent de Paul gave far more to the poor and hungry than most of us do.

But as he grew into a better man, his view of his own generosity changed.

Instead of expecting the poor to show proper gratitude to him for what he gave them, he began to ask their forgiveness for what he gave them.

The more he grew in goodness, the more he began to understand that his own success, prosperity, and well-being were determined more by where he was born, what opportunities he had had, and God's own generosity towards him, than anything he had done for himself.

Humility produced gratitude.  Gratitude produced compassion.  Compassion produced love. 

And love never ends.

It helps if you lean...

We are never sure where Ez's hands have been...

Aunt Joy...our go-to babysitter and lovely friend.

I want to be a good man.

Therefore, I dare not think I already am one.

We must all face our own hypocrisy and it is not easy.

I am a Christian working for a nonprofit, trying to help orphaned children have a home and a future.

It is so easy to start to believe I am better than I actually am.

It is so easy to take the well-intended compliments from friends on Facebook, and begin to believe them.

It is so easy to look at the person next to me, or across the street (or of another religion) and think:
'I must be pretty good because I seem ahead of that guy.'

It is so easy to believe I am better than I really am.

Because I want to believe it.

So how can I grow in humility, that I may grow in gratitude?

And how can I grow in gratitude, that I may grow in compassion?

And how can I grow in compassion, that I may grow in love?
(And become the incredible person I was made to be?)

Everyone seems to like ice cream

Airtime!  She nailed it!

If you are willing to hear the suggestions of a not-very-good man trying to become better, I will offer a few.

1.  Take regular reality checks from the praise of others

      a.  Find people who are better than you are and spend time with them.
      b.  Read books about people who were better than you and imitate their lives.
      c.  Listen to your family and the people who really know you.  Give them opportunities to gently             tell you where you can become better.

2.  Do Menial Chores

     a.  There are lots of reasons to let someone else do your menial chores, but almost all of them are            somehow linked to pride (my time is too valuable, I am too important, I have more important              work to do, etc.)   Jesus washed feet.  We can wash dishes.
     b.  Brother Lawerence wrote the book the Practice of the Presence of God.  And he insisted some            of the most valuable time with God he had was when he was doing menial chores.
     c.  Remember God said that the path to greatness in His eyes was to become the slave and servant            of others---not to be served by others.

3.  Avoid Feelings of Superiority and Pride in Titles

     a.  This is connected to the one before.

          Contrary to common assumption, no one is good because of their job or religious title (pastor,              missionary, humanitarian worker, Republican, Democrat, Christian, Buddhist, etc.)

         There is a reason Jesus told us never to call someone Master, or Teacher (or pastor or reverend)           --because he knew it would go to our heads.

         Instead, he says, you are all on the same level as brothers.  Those special titles tempt us to                   believe we are more important than the others around us.

Family photos from our time in the States! We have 10 weeks to go until baby girl arrives!

Malcolm Muggeridge describes the temptation to superiority a little too well, especially for those        of us working cross culturally (beware, this hits close to home):

[But] when I was back in Calcutta with Mother Teresa... I could not but contrast my attitude with hers; not just in the sense that we moved in opposite directions — she to where the poor and afflicted were, and I away from them.

It was in her response to them that the true contrast lay; she seeing in each sorrowing, suffering human being, neither a body surplus to a population norm, nor a waste product, but the image of a sorrowing, suffering Savior, so that in solacing them she had the inestimable honor and joy of solacing him."

Audrey's girlfriends put on a joint baby shower for her and a friend; it was pretty cute!

We are not as good as we think you are.

But we can be better than we are now.

You have more potential than you can possibly imagine, but the only way to realize it, is to consider others as more significant than yourself.

When we come to see the potential in ourselves, and in others, and learn to love them as we love ourselves, we will not be proud of ourselves, but feel honored and joyful to have had the privilege of serving them and serving God in them.

May we move towards those in need, and away from a self-satisfied pride together! 

Your not-as-good-as you-think-but-growing-better brothers and sisters in Thailand,

Some beautiful artwork from our friend Eva during her time in Thailand, You can check out her art here: http://www.evasedjo.com/