Christian Living – Page 17 – Ed Cyzewski: Author // Contemplative

My Post for A Deeper Story: Things Will Not Get Better and That’s OK

Posted on August 12, 2014August 11, 2014 by Ed Cyzewski

This week I’m writing over at a Deeper Story about the ways anxiety has become a habit and how being a parent has helped:

It’s bath time for our son Ethan. I’ve taken over most nights this summer during the final weeks of my wife’s pregnancy. He’s splashing in the tub without a care in the world, tossing his tugboat out of the tub along with the bird-shaped water scoop. He’s been a one-toy guy lately, focusing on a bottle that fills up with water, shooting a stream of bubbles to the surface.

I gather his pajamas, toothbrush, and towel while he chirps and splashes. Most nights I just sit next to him while he plays. We’re both at peace as the day nears its end.

I’m often soaking wet by the end of the bath thanks to his splashing and the exertion of scrubbing him, wrangling him with his towel, and dressing him. He knows the routine, and doesn’t need much prompting to charge into his room for his lovey, plopping onto his bed, and waiting for my wife to join us for a few books.

I rarely turn on the lights during the bath or story time if the sun is still up, preferring the peace of the muted evening light. For once in the past five years, my mind and heart match the tranquility of our home…

Read the rest at A Deeper Story.

3 Things I Don’t Want to Admit About Money

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Ed Cyzewski

If you asked me, “Do you have a money problem?” there’s a good chance I’d reply, “Yeah, I don’t have enough.”

Any chance you can relate?

While I could solve a few problems with more money, “not having enough money” most likely isn’t the main problem we have with money.

Money is the kind of topic that some churches talk about all of the time, others never talk about, and a few only talk about as a last resort before going broke. There’s a good chance that many of the Christians who don’t talk about money fear they’ll accidentally sound like a church that talks about money all of the time.

Money gives Christians fits because we all need it, but we all know it’s like a ticking time bomb—a really, really nice looking ticking time bomb that we all want to own. In fact, we worry that money will expose us to evil.

In 1 Timothy 6:10, Paul wrote “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” If we’re listening to Jesus, he makes money look pretty bad. In the Gospels, the parable of a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus provides a cautionary tale about the snare of money. The rich young man chose his wealth over Jesus, but Jesus also made the startling request to sell everything he owned. The power of money to distract us or to even take over our lives is clear. In fact, Jesus even went so far as saying that the poor are blessed.

Money can be a real threat to our faith, causing us to make terrible decisions and threatening our faithfulness, but we still need it to pay the rent, to buy necessities, and, at least during the winter, buy hockey tickets. How should

1. Money Is Often Neutral

Having said all of that, it’s clear that money isn’t necessarily inherently evil. Rather, it can lead to trouble. Remember, Paul said that the “love of money” is the problem.

If it’s a ticking time bomb, it’s also a time bomb that we can continually disarm. Let’s remember that Jesus was supported by a group of wealthy women. The early church in Acts pooled their resources together to support one another, yet it’s clear that plenty of Christians owned homes in order to host meetings. There’s no doubt that Priscilla and Aquila had financial means because of their trade as tentmakers.

While having a lot of money can be a big problem (as in a loaded up camel passing through the eye of a needle), it’s not necessarily a roadblock to faith. Learning to be generous with money can be a tremendous source of joy.

However, tons of problems arise when I start relying on money.

2. Money Replaces God

I know that I often fear not having enough money, but should I perhaps spend more time fearing too much money? Should I worry that I’m always worried about not having enough money?

I often tell myself that having a little more money would solve many of our problems and take care of most of the sources of our stress. I rarely consider how a little more of God’s kingdom could actually provide a far better resolution to my worries. There is a peace and contentment that comes from the pursuit of God (1 Tim. 6:6) and treasures that do not rust or decay. Most days, if I’m really honest, it takes a lot of faith to believe that. It’s no wonder that money can be such a faith wrecker.

Money, in many ways, can be used to address the very same things that God wants to deal with in our hearts. I certainly need reliable financial provision, but I often want to cut God out of the equation when asking for that provision. Rather than viewing God as my provider and his kingdom as my ultimate goal, I make money into my god, trusting it to provide the security I crave. Money becomes my god that provides comfort.

Money can wreck our faith or at least provide some really problematic distractions. While we can use it well and should never create a once-and-for-all template for how to handle money, failing to discuss it provides room for money to take over.

3. The Best Way to Manage Money Is to Give It Away

We used to live near a very affluent town in Vermont. It was a popular vacation spot for people who made big bucks in New York City—a place where some people thought nothing of plunking down $500 or more a night for a hotel room. It was the only town where I could find a job—naturally in the tourism sector.

Here’s the thing about money: it starts to change your values. It changes how you think.

In fact, the more money you have, the more companies will try to trick you into frivolous spending. David Cain writes,

“Here in the West, a lifestyle of unnecessary spending has been deliberately cultivated and nurtured in the public by big business. Companies in all kinds of industries have a huge stake in the public’s penchant to be careless with their money. They will seek to encourage the public’s habit of casual or non-essential spending whenever they can.”

I was surrounded by this lifestyle. I was also extremely conscientious of how I dressed, the beat up station wagon I drove around, and how I carried myself. It’s hard to cut yourself off from the influence of money and the kind of mindset it creates.

I was always thinking of new ways to spend money on our home rather than saving money or giving it to worthy causes. That felt perfectly normal, as our home didn’t quite measure up to the many homes around us.

In retrospect, I can see the value in leaving that area. It would have been far healthier and helpful to be more proactive in donating most of the money that I wanted to spend on myself.

How do you fight a culture obsessed with consumption? Try generosity.

We consume because we think it brings happiness. However, generosity has reminded me that there’s another kind of joy that is far more long-lasting available.

When we’re not consumed with the love of money or treating money like a deity we can carry in our wallets, it’s helpful to remember that we can actually use money to get happiness. However, we can only unlock happiness if we give our beloved deity away…

What have you learned about managing money?

This post was adapted from A Christian Survival Guide.

5 Signs You Don’t Have an Abusive, Megalomaniacal Pastor

Posted on August 5, 2014August 4, 2014 by Ed Cyzewski

A few years ago I was meeting with my pastor, and friend, to talk about communication because our church had almost shut down. Things needed to change… fast. He’d been the teaching pastor while the “Lead” pastor ran things into the ground. My friend’s honesty and focus in the middle of the crisis were refreshing.

Several ongoing church events/ministries were struggling to continue, and he took a very frank, people-focused approach:

“If we have enough people willing to make them happen, that’s great. If not, we’ll put those things on hold to make sure we can do a few things well. Right now we need to focus on communicating better and helping everyone navigate this season of transition.”

In case you aren’t familiar with how churches can work sometimes…

He didn’t fall for the temptation of putting ministries above people.
He didn’t focus on how it would make him look to have a ministry end.
He also focused on the particular season of the people in our church: a lot of people were hurting, and he knew that he needed to focus on helping them.

You don’t have to look too far these days to see what a terrible pastor looks like. Perhaps you’ve been under the authority of a terrible pastor for so long that you’ve forgotten what a good one looks like.

While I’ve had a few crazy pastors over the years, I’ve been blessed with quite a few good pastors and teams of pastors, men and women, young and old, who modeled all that is good about pastoral ministry. Having chosen to not go into full time ministry myself because I felt like I didn’t have the right skill set for it, I have taken note over the years about what makes a good pastor:

Your Pastor Has Accountability

Congregational churches typically have a mishmash of elders and congregational accountability that is manifested through votes. Other churches function with a hierarchy of elders and/or bishops who provide oversight and accountability.

Both models (and their many variations) have strengths and weaknesses. The key is that pastors shouldn’t be able to stack the deck in their favor. They need people who can speak with bracing honesty into their lives for their own health and for the health of their congregations. If a pastor has overstepped his/her authority at any point, members of the congregation need a reliable place to go to share their concerns.

Your Pastor Delegates Responsibility

The best pastors I’ve worked with over the years gave away their power by empowering others and letting fellow pastors or lay leaders make important decisions or lead critical groups or ministries. Pastors who try to control too much inevitably burn out.

Interestingly enough, Jesus delegated a ton to his disciples before they even understood what kind of Messiah he would be—if some believed he was the Messiah at all. His disciples were empowered to baptize, cast out demons, preach, and heal.

Narcissistic pastors will be the most defensive and possibly abusive since they will try to protect their positions and public perception about them by concentrating as much power as possible.

Your Pastor Communicates

I grew up in a church where the pastors effectively used the bulletin, website, and church events to communicate. They moved intentionally slow in order to keep everyone on the same page.

I don’t think communication is the same thing as building consensus, although it can help build consensus. Communication should at the very least inform members about a process or expected change so that they aren’t surprised by a dramatic change on Sunday morning.

Part of belonging to a community is communicating in order to keep everyone in the loop. Taking an analogy from a family, it’s a pretty terrible idea to spring a move to another city or even a nearby house on the kids without telling them that you’re looking at houses or considering buying a new house, etc. The kids don’t get to decide where you’re going to live, but they should know about the process before you tell them to start loading the moving van.

Your Pastor Leads Relationally, Not Positionally

The best pastors I’ve seen over the years lead through lunches, breakfasts, and coffee meet ups. They host meals where leaders and groups gather together for discussions. They listen and share what they’re thinking.

They get things done, but sometimes it takes a little bit of time to launch a new small group or ministry, especially if the people involved are new. They need time to build up a relationship.

I’ve read stories about pastors who demand obedience because of their positions that are allegedly based on biblical authority. These pastors are the bullies who make demands as authorities rather than asking for help as members of the same church family who are guided by the same Spirit.

Your Pastor Is Not Key to Your Church’s Success or “Brand”

If people talk about your church, are they talking about the kinds of things your church does or do they inevitably talk about your pastor? While some pastors are naturally more interesting and popular than others because of their preaching style, I’d be worried about attending a church where the pastor is the main highlight rather than the actual ministries of the church.

There are lots of bad reasons to attend a church, and a rock star pastor is among the worst because it’s not sustainable and could breed a really unhealthy atmosphere that is more centered around entertainment and making fans rather than community outreach and making disciples.

What are some other marks of a good pastor?

Read more about the ways bad churches happen to good people in my new book:

A Christian Survival Guide: A Lifeline to Faith and Growth.

Songs That Saved My Faith

Posted on August 4, 2014August 5, 2014 by Ed Cyzewski

I’m the ultimate late adopter for pretty much every kind of music there is. Don’t believe me?

In college I finally started getting into this little known band called U2.

So it shouldn’t shock anyone to learn that I was lukewarm if not ambivalent about Rich Mullins during the same season of my life. As a freshman in college, I couldn’t quite relate to everyone who was devastated by the news of his death. It was a terrible tragedy for sure. I just didn’t have all that much invested in the guy.

About a year later, the Ragamuffin band that used to tour with Rich visited my university. I attended the concert because there wasn’t much else going on at our college in the middle of the Indiana corn and soybean fields. I didn’t realize that concert would play such a pivotal role in saving my faith.

I’m not one to raise his hands during worship. You won’t find me dancing in the aisles. I’m probably more likely to roll my eyes during worship than to lift my eyes up to heaven.

But something about those songs took me out of myself. It was a pure, wonderful moment of seeing God with eyes wide open and arms outstretched. The opening riffs of My Deliverer had me out of my seat and singing along.

By the time they played “All the Way to Kingdom Come,” tears streamed down my eyes. I could hardly sing the words as I wept about the love and mercy of God.

Those songs have stuck with me. They have a power unlike any other music for me, always lifting me to this other place where I can see the love of Jesus and mercy of the Father with unmatched clarity.

I mean, how can I choose which lines to quote from All the Way to Kingdom Come?

“We didn’t know what love was ’til He came
And He gave love a face and He gave love a name
And He gave love away like the sky gives the rain and sun
We were looking for heroes, He came looking for the lost
We were searching for glory, and He showed us a cross
Now we know what love is ’cause He loves us”

That says it all for me. It’s like an instant invitation to worship.

While I’ve written a bit more on the intellectual and theological levels with my Christian Survival Guide book, worship songs and the emotions these sometimes lead to can be just as powerful for the health and stability of our faith.

We serve an emotional God who felt like a jilted lover, prayed passionately while on earth, and wept over the fate of Jerusalem. We should expect to meet God with both what we think and what we feel.

As a way of balancing out my approach in the Christian Survival Guide, I’ve started creating a Playlist on Spotify called Songs That Saved My Faith.

I’m inviting you to join me by adding the songs that have helped save your faith. Some of my friends have already dropped in their favorite songs.

Just click below to start adding your own songs to the playlist:

Songs That Saved My Faith (Spotify Playlist)
I pray that this playlist will help you connect with God on a deeper level, especially when you find that words fail you and mystery surrounds you.

We Don’t Need Church INC, But We Need Community

Posted on August 1, 2014July 29, 2014 by Ed Cyzewski

I used to really overthink what church should and should not do.

Having swung all over the map on church meetings, I’ve realized that anything from candlelit high liturgy to a group of friends gathering in a living room can serve just fine as a church. In fact, I’m grateful that we have so many different ways to worship God in community. That can actually be a tremendous asset for us because we can seek out the places where we can find life—sensing the deep, healing breath of the Holy Spirit as we gather together.

Healthy Christian community is an essential, but not because skipping church is a sin. The command from the author of Hebrews to not give up gathering together (Heb. 10:25) hardly demands the formation of a nonprofit organization that constructs a building, hires a pastor, and holds a morning and evening service every Sunday with a worship band and a sermon. The author of Hebrews was thinking of the life that comes when we worship God together (most likely with a celebration of the Lord’s Supper), encourage one another, and hold one another accountable—the details are wonderfully sparse.

Here’s what we need from Christian community:

We need to confess our sins to real people.
We need friends to pray for us.
We need to be challenged to get off our couches and serve our communities.
Everything about Christian growth is very specific and personal, and there is no better way to draw near to God than with the support of a community.

Sometimes we turn Christian fellowship into an all-or-nothing matter where you’re either fully involved in a church and its “discipleship system” of Church INC or you need to abstain from it fully. We need process more than we realize, but that process doesn’t have to be a discipleship program with study guides and graduation certificates.

Throughout the Gospels, we see the disciples and especially the apostles as people who are immersed in a process with Jesus. They frequently missed the point of his stories and failed to step out in faith at crucial moments. We don’t ever read of Jesus saying, “That’s it! You’re all fired. I’m getting a new group of apostles.”

Perhaps we imagine Jesus audibly sighing or needing to step away to skim rocks along the Sea of Galilee, but he stuck with his apostles right through Pentecost when he shared his Spirit with them. If it takes us some time to figure out a healthy and life-giving form of church, I think Jesus can stick with us.

From the perspective of American Christianity, there is a strong expectation that good Christians go to an official church service. For everyone who feels like the church has let them down or has caused more problems, these expectations can be suffocating. Sometimes we feel like our only option is escape, and for those who attempt an escape, the condemnation that follows may serve as justification for fleeing a supposedly sinking ship.

When it comes to church, we have so many options available to us. I have seen friends who felt liturgy too constricting and therefore joined a network of house churches. Other friends found that liturgy provided a wonderful order for their worship as an alternative to the three-hymns-and-punt approach in their former churches.

There come times when we need to suck it up and join a community where we can find strong relationships despite other trappings that are less appealing. However, if a particular church becomes difficult to attend, it’s not like Christians today lack options. God’s Spirit is alive and working in many places, even among small groups that simply meet together for prayer and encouragement.

We need community, but we don’t need that community to come wrapped up in the trappings of Church INC. We need the support of our Christian family to help us stay focused on God and to pick us up when we fall down. That is something sleeping in on Sunday morning can’t do.

This post was adapted from my new book
A Christian Survival Guide: A Lifeline for Faith and Growth.

Why Don’t Protestants Talk about Dark Nights of the Soul

Posted on July 30, 2014July 29, 2014 by Ed Cyzewski

Have you ever felt like there are times when prayer doesn’t work, or God seems distant?

In my own Protestant tradition there isn’t a whole lot written about the times we fail to find God or struggle with doubts. In fact, our focus on being saved or unsaved may even create a dynamic where we see faith as a switch that’s either on or off, and if things aren’t working, we fear that somehow we’ve lost our salvation or God isn’t real after all. We don’t have much of a grid for seasons of struggle, depression, and loneliness. Some have been told that God is either real and capable of showing up when we pray or God’s fake and will not show up when we pray, but there’s a third option. God can be both real and not present for a season.

I won’t even begin to speculate about the potential causes for a dark night of the soul. However, I want you to know that you’re in good company if you’re going through one. In her personal letters, Mother Teresa wrote about living in a perpetual season where she didn’t hear from God. She persevered in faith as she served the poor even if she couldn’t get a direct confirmation from God for long stretches of time.[i]

A Saint Living in Darkness

Mother Teresa set out to serve the poor after having several mystical encounters with Jesus in 1946. She wrote in those days about her encounters with “the Voice” who asked her to serve the poorest of the poor and about her passionate love for Jesus. However, once she began serving the poor in Calcutta, she entered a prolonged season of spiritual darkness and loneliness:

In a letter estimated to be from 1961, Teresa wrote: “Darkness is such that I really do not see—neither with my mind nor with my reason—the place of God in my soul is blank—There is no God in me—when the pain of longing is so great—I just long & long for God. . . . The torture and pain I can’t explain.”

I have sensed the joy of the Lord when I do certain things. I’m well aware of God’s guidance for specific things in my life. However, there are many days when I don’t get a clear sense of God’s direction. Some days are lonelier than others when I pray. I’m stuck with persevering by faith based on what God showed me.

Some traditions see this season of alienation and darkness as a bad thing. It certainly can be that. I don’t think anyone should feel alienated from God . However, these situations are not without precedent. We’re in good company if we have a season of darkness or emptiness. If we’re always praying for spiritual breakthroughs and come up empty, we need to stop and ask what God is teaching us in this season of loneliness and silence.

Sometimes a time of waiting and anticipation can be just the thing we need even if it’s not what we want. Oftentimes the seasons of my greatest needs, doubts, and struggles have made me more reliant on God than any other and have strengthened my faith in ways that I never anticipated.

That isn’t to say that we should crave a dark night of the soul or downplay how difficult one can be. Rather, we fail to see that God can even use these seasons for good. All is not lost if God seems distant.

Today’s post was adapted from the chapter on prayer from A Christian Survival Guide: A Lifeline to Faith and Growth.

Sources:

[i] Daniel Trotta, “Letters Reveal Mother Teresa’s Doubt about Faith,” Reuters, http://in.reuters.com/article/2007/08/24/idINIndia-29140020070824 (accessed July 31, 2013).

[ii] Shona Crabtree, “Book Uncovers a Lonely, Spiritually Desolate Mother Teresa,” Christianity Today, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/augustweb-only/135-43.0.html (accessed July 31, 2013). See also Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta, ed. Brian Kolodiejchuk (New York: Doubleday, 2007).

Why I Avoided Christians Who Lost Their Faith

Posted on July 29, 2014 by Ed Cyzewski

This week I’m sharing a story from my Christian Survival Guide book about the time I avoided a man who was a former Christian:

From the post…

I had a lot of reasons to hate Clark.

We were polar opposites in every way. I’m a driven, self-starter who would rather die than break the rules. He was the atypical slacker who did the bare minimum to get by, letting others, namely me, do the heavy lifting for him. He’d chat up anyone near his office, and when company proved hard to find, he’d wander the building in search of anyone willing to kill a half hour with him.

When I didn’t cover for his deficiencies, Clark snapped that I’d better do my job.

I stormed away, swearing just loud enough for a co-worker to hear me.

Clark brought out the worst in me, and I let it happen rather than seeking to understand him or at least have a frank conversation about our differences. Over the years, we maintained an uneasy truce with our parallel careers within a small business of no more than ten employees.

At a company event, we happened to end up sitting next to each other. Seeking any kind of conversation topic, I asked him about his family who lived a few hours away. He mentioned that they were Christians, and he couldn’t stand the people at their church.

No surprise there. I was sure they felt the same way about him.

Clark went on to share that he had, in fact, been a Bible study leader and church elder before leaving the faith. I can’t tell you what we talked about after that. I just remember being shocked and then suddenly quite afraid.

Clark had a significant amount of Bible knowledge. He’d been taught everything that I knew. For some reason it stopped working for him.

Why? Why did he leave the faith? Honestly, I didn’t want to know.

Seeing Clark as a fallen Christian suddenly opened my eyes to my own hypocrisy. I had failed him greatly by hating him for his work habits. And when I learned that he had left the faith, I only wanted to write him off all the more. I didn’t want to wrestle with any of the questions or issues that wrecked his faith.

Fearing the fate of my fragile faith, I distanced myself from doubters like Clark.

Isn’t that something we’re all tempted to do when we meet someone who has left the faith?

Read the rest at A Deeper Story.

She Had Every Reason to Stop Believing: On Faith That Survives

Posted on July 27, 2014July 28, 2014 by Ed Cyzewski

That night I met a young woman at an inner city church dramatically changed the way I think about faith and doubt. She had huge misgivings and questions about God and the Bible. She felt like the church hadn’t been a friendly place to deal with them. She’d even been spiritually abused by leaders who used the Bible as a weapon.

She had every reason in the world to walk away from her faith. Yet, she held on, served among the poor, and kept showing up each Sunday. The more we talked, the more I wanted to tell her that there are some reasonable explanations for her doubts. She didn’t have to continue on with her faith hanging on by a thread.

Couldn’t there be a place to honestly think through the tough questions we face? Can’t we do better?

I started thinking through the topics that she found troubling and then moved on to the topics that have been threats to my own faith over the years. It’s been a good five years of thinking, questioning, and even doubting. The product of that season of inquiry is my new book, A Christian Survival Guide: A Lifeline to Faith and Growth.

A Christian Survival Guide is on sale today wherever books are sold, and as part of the book release festivities this week, the publishers of my other books are also offering some steep eBook discounts, including two full length books for $2.99 each. Scroll down for the full list of discounted eBooks…

DISCOUNTED EBOOK DETAILS: A Christian Survival Guide is available in print or as an eBook, with the eBook priced at $9.99. The Good News of Revelation and Hazardous (a book about making the risky decisions that result from following Jesus), are both $2.99 at Amazon. Unfollowers is $4.99 at my publisher’s website. Scroll down for the links. Offer ends August 1st!

Publisher’s Weekly shared about A Christian Survival Guide:

“Cyzewski approaches each topic with candor, sharing stories that make it easy to relate to the topic at hand. While many of the topics are complex, he provides a point of entry into each and raises thoughtful questions about how much importance Christians can assign to aspects of the discussion.”

After you’re done reading A Christian Survival Guide, I’d love for you to share what you think in a brief review.

Thanks so much for reading!

The Good News of Revelation
$2.99 on Amazon

Purchase from the publisher.

Hazardous: Committing to the Cost of Following Jesus
$2.99 on Amazon

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Unfollowers: Unlikely Lessons on Faith from the Doubters of Jesus

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A Christian Survival Guide
$9.99 on Amazon
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Note: All Amazon links are affiliate links.

Two Years Ago I Had an Anxiety Attack And Then We Had a Baby

Posted on July 11, 2014 by Ed Cyzewski

Two years ago I was losing my mind. Fifteen years of dreading my (limited) role in the labor process and exponential fear about parenthood culminated in an evening when we wife walked into our bedroom at midnight and told me, “It’s starting.”

“Dear God, help me,” was about all I could pray as I writhed in the grips of an anxiety attack. My chest tightened and I puffed out my breaths, the prospect of sleep all but gone at that point.

This moment was the culmination of many, many anxiety attacks and public faintings.

Learning about the birth process in college?

Out cold in my desk.

Talking about having a baby four years ago?

Panic attack.

Going to Bradley birth class with my pregnant wife?

Panic attacks.

Infant CPR class?

Panic attack.

Thinking about birth?

Panic attack.

I nearly lost my mind anticipating the birth of Ethan. It was nine months of living in fear of what I wanted the most. I really wanted to have a child. I was just terrified of the labor process and of being a parent to a helpless little baby.

The fears kept invading my mind:

I was going to drop the baby, suffocate the baby, or expose the baby to innumerable dangers. I would surely do something to hurt our child.

And even if our child managed to survive my incompetence, I could also be a terrible father. Here’s the thing: I get bored around other people’s kids. I mean, they’re great. We interact and play. It’s a great time for 30, even 60 minutes. But could I survive an entire day of attentiveness to my own child? Would I just end up praying for him to leave me alone or take a nap or something?

My pounding heart aside, we couldn’t stop labor.

So this is what happened, we took a lot of walks. I tried to control my anxiety, and when things got totally insane and my wife went through transition in the car on the way to the hospital, I got my head in the game, guiding her through a calming breathing procedure that calmed myself as well.

We were in this amazing rhythm and kept it going on the way up the elevator to the delivery floor even as a nurse chided me for not “encouraging” her.

It was otherworldly to think that a baby would soon come out of my wife. I was relatively calm, and I had to keep telling myself that I wasn’t the one actually in labor. In fact, it helped to remember that I had a role to play as support for Julie.

The closer we got to the actual birth, the calmer I became, more focused, more aware of the moment. Anxiety didn’t have any space in my head to inject worst case scenarios. Soon we had a little baby snuggled against my wife’s chest as she said, “Oh sweetheart, sweetheart!”

When the nurses weighed him, I stood by his side and let him grip my finger, rubbing his head and belly.

Everything in the past two years has been wonderful and exhausting. Having my own child was completely different. It’s always a wonder to see your own child develop and change from day to day, learning and experimenting, improvising in his own ways.

You never know what he’s going to put in one of the pots in our kitchen. He may just as likely help me stir an egg as plunge his hand into the bowl. Some days he’ll throw a ball right to me and other days he’ll turn away from me and throw the ball as hard as he can.

You wonder, what is he thinking?

We’re anticipating our next son any day now. He’s due on July 22^nd, but my wife has already had a few strong contractions that ended after she sat down for a while. On Monday she was exhausted and had a few contractions, and the old anxiety returned. I could barely focus on my work all morning.

What brought on the anxiety?

I’m not sure. I didn’t really have any concrete fears that morning. Just the waves of anxiety rolling in the pit of my stomach. Perhaps I feared change and the unknown. Perhaps I had no good reason for all of the anxiety.

I thought of Ethan and how wonderful the past two years have been.

He’s had his bumps and bruises that no parent could prevent. He’s stolen hours and hours of sleep. He pooped on me once. That’s about it. Generally speaking, there most likely isn’t anything to fear at all. It’s just one big unknown cliff I’m jumping off, and I don’t get to say when the leap begins.

When you leap into the unknowns of parenthood, you fall into the wonder of praying over your child and finding that it connects you with the heart of God like nothing else. It’s like getting baptized in the Holy Spirit every time for me. I’ve fallen into the joys of watching him play in his pool where he dumps after from one boat to another, seeing him build train tracks and push his trains around for hours, and reading books together that he later picks up to “read” on his own with crossed legs.

There are many unknown blessings that you land on if you leap into parenthood.

I know that my wife is healthy, the baby is in great shape for a safe delivery, and friends will care for Ethan’s every need. We don’t have much to fear.

Two years ago our life changed forever. Besides the lost sleep and the pooped-on t-shirt I threw out, I learned that the majority of my anxiety has no basis in reality. It’s just an exercise in my mind shadow-boxing, flailing against the impossibility of controlling the future.

After my anxiety attack this past Monday, I stepped back and saw all that has been wonderful and joyful about parenting Ethan. I saw that anxiety may come, but it doesn’t have to stay.

It took the arrival of a beautiful little boy two years ago with a perfect head of hair to show me that fear of the unknown cannot compare with the ever-expanding love of parents for their children.

Will American Christians Fail the Good Samaritan Test?

Posted on July 8, 2014July 8, 2014 by Ed Cyzewski

He was traveling to the big city when the thing he dreaded most happened—robbers descended, beat him viciously, stole his money, and left him along the road for dead. He was miles from friends and family with no one to help him.

The religious leaders passing by were too busy to help him. It wasn’t their fault and it wasn’t their problem. He probably took risks that put his life in jeopardy any way. Who would take time out of his busy day and assume the financial risk to care for this vulnerable man by the side of the road?

We all know how this story ends: The Good Samaritan stepped up to care for the wounded man, but do we know WHY Jesus shared this story? Here’s a look at the questions that led to this parable:

“On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Luke 10:25-29, NIV BibleGateway

With that, Jesus launched into this well-known story where the least likely person had mercy on a stranger in need. It’s implied that the Levite and Priest in the story should have had every reason to help their countryman and fellow believer. However, it was the foreigner and, according to the Jews, heretic, who stepped in.

Even with his “flawed” beliefs about where to worship God and his different priorities as a resident of Samaria, he saw the human need in front of him and took care of it, no matter how inconvenient or unfair it was.

Today, Americans face a different sort of crisis, but the connections to the Good Samaritan story are still relevant. Tens of thousands of children are fleeing violence in the Central American nations of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvadore. They face beatings, rape, and murder at the hands of these gangs. It’s so bad that thousands of parents have calculated that their children face better odds at the hands of coyotes who lead their children across the U.S. border, even though children may well be raped or beaten along the way by drug smugglers.

Do you think any parents would want to be separated from their children?

Can you imagine a child who would want to leave his or her parents?

What were you interested in when you were eight, nine, ten, or eleven years old? I was interested in baseball and model ships. I went to movies with my family and planted tomato plants in the yard with my grandfather.

We lived across from a schoolyard where teenagers sometimes drank and did drugs in the evening, but I could look down at them from my bedroom window knowing that I was safe. We had locked doors and attentive police who would come and care for us if we called for them.

These thousands of children crossing our borders are fleeing violence that is far worse than anything the U.S. Army faced in Iraq during the violence of 2007. Their only hope is the mercy of America.

While there are fears that these children could be deported, some government officials have suggested that the U.S. will determine ways to provide asylum. Most children have been placed with relatives, but their long-term status remains uncertain.

I’m encouraged to learn that these children are temporarily safe and that few have been returned to their countries where near certain death or exploitation awaits them. I’m also encouraged to hear that the U.S. government is stepping up aid initiatives in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

However, in the interim, it’s our role as people of faith to advocate for these children and, when necessary, to provide sanctuary to those fleeing violence until a safe place can be provided. This is caring for neighbors 101. I don’t see this as a negotiable if you want to follow Jesus. When children are in danger, followers of Jesus, the one who said “Let the little children come to me” and told us to care for “the least of these,” must take the side of the children.

Jesus told us that the two most important commandments are to love God and to love our neighbors.

Who is your neighbor?

How can you become a good neighbor to others?

Helping children seeking asylum is as good a place to start as any other.

What if being a good neighbor who loves others means having compassion for these children in our detention centers and offering them sanctuary? Many of them already have contact information for their relatives and can become productive members of society if given a chance.

Americans can hide behind legal arguments… “They broke the law. Deport them now. No exceptions!”

That would be correct under American law. I won’t argue the point. That just wouldn’t be a viable Christian perspective. It’s OK to be an American. However, at a certain point you have to decide on your primary loyalties—you know, that whole “no servant can serve two masters” business that somebody mentioned in the Bible once.

Being an American does not relieve us of our Christian responsibility to love our neighbors.

The Good Samaritan didn’t send the wounded man back into the wilderness where the robbers could finish him off because it wasn’t his problem. He didn’t apply a bandage and then chase him away because he didn’t have the resources to care for him.

He bandaged the man and then set him up at a local inn to recover, paying for all of his expenses. It’s costly. It’s not convenient. It’s not even fair. It’s just necessary.

For all of the time Christians spend talking about mercy and grace, perhaps we forget that both are rarely fair or convenient. For all of the Christians making noise about employers challenging contraception laws, what of laws that prevent us from loving our neighbors?

Loving our neighbors isn’t a matter of picking and choosing which people get to be our neighbors. Isn’t that the whole point of the Good Samaritan parable? Vulnerable people cross our paths unexpectedly without announcing themselves, and sometimes they simply need our help. Loving our neighbors involves stepping in to help when the chance to show love presents itself, not when neighbors meet a government-specified checklist.

Jesus doesn’t give legal loopholes for “illegal immigrants” when loving our neighbors.

We aren’t supposed to check the documents of our neighbors before offering to help them, especially when they are terrified children seeking shelter from violence.

Those who don’t want to help children fleeing for their lives because they’re illegal immigrants are free to turn them away.

They’re Americans after all. That’s their right. They can uphold the law to the letter.

However, those Americans who also want to call themselves Christians, as in those who are committed to obeying the actual teachings of Christ, will need to chop Jesus’ most important teachings about caring for neighbors out of the Bible if they want to ignore the cries of thousands of children risking their lives in order to flee rape and violence in their homelands.

If Jesus is Lord, and if children are indeed in danger, then he’s going to take their side. If the Christians in America side with immigration laws that call for deporting these vulnerable (often abused) children back to the danger they are fleeing, then it’s likely that these Americans know very little of the Christ they claim to follow.