Two weeks ago I talked about how God gave me a nun--a spiritual director who helps me sort through the noises of my soul.
I made my monthly nun check-in yesterday. We ended up talking a good bit about pride and spiritual disciplines that help to check it. There were several that he offered, none of which I tend to be very good at, but a couple have me thinking today.
The discipline that has me most intrigued (and that I think would be the most difficult for me) is the discipline of secrecy. When I give a talk or lead a seminar, I want feedback. Mostly, of course, I want people to say nice things, but even negative feedback is better than no feedback at all. Often, if I don't get it offered to me, then I go fishing for it. I look for opportunities in conversation to turn the subject to me or things that I've done in order to angle for some sort of comment that I hope will be a compliment.
The discipline of secrecy is really a discipline of silent contentment before the Lord. It is saying that the things that I do are for the Lord, the work and the results are in his hands, and so I will be content before the Lord to have done the work for him and not for the approval of others.
My relationships would be so much cleaner and more free, I think, if I weren't so often mining for encouragement to prop up my outward show of perfect performance. If I could draw my contentment from deeper wells, I think I would be much more peaceful, much less manipulative, and much less anxious. My work is done well or not done well before God. In either case, I am free to love and bless others, not use them for my vacuous and ravenous ego.
I think I'll give this secrecy thing a try. Sort of odd that I'd post a blog about it, but us external processors have a hard time doing anything too quietly--even when we're thinking about being quiet, we've gotta' talk it out loud.
5 comments:
You know, it gets confusing when you refer to your nun, which is, actually, a guy. All of a sudden I start picturing him in a nun's habit, and, let me be honest here, it doesn't become him.
It would be far clearer if you referred to him as your "Joshua's Father." That would clear so much up around here.
wv: "ooeeply" the conjunciton of "ooooh, so deeply!"
seriously, though: thank you for sharing with us about your spiritual direction. I'm always blessed by it.
I can understand the desire for feedback from both sides (selfish desire, and the desire to know if you're really connecting/being a vessel for the Lord's work). I'm blessed to have a "nun" in my pastor here who listens to my rough draft each time I preach (not very often). I love his feedback, because it is kind enough, but he doesn't hold back either. Then when I get in the pulpit, I can preach with the confidence that at least a guy who is honest with me (and a VERY good preacher) thinks what I've got will work. I know this could easily degenerate into just pleasing him rather than HIM, but overall it has been a very good experience for me. I don't care (hopefully in the right way) what anyone else thinks of how/what I've preached.
Burly, thanks for your comment. Yeah, to clarify it's a totally different thing to ask someone ahead of time for constructive feedback and help v. fishing for compliments from the audience afterwards. I've definitely benefitted from feedback from other IV staff and a woman in my church in Richmond (a PC-A church, no less!) who helped me to tune and tweak and grow as a speaker.
true.
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