personal website of George Ezell
Yesterday we had the opportunity to attend Ryan’s first official wrestling competition. This is his first year to wrestle and he is getting a good start. His last match he pinned his opponent. I suspect that now that he has gotten a tatse of victory it will make him a better wrestler. He has a great attitude and I could see improvement with each match yesterday.
We have had a great holiday in Atoka. There were 25 of us between Scott and Alison’s families for dinner yesterday, The weather was beautiful. The food was outstanding. Wednesday evening Scott and I drove to Olive Branch, Ms. to pickup some BBQ from a competition BBQ’er, 10 Bones BBQ. We enjoyed the ribs and Boston butt Friday and had smoked turkey yesterday. Excellent BBQ! We had a good visit with all.
Today, after a little browsing in Covington, we went to downtown Memphis and had lunch at Pearl’s Oyster House… oysters on the half-shell, Louisiana gumbo, fried calamari.
Our plan is to leave early tomorrow and hopefully get to see Ryan wrestle in Frankfort, KY. Clark is in Louisville and we will meet up with him sometime tomorrow.
We arrived safely in Atoka yesterday evening. Scott and Alison doing well and excited about Thanksgiving at their place. The weather is very nice today. Sunny and a high in the 60’s. We are getting things ready for tomorrow.
We had a good visit with Linda and Jim Monday evening and Tuesday morning. I was saddened to learn that Prentice Meador had suddenly fallen seriously ill and died early yesterday morning. Although I had only met him casually, I admired him. He was a good friend of my friend Charles Trevathan. He had been working with Lipscomb University and had a lot of good things to offer in his later years. Once again I am reminded of my mortality and the importance of enjoying each moment of life that God has blessed me with.
As I continue to read Shaped By the Word, It becomes more and more apparent how misguided I have been in my efforts to make myself into the person that I perceive God would have me to be. Consider these two quotes:
Let me give you something to meditate on. Take it and work through it for the rest of your life! It is possible for us to will the will of God but not surrender our heart. I can will the will of God for my life, but I can will to do it at my convenience, when it suits me, how it suits me, in the context that suits me. I can honestly and sincerely will to do the will of God without surrendering my heart. This is why there is one more level of being beyond the soul, or will. There is the “me” that wills.
Here we come to the central point of spiritual formation. Our acculturation tends to move us into both perceptual and experiential modes of being that operate on the principle that all we need for wholeness is simply to bring something more to where we are, which will move us to where we want to be. If we acquire more information to process, more technique to function with, more “doing” to do, we will move ourselves into a higher level of wholeness. We tend to look for some piece of information, some technique or method of spiritual formation that will take us from where we are to where we want to be with a minimum of inconvenience, pain, or suffering. We have so emphasized the Life dimension of the New Testament that we have avoided coming to grips with its death dimension. We have avoided the fact that in the gospel, Life comes out of death, not out of life. Trying to bring Life out of life attempts to escape the necessity of dying to the old parameters of our existence, the necessity of relinquishing the brokenness of our being, the necessity of letting go of those things that warp and misshape and distort who we are. The emphasis upon informational, functional, “doing” is our attempt to bring Life out of life. But formational, relational “being” enables God to lead us to that death from which Life emerges.
I continue to read Robert Mulholland’s Shaped By the Word. Today’s reading included a section regarding spiritual discipline which I found relevant as I continue to struggle with spiritual discipline.
Ultimately spiritual disciplines are not something we choose for ourselves. This is another problem we have in our individualized, privatized form of religion in our culture. We think spiritual disciplines are something we take on.We decide we need to grow in some particular area of our spiritual life, so we set to work in this area to develop some spiritual disciplines.” The only problem is that when we develop our own spiritual disciplines, they have a way of being compatible with who we are and what we do. I don’t mind taking up the cross and following God as long as I can choose when I’m going to take it up and who see it and praise me for it. Even though such disciplines may not be easy, I can handle them as long as I’m getting those kinds of ego boosts by being allowed to do it my own way.
Genuine spiritual disciplines intrude into our lives at points where we are in bondage to something that diminishes the word God speaks us forth to be. These disciplines occur in our bondage to our own brokenness from which God is seeking to liberate us. At this level, spiritual disciplines are not comfortable. Spiritual disciplines are a grace that comes to us from God. We may not initially see them as coming from God’s hand; but once we have submitted ourselves humbly to them, have become responsive to the disciplines, and have begun to experience the growth and wholeness they bring, we begin to realize they are a gift of God. They are God’s doing all along-not our own.
I have revised my website. As you can see, rather than incorporating my blog into the website, I’m using the blog format as the website. All of the previous website content has been incorporated into blog format. There may be a few bugs to start but I believe this approach will be better.
Thie past week and, indeed, the past few weeks have been described as historic. The global financial collapse and the presidential election are at the center of our attention.
What I find interesting about myself is my unawareness of historic events. I have commented on this in the past. Now having the time as well as a different perspective on life, I have come to realize that for much of my life I lived oblivious to important and historic events going on around me. This unawareness extended in all directions, from world impacting events to personal historic events. Most recently I watched American Experience about Lyndon B. Johnson. I was struck by the truly historic events during his time as president and how little I was aware of them.
The question for me is: Why? Why was so oblivious? Why am I now more aware?
Rob Bell shed some light for me on the why in two recent lessons from Philippians. Beware the Dawgs! and Blocks and Boards . In part, he talks about the lens through which we view ourselves and the world around us. He describes three lens or worldviews that characterize our human experience: egocentric, ethnocentric and worldcentric. Life viewed through an egocentic lens is all about self. Everything is seen and judged by what is best for me. Life viewed through an ethnocentric lens is all about the tribe to which we belong. Everything is measured by the norms and rules of our tribe and what will best preserve and protect the tribe. Worldcentric is a view that encompasses all the world around us. With this view we are able judge and act in ways that are in the best interest of all, not just our self or our particular tribe.
Today, I am more aware because the lens through which I see the world around me is changing. I believe the reason for my unawareness of past events, both world and personal, was because I was seeing through egocentric and ethnocentric lens. A significant aspect of my journey and transformation has been a slow but certain shift toward a worldcentric lens. This shift has come, not because I understood the need for a worldcentric view, but comes as a natural result of the transforming work of the Holy Spirit within.
Leaves, leaves and more leaves. Fall means falling leaves. Some volunteers wanted to rake the leaves in the backyard. I was pleased with how hard they were working thinking they would get a good start on picking up the many leaves. Then I realized they had no intention of picking up leaves. They were making plies to jump in. Oh well!
I am posting from the Abilene airport as we wait for our flight home. Our time in Abilene was good. We had a good time with Ann’s parents. Her mother is suffering a lot of pain but, as always, she does not let it stop her from whatever she sets her mind to. We played lots of 42. We ended tied for the visit. We need some older competition I suppose.
The week was highlighted the Abilene Christian University football game Saturday. We were guests of Ann’s brother, Lorin. ACU won the game and finished 10-0 for only the second time in school history. They are in the Division II playoffs and have a descent shot at a national championship. Saturday evening we attended a concert by Barrage. They are a musical group consisting of 6 violinists, two guitarists and a drummer. It was an outstanding performance. The local high schools have a similar but larger group called Revolution. They were equally entertaining. Their talent and energy was amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole event. Check out Barrage from this UTube video:
I am currently reading Shaped By the Word by Dr. Robert Mulholland. As he writes about spiritual formation, he has this to say about being conformed to the image of Christ:
This aspect of spiritual formation also moves against the grain of our acculturation. Ours is an objectivizing, informational, functional culture. We are largely governed by a materialistic/humanistic worldview that perceives everything “out there” as something to be grasped, controlled, and manipulated for our own purposes or, even worse, for the purposes of God! This perspective is so deeply ingrained, as we shall see, that we determine our own self-image, our meaning, our value, our purpose by the effectiveness of our grasp, control, and manipulation of the world, of other persons, even of God. We seek to exercise our control by gaining information in order to manipulate what is “out there” for our purposes.
The very thought of “being conformed”-which clearly implies that we are to be grasped, controlled, and shaped by some one other than ourselves-confronts our deeply ingrained sense of being. “Graspers” powerfully resist being grasped by God. Controllers are inherently incapable of yielding control to God. Manipulators strongly reject being shaped by God. Information gatherers are structurally closed to being addressed by God. Information takers have extreme difficulty being receivers. Frenetically functional activists find it extremely difficult to be still, and know God as God (Ps. 46:10). Already we see something of the deeper dynamics of what Jesus meant when he said, “Whoever would save their grasping, controlling, manipulating false self will lose it; and whoever loses that false self for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:35).
As a “Grasper”, controller, manipulator, information gather/taker, frenetic functional activist, I am reminded of Matt 19:23-26
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Who then can be conformed?
With ”Graspers”, controllers, manipulators, information gather/takers, frenetic functional activists it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.