Discouraged? Try These 3 Uplifting Mind Habits For Lasting Joy

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

It’s an awakening season.

Holy Spirit has been poking me early, early every morning. Wake, wake, He is saying. There’s something new. Do you see it? Do you perceive it?

Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? There it is!

The Message

It is time to get dressed in the clothing of royalty, the robes my Father gave me.

Do you see the clothes your Father gave you? They are crumpled up and dirty in the corner of your room. Can you find the shoes He gave you? They are in your closet behind dozens of other pairs of shoes you’ve purchased. It’s time to sort your closet.

What has God been stirring in your heart?

Let’s start there. After our morning coffee and looking out at this new day dawning, let’s leave room on our to-do lists. Action item number one is left blank. This item is the most important I need to do today, and I must try to do it first as soon as I have time.

It is the response to God’s whisperings to my heart.

What is it for you?

My first task is to turn down the noise in my head, the cacophony of sound that tells me that God can not use me. For me, my first task is remembering who I am. It is shrinking myself down to the size of a piece of dust, my proper form.

The body is put back in the same ground it came from. The spirit returns to God, who first breathed it.

The Message

It is raising God to the glorious infinite that He is big. I am small. He has always used insignificant people!

Good morning!

And as I put on the long princess gloves that God gave me, I remember that these hands were bought with a price.

The color red of the gloves reminds me of Jesus’ blood that was shed for us so that these hands can be used to help, comfort and serve.

I found my shoes! Here they are in my closet, behind all those pink heels I had forgotten about. These shoes the Father gave me are decorated with jewels, a reminder that the message I understand is rare, a priceless gem many step on but few pick up to keep close to their hearts.

And many more have only seen cheap, counterfeit copies of the real jewels we wear on our feet. Will we carry the message of a long obedience following Jesus, shined in its brilliance, wherever we walk today? Is He asking you to walk a new path with Him, a path overgrown with branches because so few have travelled in that direction?

And I wear a smile on my face.

This smile is not shallow, resulting simply from the movement of the muscles on my face. A genuine smile is the outpouring of a great joy born in the heart, which overflows out of my eyes as a sparkle that can’t be hidden. (Need some?)

Let Him awaken you and help you out of bed, friend.

Then:

1) Remember the size of you and the size of your God.

2) Donn your gloves.

3) Find your shoes.

Then let the joy bubble forth.

Being with You is to be full of joy

Ancient Text

Hey Hoser! Know How To Avoid These 5 Disastrous Mistakes Before Getting Drunk (On God)!

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

If you’re wondering why I just called you a “Hoser,” read this post, which begins this discussion.

Now that we’re best friends because of the deep connection formed in the last blogpost, let’s talk about getting hosed. “Getting hosed” is a Canadian slang for “being drunk.”

Getting hosed on alcohol is overrated. Think about the mess of your vomit, which is what happened to me the one time I got drunk 32 years ago. Ew! Plus, there are all the other messes that the actions of getting drunk bring into our lives. No thanks!

Getting drunk on God is much cleaner. For some reason, the messes of our lives that we are currently standing on as we get drunk on God often seem to disappear. Plus the joy!

And so, how do we get drunk on God?

To discuss this, I am dipping my toe across the very well-defined line between the things of people and the things of God.

Now I know that I can be a bit irreverent. I know I have even laughed at myself once, and even in public (!) and on this blog! If I’m honest, I’ve laughed at you several times too, when you weren’t looking.

But today, I feel we are standing on holy ground, on something reverential, and vital that is imperative to understand. Joking doesn’t fit.

Seriously. This topic is so, so essential and has derailed so very many spiritual journeys.

Don’t let these five common mistakes derail your walk with God.

Related to the last post, five common mistakes associated with a felt experience of God, also sometimes called being drunk in the Spirit are:

(1) Being drunk by the Spirit doesn’t mean we are more mature than others who haven’t had this experience. Probably (my inference), it means we are less mature. Maybe we needed this experience to follow God more fully. Others, more mature than me, follow God wholeheartedly without this experience, perhaps. The goal is to recognize, as much as we are able, how much God loves us. If we’re doing this and following God and getting back up again quickly after we fall, then THAT is the definition of spiritual maturity.

(2) It’s imperative we understand how getting drunk on God is NOT like getting drunk on alcohol – We’re not in control of whether or not this experience happens to us. God is. Period. Full stop. For example, we can point you down the road to the Wizard Of Oz, but your experience with him or the shoes is between you and the magic. Remember Point #1.

(3) We seek God, NOT an experience OF God. If experiences are what we’re seeking, we’re a ship off course. All we need is God and the fullest understanding of His love for us on this side of the grass they’ll put our bodies in when our hearts stop. Experiences don’t matter. God matters. Our path is to pursue Him, not the experiences of Him.

(4) We don’t need to wait for God to DO anything TO us or FOR us before we can begin our journey towards Him. He’s already given up His life, so you’ll notice Him. He’s been standing at your door and knocking your entire life. Got time to open the door?

(5) Many of you have had profound spiritual experiences that you can’t nicely fit into your existing categories of understanding. These experiences are one of the ways Jesus wakes His beloved, His Sleeping Beauty. Don’t ignore the spiritual experiences you’ve seen in others or have had yourself, friend. Instead, let’s commit to noticing the clues, praying and seeking advice.

Ready, yet to wake up?

Join us, friend, for the adventure of a lifetime!

(I’m ready to finally get out of these pyjamas and into the clothes God purchased for me, too.)

The Better Way To Overcome Discouragement Is To Get Drunk On God, Hoser!

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I can sense that you are confused and perhaps befuddled, too. “Did someone just call me a ‘Hoser’?” you’re asking yourself. Yes, I did!

“And what does ‘Hoser’ mean?” you wonder.

I’m not sure. I heard it once when I was a youth, and since, by definition, youth are cool, we know that I am cool for using that term! And since you now appreciate how cool I am, we’ve instantly built rapport!

That’s what slang is for!

Let’s talk about the word “Hoser” and other slang because this is a way you can trust me due to your intuitive sense of my coolness.

As you know from previous blog posts, I have a surprising rapport with today’s youth. I was using this internal magnetism to show my teenage nephew how cool I am (deep down) recently. As you can see, I was taking his Sea-Doo for a ride.

As I look more closely, I’m unsure why he seems to have a headache in this photo. I’m also not sure why he never let me fully drive the thing without him, but whatever – we can’t expect perfection!

At least we have viable proof that I am a cool Auntie!

Then, I used slang to drive home further the point of my magnetism and ability to connect with younger people. “How do we get back on this thing if we fall off?” I asked him. But because he is a youth and therefore (culturally considered as) cool, I didn’t say “fall off.” I said, “Spill.”

“Huh?” he asked. He asked me to repeat myself three times. Whatever – Now that I think about it, he had no idea what I was talking about. Perhaps that term is too old for him, but let it be known that I’m sure he got the impression that I am cool.

Here’s another example of using slang to show off my magnetism.

I was hiking with some friends. Our younger friends, a married couple, stayed behind us on the trail, and we were waiting for them to take a group photo. After a few minutes I thought it was long enough to wait, so I yelled, “Hey! What are you two doing up there? Necking?” Our pastor, over 30 years older than me, laughed and said, “You’re showing your age! They’re so young! I bet they have no idea what necking is!”

(It means kissing! How can people forget that stuff so quickly? Are you trying to say I’m older than I feel?)

But let’s get to the point: “How do you get drunk on God, Hoser?”

Actually, “CAN you get drunk on God, Hoser?” is perhaps the question to ask first. Yes, you can! Here’s proof from the ancient text that has shaped your life more than you realize (regardless of how frequently, or if ever, you’ve opened it to take to read).

Others joked, “They’re drunk on cheap wine.” That’s when Peter stood up and . . . spoke out with bold urgency: “. . . listen carefully and get this story straight. These people aren’t drunk as some of you suspect. “In the Last Days,” God says, “I will pour out my Spirit on every kind of people . . .”

The Message

I accidentally got drunk on God once, and I’ll tell you about that another time.

For now, you can trust me when I talk about Hosers and getting drunk on both God and alcohol because:

(1) I’m cool.

(2) I’ve been drunk on God.

(3) I’ve been drunk on alcohol.

Using pure, unadulterated logic, if you, for example, have been drunk on alcohol but never been drunk on God, then you can’t say which one is better!

Since I’ve had experience being drunk on both, you can trust me implicitly to tell you that being drunk on God is way, way, way (infinite way) better!

So give it a try, Hoser!

Another time, we’ll discuss the common ingredients that help us have a softer heart towards the things God cares about. This heart posture doesn’t throw water on the fire of His Spirit quite as much as we usually do, so sometimes, if we’re very fortunate, the water of His love can penetrate a smidge further into our hard hearts and thick skulls. This love may make us feel a bit drunk by His Spirit.

But that discussion is for another time.

For now, know that you’re deeply loved by God, Hoser!

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

How To Exercise When You Are A Busy Homeschooling Parent!

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

How do we become the kind of homeschooling parent with time to exercise?

Good question.

As discussed here and here, we throw our old identities of competent, non-butt-smelling parents out the window. Then, we think up a new plan that is dissonant with the parent we thought we would become. We embrace our inner loser.

And so, when I therefore stopped trying to be excellent as a homeschooling parent, the solution became apparent:

Let them rot their brains!

I decided, in my excess of homeschooling wisdom born from a recognition of my incompetencies, to begin each day by pouring into my children’s brains not challenging academic subjects, but . . . content dribbled from online devices straight into their beautiful little brains as they stared intently at screens!

I essentially bribed them.

“Look,” I said that morning as I pulled out their new to-do lists. “Do the stuff on the list this morning and then you will get to rot your brains with time online!” I promised them that big carrot held out tantalizingly close.

And so they finally got up, brushed their little teeth, put away the milk (one of their to-do items in that season), got dressed, combed their cute little hair, and then sat down to veg out on a device.

I let them watch anything they wanted from the RightNow Media app. I can trust what this company produces. And for a high-tech tip, if you triple-click your iPad or iPhone the kids can’t suddenly switch from the app of your choice to their favourite “Candy Plus Violence!” (or whatever) app.

We all won!

I got my sweat on downstairs on my elliptical machine for half an hour while they watched something that was loosely a morning character development program. (That was the rationale of the old “I must be an exceptional homeschooling parent” tiny voice remnant that still lurked in the recesses of my mind.) I got my sweat on, and the best thing was that I could find them all at 8:00 am, and they were ready to go!

When I sneakily put pencils into their hands in the last 10 seconds of their program, it was a transition they barely even noticed, from vegging out to doing math!

By 10:00 am every single day, I felt I should have won a homeschooling award. (I didn’t. No one cared. God does though!*)

So, lose your respectable homeschooling parent identity!

Let them rot their brains online early every morning instead!

You’ll feel amazing AFTER exercising! (Not before or during exercising – Let it be known). It feels pretty great (eventually) to shift identity, too. And so, how do we change our identity to the kind of parent who exercises?

1. All of our initial ideas about who we will become as homeschooling parents are kind of nut-so if we’re honest! Let’s toss those ideas with our huge egos and embrace mediocrity for our children instead! 

2. Our children may need their brains to rot a little so that this homeschooling journey is sustainable for all of us. So be it! 

3. Time for popcorn and a group educational video at 11:00 am, little family? We did something useful today! Let’s celebrate! We give each other a high five, and I have time for a visit with a homeschooling mom that afternoon. (While the kids build a mini-nuclear reactor or do whatever it is homeschooled kids do in their spare time). 

This homeschooling ship is on course!

When a mom’s long-term well-being matters EQUALLY as much as the (nut-so, unrealistic) goals we have for our children*, this homeschooling ship can sail into the future as long and as far as God calls us.

Well done, parents!

Love others as well as you love yourself

Jesus of Nazareth, a guy with tons of wisdom!

As you listen to this song below, consider asking the King of Kings, the guy who longs to pour love on you as your Father, what gifts He longs to put into the hands of His favourite child, you.

(Because we’re all His favourite child. Shhh… that’s God’s secret that He is whispering to you even now. Hear Him?)

Blogpost Footnotes

*That discussion is for next time – we are all works in progress!

The Best Solutions Suddenly Materialize When We Embrace Our Inner Loser!

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

The problem I couldn’t solve in that season was, “How do I, a VERY busy, mentally fragile (We’re around kids a LOT) homeschooling parent, find time to exercise?”

I did, eventually, find a solution to this problem by embracing my inner loser. I hope this problem-solving method helps you find solutions to your biggest problems, too! Here’s what happened, which is a continuation of this post.

And yes, I realize this last post was useless without an explanation, which I didn’t have time to provide.

Now, where was I? Ah yes. Smelling kid’s butts. After the low of us parents becoming butt-sniffers, we hit an even lower low several months later.

Butt-sniffing became our accidental family culture.

Our two-year-old, who loved to mimic our behaviour, stopped next to me as I sat on an office stool and then had a sniff before she carried on with her other little tasks. I looked at her, startled and then smiled lamely at my husband.

How did we become THAT family?*

The point is, as discussed last time, the person we become is not always the person we aspire to be.

Not only did I find it convenient to assume the identity of a butt-sniffing parent, but I also found it convenient to shirk the identity of a homeschooling parent who has all of her ducks in a row.

Which brings me, finally, to embracing our inner loser so we can become a homeschool parent who exercises.

Before I started on this homeschooling journey, I, like you if you homeschool, envisioned myself as a particular type of homeschooling parent. This is not the parent I eventually became. I’m okay with that now.

But the shaky ground of this identity incongruence was a roller coaster ride.

I envisioned myself nicely coifed and looking like my favourite public school teacher in Grade Three, Mrs. Chamberlain. Instead, I very quickly became that parent still wearing a house coat and curlers in my hair at 11:00 am, downing my fourth coffee, and trying to find the kids so I could corral them inside. We began the day with our “Homeschool Morning Routine”, which, for us was trying to find our books or pencils strewn around the house and yard the day before.

A new problem also emerged: I knew my inconvenient, neglected body needed to start exercising again.

I couldn’t even figure out how to encourage, bribe or command my children to put the milk away after they finished breakfast (In fact, I still haven’t figured that out with one of my teenagers). How would I keep these little ones on their homeschooling tasks while I left their side to exercise?

The feat seemed impossible.

Until my new identity as an incompetent homeschooling parent thought up a solution.

Realizing I was – ahem- a BIT of a (whisper) homeschooling loser, once I stopped trying so hard to be an exercise enthusiast, and embraced mediocrity, the solution to my problem was obvious!

I’ll tell you specifically what that is next time.**

The point is, let’s embrace our inner incompetence!

Perhaps the solutions to your problems can be found there, too!

Since we’ve . . . proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God . . . got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.

The Message

Once we accept our identities as people who are incompetent in so many ways, life suddenly gets much more manageable!

Time to stop trying so hard and embrace your inner loser, too?

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

Blogpost Footnotes

*See this post for a perfectly reasonable answer, thank you very much, okay?!

**Ah! I forgot to say something useful again!

Not Exercising? Try Shifting Identity To The Parent You Never Wanted To Become

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

How do we develop an exercise routine we can stick to as parents?

We must morph into the parents we never dreamed we’d become.

And I mean to become the parent we feared we would become.

I’ll explain.

It all started the day I started sniffing my kid’s butts.

When I was a well-coiffed, austere young woman in my twenties, I wrinkled up my nose at those homesteading women with several children crowding around them as they made cookies and managed a beehive simultaneously. “Isn’t that disgusting?” my sophisticated friends and I whispered, and we looked away in horror when one of these busy moms lifted her toddler, sniffed around their child’s middle for signs of a “Number two” and quickly set them back down on the floor again. This mom then happily continued stirring cookies, unpasteurized honey, or whatever she did all day.

“I would never do that butt-sniffing manoeuvre!”

When my children were toddlers, I gasped my way to a mom and toddler’s event one morning, my hair dishevelled, unmatched dirty clothing thrown over my and my toddler’s forms. I was clinging to a half-drunk coffee for dear life as I sat next to a fellow mom and empathized delightedly with her. We shared similar tales of near survival, of these miniature beings often holding us hostage to their need.

Suddenly, I remembered that I should probably check the older daughter, who was not yet fully toilet trained.

I grabbed my daughter’s arm and yanked her away from her friend. My daughter morphed from playing contentedly to screaming like a fire truck. I nearly lost the battle of the wills but managed to stuff her into the change-room, where I opened her training diaper and

. . . nothing.

There was nothing there.

When I returned to my friend, she was already chatting with another dishevelled woman, and for the rest of that “mom’s time,” my two toddlers had incessant needs again.

So it didn’t take long before I happily lifted my toddlers when they were playing contentedly, smelled their butts, and set them back down again with a wink and a nod.

I continued my coffee and well-deserved amiable chat with other homeschooling parent survivors,

My identity had shifted.

And similarly, what kind of identity shift do we need to become the kind of homeschooling parent who exercises?

1. We realize that if we are going to stay in this game long-haul we’ve got to surrender our pre-conceived ideas of success as defined by this culture, or worse, by our expectations of ourselves.

2. Our identity must be firmly linked to those who are societally undignified. We delight in our identity as children of the king, not as classy members of a specific culture (i.e. of any culture).

 3. We have fun, dancing with joy with our two-year-olds because we finally figured out that when we are happy, our little ones are too.

Throw off your chains, captive daughter . . . ! God says, “You were sold for nothing. You’re being bought back for nothing.”

The Message

And it was this change in perspective, from “culturally respectable” to “daughter of the King,” that led me to be the kind of parent who exercises regularly, as well.

The link between a shift in identity and exercise will be discussed another time.

I promise to say something useful sometime! That is if I remember to finish this blogpost series on exercising when homeschooling. This post was essential to set the foundation for when we will dive into the nitty-gritty of the shift in identity required to exercise while homeschooling young children.

For now, the first step is to stop trying to be “respectable”!

It doesn’t work anyway!

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

New Proof That No One Cares About Hygiene Since Covid!

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

The photo below shows undeniable proof that no one cares about hygiene now that the Covid pandemic has ended!

They put the baby changing station right on top of the water fountain!

The photo above is a REAL, unadulterated photo taken in Banff, Canada, at the Banff Gondola Interpretive Center, so that is ANOTHER reason to prove the validity of what is written in these blogposts!

(And the point of this blogpost? Laugh more! You know you need to.)

You can finally relax and have more fun when you realize that everyone is ridiculous, and you are, too!

In Your presence is fullness of joy

Ancient Text

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

Confused About Life? Have You Tried Advice From This Person?

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

When we don’t fit in with the crowd’s way of living life

who can offer relevant advice for the unique challenge we encounter?

When the promises on bolded signs aren’t as enticing as anticipated

who is the one who will deliver more than expected?

When life is confusing

who do we turn to?

Wouldn’t it be amazing if someone we trust could suddenly appear in each of these circumstances, offer us their hand and point us to the best path?

Wouldn’t it be outstanding if that person never tired or gave up on us but offered grace and strength and sometimes even rubbed our aching feet as we rested?

What if this person offered us a cold drink, a healthy snack and a plan to follow?

Wouldn’t it be wondrous if this person was always by our side, could be leaned on when we lacked strength and helped to calm the chaos in our lives?

Any of us would give the world to find someone like this.

The substitute people that we esteem so highly instead, including movie stars, sports heroes, self-help experts and billionaires, eventually fall off their pedestals, and we trample them in our disappointment.

But wait . . .

Before we choose another human we highly esteem to take their place (someone with eventual skeletons in their closet, too), let’s pause and reassess . . . for just a moment.

Is there anyone who can be trusted, admired and in some ways, even followed?

Yep. There is. The grand unveiling reveals

the person your soul most longs to meet

He’s here entwined within the pages of this best-selling book.

Have time for a read?

Spiritually Asleep Again? How To Wake Up And See

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I woke up one morning and realized with a start that I was also alive spiritually. I poked myself to be sure I was awake. I was the same on the outside.

What had caused this inner transformation?

My circumstances were the same. I lived in the exact physical location as many years ago. But undoubtedly, something had shifted recently.

Like all births, the growth had begun unnoticed in the hidden places long before.

My story of waking up is a long story of twisting paths, walking in circles, and many falls.

Just like your spiritual story.

And I’m still walking.

(You? That’s good. Very good.)

This morning, my rear felt particularly sore from all the falls recently. Jesus held his hand to me again today, offering to help me get up.

I’ll start there.

I woke this morning in a cyclical funk created by my discouragement. I was spiralling down, ready to flush the new thing God had been stirring in my heart down the toilet of my despair again. Then I heard a quiet thought encouraging me.

You are in the fight of your life.

(Would I jump into the battle or claim immediate defeat, like usual, keeping my soul asleep?)

I was in a fight for God’s whisperings to be brought forth like a new babe into the world. But I had to surrender my half-eaten lunch. Would I obey?

God had been whispering, waking, urging my soul towards the new life he wanted to see sprouting in my heart.

Would I throw away my hope that God can grow something beautiful through the dry depleted soil of my life again today?

Would my discouragement win?

The question is not how big is our faith. The question is, how big is our God? I shrunk God, again, into my image.

And so I was asleep.

I awoke when reminded in a time of prayer this morning of this truth:

The impossible thing He whisperers that he wants to bring forth in our lives is easy for Him.

How exactly this discouragement transformed into hope is a story for another time.

But for now, suffice it to say that I was reminded that God made an amaryllis bloom after twenty years or more of bareness.

And He made a lilac bloom after ten years or more of barrenness.

And so He can make our lives bloom after seasons of bareness, too.

We begin to wake spiritually every day by opening our spiritual eyes.

Here’s how:

  1. We fix our spiritual eyes on God, the master gardener of hope, instead of keeping our eyes closed by focusing on our bareness.
  2. We open our eyes to the fact that harvest will come for every field, including that unwatered corner of our hearts if we allow the Master Gardener to work His ways within.
  3. We wait, not passively, but prayerfully, with anticipation, like a farmer planting seed in fertile soil.

This subtle shift in my thinking helped me soar on the wind of hope I found this morning. I picked up the hope. I carried it next to my heart.

For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think.

Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth, doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, so will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty-handed.

They’ll do the work I sent them to do, they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.

The Message

God is standing next to us with seeds, a shovel and a watering can. He wants to dig deep, exposing old roots to create room for new growth. I want to get out of the way to allow Him to do his work.

You?

While waiting for life to sprout, consider praying along to this song.

This song begins like the prayer of a person who doesn’t honestly believe what they’re praying (like many of many prayers over the years):

You make beautiful things out of the dust.

The song ends in a loud declaration of the exact words, daring the soul to believe.

Time for a battle for you, too, as you pray along to this song?

What is He saying to you through the pages of His book, asking you to have faith to believe?

May your eyes be opened, your soul awake.

Destroy People’s Self Esteem To Help Them Feel Better (Eventually) In These 3 Ways

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

“Wait, what are you doing right now?” he asked me.

I was melodramatically pretending to cry as the youth left the party.

“Oh, I’m just pretending I’m sad to see him leave,” I explained. “I made fun of him a lot tonight, and so now I’m building up his self-esteem.” The youth listened, mouth agape, staring at me.

As I’ve said before, my magnetism to youth is remarkable.

But unfortunately, we’re not supposed to make fun of millennials anymore. In fact, we’re not supposed to make fun of anyone anymore. So, at the next party, I tried to conform. 

I stuffed snack after snack into my mouth in an effort not to speak.

The problem is that if we really want to do this self-esteem thing right, we shouldn’t say anything true at all. Millennials, for example, have self-esteem that is 1/4 inch thick. If we accidentally blow the truth in their vicinity, they cry or get upset. “How dare you assault me with the truth?” they retort. “Don’t you know I’m sensitive?”

And so we apologize and cower to the needs of their egos.

“You’re doing great!” we assert, every time they look up from their iPhones or get out of bed.

“I can see you are trying to do some math! You get a star!”

“You ran in a race that you didn’t even train for? You get a medal! Everyone gets a medal!”

And with all of this self-esteem and encouragement, and “Well done!” floating around, you’d think our youth would be boyoed up by all this praise and floating happily on their circumstances in life.

Of course, we all know that youth depression and mental illness are at an all-time high.

So why not try another approach?

What if we tell everyone they’re losers?

It’s counterintuitive (like all my best advice), but we can finally let our stomach fat out and relax! We can stop pretending to be someone we’re not. We can get on with enjoying the party games, popcorn and time together.

“What are you talking about?” you ask.

Well, if we could relax and let our kids relax, I think we’d have a lot more fun. We don’t have to, in fact, shield our kids from the fact that they’re messed up and that we are, too. There is surprising freedom in realizing that we are all losers.

If we are at the bottom of the pit, there’s nowhere to go but up!

Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. 

The Message

Hope abounds because things can only get better!

Once we stop showering accolades on each other, and accept that we are all dorks, lost on the ship we call life, the adventure can begin!

Anyone around here seen a Captain? We could certainly use some help getting cleaned up a bit, and figuring out how to work together to get all of our oars on this boat pulling in the same direction.

And so, how do we feel better? 

1. We realize we are a directionless loser.

2. We find someone to help clean us up a bit.

3. We follow this person and therefore, all grow together in the same direction.

He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.

The Message

And life gets a little easier!

Spiritual people, for example, those who know that they are losers because they desperately need someone to clean them up, lead them and help them all row in a similar direction, tend to struggle a bit less frequently with their mental health.*

So stop building up people’s self-esteem! Trash them instead, knowing that this is the best way to build them up! They’ll (eventually) feel better!

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

Blogpost Footnotes

*Of course, many people within the church struggle with mental health, and research is based on averages.