Giving Up Enemies

”Giving Up Enemies”
Matthew 5:43-48

A reporter was interviewing a man on his 100th birthday. "What are you most proud of?" the reporter asked.

"Well, " said the man, "I don't have an enemy in the world."

"What a beautiful thought! How inspirational!" said the reporter.

"Yep," added the 100 year old, "outlived every last one of them."

Not many of us are going to live to be 100 years old.  Which means not many of us are going to be able to outlive our enemies.  So we’re going to have to come up with a Plan B for how we’re going to deal with our enemies.

Of course you know which Plan B I’m going to choose:  Jesus’.  As difficult as Jesus’ statements are about how we are supposed to relate to our enemies, I think what Jesus teaches is the best plan, short of living 100 years.  Maybe that’s one of the reasons the Lord doesn’t allow many of us to live to be 100–to force us to find holier ways to deal with enemies than hoping to outlive them all.

So let’s look at Jesus’ statements about enemies and see where we are led.

First, who is an enemy?  The word Jesus used for enemy literally means someone who is hated or is hateful.  The word, odious, came up which describes someone who evokes hatred out of others; someone who is highly offensive.  But mostly, an enemy is someone who is oppositional and hostile.

So, something that makes an enemy is not only what they do.  It’s also our reactive attitude towards that person and what they do.  If another person evokes hatred, makes us take offense, or opposes us, we have to ask at least two questions:

First, why do they act like that?  What is it about their lives that makes them so cantankerous?  What is it about their background that may have created the “odious” person?  Why are they an enemy?  In order to understand that, it will take some time and patience from us—and especially risk—to get to know that person and their story.  Maybe, once we get to know their story, we will understand them a bit better and our reactions to them may change.

And that’s the second question:  Why do I react like I do towards this person?  Is it really something about them or about me?  What is it about us that creates reactive feelings of hatred, and take offense so quickly and easily?  Do we need to examine some of that within ourselves so that we can come at our enemy differently?

Verse 44 says, “Let them (meaning our enemies) bring out the best in you, not the worst.”  We are the ones who are in charge of our reactions to our enemies.  We are the ones who decide what we allow to be evoked from us and what is not.  Thus the question we need to ask is, “Am I reacting appropriately to this person whom I have decided is my enemy?”  I’ll say more about the answers to this question in just a moment.

Jesus further described an enemy as someone who “persecutes” you.  What is interesting about this word that Jesus used is that persecute, here, means, “to make you run away; to drive you away; to put you off.”  Normally we think of persecutors as those who are intentionally harassing you and being oppressive.  That intentional harassment is demonstrated by the enemy’s pursuit of you to continue that harassment.

But what Jesus is describing is someone who is making your life difficult in order to keep you at arms length, or push you away.  That is a lot different than someone being outwardly belligerent and downright hurtful all the time towards you for apparently no reason.  What Jesus is describing as enemy activity is an intentional action on their part to keep you in particular away from them.  The obvious question, then, is “Why?”

Maybe, as you now think about your own personal enemies, and asking that “why” question, you may already know the answer.  I would guess that we all have an inkling about why certain people are trying to keep us at arms length.  Why they are trying to stay away from us.

So, let’s get back to the question of our own reactions to our enemies, rather than focus on those enemy’s behavior.

Jesus said that in dealing with an enemy, our responsibility is to, “...work out of your true selves, your God created selves” (vs. 45).  The emphasis of Jesus in this whole paragraph is on our reaction, not the enemy’s demeanor or behavior.  The person Jesus is asking us to change is not the enemy, but ourselves and our response to the enemy.

Jesus forces us to look at our own identity first, and by so doing, remember who we are:

—God-created selves

—kingdom subjects

—God-created identity

In forcing us to look at who we really are as believers, as we have to deal with the reality of enemies, Jesus is making us ask another question:  Who is setting the agenda of how the relationship with the enemy is going to unfold?  The answer is simple:  Don’t let the enemy set the agenda for your reactivity to their hateful, push away behavior.  That is up to you.  Because of who you are:  God-created with a God-created identity, not a self-created identity (which ties in with last weeks sermon about giving up your self).

Our responsibility, in reaction to our enemy, is to do what we can do.  But most important is be who we are going to be.  Let our own God-created identity be what we are most concerned about.

Jesus then describes what that God-created identity looks like, if we aren’t sure.  Jesus says, “Do what God does:  Give your best; make no distinction about who you share your best self with; God gives the sun to warm and the rain to nourish to everyone, regardless.  That’s a great description of our God-created identity.

I’m afraid, in dealing with our enemies, we act more out of our self-created identity.  What that looks like is we are results oriented.  Jesus is saying, be like God:  just be who you are, and don’t worry about results.  Results is kind of a western culture thing—the pay off, the bottom line, success.

That’s not our concern in dealing with enemies.  We aren’t to ask questions like,

—Did we succeed in changing their miserable lives?

—Did we win?

—Were we able to manipulate them to be better people, like us?

—Did we bring them up to our level, since they were the ones down so low?

Instead, we ask,

—Was I true to my God-given identity?

—Was I giving my Godly best, with no ulterior motives?

—Did I behave out of my God-created self?

—Was I warming like the sun?  Was I nourishing like the rain?

—And was I giving that warmth and that nourishment, no matter what?

Our enemies may change if we act out of the second set of questions, rather than the first.  They may change, and not try so hard to stiff arm us away.  And that may happen because of who we are, not what we are trying to do.

But, then again, they may not.  Our only concern is to be our God-created self, not our self-created self.

And lastly, Jesus said, in dealing with our enemies, “...respond with the energies of prayer...”.  In prayer, who are we communicating with?  That’s right, God.  In prayer, we’re not communicating with our enemies.  We’re communicating with God.

Why is that important?   If we are responding only with the energies of our own thinking and feelings, we aren’t getting any other input into what is going on.  It isn’t in our nature to challenge ourselves, to challenge who we are as we relate to other people.  It is more our human nature to blame, deflect and deny.  So, acting out of our own thinking and feelings puts us back into that closed feedback loop where nothing new is allowed in, and nothing about our flawed way of thinking and feeling is allowed to exit.

In prayer, we put ourselves in the presence of God, we immerse ourselves in God, and thereby get in touch with our God-created self.  Once that has happened, then we get those great, “Ah-ha” insights that lead us on the right path in our relationships—even if that relationship is with a so-called enemy.  All of a sudden, in the energy of prayer, we see clearly, not about the other person, but about ourselves.

But we need to pay attention to that still, small voice that is God’s, and we can only do that when we are in prayer.

My daughter Kristin wrote in her blog this week about three of the best articles she’s read this past month.  One was titled, “7 Brutal Lessons Everyone Has To Learn Multiple Times.”  One of those 7 lessons was, the “tiny voice” in you always knows which way to go.”  In that section of the article, the author wrote about that tiny voice:

We know what it sounds like.

We can recognize when it raises its hand to speak. And yet, so often we struggle to actually follow through and heed its direction.

Why?

Because there is a much louder voice that bombards us with big promises and shiny objects and glorified achievements. We let our ego get in the way, when deep down we know what it is we truly want.

The reason why this is such a challenge for people to learn and accept — and why it often times takes a lifetime — is because the ego always promises safety. The ego promises avoidance of hurt, it promises instant gratification, and it promises acceptance.

That’s why dealing with enemies has to be influenced by prayer—being in God’s presence.  Even though the author of the article isn’t saying it, that tiny voice has to be God’s Voice.  The closed feedback loop of only listening to our self, our ego, doesn’t give us the outside direction we need.  We need wisdom and guidance in dealing with people who are trying to be our enemies.  We need to hear another’s Voice, because, listening only to our self will validate our enemy making.

So, what’s important here, is that you aren’t giving up having enemies.  You aren’t giving up enemies.  You are giving up the self you have always used—normally used—in dealing with your enemies.  You are changing and adjusting your self, so that you will behave toward EVERYONE ELSE out of your God-created self.  You don’t have any enemies, no matter how others act toward you, because that just isn’t you—anymore.

Giving Up Ego

”Giving Up Ego”
Matthew 16:24-26

The Miami Dolphins won the Super Bowl in 1973 and 1974.  After the second title, coach Don Shula was exhausted.  He and his wife took a vacation, but he said he wanted to go somewhere nobody would recognize him.  So they took a vacation in a small seaside town in Maine.

When they arrived, it was raining so they decided to go see a movie.  When they entered the theatre, the house lights were on and the Shula’s were surprised that the small handful of people gave them a warm round of applause as they took their seat.

Secretly pleased, Don Shula whispered to his wife, “I guess there isn’t any place I’m not known.”

“I guess not,” she replied with a touch of sarcasm.

A man came across the aisle with a friendly smile and shook hands with Shula and his wife.  “I’m surprised you know me here,” Shula said.

“Should I know you?” the man replied with a questioning look.  “We’re just glad to see you folks—the manager said he wouldn’t start the film until at least ten people came in.”

The ego is probably the trickiest part of us.  It’s a necessary part of us, because it helps us function psychologically, as well as helps us adapt to the ways the world threatens our ego.  Our ego’s are effective problem solvers, successfully coping with life’s challenges.

But problems arise when our ego defenses get overly defensive.  That’s when ego rationalization takes over and we begin to distort the facts, make excuses, and believe our own lies.  We experience threatening events and we see them not as part of life but personal attacks.  Self-protection becomes more important than the truth.  We slip into the twin modes of blaming and anger in an attempt to avoid unpleasant feelings in the self.

Fully fanned, these ego defenses become what is called “ego psychosis.”  It’s a runaway complex in which we convince ourselves that we are the perfect embodiment of something special.  That only we have been called upon to deliver our unique gift to the world that was unavailable to humanity until we arrived on the scene.

Someone caught up in ego psychosis will rant on and on, sounding like their own ad copy, studded with superlatives about being the best, the highest, the first, the last, the only, etc. etc.    It shouldn’t take you long to put a face to this description.

One of the protections against this kind of ego problem is having a sense of humor about yourself—to be able to laugh at yourself.  Like Don Shula did in telling his vacation story.  You can tell how deeply a person is into their psychosis when they take themselves so seriously they can’t laugh at themselves.  Humor is an effective form of self-criticism.  Without it, you will sink fast into psychosis.

That is just one extremely thin slice of the pie of the ego.  Ego is both resilient and treacherous at the same time.  A piece of pie, like the ego, can hold together, or it can slurp all over your plate and make a mess.  It has to be dealt with.

And Jesus does, in this statement in the verses read by Shannon.

If anyone wants to follow me, he must say no to himself...If he wants to save his life, he will lose it.  But if he loses his life for me, he will find it.

That was the New International Reader’s Version.  In other translations, the phrase, “...he must say no to himself...” is a bit different.  In the Revised English Bible, it has, “...renounce self.”  In the English Standard Version, it has “...deny himself.”  In the Good News Translation, it has, “...forget yourself.”  And in The Message, it has, “Let me lead.  You’re not in the driver’s seat.”

The word Jesus used literally means, disown, abstain, or lose sight of.  These words make sense when you are dealing with some negative behavior trait.  Disown gossip.  Or, abstain from filthy language.  Or lose sight of pornography.

But Jesus is talking about the self.  The very core of who we are.  The very things by which we define ourselves.  Disown your self.  Abstain from your self.  Lose sight of your self.  Wow!  That is major.

I did a lot of thinking about this stuff about self and ego this week.  It was kind of quiet in the office with Jennifer being gone.  Don’t get me wrong.  I missed having her there in the office to chat back and forth with, but I kind of needed a lot of quiet thinking time with this one.  So it worked out well.  Or, at least you can judge, after I try to take you through what I came up with.  So bear with me.  Maybe I thunk too much.

I first asked myself, How did we get this sense of self in the first place?  How did this relationship with ourselves come about?  What were the intentions of this relationship with our selves?

Let’s say God created our sense of self, our egos.  As believers in God, that’s a logical place to begin.  God created human beings.  Thus God created our sense of self—our relationship with our selves.  We can’t know what God intended that sense of self to look like because we have so disfigured that by sin.  By self.  We could say that the relationship with self was the very thing that messed up our relationship with the self.  We might call that sin—original sin:  Allowing the self to mess up our selves.   Because, if we are honest, we are our own worst enemy.

Looking at Jesus’ statement, though, maybe it is a glimpse of what our God-intended relationship with our self was supposed to look like.  Look at the different words the different translations use to get at what Jesus was saying we should do to the self:  give up, forget, deny, renounce, say no to.

All of these words or terms imply an act of will.  An act of will is not easy.  Remember last week’s sermon—we need to give up any notion of life being easy.  This dealing with the self, with the ego, is something we have to force ourselves to do.  Since Jesus is telling us this is what we have to do, then this selflessness must have been a part of the original human condition—the way we were originally made to be.

The fact we have to shape ourselves by will power means that something powerful intervened in God’s intentions and got in the way.  Now it has to be willfully fixed.

Say no to your self.

Renounce your self.

Deny your self.

Forget your self.

Give up your self.

Get your self out of the driver’s seat.

So maybe, in the purity of creation, with the first humans, there was no sense of self.  Rather than individual self, there was only wholeness with the entirety of creation.  Maybe rather than individual self, there was God.  People only were as they fit in with God.  You only mattered because of how you fit in with all else, rather than demanding your individuality above all else.

I’m only speculating here.  I’m trying to imagine what a human being would look like, would be like, who was self-less.

What does a human being look like who says no to, renounces, denies, forgets, gives up self?  Can we even imagine it?  Yet, we must, since Jesus demanded that we do it.  And if Jesus demanded this shift from self, he must be assuming it’s doable, or he would have made the demand.  “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

The words, “life” and “self” appear to be interchangeable here in Jesus’ statement.  “Whoever wants to save his self will lose it, but whoever loses his self for my sake will find it.”   If all you are worried/concerned about is your self, you will never gain your self.  People who are constantly in the self-help section of the book store, who are self-absorbed, who are trying to constantly figure themselves out—do they?  Are they ever satisfied with themselves?

If the answer to those questions is “no”, why?  Maybe Jesus is right.  The search for self is counter-intuitive.  It’s not by constantly being absorbed with self that you find self—but by totally letting go of self, that self is found.  Self is discovered when self is not looked for.  Self lives when self dies.

What if you look your whole life for your self, but you get to the end of your life and you are still looking?  You have spent your whole life—your whole self—in vain.  You end up saying to your self, “If only I could have found my self.”  But Jesus is saying, before you get to that point, say, “If only I could have let my self go.”

I know this all sounds screwy and totally mixed up.  I’m just trying to think through what Jesus said, and imagine (because I think all of what I am saying takes a huge amount of imagination) what it would be like to let my self go, and by so doing, find my self.

There is a qualifier in Jesus’ statement.  “...for my sake...”.  “But whoever loses his life (self, ego) for my sake will find it.”  For my sake.  For the cause of Jesus.  On account of Jesus.  In the interest of Jesus.  For the benefit of Jesus.

Here seems to be the difference maker.  As Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians, “For me to live is Christ and die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).  Again, if the words life and self are interchangeable, then it is, “For to me, self is Christ...”. To find your self is to find Christ.

Ultimately, our life, our self, our ego, must be bound up in God.  Not self within self, but self within God.  What our selves looked like before our self took over, was a person immersed only in God.  Ego only made sense in God’s ego, as it were.  It took no will at all to be a self in God.  Now it must take all of our will to say no to your self.  To renounce your self.  To deny your self.  To forget your self.  To give up your self.  To get your self out of the driver’s seat.  And find your way back to your most true self for Christ’s sake.

Think of what the opposite is of all those:  To say yes only to your self; to announce only your self; to indulge only your self; to remember only your self; to grasp only your self; to put only your self in the driver’s seat.  Like I said, I’ve been trying to imagine, all week, what I would look like, what I would be like, if I could give up my self, my ego.  But you know what?  It doesn’t take anything at all to imagine myself the opposite.  To be full of my self and my own ego.  I can imagine that clearly.  I can see exactly what that would look like.

It would be so easy to give in to that.

But I am so intrigued by what Jesus said.  I want to find out.  I want to use my energy, imagination, and will to say no to self, to make that happen.  I hope you do to.  For His sake.  Not ours.

Giving Up Any Notion of Easy

“Giving Up Any Notion of Easy”
Matthew 7:7-11

I eat breakfast on Thursday mornings with Alan Luttrell and Rex Johnston.  Every once in a while, Alan will hit us with a big question.  One morning, a couple of weeks ago (January 25) was one of those mornings.  Alan asked, “What are your goals and aspirations for your future self; and, what are you willing to sacrifice of your life right now to attain those goals and aspirations?”

Rex scratched his head.  I scratched my head in thought.  It’s not one of those kinds of questions you can readily come up with an answer.  If Alan had asked, “So what are your plans for the weekend, I could have answered with a snap.  But not a question about my aspirations for my future self.

But I had to open my mouth and say something.  So I told him it’s one of those double-headed dragon kinds of questions.  The first head is figuring out our future self—what will make our future self joyful and at peace.  The second head is figuring out what we are willing to let go of, or give up, in order to make that future self happen.  Most of us would like to mold a future, joyful, peaceful self with as little expense as possible.

But that’s not how it happens.  If we are going to make some kinds of changes in order to create a future self we can live with, there will be a cost.  Not just financial.  I don’t think that’s exactly what Alan was asking.  At least I didn’t take it entirely that way.  I was thinking more of costs in terms of emotional costs, relationship costs, identity costs.  Things like that, that are much harder expenses to meet than just finances.

Alan’s question is a good one, and it is something I had already been thinking about as I get closer and closer to retirement.  So I’m going to use Alan’s question as the basis for a sermon series during Lent.  I’m going to concentrate on that second head of the dragon:  what we will have to sacrifice to attain whatever vision of our future self we are hoping to attain.

I’ve come up with a list of things we will have to give up, and it isn’t your usual list of things, like chocolate, or Pepsi, or TV watching, or whatever people normally give up.  This is a list of sacrifices that will be a lot harder than all that.

So, let’s get started.  The first thing you will have to give up, if you are thinking about making aspirations for a different future self, is the notion that things are easy.

I’m one of those naively optimistic kinds of persons when it comes to certain things.  They usually have to do with fixer-upper kinds of things: minor carpentry, plumbing, that kind of thing.  I say to myself, “Self, this will be easy.  It shouldn’t take any time at all.”  Then, half a day later, with water all over the floor, or fingers smashed trying to hammer in nails, I do what I should have done in the first place.  Call someone like Rex to come help—or just do it for me.  Then it would have been easy.  And it would have been done easily.

My sense is, that we approach big changes in our lives the same way.  We get an idea about the kind of person we want to be.  We think to ourselves, “Self, this will be a snap.  In two or three months I’ll be well on my way to being a new person.”  But somewhere along the way in that two or three months we find out this isn’t going to be easy.  It’s harder than it first appeared.  We are tempted to scale back, if not give up altogether.

It appears that Jesus does us a disservice in this regard.  Jesus makes it sound easy:

Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, those who seek find, and to those who knock, the door will be opened.

Easy peasy.  Piece of cake.  Just ask.  Just knock.  Just seek.  Nothing to it.  And since that’s all you have to do, everyone wins!  No probs!

Let’s go through each of these words—ask, seek, and knock—and see if Jesus is making it easy.

First, ask.

The word Jesus used in the Greek language in which he spoke, literally means to beg, to crave, or to desire.  So, it’s not just about asking.  There’s an attitude that a person has to bring with their asking.  Our asking must be more than a blithe or erstwhile question.  It’s not just asking as if the answer doesn’t matter.

What is my destiny?

What is my future self?

These questions and their kin must be asked with passion, says Jesus.  You don’t just want to know.  YOU WANT TO KNOW!!  YOU HAVE TO KNOW!!  Your very life depends on the answer.  That is the fervor that must be brought to this kind of asking and these kinds of questions.

We aren’t asking, “What’s for dinner?”  We’re asking, “What do I need to survive in the future—to really live, to feel like I’m really alive and matter?”

Thus, it’s the passion and craving we bring with the asking that is important in Jesus’ mind.  That’s the kind of asking that Jesus honors.

It’s also the kinds of questions we ask.  Dinner or sustenance?  Is it Friday yet, or, What did I do with my life this past week, and how can I live better next week?  The kinds of questions we ask will demonstrate the level of craving and desire with which we are asking.

Then, there’s a further question that asking implies:  Ask whom?  Asking implies there is another involved.  This isn’t just a conversation going on in your own head.  That’s a closed feedback loop. It’s like your head is a hula hoop, where you are the only one answering your own questions.  You are the only source of your information and answers to your asking.  That isn’t what Jesus implies.  Questions create dialogue with another.  That’s why Jesus said, “Ask.”  He wants us to get out of our own heads and engage another.  Question/answer.  Question/answer.  Question/answer.  Dialogue!

So, it’s not only your questions that matter.  Or the passion you bring with your asking.  But also, who you are asking your questions to and with.  Those whom you ask, those with whom you dialogue, will shape and determine your answers—the answers you passionately seek.

So, Alan’s original question:  “What/Who is my future self, and what am I willing to sacrifice to create that future self?”  Do you really want to know?  Or is that not your question?  Maybe you have another.  Something you need to ask that is driven by your passion?  Who are you going to talk with as you desire and divine your answers?

So, is asking easy.  Nope.  Not anywhere close to what we thought.

Let’s go on to the next:  Seek.

There’s a real surprise here.  The word that Jesus used in his Greek language for the word seek literally means meditation or worship.  Meditate and you will find.  Worship and you will find.

It’s more than being on a treasure hunt, seeking is.  In fact, seeking in Jesus’ vocabulary, has little to do with activity at all.  To the contrary, seeking is about slowing down, stopping, being still.

God, speaking through the Psalmist, said, “Be still and know that I am God.”  Or as the Revised English Bible has it, “Let be then; learn that I am God.”  (Psalm 46:10). Being still, or letting be means to be idle, to relax; literally it means to sink down, as in sitting on the softest and most comfortable easy chair.  Just sinking down into stillness.

To seek, as Jesus is describing it here, means to just chill.  To sink into worship, to relax into meditation.

The order of these words as Jesus said them—ask, seek, knock—may be important.  We do the seeking after we do the asking.  We ask our questions with passion and fervor.  We engage in conversation with another about the questions we ask.  We dialogue with another about our questions.  And then, when we have done the work of our asking, we seek.  That is, we move into worshipful meditation, and we do nothing but ponder what we have discovered from our asking.

We just stop and be still.  We take time to think.  We go into idle mode so we can meditate.

In worship, we are opening ourselves to God in an intentional way.  In meditation we are making ourselves accessible to God in an intentional way.  We aren’t talking.  We’re musing.  We’re absorbed into God like being absorbed into that easy chair.  We’re reflecting in God.

Being still, musing, meditating, being fully present to God, is not easy.

And thirdly, knock.

This one is pretty straightforward.  Sort of.  To knock means just what Jesus said.  It means knocking on a door.

But, like the word “ask”, the same question could be asked, “Knock where?”  Knock at which door?  Wherever the door is, or what the door leads to, or what kind of place the door is a part of.  That will determine the kind of response you will get when you knock.  Or, who will answer the door.

Why do we knock?  We knock to arouse a response.  To gain entrance.  Knocking implies this is not our place.  This is someone else’s place.  We want to be invited in.  We want to be a part of the place where we have knocked.  We may, or may not know the people inside this place, but we need to knock first to gain entrance.  The door upon which we have knocked must be opened for us from the inside.

But, again, as I mentioned these three words of Jesus might be in a certain order intentionally.  Once you ask, then, once you slow down and meditate and worship, then you will know at which door to knock.  You won’t know where to knock until you have done the work of asking and seeking.

You finally then can knock because now you know the house you want to live in.  You know the place you need to be.  You are ready to enter the life of the person you need to be.  You know what you need to give up, to sacrifice to become that person.  In other words, you are ready to knock and enter in.

OK; the title of this sermon is, “Giving Up Any Notion of Easy.”  Why are these three (ask, seek, knock) not easy?  Especially in the larger questions of life.

We aren’t naturally inclined to ask.  We ask questions that don’t matter.  We dialogue with others who have nothing for us, about the insubstantial minutiae matters of life.  We don’t initiate dialogue about the substantial.  We keep those kinds of dialogues internal, within the closed feedback loops of our own skewed thinking.  Only under duress, or in crisis, do we ever attempt to vocalize those questions of substance.

Seeking is hard because this kind of seeking requires us to slow down.  To even stop.  Meditation and true worship is a slowdown, clear out the mind clutter kind of activity in order to concentrate on God.  To listen to God’s Voice, in an intentional way.  Seeking is not about doing.  Seeking is about being.  Be still and know that I am God,” not, “Do something and know that I am God.”  How hard is it for you to just be and not do?

Knocking is hard because most of us haven’t spent the time in order to know which door to knock at.  Instead, we go door-to-door in an undiscerning way.  “Maybe if I just read this book; or maybe if I just watch this TV show or video; or, maybe if I go hear this speaker; or, maybe if I attend this conference...”. Knock, knock, knock, knock.  Do you know which door to actually knock on?

This is not going to be an easy journey.  But maybe a necessary journey.  If you are ready, let’s begin.  Ask.  Seek.  Knock.