Mighty Mouse Syndrome (Part II): Pride & Timidity

This post is a continuation of my last post on Mighty Mouse Syndrome (click to read).

What if God answered all the prayers that you lifted up in the past week? How dramatically different would your life and the world look today?

If your faith flow is running low (as mine often has), the culmination of your answered prayers might bring about safe travels, blessed food, and skinny jeans that allow you to exhale. That's sad. Especially when we're invited by our Heavenly Father to ask, seek, and knock (see Matthew 7:7-12).

What keeps us from praying for the BIG stuff—the needs and wants that cut so deep to the core of our hearts that we can barely find the courage to breathe them aloud?

Reasons might vary from person to person, but I'd say it's a sad slurry of both pride and timidity that can gunk-up our souls and clog our faith-flow:

Backup? Why would I need backup?
Original artwork: stevegoad.deviantart.com

Pride: I think we get hung up when we confuse spiritual maturity with self-sufficiency.

Growing from childhood to adulthood involves increasing levels of independence as we learn new skills and venture farther from our parents to explore our environments. Children of God, however, are called to remain childlike—to be humble, full of wonder, and ever-dependent on our Heavenly Father (see Matthew 18:2-4).

It almost sounds like we're forever needy... which makes the Mighty Mouse in me cringe. But if we're mature enough to swallow our pride, we recognize that needing God isn't a bad thing. We bring glory to the Father whenever His strength shows through our weaknesses (see 2 Corinthians 4:7 & 12:9–10). Of course, there's always a balance between praying for God's help and doing our part. St. Benedict called it "ora et labora," or pray and work.

Timidity: What if God doesn't come through in the way we ask? Does that mean He doesn't care? Does that mean we're not good enough to see our prayers answered? Keeping our prayers bottled up often seems like a safer option than testing what we claim we know about God's character—it gives God an "out" and it allows us to manage our deepest desires on our own. If things don't work out as we hoped, then it's merely our Mighty Mouse efforts that failed. God isn't to blame. 

But that's absurd. If our desires are rooted in right motives, we have no reason to hold back (see James 4:3). Yes, it's always difficult to grapple with unanswered prayers, but childlike Christians understand that prayer isn't all about seeing wishes come true. We pray because we long to draw close to the Father, to understand His ways, and to rely on His strength (see James 4:8; Psalm 139:24; Isaiah 41:10). And yes, we pray believing that He can "do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3:20–21).

I'd like to share a study on a woman who initially qualified for an Old Testament Mighty Mouse badge of independence. When God answered the unspoken prayer of her heart, however, there was no stopping the shameless audacity of her faith.

Mighty Mouse Syndrome (Part I): Here I Come to Save the Day!

Do your ears perk up at the faintest squeak of someone is in need? Does the thought of coming to the rescue make your heart pound as you rush onto a scene? Do you gladly pick up new responsibilities when someone is struggling to keep up? Conversely, do you cringe at the thought of ever being needy enough to allow others to help you?

If you replied, "Yes" to most of those questions, then get your cape and fist pump ready. You may just have a case of Mighty Mouse Syndrome!

While there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to be helpful (in fact, "helps" might be a spiritual gift of yours), it's possible to cross over the line into pridefulness when we resist help from others in our own times of need.

We don't usually reach for the "prideful" label when attempting to describe our need to be self-sufficient, though. More often, we say that we "don't want to trouble anyone," or that we have all the resources we need to handle the situation.

We may not possess the breadth or strength to tackle an obstacle on our own, but like Mighty Mouse, we're sure that we've got it all under control.

Hello Again

Hi there. I'm going to start blogging again. I took a break for a few months, but now I'm back. Sort of. I think I've changed quite a bit since July 2014. I'm really liking this motherhood thing. I'd say it's changing me from the inside-out for the better.

Karen (22 months) and her newborn brother, Ethan

I like being a mom so much that we decided to have another kid. His name is Ethan Alexander, and I love him. Today we slow danced in the living room to Perry Como and he didn't even tell me to shush when I sang, ha.

I'm not sure who's still out there of my devoted 9-person audience, but stay tuned! My next post will be a study on praying with faith, based on the Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4.

Weight-Loss Wisdom: 3 Questions to Ask Yourself

Nine months ago, I wrote a blog post detailing how I lost all the weight that I'd gained during pregnancy. Since then, I've lost about 10 more pounds, but gained some wisdom along the way.

3 Questions

To Ask Yourself on a Weight-Loss Journey

Question 1: Why do you want to lose weight? For real.

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If you'd asked me this question shortly after I gave birth in May 2013, I would've jabbered something about wanting to be heart-healthy and have more energy to raise our family. That response would've been genuine, but not complete.

Here's the honest truth: I wanted to lose weight because I couldn't stand looking at my rolls in the mirror. I felt like moose. I moved like a moose. I even sounded like a moose when I had to hoist myself out of bed in the morning.

But that's not all. Let's excavate a little deeper and shine our mining hats into the dank depravity of my soul. Get a load of these gems:

Discovering Your True Colors

I'm trying something new with this blog post. It's an experimental exercise, so please bear with me through the change in tone.

I'm going to write this entire thing as a stream of consciousness. I'm not going to pause to backspace and delete. (Funny thing: I just misspelled the word "delete," so I had to backspace. But no more! I'll have to go back to add Bible verses and formatting... but not till I get all these words down.)

Here's a confession: It normally takes me about 6 or 7 hours to write each blog post, not including the preliminary research. It's not because I'm a slow typist. It's because I'm a paranoid perfectionist. I can't get one sentence down without second-guessing the word choice, and cadence, and whether or not people will read it and be inspired... or impressed.

“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” – GALATIANS 1:10 (NIV)

If I'm honest, it's all about impressing you. Whoever you are out there, I want you to read this thing and be impressed. I want you to think, "Gee, this girl really has it all together. She's smart, and deep, and funny, and by golly, I'd like to be her friend!"

Blah... I really want to go back and delete that last paragraph.  That was way too vulnerable. But I just learned from a TED talk by Brené Brown that vulnerability "is the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love."

I want to have joy, I want to unleash creativity, I want to belong... and yes, I want you to love me. I'd rather have a few deep, but genuine relationships than a lot of shallow ones.

But I'm finally realizing that we'll never get there if I don't let you SEE me. All of me... even all the imperfect stuff. (Just misspelled "imperfect" and had to backspace... oy vey.)

Here's some more vulnerability for you...

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Fortissimo Jesus

My dad tells a story of a boyhood trumpet lesson in which he plopped down before his instructor, brought his instrument to his lips, and lazily pressed the valves through the first few measures of a piece.

It wasn't long before the instructor interrupted him, waving his hands in disapproval.

"Don't play, tha-tha-tha," he corrected, mimicking my father's apathy with a half-closed eyelid and a limp wrist in the air. "You must play, BA-BA-BA!"

The instructor pounded his fist against his palm with each BA. Then, in a swell of passion, plunged a pencil straight through my father's sheet music, tearing a hole in it.

My dad's wide eyes darted from the pencil sticking out of his music, to his instructor's flaring nostrils, and back to the dynamic marking in the first measure—fortissimo.

His heart began to race as he realized he'd better start playing like he meant it. He puffed his cheeks, raised his shoulders, and summoned all the breath his lungs to play with the enthusiasm that the piece called for. Finally, his instructor was pleased.

Rotten Roots

"You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and I have appointed you [I have planted you], that you might go and bear fruit and keep on bearing, and that your fruit may be lasting..."

–John 15:16 (AMP)

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Receiving our new nature in Christ is supposed to be a dazzling transformation, isn't it? It's like a quick change act—old stuff off, new stuff on, and bada bing—we're a new creation, right?

While I'm pretty sure I've heard it preached that way before, I'm not so convinced that's what Paul meant in his letter to the Ephesians (see verse). If you're like many of us on the sanctification journey, you've noticed that some old ways are just harder to shake than others.

Maybe your swearing habit ended immediately after coming to faith in Christ, but you still struggle with depression, or anger, or a phobia, or an eating disorder, or failed relationships, or an addiction, or another fill-in-the-blank clinging issue from the past.

Wouldn't it be great if the Christian bookstore carried a spiritual anti-static spray? Apply liberally from head to toe for lifelong relief from those pesky, clinging, old-nature garments. Sorry, either LifeWay is fresh out or they've got it tucked away in a vault somewhere and you need to whisper a codeword to access it. I tried "Jesus Fish," but the clerk just pointed me to a rack of bumper stickers and gummy bracelets. No dice.

So what's the deal with the stuff that won't come off? Get your gardening gloves and your floppy sun hat ready—it's time to head out to the orchard for an object lesson.

I wouldn't call myself a horticulturist by any means, but I've watched enough plants die to have learned this rule of green thumbs: If a plant is struggling, check for problems at the root.

When a skilled gardener notices a plant that's wilting or barely producing fruit, he doesn't simply fling fertilizer at it, spray some pesticides, and hope for the best. He takes a close look at it, uprooting it if he has to, in order to treat the problem at its source.

Depending on how long you've walked with Christ, you may have read books on the subject of your affliction, downloaded sermons, made positive confessions, attended seminars, and stood in prayer lines long enough to wear out your shoe inserts.

If you've done all that and still find yourself struggling, you may have been attempting to treat the fruit without examining the root. You might have a case of deep-down root rot that's going to keep causing problems until you're brave enough to dig it up.

What is Root Rot?

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In the gardening world, root rot occurs when soil becomes infected with a fungus, often due to overwatering. As roots loose oxygen in this stagnant setting, leaves and fruit gradually wither until the entire plant eventually decays (view source).

Let's think of our life-shaping experiences from birth up to the present as our underground root system. Above the ground, our leaves and fruit are our present contributions to the world around us, both good and bad (see Matthew 7:15-20).

Healthy Roots: These are positive, growth-promoting experiences from our past, such as: affirmation from parents, peers, and role-models; educational opportunities; spiritually formative experiences, etc.

Rotten Roots: These are negative—often shameful—experiences from our past, which may include: insults, neglect, trauma, introduction to perversion, and abuse in its many forms.

Spiritual Root Rot: Like the natural world, this spiritual condition occurs when rotten roots go untreated. After we come to faith in Christ, a beautiful network of healthy roots begins to take shape within, bringing forth fruit in our thoughts and actions, in our home life and professional life, and in our ministry. However, even with all this new life bursting forth, it's possible for sickly branches and sour fruit to hang on. Why? Because sanctification is a process.