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Psychotic Inertia - en bok om kall og forvirring
Etter å ha lest Dodsons bok "Stuff my dad never told me about relationhips", var spenningen stor da vi fikk vite at han nettopp var ferdig med en ny bok: Psychotic Inertia. Vi vurderte å vente noen måneder med å slippe, men syntes dette var alt for bra for å la vente på seg.
Nok engang leverer Dodson en meget god bok, og vi har fått rettighetene til å være hoveddistributør i Norge også for denne. Dodson, som har undervist om kall og relasjoner i over 30 land til flere tusen mennesker, tar denne gangen for seg vårt gudsbilde i forhold til kall og identitet. Du kan lese mer om boken i vår nettbutikk. Nedenfor har vi gjengitt innledningskapitlet.
Introduction
People get stuck. Stuck in classrooms that bore them to death, or in
jobs they grow to hate. People get stuck in places they don't really
want to live in and wake up one day wondering why... Once people
get stuck, they usually stay stuck, and as busy as they may look,
not much ever really happens. Sometimes they get stuck by hitting
a wall of indecision, but most people just busily plow a furrow so
deep that after a while they can't even see over the sides or, as Som-
erset Maugham chides: "They are like train-cars traveling forever on
the selfsame rails. They go backwards and forwards, backwards and
forwards, inevitably, till they can go no longer and then are sold as
scrap-iron."1 It's called inertia ("a property of matter by which it
continues in its existing state of rest or uniform movement, unless
that state is changed by an external force"2). Some people survive
this trap (made of the typical job, school or relationship) by escap-
ing to the occasional party or overseas trip to deaden the pain. But
if you're a Christian, your drug of choice is probably to wait for
God to miraculously pull you out of that rut and set you on "the
plan He has for you". And the rut gets deeper...
I meet people like this everywhere I go, and I go a lot of places.
People who come out of high school with no clue as to what they
want to do next. People who come out of college feeling like it was
a waste of time, and still don't know what they want to do. People
who then choose jobs that line up with their education (the one
that bored them) or anything that'll pay the bills. People who have
worked for years in a job they now despise, and despise who they're
becoming... Because ultimately, what they become is someone else.
And that someone else usually goes off doing really stupid things
(substance abuse, relational abuse, materialist abuse) to take their
mind off who they once were.
But in these same places, I also find people who know exactly who
they are and what they want to do, and are doing pretty well. Or
others who are still working it out, but are taking huge risks to have
a go, just to see what happens. So what's the difference between a
person who is stuck and a person who is moving in the direction
they love? What determines who does well and who does nothing?
here've been a lot of studies over the years to measure the deter-
mining factors of a person's or organization's success. They usually
look at the external environment of these successes and failures to see
what can be learned. For instance, Malcolm Gladwell found that
success in moving through the hockey ranks in Canada was largely
based on the cutoff birth dates for joining up. And he discovered
that Bill Gates' success in software development had a lot to do
with his having extraordinary access to mainframes at the Univer-
sity of Washington while he was in the eighth grade...3 External
factors do have a lot to do with facilitating our forward movement,
but they rarely determine it. In fact, I think we focus far too much
on the externals when it comes to understanding our lives and
choices. It's a convenient way to not be responsible. I call it living
from the outside in. Living from the outside in happens if you have
a small view of self and a weird view of God. The external forces in
your life tend to dominate your choices. You may call those influ-
ences guidance from God, but they rarely ever are.
Your family, education, financial situation, social norms, religious
expectations... are all external forces pulling you in different directions.
We make choices based on these (like choosing a college
major because of family pressure or because the job market is lean-
ing a certain way) and end up on the same treadmill as everyone
else. These forces dominate the person who has a small view of
their identity (for instance, that they love children and want to help
them), and from that singular piece, they end up making a knee-
jerk decision (to be a teacher).
If, on the other hand, you have a clear view of yourself and your
identity (including your passions, personality, intellect, skills,
dreams...) and a solid view of how God walks out the future with
you, then you determine what kind of education you need, who
you want to work with, and where you want to live, etc. I call this
living from the inside out.
My experience has been that those who are moving forward in their
lives with clarity about who they are and what God values, do so by
managing the internal factors of their lives. They grapple with their
motivations and issues of the heart (fear, laziness...), and develop
their identity. They don't fluff around with questions about God's
will or if they should do this or that. They make choices and learn
from what happens. In effect, they create their future with God. By
contrast, the ones who are stuck are often waiting for a word from
heaven. Or from anyone who will give them permission to proceed.
Waiting for something to save them. A relationship, a job offer,
some mission opportunity... it comes in all forms, some even noble.
But the environment is still controlling them because fear, laziness,
and selfishness become internal anchors. And more often than not,
even skywriting from God can't get them moving because guidance
was never the issue in the first place.
I wrote this book for inert people. My hope is that they might
understand their distinct and unique calling a lot more clearly. So
they can know the difference between a command-and-control God
and a loving Father and Coach. So they can get moving on the real
questions of identity and creativity in a world that is dying for some
answers to huge questions. But to do that, we have to first work on
the internal factors. Our motives, issues of the heart, and our view
of God. This is the only way to really deal with the fear that binds
us, or the laziness that keeps us glued to the couch, or the selfish-
ness that drives us to a shopper's way of life.
But my readers will have a problem. I mean, who wants to work on
the issues of the heart, right? Who wants to go away for a few days
and challenge our lazy or selfish approach to just about everything?
We'd usually rather go for a three-step plan and a set of "guidance"
scriptures to tape to the fridge. Assurances that "God's in control"
and that it's going to be all right because the Bible says... So often
we prefer blindly clinging to interpretations of certain scriptures
that aren't even working in our lives because it's easier than working
hard on the truth. We've been so willingly brainwashed that our
bumper-sticker theology is now the only way we can survive in a
complex world.
But this won't do. The only way to break the inertia, to do more
than just survive, is to have some other force knock us into a new
trajectory. And the best way to do that is to start with the heart.
We must work the systemic issues that are holding us in place and
keeping us from a better path. Because if we can, we'll see ourselves,
God, and the scriptures in a whole new light. And even better, we'll
be able to re-engage in the world around us with a lot more creativ-
ity and true love (and, hopefully, more money to do really amazing
things :-).
So while the subject of this book is our calling, and dealing with the
confusion that trips us up, the process is about the motivations and
issues of our hearts - why we make certain choices and how we got
stuck. What are those essential forces that move us (or not) or beg
us to follow others? What's that thing inside us that obeys the
"what if I fail" voice? Basically, we'll look at what moves our will in one
direction or another.
If we're willing to address our fears, then I think this little read will
be very freeing. If we're willing to acknowledge our laziness, this
could be a great facilitator for action. If we can see where selfishness
is getting in the way of our true soul and God-made self, then
we'll learn how to be a creative blessing in our own neighborhood
first and, maybe one day when we grow up, in the nations. If we
can head down this road and work these issues, we'll be creating a
foundation that could support the rest of our lives. Change always
starts in the heart, so we gotta be willing to go there first. That okay
with you?
Over the past 30 years I've been learning to walk with God. Not
behind and not ahead, just with. Walking and talking, learning,
choosing, learning some more... I'm sharing here what I've seen and
heard because I really wish someone had done that with me when I
was in my teens or twenties. Not as a prescription in the sense that
this is how it must work for you, but as a process you can observe
and personalize, which is totally possible if you start at the level of
the heart. In this way, God can work out the details with you in a
way that suits where you're at.
Psalm 51:6 says that God desires truth in the innermost man, and
it's in that place that He shows us wisdom. This kind of truth is not
academic; it means being true (honest, open) in our hearts so we can
receive that amazing flow of wisdom, wisdom which guides us, not
like carrots to horses, but rather advice to sons and daughters. My
hope is that you would be open to getting this kind of wisdom and
that the pages of this book can encourage you in the process.
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