Tag: christianity

Nor Do I Really Know Myself!

Authenticity.  Knowing myself. Lying to myself. One of the most powerful and shocking phrases in The Merton Prayer is this:  Nor Do I Really Know Myself.  When Merton published these incredibly vulnerable and authentic words in his 1958 book Thoughts in Solitude, bookstores did not have the shelves of “self-help” and “self-knowledge” books which they hold today!

“Knowing oneself” has become a very fertile cottage industry not at all limited to psychologists or mental health workers.  How could Merton have foreseen such a widespread conundrum looming in our society? How exactly does a person “really know myself”?  Every time I pray The Merton Prayer I pause and sometimes come to a full stop at this phrase.  Nor Do I Really Know Myself!  I truly want to know myself. But then again maybe I do NOT want to “really” know myself.

True self-knowledge always leads to an encounter with the God in whose image I am created; an encounter with the God who “knew me” in my mother’s womb per Jeremiah 1:5. But that omnipotent God did far more than that while I was in my mother’s womb—listen to what He told the prophet and what He wants each of us to hear:  “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart: I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” [Jeremiah 1:5 NIV]

Seriously God?  Did you “appoint” me as a pastor for 10 years, a Bible College Instructor of Greek for 4 years, a hospital ombudsman for 6 years, and a plaintiff’s trial attorney for 38 years (and counting!)?  I look backwards, and I honestly can say “Yes, thank you God for leading me each step of my life.”  As with Jeremiah, I too have had seasons of fear – did I really try a three-week medical malpractice case with six expert witnesses, without a little fear?

Jeremiah cried out to God:  “Alas, Sovereign Lord I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”  And how did God reply?  “Do not say, ‘I am too young’ – you must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.  Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you.” There it is! Regular readers of this blog saw this coming! The Merton Prayer in Jeremiah’s words – “I will not fear, for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone!”

If looking authentically at your true self causes fear and a little anxiety, well, maybe that is exactly what can lead to honest self-knowledge! I close with this quote from the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung –“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your heart.  Who looks outside – dreams.  Who looks inside –  awakens.” [Robin Sharma, The Monk who Sold his Ferari, HarperOne, 1998, p.40].  May the God of Jeremiah awaken each of us this week to true and authentic self-knowledge so that we no longer hiccup when we get to this phrase of The Merton Prayer – Nor Do I Really Know Myself!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please email me at TheMertonPrayer@gmail.com.  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

How Could That Happen?

“Mr. Denny, I am calling to get your verbal consent for the surgery tomorrow for your left knee replacement?” My answer was one word: “No.” Awkward silence followed. “I don’t understand, are you not coming for surgery tomorrow?” “Yes, I am coming but my left knee was replaced in 2022! I consent to surgery on my right knee!” Apologies followed. I was not surprised but the question lingered: How Could That Happen?

Many of you will recall that after my 10-year career as parish pastor I spent 4 years working in Risk Management at a major Chicago hospital. Informed consents were regularly messed up. Fortunately, all of the mistakes were caught pre-surgery and we never had the wrong limb operated on. (Now that would be a lawsuit which I would LOVE to handle!)

The simple answer to How Could That Happen? is this: It could and does happen because we are humans and not machines! Our natural nature is to sin! Even the best human among us is a sinner who makes mistakes! Listen to how the Apostle Paul spoke about this: “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 NIV).

“All” leaves no room for me to be the exception! Every single one of us is a sinner. How often, if ever, do we “mature Christians” admit that we are “sinners”? Sure, we list our sins in our prayers when we ask God to forgive us, knowing full well that He always forgives us! We even admit to being a sinner in the ‘’Lord’s Prayer”. But such admission, as honest as it can be, hardly convinces us that we have an internal quality called “sin.”

The part of this famous verse that pastors rarely focus on is “and fallen short of the glory of God.” We are human sinners and we do not contain within us “the glory of God”. Is this a big announcement? Did we not know this before we read Paul’s letter to the Romans? Because we are all sinners, we must realize that we are not God, and we can never become God.

Today’s blog is not a total bummer! The surgery on the RIGHT leg was very successful and post-op I am walking pain free now with use of a walker. And Paul’s very next words totally take the sting out of “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

Listen to Romans 3:24 — “And all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ” (NIV). Hear the same verse from the NLT: “Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins” (Romans 3:24 NLT). And this, my friends, is very good news for all of us sinners!

We are “freed from the penalty of sin” is just about the best news a sinner can ever hear. So How Could That Happen? is completely, totally, and properly, answered for us. Thank you, Lord!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you.

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE: If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please email me at TheMertonPrayer@gmail.com. I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

The Clergy are Cowards!

I watched a church historian interviewed recently who was asked, “Why is the American church not flourishing?”   His answer was this: “The clergy are the problem.”  Today we get to the third of Alistair Begg’s threefold meme – “The Clergy are Cowards.”  Seriously? Some of you may be saying right now, “Steven, that’s not nice to say about ministers, pastors, and priests!”  As you likely know already, I am not nearly as concerned with being nice, as I am with being honest!

Have you ever thought of your clergy as a coward? The dictionary definition of coward is this: “One who shows disgraceful fear or timidity” [Webster’s Dictionary].  The same dictionary gives “chicken” as the first synonym of coward. Interesting, isn’t it, that the word “disgraceful” is used? Another quote from Alexis de Tocqueville fits here: “Everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure.” (Democracy in America) The Clergy are Cowards! is indeed “disgraceful” and needs to be eradicated!

Here’s some examples of The Clergy are Cowards! which I have encountered over my years in the church. A pastor told his congregation “the issues of evil facing our country all have to stay outside this church building!  In here we only preach Christ!”  He was a chicken clergy worried ONLY about members leaving if he preached biblical orthodoxy which would mean lower offerings, which could put his salary and pension in jeopardy!

Or this: when a mainline denomination voted to affirm a woman’s right to “unrestricted abortion” one of their pastors never even informed their own leaders that their denomination had so voted! Fear leads a chicken clergy to keep their mouth shut!

How about this: A church group was on a field trip visiting sacred sites in Europe when a stranger approached the pastor who was leading the group with this question which was heard by the entire group, “Do I have to be baptized to join your group?” The pastor immediately turned the group in a different direction without responding to the questioner. Why not speak to this person with biblical truths?  Fear!  I could likely muster 1,000 other examples – The Clergy are Cowards!

Three biblical verses show “cowardly clergy” are not at all in step with the Lord:

  • “Fear not, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God, I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10)
  •  “In God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” (Psalm 56:11)
  •   “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7)

The Greek word for “fear” is phobos from which we get phobia.  Have our American clergy developed phobias which keep them from preaching the truth, teaching God’s and not man’s word, and upholding biblical orthodoxy every chance they get?

I ask again “why is the American church not flourishing?” We now have all three of Alistair Beggs answers, The Culture is Collapsing, The Church is Confused, and The Clergy are Cowards! Please Lord let each reading these words look for ways to be the antidote to these problems the Body of Christ is facing in America!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please email me at TheMertonPrayer@gmail.com.  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

The Church is Confused!

Not only is the culture collapsing around us, the second point of Alistair Begg’s threefold meme of why modern Christianity is failing is this– The Church is Confused!  Do I really need to document this assertion? Just one point will suffice: A major denomination voted at their annual conference two years ago that abortion is fine and that any local, state, or federal restrictions on abortion for women and “pregnant persons” were not to be tolerated.  To me, this leaves no room for doubt – The Church is Confused!

When Jesus told the Apostle Peter that he had just handed him the “keys to the kingdom” and “upon this rock [petros, Greek for rock and Peter] I will build my church,” I hardly think he had in mind a future church deciding to allow babies to be killed in the womb!  When Yahweh told the prophet Jeremiah that he had been known by God even when Jeremiah was in his mother’s womb, surely God was not envisioning abortion of healthy children created in his image (Jeremiah 1:5).

Has the Church always been confused? If not, when and how did the Church become confused?  The first century church at Jerusalem had some serious conflicts which were overseen by James the brother of Jesus.  (See Acts 15:14-21).  The fourth century Church saw the Roman Emperor Constantine forcing his soldiers to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ, a fact which might have upset local church boards a tad!

Our 21st century church has  – drumroll please – are you ready for this?? – over 45,000 different denominations and the United States alone has over 200!  When Jesus handed the keys of the kingdom to Peter one wonders if even Jesus would be shocked to see that the Church today is not one undivided Church. To say The Church is Confused is hardly a stretch of imagination to a modern church-watcher. 

We have churches who focus more on political issues than on issues from the Bible.  We have churches who one year declare a “policy” only to change/reverse itself the very next year!   One church says sins are forgiven when one prays asking God to forgive, another church says that sins are only forgiven when one experiences baptism.  One church baptizes by sprinkling water on an infant who has no idea what is happening, another church only baptizes by immersion in water which completely covers the body.

Yes, The Church is Confused and I sincerely wonder at times what God thinks of how we have messed up his plan that the church would be “one”!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please email me at TheMertonPrayer@gmail.com.  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

The Culture is Collapsing!

Why is the Church not flourishing in this crazy world of American extremes?  Why do we see entire denominations taking very unChristian stands on controversial issues?  Why do we have clergy afraid to speak boldly like Jesus spoke?  I recently had the privilege of meeting the amazing pastor/author Alistair Begg – and I thanked him for his simple, yet powerful threefold mnemonic which answers the above questions:  The Culture is Collapsing, The Church is Confused, and The Clergy are Cowards.

Today’s blog looks at the first of Begg’s three answers, The Culture is Collapsing, and future blogs will tackle the other two.  One need only look at the last 25 years to see how incredibly different our culture is today!  The changes seem flowing in warp-speed!

We have grade schoolers being taught that they can choose which gender they want to be, parents who support such life-altering decisions, and a medical profession quick to step up with procedures and medications to help the child change into their desired gender!  Just today the national news dropped a bomb on us Americans with the announcement that a huge % of illegal migrants crossing our borders are criminals—true or false? We have two major political parties in our country which seem to literally hate the other, which leads to simply awful family gatherings around the Thanksgiving or Christmas tables!

Given the above it usually seems wisest, certainly easiest, just to ignore these topics.  I look at how Jesus dealt with his first century culture and I come away with hope that all may not be lost.  But clearly, as Bob Dylan sang, “The times they are a changing.”  The French historian/politician Alexis de Tocqueville had great insights into American Christianity – listen to this from the 1850s:

In the United States … almost all Americans believe in or at least respect Christianity, with the result that ‘everything is certain and fixed in the moral world’.

I doubt he would say the same for 21st century America where nothing seems “certain and fixed in the moral world.”  For over a decade I have belonged to, believed in, and ministered with, a conservative congregation which belongs to an uber-liberal denomination.  I was shocked to learn of the denomination’s official actions.

Here is one thing that Jesus said which, if we Christ-followers can engage with, then maybe, just maybe, the Church might be the antidote to The Culture is Collapsing!

He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone. [John 8:7]  Jesus was teaching in the temple when some Jewish leaders of the day dragged a woman caught in the act of adultery before him, demanding that this sinful woman be stoned to death. When they heard the above words of Jesus, they all dropped their stones and walked away. And isn’t it interesting, and instructive, that John notes the older, more mature, Jewish leaders were the first to leave! Then we hear Jesus tell the woman, “Go and sin no more”!  Simple, yet profound, and certainly a real antidote for The Culture is Collapsing!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please email me at TheMertonPrayer@gmail.com.  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

It’s All There!

In the 1990’s I was totally “pro-choice”.  What happened to change my mind?  (1) A conversation with a doctor; (2) Jeremiah 1:5. This is not a “political” attack on pro-choice folks; it is my story of how I changed directions on this issue.

I was in San Diego to present my OB/Gyn expert in a medical malpractice case – my client’s baby was permanently deformed and would never be able to use her left arm due to the negligence of the doctor.  My expert was the head of his hospital’s OB/Gyn department with incredible credentials.  He was also a strong Christian who was not shy about sharing his faith.

As we chatted at dinner after his deposition, he knocked my socks off by telling me, “I used to do abortions.  At least one per week for over 20 years.” I did the math – he had done over 1,000 abortions.  “Why did you stop?” said I.  His response changed my life forever: “I realized that at conception It’s All There! Nothing is ever added except food/nutrition!”

My brain grabbed this and I could not let it go.  Probably within a week I realized the absolute undeniable truth in It’s All There! From the moment of conception absolutely NOTHING is added to that zygote, nothing except nutrition, nothing except food!  It’s All There! 

And then there was that verse in Jeremiah where God talks directly to the famous prophet and preachers ever since have grabbed that sentence to preach powerful pro-life sermons.  “Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you’” (Jeremiah 1:4-5.  NASB1995). So, God knew me in the womb, and nothing but food was added after I was conceived!

I was hooked by my own brain into a total life-changing position.  Nothing was added except food!  And every other human being on this planet was also “known by God in the womb.”  My wife Miran and I have stood in front of Chicago abortion clinics, praying that the women coming to have their babies sucked out of their wombs would change their minds!

The Lord and the Holy Spirit moved in the hearts of a few women who saw 30+ of us praying in front of the abortion clinic.  They slowly turned around and walked back to their car.  Our prayer was that they would never return to that or another clinic for an abortion.

“Reproductive health care” – can we really/logically say ripping a baby apart by a vacuum which got every piece of the baby’s body out of the woman’s womb is health care?  Seems like “death care” to me!  And modern science for decades has known that the DNA of the baby is NOT the same as the mother’s DNA, which makes the mantra “My body my choice” illogical non-sense.  Mom’s left arm is her body and she can indeed cut that off with impunity.  The baby inside her is NOT her body, it is the body of another human being who is already known by God!

It’s All There! and God’s message to Jeremiah – that’s how I made a 180 degree turn in my life and I have never looked back with regret.  May the God of Jeremiah bless you today as you chew on these thoughts!  And don’t forget –at conception It’s All There! Leave a comment please!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please use the contact tab and let me know!  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

Being, Not Just Doing!

My friend Jeff Wood, a scholar and fellow lover of all things Merton, shared with me an article which I really enjoyed:  “On The Road with Thomas Merton” by Jeremy Seifert (https://emergencemagazine.org/feature/on-the-road-with-thomas-merton/). Seifert digs deeply into the life and words of Thomas Merton.

Jump with me today into a couple of Mertonian quotes!

“In order to live I have to die” is not an easy one to digest, until I recall how Christians are called to die to self and live to Christ.  Paul said in Philippians 1:21: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (NASB1995).  I love how the Amplified Bible explains difficult biblical ideas like this one: “For to me, to live is Christ [He is my source of joy, my reason to live] and to die is gain [for I will be with Him in eternity].”

“Life is not so much about trying to do something, just trying to be.”  Being, Not Just Doing!  One of the joys of engaging in Contemplative Prayer is the realization that our lives are far too often focused on how much we get done.  My journaling practice of ending each day with a few moments to reflect on “where did I experience God today and where did I miss God today” is called The Examination of Conscience.  Each day is a gift from God, and taking time to “examine” whether I am too busy “doing” things that I have not spent a single moment focusing on “who I am and Whose I am.”

Is there a tension here which is built into our human psyches?  After all, we have to “do” things or we won’t be able to pay our bills, put food on the table, or put clothing on our children!  Surely Merton would not condone just “sitting around all day never doing anything, just thinking and praying”!

Do not forget that the Abbey of Gethsemani (where Merton lived) was inhabited by Trappist monks who prayed the daily liturgy of the hours but who also worked out in the fields, in the kitchen, and in the shop creating their amazing cheeses, fudge, and bourbon fruitcakes!  Their day – and our day – can be, and hopefully is, filled with a balance of both the introspective being and the need to be productive at something by doing.  I believe the key to successfully implementing this concept is the word “just” which hopefully brings a blessing of balance to you today and every day!

 Being, Not Just Doing! Is a challenge worth undertaking, wouldn’t you agree? I love getting “comments” from readers of my blogs, so please do not be shy! I never cease being amazed at how Merton seekers from all over the world are finding this blog site.  Blessings on you today as you contemplate Being, Not Just Doing!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please use the contact tab and let me know!  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

Amen!

All Catholics reading this blog will surely get a kick out of my ignorance.   For years when I approached the priest for Eucharist, after he placed the wafer in my hand and spoke the words “The body of Christ, given for you,” I always looked him square in the eyes and said, “Thank you.”   Then I moved on, consumed the host, and felt very close to the Lord and filled with the Holy Spirit.

One day at mass with my wife Miran, who is a “cradle Catholic” having been born into the faith as a child, she overheard me say, “Thank you” to the priest.  She quickly informed me that the proper response to the priest’s words “The body of Christ given for you” was to simply say Amen!

I thought my “Thank you” had been polite and appropriate.  But instead, it had caused a ripple of discomfort in the ears of any who heard.

Got me to thinking about the word Amen!  Did you know that every time you conclude a prayer with the word Amen! you are speaking both Hebrew and Greek!  The Greek word Amen! is a transliteration (letter for letter) of the Hebrew word Amen! which literally means, “Verily so, this is the truth, so it is, without a doubt” and other words/phrases connoting the assuredness and veracity of what went before the Amen!

All of which led me to chew on (pardon the pun) the phrase “This is my body given for you.”  Some priests/pastors change the words Jesus used and instead say, “This is my body broken for you.”  If you ever hear those words spoken at a Eucharist Service, I encourage you to speak privately with that person and point them to Psalm 22, the Messianic Psalm of King David, which is referred to very often by Jesus. 

Was Jesus’ body “broken” on the cross?  His side was pierced, his hands and feet were pierced, a crown of thorns cut into his scalp; but when the soldiers came to fracture his femurs as they had just done to the criminals on either side of Jesus to hasten their death, they stopped and did not fracture his femurs, since Jesus had already died.

Psalm 22 has so many amazing references to the life of Jesus as the promised Messiah (“anointed one”) I encourage you to read it very slowly.  Verse 14 says “all my bones are out of joint” – not fractured or broken, just out of joint!  And then the most amazing fact is in verse 17 which says, “I can count all my bones!”  We can assume that since God created human beings, He knew perfectly well what modern medical science has since discovered and confirmed – there are 206 bones in the human body; not 208 which would have happened if Jesus’ femurs had each been broken in half! 

When the Psalmist says, in speaking of the Messiah, “I can count all my bones”) we can read into these words “I still have only 206 bones, none of my bones were broken like the two guys on either side of me!”  So, when I am told, “this is the body of Christ which was given for you” I rejoice and say Amen!

Verily, it is so, this is the truth!  Not a single bone in my Savior’s body was broken and His entire body was given for me.  Amen! indeed!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please use the contact tab and let me know!  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

Keep Moving!

One of my favorite actors is Dick Van Dyke.  I can use the verb “is” since he will turn 99 years old this coming December.  At age 95 he was asked by an interviewer “What is your secret to such a long and healthy life?” to which he replied with his world-famous smile, “Keep Moving.”

Indeed, those two words come to me often now when I so easily can talk myself out of exercising.  His career is amazing, and I encourage you to check him out on Wikipedia because you just won’t believe all he has done and continues to do!  He read his memoir on Audible books in 2011 at age 86! 

Something he said in his memoir has stuck with me: “Ok, we need three things in life:  something to do; someone to love; and something to hope for!”   I absolutely love that mandate for purpose!  I also am confident that those three “things in life” correspond truly with the life of a Christian.  Could this be any easier?

“Something to do” are the marching orders which Jesus gave the disciples just before he ascended back to heaven.  His words are for us over 2,000 years later:  go, teach, baptize!  Spread his gospel so that all the world will know God and turn from evil.  Keep Moving gets us off the couch, using our gifts and knowledge to teach, and being thrilled when a new believer is baptized into the newness of the Christian life.

“Someone to love” points us to our relationship with the Lord, every day of our life!  If we stop and really think about who the Lord is, there is only and always love in our heart.  God first loved us, we don’t even have to think about it:  we have someone to love, every minute of every hour of every day!  And the true joy about love is that God has given us human beings whom we get to love here on hearth!  Keep Moving to that person God has called us to love!  And then find another!  And another!

“Something to hope for” is surely the easiest of VanDyke’s threefold life purpose for we Christians.  Our hope is focused on spending eternity with the God who created the universe and flung the stars into the sky!  We cannot begin to really understand what eternity will be like, but knowing it is there for us gives us undying hope! Keep Moving in hope which motivates us every single day!

But what if we Keep Moving and we sometimes, somehow, lose our way? That’s when the powerful words of The Merton Prayer keep us on track, focused on God and not ourselves.  “Therefore, I will trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.  I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”  Maybe the words of my favorite “Mary Poppins” actor just might help me stay focused, get up off the couch, and Keep Moving!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please use the contact tab and let me know!  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

God’s Path, Not Mine!

“So sorry, Mr. Denny, you picked a bad decade to get a seminary teaching position in Hebrew and Aramaic, there’s no openings since nobody is retiring!”  I was devastated. These were the words of my professor after I told him that I had been rejected by every place I had applied!  Four years of intense work in ancient near eastern languages at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, all for naught!  Seriously God?

I had passed all of my doctoral qualifying exams and was already researching and writing my dissertation.   I was translating a newly discovered Syriac commentary on the book of Deuteronomy, which manuscript had been found in Turkey by my professor Dr. Arthur Vööbus, who was world famous for all of his biblical manuscript discoveries.

I had even presented a scholarly paper at the Society of Biblical Literature in New York City where Old Testament scholars came up to me congratulating me on a great presentation.  Yet … why could I not locate a teaching position?  The answer:  God’s Path, Not Mine!

Doubts flooded my soul.  I took a job at a local 1100-bed Chicago hospital where my pastoral background allowed me to help angry patients/staff deal with high stress encounters, sometimes I had to physically separate patients from doctors to bring peace and resolution.  Every Friday I met with the hospital legal and risk management vice presidents to discuss the liability issues which had occurred in the prior week.   At one such meeting, one of the VP’s said, “Denny, you’re really good at this, why don’t you go to law school?”

I had two master’s degrees and had just finished four years of incredibly difficult study in northwest semitic philology, the last thing I wanted was more schooling.  I said, “No thanks” to which he said, “the hospital will pay 100% of your tuition” to which I said, “why not!”  What started was my journey down God’s Path, Not Mine!

I gave God every chance to push me off the road of becoming a lawyer!  Not really preparing for the law school admission test, not taking the courses seriously since I arrogantly viewed law school courses as unchallenging compared to my doctoral University of Chicago courses!  And when it came time after graduation to sit for the Illinois bar exam, well, I didn’t even sign up for it.  I went to the exam in hopes of a walk-on spot, and there was ONLY one such spot available. 

Weeks later I opened an envelope and learned that I had failed the Illinois bar exam.  I met  with one of the bar examiners for a review of my exam answers so I could learn how to pass it the next time.  The Illinois bar exam had two parts:  first, the multi-state multiple choice test which I had passed; and second, the essay test which I had failed by one point!  Each essay question had a perfect score of 10 points and the examiner laid my handwritten exam booklet on one side of the table in front of me while he placed a “perfect 10-point answer” for each question on the table so I could compare my answers to the perfect answers.  The perfect answers had been picked out of the 1000’s submitted for the exam.

After comparing my essay answers with a couple of the perfect answers I came upon something which blew my mind.  The handwriting on one “perfect 10-point answer” looked familiar!  My eyes flew back and forth between my answer and the perfect answer!  They were identical.    I hollered out and the examiner came into the room, “look here, this perfect answer is MY answer!”  He said, “Oh my goodness, this has never happened before!”  I asked him meekly, “Can’t you find it in your heart to give me one more point?”  He smiled, “No, but I am sure you will pass the bar exam the next time.”  Rather than give up and change direction, that encounter emboldened me, and I did indeed pass the bar exam the next time.  Confident that God wanted me to become a lawyer, today after almost 40 years of helping my clients seek justice, I savor God’s Path, Not Mine!

And The Merton Prayer has been my touchstone all of these years, since even when I “have no idea where I am going” I know that “God is ever with me.”  Even when we fail and get detoured from the path we are on, you and I both can gain great solace and comfort knowing with confidence God’s Path, Not Mine!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please use the contact tab and let me know!  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]