STEP I

Know Your Own Story: Be a Witness

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

—Henry David Thoreau

To begin a spiritual journey requires strong intent, so I encourage those of you who want to begin to say, "I am loved by God, and there is nothing I can do to stop it." But in order to say that with conviction, it is important to know who you are as a person, and particularly who you are as a Christian person. So the first step begins by knowing yourself as intimately as possible.

Gloria came to see me as a referral from her physician. It is unusual for me to have a doctor refer a patient to me, but it did happen. The only detail you really need to know concerns one aspect of her spiritual journey. She had found Christ in a powerful personal experience, but her relationship with Christ was not a healthy one. For example, every morning she asked Jesus what clothes she should put on and what to have for breakfast. Sadly, she could not make any decision without being told what to do by Christ, or by anyone else for that matter.

In one of our sessions I leaned forward and moved within two feet of her, looked directly at her, and asked in a soft voice, "Who are you in there?" She answered with a whisper, "I am nothing." Then with increasing repetitions of the statement she said, "I am nothing, I am nothing, I am nothing," until the statement turned into a scream: "I ... am ... nothing!"

The key search of the Christian is to find out who he or she is for God's sake. Jesus' statements "I am the good shepherd" or "I am the light of the world" are characteristics of his identity and mission. He knew who he was and what his life was about.

This is the first step toward increased spiritual intelligence. The spiritually intelligent Christian has the ability to state what he or she believes about God, others, and self, including the ability to share with another the experience of one's own personal journey and its meaning.

So let us begin our journey. I ask you to explore your own understanding of what constitutes a spiritually intelligent person. Pause for a moment and let your mind think of a person in your church, family, or work whom you would identify as someone who has matured as a moment and let your mind think of a person in your church, family, or work whom you would identify as someone who has matured as a Christian. Make sure that you look across the age span. There are sixteen-year-old mature Christians and eighty-year-old immature Christians. What characteristics help you draw that conclusion?

In listening to the persons I interviewed, there was one characteristic that quickly became obvious. All of them had a wonderful story of their faith in God and could clearly articulate it to me. They were not ashamed of sharing with me or with others. This one competency is important. Here is why.

We are now one hundred generations away from when Christ was personally on our planet, given that each generation is about twenty years. Imagine, if you can, where your great-grandparents (100 times over) lived on this earth. Where did they live when Jesus was here? You did have relatives who were alive when Jesus lived his thirty-three years on earth. Now consider this: someone told someone at least one hundred times, once in each generation, about Jesus and God's love, or you would have never heard the good news of God's love. So it is imperative that we learn the skills of sharing our Christian faith with others.

Behaviors You Need to Skillfully Share Your Faith

I want you to be able to use each of the skills that will be presented in this book on a daily basis. Your faith story may be a simple statement of your own experience. Think about your story, and when you hear those of other persons, compliment them.

Recently, my wife and I were in a restaurant for lunch. At a table next to our booth were three women and two small children; I guess the children were about two years old. The children were well behaved, ate what was given to them, and paid attention to the adults. Two of the women were the mothers of the two children. I complimented them as I left, saying I appreciated how well behaved the kids had been. They smiled as if I had made their day. Sharing good news brings hope and help to those who receive it. Try it. Bring hope in every setting you can.

In order to act in affirming ways to another person, you have to become aware of your own self-affirmation—that is, how do you affirm yourself?

The next section of this chapter will give you some tools to use in recognizing that you are a person of worth in the heart of God, which will enable you to share that experience with others by both what you say and what you do.

Direct Expression of Feelings

Sharing your personal experience with another person requires that you are congruent. Congruency is the ability to give the same message with your words, tone of voice, and body language. To authentically share with another, these three things must be aligned with one another.

I sat with a woman in a spiritual direction session. She was sharing with me how God had helped her with a series of problems that were life threatening to her and her family. While telling me this story, which would have scared anyone who experienced it, she sat with a big, fixed grin on her face. The behavior was incongruent with the story she told me. I learned over the many sessions I spent with her that when she was a child she was not permitted to cry or show any sad emotion, so she created this smile to survive in the family setting. She was not allowed to directly express her emotions. They were suppressed. Now, when she goes to share her faith and personal experience with another person, her body tells one story and her words tell another. The result is that people are not quite sure what to believe. Do they believe the message of what her story is telling or the body language that accompanies it? My experience is that we believe a person from the body up. Namely, the body rarely lies because it is operated by the unconscious. Trust the body language and compare that with the rest of the message.

There is a powerful message in Dr. Patricia Cook's doctoral dissertation that illustrates both the use of religious language and how she learned to share her faith. Please be aware of the amount of religious language.

Within the first couple weeks [of Dr. Cook's ministry at her church], Patricia [referring to herself] began a preaching series entitled "What are we selling?" Not highly theological, this seemed to engage the congregation as an appropriate summer series, especially for a new pastor. The congregation heard the message, "If we're not selling...