Dale Cresap's blog

Do you think listening is the same as not talking? But you can remain silent and ignore people. Isn’t it blatantly obvious when people are paying attention to you and when they are not? True listening is a very intensive and demanding activity. It requires full empathetic engagement, and identifying with the emotional content of the story you are hearing. Have you ever had anyone pay attention to you at this level? How did it feel? Most people have nothing more to offer than clouded or distracted presence.

Do you see the practice of your faith as a journey or a destination? Everyone uses the terminology of journey, but does the life you lead reflect this concept more than destination? You accepted certain premises when you first believed. Have you added to these? Have you added things and later reconsidered and let them go? Revelation is the process of revealing. Are you receiving revelation on a regular basis? This is living water and the bread of life that you need for nourishment even as you need food to sustain your body, because man does not live by bread alone.

Do you think that you are just making up the things that you imagine? When you express a concern to someone have you ever been told that you are just imagining it? This is a dismissive rather than an affirmative statement. Yet everything you do or make or say exists in your mind before it is a manifested reality. Can imagination be sanctified?  I promised that my sheep would hear my voice. How do you hear from me? Do you assume that every thought you have originates within you? Have you ever had thoughts that came to you that didn’t belong to the usual sequence of flow?

Do you like to go on adventures? Do you like to travel with a schedule of destinations and activities determined in advance? Do you think you can do both or is there an unavoidable conflict between these approaches? This is a valid question even if you don’t travel, for your life is subject to influences beyond your control. Would you like to know every step going forward? But this is not given to you and you could not bear it. Can you still have peace and contentment? Do you realize that you live a charmed life in an enchanted world?

Does your life seem frantic? Are you achieving your goals with the effort you put forth? Do your goals and achievements create eternal value? Have you ever been busy but not accomplished anything? Do you insist on value for the money you spend? You should. Do you realize that your time budget is even more rigidly enforced than your monetary budget? Time will pass one way or another, but time can be redeemed and turned into eternal value. It is a bargain to give what you cannot keep to gain what you cannot lose. Follow my advice to lay up for yourself treasure in heaven.

What is the essence of your faith? What are the distinctive features that you use to describe it to others? Do you emphasize the supernatural aspects of your faith? For you live in an era dominated by rationalism in which there is no respect for the supernatural. As a result believers are embarrassed by the supernatural aspects of their faith and diminish them. But what does that leave you with? Can you refute or even contend with rationalism on a purely rational basis? Can you articulate the supernatural distinctives of your faith and explain why they are essential to it?

Are you enthralled? How strongly do you support your team or your candidate in an election or the leader of your church? There is nothing wrong with having preferences and providing support for those you favor but you can do so without yielding your personal sovereignty or identity. False messiahs are always looking for disciples and are eager to exert undue influence and control over those willing to follow them. You are bought with a price and you are not your own, and it was I who paid that price. Do not willingly become the captive of any man.

Do you draw distinctions between yourself or your group and others to claim that your gender, nationality, profession, denomination, political candidate, or ideology are superior to others? In mathematics if two numbers are not equal then one is greater than the other. But this principle does not hold in other areas where there can be differences without superiority or inferiority. Look for my redemptive purpose outside of your own group and you will find it. What is the essence of your identity?

Have you heard the question posed about whether you see the glass as half full or half empty? This question is typically asked in a situation in which you get something you want but less than what you felt you deserved or were entitled to. So how do you respond? This depends on whether your life outlook is based on gratitude or entitlement. The illustration is invariably in terms of half full or half empty. What is it were ten percent full and ninety percent empty?

Do you live in the moment or do you take a long term view? How long is your time horizon? You refer to people who live in the moment as impulsive and you can see the problems with this. Do you take a long term view as a result? You can argue that your faith gives you an infinite time horizon but I also said to take no thought for tomorrow for tomorrow would take care of itself and sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof. So there are arguments for both sides and this dilemma cannot be resolved from the perspective of an independent existence.