Bob Hamp

Thinking Differently.  Thinking Different.  Thinking Differently

It seems like a small difference, but these phrases reflect much more than simply good or bad grammar.  The difference between the two is the difference between freedom and bondage.

An adjective (different) describes a person place or thing.  An adverb (differently) describes an action. To think different, implies a change in the content of our thoughts.  The action would be described this way.

“Don’t think this…think that”…“don’t wear this outfit…wear that one”

The implication is to change the content, information, or data in your mind.  A woman’s perogative, right?

To think differently implies a change in the way we think.  The action would be desribed this way.

“Open the eyes of my heart that I might see the power you have extended to me, in Your Son, Jesus”

Now, using the adverb instead of the adjective,  we are not trying to change the thoughts in our mind, rather, we are making an overall change in the way that thoughts get in, and what we do with them once they are in.  Hmmmm.

Certain kinds of thoughts can only enter in through certain ways of thinking. You cannot apprehend falling in love through objective reason and logical deduction.  You might be able to describe things that happen when you fall in love through those cognitive processes; but to actually experience it…well, cognition is simply not the channel upon which love is broadcast.  The irony is, that one who logically deducts the concepts of love may consider himself to know love.

Paul says that spiritual things are spiritually understood.  This means that the kinds of  things God is broadcasting may not be fully apprehended by observation, reason and deduction.  The irony is, that one who logically deducts things about God and theology may consider himself to know the things of God.

Jesus invites us to think differently when He says “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”  The word repent, literally means “to think differently…”.  Sadly we often hear this as Jesus admonishment to think different.  We hear this as if He wants us to change the content of our minds.  ”Stop stealing, start praying, stop cursing, start giving”.  Exchange the bad content for good content.  Change the Knowledge of Evil for the Knowledge of Good.   If we think different, the best we can hope for is that, once again, we can try harder.

If we think differently, it is as if we change the lenses over our eyes, and the filters over our ears.  If we see things differently, it is almost impossible to do things the same.  Hear Jesus words differently:

“Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand”…”Change the way you take in reality, because the realm of God, has come among men…”

Think differently. He is near.

The following excerpt from Think Differently Live Differently is a true story that launches us on our Journey to Freedom:

I can still see her face as she answered my question. The stress on her countenance faded into a faraway look as if she were in a trance. It seemed as though she had suddenly left on a vacation without moving from the chair in front of me. The lines around her eyes softened and the look of fear and frustration momentarily melted. Having mentally arrived at her new destination, she was ready to answer me.

I had been working as a juvenile probation officer for a few years. This, like many other meetings, took place in a moment of crisis. The strands of life this single mother had been holding together were unraveling fast and she viewed me as another agent of fear in her life. What would happen to her son? Would she lose him to long term detention or any one of multiple placement options? Like so many other parents, she came to my office swimming in a sea of competing emotions.

She had come to pick up her son who had stolen her car and run away from home. After a frantic period of waiting and searching, he had been located several states away – Florida, if I remember correctly. Out of gas and out of resources, he had left a trail of forged credit card receipts. After many attempts to fill up and drive-off, the boy had finally been picked up, claimed by his mom and returned to our small West Texas town. Now she was sitting in the sterile office, wondering what this probation officer was going to do and trying to figure out her next step. We had established the basic information about his age, family background and the nature of their relationship, but I was still curious – why Florida? Was her son running to family, friends, or even a girlfriend who had moved out of state? So I asked the question: “Ma’am,” I said, “why did he choose Florida? Is there someone there he knew?”

This was the question that had prompted the shift in her body language. Her eyes narrowed and looked as if she were scanning the horizon in my diminutive office. Her imagination departed on the journey, although part of her remained behind to answer me.  “Why Florida?” she repeated, “I wasn’t sure either until I went to pick him up. But the further I drove and the further Texas fell behind me, the more I began to understand.” She paused, eyes still distant, “We don’t know anyone there, and I am not even sure if he knew exactly where he was hoping to get to … but having driven the same way, I know exactly why he went.” She seemed to have reached that faraway destination as she summed up her explanation in a single word, laden with emotional significance to her.  As she uttered the word, it seemed weighty enough to reach beyond her and her son to include all of us.

“Freedom,” she answered. “He went for freedom. The further I traveled, it was as if I was leaving behind every care and every difficulty. The more I drove, the more I considered joining him, because life just seemed easier in front of me than it did behind me.”

Like her son, she had a picture of freedom in her mind. This picture, however inaccurate, would point her heart towards the pursuit of freedom. His picture had been so skewed that his greatest bid for release had actually resulted in the loss of all his freedoms.

Our brief conversation had already revealed that her life had been long and difficult. Many painful experiences had clouded her past and led up to this one. This day was another landmark – one more harsh and frightening experience. Even loving her son had become painful. And now here she was, putting one foot in front of the other with a hollow look in her eyes, and the only positive feelings she had were evoked by imagining a different life from the one she was living.

Yet, in the midst of all that weight, she had latched onto a universal dream. She knew something within her was crying out for something more. Yet that thing, whatever it was, seemed out of reach. No wonder life looked better in front of her than it did behind her. She ached for freedom.

Don’t we all?

Check the store tab to order your copy, or stop by Passages at Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas.

Introducing my new (and so far only) book, Think Differently Live Differently:  Keys to a Life of Freedom.  Check the Store Now.  Would love feedback.  Thanks for so many who have been a part in so many ways…here we go!!

I spend a lot of time with dissatisfied people.  It seems an odd way to spend my time, but if I didn’t do this I might be alone a lot.  Professionally, the dissatisfied seek me out.  Personally, I know few people who are truly content right where they are.  I mean those who seriously examine their lives and remain at peace with all that they see.

I am convinced one of the most elusive aspects of freedom, is the ability to be free when you are…not…quite…free…yet.  It sounds a bit contradictory, but in many peoples lives this is the thing that holds them back.

They are waiting for their breakthrough.  The moment life can finally begin as they have imagined it.  The golden ticket, the bailout, the promotion, or finally the recognition they have deserved all these years.  They are waiting for the One Thing that will finally make life work.

I wonder what it is?  This mechanism inside of us that keeps us waiting, not just waiting, pursuing.   This part of our heart that believes it will not be satisfied without the Elusive Thing.  Whatever name we might place on this mechanism in our souls, I am convinced it is not our friend.

I suppose that at it’s root, it is not such a bad thing.  We are made for more than we currently have.  The world we inhabit is only a shadow, or a poor imitation of the one for which we have been made and destined.  To be fully satisfied here and now may also be a trap.  It is the other side of this self-same trap that I am trying to describe.

You know…the part of you that insists, something that exists on this unsatisfying planet has the ability to finally and fully satisfy.  You become convinced that the new car, those last ten pounds, rock hard abs, or the latest The Rocket Summer CD is the final piece of the puzzle that will allow your soul to rest and be still.  (OK, given, the Rocket Summer CD kind of comes close…).

But to finally rest, we must at some point recognize that it is the lack of rest itself that keeps us unsettled, not the lack of the object of our pursuit.  Learning to balance the “we were  meant to live for so much more” with the “I can be content in all things” is a great leap into this life called Freedom.  If today, I am again denied that temporary desire, do I inwardly rage, or do I rest in the assurance that my Father who is in Heaven knows what I need, (and when I need it) and that He cares for me?

What I think we do not see with clarity, is that the unrest, the inward rage, is often the first step down some internal slippery slope of resentment, jealousy, fear, or even self-contempt. A downward slide that ultimately fuels a fire much hotter than just the wishing that I could have a (place object of desire here) . We come to equate the fact that our imagined breakthrough moment has not come with the idea that perhaps God has forgotten me, or worse, that He remembers but doesn’t care.

So today I desire.  I will desire fully.  John Eldredge says that desire is the central essence of our lives.  It is the internal mechanism that is designed to draw us magnetically back to our Creator.  It is the oft-hijacked mechanism that drives us toward various objects of desire.  Our desires are an essential, if not the essential element of being one who is created in the image of God.  I will not despise the fact that I desire.  But neither will I be mastered by it.

If today the object(s) of my desire remain out of reach I will also trust.  I will trust that the fact that I did not get my way, does not mean that God has been thwarted in His attempt to make me happy.  I will trust that today God intends to give me satisfaction today, through some means other than feeding the particular appetite I have today.

Today I will both desire deeply and trust fully.  I think if I do, I can be free right now!

The knowledge of good has done more to separate people from God than the knowledge of evil.  This is what Rick Joyner says in his amazing book, “There were Two Trees in the Garden”.  I couldn’t agree more.  The knowledge of evil is easily identifiable and therefore more easily resisted.  Ironically it is often the knowledge of good that we use to resist or avoid that other branch.

Perhaps even more seductive is that the knowledge of good “is pleasing to the eyes and appears desirable for gaining wisdom”.  The problem is that the knowledge of good appears…well…good. We always have to remember that  the distinction between the two trees is their source.  By it’s very nature the knowledge of good is initiated and completed solely from a human.  The tree of life originates from and returns to God Himself.  So even good that originates from man alone is good, but based on it’s root system it cannot create life.  You cannot fill an empty gas tank by siphoning it’s contents and returning them to the tank.  Emptiness is empty.

The more good we know, the more tempted we are to produce it on our own. Tending to this living conversation with God can be difficult.  He is demanding (meaning He will not settle for less than the very best for us). He is unpredictable (meaning His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways). He won’t leave us alone (meaning He is engaged even when we would prefer to disengage).  And the list could go on.  So think through a day with me.

We know God wants us to commune with Him, and certainly people in our lives expect a certain amount of Godly behavior from us.  So we wake up in the morning and it is tempting to produce a “quiet time”.  You know, some kind of structured time where we go through a variety of exercises which may or may not actually include communing with the Living God.  At least we can convince others (or perhaps ourselves) that we have done the good that God wants. It started with me (I knew I should do it, and it seemed desirable to produce wisdom) it was empowered by me (Will power wins again).  I learned some good knowledge (need I say more?) and it ends with me (I must now apply what I learned and have a better day…).  And herein lies the danger; I now begin my day believing I have “met with God” and so I go on as if my tank is full, when it may not be.  I’ve missed a chance to be real with God and acknowledge what I need from Him today.  The knowledge of good has successfully separated me from partaking of the more sustaining fruit from the tree of life.

Now I have a class to teach, a ministry to perform, a worship set to lead, and I apply all the good that I know.  I know that God wants me to do this, so I begin to produce some version of what I think He wants.  I call on all my knowledge of good, and organize things just the way God did it last time.  He ought to like that don’t you think?  He did last week!  In fact last week, He initiated it.

In many cases last weeks true experience can be this weeks knowledge of good.

Sometimes when our profession is ministry it practically screams at us to know good and produce a lot of it.  It starts with us, and it returns to us (”you did a really great job with that class”…”thanks”).  And of course we must help others learn to do the same.  So now “discipleship”  (another “good” thing that we should do) becomes us passing on to others our strategies for the good that we know to produce.  I’ve missed a chance to show others that God is interested in a real dialogue…not a repetition of one we have had before, but a fresh conversation between a Father and a son.

Perhaps one of the most deadly places that our knowledge of good separates us from God is in relationships. We see someone coming our way and evaluate who they are and what they may think of us.  Here comes the preacher, so we smile (the Joy of the Lord is our strength you know!) and tell him ” we are blessed”. (because we are supposed to be, so we dare not acknowledge if we are not) We smile and mask our pain with some piece of religious trivia, hoping our knowledge of good can get us through this exchange without our weaknesses being exposed.  We finish and walk away, already beginning to drop our knowledge of who we should be and lamenting who we believe we really are.  The tragedy is that we missed one more opportunity to really share who we really are with God and another potentially caring human being.

The face, the turn of phrase, the slightly too quick answer, that avoids really revealing my heart, all these are good things we learn to do because it is pleasing to the eye and seems desirable for gaining wisdom…and we miss out on the chance to drop all we know and simply be real...and receive life.  I hate that tree, I wish it didn’t taste so good.

“You’re not very religious, how did you end up that way?” he asked over a cheeseburger in Hong Kong.  It is a fascinating question to me, and partly because it means so many different things to so many different people.  The word “religious” has several meanings depending on who you hang with.  I knew exactly what he meant.  I took it as a compliment.

To many the word “religious” refers to one who observes the tenets of a given creed or religious system.  It can be neutral, simply an observation of one’s affiliation.

To most of the people that I run with,  the term “religious” refers to an attitude or a set of rigid dogmatic stances.  It is a clear negative and is usually used to describe people who fit the stereotype of the mean spirited, rigid conservative right-wing type person.

To me, the term “religious” refers to a mindset that allows people to focus on outward performance(s) rather than inward meaningful realities.  It is a term that emphasizes living by rules, and being defined by the expectations of others.  In my mind it is the equivalent of the Biblical concept of “the Law”.  The Law refers to mandates that provoke self-effort and conformity to rule-based living.  The opposite of this is living “by the Spirit” which means being moved by the impulse of God-in-you.

What I heard my friend say was, “you aren’t easily defined or predicted by stereotypes or cliches….” thanks David, that means  a lot to me.  In fact in my world this is a high and intentional value.  Words are  so fickle.  You send them out with one meaning and they, almost with a mind of their own, go and represent something else.  To communicate about life changing concepts and cosmic realities with words that repeat again and again seems to drain the juice out of the words. They mean less every time they go forth.

To me, being “not religious” means to stand and present ancient realities with fresh breath.  To talk about that which has been from the beginning and will be til the end, and use a phrase which has never been used before.  Being “not religious” means standing so much for the meaning of the words, the realities behind them, that the words become an irritant and an obstacle to be subdued.  Every religious word stands for more than the word can convey.  I wrestle with the communication everytime, not out of confusion or difficulty but out of a desire to beat the English language into submission until the meaning of the words surfaces on it’s own merit.

I have observed that some, in an attempt to be “not religious” simply settle for “irreverent”.  Being “not religious” can come across as irreverent,   because it challenges cliches and uproots long-standing assumptions.  If reverent means “holding in high regard the forms of religion”  than in many cases the attempt to push through the “you-have-heard-it-saids” of religion can seem irreverent to those who latch onto the symbols (words) more than their meanings.

Though refusing to settle for religion can come across as irreverent, not all irreverence equals not being religious.  Sometimes irreverence is just that…irreverence.  When our words devalue things that God values, or our conduct conveys that we see ourselves and others as less valuable than God sees them, we cease to revere the beautiful.

Being crass so as not to appear religious is not the same thing as avoiding the trap of dead words and traditions in order to lay ahold of real life.  Jesus said some shocking things, but His goal was never shock.  His goal was always to point to a larger and deeper truth than traditions and laws had allowed.

I hope I am not very religious, but I also hope that my attempts to avoid the forms of religion point us all toward the Greater Reality behind the forms and symbols of language and action.

Her bright eyes shone without apology. This was new for her. She told me about how she was learning and growing. She told me how her life was changing. She used to apologize after almost every sentence. Today her eye contact was steady, even confident.

“I’ve been through inner healing,” she said, “and I’ve been through deliverance, and neither one seemed to help me”.

These meaningful and helpful forms of ministry often help people break through the barriers in their lives. The breakthrough can in many cases be sudden and radical. In her case, she felt she had failed almost every form of help she knew. The apologies had been as much about her own sense of failing as they had been about feeling like everyone around her was constantly disappointed with her.

She had seen several counselors along with these other forms of ministry. She said all of them had said the same thing.

“You’re a runner,” they said, referring to her strategy for coping with painful circumstances. She had heard it again and again from trained professionals. Surely they must know. It was our conversation about this very idea that had begun to tear down the walls for her. She told me what she had come to embrace as true.

“I’m a runner,” she said one day, defiantly and with a touch of sadness.

“What if you’re not?” I said, “What if it’s just something you’ve learned to do when you’re afraid, but it’s not really who you are?”

She later told me that this was the moment she began to dismantle a wall which had been built over years of believing The Big Lie. She stopped. She asked herself the question. “Yeah, what if I’m not”.

This interruption in her well worn rut of cognition, prevented her from racing down a path which was deeply familiar. But more than simply stopping her, this interruption allowed her to envision and then follow a new path.

“If I’m not a runner, what might actually be true about me?” she pondered. “And if THAT is true, then how might I see and think and feel…?” With this new picture of herself she had dared to live out what she was seeing.

Sitting in front of me this day was the real her. The her who had decided she WAS NOT a runner. The her who had followed a new path because she paused on her way to the familiar. She paused and turned on a new pathway.

“All my counselors told me I was a runner, I have been through deliverance and inner healing, this time I wasn’t even trying to get free. This time I just started to….I started to…think differently.”

Now she was speaking my language.

Ruts in our thought processes can pull us into a pattern of thinking that we simply believe is “The Truth”. What if it’s not? What if that persistent thought backed up by years of experience isn’t really representative of the real you? What if you pause for a moment, consider an alternative and allow yourself to Think Differently?

Spiritual Leadership is a role like nothing else I know.  This role may or may not have anything to do with running a religious organization like a church or a ministry.  It is almost a contradiction in terms because leadership carries the connotation of going first, and the tag, “spiritual” carries the meaning of going last.  So what does one “do” if others consider them a spiritual leader.

Often we see leaders as those who stand out front and call the shots.  They give direction and in some cases directives.  Vision and strategy and those kind of things are the most common currency of leaders.  Are these also the marks of spiritual leaders?

Because the spiritual Kingdom we inhabit and promote is so contrary to the world system with which we are familiar, we need to consider carefully where leadership in one Kingdom diverges from leadership in the other.  If we look to Jesus as our prime example it may significantly undermine some of our thoughts about leadership.

A spiritual leader leads by being the first to go into the difficult places, and then, by simply being there, invites others to follow.  Places like the foot of the cross, where our weaknesses are our qualifications, and our failures are on display. Places like the recesses of our soul, where God is glorified by doing what a Redeemer and a Healer does best.  As a leader goes first into these places, he too can become familiar with sorrow and acquainted with grief like the One we follow.  As a leader goes first into these places others find the freedom to follow, knowing that they will find meaningful company in these places.

A spiritual leader helps others find their true identity and identification, rather than roles that serve some outward mission.  If the destination is helping others become who God created them to be, your strategy to accomplish this cannot be contrary to the stated goal.  Free people free people, and people under compulsion will find it difficult to reproduce anything but compulsory performance. Those who find their God connected self, cannot help but fulfill their God-given mission.

A spiritual leader must engage in the lives of those being lead.  Jesus Himself left the comforts of a distant realm and entered not only the land of humans but the body of one.  He did not leave Himself room to back out.  The Kingdom is not only within us, it is among us. Somewhere in the connection between us, and the ways we connect the Kingdom is manifested.  We have tasks to accomplish, but none of them can ever be more valuable than the people involved and the God-given identity that Jesus died for.

While a leader may at times have to make some hard calls, and give tough directives, having done so first in his or her own life gives them the right and the grace to do so in the lives of others. The hardest decisions and most difficult confrontations need to be those we allow God to speak into us as we lead.

Spiritual leadership….where are we taking those who follow?

She stood defiantly in the face of her past and shouted it down.  God had healed another heart.  One by one she named the moments of her past when darkness had tried to snuff out the life God intended for her.  The moments were big and dark.  Most of us have not lived through the things she lived through.  God was bigger, kinder and more powerful than all that the darkness had thrown at her, and she stood up to proclaim it to everyone in the room.

God had visited this room full of leaders in a tangible way.  Something about when we turn our minds and our hearts toward Him seems to invite His presence and He had come like mist into the room.  You could feel the shift.  We were discussing His Nature and His Love.  We were declaring His Power.  He seemed to like that because He came to show us.  And when He did He climbed inside this woman’s heart and burned out from her years of rejection, shame fear and loneliness.  Then she stood to declare it.

The force of her words seemed to move the air in the room like thunder.  She spoke a language I did not understand, but the look on her face and movement of her heart transcended things like words.   She would name an incident and then climb victoriously on top of it.  Moment by moment by moment, the trauma of her life bowed to God’s Breath and her reception of it.  With each declaration He seemed to increase His presence through her and among us.  We were on Holy Ground.  She was in Holy Hands.

When she finished casting down this life time of trauma, she began to express what He was doing in her.  Rejection became ultimate Acceptance.  Shame became Love.  Pain became Joy and darkness became Light.  The same God who had created the cosmos with His voice was speaking to her and through her.  And as He did He was creating again.  We watched in wonder.

He said to her, “I will never leave you or forsake you”.  She believed Him.  So did we.  It changed me, and I will never forget what I saw.