{"id":1167,"date":"2013-11-01T08:18:49","date_gmt":"2013-11-01T08:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/?p=1167"},"modified":"2016-09-02T22:59:25","modified_gmt":"2016-09-02T22:59:25","slug":"mind-the-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/sole-significance\/mind-the-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Mind the Gap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever wrestled with the way you wished things were and the\u00a0way they actually are?\u00a0 If you are like me, there is a tendency to go one of two ways: get cynical and wash my hands of it all or to the other extreme where I bury my head in the proverbial sand and live in the land of\u00a0 \u2018if only\u2019.\u00a0 Regardless, both are disengaged from the real world.\u00a0 You know… the place where you and others\u00a0live. \u00a0Where real life happens!\u00a0 But is there another way through? Yes!<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some years ago I was in London, England on a layover on my way to Kenya, Africa.\u00a0\u00a0 Having 12 hours to spare before the second leg of my journey,\u00a0 I took full advantage, and I set off to explore the historic city.\u00a0\u00a0 Visiting as many of the sites as I could, I had an opportunity to use the famed \u201cTube\u201d.\u00a0 We call them subways – underground trains that move people quickly around the city.\u00a0\u00a0 It was there I began seeing some peculiar signs telling me to \u201cMind the Gap\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 I discovered to \u2018Mind the Gap\u2019 was to be aware of the gap between the subway platform and the subway car when boarding, keeping one from getting a toe or heal caught in the gap and causing a stumble.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Over time, \u201cMind the Gap\u201d came to represent the gap between what I say I believe and how I actually behave;\u00a0the space between the way things are and the way I would like them to be. \u00a0 Apostle Paul would lament of this gap as well when he wrote: “Why do I do the things I don’t want to and not the things I want to?” \u00a0Similarly, Parker Palmer of the Centre for Courage and Renewal coined a phrase the \u201cTragic Gap<\/strong>\u201d. The tragic gaps speak of the gap between the world the way it is and\u00a0how it could be.\u00a0\u00a0 For example; we want to be loved and accepted for who we really are but we are fearful of being rejected, so we live from behind masks.\u00a0We long to be a good parent and ‘be there’ for\u00a0our children in a greater way\u00a0but the realities of a career, paying the mortgage and everything else it just seems like we just can’t in the way we wished we could.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Learning to live in the tension between two seemingly contradictory places is an art. The harsh realities of the world and even our inner world –\u00a0 if we let it, can make us very cynical, overwhelmed and discourage us from even trying.\u00a0Conversely, we can hit the other ditch\u00a0where we are so idealistic that we become totally irrelevant and unrealistic.\u00a0\u00a0 Such idealism takes us to the loftiness of abstractness and never lands upon terra-firma<\/em> in a way that is meaningful.\u00a0\u00a0We simply avoid the realities by living far beyond it in a spiritual or philosophical\u00a0fantasy world. Pick your ditch; both\u00a0inhibit\u00a0your ability to live authentically and be change agents.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So how do we live in the gap without\u00a0becoming cynical, or floating off into irrelevancy of abstract idealism?<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We return to Paul when he answers his own lament when he writes “The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.” (Roman 7:25 Message) \u00a0God himself becomes the personification of love itself in Jesus. \u00a0This is good news! \u00a0This personification of love takes love from a lofty idea and emotion and makes it very concrete in the person of Christ. \u00a0A love that meets us all where we are at, in the middle of the mess that life sometimes is. \u00a0A\u00a0love\u00a0more than capable of rescuing us, of healing us and transforming us. \u00a0A love that has overcome fear, sin, and death.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this\u00a0love, we are safe to learn to live creatively in the tension of what is and what\u00a0could be.\u00a0Walking in this tension in healthy ways requires much grace and a great deal of creativity.\u00a0 It is a place of grace where we accept people (and ourselves) and situations as they are, and believe they capable of growth, maturity, and change for the better.\u00a0 It understands that for our part in it, we are empowered agents of change who by tangible, deliberate love can affect change in situations, relationships and in ourselves.\u00a0 We, by grace, become the change we wish to see*\u00a0 grounded in the concrete of the real world and inspired forward\u00a0by the\u00a0hope of perfect love.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How does this happen?<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n

First patience, and accept there will be heartbreak.\u00a0 I am not talking about the destructive heartbreak that shatters and scatters our hearts, rather the kind of heartbreak which breaks open the hard areas of our hearts thereby increasing our capacity to live\u00a0loved and live love.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This produces several benefits:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  • Our capacity for love increases which will change us, heal us and positively affect those around us.<\/span><\/li>\n
  • It cultivates\u00a0grace and compassion for others, even those we don\u2019t like.<\/span><\/li>\n
  • It heals us from the need to blame or fix others.<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Produces a great sense of the peace, to experience rest.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    \u00a0While we may feel under-resourced at times, we trust God is at work and what\u00a0we do have is enough for where we are at right now. \u00a0I am convinced that whenever we offer ourselves: our presence, gifts, talents, desires, as an act of love, God often takes these, as meager and as insignificant as they may appear and, in turn, does what only God can do!\u00a0 Love never returns empty!\u00a0 Love always has a life-giving impact.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Practical steps to living life in the gap:<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n

    \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n
    • \u00a0Be honest about how you want things to be.<\/span><\/li>\n
    • \u00a0Be honest about how things really are and your role, responsibility, and influence in it.<\/span><\/li>\n
    • \u00a0Ask yourself in what ways you can live genuinely between those two places in your life today?\u00a0 What choices and actions (that are consistent with love)\u00a0can you make to inspire greater life within the gap?<\/span><\/li>\n
    • \u00a0Ask God for grace, wisdom and courage and step out and become the change you wish to see.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      ___________________<\/span><\/p>\n

      * – Gandhi<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Have you ever wrestled with the way you wished things were and the\u00a0way they actually are?\u00a0 If you are like me, there is a tendency to go one of two ways: get cynical and wash my hands of it all or to the other extreme where I bury my head in the proverbial sand and…","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[90,276,363,526],"class_list":["post-1167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sole-significance","tag-change","tag-idealism","tag-maturity","tag-truth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}