Category: Loser

Claiming “Christ Alone” from the bottom of the stupid ditch

Published by Daniel on May 14, 2023

There’s a funny video going around social media showing a boy pulling a sheep out of a tight ditch. When the boy finally frees the sheep, the sheep excitedly bounds away and, possessing the average intelligence of a sheep, leaps into the same ditch. Often the caption is attached: “Some days when Jesus shepherds me.”

I am having one of those moments.

The last couple of weeks have not been my most stellar. I have not felt on my “A” game. In fact, I have felt I urge to be relegated back to the Peewee League of life.

Many nights, I have laid in bed this week, staring up at the ceiling and thinking, “I am a grown man. How did I miss this?”

I couldn’t even ask what I was thinking because clearly I wasn’t thinking.

What has been the most frustrating part was that I did nothing rebellious or intentional, just—well—stupid.

I have felt like the more I try to focus, the more thoughtless I have become. The more fires I try to put out, the more fires are started by my own hand.

If I was in the Bible, I would have been Uzzah walking alongside the ark of the covenant on its return to Jerusalem. I see it tip, reach out my hand to steady it, then–zap–I am remembered for my thoughtless blunder for all eternity.

That’s the kind week its been.

We all have times like this. Some of us have no trouble making amends, rectifying the mistake(s), and moving on.

Unfortunately, even after successfully doing the first two steps, I often have trouble with the last part–“moving on.” My tendency is instead to make sure I take ample opportunity to beat the crap out of myself for committing such a faux pax in the first place.

How could I let [insert latest faux pax here] happen? I question my abilities and even doubt my calling. I demand to know how I could be so stupid, or how I neglected to catch something so obvious.

Then I spiral.

Into full-blown depression.

It’s kind of the way I am wired.

This morning, I shuffled into church when I clearly would have rather crawled under a rock. A cloud of self-condemnation hung over my head. Up to the point of actually entering the church, I entertained the thought of not even going this morning and just taking a drive to anywhere but here.

I crept in after the service started and found the furthest corner to sulk in.

I was pretty sure this would be a waste of time. I avoided eye contact as best I could. I didn’t want to worship today. I didn’t want to hear from God. I just wanted to beat myself up.

My attitude was sour. My filters were down.

Then Jesus pushed himself in.

It came through the second worship song:

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly trust in Jesus’ name[1]

These words derailed my self-loathing. For the last several days, my entire focus has been on me: my stupid mistakes, my shortcomings, my self-pity. In other words, the more I condemned myself for my stupid mistakes, the more I removed my focus from the Shepherd.

Of course I am going to be depressed.

The first line of this song, however, tore my focus from self and back onto Jesus.

Jesus alone has to be our source of hope. I have to place my hope in him and not in my performance and accomplishments.

Christ alone, Cornerstone
Weak made strong in the Saviour’s love
Through the storm, He is Lord
Lord of all.

Christ alone.

It’s an easy claim to make when life is rosy and lush.

However, it is another thing when you’re uttering those words ensconced head-first in the bottom of a ditch.

Through the storm. Lord of all.

I think when we beat ourselves up over our mistakes, bad decisions, and just plain carelessness, we are implying that life is not about Jesus but about ourselves. The world is all about me — my successes, my failures, my achievements, and my mistakes. Truthfully, though, the one who benefits the most from this kind of self-condemnation is the enemy.

Instead, Jesus sticks his head into the ditch next to my stuck body, says, “I got ya,” before pulling me out by the leg.

The truth is, I am likely going to wind up in that ditch again. I wish I could say otherwise. But that’s what it means to be human.

However, real discipleship occurs not by boasting how we can avoid the ditch but by how we can utter the words “Christ alone” while head-first within it.

Whether it’s the first time we’re there or when we stupidly find ourselves there again.

[1] “Cornerstone,” Hillsong Worship

The latest in Christian reading

Leave a Comment

Fifteen years later – a new perspective of when my life imploded

Published by Daniel on March 19, 2023

It’s been just over fifteen years since my life imploded, sending me into an unexpected and dark trajectory.

Fifteen years.

February 17, 2008, in the British Midlands, I walked out of an academic office after an hour of two examiners thrashing my thesis to a pulp.

My supervisor was confident of success. After all, of his 150 previous postgraduates that he supervised, only one had been rejected.

I was number two.

I so vividly remember the numbness and fog walking off that campus for the last time.

My wife had been planning a big celebration the day after I returned home. I remember the pain of calling my —the middle of the night back home—to tell her it didn’t go well.

So much time wasted—years, money, effort—up in smoke.

I haven’t looked at my thesis since. Honestly, I don’t even know where it currently is. Perhaps it didn’t make it with our move from Oregon to Montana, so it very could be rotting in a dump somewhere.

The ultimate objective of a postgraduate degree is to show the world that you are the expert in your respective field of study.

My dream was to settle into a comfy college setting and travel the world, armed with my expertise, and teach.

That dream couldn’t have suffered a more painful death.

The fall from potential academic to loser is a hard fall.

It sent me into arguably the darkest time in my life, a darkness that would last nearly ten years.

This darkness fluctuated between two grievances: why would God provide everything to lead me to pursue this degree in England only to rip it away? And how could God pull such a cruel bait-and-switch?

Many walk away from God as a result of these questions.

Thankfully, I never did.

I honestly thought I would not receive an answer this side of heaven. I will just have to live with this failure as I coast to the grave.

Now, fast-forward fifteen years.

A decade and a half.

From the perspective of time, can I see why God sent me on such a painful trajectory?
Strangely enough, I think I am beginning to see.

Ironically, I spent seven years right after that fall teaching in a college as an adjunct professor—a fun and wonderful experience.

But that’s not the reason.

Likewise, my book Losers Like Us was published by David C. Cook in 2014. Instead of an academic thesis sitting on a remote shelf in an the dusty basement of an academic library never to be seen again, I wrote a book that has sold thousands of copies, which might not be a big deal against best-selling authors, but to an obscure nobody, I’ll take it.

However, I don’t think that is the reason either.

Instead, I am beginning to see that God might have actually saved me from a life in post-secondary academia.

Over the last ten years, public education has been a dumpster fire.

Colleges have seen a dramatic decline in enrollment in the last several years. And, in an incredible lack of self-awareness, experts insist the decline had to do with Covid or the ridiculously high cost of getting a degree that often has no value.

Perhaps that has something to do with it. However, I am willing to bet the pathological sanitizing of and indoctrination in education is more likely the culprit.

It is more likely that parents and high school grades are seeing a higher education is worthless. Colleges have become bastions of lower standards at a higher costs.

These institutions no longer teach critical thinking, but rather indoctrination and Orwellian language games, such as using preferred pronouns or calling women birthing persons. The DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) administrator seems to have become the most powerful person on campus, requiring diversity seminars and even promoting punishments outcomes that could cost an individual his or her career. In addition, the standards for college admission have falling to the level of the mere detection of a pulse.

More and more, I realized that I would never want to be a part of that. I more than likely wouldn’t last a semester in academia. I would be crushed before my career began. I couldn’t or wouldn’t play the game required of me, where the goal-posts are moved, the rules are changed by the players, and justice is arbitrary and without due process. It’s not in me.

Currently, I am finishing my fifth year as a high school teacher at a Christian school in Montana’s capital city. I am surrounded by a wonderful community of faculty and administrators. I absolutely love the people I work with. Further, I live in a peaceful, rural neighborhood on a dirt road. People aren’t as stressed as they are in the big city.

Even during the most stressful times typical of education and life, I feel content.

I truly don’t think I would have what I currently have were it not for God tearing a Ph. D away from me.

This realization doesn’t answer all the questions about the events fifteen years ago, such as why he sent me to England to pursue the degree in the first place.

But I feel God has given me the best of both worlds: I get to teach which I was created to do, yet he also saved me from working in higher education which would have led me to burnout.

Of course, I am completely aware that there are Christ-followers who are called to and can navigate the academic clown show and be quite successful. God bless them. I pray for them always.

I, however, realized I am not one of them.

God knew that in 2008.

It was I who had to come to that conclusion in 2023.

2 Comments

Nine years later, the pain remains, but God is still good

Published by Daniel on February 20, 2017

Today marks one of the two worse days of my life. Nine years ago this morning, in a span of one hour, my postgraduate dreams and career in academia evaporated and my life cartwheeled into a world that was–and somewhat remains–unclear, unknown, and undefined.

This was the day I sat across from my doctoral examiners and was told in no uncertain terms how much they hated my dissertation. I remember vividly the final walk of humiliation–barely able to breathe–down the path and out of the university, the phone call home telling my wife it didn’t go well, and the day I left England for the last time only to return to word weeks later that a contract for a job I loved would not be renewed.

The first couple of years were the darkest. I was numb, lost, and filled with self-loathing. I couldn’t sleep, my blood pressure skyrocketed, and my whole body ached. I had frequent anxiety attacks. Yes, there were times I prayed that my heart would mercifully stop beating or that my brakes would fail just before my car slammed into a retaining wall. As time crept on, I started writing, saw a counselor, and tried to somehow move on from the complete mess that had become my life.

Nine years later, with a book published and hopefully at least another couple to follow, I have gained some perspective. Time doesn’t heal, but it can serve as a buffer. This year, however, the emotions flooded back with more intensity. This ninth anniversary is the first I had to face at the age of 50. I still wonder what God is doing with my life. And I certainly don’t have a career or a ministry at this point that would carry my wife and I into retirement (which seems ominously closer at 50 than it does at 49). In many ways, my life’s trajectory remains uncertain.

As of now, writing is the only thing I have got. I am so thankful for the publication of Losers Like Us (from a real life publisher no less)–that truly was a miracle. And I truly am thankful for every sale to this day. But rarely does writing make a sustaining career. It offers no guarantees. Yet it remains the only path God has shown me.

The future continues to look uncertain. Not bleak, just uncertain. I would be lying if I said I have not grown weary of the uncertainty. I truly wish God would reveal his plans even just a little. But God is not obligated to fulfill my wishes like a genie freed from a lamp. He is a big God. And he is good.

Like a single candle flickering in the darkness a thousand feet a way, I have hope. I hope that my life has clarity even though I myself might not see it, that we will be somehow taken care of as the days march on, and that my wife’s sacrifices caused by her husband’s chaotic life will be honored.

Nine years after the horrible day in England, I can say I have hope in this big, good God.

But I still feel the pain.

As good as God is, I will always feel the pain.

2002, my first visit to the British University for my postgraduate studies.

Leave a Comment

Giving the devil his due: the art of the lie

Published by Daniel on April 21, 2016

As I stood at the top of the staircase in the academic building at my august British university, the voices began: “Failure. Flunkie. Flop.”

I had just experienced what was, and remains, the most awkward, humiliating moment of my life. In the final hour of my seven years of effort, my two oral examiners had just rejected my PhD work. After hearing the news, I had to stand up in front of them, cram my useless 400-page paper into my briefcase, and exit the room in heavy silence. One of them had simply stared at me without expression; the other never made eye contact.

Classes were letting out, and the atrium below bustled with throngs of students, chattering and laughing. Their journey of chasing their dreams was just coming to birth, whereas mine had just died.

Carefully I descended the stairs—ashen, weak, almost too stunned to breathe—out of the building, down the path, and through the front gate, never to set foot on that campus again.

And the voices followed me: “Screwup. Moron. Misfit.”

I flew home to my dream job as a Christian high school teacher and soon learned that, for reasons I still do not know, my contract would not be renewed. So – on the last day of school there – I exited in shame from that campus too, never to return again.

And the voices continued: “Worthless. Washout. Idiot.”

Those voices would continue in my head for many years after that disastrous winter of 2008. I heard them in the quiet of solitude, whenever I was alone. I heard them in the dark while falling asleep, and again upon waking in the night. I heard them in the shower and while walking the dogs. And I heard them in waiting areas before job interviews. (Interviewer: “What would you bring to this organization?” Me: “I don’t know…a pulse?”)

I was so devastated by my losses that I figured there must be some truth to these voices. They became extremely hard to ignore.

Further, I truly believed (and still believe) that God had led me to that PhD program and that dream job, both of which began well but ended in disaster. And for a long time afterward, this belief led to even more accusations: “God tricked you; he led you into a trap. You have a right to be bitter toward the university, your advisors, your examiners, your boss, and even your God. Go ahead, curse them.” In an odd way, I am grateful that I was too numb, too paralyzed to act on those voices. But I still had to hear them.

Since that painful year, and the death of my life dreams, I continue to get questions from caring people who can’t understand why it all happened, but they try. The most frequent theory is that Satan caused me to fail because he was threatened by what I might have accomplished If I had succeeded.

Yet to me this explanation doesn’t wash, because it makes God and Satan sound almost like equals. You know, thrust and parry: God tries to advance his plans, and Satan counters to thwart them. Superhero vs. arch-villain. But this view gives too much credit to Satan, and far too little to God.

True, Scripture teaches that Satan is very real and powerful, and that he “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (I Peter 5:8, NIV). But it also teaches that God alone is almighty, and Satan is simply one of God’s created beings. He can only do what God allows; he is not capable of creating obstacles or countermeasures which can successfully thwart God’s will.

In fact, Satan is not nearly powerful enough to do most of what we attribute to him. Even the trials of Job are credited not to Satan but to human attackers (vv. 14-15, 17) and freakish acts of nature (vv. 16, 18-19) – except for the trial of painful sores, with which Job is “afflicted” by Satan (Job 2:7, NIV). Still, Scripture consistently teaches that Satan’s power is limited, both in scope and in nature, and that even the limited power he does have is further limited by what God allows.

But Satan does not need to have power over circumstances to stop us. Instead, his weapon is words. Everyone takes a beanball to the head now and then, and Satan doesn’t necessarily throw the ball; he just messes with our minds after it happens. In fact, the primary power attributed to him in the Bible is the power to deceive. Jesus calls him “the father of lies” (John 8:44, NIV). His first words in Genesis are a lie: “You will not certainly die…” (Genesis 3:4, NIV).

And when he goes out roaming around, “looking for someone to devour,” his roar is dressed as a whisper.

He whispers to a lonely spouse, “Have an affair – what’s the harm?” He whispers to a depressed elder, “Go ahead, swallow the pills; everyone will be better off.” He whispers to a bullied teen, “Kill them all – they deserve it!”

He coaxes unsuspecting people to do his dirty work for him, causing waste and destruction in our own lives and in the lives of others.

And he whispers to all of us:

“Guilty.”

“Garbage.”

“Waste of oxygen.”

Which brings me back to the words in my own head: “Stupid. Nobody. LOSER.” When I was smashed into the canvas by a series of deadly blows to the head, Satan did not deliver the blows. No, instead he was the one kneeling over me, sneering, “Stay down, you piece of trash.”

His attacks were—are—just words. Powerful, persuasive words.

For me, sometimes those words were almost persuasive enough to make me slam my car into a retaining wall on some desolate highway.

But lies are just that: lies. They are not truth. And truth is the greatest defense against them.

So if Satan’s weapon is lying, and he’s very skilled at it, how do we win against it?

As with everything else, Jesus shows us how.

After Jesus fasts and prays for forty days in the wilderness, Satan comes to him (Matthew 4:1-11) – but again, not as a peer, like a strong villain overcoming Superman with kryptonite. No, Jesus is God, and Satan can’t match him head-to-head. So, true to form, Satan fights him with lies alone.

And Jesus responds not with lightning bolts or heavenly armies, but simply with truth. Of course, it helps that Jesus is truth (John 14:6). But that same Jesus – the Word of truth – lives in us as we are guided, counseled, and comforted by the Holy Spirit. So we have direct access to God’s pure truth.

The key is listening through the din of lies to find that truth, which is often much quieter – like the still, small voice heard by Elijah (I Kings 19:11). And learning to hear it usually happens over time.

When I was nearly overcome by Satan’s deceptions, even in my numbness I had the presence of mind to surround myself with truth. While I did almost everything I could to withdraw from the world, I also joined a home community – a small group of believers who shared their own brokenness and stepped into mine. I went to church. I read scripture. And I started to write. As I typed Satan’s lies and saw them onscreen, their falseness was exposed in the light of truth.

The truth of redemption is woven throughout the entire Bible story, which shows ordinary, broken, sinful people being loved, rescued, and used by God. As I studied how gently and persistently he worked with them, I began to trust that he is constantly doing the same with me.

So, over time, I am being rescued from lies by Christ Jesus, who himself is the truth (John 14:6), the Word of God (John 1:1). This Word created me, loves me, and came not to condemn me but to save me (John 3:17).

Gradually, over a period of years, he is giving me new words. Words of truth.

I hear the words: “Failure. Flunkie. Flop.” But God’s Word says: “Failure isn’t the end; I have a future for you” (Jeremiah 29:11).

I hear the words: “Screwup. Moron. Misfit” and “Worthless. Washout. Idiot.” But God’s Word says: “My grace covers every misstep, every sin” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

I hear the words: “Guilty. Garbage. Waste of oxygen.” But God’s Word says: “I love you, and I died to forgive you and bring your life meaning” (Romans 5:8).

And finally, I hear the words: “Stupid. Nobody. LOSER.” But God’s Word says: “Precious. Beloved. Child of God!”

This truth is life-changing. And we are not meant to experience it in parsimonious sips, like wine-tasters. We’re meant to dive into it, bathe in it, gorge on it—fully baptised in it, heart and soul.

Satan’s power is the power of lies. And our weapon against him is truth.

In truth, one heals.

In truth, lies are silenced.

In truth, Satan is defeated.

Leave a Comment

Is Daniel an exception to the “loser” rule?

Published by Daniel on October 19, 2015

It was a great question from someone on Facebook.

In my book, Losers Like Us, I illustrated how – excluding Jesus – everyone in the Bible had faults and sins just like ours, and therefore they were all losers like us.

Then came that Facebook question: What about Daniel? Was he an exception?

I had to think about that one.

The book of Daniel is set during Israel’s captivity in Babylon (in the 500s BC)—yet it mentions elements of Greek culture which did not exist at that time, and it is written partly in Hebrew and partly in Aramaic (a later language). For these and other reasons, many scholars believe that someone else wrote Daniel’s story long after his death, just as Moses wrote the patriarchs’ stories long after their deaths. Also, some scholars believe Daniel was not a real person and the book of Daniel is just an allegory which was written to encourage the Jews, perhaps during the oppressive reign of Antiochus Epiphanes IV (about 165 BC).

I can’t say exactly when or by whom the book was written, but I do believe Daniel was a real person because Jesus calls him “the prophet Daniel” (Matthew 24:15).

From the beginning, Scripture presents Daniel as a man of great character, and never accuses him of a single flaw. As a captive in Babylon, he walks a fine line: with great humility he submits to his captors, yet with great courage he refuses to obey their pagan demands. When Darius, the Babylonian king, decrees that those who pray to anyone other than him will be fed to the lions (Daniel 6:7-9), Daniel continues praying to Yahweh every day, in front of his window, just as he always has (a respectful “neener neener”). His trust in God is complete. And when he is thrown to the lions, God shuts their mouths (Daniel 6:22) to save his life.

With a bio like that, it’s hard to find fault with Daniel. So the question about whether he still qualifies as a loser gave me pause.

Yet I conclude that, yes, Daniel was a loser. I say this not because I feel superior to, or critical of, Daniel – but because he was human, and therefore a loser in the sense of being a sinner. Thus he is not an exception to the rule.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog (2015/06/17), “Can we be sinners but not losers?”, only Jesus lived a sinless life; all the rest of us, including Daniel, have been sinners and therefore losers. And as long as we live on this earth, sin is with us even though we have received grace and salvation (I John 1:5-10).

But there is another, more personal indication that Daniel was a sinner / loser: his response to the presence of holiness.

In Daniel 10, a man appears before Daniel. But this is no ordinary man. This man is ablaze with fire, shining like polished brass or bronze (v. 5)—just like the man seen by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:27) and John (Revelation 1:13-17). John identifies this man as the risen Christ (Revelation 1:11, 13, 17).

Yet Daniel, Ezekiel, and John all respond to this man in the same way: they fall to the ground (Dan. 10:9, Ezekiel 1:28, Rev. 1:17).

Why?

Because unholiness cannot coexist with holiness – just as darkness cannot coexist with light. In the presence of God’s perfect holiness, I believe Daniel falls to the ground because of his own sins and impurities, even though they are not specified by name.

Yet Daniel lived a life full of faith and power, whether he was defying a maniacal king or facing down a den of hungry lions. He was both a sinner and a saint—at the same time.

All of us, including Daniel, are sinners and therefore losers. Only when we acknowledge our guilt and brokenness can we begin to understand the healing power and significance of grace.

As the life of Daniel shows us, following Jesus is not about totally conquering all imperfection, all of the time; instead, it is about surrendering our imperfection to God, while he builds his kingdom in the middle of it.

Leave a Comment