Good sentences give you fodder for contemplation. I’ve come to adore the writing of Cormac McCarthy this past year. Right now I’m reading “All the Pretty Horses” and I want to share a sentence from that book. The Context John Grady and his pal, Rawlins, were preparing to sleep under the stars after a long day breaking wild horses. Oh, also, earlier that morning, John Grady had his first encounter…
Everyone Has a System
The True Story Behind: DEALER WINS You wanna know how I kept my hundred-dollar bills so crisp and flat? I’d take five or six bills and place them in the pages of a Bible commentary, then stack other commentaries on top: Romans on top of Matthew, on top of John, on top of Exodus, and…
The God Machine
The humming noise seems to originate from behind a set of steel, gray double-doors. A sign on each door says AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY: DO NOT ENTER. But they left the door unlocked and, after a quick scan of the room—for surveillance systems or supervising eyes—I press the release bar and open the door. No alarm…
I Saw the Biggest Spider Ever in Peru and My Pants Were Down
In 2008, if you wanted to get to Machu Picchu, you had to take a long, blue train that rolled slowly through Peru’s jungle and mountains. The train stopped several times along the way so riders could refresh, and maybe shop, at little shanty markets, with buildings made of concrete blocks, plywood, and thatch roofs.…
Now Available!
Confident Humility:
Becoming Your Full Self Without Becoming Full Of Yourself
"In the spirit of Dallas Willard... Dan addresses one of the most persistent problems that Christians face: Why does our faith in God’s transforming love transform us so little?”
-From the foreword by Greg Boyd, author of Letters From a Skeptic
Almost all self-help books emerge from one of two flawed views of the self, and these mutually exclusive ditches are destructive. The Ditch of Smallness says that people are fundamentally bad and that humanity's greatest spiritual threat is pride. The Ditch of Bigness says the exact opposite: people are fundamentally good, and shame is our greatest danger.
Dan Kent presents a third view, a road between the ditches. He shows how the humility Jesus revealed offers the most accurate and freeing view of the self. Whereas shame and arrogance are dysfunction steroids (making our depression darker, our anxiety tighter, our addictions stickier, and so forth), humility, as Jesus teaches it, counteracts both shame and pride, thereby subverting two major psychological forces that thwart us.
Once we embrace this new way of seeing ourselves--how Jesus sees us--we begin to relate to ourselves, to others, and to the world around us in a way that allows us to overcome a whole host of vices and self-sabotaging behaviors. Furthermore, whereas the ditches both lead to powerlessness and passivity, humility as Jesus teaches it is empowering, fosters proactivity, and serves as a scaffold for true confidence.
Confident Humilty Learning Tools:
The End of the Charade
At the heart of Christian unity sits a lifestyle of confession. We cannot connect with one another meaningfully if we are pretending to be someone we are not. Dan Kent shows us what biblical confession is, what it is not, and then points us toward practical steps to move into honest confession.
Disarming the Algorithm
How do we experience the reality of being God’s family in practical ways? This question is especially crucial in a world that promotes judgment, division and isolation. Dan Kent addresses this by highlighting the instruction to “bear with each other.” Living in love does not mean only embracing those who are easy to love. Real love calls us to embrace those who require patient endurance. In this way, we reflect the love of the cross.
Learning to Love the Church
Dan Kent draws our attention to the words “my people” in Revelation 18:4. When we enter relationship with the Father through Jesus, we are also entering into a collective which is traditionally called the Church. Dan identifies two obstacles to loving the church. The first is hypocrisy. The second obstacle to loving the church is diversity that results in division. Dan provides some ways to address these two obstacles in a direct way. However, there is more going on beneath the surface. Dan then guides us to think deeper about what is driving these obstacles.
Study Guides
Daniel Kent (@thatdankent) was born to a 14 year old mother in the humorless tundra of Northern Minnesota. He went to college to figure out if God exists and taught his first college course when he was 25. He wrote his first novel when he was 12 (a nature adventure story, hand-written on 20 sheets of loose-leaf paper and sent off to New York for publication. Unfortunately, the publishing company was "not considering material of this type at this time").
Due to a chronic tendency to underestimate the difficulty of a task, combined with a spirit of stubborn determination, Daniel decided to learn programming. Realizing he was a lousy programmer, he returned to his love of writing. His first book ("The Training of KX12") has been a surprise hit. In 2019, Fortress Press published his best-selling book: Confident Humility: Becoming Your Full Self Without Becoming Full of Yourself.
He is the editor in chief (and occasional contributor) for Greg Boyd's blog ReKnew.org and is the host of the wildly popular podcast: "Greg Boyd: Apologies & Explanations."
