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…
What Was So Funny?
I carry something precious deep inside me but I cannot access it. I possess an absolute treasure-trove that sparkles and glows somewhere just out of reach. I think you possess it, too. You have the same rich history of hilarious moments, of riotous, watery-eyed laughter. I’ve laughed so hard in my life, and the euphoria…
Levitating with Augustine
Somewhere in my early teens I wanted to levitate. The thought of defying gravity struck me as an obvious life skill only a fool would neglect. I went to the library and secured the appropriate book: Yoga & Meditation for Beginners. I remember a man on the cover sitting in a yoga pose with his…
To Judge or Not to Judge? Seeking God Among the Pigs and the Dogs (Matthew 7:6)
Jesus kicks off Matthew 7 with a firm warning about the dangers of judgement, then follows this up by mocking those who judge the speck of dust in the eyes of others. On its own, I consider this teaching against judgement challenging, but also compelling and thoroughly coherent. If the teaching ended with verse 5,…
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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."
