Ask almost any Christian: “How did young David defeat Goliath, the giant warrior?” Probably about 99 times out of 100 you’ll get an answer something like: “Because David had great faith in God.” Those who answer like this assume, like the Philistines, that David did not have the power or skill to win a battle with Goliath straight up, but that he needed divine intervention to claim victory. A…
Approaching Horses: Commentary
APPROACHING HORSES and there past the barn I see the horses, grazing out in a field, together, but also alone. I see the horses standing in the sunlit fog. I…
Sips: Commentary
I like the idea of our choices being like sips. We nibble ourselves to death in slow-motion suicides. We build mountains on our own backs made up of tiny, seemingly…
Today is the Next Monotonous Day of the Rest of Your Life (a motivational post)
The problem with all these THIS-IS-THE-FIRST-DAY-OF-THE-REST-OF-YOUR-LIFE folks is that they emphasize the wrong thing. Their intention (noble and pure) is to get you to realize how special THIS day is,…
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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:
Bad Robots
Social media can control our lives, forming our minds and our actions without our even knowing that it’s happening. While there is great benefit to social media, we must also recognize it’s dangers and develop a plan to live differently. Otherwise, we will end up looking like we aren’t part of God’s kingdom.
Finding Your Foothold
Generosity is a tricky subject because so many think it primarily relates to how much a person gives. However, God’s view of generosity is different. It is about learning to live in agape love where we are not doing what we do in order to get more from others, but in order to give and receive love in a community. When we do this, generosity flows our of hearts in natural ways, with surprising acts that bless others.
All Things New In Christ
In this week’s message, Dan continues our look at the biblical narrative themes of covenant and kingdom in the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. After his baptism and before the start of his ministry, Jesus was tempted in three very important ways by Satan. In this message we learn how Jesus inserts himself in to the biblical narrative and seeks to fulfill the promises and potential of old testament characters like Israel, Adam & Eve, and King David.
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."
