For Those About to Shimmer

The Arts & Culture Series #2: Silencing the alien voice and redefining success in your life.

Hi everyone, It’s Thursday, July 11th. Today’s newsletter is the second installment in our Arts & Culture Series. People make up the core of the arts and culture, so I wanted to spend some time encouraging us all to fight the Alien voice of resistance in our lives and live as works of art.

Don’t forget. We’re having our biggest sale of the year—The Big Forever Sale. If you value my work here, it’s a great time to upgrade to paid and get 30% off forever. The sale ends soon! So hop on it.

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For Those About to Shimmer

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There is a force at work in you right now. It is lying to you. It tells you that you’re not good enough—that you’re foolish to dream, and that failure is all you’re good for. It also tells you to stick to the familiar paths. Don’t veer. Follow the formulas for life, just like everyone else.

This is an Alien force, and you know it. But you’ve lived for so long with it that you believe the lies. You give in to the lies. The lies become you.

Where did this lying Alien come from?

You don’t remember.

You suffer from the guilt that floods your insides when you give in to the Alien. You worry about what other people think. This anxiety you feel disturbs the way that you think about yourself. You feel like people are watching you. And not just some of the time. All of the time.

How did you arrive at this platform that never turns off? Why do you always feel the pressure of outside eyes upon you? You never asked to be looked at all the time.

Or did you?

“It was them,” you tell yourself. “They did this to me. I’m a victim of their scheme.”

You didn’t always tell yourself this, but you heard someone else say it and felt good when you said it, too. It removed some of the pressure. Every time you say it to yourself, you feel lighter. But always, the pressure of the outside eyes returns, and the Alien presses its lies upon you.

But there is another force at play.

You know something Shimmering lives inside of you. You can’t articulate it, but you can point to specific times when it leaks out of you. When it leaks, you remember a time when this Shimmering was how you always felt. And you dare to say, “I was the Shimmering.”

But the Alien pounces on this thought.

“The Shimmering lies,” says the Alien. “It speaks in faerie tales. The Shimmering isn’t even real. Look around you,” it says in its smooth and inviting voice. “The outside eyes are what’s real.”

The Alien fills up your world. Its voice presses in on your thoughts so often that you can’t decipher your thoughts from the whispers of the Alien. Its voice shapes your perspective on everything, from your identity to your studies, work, and family—touching every part of your life. You use the temporary healing power of “it’s them, their scheme, they did this to me,” but you never feel truly free of the Alien’s voice.

Then, one day, you run into The Teacher. 

The Teacher was with you early on, in those times of innocence. But it’s been a while now since you’ve seen him.

You embrace The Teacher, and after catching up, he asks, “Why has your voice changed?”

“It was them,” you say, nervously tugging on your shirt.

But The Teacher does not reply.

“Don’t you see,” you continue, “they changed my voice. It’s all part of their …”

You stop. You can see The Teacher isn’t buying it.

“Can I tell you a story,” says The Teacher.

“Will it help me become a better me?”

“That depends.”

“On what,” you say.

“On you.”

How do I know about the Alien? I’ve listened to it and believed it. I invited it into my life, even after I became a Christian.

But I’ve also fought with it—and still do. I hate it because its voice sneaks in, and in weak moments, I listen and find myself nodding in agreement.

But I also met The Teacher. I embraced him, but he rebuked me and asked me the same question: “Tim, why has your voice changed?”

And I’ve blamed them. I still do.

But I’ve also listened to The Teacher’s story and was surprised to find it was about me.

Each year, I sketch a map of the significant events in my life. This life map shows me how my decisions have shaped my path. It also shows me the mysterious hand of God in my life.

Let me put it this way: My decisions and significant life events are not a shining line of success stories. There are plenty of ash heaps—failures, screwups, and pain—but somehow, the ash heaps shimmer.

And my story? It's a work of art.

And so is yours. To reach past the failures and seize the shimmer, we need spiritual grit.

Remember the words of the apostle James:

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

James 1:2-4, NLT

Life is a Work of Art in Motion

There is a war for your identity, attention, and thinking. The adversary seeks to erase meaning, purpose, and human value.

In his book The War of Art, Stephen Pressfield famously pinpointed the activities in life that arouse our great enemy, resistance. His list, however, reached far beyond the realms of art. Indeed, it reached into the fabric of the human life. He said, “Any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity” will elicit resistance.

Pressfield touched on a truth rooted in the Christian view of life: Life is a work of art in motion. Each day, we face resistance to getting up, putting our pain and failures behind us, and cracking on.

Viewing life as a work of art in motion is no romantic ideal. Art is war, beauty is hard, and life is both.

To resist is to struggle, and struggling wears on us. It’s easier to give in, go with the flow, do what we’re told by the cultural conditioners, and call it a day.

But you’re not ready to call it a day, and neither am I.

Like you, I’ve struggled with weariness and lies. I’ve felt beaten and haggard. I’ve felt like I don’t measure up. I’ve felt like I’m only as good as my latest failure. Can you relate?

The Antidote to Failure & Resistance

I’ve learned that the journey of life is not about success as the world defines it. The world sells you the lie that everything we set our minds to, every work of our hands, and every endeavor should end with some form of success. And success in our world often takes the form of money, status, influence, or power. These forms of success are often visual—they show others how successful you are.

But is the goal of our work about this kind of success?

I want to share five characteristics of spiritual grit that help me along life’s journey:

1. Obedience

2. Curiosity,

3. Friendship

4. Passion

5. Glory.

Obedience. Obedience trumps success. One theologian said that you and I are not responsible for success in this world. That's up to God. Our responsibility is obedience. What a freeing thought, right?

This perspective challenges our thinking because our culture makes us believe that successful outcomes should follow our work. But this view of success yokes us with anxiety and feelings of failure when "success" doesn't follow our efforts.

Obedience works like this. You feel a call on your life to do or become a specific thing: a doctor, a painter, a teacher, fill in the blank. You obey your calling regardless of what the world says you should be to be comfortable. In obeying the call, you stay true to how God has made you. He's fashioned you with unique qualities. When he sees you, he sees a work of art he created to do specific things during this lifetime.

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Ephesians 2:10, NLT

Sometimes, people tell me, “I get confused about how God wired me."

I, too, have dealt with the same confusion. But what I've learned is this. The things that inspired me as a youth, to which I naturally gravitated, are a good clue to discovering how God wired me. I've always written, I've always been a thinker, and I've always been involved in the arts. These are clues along my path that guide me in my decisions. So, pay attention to your natural inclinations, make a list, and proceed with confidence.

Curiosity. Your journey is about staying curious. It's about walking the path before you. When we walk a path, we learn with each footfall. We learn about our environment, our strengths and weaknesses, our surroundings, and the people we encounter along the way.

Cultivating a curious mind invites wonder. Curiosity fuels the pathway of learning. Don't view "learning" as something negative. Instead, view it as cultivating a wonder-full perspective in your life.

God made us naturally curious. When we spend too much time with entertainment, we numb our curiosity. My prescription for this numbing ailment: Get off the screens, get outside, and stay curious.

Friendship. For this one, I take my cues from one of my literary mentors, C.S. Lewis. Lewis knew the power of friendships. We know his band of friends as "The Inklings." But they did not set out to be a famous group of friends. They sought to share the things they loved and had in common.

People ask me how they can form their own “Inklings.” I tell them that Lewis would not ask you to mimic their weekly gatherings at the pub or in his rooms at Magdalen College. Instead, he would encourage you to do what you love with those you love. Not because they are the people with whom you should keep company, but because you like spending time together.

Lewis’s secret to enduring friendship is cultivating a strong group of friends with whom you nurture joint affinities. Don’t surround yourself with “yes” friends who do nothing but always agree with you. Learn to be friends with men and women who will challenge and inspire you.

Lewis encouraged us to stop trying to get into the "in crowd." Instead, he urged us to be busy making and building while surrounding ourselves with the people we naturally love, to pursue our vocation in the life-giving confines of our own "Inklings.” Not seeking fame but pursuing our passions.

Passion. Passion is the great anxiety killer. When you approach each day passionately, fueling your spiritual and physical pursuits, your anxious thoughts and notions fall by the wayside. Passion focuses vision. Once fixed, our hearts move toward the wilds of life.

Focused passion gives us the strength to set our sails for the far north and harness the wildness of the wind. The journey swells with danger while also invigorating our spirits. Passion fuels us in this way.

It's time to get a move on!

Fear is one of the primary vision killers. "Will this even work?" we say to ourselves. "Is this who I'm supposed to be?"

But we gain clarity when we allow our innate passions to guide our work. Some fear passion, thinking it will muddle our vision.

“You must be practical,” shouts the world.

But the opposite is true.

“Fortune favors the bold,” you shout back as you hoist the main sail.

Let’s set a course for deep waters!

Glorifying. When my daughters leave the house on Friday mornings for their homeschool co-op, I love to tell them: "As unto the King!"

They love it. Because they know I'm letting them off the hook to perform. Forget the pressure to achieve. Work for an audience of One—for God himself. When you and I approach the work of our hands and the inquiry of our imaginations with the humility that comes from seeing living as a form of worship, we find peace beyond comprehension.

This life of ours is not about performance. It's about worship. Remember it this way: living is artful worship.

The Old Way v. The New Way