All posts filed under: Surrender

Jim Sherblom delivering Andover Newton Theological School 2015 CommencementJim Sherblom delivering Andover Newton Theological School 2015 Commencement

God’s Time

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One of the Andover Newton at Yale Divinity School students in my Unitarian Universalist Ecclesiology, Ministry and Polity class last semester invited me to participate in her Mid-Degree Review along with other YDS professors and ordained clergy.  As this distinguished group talked among ourselves about the challenges of ministry today, a recurring theme centered around church time and expectations management, until it dawned on me, we were often seeking to follow our own sense of time and priorities, rather than God’s time. To walk with God requires that we humbly adjust our expectations to God’s will, in God’s sweet time.  This felt like a humbling Lenten reflection, this time of the church year when we are annually stuck in this already/not yet pilgrimage of waiting for God’s time to finally arrive. For those of us who are over achievers, or simply seeking to exceed expectations, it can be difficult and frustrating when we are not able to set our own pace.  But discerning God’s call for us is best done in God’s time at God’s …

Discipline Two

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Second Discipline of Six: Surrender My spiritual memoir Spiritual Audacity is built around six spiritual disciplines of which the second is ego surrender.  Is this an important discipline in your spiritual life? This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows . . . —Jalaluddin Rumi (Coleman Barks translation) How and when does spiritual submission or ego surrender factor into your life today? Ego Surrender: It is in surrendering the separate ego-self to the greater good of the broader community that we grow spiritually. Each person chooses where and when he or she wishes to be involved in any intentional community. Congregations are an intentional community. But a consumer approach to community seldom meets real spiritual needs. You may not want to get involved.  You may not like teaching or greeting or singing in the choir or committee work. But when asked, your spiritual discipline could be: …

First Day at Bain

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At the age of 24 was so excited about starting my first professional job at Bain and Company international strategy consultants that I barely slept the night before. Was about to begin my dream job but worried they may have made a mistake in hiring me. What did a small town working class kid understand about international business? Bain had hired me straight out of Harvard Business School with no experience working for or with large corporations. Even dressed in the white shirt, tailored blue suit, and red tie of a strategy consultant was scared to death. Still worried I might arrive on the first day and they would take me aside to explain my job offer, signed by Bill Bain himself, was a clerical error and they hadn’t really hired me. Was afraid they would quickly discover I lacked sufficient work experience to do this job. Even though my lack of corporate experience had been clear on my resume. They could reasonably decide I was too young or too unsophisticated to command the respect …