Am I at my Road to Damascus?

Well, my SD starts Monday. What a relief.

Things at home have been tough though. I've become so fully aware of the strong negative aspects of my personality, and the impact that has had on my wife. Basically, it's as if I'm incapable of truly relating to people who are close to me - as if I hold something back, stopping me from really committing to them. No lasting empathy. A central part of who I am which has not been developed or is absent. This is what has hurt my wife over the 16 years we've been married. So much so that she feels battered and bruised. We'd have great sex and then afterwards she would feel like from my perspective it had never happened. She would be expecting some deep connection with me, but all she would get from me is.. I'm not sure what, but not what she wanted. I use this as an example.

Last week she took to sleeping in a separate room because of the anger/hurt she felt. She could barely talk to me. Two nights ago I suggested we use the fire pit in the back garden (we like sitting round an open fire), and we were able to talk, me explaining I understood how she felt and that I'd booked to go and see a psychotherapist to help me work through this bit of my personality I don't get/understand.

That helped, talking I mean. [and we are sleeping in the same bed again!] But I am aware that I can, in some way, dominate, suck life, be bossy, be ungracious, take over, demand.. and the reason that I can see it is because my parents are like that, as are 3 of my 4 sisters. I've worked hard on NOT being like them, and yet clearly the same DNA (and I use that in a spiritual/personality/nurture way) is still there - no matter how hard I've tried. It's hard to explain unless you knew my parents. They see everything from their perspective, everyone else is wrong, everyone else doesn't somehow match up to some New Testament law perspective. Judging. Partiality. Resulting in hypocrisy.

I tell you, James 4/5 has really hit home with me. The wisdom of God is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of good fruits and mercy, without partiality or hypocrisy. I've lived the opposite for so long, under a pretense of being "wise and understanding". Yet James says that those who consider themselves wise and understanding should conduct good works in the meekness of wisdom. Words like peaceable, gentle, yielding, meek are not words I have associated with myself. And yet here I am having studied these very words almost every morning for the last 3 weeks.

It's as if I've missed some key instruction in building my house, and one of the walls is leaning. Impacting those around me. Or taking a different illustration, I'm in a train carriage hurtling towards my destination thinking all is well but those I share the carriage with feel that, at times, they are with demented frightening tramp (vagrant).

This is a painful revelation. I had someone pray with me at church three weeks ago, and they said they felt I should focus on James. But they also said that they felt I had been playing snakes and ladders but with the wrong rule set. My ladders were my snakes and my snakes my ladders. And I agreed wholeheartedly with him. My ego, nature and nurture has got in the way. I've pursued what I perceived as godliness only to be halted on my Road to Damascus. I guess I'm at the stage of waiting for Barnabas to come and pray for me in order that scales can be dropped off my eyes (maybe that's happened already) and that I can now offer the fruits of repentance - a changed life.. Lord let it be.

I guess if I reflect on the last 12 months (since I started drawing near to God, because He woke me up!), and the fact that I have, sincerely, read my Bible, meditated on what I've read, prayed, interceded, cried out, praised, worshipped etc - that the Lord has been gracious in leading me to this place. I have to believe that He's brought me to this place to take me beyond it. To understand what it means to be with my wife, rather than to do with my wife. To be with my girls, rather than to do with my girls. The same with work, church, friends etc. That the Lord will allow my marriage to blossom, my wife to blossom, my girls to blossom, and, I guess, for me to blossom.

Lord, I want your heavenly wisdom to be evident in my life. As James says, if anyone lacks wisdom let him ask in faith.. not doubting..

Fairly fundamental personality issues..

Email to another friend, 21st June

Thanks for the email. Sounds like you really did have a great week! really sorry to hear of the 9 year old [dying suddenly]. It really smacks between the bits that hurt when something like that happens. A little while ago one of my daughter's school friends aged 11 died in her sleep. It makes you think about the mortality of life..

How can life be so hard one minute, fantastic the next, then really hard again? The new Sales Director has accepted and starts a week on Monday. I'm very excited about that. We also have a new sales guy starting which will help us push towards the numbers this year.

On a downside, one of my most senior managers is out for 4 weeks with a broken collar bone (received on a company event!). Some key projects are losing me big money. And my other longest term chap (also on senior mgmt team) who was my first employee lost his cool in a most serious way yesterday in the office - and as a result may leave (I meet him for lunch today). So, I have quite a few things to contend with at the moment.

At home, balance.. I'm here, and trying to give, but it's not that easy. My wife is reacting/working through stuff at the moment which is a mixture of her own background and a mixture of the strong negative aspects of living with me. That's hard. I'm taking it to God in prayer, and feeling challenged at many levels. James 1 says "count it all joy when you go through various trials and testing of your faith.. knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience (or endurance/perseverance). And let patience have it's perfect work, that you may be complete lacking nothing". So - that's where I am. Being tested at my core. Knowing that the results come through endurance/perseverance whilst holding onto what you believe (that God will bring me through). Most of the time I'm not sure what to do for the best. If only there was a "do this" and we'd all be happy right? I have come to the conclusion that I need to see a psychologist/therapist to work through some fairly fundamental issues in my personality which have been there for some time (mixture of nature/nurture?).

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Heh. There you go. I've known I need to see a psychologist for some time - on two counts;

1. Inability to truly hear what my wife is saying
2. A complete inability to empathise in day to day with those who matter to me

That, along with the fact that somehow tightly bound up within my personality is a desire to be the most important (see notes on James 4/5 and selfish ambition or self seeking). I see this trait in my parents and a number of my siblings. And it's not pretty. It takes over, dominates, demands attention, is somehow smothering. Now I have fought against this in terms of my family, and I have fought hard against it in my own life. But it would appear that even though I have trimmed back the fruit in many areas of my life - such that the excesses have been removed - deep within my core it's still there. And this is what affects those closest to me. My wife. My children. Those I work with.

So, for these three reasons, I need help. I need to know truth in the inward parts. And that truth will set me free. And then I can be a better person to live and work with. Lord.. that's my prayer.

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And June - And God is still on my case

From an email I sent to a friend - 11th June

Well, we've found another Sales Director, expensive £125k guaranteed for 6 months, OTE of £150k per annum. But he's very experienced, has grown three companies, is loyal. The last company was from £6m-100m in 9 years. I'll have some of that.

We're losing money for the first two months. Which kind of grabs your attention. Allowing for my salary we're about £50k down after month 2. Which is a lot. I'm realising that to have profit whilst pushing for growth is very difficult. I've just written myself an action list of ten points, the first of which is to put the necessary plans/paperwork together to be in a position to get the bank to give us some cash. We don't need it at the mo, but better asking for it when you don't rather than when you do!

If I told my wife we were that far down she would be very stressed and distrusting of me.

We are in a catch twenty position where to grow we need more delivery staff. But hiring sales has been more difficult. Provided the SD starts (2nd July) and we get another senior account manager for public sector I do believe (faith!) that we can reach our targets for this financial year. This is to have the target revenue through the accounts and be profitable (9 months left). But this is the point that either faith kicks in, or, foolishness. Depending on your perspective it could be either. The bank manager and my wife would say the latter.

Lately God has really been on my case ref James 4/5. Self seeking, selfish ambition, humanly wisdom. It really is a follow on from the stuff He's been at me for the last 12 months. So much of what I strive for has been from selfish ambition, self seeking. Carried out with human wisdom. How do I know that trying to go for £5m isn't more of the same?

Sure I need faith, and have faith. Faith without works is dead. Useless. Worldy. Sensual. Demonic. Faith applies as much in a Sunday morning praying or preaching as it does growing a business. If not more so. God really challenged me last year to "take a hold of that for which he has taken a hold of you" - or in my language - to really go for it.

Hey - this is encouraging me as I write this. I feel quite flat at the mo, and am struggling a little with motivation ref the company. Interestingly, since interviewing the latest SD and thinking that he could do a better job than in day to day management of the company than I, the thought has left me feeling less motivated with the company. It's like it needs to grow, but the hard bit has been done. It's been started. I can pass it onto someone else. And I think that this is the thing that has hit me in the last week or so. I can pass it on. The people though great are not enough for me to carry on doing it.

I can look at the next thing. Mobile promotions. Travel to encourage brothers in mission. Support my wife (which needs cash!!). Hey, I think I'm telling myself what I want to be doing. The order should of course be the opposite! My wife first :o ;)

The thing is this stuff takes longer than you like does it not. Provided the SD starts (and I don't know how I'll react if he doesn't - probably slump for a while..) it will take him min 6 months to get up to speed ref sales team/management - and learn what we do as a business. Another six months to get to the numbers we need, so I'm looking at at least 12 months before I could pass on reigns. Maybe 2 years. Maybe it will be easier with another experienced heavy weight on the team.

Hey, do you realise how good you are at listening ;). You haven't interrupted me once. lol. Well - gotta go. I'm about the kingdom, And the violent take it by force (that's the bit I relate to) - but I'm learning that God's wisdom is pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield full for good fruit and mercy, without hypocrisy or partiality. That those who consider themselves wise and understanding should do good works with the meekness of wisdom. Meek. Pure. Gentle. Yielding. All words which I've not wanted to be associated with in my humanly pride/ego.

Lord - thank you that you are changing us from glory to glory one degree by another, and that your grace is enough, is more, is abundant. We can know your joy, peace and strength. You are our hope, our anchor, our strong tower to whom we can run and find safety. I confess that it is YOU who orders my feet, who makes my path straight and will remove me feet from the net. I believe that you are, and that you are a rewarder of those who diligently seek you. That the prayer of faith is effective. That you are Lord. My King, my messiah, my saviour, my wonderful father. Lord I praise You. You are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Thank you Lord...

Shalom.