Seth Lewis's Blog, page 17

The Story Behind “Dream Small”

Dream Small officially releases tomorrow. Finally. The process felt quite long. Probably because it was. The idea for the book started while our family was on a plan B staycation in the craziness of 2020. Sitting in a little Airbnb in the Irish countryside, I decided to look back over my posts on this blog to identify any common themes in my writing. If you’d asked me back in 2018 (when I started the blog) what threads would come out most in it, I’m sure I would have given you the wrong answer. Maybe that means I don’t know myself as well as I think I do, or maybe I’m changing. Probably both. Anyway, some of the themes I found were the basic ideas of what would become Dream Small. Over the next several months, with the help and good advice of others, these ideas crystallised into an outline and became a book proposal. In June 2021, I signed a contract with The Good Book Company. I’ve been a fan of TGBC for a long time, but my respect has only grown as I’ve seen their gospel-focused priorities in action in everything they do. The writing and preparing of Dream Small has taken two years, but we’re finally there—tomorrow! I’m excited to finally share this book with you!

To mark tomorrow’s release, I’d like to take this opportunity to look back at some of the things I’ve written on the blog over the last few years that complement ideas and themes in Dream Small.

Here are two short poems that try to capture ideas that are in the book:

The Song of Streams

The Day of Small Things

Here two posts about times in my life when I’ve learned something about dreaming small:

What I Saw On The Edge Of The Room (I tell this story in the book as well)

When I Lived In A Barn

And finally, a couple of posts about living for what matters most:

I Can’t Be Anything I Want To Be (And That’s Ok)

The World Needs Your Story

You can find out more about Dream Small and where to buy it here.

Wade In The Water

In 1998, Eva Cassidy recorded an old spiritual called “Wade in the water”. I was listening to her sing it in my car just recently:

Wade in the water
Wade in the water, children
Wade in the water
God’s gonna trouble the water

The lyrics are simple, but this water runs deep. As you’d expect from a spiritual, the reference is biblical. The rest of the song speaks of the children of Israel on the banks of the Jordan river, ready to cross into the promised land. In Joshua chapter 3, God tells the priests of Israel to carry the ark of the covenant, the symbol of his relationship with his people and presence with them, to the edge of the flooded river and stand in the water. They obeyed, and as soon as their feet got wet, God began to stop the flow of a mighty river and clear a path for his people to walk across on dry land.

Dry land—but the feet of the priests were still wet. They were wet because they had to “wade in the water” before God “troubled the water” for them. They had to obey before they saw the provision. They had to take a very literal step of faith into what was entirely impossible for them, trusting that God would keep his promise to take them across. It would have looked pretty silly for them to stand on the edge of the river if God never parted it. But he did.

The same dynamic plays out over and over again in the life of God’s people: we are often faced with situations where we must choose if we will trust God’s promises of provision, or turn away from where he is leading us in order to blaze our own path, by our own means. We like the sound of God’s promises for his children—of real life and purpose and peace and joy and security and so much more—but sometimes we’re not so sure about his ways of bringing us there. In our world, obedience to God’s commands can often look like the risky option, the path of standing in the flooded river for no good reason like a silly fool. Maybe it’s a choice to risk your job because you won’t lie on the reports. Maybe it’s a decision to break the cycle of revenge and start working to bless an enemy who betrayed you. Maybe it’s a commitment to give yourself to another person only on the other side of the covenant of marriage. It happens in major life choices and in tiny daily decisions, and it always comes back to the same question: do we really trust that God’s commands are for our good? Do we really believe that he knows (and wants) what is best for us? That he will keep his promises, even when we can’t see how? Are we willing to take the next step of obedience into the impossible, before we see how God will provide?

Sometimes, God doesn’t let us wait for the conditions to be right before we obey him. He doesn’t ask us to come up with our own clever ideas about how he should make all his good promises come true. He simply tells us to follow him, and take the next step. And there are times when God purposefully puts us in situations where the next step of obedience will be directly into the river—when it will look backwards and dangerous, and wouldn’t it be better to ignore God’s command and compromise with a little lie or a little corner cut or find a different path altogether rather then stand in the river all by ourselves and look silly with our feet wet in front of everybody?

Trusting God means acting on the knowledge that he knows what he’s talking about, even when his commands don’t make sense to me. Even before I see God’s provision. Even when provision looks impossible. Even when obedience is costly. Even if God doesn’t provide in the ways I think he should. Trusting God means being willing to get my feet wet, knowing that God’s promises will hold, and that in his own way, God’s hand will provide what is needed for the next step—and for the next after that, and the next, and for all his good promises to come gloriously true. In my own life, I can honestly say that every time I have stepped into the river of obedience, God has provided a path forward. Usually not the path I expected, but I’ve seen enough to know that the old spiritual is right: “wade in the water, children.” Our God has promised. He will not forsake his children. In his own way, and in his own time, “God’s gonna trouble the water.”

Don’t be afraid to get your feet wet.

Commitment Is A Ball

Our world today is flooded with so many options in so many areas of life, from relationships to work to how to spend weekends. In a climate like this, long-term commitments can feel like little more than limitations on our freedom to choose. Then again, what good are a thousand options if we never choose one? That’s what this poem is about:

Commitment Is A Ball

Commitment is a ball
And chain
A weight to force you
To remain
Right where you are
And what about
The things you miss?
The other parties that exist?
The parties that you’ll never see
Because you are committed?

Commitment is a ball
And sends
The invitations to
Its friends
To come inside and
Celebrate
But then, of course,
You can refuse
And wait and wait and
Never choose
Because you might get
Something better
Then you’ll sit
Outside on fences
Peering in to glowing windows
Wondering how people live
Inside commitment’s ball

Knowledge Is Not A Bank

Now that my children are getting older, it has come to my attention that I have lost access to some of my own knowledge. I learned algebra in school, for example, but now that my son has taken it, I find that the lessons I had all those years ago seem to have slipped through a crack into some inaccessibly cloudy region of my skull. I know I knew it, but I can’t deny that I don’t know it now. And the same is true for much more than my maths.

When I was younger, I thought about knowledge as if it was a bank: that what I stored in my mind would be safe and accessible, and that once I had it, I would have it forever. Now I know that my bank is not a very good one. Not the kind I’d trust my money with, anyway. As the years have passed, I have found that my knowledge does not only grow—it also shrinks. If I want to remember something, I need reminders. Regularly. Better yet, I need to apply what I know to my life. In my experience, the knowledge I don’t use is the knowledge that eventually, I don’t know (like algebra). Even foundational truths I hold dearly—like God’s gracious love for me, or the value of my family, or what a blessing it is to be alive—can slip far too easily to the edges of my mind when I only focus on the urgent business and problems right in front of me, and forget to approach them using the truths I already know.

Knowledge is not a bank. It’s more like a garden. Truths and skills that are planted in our minds can bear good fruit in our lives. But just as a neglected garden will run wild with useless weeds, so our minds can easily become a wilderness of distractions, anxieties, and trivialities that choke out the good and productive knowledge we’ve accumulated before it gets the chance to take root and grow into real applications in our real lives. That’s one reason I have to spend time in the Bible every morning—I need to remember who God is, who I am, and what I’m here for. That’s one reason the Bible is so full of the same truths and promises stated over and over again in different ways. Knowledge cannot simply be known once and stored away safely. It must be remembered and applied, or it will be forgotten. There are some things that I can’t afford to forget, so I’m not depositing my knowledge in a bank. I’m working to remember what I already know, and grow.

Writing Proverbs

I’ve always enjoyed the book of Proverbs in the Bible. The short, memorable sayings hit hard, like espresso shots of truth. You might say that the book is a bit like Twitter, but without the hot-takes, the cut-downs, and the crazy weird stuff and arguments… so not like Twitter at all, actually.

The whole point of the book of Proverbs is to gather wisdom and knowledge about life and living, and to pass it on to the next generation. Which got me thinking: if Solomon can write proverbs to pass on what he learned about life to help his children, why can’t I? I have lived for a little while now, and I’ve learned a few things along the way. Why shouldn’t I try to capture some of those things in proverbs—short, memorable sayings that might help my children, or someone else?

Years ago, I decided to give it a try. I’ve written quite a few proverbs since then, and a lot of them are not that great. None of them are Scripture. But I have found the process of writing them helpful in clarifying the essence of what I have learned for myself, and I hope some of them can benefit others as well. Here’s a few examples of the proverbs of Seth:

Of all the abilities, teachability is the least respected and most valuable.

Complicated questions deserve complicated answers.

If you’re looking for offence, you’ll find it.

It’s easy to see the beauty in a stranger’s streets, and the rubbish in your own.

A sermon without Jesus is like a car with no engine. It rolls easily down to where people are, but has no power to lift them up again.

Just because it’s 50% off doesn’t mean it’s a good deal. Half of insane is still crazy.

If you want to make the people you’re with feel insignificant, check your phone.

Everyone in the world knows something you don’t, but you can learn it from them if you ask the right questions.

Most romantic movies wouldn’t have a plot if the lead characters communicated well at the beginning.

The road to happiness has a name: Thankfulness.

I’m curious: have you ever tried writing proverbs? If so, I’d love to hear some of yours in the comments, or some from others that have helped you.

Don’t (Always) Be Efficient

I love it when a plan comes together smoothly. I love it when everyone works together and leans in and gets the job done—quick and clean. I love it when I can move swiftly through my own tasks for the day, ticking off to-do boxes with a satisfied smile. Efficiency is fantastic. Except when it isn’t.

Who wants an efficient friendship? Or marriage? Who would want to visit an efficient park, or art museum? Who prefers drive-through fast food to a slow evening meal where the conversation lasts longer than the courses? It’s great to be efficient, but it’s not always great. Sometimes it’s better to be inefficient and let time slip away while we immerse ourselves in something (or someone) that isn’t a task to accomplish or a to-do box to tick. Efficiency is wonderful for jobs, and terrible for relationships.

Even at work, where the focus is rightfully on tasks, we should still remember that the people we work with are not tasks, and they are not tools, either. It may be more efficient to steamroll, manipulate, or threaten coworkers into submission, but if we can genuinely listen to, work with, and value others, isn’t that worth some extra time? It is. And in the long run, the work culture we build that way will end up with better task results, too.

The same is also true in the church. We help each other change and grow and persevere, and none of those things are efficient. Maybe that’s why it’s so tempting to focus our efforts on programmes we can run smoothly and efficiently, rather than the messy and often confusing work of being there for people who are trying to find their way forward trusting God one step at a time (just like I am).

I guess what I’m saying is this: go on and be efficient and get your tasks done quickly and with excellence. That’s good and right and profitable. But then go walk through the woods and soak in the beauty and talk to your Creator without looking at your watch, or sit with your friends around a table for the whole evening, or make a phone call just to catch up with someone you haven’t seen in a while. Be efficient when it’s time to get the job done. Just don’t be efficient all the time.

Freedom

For my whole life I have lived in free societies, from growing up in America to now living in Ireland. In the long span of human history, and even in the world today, I know that I am in the minority to be able to live with this level of freedom. I also know that the freedoms I enjoy (and so often take for granted) did not come easily. Freedom is a gift, not a given. It is won and maintained only with effort and care. That’s what this poem is about:

Freedom

Freedom
Is so fragile
So hard to win
So quick to lose
So carelessly regarded
So often left unguarded
And blood and tears the price
For those who want to win it back
Who give up their freedom
To win back the freedom
Of children they won’t even know
Of children who won’t even know
The price that was paid
So that they could be careless and free
And slowly they care less
And then they grow careless
And the children they don’t even know
Are the children who will pay the most
Who will work hard to win
Put together again
The fragile gift of
Freedom

A Thousand Words Are Worth A Picture

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but as someone pointed out to me recently—can you draw a picture that effectively communicates that concept? Maybe you’re a good artist and you have an idea of how you could do that well, but I’ve never seen anyone try, and isn’t it interesting that the phrase always comes to us in words, not pictures? The whole point is that pictures are more powerful, but to make that powerful point we use words, not pictures.

There is truth in the phrase, of course. There are times when one picture can speak volumes, communicating in an instant what would take paragraphs of scene-setting explanation in prose. Pictures can deliver an instant emotional gut punch when they show us scenes of a disaster, or they can make our hearts rise with pride and joy at the sight of the tears in the eyes of a victorious athlete. A picture can transport us back to a moment in our own past, or give us a glimpse of someone else’s world. Pictures can do so much. But they can’t do everything.

As powerful as pictures can be, we still need words. Without the words, even the pictures lose their context. Would we care about the iconic “tank man” photo from Tienamin Square if we hadn’t read or heard words about the protest and massacre that day? Would we think the fuzzy “pale blue dot” photo was a mistake without an explanation that we are in the frame? Would we care so much about our favourite athlete without understanding where they came from, who they represent, and what they overcame to achieve their victories? Even our powerful pictures often lose their punch without explanatory words, and there are plenty of times when words can do what pictures simply cannot.

In recent years our electronic communication has become more pictorial with the growing use of emojis and gifs. Has this really helped us communicate more deeply with each other, or has it actually encouraged shallowness? As much as I enjoy a good gif or meme, I would never pretend that they could be a substitute for serious conversation. In our image-driven, soundbite-saturated culture, perhaps what we need more than anything is not another emotionally charged picture, but rather to slow down long enough to think through a thousand words of complex thought. It’s true that pictures and art can contribute powerfully to important conversations about meaningful ideas, but could we really have deep, nuanced conversations with pictures alone? Let’s not be hasty in replacing a thousand words with a picture. Let’s keep both.

The Cry Of A Child

One of the most stunning realities in the Bible is that the God of the whole universe calls his people his children. Though we have all turned against him in sin, he not only stoops down to bring salvation (at great cost to himself), he goes much further—lifting those he saves to the heights of honour and privilege as the adopted members of his own family. He simply asks us to stop running away and come, like children running back into the arms of a loving father. As Paul says in Galatians 4:6, “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father.’” When Charles Spurgeon preached on this verse, he took time to focus on one word in particular: “crying”—a word that shows the intimacy and security of how the children of God relate to their Father. This is what he said:

“Note that it is a cry. If we obtain audience with a king we do not cry, we speak then in measured tones and set phrases; but the Spirit of God breaks down our measured tones, and takes away the formality which some hold in great admiration, and he leads us to cry, which is the very reverse of formality and stiffness. When we cry, we cry, “Abba”: even our very cries are full of the spirit of adoption. A cry is a sound which we are not anxious that every passer-by should hear; yet what child minds his father hearing him cry? So when our heart is broken and subdued we do not feel as if we could talk fine language at all, but the Spirit in us sends forth cries and groans, and of these we are not ashamed, nor are we afraid to cry before God. I know some of you think that God will not hear your prayers, because you cannot pray grandly like such-and-such a minister. Oh, but the Spirit of his Son cries, and you cannot do better than cry too. Be satisfied to offer to God broken language, words salted with your griefs, wetted with your tears. Go to him with holy familiarity, and be not afraid to cry in his presence, “Abba, Father.”

Isn’t that beautiful? If you would like to read the rest of his sermon, you can find it here.

Life Is Precious

Last week our family attended the first birthday party of a little girl whose parents waited and longed and prayed for six long years, wondering if they would ever be able to have a child of their own. To say it was a joyful occasion is an understatement.

Also last week the Supreme Court of the United States reversed a decision from almost 50 years ago, finding that there is not actually a right to abortion in the US constitution, so individual states are free to legislate as they please on the issue. Some states have kept abortion legal, others have not. Some people rejoiced, others mourned. Some said the judgment was a gain for life, others that it was a loss for personal autonomy.

Are children a limit on personal autonomy? Yes. There’s no getting around it. They take resources. They need help, care, support, food, time, energy, and the list goes on and on. They need everything supplied to them for a long time. And is there a better way to use autonomy than this? Our one-year-old friend was carried everywhere at her birthday party and I saw her fall asleep in the arms of her father who had worked so hard to make her party a special occasion. She never even said thank you—but both of her parents were smiling. The whole scene reminded me of just how precious children are, no matter how small and helpless. Of how precious life is.

My friends at the birthday party prayed for years to be able to give up their personal freedoms for the sake of a child. They longed for the gift of giving up their autonomy. But not every child arrives in circumstances like theirs. Life is hard, and it’s complicated. Some women wait years for children, and some never have them. Others are shocked to discover that a baby is coming in a way or time they hadn’t planned, and never would have chosen. But is a child who comes in a difficult circumstance worth less than a child who was longed for? I say no. Life is precious. Even when it’s hard.

In the middle of the difficulties, isn’t it possible that we could find better ways of supporting women than simply offering to dispose of their children for them? Is our best option for unwanted or unplanned children really to treat them the same way we treat cancer—using our skill and resources to destroy them like a disease? Don’t we owe it to women to give them better options than this?

I think we can do better for everyone involved. In fact I know we can do better, because I’ve seen real, practical, sacrificial support in action that highly values both mother and child for the long term. It takes more work that way, and a lot more time. We need more support structures than we have. But life is precious. Isn’t it worth the time and effort to work out the best path for everyone through the difficult situations of life? What if we built a culture that valued every woman and every child as much as my friends value their one-year-old daughter? What if we did that?