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A Sunday Sermon about Facing Our Giants

Dear SPF Family,

I know that we are supposed to stay agnostic on this site. To those that are offended by the mention of or reference to God, they are advised to stop reading here. I am taking the liberty here to make an exception because I think this lesson provides all of us help despite our religious persuasion. I sincerely respect those who prefer to not believe in a creator or God and those who are Jewish or of another faith. Nevertheless, in these current difficult times I think there is something to be learned from the practical wisdom of the Bible (old testament) and life that one can learn from whether or not they wish to believe in a creator. 

I think this lesson is particularly appropriate for our community because we don’t just face a crisis now; we face a crisis every day as our HSP or PLS continues to progress. It is one that can often seem like we are facing a giant 5 times our size that will not step back. It will not relent. Yet, this is a lesson that might help all of us.

I heard Max Lucado speak today from the Oak Hills Church in San Antonio TX. Some people may have heard of Max Lucado as he is a best selling author. I have met him and he is also a delightful, humble and intelligent human being. He spoke today a lesson that is also in his book “Facing Giants”. It is a book about overcoming difficulties. The book ends with a mental device I found interesting, worth repeating to myself, and worth sharing. In the book, he discusses meeting challenges as David (who  slew the giant Goliath with a sling) did, through faith and spirituality. At the end, Lucado parallels the five stones that David picked from the stream to take into battle with five principles that we can use to overcome our challenges. Our community has our challenges every day. I thought this might help all of us face our giants (Covid-19, HSP & PLS) that can also include grief and other of life's challenges, as well.

David is about to face the challenge of fighting Goliath and so he goes down to the stream to pick up 5 smooth stones and place them in his pouch. As a mnemonic device, Mr. Lucado advises us to map each stone or weapons against our own Goliath to a finger of our hand. (Five easy to remember Ps on 5 fingers: Past, Prayer, Priority, Passion, Persistence) 

1. Past… Gratitude
The first stone, the thumb, is the “stone of the past.” It’s not the greatest name because Max doesn’t mean for us to mentally live in the past (if he had, this post wouldn’t exist). Instead, Mr. Lucado tells us that we should examine our past to see where God (or luck or fate if you prefer) has come through for us – find and mentally highlight all those moments when He (or luck or fate) has pulled you through.

That means gratitude & perspective to me. The memory of our blessings is indeed an excellent perspective from which to look at our current challenges.

2. Prayer… Spiritual Fixation
Moving from the thumb to the first finger, we go through a valley of inwardness (imagine the crevice between your thumb and forefinger). The second stone is the “stone of prayer.” Again, not the greatest name because Max doesn’t mean simply prayer – he means that we should “soak” our minds with God.

Turning our faces upward, gazing into the light, keeping divinity, grace, and love fixed in our hearts. This is the washing that Mr. Lucado is referring to (and perhaps everyone can appreciate). That mental “soaking” can absolutely be done by prayer, yet that fixation of mind is the same flooding with spirit that is essential in almost all forms of spiritual practice. Pick whatever choice of form for the divine, but put your attention there and all difficulties are immediately reduced and become more surmountable.

3. Priority… Egoless-ness
Moving to the tallest finger, we consider our highest motivation. The third stone is the “stone of priority,” but again the outward name given by Max doesn’t correlate to his meaning. He means that we should, form the mental focus on spirit, then turn to our struggle and see it as “God’s canvas” – the ground from which miracles and blessings arise.

And just how? Lucado says that it is by giving ourselves over to God or at least away from our own ego – by willing to die so that the Holy may have this ground in which to work – we create the space for Holy intervention. Give your struggles over to spirit! This is the same turning of ego over that many people in AA learn in recovery and one of the reasons that AA works so well.

4. Passion… Fearlessness
The next finger is the “stone of passion” – a sensical name given Max’s meaning, but a synonym is “fearlessness”. Because Max tells us that, with this stone, we must abandon our planning and fearful bean-counting and instead directly move toward the giant (our difficulty) with faith and vigor. We try to do this constantly at The Spastic Paraplegia Foundation.

Fear incapacitates. We become frozen in thought and in our cave-hiding. You know this already, and I do too, but we don’t think about it enough.

5. Persistence
The fifth stone is the “stone of persistence”, and this is Max’s call that we always take five stones into the battle – even though we have the faith and strength and fearlessness, and we face only one opponent (like a cure for HSP& PLS), let us not give one fight to our struggle and stop there.

Mr. Lucado is saying that one prayer, one apology, one month might not be enough. Sheer doggedness! - as we try to be at The Spastic Paraplegia Foundation. The successful person in recovery is not the one who never relapses, but the one who doesn’t quit the program or stop trying. The successful patient advocacy group is not one that sponsors research for one year. Weight loss is the same thing. The seemingly unconquerable giants like PLS & HSP are conquerable because of tenacity, nothing more. Whatever persistence means in the face of your struggles, keep at it. It’s the little finger, but it’s the last key for overcoming your giant.

May everyone find peace and hopefully this provides a handy mnemonic device to face your and our common struggles!

All the best,

Frank

Frank Davis, President

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