For those not fully familiar with the book or its message, today's article will serve as an introduction.  For those who have followed the Three Deceivers columns here on Meridian, today's article is intended to help you bridge from the articles to the book.

For me personally, this may be the most timely and relevant book I have ever written.  It is certainly the one I am working hardest to implement in my own life.  Besides being excited about the content of the book, I am excited about the way it will be initially distributed. 

At its outset, instead of going the traditional bookstore route, The Three Deceivers will be circulated from person to person. That's how we usually hear about books anyway, isn't it?  Someone says he liked a book, so we go out and buy it. 

Well, on this one, you won't have to send someone out to buy it.  You will be able to simply recommend it to a friend who will buy it online, and then you will get a small commission from that sale.  (A service called "One2Another.NET" is what powers the whole thing.) Bottom line is that people — individuals like you — will get the cut that the bookstore would otherwise get.  I like that!  I like books circulating by word of mouth, and friends talking about what they found in the book.

Now, for today's column, let me share some book-related thoughts I have had since the book was finished:

Seeking Spiritual Qualities

The current financial meltdown has made many of us more prone to examine and question just what it is that we need, and just what it is that we are seeking. Living in this world, and measuring ourselves by the standards of the world, can cause us to spend enormous energy, both mental and physical, seeking everything but the spiritual.

Think about it with me for a moment:

• We may want to be tall, or strong, or beautiful, or slim, or fit — and they may all be worthy goals. But let's acknowledge that these are physical things.
• We may want to be educated or well read or to gain degrees or academic credentials, and while these may be important, they are mental ambitions.
• We may strive to be friendly or helpful or kind or popular, and these are social qualities.
• We may train ourselves to be calm, even-tempered, cool under pressure, or to even out our mood swings, and we understand that these are emotional improvements.

Good as they all are, they are not the most important or most permanent things that we can seek. 

Seeking qualities (and quantities) in terms of our physical, mental, emotional, and social selves is all well and good, but the question I want to ask today is this:  What spiritual qualities are we seeking?

We are taught by scripture that each of us has spiritual gifts, and that we can seek and obtain other, additional spiritual gifts.

The beauty of spiritual gifts (or qualities, or attributes, or capacities) is that they are not dependent on the things of this world.  They never deceive us.  They never become obsessions or addictions.  They make the world a better place as they make us better people.  And they last forever!

Conversely, the pursuit of physical, mental, emotional, and particularly financial things — while they may start out as worthy and honorable objectives — are vulnerable to becoming obsessions and addictions, they can blind and deceive us, and they can separate us from God. 

When our pursuits are materialistic ("hearts set so much on the things of the world") we move closer and closer to ownership obsessions.  When our strivings are for power or control, we can get on the slippery slope of dominion and lose our desire for guidance.  And when we aim at standing alone and lessening our need for help, we run the risk of forgetting our interdependence and forget how dependent we are on God. 

These dangerous extensions of our physical and mental and emotional goals are what I call "the Three Deceivers of Control, Ownership, and Independence ."  They have become the lenses through which we see the world, and the measurements by which we judge ourselves and others.

Faith vs. Self Confidence

One simple illustration or example of the stark and eternal difference between a worldly paradigm and a spiritual one — between a physical/mental/emotional goal and a spiritual goal — is the difference between self-confidence and faith.

In a world desperately seeking self-confidence, there are an enlightened few who think of it as a shallow and myopic notion, and who reject the pursuit of it in favor of a search for faith.

The difference is simple, and stark:  Self confidence, as the term suggests, relies on self.  Faith relies on God.

But it is even more basic than that:  Self-confidence is a worldly concept that connects to the mental and the physical.  Faith is a spiritual principal that connects to the Spirit and to God.

When we talk about "self help," one of the keys is always self-confidence.  Believing in self and thinking positive about what you can do is the staple and the mainstay of most self help theories.  You've heard the catch phrases:  "Whatever the mind of man can conceive, and believe, it can achieve."  "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you are right."  "If you can think it, you can do it."  Or, simply, "I can."

In that sense then, "self help" becomes the antithesis of "God-help," and we begin to rely on our selves and not on He who put us here.  Our perspective and our awareness become more limited, and the momentary starts to mean more to us than the eternal.

The Three Alternatives

In order to re-prioritize and re-calibrate our strivings away from the worldly and toward the spiritual, we need a new set of lenses, a new cast of attitudes.  In order to rid ourselves of the Three Deceivers, we need Three Alternative paradigms that can replace them and can change the way we look at the world and thus change what we value, what we pursue, and how we measure. 

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