It’s very frustrating trying to write this blog at the moment…

For example, I’d love to tell you about what I was up to yesterday afternoon – but at this stage my lips are sealed while something awaits confirmation (mysterious, eh?)

Or I could tell you about someone I was due to meet yesterday – but that would be breaking a confidence…

Or I could write about a fantastic and very challenging conversation this afternoon – but making it public would put unfair pressure on somebody…

So here I am – the mysterious blogger.  Shrouded in secrecy, my deeds obscured by the night, my voice a whisper in the wind, etc etc and so forth.

It’s interesting to reflect on why I like telling you all about what I’m up to day-to-day.  I’d like to think it’s so that you can all be informed, encouraged and excited by what’s going on in the Titanic Quarter.  But I wonder if sometimes it’s so that I can look busy, impress you all with my full schedule, amaze you with my diligent work ethic.  It’s a trap I fall into easily.  And modern connectivity makes it even easier – those brief and breezy Facebook status updates that tell the world how busy, successful, witty and important I am…

The brilliant John Ortberg (or Saint John of Ortberg as a recent blog comment called him, absolutely correctly I reckon…) names this temptation “approval addiction” in The Best Book Ever, The Life You’ve Always Wanted:

Some people live in bondage to what others think of them.  The addiction takes many forms.  If we find ourselves often getting hurt by what others say about us, by people expressing other than glowing opinions about us, we probably have it.  If we habitually compare ourselves with other people, if we find ourselves getting competitive in the most ordinary situations, we probably have it… If we keep trying to impress important people, we probably have it… Like other addicts, we find that no fix lasts forever, so we keep coming back for more.

Throughout the whole book, Ortberg’s strategy is to suggest “training exercises” – things I can do today, to help me (someday) do what I can’t do today – like that jog around the Odyssey a few weeks ago.  In this case, the training exercise is brilliantly simple: secrecy.  Do something good that no-one gets to find out about.  Immerse someone in prayer – and don’t tell them.  The opportunities for training in secrecy, for breaking approval addiction, are all around; Jesus knew what he was doing when he told his disciples to “give without letting your right hand know what your left hand is doing… beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them…”  (Matthew 6:1-3)

So maybe it’s a good thing that I can’t tell you much about events in Dock World at the moment.  (Although you could say I’m cheating by pointing out how holy I am by being secretive – are you impressed yet?!)  It’s good to have the occasional reminder of the power of approval addiction – and the freedom that comes when we break the habit:

Imagine receiving criticism or judgment as “a very small thing” [like the Apostle Paul].  Imagine being liberated from the need to impress anyone.  Imagine our sense of esteem no longer resting on whether someone notices how smart, or attractive, or successful we are.  Imagine actually being able to feel love towards someone who  expresses disapproval of us…

Imagine – and get training…