My wounds, drawn from the well of grief, my brokeness, my anger, no relief.
Are these from the Father or the thief?
My heart? Dead, buried, or just broken?
Depending, is my reaction to what is spoken.
Or is the fact that I react,
when instead by faith I just act.
Shame distorts the well of grief
denying it to be the Mercy-seat,
a man of sorrows who washes our feet,
this holy affair where anger, we don't meet.
The cross, Psalm 85:10, doubly sweet.
Healing comes from tenderness and rest. We often resort to extreme self-denial instead because of the feelings produced of being in control.
The most common yet usually unrecognized form of this is over-analysis or "I have to figure out____".
This kills the mind's freedom to experience the benefits from thinking(Isaiah 46:8) and begins the controlled process of now thinking about what one is thinking, i.e. becoming analytical.
This substitute form of suffering is from an over-developed mind and under-developed will.
The mind can generate more pain or create higher expectations(Proverbs 13:12) than the pain caused by the wound, thus an ironic form of relief is found.
True rest in its final step is a free mind, not an open one.
A free mind receives what is best(Philippians 1:9-11) and is free from what isn't.
An open mind just adds more and more books to the mental shelf that is already overloaded.
It's strange how an overloaded mental shelf feels like a great substitute for true grace.
With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power that he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. 2 Thessalonians 1:11
At some point perfectionist standards get set too high, and life becomes nothing more than a series of measured self-driven performances.
The drive to be perfect becomes self-defeating as we often place intense pressure on ourselves. This can become crippling and blinding to our true purpose.
Our goals become only outcome-based instead of process-driven and the joy goes away.
This tightens us up like a banjo string often causing us to act impulsively or not at all.
We begin to judge each step in a way that causes us to miss most of the opportunities that would have brought joy back into the process.
Judging distances us and kills the joy that comes from intimacy of the relationships we have to share in the process of daily life.
Stuck? Confused? First think small because that's who we are when we begin or begin again. Don't despise the day of small things, people, or acts.
Faith, not the devil, is in the details.
Steps make a leap. The judge never says to the guilty "Leap forward".
Forceful men don't force things. They are submissively willing to be taken hold of and then to forcefully hold on to or cling to whom it is who thrusts them into what is unfolding before them. Matthew 11:12-15, Genesis 32:26
Mystery is the opportunity to trust rather than plan. Daniel 2:47, Ephesians 1:9
The goal of learning is action, not knowledge. Learning to live by faith is action based on belief sustained by confidence.
Faith is a knowledgeable response or action to God our Father's communication with us.
Learn this: Matthew 9:13
Control is the way we split ourselves in two. A part of me this and a part of me that. It is trying and trying separates us even more from our real selves. No wonder we are susceptible to varying degrees of panic attacks from living as two rather than one.
David prayed in Psalm 86:11 to heal of the two-faced hypocricy that the desire to control creates in us.
Self-control is the mark of a Christ follower and comes from surrender once trying ceases.
I wrote a poem that I'm reminded of as I write this about what surrender can bring while we still struggle with surprises.
A Sane Imagination, A New Creation
A sane imagination, a new creation.
Tempered action from shattered expectations.
Perservering, conscience no longer searing.
Courageous without domineering.
Silently, while speaking,
praying and seeking,
listening without freaking,
stillness, door creaking.
Who entered into my room
without permission so soon?
My heart? Don't bother!
Who's there?
Abba Father?
You don't have to earn the right to hurt this much. Rest by faith, not by works. Hebrews 4:2,3
Please don't hurt me for hurting.
This commitment begins to blind us to our true interests. We confuse our wants with our true desires. Our wants start out naively as objects of our desires but obedience turns those wants into desires themselves through intimacy. An example of this is meeting someone we think we want to marry. They become the object of our desire but the desire is to marry. We seek or hunt for the objects of our desires and the weapons we use to get those objects are the only things with which we tend to have intimacy, ie a hunter with his gun, a man with his humor, a woman with her beauty.
As we're drawn deeper into the relationship the real struggle begins. That struggle is a growing necessary intimacy as a covering and protection to the relationship. Zechariah 2:8
We men are to transform from hunters to protectors who hunt. Our weapons must be laid down (submitted) to our Father for His guidance of their use.
This intimacy transforms the object of our desire into our desire. That desire as in the above example is our spouse. To be my desire is profoundly deeper than to want you.
We eventually use and abuse objects of our desire which Christ warned us about in Amos 8. We learn to love who is our desire. Learn me, not about me. Isaiah 53:11
The Scriptures reveal that we are Christ's desire, not the object. Go as one that is loved.
No longer trying not to fail. Romans 3:21
Getting my Mind around IT. The great attempt, putting God in a box, the mind lustfully flirting with the heart, forcing the heart to take the beautifully masked punches. But our head begins to hurt from the heart's wounds. The sore hands of the mind from trying to wrap itself around the Infinite, finally pull back, now, too tender. Without tenderness there is no understanding. Job 17:2-5
1/26/2005
Let it be rare that we get out of the kitchen half-baked because of the heat. Willingness leads to well done (Psalm 51:12,13)
