It's been a while... mostly because my thoughts, feelings and inspirations have not been worth writing about, or have been way to personal for the eyes of the world to view... until Monday.
So Monday, you may be wondering why I didn't write this on Monday - to be honest I think I lost my writing savvy for a little while, or at least my desire to write - but it's slowly found it's way back to me and hopped in my pocket again. At least for this post.
Anyway, Monday - what happened so suddenly on Monday that was a revelation worth sharing? Quite simply God gave me a picture to clearly illustrate a point that has not only kept me so supported all week but could easily change people lives if we apply it. To understand the picture I will ask you to imagine for a second that you are in a cold, dark room. In this room are candles and because you are cold you keep lighting them, they go out often and you light them again, it's all really a race to keep the candles lit. Is the room really that much warmer? Now imagine that it's 30 degrees and sunny outside, and your by the ocean and the room that your in has a door that is easily opened. Would you want to stay inside?
People have been on my mind a lot lately - friendships and relationships and complicated stuff like that. Basically I have never felt good enough around people, I feel as if I can't communicate well and that what I have to say isn't worth communicating, I've felt as if it's a cycle that can't be broken, people's opinions have always seemed negative and not enough.
People are candles.
Why are people's opinions always so unfulfilling, when I look back there is rarely times that people have actually said something to make me feel inadequate - there have always been people who love me as well as people who didn't. One failed relationship is not the end of the world so why is it so hard to feel like it isn't.
God is the sun.
People's opinions will always, ALWAYS be inadequate. We were not made to be warmed by candles and we were not made to be fulfilled by the good opinions of the people around us. Even if everyone you ever met thought you were the best person in the world it wouldn't be enough because it's not how we were made. We were made to be warmed by the sun. We were made for God's love to be what shows us our value - this also means that when people do have a negative opinion, or simply seem to have no opinion at all, that it is just as irrelevant as if they have a good opinion. It doesn't matter. They are little candles and you need to be in the sun, by the beach, basking in a beautiful day.
For some people God's love might be terrifying, for some people God doesn't love at all... what I want to offer you is hope - God DOES love you, He IS safe - I encourage you to take a step towards that love, it IS there and one of the ways he shows it is by not going where he isn't invited, so let down your defenses and stop keeping yourself locked in a dark cold room. Take a risk with God, maybe just ask him to show you he loves you, and come into the sun.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Letting go of life
I feel like my heart issue is that of control.
If I am in control of a situation I am good - great even, flourishing; I prefer to direct then to act, I like to write, I prefer to know the end of the movie before I watch it - all in an attempt to control my surroundings so I know that I am safe.
It doesn't work.
No matter what I do or what I try I am never able to control to the level that I desire to - my thirst for control kept me in a horrible relationship for what would have been one of the best years of my life - now that that's long over it's my desire for control that keeps me afraid of waiting or of trusting the people in my life right now. It also keeps me from doing the things that I long to do - to be a writer, an artist, to be undignified or just simply a human being instead of a human do. The desire for control or for safety is ultimately what's keeping me from living life and being REALLY safe in the arms of Jesus. It is a heavy burden, a life, and really it is one that we do not even have the smallest ability to carry - no matter what I plan or panic over tomorrow will come and it will look exactly like it would have if I hadn't worried about it. So a great step to living the true life that we are called to is to let go of the true life that God called you to.
Do you have dreams? Great. Do you have a mission statement for your life? Wonderful. Are you passionate about something? Good. All good things, but if we don't continually surrender or even worse, choose to try and bring those things about in our own power either they will become more gods to us then God or they will not flourish. In art I cannot bring about inspiration on my own - I can foster an environment to be inspired but as long as I try to just create art without God is about as long as I have an empty canvas sitting in the corner of the room glaring at me. When I try to bring something about that God has placed in me I am simply petrified by the fear that it will fail. Fear of failure is the essence of my desire for control. If I cannot take what God has given me and do it right what am I worth?
God has given us all great gifts, and yes, we do need to choose to act upon them, but we also need not worry about their maintenance. What God has called us to is not our soul responsibility to bring about. He does not hand out vision simply to walk away and leave it up to human effort to see it come alive. When we receive from God we are called to give back what he has given us and let him bring about miracles.
As for failure, when we surrender out gifts back to God we see that he did not make us to do things for him but to be with him. No matter how much I fail at something, even at my deepest calling, Christ still died for me on the cross and I am still forgiven and he still desires fellowship with me. To God, our failure IS an option, we WILL sin, we WILL fall and we WILL come up with disasters, even of things inspired by God, he still smiles at us and says "well done!" we are still called children of God.
I suppose what makes the idea of surrender hardest for me is that it involves an incredible amount of trust. God always calls us to trust him and, quite frankly, I am uncomfortable with trust. But God knows that and has already forgiven me for it. Again and again he is faithful in small things and gently he calls for trust in the bigger things too. It is also very encouraging for me to see how He is at work in other people and to learn to trust him for his faithfulness to all of his children. I also recently experienced His grace in a much deeper way then I ever had before and to know the grace and love of God is to fall in love and to see that trusting him is not so very scary.
I don't know your story, I don't know where you have been or what you struggle with. Perhaps I am the only person in the world who feels the need to control every situation in order to be safe, I doubt it though. I have a nagging suspicion that I am not very unlike most people in this matter. What I have learned about it - and what I hope some may take away from this - is that the more I try to control a situation the less power I feel I have in it, I simply become desperate. But, the more I learn to trust God and to let go the more empowered I am to do that which God has created me for (maybe not in the way I was expecting to see it, but in a way that is better). So loose your life, and save it.
If I am in control of a situation I am good - great even, flourishing; I prefer to direct then to act, I like to write, I prefer to know the end of the movie before I watch it - all in an attempt to control my surroundings so I know that I am safe.
It doesn't work.
No matter what I do or what I try I am never able to control to the level that I desire to - my thirst for control kept me in a horrible relationship for what would have been one of the best years of my life - now that that's long over it's my desire for control that keeps me afraid of waiting or of trusting the people in my life right now. It also keeps me from doing the things that I long to do - to be a writer, an artist, to be undignified or just simply a human being instead of a human do. The desire for control or for safety is ultimately what's keeping me from living life and being REALLY safe in the arms of Jesus. It is a heavy burden, a life, and really it is one that we do not even have the smallest ability to carry - no matter what I plan or panic over tomorrow will come and it will look exactly like it would have if I hadn't worried about it. So a great step to living the true life that we are called to is to let go of the true life that God called you to.
Do you have dreams? Great. Do you have a mission statement for your life? Wonderful. Are you passionate about something? Good. All good things, but if we don't continually surrender or even worse, choose to try and bring those things about in our own power either they will become more gods to us then God or they will not flourish. In art I cannot bring about inspiration on my own - I can foster an environment to be inspired but as long as I try to just create art without God is about as long as I have an empty canvas sitting in the corner of the room glaring at me. When I try to bring something about that God has placed in me I am simply petrified by the fear that it will fail. Fear of failure is the essence of my desire for control. If I cannot take what God has given me and do it right what am I worth?
God has given us all great gifts, and yes, we do need to choose to act upon them, but we also need not worry about their maintenance. What God has called us to is not our soul responsibility to bring about. He does not hand out vision simply to walk away and leave it up to human effort to see it come alive. When we receive from God we are called to give back what he has given us and let him bring about miracles.
As for failure, when we surrender out gifts back to God we see that he did not make us to do things for him but to be with him. No matter how much I fail at something, even at my deepest calling, Christ still died for me on the cross and I am still forgiven and he still desires fellowship with me. To God, our failure IS an option, we WILL sin, we WILL fall and we WILL come up with disasters, even of things inspired by God, he still smiles at us and says "well done!" we are still called children of God.
I suppose what makes the idea of surrender hardest for me is that it involves an incredible amount of trust. God always calls us to trust him and, quite frankly, I am uncomfortable with trust. But God knows that and has already forgiven me for it. Again and again he is faithful in small things and gently he calls for trust in the bigger things too. It is also very encouraging for me to see how He is at work in other people and to learn to trust him for his faithfulness to all of his children. I also recently experienced His grace in a much deeper way then I ever had before and to know the grace and love of God is to fall in love and to see that trusting him is not so very scary.
I don't know your story, I don't know where you have been or what you struggle with. Perhaps I am the only person in the world who feels the need to control every situation in order to be safe, I doubt it though. I have a nagging suspicion that I am not very unlike most people in this matter. What I have learned about it - and what I hope some may take away from this - is that the more I try to control a situation the less power I feel I have in it, I simply become desperate. But, the more I learn to trust God and to let go the more empowered I am to do that which God has created me for (maybe not in the way I was expecting to see it, but in a way that is better). So loose your life, and save it.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Extraordinary Ordinary
3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
If there is anyone we are encouraged to follow as Christians it is obviously Christ himself.
The very essence of God, God the son, God himself - loved his disciples so much that he washed their dirty, smelly feet and dried them with the towel that he had around his waist. Jesus was always doing scandalous things like that, he picked grain and ate it on a Sabbath, he healed on the Sabbath, he touched lepers and hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors and all other motley assortments of various "unclean" and "sinful" stuff in the world around him. Clearly he did not shirk ugly, he did not balk at ruining his reputation and being considered the lowest didn't matter to him.
How? HOW? How did Jesus have this ability - above all one of the greatest desires of my heart and something that I rarely ever see in the world at all. True humility. Being so wrapped up in loving God and the people around you that it doesn't matter who sees or who cares. The opinion of people loosing all of it's power. The opinion of others not mattering, and something else... not needed to be transformed into the likeness of amazing people on earth.
I don't know how many people look at the likes of Mother Theresa or others with amazing faith and amazing ministries and desire their ministry. Or on a much less spiritual side want to be famous, wealthy, or in any way more successful, more stand-outish then anyone else. To a lesser extent it is the constant, life killing comparing - the lie that says as long as we are better then someone else it's all okay and the devastation when we are not better then them in any way. When, in fact, they are better then us at something. This horrible and almost totally self conscious comparison life style drained me and kept me isolated from people - I felt unloved by God unless I was somehow outstanding. After all he knit me together in my mother's womb and His thoughts for me outnumber the grains of sand I must be pretty fabulous and all that wonder is something that I have to discover, right?
What I hadn't realized until lately is that Psalm 119 wasn't only written about me. That I am not stand alone - God loves us all equally and he will never compare us or encourage us to be "better then others" God did not make a few outstanding people - the ordinary, everyday people whom you see as you walk through the mall or pick up groceries are all as deeply and intimately loved by God as you, Mother Theresa, all of the apostles, Moses, ect. In other words by being ordinary people we are extraordinary beyond measure.
God created us all equally and that is not a bad thing or something that I want to say to keep anyone down or discouraged. God has the ability to deeply love and to plant the greatness that is himself in the heart of all people. What Jesus was modeling in John 13 was that when we really really know who we are in God, the labels and the "dignity" of man totally melt away. The being better, having status, money or even a more amazing ministry then someone else becomes irrelevant. Because Jesus knew deep down who he was and where he was going he served with a good heart out of genuine love and that is what God desires of all of us. He desires for us to be rooted in him and serving one another from the love that He gives. If you are not recieving this love or don't know it, don't be discouraged but pray for that knowledge - it may take years but God is faithful.
Getting off the comparison treadmill, and accepting true humility does not come by human effort but by the deep reality of who God is, and who we all are to him. After all, if Jesus came in the likeness of a normal, ordinary human being that must make our ordinary very extraordinary indeed.
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