(action points Luke 8:42-48)
1. Describe what makes the lessons learned during long seasons of chronic difficulty unique from those that are learned in emergency situations.
I think of the artist. The painter. The blank canvas. Staring blankly for minutes, then hours, then unto days, thinking, feeling out his painting. Wondering what is going to be revealed in its Time. At first, the frustration sets in. Why can't I paint? I think I know what I want to paint. I have a rough idea of which colors and schemes to use. For some reason though, I just don't feel comfortable with putting any old thing down. It feels like there's a masterpiece waiting to be brought out of me, something that will be exactly as it's supposed to.
Slowly, but surely, the artist's life is consumed by not being able to pain. He only seems to think about the painting. The blank white material upon which there is nothing. His hope may dwindle down after a spell of staring into the blankness. He may come up with a different idea entirely. He may decide to sculpt something. He may decide to just give up, and not paint anything at all. But he keeps in, knowing there's something inside telling him that if he just holds out long enough, if he just gives it enough time, if he accepts that it will come out when it's supposed to come out, he will be pleased beyond belief.
Now, I think of the painter whose painting is immediate. It comes to him in a flash, a bang, an explosion of thoughts in the mind and of the spirit. He instantly knows what palette, what colors, what brushes he's going to use. Soon, he's so immersed in the moment the painting is already done before he's had time to take stock. To step back. To notice what is unfolding before his very eyes. To see the creation that has just been transposed from his hands unto reality.
When things take place on an "instant" level, similar to an emergency, we barely notice the whilrwind that is happening all around us. It almost seems as if we're operating on autopilot, just going through everything, not letting the emotions hit us. I think back to when relatives have passed on, how everything seems to just "shift" into gear. You hug, you weep, you motion for people to be comforted, you set up arrangements and times and make sure people know where they're going and who's doing what, etc., etc. It's only until the final moments, not nec. when the person is laid to rest, but when the last person goes home from the farewell gathering, that you start to take stock and notice what has happened in life.
While I compare art and death here, two extremes, they are inherent in their linking. As a person with a disease or ailment or symptom who's slowly dying, they know the moment will be there. They may even wish for it more days than others, welcoming it, saying they just want it to happen. They may even ignore it, tell themselves it's not going to happen, and throw caution to the wind and decide to look at or focus on something else. But, like the painter over time, they know the moment is coming when it is to happen. It is an inevitibility to them. Eventually, it becomes an accepted event in their lives, and they understand the culmination of the sum, just as the painter accepts the painting will be there when it's time has come, not the other way around...
2. Compare the difference between those who suffer bitterly and those who suffer well.
I believe the term is "hope". Those who suffer well have it, and those who suffer bitterly don't. It doesn't get much more simplified than that. When you suffer bitterly, you never expect the suffering to end. You end up letting it be your focus. It brings you down. You find reasons to suffer every little thing. Your bathwater was too hot. Your toast was overcooked. You got stuck in traffic for 5 extra minutes. The copier didn't scan right. All of these things just add a continual building to your view of suffering. And the only thing worse than suffering bitterly is suffering bitterly and not ever expecting things to be any different.
For nearly 29 years, I suffered bitterly. When anything would go wrong in my life, I would blame anything, anyone, make sure you all knew my problems, or why things never worked out, or why I never caught a break, or woe is me or yadda yadda shut the fuck up yadda. I suffered so bitterly and so strongly I burned, yes burned, incinerated, set fire to, engulfed with flames, every single romantic, deep relationship I ever had. I was a horrible sufferer who didn't believe there was any end to sight. That I'd simply just continue aging, and be nothing but a giant loser who never had anything going for him.
Now though, when I suffer, it's not so bad. Shit happens, I get that. We all have shit happen to us at times when we don't want them to. At times when it seems like "what the fuck did I do to deserve this?" The difference now, in my life, is Christ has me. I am comforted in knowing I will never be burdened with more than I can bear. And since, I am told to take up His yoke for His burden is light, I have the hope that He will bring me through anything for the better, and I have the faith in Him to know this is true. I may suffer, I may lose friends, I may lose relatives. I may hit a bad patch in life. But I can scream to the Heavens if I want to. I can call on God and ask Him every and anything that is in my heart, and He WILL hear me. His answer may not be the answer I want to hear, but it will be the answer He has decreed for me. If I am made to suffer, then suffer well shall I, for I suffer in Christ and with Christ, as He suffered a fate much more terrible than any in my life. And I don't know if you know or not, but Jesus basically became like, you know, God and Lord over everything. So, there really isn't a damn thing He can't do, like, lessen my suffering or heal it completely.
Fred Durst quoted George Michael who was paraphrasing Jesus best....ya gotta have faith!
*there's a reflection on this, but I shall add it tomorrow as my eyes are about to fall out....though I have faith they won't really do that ;)
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
90 Days w/Jesus...day 37
(action points Luke 8:40-42, 49-56)
1. When have you been desperate for Jesus' help? What has the power to bring you to your knees, pleading?
I felt so lost in my beginning walk with the Lord. I thought it would be downright impossible to ever come to Him. I believe my sins, my stains upon my life and of those lives I'd been interspersed with, I believed them to be of so much pain, heartache and strife that I could simply never forgive myself to come to God, asking for His help. As If I believed He would choose not to heal me when He looked in my heart and saw the evil things I had done.
If you know me, even a little bit, you know that I can cry. I'm like that. An emotional person who sometimes has to fight back the tears, get that lump in the throat, find it hard to talk, to breathe, to want to look at anyone, or to do anything that could lead me out of the darkness I would feel. Many nights, many, many nights, when I was first learning about God, and even some nights after I have come to Him, have I spent staring at my ceiling, my tearducts wide open, turning my face into a wet, sniffling mess. I tend to become like this when I think of those sad moments in my past. Knowing that they are there, and though they have been forgiven, have not yet been forgotten by me. It's as if they must always remain there, letting me know where it was I came from, and how far I have come.
Some nights are harder than others. Because of how God has made me, I have an accute sense of physical sensation when I end up thinking about such things. It's as if I can smell, taste, hear, and touch those moments like they were happening right then. And that's when I become desperate to Him. When I feel as though I am being overtaken by my emotions, perhaps even being attacked spiritually by the enemy, for He knows, as I do, and as God knows, that my emotions (as I'm sure many other people as well) are a great striking point for me. To lay in bed, tossing and turning because I can't run from my tears, I can't run from the deeds I've done.
It's usually moments like this, or moments when I'm feeling lost in direction with God, or when I feel as though I know I've not been hearing Him and obeying Him, when I become despondent to a point of babbling. To where my words and thoughts seem to ramble out from my mind and mouth, and it just seems like I'm praying and asking for forgiveness and hoping and feeling and wanting and desiring to be healed, to not feel to not be surrounded to not be attacked to not be set upon by these memories, to not be taken ahold of, to release me from the pain and turmoil they still cause my life.
I know there's so much wrong that I did. So many things that I am sometimes ashamed to know, because to know them means to acknowledge I did them before the Lord, before I ever even knew He loved me. And I pray with a desperate desperation to Him that He will save me from the storm that wells up inside me. That He will save me from feeling so lost I don't believe I can see the way out....even though, I know that, in my heart, that He has already saved me, that, in my heart, He has already given me the way out because He called me to Him and I heard Him cry out to me....
2. How do you feel when you approach Him with a deep, pressing, please-do-something-now need? Welcome? Unworthy? A bother?
A little weak, I think. Perhaps a little embarassed. A little dumb. I feel like, when I'm in those moments(of course I'm writing in hindsight here) that I feel like God is just going "Tim, you know the answer. I've already shown you. My comfort is here, but you ask for things I've already done for you. Your prayers have been answered already, my son."
I know God has neverending patience with me. He has neverending patience with every human being, right up to the moment when their physical body dies. I would figure that, up until that moment, as surely as He is the Lord, we can be saved in our very last breath of physical life. His patience goes to that moment right before death. If I've accepted Him beforehand, then I am with Him. If not, well...
But when I come to Him, or when I am weak, or when I am feeling down, or lost, I do sometimes feel as though more is expected of me, simply because I know I should be trusting in Him, and not in myself. Typically, when I want something now, in that please-do-it-now! type of way, I'm usually asking for a pain to be lifted. I'm not usually saying, "Hey God, I really want this new car/job/object/insert-here please" because that's not usually where my heart or head is when I'm praying for immediate help. Most times, it's a prayer of immediate help when, as stated earlier, I'm feeling so overwhelmed by emotion or attack that I need escape. I need refuge. I need to be lifted up in His arms. I need to know I'm being held tight by Him. That He truly does love me. That He truly does want me to know it's okay, and He has me securely.
Being an emotionally-charged/affected person, it's a hard thing, sometimes, to know that God is with me. I read in His story how men who are greater than I am, how even they had doubts and struggles and would turn away from Him, and He would lay out temporary or everlasting judgements on them. And then I think, here I am. So overwhelmed by my sins or shortcomings that I am begging for mercy, mercy that may not come to me. Though now, as I just read after Solomon's prayer, that when you turn to the Lord, in truth, with all your heart, and you call upon Him, He will take up His mercies and shower me with His grace, and give me the healing I seek.
I think, more than anything, all that I've ever really wanted from God, is healing. And maybe that's wrong. Maybe what I need to want from God is feeling His love, or me giving love to him, unashamed, unabashed love. Have I ever truly loved in my life to begin with? Was it all an emotionally charged, pyschologically based, illusion? Has it all been me imitating and mimicking love, or me simply showering others with emotions so it looked as though I was 'loving'? Lord, I want healing in my heart. I will want this from Him everyday, though there may be days when I feel as if I cannot be healed, so why bother seeking it? There will be days where I will reject the idea that I can be healed. This is nothing more than a trick, a clever scheme by the enemy, to tell me I'm unworthy of God's healing power. That somehow God doesn't want to heal me. Or that I deserve to continuously live in the pain of feeling as though I'm broken. So untrue. God wants me healed, so that I may love Him fully. So that I can have nothing in the way of giving Him my unyielding love. So that I may come to Him with anything, big or small, and say to Him "Lord, I lay this before your feet, because I love you, and because you love me, I trust you with this thing." I may not yet be fully to this position of confidence in myself, which stems from confidence in the Lord, but I know, He is working on me everyday, driving me through His sheer determination and willpower, that I may be before Him, not just standing blameless and unashamed, but in my heart and mind and soul knowing I am these things.
Let your will be done in my life, O Lord. I lay it before thee, so I may love you through and through....Amen
1. When have you been desperate for Jesus' help? What has the power to bring you to your knees, pleading?
I felt so lost in my beginning walk with the Lord. I thought it would be downright impossible to ever come to Him. I believe my sins, my stains upon my life and of those lives I'd been interspersed with, I believed them to be of so much pain, heartache and strife that I could simply never forgive myself to come to God, asking for His help. As If I believed He would choose not to heal me when He looked in my heart and saw the evil things I had done.
If you know me, even a little bit, you know that I can cry. I'm like that. An emotional person who sometimes has to fight back the tears, get that lump in the throat, find it hard to talk, to breathe, to want to look at anyone, or to do anything that could lead me out of the darkness I would feel. Many nights, many, many nights, when I was first learning about God, and even some nights after I have come to Him, have I spent staring at my ceiling, my tearducts wide open, turning my face into a wet, sniffling mess. I tend to become like this when I think of those sad moments in my past. Knowing that they are there, and though they have been forgiven, have not yet been forgotten by me. It's as if they must always remain there, letting me know where it was I came from, and how far I have come.
Some nights are harder than others. Because of how God has made me, I have an accute sense of physical sensation when I end up thinking about such things. It's as if I can smell, taste, hear, and touch those moments like they were happening right then. And that's when I become desperate to Him. When I feel as though I am being overtaken by my emotions, perhaps even being attacked spiritually by the enemy, for He knows, as I do, and as God knows, that my emotions (as I'm sure many other people as well) are a great striking point for me. To lay in bed, tossing and turning because I can't run from my tears, I can't run from the deeds I've done.
It's usually moments like this, or moments when I'm feeling lost in direction with God, or when I feel as though I know I've not been hearing Him and obeying Him, when I become despondent to a point of babbling. To where my words and thoughts seem to ramble out from my mind and mouth, and it just seems like I'm praying and asking for forgiveness and hoping and feeling and wanting and desiring to be healed, to not feel to not be surrounded to not be attacked to not be set upon by these memories, to not be taken ahold of, to release me from the pain and turmoil they still cause my life.
I know there's so much wrong that I did. So many things that I am sometimes ashamed to know, because to know them means to acknowledge I did them before the Lord, before I ever even knew He loved me. And I pray with a desperate desperation to Him that He will save me from the storm that wells up inside me. That He will save me from feeling so lost I don't believe I can see the way out....even though, I know that, in my heart, that He has already saved me, that, in my heart, He has already given me the way out because He called me to Him and I heard Him cry out to me....
2. How do you feel when you approach Him with a deep, pressing, please-do-something-now need? Welcome? Unworthy? A bother?
A little weak, I think. Perhaps a little embarassed. A little dumb. I feel like, when I'm in those moments(of course I'm writing in hindsight here) that I feel like God is just going "Tim, you know the answer. I've already shown you. My comfort is here, but you ask for things I've already done for you. Your prayers have been answered already, my son."
I know God has neverending patience with me. He has neverending patience with every human being, right up to the moment when their physical body dies. I would figure that, up until that moment, as surely as He is the Lord, we can be saved in our very last breath of physical life. His patience goes to that moment right before death. If I've accepted Him beforehand, then I am with Him. If not, well...
But when I come to Him, or when I am weak, or when I am feeling down, or lost, I do sometimes feel as though more is expected of me, simply because I know I should be trusting in Him, and not in myself. Typically, when I want something now, in that please-do-it-now! type of way, I'm usually asking for a pain to be lifted. I'm not usually saying, "Hey God, I really want this new car/job/object/insert-here please" because that's not usually where my heart or head is when I'm praying for immediate help. Most times, it's a prayer of immediate help when, as stated earlier, I'm feeling so overwhelmed by emotion or attack that I need escape. I need refuge. I need to be lifted up in His arms. I need to know I'm being held tight by Him. That He truly does love me. That He truly does want me to know it's okay, and He has me securely.
Being an emotionally-charged/affected person, it's a hard thing, sometimes, to know that God is with me. I read in His story how men who are greater than I am, how even they had doubts and struggles and would turn away from Him, and He would lay out temporary or everlasting judgements on them. And then I think, here I am. So overwhelmed by my sins or shortcomings that I am begging for mercy, mercy that may not come to me. Though now, as I just read after Solomon's prayer, that when you turn to the Lord, in truth, with all your heart, and you call upon Him, He will take up His mercies and shower me with His grace, and give me the healing I seek.
I think, more than anything, all that I've ever really wanted from God, is healing. And maybe that's wrong. Maybe what I need to want from God is feeling His love, or me giving love to him, unashamed, unabashed love. Have I ever truly loved in my life to begin with? Was it all an emotionally charged, pyschologically based, illusion? Has it all been me imitating and mimicking love, or me simply showering others with emotions so it looked as though I was 'loving'? Lord, I want healing in my heart. I will want this from Him everyday, though there may be days when I feel as if I cannot be healed, so why bother seeking it? There will be days where I will reject the idea that I can be healed. This is nothing more than a trick, a clever scheme by the enemy, to tell me I'm unworthy of God's healing power. That somehow God doesn't want to heal me. Or that I deserve to continuously live in the pain of feeling as though I'm broken. So untrue. God wants me healed, so that I may love Him fully. So that I can have nothing in the way of giving Him my unyielding love. So that I may come to Him with anything, big or small, and say to Him "Lord, I lay this before your feet, because I love you, and because you love me, I trust you with this thing." I may not yet be fully to this position of confidence in myself, which stems from confidence in the Lord, but I know, He is working on me everyday, driving me through His sheer determination and willpower, that I may be before Him, not just standing blameless and unashamed, but in my heart and mind and soul knowing I am these things.
Let your will be done in my life, O Lord. I lay it before thee, so I may love you through and through....Amen
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