Getting personal

Ok, I'm going to get personal in this blog entry.  I doubt anyone is even really reading it.  I mean there are billions of people in the world and you put something out there online, and in reality it truly can be obscure and never reach a soul.  This was going to be an outlet for me to put my thoughts out there into cyber space in hopes that maybe something I said could maybe, just maybe encourage someone somewhere in this little big planet of ours.  But fact is.....lately, I've been needing the encouragement myself.

There have been many big changes that have occurred in my life recently and still I am in limbo....floating around like a loose helium filled balloon over a forest of pine trees.  So often lately it seems like I'm losing my air and eventually going to pop from landing on one of those pine needles and be lost forever.  I'm not talking faith here....but myself.  Everything for the past few month's has felt like a wilderness.  I'm not alone.  I am surrounded by family who loves me, but yet, something is missing.  Connectivity.

We live in a day and age where social networking is supposedly bringing people together...but in reality it seems like it's tearing us apart from real human bonding.  All of us are seeking to belong;  to be liked;  accepted...loved.  Yet we live in an age of walls of isolation and our ideas of relationships are rated by how many friends we have on facebook or followers on whatever blog or twitter we have.  Yet, with all of this "social" networking people are more lonely than ever.  I guess this is where I am at.

One of the major changes was a big move halfway across the country.  I wish it was the picture perfect little package with job, home, moving truck, etc.  But it wasn't.  It was a leap of faith.  One leap where I felt pushed out of the boat to make.  I guess I wasn't budging on my own.  The jobs came pretty quick and with incredible favor.  Now though, how do I connect to others?  I have faith and I am passionate about my relationship with God and His Son.  I want to be a reflection of His light and love while I'm alive in this world.    sigh.....This entire journey has been challenging my attitude.  I have to choose how I'm going to react to our circumstances.  Be careful what you pray for I guess because if you pray for a pure heart.....you're going to be challenged beyond your comfort zone.  Hopefully you'll choose an attitude of gratitude rather than a pity party.  At first I found myself peeking into that party more than I'd like to admit.  I'll be honest...I can still hear the loud music no matter how much I try to distance myself from it, but I refuse to go back inside.  So...every time I here those negative thoughts pop up in my head I say to myself out loud something that opposes those thoughts even if my feelings aren't quite caught up with them yet.  Not easy but not impossible either....again, it's a choice.  Ugh...sometimes I don't like free will.  Some days I just want God to make me do what I need to do so it gets done.  He has my permission to kick me in the right direction!

Back to the lonely thing.  Where are the hungry people??!!  I went to church when we first arrived and loved the message the leadership was going to preach on:  The Kingdom of Heaven.  I mean YEAH!  After the very high tech video intro I was so geeked that I couldn't help but yell.  However......it was dead silence all around and my yelp was too obvious.  I wasn't embarrassed for myself, I was sad for the people.  HOW am I supposed to meet people in what's supposed to be a "safe and friendly" environment when all you can get is a pasty smile, a weak hand shake and crickets in the sanctuary?!  Yeah, I went a bunch of times.  Loved the messages and took notes in my heart.  God, where are your children?!?!

Now, I have this job that keeps me working every weekend and holiday.  Not so bad really, but it puts a damper on opportunities to meet people.  You know how it is in new work environments?  You are the outcast.  The awkward one.  But I don't want to be too friendly with people I work with.  Gossip!!!!  That's why!  I am grateful for the job and the socialism although limited.  It is a blessing.  We need the income.  But I want to connect to people, not just do business transactions.  Wilderness, floating above the pine forest.

What did Jesus endure when he went into the wilderness?  I read it and read it.  His life is our example right?  He suffered loneliness and isolation.  His only followers weren't on Twitter, but was Satan tempting him to worship him.  Here is God as flesh and having to wander alone in the wilderness of the middle east.  YUK!  That makes my mouth parched just thinking about it.  I don't like sand or even the mere idea of desert sand, or even of desert.  Nope, not for me.

Back to Jesus' experience.  What happened to Him for those 40 days and nights?  I mean we only glean a glimpse, but I would imagine it sucked.  I know what I"m dealing with is the pits emotionally.  Darned feelings.  And I have people around me.  But he was literally alone AND not eating - even worse.  Like salt on a 2 inch gash on the most sensitive area of your body.  Jesus....how did you do it?  What were your thoughts?  What did you feel?  How did you wrestle with your flesh and with Satan and not succumb to temptation?  Couldn't you have given us a little more input?  God, why do we feel alone when we are surrounded by people?  What is the problem here?

I thought I had friends from where I moved from, but I guess I was mistaken.  Getting really tired of hearing about how busy people are.  You have time to watch tv 4 hours a day or play on the computer for 2 hours doing absolutely nothing productive and you're too busy to write me back?  Ugh.  Yeah, said I was needing the encouragement.  I forgive them and let it go.  Que Sera Sera right?  Still miss them though, even if they have forgotten my friendship to them.

I'll write more later.  Have to go to bed now because, praise to God, I have a job!!!  :) 

Wrestling with Faith

How many times have you questioned God about why something is happening to you?  Why you were going through this terrible trial?  Why was He not getting you out of it or changing the circumstances in your favor?  So often we wonder if He’s even paying attention at all or if He just doesn’t care about us and we feel so alone and often confused.  The thoughts occur to us that our faith isn’t good enough or else He would answer our prayers.

 

Personally, I’ve wrestled with my faith a few times.  One time I was so distraught and angry that I told God I was done with Him.  I shook my fist at Him and told myself none of it was real.  He wasn’t real and everything I’ve believed about Him, well that too was all a fabrication.  Things at that time in my life were not making any sense, especially because I had been so faithful to God and I was asking, seeking and knocking as He told us to and yet there was silence….no reply to my petitions.  

As I sat down after clenching my fists at the air and spewing words of disappointment to an empty audience, I collapsed in my chair, dropped my head forward, sighed and became silent.  It was very early in the morning and the only sounds around me were the house creeks.  Then….a still, small voice spoke to my mind.  It sounded like my own inner voice, but it didn’t belong to me.  “Are you finished?” it asked.  Not condemning, but kind of like a parents voice of love and authority.  I took in another sigh and spoke audibly and defeated, “yes.”   Then came the Words….the many I had read for years in my private devotions to the Lord.  They flooded my mind, soul and spirit as though they were living and breathing and pouring new life into my very being.  There was something not natural taking place in that moment of my absolute defeat and despair.  Something supernatural was occurring – God was revealing Himself to me through His Truth.  Like a bubbling brook or a deep spring it just poured upwards into all of me like refreshing waters to a parched ground. 

“Lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Me.“  “My ways are not your ways, nor are my thoughts your thoughts, but as the Heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways and my thoughts higher than yours.” And many more that spoke to my life at that time.  He WAS with me, just as He said “I will never leave you or forsake you.”  Yet, I did not understand why He stood so silent when I had believed and needed Him so much.  Not then anyway, but later I did.  Later everything made sense.  Later I received my answers.  They were just around the corner but I was ready to give up and throw it all away because of my own disbelief and impatience.  I thought He should have done things my way and misunderstood that it is always best to wait upon the Lord to do things His way.  But so often we think our way IS His way, but more often than not that is just not the case.

Jesus is the Rock and as we stand on Him
 He will hold us up through the storms of life.
Those are His hands coming out of the rock.
(This is part of a sculpture I made a few years back)

This occurred a few years ago and although I have not wrestled nearly as bad as that time, I have still wrestled and every time I do I am reminded again and again that I am His creation, not Him and although I am adopted into God’s family and am now His child, He IS still the Father, God of ALL creation who is not bound by time or sin and death.  When I slip into a lack of faith I make myself remember Who God is and who I am to Him and boldly and confidently come before His throne and ask Him for strength to endure; to trust, and to wait patiently while His plan works itself out in my life and in the lives of those around me.  Even now I am waiting still as my family has been in a dark, dark storm for several years.  What keeps me going?  His Truth.  I confess it out of my mouth daily.  I may not “feel” it, but I speak it regardless because His Truth is not limited to my emotions.  No His Truth is the rock I stand on to keep me from being tossed into the storms of life.  I’m not saying I don’t get knocked around, wind -blown, wet, cold, lonely, discouraged or even doubt, but because my feet are firmly planted on the Rock of Christ, He won’t let me fall into the torrential sea.  It’s the promise of Who God is that I hold on to and not my own understanding of the situation.  Is this easy? NO!  But Jesus never said it would be easy. 

Too often we blame God for the atrocities in our world.  There is so much darkness and despair, pain and suffering and we wonder how He could just let it happen.  But He doesn’t let it happen.  He gave us free will and lets us choose for ourselves.  Our world is fallen.  That means creation is fallen…all of creation, from the plants, the animals and to all of mankind.  We are born in sin because the world is fallen.  I think we forget that part.  We hear of the miracles of Christ occurring throughout the world in other’s lives and we want that in ours as well.  I too question God and ask Him why there are not more healings in the Church Body to show His power and glory on the earth.  He does not answer me.  But, what I am learning is that I must remember what He HAS done in my life and in the lives of those around me.  We must remember the times He took care of us, healed us, provided for us and even embraced us with His comfort and protection.  Otherwise we become like the Hebrews who were delivered from Egypt and forgot all that God delivered them from.  What they failed to understand was that it was through their wilderness experience God was trying to make them better people.  He was trying to get the Egypt out of their hearts and get their hearts to be more like His own. 

When we forget all that He has done we begin to wrestle with our faith.  We must remember and stand on His Truth, even when nothing makes sense around us.  What we don’t understand in our lives now, one day we will.  Whether in this life time or the next, but until then, to keep hope alive remember the times God revealed His love to you, even if all you have is the salvation you received at the Cross of Calvary.  Shouldn’t that alone be enough?  God loves us….God loves you.  He…loves…you….

Judging is not loving

There is a division among mankind.  We are divided by a line of judgment.  What is it we judge?  Better yet would be to ask what is it we don’t judge?  Ethnicity, color, size, shape, ability, political affiliation, familial status, religion, beliefs, etc., etc., etc.  And the list extends too far for eye to see.  Generations of children are trained to continue the traditions of isolation and contentment, adding greater layers of brick to a dividing wall of great magnitude. 

Throughout history many have come along and lead a parade of followers who attempted to tear down those walls and yet they were destroyed by those clothed in masks of judgment.  One greatest among them all was Jesus….Son of Man, Son of God…God made mere man to show us how to live to our fullest potential.  What was His message?  Love! 

What type of love did this infamous Man-God teach us?  What example did He set before us through His own life?  Have His followers destroyed any walls with the mighty hammer of Love He passed on to us? 

Jesus taught us to Love our God and to Love our neighbor as ourselves.  Yet we say we Love God but then curse those made in His image.  We love those who make us feel good or meet our approval.  We are creatures of conditional love and magnificent individual judge and juries.  We condemn without forethought and critique what we do not understand and fear.  This is just “our way”.  “Our sins are not as bad as their sins!”  Yet, where is Jesus in all of this?  In Christianity we use God’s Word like a hammer to crush “sin” out of people, yet in reality we are crushing them with blows of judgment and condemnation.  Isn’t there “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus?” Aren’t we only to judge in the same manner we ourselves wish to be judged?  Let’s rephrase this:  Aren’t we to love in the same manner we ourselves wish to be loved and HAVE been loved?   

Sadly we as followers of “The Way” have lost our way.  We have segregated ourselves in walled towers all the while peering out of little windows and throwing rocks at all who pass by.  If Jesus were to return today would He find us about our Father’s business, or look at our thick walled towers and wonder who lives within such prison walls? 

What is our Father’s business we are to be about?  Well, if we look closely at Jesus’ life we can see it right in front of us.  We’re to be about loving others.  He did not discriminate whom He loved.  He loved the whole world – even those who persecuted Him and killed Him.  He told us to do the same…to love our enemies…to do good to those who persecute us….to show compassion, kindness, gentleness, patience, meekness, grace and mercy towards all.  Aren’t all men made in God’s image?  If we are to love God then aren’t we to love men as well?  Not just those who are kind to us, but even those who aren’t so kind?  Then we can transform the world as Jesus intended us to do.  If the world is to hate us for being like Jesus then that’s on them.  But, if they hate us for being hypocrites than that’s on us. 

Lord, please open our eyes to see our hearts and our behaviors.  Forgive us for being so blind to our judgmental attitudes towards those You have fashioned in Your image.  Soften our hearts with Your love so that we can share that love with others, especially those who are not so easy to love.  Let us remember that we were once just as unlovely and yet You shared Your love with us.  Help us to remember our mission and to step out of our comfort zones…stepping out of those towers of isolation and into the fields of humanity.  May we be a people about our Father’s business…a people of Light, Love and Truth towards all we come in contact with on a daily basis.  Make us courageous lovers just as You were courageous to love us when we were not willing to love You in return.  

Everyone has a story

Whenever I am driving or out and about doing the mundane tasks in life I cross the path's of many people.  So often I get so caught up in my task that I miss them.  How many people do we pass by every day?  And with those how many do we acknowledge?  And for those we acknowledge, how many do we consider?  My point is that every one has a story.  That person who cuts you off may be distracted with some pressing situation or just distracted because of their own daily agenda.  That burnt out cashier who doesn't even acknowledge you in any fashion of real interest may be having a very bad day or maybe has just been feeling just as invisible by their customers.  What about the rude person who cut in front of you in line?  They may have a bad marriage at home, a kid on drugs, a sick parent and are just at their whits end in stress because they are trying to take on the entire load by themselves.  Now I'm not saying these are always the cases, but what I am saying is that EVERYONE has a story.

My prayer is that I take notice of the people I pass by.  May I be sensitive to them as fellow humans and offer them kindness, a warm smile, a sincere greeting and even my place in line.  I hope to be patient and not in a rush to save myself an extra minute when I can and should sometimes give it to someone else.  Let my eyes see others with value rather than seeing myself as more valued than them.  Tug at my heart for those who may need some kind words, a genuine complement or just an aknowledgment that they are not invisible.  Maybe You can let me share a word of encouragement to someone who needs to know You care.  Whatever the situation, I pray I will be available to be Your hands or Your voice to share Your heart to these precious beings You created.  Let me be a vessel to showcase Your beautiful Love as I go about my daily duties.  May the menial tasks become missions of Your goodness.