Toxic Disobedience

One of the things that must happen for Christian salvation to take place is Surrender.  It is the realization that doing things your way, for your personal outcomes is not working and that you need the guidance of God and the Love of Jesus Christ to shift and change your life and your nature.  Salvation seems like an unsolvable math equation until you experience it and live it.

 But what happens when a Christian wants to debate God's Will with God?  What happens when a Christian wants to walk in stubbornness?  This is what the older generation would call a 'stubborn will', a place of not fully complete surrender.  It can be a hard road because it puts the individual in a place of negotiation with God and even explaining to God why thing need to be done differently. It is the ultimate in arrogance.  So how can arrogance truly serve God?

What has been on my mind for a few weeks now is the journey of Jonah.  Everything that Jonah went through before and after his doing what God has assigned him to due is shadowed by his attitude.  You would think that after all he went through over his assignment that his attitude would be one of surrender, but it seems that he had to keep dealing with the consequences of his stubbornness. But was it worth it?  Isnt that always the question of watching someone walk in disobedience?  Isnt that always the question that you want to ask someone who is determined to do things their way instead of walking in obedience to God's Will?

It is as if there is a doubt of God's ability. How else could you not fully trust what God is wanting to ask of you? How could you expect to come out with less by doing things God's way than trusting God's Plan?

So Jonah is stubborn to the point that everyone on the ship with him has to deal with the storm, until he is thrown off the ship.  Can you imagine the emotional distress of the others on the ship? Can you imagine how disheartening it is to watch a person face the waves and the sea, and pending death?  Is arguing with God worth it? 

God in his mercy, and in intent that what was assigned to Jonah was in fact his assignment, not to be given to another lets Jonah live.  Let's face it, God could have allowed Jonah to die in the sea and raise up another to fulfill the prophetic assignment, so why does God allow Jonah to live?

In saving Jonah's life, God puts him in a horrible situation - the stomach of a whale. Can you imagine the smell, the taste, the environmental hazards, etc?  The toxic feel of stomach acid meant to digest food on his skin had to be horrible. But this was the place that his stubbornness got him to experience. He was alive, but surrounded by toxic filth.  All at the price if disobedience and stubbornness.

Can you imagine being regurgitated by a whale? That has to be a hard life experience.  But Jonah's attitude is still not completely right about his assignment.  By this point, he is starting to have a better understanding of the seriousness that God has towards Jonah being obedient.  And even in Jonah doing what was such a simple assignment, he still wants to have an attitude about the whole matter.

So then we see Jonah go into a mode a pouting about not being able to do things his own way.  Still stubbornness, but from a different angle, but with the same argumentative spirit.  The journey towards Christian obedience is one that each individual must take alone. Even though other Christians are on the journey with you, and it is important to be a part of a community of faith, the journey towards the blessings or correction of God is individual.

Jonah was set up to receive a prophets reward. He is still know as being a prophet of God, but his disobedient attitude and the outcomes of that are what he is most remember for.  What more could Jonah's future had been besides sitting with his attitude, angry at God, not concerned about the souls of the people that he could have reached in Nineveh  and possibly beyond if he had only developed the right attitude for ministry and let go of his stubborn will.

It is hard to watch those who want to wrestle with God's Will waste precious time in toxic disobedience that could be spent going further into the BLESSINGS of  God's Will. Jonah did deliver the message to the city of Nineveh, but where does his life journey go after that? To take a spectator's seat to watch with attitude to see what will happen is not the ideal alternative to walking in one's calling to do great ministry where you have been assigned.  It is to settle for a lot of land, when God is offering an empire.

URIAH

In the story of David and Bathsheba, we have a very interesting person who seems to get the short end of the situation.  But I often wonder if this is the only way to look at this portion of text.  I say that because Uriah the Hittite represents one of my greatest fears.

Before I explain my views on this portion of text, let me give just a bit of background information about myself. My father had 5 brothers. I lived in the house with my dad and my oldest male cousin who was 12 years older than myself. So you can say almost all of my childhood was one of feeling very protected, affirmed, and loved.  I was my dad's only child so I was destined to be treated a certain way, better known as spoiled. With this many men in my childhood I was destined to not only get most anything that I wanted, because if one uncle said no, another uncle would either say yes, or find some way to compensate by offering something else that I might want. For example, if one uncle would not give me ice cream from the gas station up the street, all I had to do was to come back and make an announcement that I didnt get any ice cream.  This would be followed by the men having conversation about why I was denied ice cream or what ever it was that I wanted.  And not much time would pass before another uncle would invite me to go for a ride with him, only to end up at Kay's Ice Cream shop which had a whole bunch of flavors on display for me to choose from.  This understanding of how men treat those they care for and love has framed my understanding of relationships in general.  It has also set the bar for how I measure the behavior of men as an adult.

Growing up in a small town, during a time when people actually sat around and communicated with each other gave me a lot of insight from the perspectives of my aunts while they were stringing and breaking green beans or something.  And many times, I got to hear the conversations (while I was supposed to be playing in the yard and not listening) of my dad and his brothers talking about community issues, political events, but also to hear a lot of conversation about women and relationships. By the time I got to be a teenager, my dad started to really talk to me about relationships directly. And those conversations helped me to understand how and why he treated some of the women that he dated differently from others.


Now back to Uriah, in 2 Samuel 11, we are told the events that lead to his death in the hottest battle. But before he died, he was given a chance to go home to his wife. Now upon reading the story, this was not as any favor to Uriah, but it was truly a set up to cover up what was going on with David and Bathsheba.  So this is where I am going to talk briefly about Bathsheba's perspective, and how it reflects one of my greatest fears.

We really dont know anything about  Bathsheba and Uriah's relationship. We have no idea what Bathsheba shared with King David about her relationship or home situation. We are not given any insight into the pillow talk that Bathsheba had with Uriah or with King David. So what we have to go on are just the facts that are presented in the text.   I have heard it preached from a lot of different angles, and most of the time those angles portray  Bathsheba as having negative behavior and motives, which I am not completely  sure are presented in the wording or the tone of the text. But I am not going to debate that at this time.  I want to really get to a woman's perspective of  Uriah's decision not to go home to his wife.

Human behavior is very telling. Regardless of what a person says, their behavior tells the much larger portion of the truth. This frame of logic is how we are going to view Uriah's decision to sleep outside and not go home to his wife.  I am going to simply say that he didnt want her, he didnt want to go home to her.  He was a soldier who knew that he could die in battle any day, and he is given a chance to go home for a few nights to his wife and he would rather not, and says that it is his loyalty to the other soldiers who are not able to have this same opportunity to visit home.

A man in love, doesnt usually, really doesnt operate like that because love makes a man want to take every opportunity to spend time with the woman that  he loves, even if it means returning to battle and his death the next day.....  That is even more justification for him to take the opportunity to spend the night with the woman he loves. A man in love is caring and attentive, and willing to do his best to make sure the woman that he loves is happy.  It was not as if  Uriah was sneaking away to visit home, but he told to go home.  Now we dont know if he suspected something, or even if he had heard gossip, because that is not given to us in the text, all we have is the excuse that he uses to not go into his home to his wife.

So can you imagine what that must have felt like for Bathsheba? Her husband is in town, but is sleeping outside with servants and refusing to come home to her.  This is rejection, neglect, and disregard. Those are the things that a woman will get from a man who does not love her.  So imagine Bathsheba being married to a man who has so little affinity or interest in being a husband to her.  You might ask, so does this validate the theories that she was intentionally trying to be seen bathing?  I dont know. But what we do see is a married man who declares more loyalty to the army and to the king, than to his wife, or even a desire for her.

To be in a relationship marriage with someone who does not love you and who does not want you is a miserable way to live out your days. Having to pretend to family and friends that everything is ok when there is no real love or passion is hurtful and draining.  God's plan for marriage is for it to be the most loving and nourishing experience that affirms both the man and woman, in such a way that their bond is both spiritually and naturally strong.  So when we see Bathsheba move on with her life after Uriah's death, I cant help but to think that she must have mourned his death, but that she must have also been relieved to not have to any longer pretend that she was loved and cared for my a man who really didnt want to come home to her.  With Uriah out of the way, Bathsheba was free to be loved and cherished.

Distortion

Sin causes distortion, both in perspective and logic. This has been the case since the very beginning. From the 'you shall not surely die' to the present, the ways of distortion are the same, but the manifestations are every morphing.

In the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve did not drop dead at that exact moment, it began the distortion of timing and urgency. If one of them or both of them had died at that moment, it would have been the most clear message to them to obey, but it would have also been the end of their history. This is why these events were followed with some specific details as to what would happen for them in the rest of their lives as part of the consequences of their disobedience. But even those consequences did not change the outcome that was spoken to them, they would die.... not suddenly at that moment, but slowly aging and deteriorating. 

There has always been and will always be a price to be paid for sin. The pride of life makes each of us think that time is on our side, that we have plenty of time to worry later about living according to God's principles. But this distorted view also means that if we are not willing to live according to the plan of God for our lives, we forfeit the over arching truth of God's plan for our lives. Not just in the context of life or death, but everything in life before one dies. This can mean years and decades of living beneath what was God's plan to bless your life. The distortion of sin is to believe that you can get for yourself better than what God wants to give you. 

This makes some feel like the gamble is worth the risk to get what you can now and worry about the rest later.  In this way, sin has accomplished its purpose to distract and distort not only our perception of God, but of self.  Sin causes one to justify living in disregard to God's Biblical Principles. The distortion is manifested in the lack of urgency to do what it right, to work and strive toward doing what it right. Righteousness at its core is built around an internal desire to be as close to right as one possibly can in word and deed and intentions of heart.  The state of the heart is reflected in one's actions.

Therefore, the distortion of sin is actually a distortion of the state of one's own heart. To see one's ways without wanting to weigh it against God's truth is the internal struggle to justify what is in one's own heart.  The only way that the distortion can be removed so that one can truly see the truth of one's own heart is through God via the Holy Spirit to remove the distortion and giving the individual the opportunity to truly see one's self through the truth of God. What we see when we see our self through the truth of God can be hard to face, but necessary. We have to ask God to show us the ourselves as God sees us.   What will we really see when we become courageous enough to see what God sees? 

We all try to convince ourselves that our actions are justified and that our behavior is not that bad. But what is God really seeing?  What is really in our heart?  It takes the truth being clearly shown to the individual before the individual will realize there is a need for change toward doing what it right according to Biblical Principles. This is why the act of surrender is so important in the context of salvation. The ability to surrender to God and accept that Jesus Christ died for your sins, can have the most liberating effect.

Humbling is the reality that there are some things that one can not do for self. To realize that you can not change the condition of your own soul is humbling. It not only frees one from the bondage related to sinful habits and lifestyle choices, but it also frees one to be completely honest with God about areas of one's life that need to change for the better.  It is in this, that the heaviness of one's heart is no long a weight to carry, but is left at the foot of the Cross.

Surrendering to God means letting go of the facade that everything is alright and the spiritual heaviness of all of the distortion caused by sin. To need God, to seek after God means that you don't have to live outwardly appearing to be OK, but internally knowing you are a mess.  God is the mender of broken hearts.

Gender and Salvation

Contrary to what our society wants to tell us, there are some distinct differences in men and women. God created humanity this way for a reason. The differences are to compliment each other, they are not to make one gender more valid than the other, they are designed to work together to create balance in the home, family, community and society.

Within this understanding there are some things that are part of the personality of the individual, but for the most part at the core there are certain things that are key characteristics. God's creation is intentional, with so much attention to detail that some times it is hard to even wrap one's mind around all of the intricate care that God lovingly set in order to create the world that we live in and our human bodies designed just right for the atmosphere and gravity of the Earth.

There are some cognitive differences in men and women.  I wont bore with too much scientific fact, but I will say that in many cases men and women process information differently, and they respond to that information differently. Again, I will state that personality in the individual does play a key role in this, because each person has some unique qualities, as God did not create us as one clone, but part of the beautiful variety that is throughout creation. For example, all trees have the same basic features, but there are multiple varieties of trees, the same can be said of birds, flowers, on and on.... God clearly loves variety because it is expressed throughout creation. In this way, each individual is unique, but with some sameness of humanity.

Salvation is defined in the Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms as follows:

"God's activities in bringing humans into a right relationship with God and with one another through Jesus Christ.  They are saved from the consequences of their sin and given eternal life. Biblical images for salvation vary widely." 


This definition uses some very active words. It also clearly states that salvation is more than just the relationship with God, but also with one another.  This is very important to understand the Christian community of faith that develops among those who are saved.  No where in this definition is a distinction of gender, which means that salvation is for both men and women.  But when we look at the  Christian community of faith, in almost all cases there are more women than men within congregations.

Salvation is available to all.  How men and women process information can be very different, especially when it comes to self introspection. This is important because when presenting the Gospel to men and women, there is some need for intentional use of facts, because men get details and facts in a very different way than women do. This is often reflected in communication styles.  Men want the bottom line fact first, and women can navigate through the details and eventually get to what should point to the facts.

For salvation to take place, one must be aware that one's relationship with God is not right. ... That one is a sinner. To acknowledge this fact in one's spiritual state of being requires conviction. Our legal system has lead us to think about conviction in a certain way, that relies on how the information is understood by others.  But the type of conviction that leads one to realize they  are in need of Jesus Christ and salvation, is internal. In other words, the facts have to be presented to the individual, not the group of peers.  The group of peers may see the facts without a shadow of a doubt, but for salvation to take place the individual must see one's own sinful nature as based on the facts presented to one's own self.  This level of self honesty means that the person must be humbled by the Holy Spirit of God opening ones eyes, to be honest with one's self about one's own actions and motives.

Conviction of sin is defined in the Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms as follows:

"The sense of the reality of sin in one's life as known by the work of the Holy Spirit ( John 16: 8-9)."


When a person is unwilling to face the facts of their own wrong, it takes the Holy Spirit to show the individual how far way from God they truly are, how are away from doing right they truly are in their own way of being. Sinners and backsliders, are able to justify their ways, or the even ignore reasoning.  But once one truly becomes aware of the fact that one is wrong, in word and deed, something has to change. Either the individual will take the "Romans Road" or will continue to reject God, Jesus Christ, and salvation.

In recent years, the preaching of the Gospel has become quite docile when it comes to stating the facts. And this is reflected in the lack of men who are active participants in church. This is reflective of the lower numbers of men who are accepting salvation in Jesus Christ.  Maybe the "hell, fire, and brimstone" type sermon of the past seems a bit harsh, but some time the facts are harsh. Sin is harsh. The consequences of sin are harsh. What sin does to one's life is harsh. What sin does to one's physical body is harsh. What sin does to the state of one's soul is harsh.

Men must be presented with the facts. The church can not follow the trends of the world and sugar coat the truth. Men respect truth and honesty, even when it is not what they want to hear. No one  will receive the truth or the facts, until they are willing to surrender their own self sufficiency and realize that what is needed can not be supplied by self. But salvation is available to everyone, both men and women.   God is not hiding salvation from anyone, nor is God trying to make it an unsolvable riddle. The truth of the Gospel is plain and clearly states the facts.

Men may not like asking for help or directions, but when a man realizes that his soul is at stake, in danger, the urgency will become real.  A sin sick soul can only be healed by the Power of God, through the blood of Jesus Christ. A man can not save his own soul, a woman can not save her own soul.  We all need Jesus.

Eating Crow

To figure out that you are wrong about something may or may not be a big deal.  When this realization is a private one, it is only your own processing of the information that has to be taken into account.  But when you have to admit to others that you are wrong, the error in judgment, the details, and miscalculations take on a whole different level of internal response. Not only does one have to deal with the outcomes and need for adjustments because of the error, but there is also the added communication that others want to have about something that one would rather not talk about.


All of the thoughts of dread that go with the conversation about the error are not only unwanted, but can be overwhelming because of the multiple times that one repeatedly answers the same or similar questions about the matter. It becomes hard to navigate who is genuinely concerned and who is simply seeking out a juicy bit of information.

To talk about what has happened is part of the healing process. Each individual heals at their own pace, and therefore each individual is ready to talk about their miscalculation with no specific appropriate time frame to be determined as right or wrong by anyone else. Add to this the distinct differences in how men and women process information, respond to information, and need to talk to process information, and you have a variety of ways in which human beings deal with the mistakes that they make in life.


There are times when a person realizes their mistake but refuses to make the necessary adjustments because of pride. In some ways this can seem to others as form of stubbornness.  More often than not, the person who is processing their mistake and what making the needed changes entails wants to do so on their own terms and not the terms of others. This can be very stressful when others want to rush or force the transitions necessary to handle a mistake in one's own life. This will cause the individual to avoid making the necessary decisions because there is a sense that others are pressuring or attempting to orchestrate one's life for them. This pressure adds to the resistance by the individual to do what is necessary because that is a mechanism built into being stubborn in the process.

Theologically, when a person is walking in disobedience to God, not only is there the issue of stubbornness, but there is usually some sort of attempt to negotiate with God.  Negotiation, in many cases is caused by the unwillingness to trust God or to surrender to God's Will.  The mistakes that happen in one's life because of disobedience can be disheartening because the limitations of being human dont allow us to see into the future.  And many times, attempting to negotiate with God can lead us into situations that we could not have possibly seen coming.

On our best day, each of us wants to believe that we are up for any challenge and because of this we can sometimes believe that we can handle situations without realizing that God sees all sides of a situation and we are only able to see what is present before us at any given time.  Our speculations are not guarantees, but we yet have to make life decisions based on the information that we have, and this does not always work out the way that we planned. 

There are other times, when there are warning signs, and even divinely inspired clues that let us know that we should do things differently or make a different decisions but we dont always heed the warning signs. Often times, these warnings and clues come from those closest to us, friends and family.  And this can also become part of the challenge to figure out who is giving genuine insight or divinely inspired insight versus those who are giving advice based on how it will work best for themselves. Each of us usually knows who the self serving individuals are around us, be we can not always be 100% certain in every situation, because trust can sometimes be very fluid.

So when a situation does not go the way that one has planned, and this realization means that it is time to come to terms with the mistake and admit that it didnt work out as planned, this can sometimes be hard to admit.  And this is where the concept of 'Eating Crow' comes into being part of the reality that one must face.  The term comes from the fact that crow is not palatable or good tasting bird. It is said to have a bad smell and taste, and be very hard to digest. Being reduced to eating crow, means putting one's pride to the side.

As I said earlier, it is one thing to admit a mistake to yourself privately, but to admit a mistake to others takes on a whole other level of character building because mistakes rarely happen when or the way that we expect them to, simply because we rarely start anything hoping for a negative outcome, and most times we dont have a completed back up plan, we just make it up and adjust as we go.  So when others start asking questions that one does not want to answer, there is the additional stress of people asking questions that one has not had time to fully process or plan for alternative ways of dealing with the situation.  All of this can be overwhelming.

But this is what redemption is all about. God is always there to receive us and to help us get back on track.  Once we are willing to put our pride aside and acknowledge that we want and need God's guidance, God is faithful.  Even when there is residue from our mistakes on our lives, God is still there welcoming those who come back home.

THE STORY:

A young man bought a new boat. He was excited about the boat because he had plans of being a great fisherman.  He was going to take his new boat and the cute little kitten that he had found out to sea for the fishing season. 

Several people around him told him that they thought his boat was fine for staying close to the shore, but would not endure the long season in the deep waters miles away from the shore.  They also told him that the kitten was not a good idea because he would not want to be stuck out at sea with the kitten. 

The young man looked into the kitten's eyes and thought it most adorable and could not image how this kitten could become a problem out at sea.  He thought that he would be able to feed the kitten from his catch of fish and he had visions of both he and the kitten being happy keeping each other company during the fishing season. 

When the day came to begin his time out at sea, the young man happily told his friends that he would be fine, all the while they were still wondering how he was going to make it through the rough waters of the sea in his new boat with the kitten.   As the boat floated a couple of miles away from the shore,  the young man notices a small puddle of water on one end of the boat.  He thought maybe the splashing of a wave had brought some water onto the boat and he thought nothing more about it.   But the next day, there was more water on the boat.  He look around wondering if he had slept through a rain the night before, but took the only thing that he could find, a small cup and scooped out the water, throwing it back into the ocean. 

After a few days, the young man began to notice that the kitten was changing, looking a little different, but still just as adorable. He was occupied most days with catching enough fish to feed the kitten who was seeming to take on a huge appetite with each passing day.  This had left him little time to be attentive to navigating the boat because he spent most of his time constantly removing the water that was seeming to collect in the boat much faster than in the beginning. And the rest of the time he was only catching enough fish to feed the kitten, and some times was not always able to catch enough to feed himself.  This whole process was making him weak and weary.

One day, he looked at the kitten and realized that it had matured into a bobcat. He now understood the warnings that he had been given by his friends and family about taking the kitten along on the journey.  Even though it was clearly a bobcat, when he looked at it what he saw was the memories of what he thought was a cute and harmless kitten. But the nature of the cat had now changed and his interactions with it also had to change. And at the same time, the boat had taken on so much water that it was going to be near to impossible to get all of the water out of the boat. 

Faced with saving himself and the bobcat, the man contemplated what to do, knowing that he would have to decide soon because his life depended on it.   When he looked around to try to decide what his options were, he realized that with all of the time he had been out in the water that he had not navigated but had drifted a few miles from the shore.  Land and safety was still an option.

Having to decide about swimming in the waters and without having eaten much, knowing that his body was weak, he looked caringly  at the bobcat and wondered how would he save both himself and his kitten.  The bobcat was hungry. The boat was taking on water.  He was going to have to decide something.  He was already living with his mistakes, and now he really wanted to get it right. 

As he looked toward the shore, dread come over him. The dread was of coming back on shore, back to land and safety, but having to admit that he had made a mistake.  The thought of admitting his mistake became more important than saving his own life.   His pride was about to consume him.

All those who had warned him were watching from the shore. They had all wanted the best for him, but now they just wanted him to choose to save himself.  Even though he was to far away to hear them, they were all cheering for him, hoping that he would make it back to safety.  But as he look to the shore, the only thing he could think about was having to explain what had happened to him and why he was wrong.  It didnt occur to him that everyone who had warned him was doing so because they had the insight to warn him for a reason and that they cared enough to say something. Their words were not built from negativity, but from care and concern.  All of the warnings had been an attempt to show support and warn him for his own safety.  And this also meant, that they were not as surprised as he thought they would be about how things had turned out for him.

He hesitated. They watched. No one could make the choice for him.

Would the ship sink first or would the bobcat eat him before the ship sank, or would he choose to risk the swim toward shore, back to land, safety, and a welcomed return filled with too many questions?

Trust is an Issue

I am very analytical.  I overthink some of the most basic details of things.  This is a most honest self assessment. Meaning I am the person who can literally stand in a fast food restaurant and think through all of the pro and cons of any menu item, and each and every combination of items that might contain too many calories or make me too full or make me sluggish or maybe cost more than I want to spend for fast food, or maybe might make a mess in the car, or whether I want to or have time to sit inside the restaurant and eat, or if I sit inside the restaurant what type of activities might be going on around me that I dont want to eat around, and on and on and on.

So when I say that I have put some thought to something, that is very much the case. I assess situations like a Rubics Cube. I look at things from all sides and angles and possible meanings and outcomes.  This can be to a fault. This type of other thinking can be paralyzing on so many levels.  It is a good skill  to have because of the type of work that I do because the attention to detail is essential. But for the most basic things in life, I work at not having to think so hard as if it is a journey towards some sort of bliss.

Yes, I have to work on conditioning my mind to not overthink things.  Even at this moment, I am writing as form of processing information, which is usually the case. But on today when I have worked an extremely long day, and still have a lot on my mind, I am sitting up writing to sort through my thoughts so that hopefully I will be able to settle down my mind enough to relax and find my way to sleep.

What does all of this have to do with trust? Absolutely everything.  When you notice the smallest details, it leads you have sufficient pieces of information to assess and analyze in a way that most people just skim over. And I like most women often have these fairytales playing out in my head of perfect endings and spectacular outcomes. Here in is the foundation to the issues that I have with trust.  After much thought, those perfect outcomes turn into realistic reality.

After realizing that I have been replaying this perfect outcome in my head for a few years now, I finally came to the conclusion that holding on to this fairytale ending was draining because when I put it to the reality test, I realized that at the most basic core of the reality is a lack of trust. 
A lack of trust really has very little to do with guilt or innocence, perception or deception, but trust is an internal working of the individual.  In this way, my inability to fully trust the person or the situation means that there is already a breach, a gapping hole in the fort.

When there is no trust, or even when trust is questionable, there are way to many opportunities for a person with trust issues to find reasons for trust to deplete or simply not be present at all.
Once I realized that my inability to trust  in this situation was going to be problematic in a way that would manifest in so many other areas, then I decided to completely throw away my fairytale ending, because it would be like have a Bentley with no tires and no keys...... pointless bragging rights.

Theologically, I had tried to justify my hanging on to hope because I trust God.  So that became my blanket assessment of the situation.  After years of hoping against hope, I realized that I will continue to trust God regardless.  Trusting God is so very different from putting your trust in a person or a situation.  There are no guarantees in life, but some times the most trusting thing you can do is realize that God is still on the throne and still in control. So even if I dont get a fairytale ending, staying in a mindset of being able to trust God is most important.

Truth is, everybody and every situation is not deserving of your trust and most fairytales turn into reality sooner or later anyway. So facing reality and learning how to allow wisdom to develop your process and ability to trust means facing facts not vicarious ideals.

After all, God's Truth is based on the facts.

HARD TO WATCH THE STUBBORN WILL

There are times when the most loving thing you can do is to take a hands off approach.  It is hard because the loving thing to do seems to be to support and guide and cheer.  But when a person has a stubborn and disobedient will, you cant do anything but allow them to learn the hard way.

Being that our culture is no longer as accountable as during biblical times, many people now do not understand nor respect the concept of having a sense of accountability to your community, especially the community of faith. For example during biblical times when something was considered a sin as unto death, this meant that you could actually be literally stoned to death. The offense was not only about the sin of the individual, but a reflection on the community as a whole, and therefore the community was within its right to respond. Currently our culture has gone the complete other end of the spectrum,  which means that we turn a blind eye to the wrong of others. Although I do think stoning is extremely harsh, I do believe that there is a place and purpose for a community, especially a community of faith, holding its members accountable for certain principles and behaviors. ( Here I must insert a note: I dont believe that 'putting people out of the church' is the correct response. As a matter of fact, I think that is just as harsh as stoning.)

Taking a hands off approach can look a lot of different ways, depending on the situation. This is very hard to do when you know that the person knows better and should be doing better. But the 'master of deception' does a good job at convincing the mind of the individual that there are other solutions other than doing things God's way, according to Biblical Principles.  That is exactly the success story of deception from the very beginning, to convince one that there are ways to get better outcomes than to be obedient to God's Principles.

The question might be asked, why would you want to negotiate with God? Why would you want anything thing other than God's Will for you?  And what do you really gain when you 'seemingly' win the negotiation with God?  Does getting your way instead of God's Will really turn out to be a win-win in the long run.... now or eternally?

The ripple effect of disobedience only leads to more and more disobedience, as one attempts to find ways to navigate making the disobedience seem like it is going to turn out alright. And before long there is a snowball affect of multiple acts of disobedience. And the disobedience leads to a house of mirrors of deception, eventually make the truth sound harsh and unreal.  As long as the individual is trying to sort out ways to make the wrong turn into a success, you cant reason with them about their thoughts or actions.

Here is where loving is hard. Letting go. Backing off.  This is also when you stop praying for God to cushion the blows that sin and disobedience are causing the person. This is when you realize that God is allowing the individual to truly see what getting their way means.   God is not going to be manipulated.  But God will let one have their way, and all that comes with it.  Being determined to be out of the Will of God, means being determined to deal with not having God's Covering or Guidance, as if saying to God that one wants God to take a Hands Off approach to one's life.

Think about it, if someone wants God to take a 'hands off' approach, then why would the same individual want someone to have a 'hands on' approach other than to support the deception? Being a support to others, often times means that you have to back away and God can allow the person to see where their way is taking their life. After all you cant become party to the wrong, or you too will find yourself slipping into darkness, and deception. 

Because here is the deal, deception loves darkness, hidden agenda, under the table negotiations and secrets.  One of the greatest clues that something is not according to God's Will is if it has to be kept secret or hidden.  I dont mean privacy, privacy is the right to keep things to yourself or away from the public.  But shame and guilt are built around those things that would not be justified as having a right motive from the start.

So why back off, other than self preservation?  I will give you an example of when my son was a toddler.  I kept saying to him hold on, dont fall down the steps.  I was doing what I thought was the loving thing to do by coddling his every move.  But one day a friend said to me, that he is a boy and he learns by understanding, and he wont understand until he sees for himself.  This was the most profound thing that was said to me about raising a son.

One day, I got up the courage to let him figure it out for himself. I was cautious to make sure that his fall was a little one and not a major one, but I had to let him navigate a few lower steps on his own, his way, without holding on.  And as truth would be revealed to him, he flopped down a couple of steps and then looked at me as if to say what happened.  The hundreds of times that I had attempted to get this message across to him, now he figured it out because he realized that he didnt like his own outcome.

This examples may seem simplistic, but from that day on, I never had to negotiate or even mention to my son that he needed to hold on while walking down the steps. Grabbing the railing became unspoken second nature.  And so it can be with someone who wants to try their hand at being blatantly and boldly disobedient to God's Principles.  The only thing you can do after attempting to coach and encourage is allow the individual to learn the hard way.  Some times the fall, the hitting bottom is what it will take to help the person know that they dont want to do it that way again.

This is when repentance is true.  True repentance is when one is no longer trying to make the disobedience work, but is willing to drop all wrong and turn with intention to do what is right with a no looking back mindset. It is the determination to be redeemed.  This is when the individual can stand before God with a sincere heart and say 'Lord, please take me back'.

Now the mindset has completely changed from negotiation with God to complete surrender to God.  Until the individual is willing to surrender, there will be a constant attempt to negotiate for good outcomes from disobedient actions and motives.  But once the individual surrenders and truly acknowledges their need for the Savior, then God can guide and send others to guide and support the individual getting back in step with the Will of God both spiritually and naturally.

Sea of Forgetfulness

As I attempted to settle down for the night, I thought about all that has been going on with me lately.  And to be completely honest, this thought process includes some people that I truly wish I had never met.  In the midst of my thought process, I had to face the fact that I cant just un-know these people. Instead, I have to figure out how to move on from this phase to the next, and hopefully just move on to what is ahead for me in my life, both naturally and spiritually.

This doesnt mean that I was not trying to figure out the most perfect solution to the hurt and disappointment that has been the effect of betrayal and disloyalty. In my mind, I really wanted there to be a way to truly just forget that I ever knew these people that have had this negative impact on my attempt to be a friend. I thought if there were really a way for me to put all knowledge of these people into the sea of forgetfulness and never to remember that I ever met them at all.

The more I thought about it, I began to realize that this is not very different from what is being talked about in Micah 7.  We always want to use the concept of the Sea of Forgetfulness as this wonderful blessing that we get from God. Which is true. ... and here comes the conjunction...... BUT.

But what we dont want to face is the fact that something is going on in the text that we must make not of.  The attitudes and behaviors that God expected from the People of God were not how the people were living.  God had high expectations and high hopes for the People of God.  That is still true today. God has high hope and high expectations of God's People.  So when the behaviors of the individual, of the community of faith fall short, God is disappointed.  Then there is  something worse than just disappointing God, it is disgusting God. 

Abomination is much more than disappointing God, it is being completely disgusting to God.   As I thought about how disgusted I am with those who have disappointed me, I also had to think about how God views abomination.  How is God able to tolerate dealing with a human who is living so far below God's expectations?   I had to search out a way to understand that what God has to do is just put the sins of humanity into a place to be forgotten so that God can remain able to be available to humanity.

It is the mercy of God.  It is the patience of God when God's patience has run out. It is God wanting to stay in relationship with the People of God, even though the people have lost sight of the value of the relationship with God.  The kindness of God reaches much farther than we realize. God is so willing to forgive us of our sins.  When we dont even try to do right, knowing that God is watching, we are disappointing God, and we are disgusting God. 

So more than bragging about how God will forgive and forget, the more important concern should be why would we want to be such a disappointment to God that we disgust God?  What if we just decided to live right, so that we could be intentional about pleasing God?

After all, isnt that what being given another chance is about?

Insomnia

It is 1:30am and I cant sleep.

I have so many thought in my mind right now.  I spend so much of my prayer life interceding for the needs of others that I often forget to really spend time praying about the things that I need in my own life.

And this is why being awake right now is so frustrating to me. Usually when I wake up in the middle of the night, I pray for the people and the situations that have been on my mind during the day or that come to my mind when I wake up. But when I woke up this time, my mind was flooded with thoughts of things that I need in my own life.

In the clinical world of providing services to others, there is an emphasis on self care. It is the understanding that you cant give to others if you not keeping yourself in a good place mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  The most basic example of this would be to think about the speech that they give you on the airplane about what to do in case of emergency. The instructions are to give yourself oxogen first, then share the oxogen with those around you. In this way, you are more capable when you have what you need.

And this would be the sum total of why I am awake in the middle of the night. I am being forced to face the truth of my own life. I have spent the last few years frustrated with myself because I know that I am not reaching my fullest potential, nor am I achieving at the rate that I should have been. And like a perfect storm of reality checks, it is clear to me that I am not getting what I need to flourish. I have just been existing and trying to function as if it has been sufficient and it has not been and the state of my life is proof of that fact.

So now, I am awake creating an order of importance for the things that I need to do for my self, for my own life. There are some voids in my own life that I need to give some attention to so that I can be nourished  and therefore function at a higher level of efficiency.  It is not being selfish in a way that doesnt care for others, but it is being selfish in a way that will help me to care for others better.

Spirituality and Sexuality - Part 1

For some days now I have been thinking about writing on the topic of love, but instead I am going to try to tackle a much more intense topic that is rarely discussed from a Christian spiritual frame of thinking.   It will probably take more than one post to really begin to unpack this topic, because there are a lot of variables that can play out, both naturally and spiritually.

Sex is not often talked about by Christians as a positive. Most of the time when it is discussed in church, it is from the list of dont do.  So even when Christians get married, they enter into marriage not knowing much about how sacred the sexual act of intercourse really is for both of them.

There needs to be more clarity given to the difference in the sacred act of intercourse in marriage and the physical sport of casual sexual behavior that is so common in our culture today.  The bible is constantly talking about the flesh in the New Testament. This is for a very good reason.

You need your senses to be aware of the natural world around you as well as to be aware of the spiritual world around you.  If you allow your senses to control you, then you will become desensitized to what is going on around you, both naturally and spiritually.  You have to be the controller of your flesh, you can not allow your flesh to control you.

In the context of a monogamous marriage, the senses are strengthened and not depleted. This is because the man and the woman are sharing a sacred sexual experience. They are becoming unified and this level of unity manifest in every aspect of their lives as individuals and as a couple.  This is why you will hear married people begin to use the same vocabulary and phrases, and even begin to communicate much more non verbally, as they become in tune with each other.

Pastors can look at the couples in their congregation and see which couples are truly unified and which couples are trying to pretend to be unified.  When a couple is not equally yoked it is obvious, it shows in many ways, but most importantly it shows in what they are able to accomplish in their walk with Christ, and in their individual callings.

Sexual intercourse is not only the sharing of the physical body, but it is also the sharing of that person's spiritual self.  So the person who has multiple sexual partners is becoming sexually schizophrenic. When you share your essence with someone, you are basically giving and receiving. You are giving away some of who you are spiritually and receiving some of who that person is spiritually.   So when you are sexual with a person who does not view their own body as sacred and spiritually connected to God, then you are devaluing your own body and spirit.

In church, the message is to avoid being 'unequally yoked',  or a more modern way to say it to say dont be tied to someone who is not a spiritual match.  The yoke is an apparatus that is used to tie two working animals together so that the strength of them both can be used to increase the productivity by powering the load to be pulled by the strength of the unified effort.   If one is too much stronger than the other, the stronger one will tire too quickly from taking too much of the labor load, and will eventually be dragging not only the weight of the load, but of the other animal too.  This will not only make the progress take longer, but will eventually bring the work to a complete stop, much sooner than if the two animals are more equal in strength.

Take that and apply it to a marriage, and you can have two people who are on the same path and level of awareness spiritually and they can accomplish much more, and much faster than they could as individuals working solo.  But if one of the people in the marriage is spending all of their prayer life and the spiritual awareness trying to drag someone along the path to spiritual growth, they risk becoming tired and unable to accomplish very much for the Kingdom because their spouse is lagging behind and as a team, they cant go any faster or any farther than the weaker, slower person is able or willing.

In seminary, one of the counseling classes that I had to take was Spirituality and Sexuality.  This class was a lot of information about the functions of the body and how to minister to people who were dealing with various sexual issues and concerns.  But when the instructors started talking about how you must understand that you are who you share your body with because you are sharing spiritually because sex is a spiritual act, I realized that in my upbringing this had not been discussed, but on some level it made total sense.

This is why those who are the most depleted as individuals are those who have given themselves away freely, and who are also the most empty spiritually and emotionally.  The constant search for what can only be found in God is what the they are actually trying to find in another empty person.  And two empty people can only share their emptiness.  And the more empty the individual feels, the more they seek after someone to make them feel better, to feel full. It becomes a sad and dangerous cycle.

For a person to value your body, they must value their own.  The person must see their sexuality as a sacred expression, not to be shared with just anyone and not to be shared with someone who is not on the same spiritual path.  If a person shares their body with some who is spiritually schizophrenic, then the individual is welcoming all of those spirits that the other person has into their being as well.  When this happens, all the spirits become familiar. When the spirits all become familiar, then the senses dont become alarmed and are no longer alert to the danger.  As a matter of fact, because the spirits seem familiar, they will also seem to be safe.  In other words, the spiritual attack is not an aggressive or violent one, but a gentle sensual one.

The bible lets us know that the marriage bed is undefiled, because the expectation is of respect for the body as sacred, and respect for the sexual experience of the marriage to be free from the residue of other people's spiritual residue.  Therefore sacred sexuality is in the context of a monogamous marriage between spiritual equals. Even if they are not equals, they become equally what each person brings into the covenant bond. In this way , the marriage changes both the man and the woman into the version of self that is enmeshed with what they share with their spouse.

Success is Relative

Success is relative. Each person has their own idea of success and each person has their own measure for where one is in the journey to accomplishment.  One of the biggest mistakes that anyone can make is to measure one's own level of accomplishment by someone else's accomplishments in a different area or field.

Most of the time when envy and jealous occur it is because of comparing apples to oranges, not comparing the same skills and the same types of success to each other. One thing that I have noticed is that people who are striving for their own excellence dont really have the mental energy for such comparisons anyway.  The most critical opinions come from the most stagnant people. And when I say stagnant, I dont mean this to imply that the person or persons have not accomplished, but that they realize their own limitations and have some sort of regret because of how their own life choices created those limitations.

The choices that a person makes can totally shift the events of the rest of one's life.  The truth is that we can not see into the future and at the time that we make the decision, we feel it is the best decision or the right decision based on the current information that we have at the time.  And in most cases, there are ways to adjust or modify the decision, but some times the decisions that we make just have to walk out and live with, accepting what it brings with it.

A spirit filled Christian should always be prayerful about major decisions. In this, one must be willing to be obedient to what the Holy Spirit is guiding one to do. When it comes to living out one's calling, this really cant be determined by anyone else.  We live in a world that says that you must get the approval of others, but in truth, people may not always understand or agree with your calling.  This can be challenging for the person who needs the affirmation of others to feel comfortable taking certain steps in life.  It is normal for each of us to want to be loved and accepted, but we may not always get this from the people that we look to provide it for us.

Finding the love and support that one needs to nourish one's human need for affirmation and a sense of community can be challenging for us all, and especially for those who dont fit in with mediocrity.  So may people who have gifts and callings to go farther and higher in areas of success dont do so because of the need for a sense of community, and the fear of being isolated in the process of reaching for more within the context of one's goals.

The truth is that one can not truly flourish and reach the fullest potential of one's own goals until one is really ready to let go of the atmosphere of mediocrity.  Getting uncomfortable is what pushes one forward, gives one the determination to proceed regardless of the opinions of those who are comfortable in mediocrity.  Along the way, one begins to meet others who are on similar journeys, and this provides a more natural and organic sense of community, a community of people who can understand and affirm the journey.

Let's be honest, everyone is not built for the same types of success. And some dont have the drive to go out into the unknown with the courage that it takes to face what others cant imagine.   Most of the time, the people who discourage others from working toward their vision do so because it is not their vision.  You cant expect people to understand what they cant see or imagine.  Anyone who does not understand the vision will have a hard time being a part of your journey towards accomplishing it.

It is my prayer that the God given vision will take you into the fullness of following the calling and the gifts that God has place in this time and space for a reason. I pray that God surround you with people who understand what it is like to step out of the routine and reach for all that God has for you. True happiness is living affirmed in what God created you to do and to be.

I Haven't Ask God For Enough

This evening I had a conversation with a friend who is a single parent like myself, and we were talking about the challenges of even meeting a potential companion. We are both single parents and our lives are built around the activities of church and our children.  We attend a large church, that is probably about 85% or more married couples, and most of the singles are females.

In our conversation we both agreed we didnt have any brilliant ideas about where to add meeting new people to our lives. I mentioned some of the possible activities that we might explore to meet new people in general, activities that would be co-ed and not just full of more single women. We tossed around a few thoughts, but didnt come up with anything that would be an Aha! moment.   So we left the conversation with continue on as usual as the stopping point of our discussion.

I went home thinking about all that I needed to do to settle in for the evening and to get ready for tomorrow. As I reflected on our conversation, in my mind, I went through what was wrong with the last person that I attempted to consider allowing into my life. I thought about all of the disappointment and the betrayal that was the package that this person brought with him. I had tossed and tossed in my mind about what was the problem, because after all he was saved. So a saved man would be trustworthy and dependable and full of integrity - or so I thought.

This is when it dawned on me. This was when I had the AHA! moment. I had been making an amateur's mistake in my prayer for a life companion. When I went down through all of the thoughts in my mind about what I didnt want to have to deal with at this phase in my life, it occurred to me that I was making the assumption that someone considering himself a Christian, meant that he was the whole package. I was absolutely wrong!  This actually only meant that he had completed step one, in a life long, three step process.
What I was not asking for in my prayers was someone who was more than saved. No, I am not taking about his material gain, or his education level, or even what was in his past.  But what I was missing was something extremely essential to his present state of being in his walk with Jesus Christ = Sanctification and being filled with the Holy Ghost.  I have been around the church world of Pentecostals most of my life and these three works of Grace are considered essential for maintenance of a Christian Life of Holiness. I had forgotten, that everyone who considers to be Christian is not trying to become more like Christ. Some people are willing to take the just enough approach to having a relationship with Jesus Christ. I dont want someone in my life who is taking the minimalist approach to Christ.

It takes wanting to go to another level in relationship with Christ, to live Godly and walk away from the sinful nature, giving up the things in life that are contrary to a life of holiness. I am not claiming to be perfect, so I dont expect my future companion to be perfect, that would be unrealistic and self deception.  But do want someone who is working on being a better man, and who in his heart, truly wants to live a life that is pleasing to God.  For that to happen, he will have to want more of God, more of God's Holy Spirit. The person has to have a hunger for the things of God. The person has to realize that everything else that he has tried has not cured the uneasiness in their being.  It is when the person has come to the conclusion that there has to be a better way, and be willing to give up everything that hasnt worked, for what God has to offer. He will have to have already come to the conclusion that what he is thirsty for can not be found in a sinful lifestyle, but only in the 'wells of salvation' where there is joy and peace beyond compare to anything that sin has to offer. He has to have a thirst for what is right. He has to want to be right with God.  This is the place of no longer wanting to struggle to maintain a life of sin, a life that goes against God plan for LIFE.

All of the things that I dont want to deal with in a relationship, and especially in a future companion wont be a problem with a man who wanting to go in the same direction that I am going, and who has no interest in going backwards spiritually.  So I now realize that I have been very minimal in my prayer. I don't just want someone in my life who is saved. I want a man in my life who is SAVED, SANCTIFIED, and FILLED  with the HOLY GHOST.  I want the whole package. I want God's best for my life.