Something for us all

I was exchanging emails with a dear friend this week, who is struggling with choices and feeling like she will never escape the anger that has built up inside of her as a result of her choices and the choices of others. She's ready to get real with God - and I thought my final, Holy Spirit led, comment, would be something we all could relate to...here goes:

Have you ever read anything by Brennan Manning? I highly recommend "The Ragamuffin Gospel" and "The Signature of Jesus." These are EXCELLENT books that help to lead you on the experience that you're looking for (getting real with God).

I was talking to my spiritual mentor today about something I'm calling the "indellible mark of choice." If you stop to think about it, the result of most choices aren't experienced immediately. It's the build up, over time, that we come to realize the consequences of our choices and see the mark that they've left.

The choice to change is one that we often make in the depths of our misery. My cry was always, "just get me out of this pain." In desperation I would try the behaviors that I learned from the church (prayer, bible reading, service, tithe, etc.) to attempt to "do" my way into a relationship with God. I looked really good on the outside to a lot of people. The truth is, all my doing wasn't getting me into the close relationship that I (and all of us, ultimately) long for. It was when the path was cleared and I learned to "be," with all of my faults, frailties, failings and foolishness, that I began to experience a relationship with God that was real and authentic. Prayer, devotions, service, etc. are the fruit of a right relationship - not the path to a right relationship.

The enemy wants to parade the negative part of our humanity in front of us and keep us wrapped up in the fact that we don't deserve God's gift - which is true, but irrelevant to accepting the gift. God loves you - he loves the angry little girl, who is screaming in her own way "it's not fair." More importantly He agrees with her - it's not fair! And He wants to be the one to comfort her and to make it right. But God makes it right in His terms and in His timing. Ours is not to set the terms, but to accept that He will do what He says He will do and in His own time.

If you really want to meet God in the way that you're hoping for - you have to go to him with all of the "ugliness." You can't "clean up" good enough to be acceptable to Him. It is because of the blood of Jesus that you are acceptable to Him - and NO OTHER REASON! Don't intellectualize, don't reason, just allow Him to see you as you really are. Don't tell Him what you want to be - it doesn't matter! He knows what He created you to be and He will be faithful to you when you meet him at the point of surrender.

Like I said before - choice leaves a mark - and just because you've decided doesn't mean you've arrived. It takes time to understand what the investment will be and the reality of the results of our choice. You can't imagine what those results will be anymore than you could know who and what your children would become while you were pregnant with them. This is a good place for Proverbs 3:5-6!

He who has begun a good work in you will be faithful to complete it! Keep the faith and remember even Paul had a thorn in his flesh to contend with!

Matter of the Heart

I've been blogging with a friend who's in a discussion group for the recently released book, Gutsy Faith by Jeff Edmondson. For more about the discussion, see his blog - http://zimmerzblogz.blogspot.com/

Here's one of my recent thoughts about prayer - addressed to Matt, but good for us all! Enjoy!

Matt, I've been finding that prayer is a matter of the heart (a.k.a. spirit). For me, a clearer understanding of how I operate and function provides me with the foundation for setting my prayers in order.

First we consider that as humans we're made up of body (physical), soul (intellectual) and spirit (spiritual). In the garden, before original sin, we were in perfect communication with God. It was a real "give and take" realationship. After that sin took place, the eternal consequences were passed down, and our spirit connection to God was broken. If you talk to anyone with a disability, like blindness, your likely to hear that the other senses have become stronger to make up for the lack of the missing sense.

In that same way, I think that our body and soul "overdevelop" to make up for the lack of spiritual connection. Left to ourselves, we would attempt to work our way into eternal security, while intellectualizing why our plan should work.

Anyway - it's our broken spirit that the Bible addresses over and over again. It's not an appeal for us to be more physically comfortable or smarter in the "ways of the world." The entire book is the story about how we got where we are. The New Testament is specifically about the rebirth of our spirit - through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ AND how that relationship changes our attitudes, beliefs and responses in the physical and intellectual.

I've been in Psalm 86 this week - working through the devotional by Dennis Kinlaw, This day with the master. The author has brought out verses 11 & 12 "Teach me your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; UNITE my heart to fear your name. I will praise You, O Lord, my God, with all my heart, And I will glorify your name forevermore."

This verse goes along with what you're saying about the name of Jesus. The author makes this statement about it, "The psalmist wants to walk in the way of the Lord, yet he knows that a divided heart will make it impossible. He cries our for God to unite his heart, so that it is not a combination of two wills. When his heart is whole, he can praise God with all his heart, as he knows he ought to do." See Mark 12:30 to fully comprehend how much God wants all of us!

Two things strike me: 1)God is the ONE who will unite our heart! and 2) when our heart is united, we have tapped directly into what it takes to live our lives in the spirit of The Lord's Prayer. Surrender is the key that unlocks the door.