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Tuesday, June 17, 2008

I'm bringing Xanga back - drop a comment if you're with me!

Thursday, December 15, 2005

a recent situation involving a girl I like that got me thinking:

she was embarrassed about something and so didn’t contact me which then meant it was even less likely that she was going to contact me at all. I hated that she was embarrassed around me and hated the embarrassment and the cause of the embarrassment far more than I was angry or upset or hurt that she hadn’t contacted me. The only thing I wanted was for truth to destroy what kept her from talking with me, that is, my affection for her to overwhelm the things that made her want to run and hide. While jogging today it hit me: how is this not exactly how God views sin? He hates it. Why? Because He is holy? Yes. But is it because that holiness makes him unable to stomach us in His presence? If someone continually and aggressively pursues a life that is completely contrary to His ways and flaunts it in His face, then sure, maybe. But if someone is muddling along in sin, fear and shame, yet has the desire to be alive and the willingness to change, how can their sin be the main issue as far as God is concerned in the deep places in His heart? All He wants is for those things to be removed that keep someone whom He loves incomprehensibly from experiencing the overwhelming affection He has for them and wants to share with them. Truth and truthful communication will be necessary. But again, it’s not so that we agree with God that we’re crap. It’s so we see that, left to ourselves, we would never come back Home, because certainly we’ve failed Him too much this time or too much for far too long. And it just isn’t the case. And short of forcing someone into His arms, which He knows would backfire any way, He wants restored relationship at any cost. And He proved that when He became a man.

Sunday, August 07, 2005

I'm going to have to decorate my site at some point. It's starting to look too much like the interior of my house!

this blogging thing is rather addicting.

right now my brain is buzzing with germinating thoughts and sprouting insights, but I think I need to let the subconscious (you know, no one has ever proven we have a "subconscious" -- it's a Freudian term that has been completely accepted by everyone) mull it over and only try to write it all down once a little more congealing has taken place.

to remind myself:

truth, the Word, Jesus as the Teacher, the one who speaks truth simply because it is His essence, and that He is just telling us how reality is, and every "hard saying" is simply a revealing of the laws of the universe that He set up, not an expression of sternness on His part, etc. (bread of life, live not on bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Jesus is that bread, and so is every word He speaks, breaking of the bread, feeding of the five thousand) I need some Divine help in organizing what's popping!

those things in life, experiences, encounters, observations that show us more about the nature of God and how awesome He truly is

reflections on His humility, His non-judgmentality (ref. Adam and Eve in the garden)

the amazing quality of Nothing as it relates to His relating with us

Saturday, August 06, 2005

He says in the Psalms that He desires truth in the inward parts. Again, I felt condemned and ashamed of such injunctions, because I knew I didn't have truth in there. It was all around me and I was desperately trying to cram it in wherever I might find a gap. But I'm realizing that He isn't looking for truth in the inward parts in the sense that we somehow are responsible for generating it. "be a good boy and do good things and you'll be able to keep growing truth inside you." Like He'll be pleased if we have some truth waiting for Him when He does His regular inspections. Rather, He is looking for truth within, for the simple acknowledgement from us that it simply isn't there. The only real truth we have the ability to put (or more accurately, allow) in there is the truth that truth isn't there at all. It fled at the Fall and was flushed from our systems along with the fruit from the tree. However, we still have the hardware to recognize truth when we see it. And when He asks for truth in the inward parts and we are able and willing to agree that we don't have any, immediately truth is found within us. And now He's got something to work with.

I always thought He wanted us to walk around flagellating ourselves (not flatulating) in agreement with His assessment of us, namely that we suck, and that we should consider ourselves lucky that He's even willing to ignore us. But these "confessions" and acknowledgements that He's looking for from us are merely to get us to agree with reality. No relationship is genuine if there are things left undealt with. Same with Him. Sin gets in the way. That's why He hates it. Sin destroys lives. That's why He hates it. And yes, sin is rebellion, thumbing our noses at the One who is even providing the energy to our bodies that allows us to thumb our noses. And that's why He hates it. But at no time does He hate us. Truth is so freeing, it unplugs the blocked relational receptors in our spirits. Anything He wants from us, He wants because it's a way to know His nature and become more like Him. And the very acknowledgement that we aren't and don't have what He expects us to be and to have, is the thing that causes us to step into His righteousness (fancy word for His right-ness and true-ness in and about all things) and experience the connection with Him that humanity had for a short while in the Garden, but was meant to have for all time.
what I've found in my life is that shame is the voice that tells me that everything I am is bad, while pride is the voice that defensively states that I have done nothing wrong. Growing up, there were many Scripture verses that scared me to death. One that caused a good deal of concern was from 1 John. "If we say we have not sinned, we call Him a liar, and the truth is not in us." So I responded by trying desperately to agree with Him, that I am a sinner and that I have sinned. I don't want to call You a liar, Lord. But I found that I resented being forced to agree with it because I'd spent my entire life "playing by the rules," a good, little, dutiful older brother (from prodigal son story), who, in my estimation, hadn't actually done anything wrong, certainly nothing that I couldn't explain my rationale for having done, thereby removing any sinfulness from the action taken. Instead of simply being able to acknowledge and admit to sins that I committed, the shame tapped pride on the shoulder and said, "thanks pal, I got it from here."

    The shame then made me an offer I couldn't refuse. If I agreed to have this existential "bad feeling" about myself and was willing to carry it with me and nurture it, I could avoid having to confess to any of my crimes. My responsibility would be shown, not in repenting for actual things that I actually did (and giving up the need or perceived right to explain and justify and defend myself), but rather in walking around with an agreement that at my very core I was horrible, that if I was to repent for anything, it would be that I existed in the first place. "Lord please forgive me for not having stopped You from making me," or something like that.

    The freedom that has come in my life of late is in realizing how refreshing, how awesome it is to know that I've committed sins of so many types and varieties. The mantra has changed from "I'm a bad person who does everything right" to "I'm not a bad person in the core of who I am. I am an incredible, fearfully-and-wonderfully-made-in-the-image-of-God person. So incredible and worthy of being loved that the Creator of the universe first of all made me and then endured a simple, anonymous existence on earth where He, in humility, came to woo me away from my pride and to show me the extent of His love for me by offering Himself up for me so that my shame would no longer drive me into hiding, but rather fall away for the lies they are. Yet despite all of this, I screw up on a regular basis. But now I no longer wish to defend myself. I agree with it. I'm guilty, but I'm loved."

   While I wrote the above, I felt the Holy Spirit for the first time in some time. Awesome. More to come.