How do we get to that divinely created wondrous being that lies underneath the false self? A big part I have come to understand is knowing that I am already my true self. It is whole and fully who I am meant to be. It is who God made me to be when He created me. What I struggle with is .... who is that?
I began exploring this a bit last summer when I was at a retreat and a spiritual director suggested that I stop staring at what was not - namely no intimacy with the Lord - and started staring at other parts of me - the things that I am. Who am I as a woman, wife, mother, teacher etc... How does my body honor the Lord? The last one is where I started ... but initially I didn't know how to look beyond the false self and my list regarding my body was filled with horrors and hatred. I prayed and asked God for another idea... and one popped into my head. 'How do I experience the world?... Thru the 5 senses! So I began to write down what I love to smell and taste and touch and hear and see. It was like a kindergarten list exploring the 5 senses. But it changed something in me ... I was finally able to see past all my shit and see some of the things God placed in me that I desired and loved. I wrote down that I love to smell lilacs and see the wind blowing in the trees and that I love the taste of cheesecake and the sound of spring peepers and I love to feel lambs ear - a fuzzy plant ... and my heart truly rejoiced and worshiped and I was able to thank God for making me to like these things. No one else has a constellation of 'likes' just like me, and this is just a small part of what makes me unique.
I think my above story illustrates a verse that probably would never be utilized in this situation like I'm about to use it right now ... 'to think on whatever is pure and holy and lovely' ... Thats all that I was doing -- thinking about the ways that God made me lovely - but it didn't make me look at myself it made me look at God and give Him glory.
I once read an Elizabeth Elliot book, Let Me Be a Woman, I don't remember much about it these many years later but one thing that has stuck with me was this: a jellyfish glorifies God by just being a jellyfish. A jellyfish doesn't have to 'work' at giving God glory, it just does by being what it was designed to be. That got me thinking even then ... how does a human glorify God? Can it be so simple ... that me just being myself is what brings God glory? The problem at the time and even still 20 years later is that perhaps I have no idea who I really am.
I have read through the many lists of 'who I am in Christ', I have prayed through them and asked God to teach me about the ones I really don't believe. I have confessed my unbelief and prayed 'in' the truth. For a season I pondered all of that. But this is deeper. I don't want to say that this - who I am in Christ list - is generic because that is simply the wrong word, but it certainly isn't specific to me either. One thing that Merton stresses about the true self is that as I understand and live in my union with Christ more fully I do not become less me ... I become MORE of myself. I don't dissolve... as Christ is more fully revealed in my life... no its more like I blossom into myself. And the Lord doesn't want us to dissolve! All of the human story is about God wanting a relationship with His creation. If He had wanted robots He would have created us that way. No He wants us to be what he created us to be - our unique selves. The problem is that we are so stuck living in our false self ... and we keep giving Him the shadow and not the real us.
So who am I? If I am fearfully and wonderfully made ... why does my soul still NOT know it very well? How do I learn about this unique created being? Do I need to learn to live in union with the Lord first or is it a both/and? I know I can't sit and ponder just my 5 senses but I am still unsure how to ponder my uniqueness as a woman, daughter, sister, wife, and mother... It seems like it should be simple, but man it feels scary and hard.
Saturday, February 11, 2017
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
more false self/true self
The true self is the 'me' I was always created to be. I was made in the image of God, the breath of God breathed into me. This is just not the 'me' that people saw when I was first born, or even in much of the years after, heck even much of today. Whatever my true self is ... it is the place where the Holy Spirit unites with in divine union. This is the place that we all as Christ followers must discover, understand, and live within.
When the false self was killed on the cross - all of my sin and shame were killed. This means that the power they had over me - to be the ONLY force that ran my life - was broken. The false self will be with me until the day I die but I no longer have to follow in its ways. Again this may not seem new - I can read Romans 5-7 and get all of this, my problem is always in the living it out part. How do we continuously walk in the Spirit, and not continually give our members over to serve the false self? And what is this divine union thing and how does that fit in? Because I am constantly wondering how to live more fully with Jesus - abiding - loving - following His heart and desires...
Thomas Merton would say that we need to go through the false self to get to the true self. After all the false self is the one that is covering over the true self. The false self is what emerged after we disobeyed God in the garden. We are all Adam on the outside - disobedient and self-focused. But on the inside the image that God implanted, as He created us, is there waiting to be understood, seen and explored. But we do not know how to do this work. The work is looking at our false self for what it is. We think that the false self is who we are and thus we are reluctant to be rid of it. I even remember saying when I was younger "I just want to be good because I am good, not because someone has declared me that way." But that is simply impossible ... because the shear fact that God has made me - is what makes me good. I CAN NOT be good without God. There is no good without God. Jesus even said this ... 'Only God is good.' The false self will never be who I am... it is merely the twisting of the image of God ... and that twistING can make us very twistED. Our job is to recognize this and stop trying to dress up the false self, or make excuses for it, or placate it, or enable it. We have to realize what it is and call it out. Confess our sin, forgive, and let it go .... and most of all really get that it is NOT ME. This will make the above list so easy ... bc why wouldn't it be easy to lay aside sin, and ask for forgiveness, and humble ourselves, when we can finally see that it is our shadow that is getting in the way again ... covering up our true beauty.
The really hard part is recognizing the true beauty and belovedness that is lying just below the crappy false self. We have so long identified with the crap - that we now see ourselves as crap. And we wonder over and over again why God has gone to such lengths to secure a relationship with us. I spent so much of my younger years stuck there - ruminating on sin - staring at the false self thinking that it was worth looking at ... that somehow it would change if I just willed it enough. I think though that the only thing I received was a fullness of self-loathing.
So then what does it mean to go thru the false self to get to the true self? I think it begins by understanding our condition. We can NOT do this without Jesus. He had to die on the cross for us and take away sin and shame. He had to kill the power of the false self. We have to see our sin for what it is - it separates us from God and from others. So we have to be humbled by our darkened state - see it for its ugliness BUT then also see that that sin soaked false self is NOT who we really are. We have to be able to recognize it for what it is ... a dark worldly covering that only has power when we give it power.
So back to that true created beauty... how do we live there? That is the part I am still struggling to wrap my brain around... so more to come.
When the false self was killed on the cross - all of my sin and shame were killed. This means that the power they had over me - to be the ONLY force that ran my life - was broken. The false self will be with me until the day I die but I no longer have to follow in its ways. Again this may not seem new - I can read Romans 5-7 and get all of this, my problem is always in the living it out part. How do we continuously walk in the Spirit, and not continually give our members over to serve the false self? And what is this divine union thing and how does that fit in? Because I am constantly wondering how to live more fully with Jesus - abiding - loving - following His heart and desires...
Thomas Merton would say that we need to go through the false self to get to the true self. After all the false self is the one that is covering over the true self. The false self is what emerged after we disobeyed God in the garden. We are all Adam on the outside - disobedient and self-focused. But on the inside the image that God implanted, as He created us, is there waiting to be understood, seen and explored. But we do not know how to do this work. The work is looking at our false self for what it is. We think that the false self is who we are and thus we are reluctant to be rid of it. I even remember saying when I was younger "I just want to be good because I am good, not because someone has declared me that way." But that is simply impossible ... because the shear fact that God has made me - is what makes me good. I CAN NOT be good without God. There is no good without God. Jesus even said this ... 'Only God is good.' The false self will never be who I am... it is merely the twisting of the image of God ... and that twistING can make us very twistED. Our job is to recognize this and stop trying to dress up the false self, or make excuses for it, or placate it, or enable it. We have to realize what it is and call it out. Confess our sin, forgive, and let it go .... and most of all really get that it is NOT ME. This will make the above list so easy ... bc why wouldn't it be easy to lay aside sin, and ask for forgiveness, and humble ourselves, when we can finally see that it is our shadow that is getting in the way again ... covering up our true beauty.
The really hard part is recognizing the true beauty and belovedness that is lying just below the crappy false self. We have so long identified with the crap - that we now see ourselves as crap. And we wonder over and over again why God has gone to such lengths to secure a relationship with us. I spent so much of my younger years stuck there - ruminating on sin - staring at the false self thinking that it was worth looking at ... that somehow it would change if I just willed it enough. I think though that the only thing I received was a fullness of self-loathing.
So then what does it mean to go thru the false self to get to the true self? I think it begins by understanding our condition. We can NOT do this without Jesus. He had to die on the cross for us and take away sin and shame. He had to kill the power of the false self. We have to see our sin for what it is - it separates us from God and from others. So we have to be humbled by our darkened state - see it for its ugliness BUT then also see that that sin soaked false self is NOT who we really are. We have to be able to recognize it for what it is ... a dark worldly covering that only has power when we give it power.
So back to that true created beauty... how do we live there? That is the part I am still struggling to wrap my brain around... so more to come.
Saturday, February 4, 2017
false self
I am still trying to figure out this whole false self/true self thing and put it into my own words. I want to be able to explain it to myself and attempt to explain it to a few friends and maybe even teach about it someday in a way that is less ethereal and confusing.
The false self is the part of us that is the old man, our sin nature, the part of us that everyone is born into. However, it does not stay locked up neatly away in a corner of ourselves, it instead pervades everything. It interprets everything in relation to itself. If a circumstance is hard or scary -- it works very hard at protecting us and telling us that we are going to be alright if we just believe this or that (usually a lie) about ourselves. It tells us the lies that we want to hear to make ourselves feel better and cope with the world. So even if something happens that's good ... we will also interpret it in this self-centered, self-affirming way. We can not help this. There is nothing we can do to stop this, this is just what happens when we are born into sin. Everything is made relative to me, because my false self just believes that indeed, all of life revolves around me, and it can believe nothing else. The really great thing is - we all believe this - and so we all join into this great big cult affirming each others lies. We bring our lies - everyone brings theirs and we all lie together affirming what we believe to be the truth. Except the 'truth' that we believe is just the false self trying to convince itself that it is completely fine. And because the false self is similar in each of us - totally self-focused - the lies line up much of the time! So it seems true... and we keep giving the false self more and more power over ourselves. It is incredibly pervasive and reaches into all corners of who we are and who we are becoming ... and even the church jumps on its bandwagon much of the time. Because my false self can make my churchiness or my church related activities about me and my own gain and my own glory. In fact, it is really hard to tell sometimes where my false self begins and where my true self breaks off especially in regards to ministry activities. The false self is really all about self protection. It is about gaining for self, it is about getting whatever will make me happy. This is the space that our idols are born into. This is the space where our inner Adam says 'no' to God and says 'yes' to itself. This is why I want to be seen and heard and noticed. This is where I steal God's story and make it all about me. This is where I decide that all the glory should be shining from me but most especially for me.
This may not sound new. I know I have taken a hard look at my sin nature. I have done a ton of self examination ... actually probably more than I should... probably to the point of it falling back into the prideful category and made it all about my false self again. So what is the point of reexamining it now? For me its about learning it from a slightly new angle ... I am beginning to look at my false self from the vantage point of my true self. Before now, I would have seen this false self and thought that much of it was good and redeemable. I would not have been able to see that the whole of it is steeped in such a big lie that no part of it can come out whole. I also would never have been able to see that all of the false self - everything that it is and has created as my outer person, is actually NONE of who I really am. This is not the real me. It is a shadow. A very dim and twisted picture of only part of who we were designed to be in the image of God.
So if this is NOT who I am - this false self - then what can be done about it? How do we get rid of it? How do we become our true selves? That's the really great news ... that our true self is already with us. Not only are we born with our sin nature but we are born with our true selves because we were created in the image of God. This person that God created us to be IS our true self ... its just that when we are born, the false self covers over our true self because thats all it know how to do to live. It is only when we are born again into salvation that our true self has an opportunity to come out from behind the mask of the false self. Until then it really has no power over the sin nature. This is the whole reason for Gods entire salvation story. He created us so that He would have someone in His image to spend His love on ... but He wanted us to want Him and not just be robots. But we chose the wrong path - we chose ourselves as gods - and pushed aside the One True God. As we did that the false self was born. And we saw Adam and Eve shift blame to one another, to Satan, and to God for the problem - of course not wanting to blame themselves. This is the false self at its best - always working at self-protection. So we get to watch thousands of years unfold in scripture as God works out His salvation plan - so that He might be reunited with His loved ones. Though he has never lost sight of who we are and has never stopped loving us with His magnificent love - we lost sight of Him because we lost sight of who we were designed to be. So thus we never got to have the love relationship we are designed to have ... until Jesus came along. In Jesus we once again have access to the true self because sin and shame were killed on the cross. God's wrath was poured out on Jesus and the Holy Spirit was sent to unite His followers to Himself in a divine union. So those who have the Holy Spirit have this divine union already in us.
The question is why don't I know this, feel this, experience this? This is the question I have been asking for years! How does transformation actually occur? How do I shed sin and live more fully walking in the power of the Holy Spirit? That's what this true self begins to answer....
The false self is the part of us that is the old man, our sin nature, the part of us that everyone is born into. However, it does not stay locked up neatly away in a corner of ourselves, it instead pervades everything. It interprets everything in relation to itself. If a circumstance is hard or scary -- it works very hard at protecting us and telling us that we are going to be alright if we just believe this or that (usually a lie) about ourselves. It tells us the lies that we want to hear to make ourselves feel better and cope with the world. So even if something happens that's good ... we will also interpret it in this self-centered, self-affirming way. We can not help this. There is nothing we can do to stop this, this is just what happens when we are born into sin. Everything is made relative to me, because my false self just believes that indeed, all of life revolves around me, and it can believe nothing else. The really great thing is - we all believe this - and so we all join into this great big cult affirming each others lies. We bring our lies - everyone brings theirs and we all lie together affirming what we believe to be the truth. Except the 'truth' that we believe is just the false self trying to convince itself that it is completely fine. And because the false self is similar in each of us - totally self-focused - the lies line up much of the time! So it seems true... and we keep giving the false self more and more power over ourselves. It is incredibly pervasive and reaches into all corners of who we are and who we are becoming ... and even the church jumps on its bandwagon much of the time. Because my false self can make my churchiness or my church related activities about me and my own gain and my own glory. In fact, it is really hard to tell sometimes where my false self begins and where my true self breaks off especially in regards to ministry activities. The false self is really all about self protection. It is about gaining for self, it is about getting whatever will make me happy. This is the space that our idols are born into. This is the space where our inner Adam says 'no' to God and says 'yes' to itself. This is why I want to be seen and heard and noticed. This is where I steal God's story and make it all about me. This is where I decide that all the glory should be shining from me but most especially for me.
This may not sound new. I know I have taken a hard look at my sin nature. I have done a ton of self examination ... actually probably more than I should... probably to the point of it falling back into the prideful category and made it all about my false self again. So what is the point of reexamining it now? For me its about learning it from a slightly new angle ... I am beginning to look at my false self from the vantage point of my true self. Before now, I would have seen this false self and thought that much of it was good and redeemable. I would not have been able to see that the whole of it is steeped in such a big lie that no part of it can come out whole. I also would never have been able to see that all of the false self - everything that it is and has created as my outer person, is actually NONE of who I really am. This is not the real me. It is a shadow. A very dim and twisted picture of only part of who we were designed to be in the image of God.
So if this is NOT who I am - this false self - then what can be done about it? How do we get rid of it? How do we become our true selves? That's the really great news ... that our true self is already with us. Not only are we born with our sin nature but we are born with our true selves because we were created in the image of God. This person that God created us to be IS our true self ... its just that when we are born, the false self covers over our true self because thats all it know how to do to live. It is only when we are born again into salvation that our true self has an opportunity to come out from behind the mask of the false self. Until then it really has no power over the sin nature. This is the whole reason for Gods entire salvation story. He created us so that He would have someone in His image to spend His love on ... but He wanted us to want Him and not just be robots. But we chose the wrong path - we chose ourselves as gods - and pushed aside the One True God. As we did that the false self was born. And we saw Adam and Eve shift blame to one another, to Satan, and to God for the problem - of course not wanting to blame themselves. This is the false self at its best - always working at self-protection. So we get to watch thousands of years unfold in scripture as God works out His salvation plan - so that He might be reunited with His loved ones. Though he has never lost sight of who we are and has never stopped loving us with His magnificent love - we lost sight of Him because we lost sight of who we were designed to be. So thus we never got to have the love relationship we are designed to have ... until Jesus came along. In Jesus we once again have access to the true self because sin and shame were killed on the cross. God's wrath was poured out on Jesus and the Holy Spirit was sent to unite His followers to Himself in a divine union. So those who have the Holy Spirit have this divine union already in us.
The question is why don't I know this, feel this, experience this? This is the question I have been asking for years! How does transformation actually occur? How do I shed sin and live more fully walking in the power of the Holy Spirit? That's what this true self begins to answer....
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
this
I am not entirely sure what the Lord is up to right now. As I talk to friends on this journey I hardly know what to say anymore. The Lord is still silent giving me only drips occasionally for course corrections. Everything in scripture has stayed the same -- scripture and prayer just fall flat. So as I talk with friends what I mostly say is that I am bored ... bc all the things I like to do - study, pour over scripture, pray, mentor etc ... just don't work right now. So I'm filling up way too much time with TV and a whole lot of nothings that feel like a whole lot of nothing.
The one bright spot is my spiritual disciplines night once a month. I wish it was more often but so far this is what the Lord has for me to do. And it has been so awesome to see the ladies responding and asking deeper questions of themselves and wanting to dig in. They gave me a gift for my birthday -- a beautiful plate with my favorite verse painted along the edges. And at the end of the night -- one woman asked if I would consider leading them on a retreat. So that was super encouraging. Its funny tho bc even though they all sense the Spirit during these times -- I still barely can. I can't really tell if what I am saying is being received or falling flat... or if the Spirit is in it all, except in rare moments.
Regardless -- there are those rare moments for even me. This last week I lead Lectio on the passage of Jesus at age 12 in the temple in Luke 2. The ladies had some lively discussion and we were having a good time. In the first reading, my word or phrase - was 'great distress' and then it was 'found favor with God and men' so in the second reading which is where you imagine yourself in the story, I stood in Jesus' perspective. I saw Mary finally find me after 3 days in great distress ... her jaw agape at finding me in the temple. My response was - 'where else would I be? This is where I have to be. This is where my Father is,' i was kind and totally dumbfounded that she would not understand this about me. Then in the 3rd reading - the response - the Lord showed me a phrase in-between my other 2 in the text. It was in-between 'great distress' and 'found favor with God and man,' it was 'submissive.' The Lord whispered in that moment 'if you will stop banging on my door in great distress ... and if you want that favor ... then you will see that you need to be submissive.' And I knew just what I needed to be submissive to - THE SILENCE. I have yet to figure out how to walk into the silence and be ok with whatever comes or whatever does NOT come. The latter being the really big problem for me. I have spent a lot of time banging on God's door making a fuss in great distress ... but I haven't really spent much time submitting to that silence, and just let myself sit in it. The time waste, the boredom, the not being met thing, still just makes the whole thing so unappealing -- and quite frankly -- just plain scary.
I'm reading a new book ... and man is it excellent. Merton's Palace of Nowhere by James Finley. So far I'm only a few chapters in and my mind is blown. So many things are just beginning to make sense about my silence as a result of reading. I don't even think I can articulate it yet. Here's the quote that's blowing my mind right now...
'By means of silence and solitude we journey into ourselves. We roam about into even deeper and darker and more unknown realms of the human heart, wherein is found the door thru which the Adam in us walked in giving birth to the false self. How can we find this door? How are we to open it? More mysterious still is the question of who will be left when the self we think ourselves to be walks through it?'
I realized as I read this quote that this is the journey that God has had me on in the dark night - purging the false self. Everything that I thought made me who I am - I gave over to God. But what I was really giving up were all the things that helped make me false - shame being the number one culprit. I surrendered everything - even down to surrendering my very senses. And I had to give them up because I was using them wrongly. My false self had so corrupted everything that even my way of taking in the world - my very perception was damaged. Now in this very slow painstaking process which is the aftermath of the time of purging, The Lord is rebuilding me. He is teaching me new things VERY slowly, still amongst a lot of silence -- trying to help me see my own wonder within me -- because what He wants to unveil is my true self. But you can't unveil what is the true me without going thru the old me ... because the 'me' that is on top is the false one.
I didn't have to find the door like Merton said ... God pointed to it and said there it is -- are you willing? And silly me said 'yes' and jumped down the rabbit hole of my shame and entered into a place of such horror within that I could never even fully describe. And I wept for my old self as large chunks of it fell off and died, I just didn't know what I was weeping for! Now God is trying to show me how to discover the true me - the real me - the me made in the image of God - by submitting to silence ... and it feels like a whole other kind of rabbit hole. I have to say it doesn't scare me any less ... because just like Merton said above -- what will emerge on the other side? -- when I come back out? That total transformation -- that caterpillar to butterfly -- total remake has got to hurt -- has got to be so unknown -- and thus it scares the shit out of me.
Lord - I so totally want to submit ... This is what I have been praying for ... I just didn't know that THIS is what I was praying for ... ya know?
The one bright spot is my spiritual disciplines night once a month. I wish it was more often but so far this is what the Lord has for me to do. And it has been so awesome to see the ladies responding and asking deeper questions of themselves and wanting to dig in. They gave me a gift for my birthday -- a beautiful plate with my favorite verse painted along the edges. And at the end of the night -- one woman asked if I would consider leading them on a retreat. So that was super encouraging. Its funny tho bc even though they all sense the Spirit during these times -- I still barely can. I can't really tell if what I am saying is being received or falling flat... or if the Spirit is in it all, except in rare moments.
Regardless -- there are those rare moments for even me. This last week I lead Lectio on the passage of Jesus at age 12 in the temple in Luke 2. The ladies had some lively discussion and we were having a good time. In the first reading, my word or phrase - was 'great distress' and then it was 'found favor with God and men' so in the second reading which is where you imagine yourself in the story, I stood in Jesus' perspective. I saw Mary finally find me after 3 days in great distress ... her jaw agape at finding me in the temple. My response was - 'where else would I be? This is where I have to be. This is where my Father is,' i was kind and totally dumbfounded that she would not understand this about me. Then in the 3rd reading - the response - the Lord showed me a phrase in-between my other 2 in the text. It was in-between 'great distress' and 'found favor with God and man,' it was 'submissive.' The Lord whispered in that moment 'if you will stop banging on my door in great distress ... and if you want that favor ... then you will see that you need to be submissive.' And I knew just what I needed to be submissive to - THE SILENCE. I have yet to figure out how to walk into the silence and be ok with whatever comes or whatever does NOT come. The latter being the really big problem for me. I have spent a lot of time banging on God's door making a fuss in great distress ... but I haven't really spent much time submitting to that silence, and just let myself sit in it. The time waste, the boredom, the not being met thing, still just makes the whole thing so unappealing -- and quite frankly -- just plain scary.
I'm reading a new book ... and man is it excellent. Merton's Palace of Nowhere by James Finley. So far I'm only a few chapters in and my mind is blown. So many things are just beginning to make sense about my silence as a result of reading. I don't even think I can articulate it yet. Here's the quote that's blowing my mind right now...
'By means of silence and solitude we journey into ourselves. We roam about into even deeper and darker and more unknown realms of the human heart, wherein is found the door thru which the Adam in us walked in giving birth to the false self. How can we find this door? How are we to open it? More mysterious still is the question of who will be left when the self we think ourselves to be walks through it?'
I realized as I read this quote that this is the journey that God has had me on in the dark night - purging the false self. Everything that I thought made me who I am - I gave over to God. But what I was really giving up were all the things that helped make me false - shame being the number one culprit. I surrendered everything - even down to surrendering my very senses. And I had to give them up because I was using them wrongly. My false self had so corrupted everything that even my way of taking in the world - my very perception was damaged. Now in this very slow painstaking process which is the aftermath of the time of purging, The Lord is rebuilding me. He is teaching me new things VERY slowly, still amongst a lot of silence -- trying to help me see my own wonder within me -- because what He wants to unveil is my true self. But you can't unveil what is the true me without going thru the old me ... because the 'me' that is on top is the false one.
I didn't have to find the door like Merton said ... God pointed to it and said there it is -- are you willing? And silly me said 'yes' and jumped down the rabbit hole of my shame and entered into a place of such horror within that I could never even fully describe. And I wept for my old self as large chunks of it fell off and died, I just didn't know what I was weeping for! Now God is trying to show me how to discover the true me - the real me - the me made in the image of God - by submitting to silence ... and it feels like a whole other kind of rabbit hole. I have to say it doesn't scare me any less ... because just like Merton said above -- what will emerge on the other side? -- when I come back out? That total transformation -- that caterpillar to butterfly -- total remake has got to hurt -- has got to be so unknown -- and thus it scares the shit out of me.
Lord - I so totally want to submit ... This is what I have been praying for ... I just didn't know that THIS is what I was praying for ... ya know?
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
transformation
Last week during the spiritual disciplines group that I lead ... while we did Lectio Divina on a passage from Luke 9 about the transfiguration ... I had a funny thought occur that I don't think was my own. It felt like the Lord lead my thoughts as if I was going up the mountain with Jesus... and that the Lord was telling me deep in my heart that when I go to the Potter's Inn ... which is up on a mountain in Colorado... that I will be entering into a time of transformation. The passage says, "and when they became fully awake they saw His glory." I didn't spend much time thinking about it ... but it did stir a little bit of hope in me.
Later that week I wanted to dig into that passage again, so on Sunday I attempted doing Lectio on my own ... but this time it was a big fat blank ... like most other times that I attempted to dig into the word without a community around me. Community has made all the difference during the last year or year and a half of my Dark Night. Most of the times that I have heard from the Lord, or experienced Him in any way have been amongst other believers. I am not sure the I understand the fullness of that but nonetheless it seems to be how God has chosen to work in this season. So in my big fat blank I became frustrated again - almost resigned in my heart - that for some reason I just don't get to be intimate with Him right now - end of story - and I just have to keep on waiting.
So today, I decided to have some time to myself and do some reading. Currently, I am reading Soul Feast by Marjorie J. Thompson and I was reading about Lectio of all things. Suddenly, out of no where a verse that she quoted jumped off the page at me, "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening," from 1 Samuel 3:10. It was what Eli told Samuel when He was a small boy hearing the Lord's voice for the first time. OK - so scripture just doesn't do that to me right now ... so I asked the Lord - am I NOT listening? Then I noticed on the side of the page a quote that said,
"Read with a vulnerable heart. EXPECT to be blessed in the reading. Read as one AWAKE, one WAITING for the Beloved. Read with reverence." -Macrina Wiederkehr.
And I realized that I am STILL not expecting the Lord to show up when I put myself before Him. I am afraid - I am afraid that He is not coming, that I will be disappointed again, that I will have to wait more years for Him to come and get me out of this Dark Night ... I don't want that long long long space between drips anymore, so I don't even put my face under the faucet. I have stopped expecting the Lord to show up. So I instantly began confessing my fear ... and I set my heart to praying through the unbelief that I have stored up in this space ... and then I realized there is something even deeper that the fear was covering over. I asked the Lord what it was, and then I read a little further ... I got to this quote by Brother Lawrence,
"God has infinite treasures to give us. Yet a little tangible devotion, which passes away in a moment, seems to satisfy us. How blind we are, since in this way we tie God's hands, and we STOP the abundance of His grace! But when He finds a soul penetrated with LIVING FAITH, He pours out grace on it with abundance. God's grace is like a TORRENT. When it is stopped from taking its ordinary course, it looks for another outlet, and when it finds one, it spreads out with impetuosity and abundance."
While I read this I had a picture in my mind of me standing on a rock in a huge waterfall - water rushing on my right, on my left, that wild torrent... and yet it was passing me by. I had stopped it from flowing over me, in me, through me... but that power - that torrent - was there - available - but I was missing it.
I prayed again... confessing my fear, my unbelief, and God impressed upon me again that this was just the surface and there was something deeper. I asked again, "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening." And He showed me a scene from an old Star Trek Voyager episode.... OK... well that's a little bit weird. It was an episode where one of the characters - Kes - basically transformed and became something totally new. She was like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. AND then the Lord reminded me of a movie I haven't seen in ages called The Abyss ... and at the end the main character goes down into the Abyss and meets a spectacular glowing alien race and is saved. OK. Again a bit weird. As I continued to listen in prayer I realized that the Lord was revealing my deeper fear - a complete unrecognizable transformation - that's what I am really afraid of. But at the same time telling me that - that is exactly where He is taking me - DEEP - into a total transformation. This prayer experience wiped away all of my fear. And my heart unclenched and released itself to the Lord and just said,"yes."
I went and found that episode of Star Trek and watched the parts where Kes begins and then finishes her transformation. I found myself wanting to be her ... wanting to let go... wanting to be free and fly. I am ready to be on the mountain with You, Lord. "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening."
Later that week I wanted to dig into that passage again, so on Sunday I attempted doing Lectio on my own ... but this time it was a big fat blank ... like most other times that I attempted to dig into the word without a community around me. Community has made all the difference during the last year or year and a half of my Dark Night. Most of the times that I have heard from the Lord, or experienced Him in any way have been amongst other believers. I am not sure the I understand the fullness of that but nonetheless it seems to be how God has chosen to work in this season. So in my big fat blank I became frustrated again - almost resigned in my heart - that for some reason I just don't get to be intimate with Him right now - end of story - and I just have to keep on waiting.
So today, I decided to have some time to myself and do some reading. Currently, I am reading Soul Feast by Marjorie J. Thompson and I was reading about Lectio of all things. Suddenly, out of no where a verse that she quoted jumped off the page at me, "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening," from 1 Samuel 3:10. It was what Eli told Samuel when He was a small boy hearing the Lord's voice for the first time. OK - so scripture just doesn't do that to me right now ... so I asked the Lord - am I NOT listening? Then I noticed on the side of the page a quote that said,
"Read with a vulnerable heart. EXPECT to be blessed in the reading. Read as one AWAKE, one WAITING for the Beloved. Read with reverence." -Macrina Wiederkehr.
And I realized that I am STILL not expecting the Lord to show up when I put myself before Him. I am afraid - I am afraid that He is not coming, that I will be disappointed again, that I will have to wait more years for Him to come and get me out of this Dark Night ... I don't want that long long long space between drips anymore, so I don't even put my face under the faucet. I have stopped expecting the Lord to show up. So I instantly began confessing my fear ... and I set my heart to praying through the unbelief that I have stored up in this space ... and then I realized there is something even deeper that the fear was covering over. I asked the Lord what it was, and then I read a little further ... I got to this quote by Brother Lawrence,
"God has infinite treasures to give us. Yet a little tangible devotion, which passes away in a moment, seems to satisfy us. How blind we are, since in this way we tie God's hands, and we STOP the abundance of His grace! But when He finds a soul penetrated with LIVING FAITH, He pours out grace on it with abundance. God's grace is like a TORRENT. When it is stopped from taking its ordinary course, it looks for another outlet, and when it finds one, it spreads out with impetuosity and abundance."
While I read this I had a picture in my mind of me standing on a rock in a huge waterfall - water rushing on my right, on my left, that wild torrent... and yet it was passing me by. I had stopped it from flowing over me, in me, through me... but that power - that torrent - was there - available - but I was missing it.
I prayed again... confessing my fear, my unbelief, and God impressed upon me again that this was just the surface and there was something deeper. I asked again, "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening." And He showed me a scene from an old Star Trek Voyager episode.... OK... well that's a little bit weird. It was an episode where one of the characters - Kes - basically transformed and became something totally new. She was like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. AND then the Lord reminded me of a movie I haven't seen in ages called The Abyss ... and at the end the main character goes down into the Abyss and meets a spectacular glowing alien race and is saved. OK. Again a bit weird. As I continued to listen in prayer I realized that the Lord was revealing my deeper fear - a complete unrecognizable transformation - that's what I am really afraid of. But at the same time telling me that - that is exactly where He is taking me - DEEP - into a total transformation. This prayer experience wiped away all of my fear. And my heart unclenched and released itself to the Lord and just said,"yes."
I went and found that episode of Star Trek and watched the parts where Kes begins and then finishes her transformation. I found myself wanting to be her ... wanting to let go... wanting to be free and fly. I am ready to be on the mountain with You, Lord. "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening."
Sunday, October 23, 2016
opposites from Genesis
On the day that the Lord gave me the opposite of shame ... I began thinking of all other opposites in the first 3 chapters of Genesis ... It's been helpful thinking through some of these things though now as I am looking at the list some of them need to go together or I would shift them a bit but I thought it would be helpful to have it written here for my future study. I'm not sure which of them came first - so this list is random...
Garden Gift - Curse: work the ground
dominion - curse the ground
earth fruitful - curse the ground
live forever - finite
naked - animal skins
naked - fig leaves
eyes closed? - eyes opened
presence - cast out
access to God - cast out
image bearers - now image marred
unashamed - shameful
blessed - cursed
tree of life - tree of the knowledge of good and evil
open walk with God - hiding
relational peace? - blame
peace? - the enemy
righteous - broken
truth - lie
innocent - guilty
fullness - emptiness
life - death
wholeness - sin
provision - work
delights - toil
unlike God? - like God
freedom - guarded
humility - pride
God-centered - self-centered
see the Lord - see only self
sin - innocence
shame - wonder
Garden Gift - Curse: work the ground
dominion - curse the ground
earth fruitful - curse the ground
live forever - finite
naked - animal skins
naked - fig leaves
eyes closed? - eyes opened
presence - cast out
access to God - cast out
image bearers - now image marred
unashamed - shameful
blessed - cursed
tree of life - tree of the knowledge of good and evil
open walk with God - hiding
relational peace? - blame
peace? - the enemy
righteous - broken
truth - lie
innocent - guilty
fullness - emptiness
life - death
wholeness - sin
provision - work
delights - toil
unlike God? - like God
freedom - guarded
humility - pride
God-centered - self-centered
see the Lord - see only self
sin - innocence
shame - wonder
Sunday, October 16, 2016
the opposite of shame is ...
Its been a long while. Ive been busy with the kids and school but beyond that my computer never seems to be in my possession anymore! Today I am locked away in my room for some quiet time with the Lord. And it is still quiet. The Lord has shifted some things -- my heart feels glad, I have a couple of things that I get to 'do' now ... but HE is still quite quiet. I figured finally though, that perhaps I just need to walk into the quiet and be quiet with Him. Even a few months ago I would not have chosen to do this... it felt too frustrating and disappointing and I had a lot of fear bound up in not being 'met' with. I think that fear is gone - or been pushed aside? - because now I just want to put myself where God is MOST LIKELY to show up. And now I have an expectation that He just might show up, maybe it's because of some stirrings of late. Ideas are flowing more readily, scripture feels a little more 'something' then it did in the recent past. Music is grazing my soul more easily. It's just not full yet... it still doesn't feel like intimacy yet... I'm still waiting for that connection.
But here is what I've been thinking about for awhile now... and became especially prevelant in the last month. We had a women's retreat at our church ... and the speaker - though not awesome - had a couple of good things to contribute. The first night somehow I went back to thinking about shame. This topic has been much on my mind all throughout my dark night. I as I sat there not really listening I just kept praying about what the opposite of shame is. I kept asking God and trying to think through Genesis working the problem over and over in my mind. I've done some reading on shame over the last 3 years - some of which I agree with - some not so much. But one thing in all my study and thought is the realization that shame is the FEELING that comes from our sin. It is a consequence of sin. We (and by we I mean the church at large generally) just lightly touches on this subject. We will pass by this word in a song, or skim past it in a verse ... but I have come to believe that this is a huge underlying reason why we are so stuck in - steeped in - and why it is such a struggle for us to be transformed by God. To put it simply ... we are oblivious to how shame drives much of what we do, think, say and feel.
We have never learned to identify shame. We have never learned how to deal with shame. You may ask - but hasn't Jesus dealt with all of our sin and shame - shouldn't it just be wiped away like our sin was on the cross. Well heartily YES... quickly followed by... and NO. All of our sin was washed away by the blood of Jesus ... yet we still have to deal with the effects of our sin nature until we enter eternity ... so it is true that all of our shame was washed away with our sin but we still have to deal with those same effects that echo in our souls from shame.
So anyway back to the retreat ... I prayed and prayed for a word that means the opposite of shame ... I rolled Genesis 1-3 over and over in my mind. no answer came that night. The next day after our first session with the speaker ... she had prepared a word for each of the attendees. There were 150 words inside of blank envelopes that she passed around the room that you could choose from. i got my word and it said ... 'wonder'. I sat with that for a minute wondering what it was for ... and then it struck me what if THIS is the answer to my question from the night before ... is 'wonder' the opposite of shame? At first I really wasn't sure at all. I began mulling the word over in my mind trying to define it. My mind picture for shame is that idea of Adam and Eve running and hiding from God. Getting low in the bushes, sewing together fig leaves. It's a self focus - and inward feeling of disgust with oneself, a total feeling of wrongness - I am broken and I can not be fixed. Self-centeredness has now taken over.
When I began thinking of the word 'wonder' the pictures that come to my mind are of adorable children finding something amazing in the creek or their yard and running to their parents to show them its incredible beauty. Its an outward display of beauty on their face. It's peace and delight. It's the exact opposite of the self-centeredness of shame. But I still couldn't quite put the 2 words together as opposites just then - something didn't fit for me. The pictures seemed close but something felt off.
Then the other night I was dreaming ... but before I went to bed I prayed through the Divine Hours ... the final prayer of the day contained this ...
"And now I ask that you will work within me while I sleep, using the hours of my rest to create in mea new mind and heart and soul. May my mind, which during the day was directed to my work and activities, through the night be directed wholly to you. "
... I LOVE that. So I prayed it heartily. And I believe that God answered, because somewhere in the night I think I realized what the opposite is. What really brought it home for me was realizing the opposite of 'sin.' I would have thought it to be holiness ... but truly I think God told me in a dream while going over Genesis that it is INNOCENCE. And so the opposite of shame is in fact 'wonder'.
Innocence and wonder, sin and shame.
Why does this matter? Because we learn in opposites. It helps when we can wrap our minds wholly around the problem and examine it from start to finish.
So if sin and shame have been taken away by the blood of Christ ... then innocence and wonder can be restored to us ... the question then is posed to you God - how? what the heck does that look like? What does that mean for me - especially in light of what I went through 2 years ago - when you walked me through all of my shame? What exactly do you want for me next?
But here is what I've been thinking about for awhile now... and became especially prevelant in the last month. We had a women's retreat at our church ... and the speaker - though not awesome - had a couple of good things to contribute. The first night somehow I went back to thinking about shame. This topic has been much on my mind all throughout my dark night. I as I sat there not really listening I just kept praying about what the opposite of shame is. I kept asking God and trying to think through Genesis working the problem over and over in my mind. I've done some reading on shame over the last 3 years - some of which I agree with - some not so much. But one thing in all my study and thought is the realization that shame is the FEELING that comes from our sin. It is a consequence of sin. We (and by we I mean the church at large generally) just lightly touches on this subject. We will pass by this word in a song, or skim past it in a verse ... but I have come to believe that this is a huge underlying reason why we are so stuck in - steeped in - and why it is such a struggle for us to be transformed by God. To put it simply ... we are oblivious to how shame drives much of what we do, think, say and feel.
We have never learned to identify shame. We have never learned how to deal with shame. You may ask - but hasn't Jesus dealt with all of our sin and shame - shouldn't it just be wiped away like our sin was on the cross. Well heartily YES... quickly followed by... and NO. All of our sin was washed away by the blood of Jesus ... yet we still have to deal with the effects of our sin nature until we enter eternity ... so it is true that all of our shame was washed away with our sin but we still have to deal with those same effects that echo in our souls from shame.
So anyway back to the retreat ... I prayed and prayed for a word that means the opposite of shame ... I rolled Genesis 1-3 over and over in my mind. no answer came that night. The next day after our first session with the speaker ... she had prepared a word for each of the attendees. There were 150 words inside of blank envelopes that she passed around the room that you could choose from. i got my word and it said ... 'wonder'. I sat with that for a minute wondering what it was for ... and then it struck me what if THIS is the answer to my question from the night before ... is 'wonder' the opposite of shame? At first I really wasn't sure at all. I began mulling the word over in my mind trying to define it. My mind picture for shame is that idea of Adam and Eve running and hiding from God. Getting low in the bushes, sewing together fig leaves. It's a self focus - and inward feeling of disgust with oneself, a total feeling of wrongness - I am broken and I can not be fixed. Self-centeredness has now taken over.
When I began thinking of the word 'wonder' the pictures that come to my mind are of adorable children finding something amazing in the creek or their yard and running to their parents to show them its incredible beauty. Its an outward display of beauty on their face. It's peace and delight. It's the exact opposite of the self-centeredness of shame. But I still couldn't quite put the 2 words together as opposites just then - something didn't fit for me. The pictures seemed close but something felt off.
Then the other night I was dreaming ... but before I went to bed I prayed through the Divine Hours ... the final prayer of the day contained this ...
"And now I ask that you will work within me while I sleep, using the hours of my rest to create in mea new mind and heart and soul. May my mind, which during the day was directed to my work and activities, through the night be directed wholly to you. "
... I LOVE that. So I prayed it heartily. And I believe that God answered, because somewhere in the night I think I realized what the opposite is. What really brought it home for me was realizing the opposite of 'sin.' I would have thought it to be holiness ... but truly I think God told me in a dream while going over Genesis that it is INNOCENCE. And so the opposite of shame is in fact 'wonder'.
Innocence and wonder, sin and shame.
Why does this matter? Because we learn in opposites. It helps when we can wrap our minds wholly around the problem and examine it from start to finish.
So if sin and shame have been taken away by the blood of Christ ... then innocence and wonder can be restored to us ... the question then is posed to you God - how? what the heck does that look like? What does that mean for me - especially in light of what I went through 2 years ago - when you walked me through all of my shame? What exactly do you want for me next?
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