Total weakness... waiting... God's silence... struggle with self... struggle against old sin... He is bringing me down to bare bones.
What is the grave but a place where bare bones lie in the ground.
I have been lumbering around in my monster state - wondering why God makes us wait so long for rescue. At first, it is hard to overcome the unbelief that perhaps He will never come... and the fear that comes with that. That He doesn't really love us, and He is not really good. When we believe this lie, we can get stuck for a really LONG time. I lived there for many years.
Then when you finally get that He IS good, and does what He says ... it still takes time!! At least your faith is intact, but you now have to wade through all your own crap to get to the rescue! This can seemingly take forever! Because the time that it takes is really about how long it takes my stubborn, thickheaded, downright dumb self - to actually get the message. Because the rescue is not really about being released from our unpleasant circumstances in this moment but about being rescued from the sin that has us all tangled up and mired down in our own shit. We are so stuck in self that we don't even see how stuck we are. Sometimes we DON'T want to see it either - and then it takes even more time.
The time is necessary - because we need to see our need. We need to see our sin clearly. And if we don't - we will never get over the sin that is in the way.
So now I have been in the silence of the grave for 3 and 1/2 months. It has been long - so long - and I knew I had things to learn and I have wanted so desperately to submit to the lessons. First, so that I do not have to repeat them, and second, so that I can be done with these annoying dishonoring sins that I hate so much. I hate them, but yet my flesh LOVES them so well. My flesh wants so desperately to hang onto them!!! This tug of war is exhausting! It's Romans 7 all over the place!
Submitting is so hard because it takes owning and accepting our weakness. These things that are in me - may never go away, I may have to continue a battle with them until the day I die and that thought exhausts me even more.
BUT the promises of Jesus are so much bigger than my sin.!!!
There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus...
We are under no obligation any longer to our flesh...
It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me...
I am a new creature in Christ - the old has gone the new has come...
So how do I submit? I have said 'yes' to the grave - asked to be stripped, prayed to be free of these sins, I am submitting most days to the process whether I like it or not. I have confessed, and studied ...What am I missing?
What IS left but to swim wholeheartedly in my weakness and really feel it - really revel in my need.... and finally break my will to keep finding a way on my own. Murray says this in Abide In Christ:
The Christian often tries to forget his weakness: God wants us to remember it, to feel it deeply. The Christian wants to conquer his weakness and to be freed from it: God wants us to rest and even rejoice in it. The Christian mourns over his weakness: Christ teaches His servant to say, "I take pleasure in infirmities; most gladly will I glory in my infirmities." The Christian thinks his weakness his greatest hindrance in the life and service of God: God tells us that it is the secret of strength and success. It is our weakness, heartily accepted and continually realized, that gives us our claim and access to the strength of Him who has said, "My strength is made perfect in weakness."
A friend posted this quote yesterday ... a reminder from the Lord - right on time - right when I needed it. I keep getting these little prods from the Lord to stay on track - it's His way of saying 'See - I am still here!'
I SO want to be free, to be happy - joyful in Jesus. I totally want to stop being annoyed with my kids, and small troubles around me constantly ... I want to finally be focused on the ONE that matters. There is so much of my SELF that needs to be shut down. Jesus - please come and work - kill my flesh - strip me down to the bones. Help me revel in my weakness ...
I'll take the grave for now - if it means I get the joy of resurrection later.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Sunday, November 17, 2013
monster
Oh my gosh, I am horrible.
Homeschooling is revealing a monster inside. The first month went well and I could honestly say I felt that God had granted me patience ... perhaps He did that so that I wouldn't quit right out of the gate. This second month has been horror. And I can see many old evils coming out to be seen and heard - especially heard!!!
Last week it had gotten so bad that without talking I got my kids in the car - drove them to a park - and said 'leave me alone and go play'. For 2 hours they ran around and I sat in the car just calming down reading scripture. It seriously felt like I was Saul, and the scripture was slowly settling down the demon inside, as if it were David's harp playing. Reading scripture did not reveal anything to me... and I still haven't heard from the Lord... I just stopped seething.
Today while my daughter prayed to start the day she said this, 'God can you please help Mommy not to yell today.' And then later, 'I guess God didn't answer our prayer today.' Yup - I AM horrible.
It's not only that action but the underlying thoughts that are rolling around in my head. During Math today I wanted to strangle my daughter because she couldn't get a very easy concept. I am talking Homer strangling Bart Simpson kind of strangling here. All I kept thinking is how stupid she is. That is in and of itself is really awful for a mother to think of her daughter. But why do I think that?
When I was a kid school came very easily to me. I didn't struggle, I rarely studied... It was always just there and I found most of it interesting and simple. I also never went out of my way to challenge myself either, I did what was required and did it well. I liked that it was simple. So I know a part of me is angry that they did not inherit this trait from me... as if they can do anything about it. They think differently - more like their father - and that difference is just what it is - different. Except I can't get past it. I just end up thinking they are stupid and get angry and think if I just yell the information will finally get jammed in there somehow. Clearly, this is not working. Clearly, this is damaging.
This gets me thinking ... I need to pray more - get more focused on the Lord ... all the good answers. Because I know that only Jesus can fix me. There is nothing else that will heal all this junk in me - or even help me figure out what all the junk is - except for Jesus. He died for this very reason because I am just to horrible to fix myself. So I will pray and confess and ask for healing, and apologize to my kids and explain what I am going through ... minus the calling them 'stupid' in my mind part ... because that is just hurtful. BUT I feel like I have done that a million times ... and here I am still struggling with the same crap ... anger still bubbles up and grabs hold of my heart and still comes flying out of my mouth. So what am I to do?
I wonder if the waiting for the rescue is a really important step. Because rarely does God give us what we need right then and there when we ask. The fruit of the Spirit is supposed to be ours if we are walking in the Spirit ... right there available to be plucked. Yet I feel like I am snatching at it like a donkey being led around by a carrot on a string. I am jumping and trying to get that thing like crazy - but it is always out of reach. What am I missing? Is the waiting really important - and if so - why?
Maybe in the waiting we get to the very bottom of our ugly. Maybe I will finally truly hate the monster in me and surrender it to God and really get my need to be rescued. Or perhaps the waiting is the time that is needed in the spiritual realm ... when Daniel prayed he waited 21 days for God to answer his prayer because the angels were doing battle. It seems silly for me to think that angels are doing battle over me ... I feel like nothing but Paul does say our battle is not against the unseen in the spiritual realms.
Either way ... or maybe neither way ... I have to humble myself before my kids tomorrow and talk about my sin. I KNOW that is part of this equation. I need to beg God to come yet again to the rescue and grant me patience and kindness. And I know I don't want the monster back again ... Lord do your thing.
Homeschooling is revealing a monster inside. The first month went well and I could honestly say I felt that God had granted me patience ... perhaps He did that so that I wouldn't quit right out of the gate. This second month has been horror. And I can see many old evils coming out to be seen and heard - especially heard!!!
Last week it had gotten so bad that without talking I got my kids in the car - drove them to a park - and said 'leave me alone and go play'. For 2 hours they ran around and I sat in the car just calming down reading scripture. It seriously felt like I was Saul, and the scripture was slowly settling down the demon inside, as if it were David's harp playing. Reading scripture did not reveal anything to me... and I still haven't heard from the Lord... I just stopped seething.
Today while my daughter prayed to start the day she said this, 'God can you please help Mommy not to yell today.' And then later, 'I guess God didn't answer our prayer today.' Yup - I AM horrible.
It's not only that action but the underlying thoughts that are rolling around in my head. During Math today I wanted to strangle my daughter because she couldn't get a very easy concept. I am talking Homer strangling Bart Simpson kind of strangling here. All I kept thinking is how stupid she is. That is in and of itself is really awful for a mother to think of her daughter. But why do I think that?
When I was a kid school came very easily to me. I didn't struggle, I rarely studied... It was always just there and I found most of it interesting and simple. I also never went out of my way to challenge myself either, I did what was required and did it well. I liked that it was simple. So I know a part of me is angry that they did not inherit this trait from me... as if they can do anything about it. They think differently - more like their father - and that difference is just what it is - different. Except I can't get past it. I just end up thinking they are stupid and get angry and think if I just yell the information will finally get jammed in there somehow. Clearly, this is not working. Clearly, this is damaging.
This gets me thinking ... I need to pray more - get more focused on the Lord ... all the good answers. Because I know that only Jesus can fix me. There is nothing else that will heal all this junk in me - or even help me figure out what all the junk is - except for Jesus. He died for this very reason because I am just to horrible to fix myself. So I will pray and confess and ask for healing, and apologize to my kids and explain what I am going through ... minus the calling them 'stupid' in my mind part ... because that is just hurtful. BUT I feel like I have done that a million times ... and here I am still struggling with the same crap ... anger still bubbles up and grabs hold of my heart and still comes flying out of my mouth. So what am I to do?
I wonder if the waiting for the rescue is a really important step. Because rarely does God give us what we need right then and there when we ask. The fruit of the Spirit is supposed to be ours if we are walking in the Spirit ... right there available to be plucked. Yet I feel like I am snatching at it like a donkey being led around by a carrot on a string. I am jumping and trying to get that thing like crazy - but it is always out of reach. What am I missing? Is the waiting really important - and if so - why?
Maybe in the waiting we get to the very bottom of our ugly. Maybe I will finally truly hate the monster in me and surrender it to God and really get my need to be rescued. Or perhaps the waiting is the time that is needed in the spiritual realm ... when Daniel prayed he waited 21 days for God to answer his prayer because the angels were doing battle. It seems silly for me to think that angels are doing battle over me ... I feel like nothing but Paul does say our battle is not against the unseen in the spiritual realms.
Either way ... or maybe neither way ... I have to humble myself before my kids tomorrow and talk about my sin. I KNOW that is part of this equation. I need to beg God to come yet again to the rescue and grant me patience and kindness. And I know I don't want the monster back again ... Lord do your thing.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
perspective and smiles
Living for His pleasure.
Not mine. But His.
I was sharing this with my husband and he said well isn't that Piper's thing? Sort of ... Piper says that when we live for God's glory then we will experience our highest joy ... because then we are doing what we are created for... finally we are fulfilling our purpose. All good - I totally get it, I totally agree.
BUT I was reading that dang devotional again ... Jesus Calling - man that thing nails me again and again. And I came to November 6 and it starts out by saying 'seek to please me...' And that dear friends just shifted everything in my mind!!
When I think of giving God all His due glory and honor ... I picture myself as a mirror reflecting back all His own glory - the bright blinding glow of His beauty, the magnificence of His character, the weight of His love. There is a heaviness to that responsibility... that fear and awe... of displaying Him rightly.
But when I think of living for His pleasure all I think of is putting a smile on His face. Living to make Him happy and not thinking about me.
There is far too much of me in my thoughts, in how I live, what I do, what I avoid, what I acquiesce to. What I achieve, how I will minister, how I love or don't love, what I like, and what I don't. Perhaps some of that is totally normal - I am sure it is. We are in fact sinful beings stuck inside of sinful bodies. Even though we are bought and made new - we are still stuck with the old 'me' inside the new. The flesh fights to be heard and noticed - it wants to live - even though it has always been dead. It's like a zombie that way, it can't help but drone around wanting others to be dead with it.
BUT we ARE redeemed. We have new lives ... so with it has to come a new way of thinking. LESS ME - more Jesus. Less 'my way' and start to think how I can put a smile on Jesus' face.
One line from the devotional says this ... 'Many people's decisions are a combination of their habitual responses and their desire to please themselves or others.' WOW - totally nailed. My habitual responses are about pleasing me - always without fail ... from the food I put into my mouth all the way to the ministry I want to be able to do. I want to be happy. I want the smile - I am living for my own smile.
So much of my week this week has been balking under the minutiae of homeschooling ... feeling stuck, bored, and just not caring about stupid things like the difference between a quarter and a nickel. I have hated teaching, and hated my kids this week. It has been awful - I have been awful. The feeling of being trapped and stuck and small felt life threatening. Which I suppose it was to my flesh. My flesh doesn't want to make Jesus smile, or make sacrifices, or do things in the quiet of my home ... it's all too small and too unseen. Ugg - admitting that sucks.
I was in getting a pedicure yesterday during the much needed break to gain perspective on my life. And I was chatting with the girl doing my toes. She is from Vietnam. She is the only member of her entire family away from home, everyone else lives back in Vietnam. I asked her if she trained to do manicures and pedicures in Vietnam ... 'oooh no' she said, 'I was accountant, but I could not make enough money to live there so I came here. You can only work for 8 hour in Vietnam ... they do not have enough money to pay for more work... so you are always behind. So I came here and I can work 7 days a week, for 11 hours a day, and send some money home to help my family.'
..... WHAT? Perspective all over the place - but not quite the way I expected it. This woman gave up a real job as an accountant ... to come work on rich spoiled americans feet everyday!!! She chooses a 77 hour work week ... an then gives much of it to her family!!! And she said all of this with a smile on her face. I suck - I mean I really ... suck.
My selfishness runs deep. My self-centeredness even deeper. My desire to make me happy - ridiculous chasm.
How do I put a smile on your face, Jesus? What will make your day, what will make You happy?
Hebrews 11:5-6 It was by faith that Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying—“he disappeared, because God took him.” For before he was taken up, he was known as a person who pleased God. And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.
John 8:28-30 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man on the cross, then you will understand that I Am he. I do nothing on my own but say only what the Father taught me. And the one who sent me is with me—he has not deserted me. For I always do what pleases him.” Then many who heard him say these things believed in him.
There are so many more verses running through my mind but I have to be done for now. Keep it coming Jesus ...
Not mine. But His.
I was sharing this with my husband and he said well isn't that Piper's thing? Sort of ... Piper says that when we live for God's glory then we will experience our highest joy ... because then we are doing what we are created for... finally we are fulfilling our purpose. All good - I totally get it, I totally agree.
BUT I was reading that dang devotional again ... Jesus Calling - man that thing nails me again and again. And I came to November 6 and it starts out by saying 'seek to please me...' And that dear friends just shifted everything in my mind!!
When I think of giving God all His due glory and honor ... I picture myself as a mirror reflecting back all His own glory - the bright blinding glow of His beauty, the magnificence of His character, the weight of His love. There is a heaviness to that responsibility... that fear and awe... of displaying Him rightly.
But when I think of living for His pleasure all I think of is putting a smile on His face. Living to make Him happy and not thinking about me.
There is far too much of me in my thoughts, in how I live, what I do, what I avoid, what I acquiesce to. What I achieve, how I will minister, how I love or don't love, what I like, and what I don't. Perhaps some of that is totally normal - I am sure it is. We are in fact sinful beings stuck inside of sinful bodies. Even though we are bought and made new - we are still stuck with the old 'me' inside the new. The flesh fights to be heard and noticed - it wants to live - even though it has always been dead. It's like a zombie that way, it can't help but drone around wanting others to be dead with it.
BUT we ARE redeemed. We have new lives ... so with it has to come a new way of thinking. LESS ME - more Jesus. Less 'my way' and start to think how I can put a smile on Jesus' face.
One line from the devotional says this ... 'Many people's decisions are a combination of their habitual responses and their desire to please themselves or others.' WOW - totally nailed. My habitual responses are about pleasing me - always without fail ... from the food I put into my mouth all the way to the ministry I want to be able to do. I want to be happy. I want the smile - I am living for my own smile.
So much of my week this week has been balking under the minutiae of homeschooling ... feeling stuck, bored, and just not caring about stupid things like the difference between a quarter and a nickel. I have hated teaching, and hated my kids this week. It has been awful - I have been awful. The feeling of being trapped and stuck and small felt life threatening. Which I suppose it was to my flesh. My flesh doesn't want to make Jesus smile, or make sacrifices, or do things in the quiet of my home ... it's all too small and too unseen. Ugg - admitting that sucks.
I was in getting a pedicure yesterday during the much needed break to gain perspective on my life. And I was chatting with the girl doing my toes. She is from Vietnam. She is the only member of her entire family away from home, everyone else lives back in Vietnam. I asked her if she trained to do manicures and pedicures in Vietnam ... 'oooh no' she said, 'I was accountant, but I could not make enough money to live there so I came here. You can only work for 8 hour in Vietnam ... they do not have enough money to pay for more work... so you are always behind. So I came here and I can work 7 days a week, for 11 hours a day, and send some money home to help my family.'
..... WHAT? Perspective all over the place - but not quite the way I expected it. This woman gave up a real job as an accountant ... to come work on rich spoiled americans feet everyday!!! She chooses a 77 hour work week ... an then gives much of it to her family!!! And she said all of this with a smile on her face. I suck - I mean I really ... suck.
My selfishness runs deep. My self-centeredness even deeper. My desire to make me happy - ridiculous chasm.
How do I put a smile on your face, Jesus? What will make your day, what will make You happy?
Hebrews 11:5-6 It was by faith that Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying—“he disappeared, because God took him.” For before he was taken up, he was known as a person who pleased God. And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.
John 8:28-30 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man on the cross, then you will understand that I Am he. I do nothing on my own but say only what the Father taught me. And the one who sent me is with me—he has not deserted me. For I always do what pleases him.” Then many who heard him say these things believed in him.
There are so many more verses running through my mind but I have to be done for now. Keep it coming Jesus ...
the girls
I just finished watching 7 seasons of Gilmore Girls ... The girls have been keeping me company in this transition time with very few friends, many nights when my husband has to work in the evening, and quite honestly it has been an escape from my kids and homeschooling.
There have been a lot of hours taken up with The Girls ... and at other times in life I think I would be angry at myself for so much waste, but NOT this time. I don't think I would have made it without them to distract me. I get so stuck over thinking at times, and thinking way too much inside my own head, and I am certain the horrors of depression would have settled in without them helping me along.
It seems silly... it is silly... but I don't care. This has been so hard and taking a break from everything has been necessary. Sometimes you just have to get out of your own head.
Describing this much change is hard. I can list off all the things that are different ... and I am pretty sure I have, but it never gets to the guts of it. There is something so deep that you just can not get at with words - they just don't touch it. Everything has shifted and it leaves a feeling of being unsettled, where everything is off, and feels wrong. Nothing is quite right, nothing is safe, or familiar. No one sees you, or really knows you, and it is so hard to break into what people have already begun in their own lives. It leaves you feeling like you are looking in on your life, instead of really living it. I gotta say - I'm not a fan.
So I have let the Gilmore Girls include me in their life for awhile, and it was nice to fit in somewhere. I know it was just an illusion, but it was nice while it lasted.
Now I have to figure out how to break into the life that God has for me now, here in this new place, and learn to love what is new and different. Learn to love homeschooling, and really get to know my kids, and dive into new friendships, and ministry. It scares the crap out of me, but staying here in this unknown and unsettled place, feels even worse.
My theme verse for the week: Psalm 70:4-5
But may all who search for you
be filled with joy and gladness in you.
May those who love your salvation
repeatedly shout, “God is great!”
But as for me, I am poor and needy;
please hurry to my aid, O God.
You are my helper and my savior;
O Lord, do not delay.
There have been a lot of hours taken up with The Girls ... and at other times in life I think I would be angry at myself for so much waste, but NOT this time. I don't think I would have made it without them to distract me. I get so stuck over thinking at times, and thinking way too much inside my own head, and I am certain the horrors of depression would have settled in without them helping me along.
It seems silly... it is silly... but I don't care. This has been so hard and taking a break from everything has been necessary. Sometimes you just have to get out of your own head.
Describing this much change is hard. I can list off all the things that are different ... and I am pretty sure I have, but it never gets to the guts of it. There is something so deep that you just can not get at with words - they just don't touch it. Everything has shifted and it leaves a feeling of being unsettled, where everything is off, and feels wrong. Nothing is quite right, nothing is safe, or familiar. No one sees you, or really knows you, and it is so hard to break into what people have already begun in their own lives. It leaves you feeling like you are looking in on your life, instead of really living it. I gotta say - I'm not a fan.
So I have let the Gilmore Girls include me in their life for awhile, and it was nice to fit in somewhere. I know it was just an illusion, but it was nice while it lasted.
Now I have to figure out how to break into the life that God has for me now, here in this new place, and learn to love what is new and different. Learn to love homeschooling, and really get to know my kids, and dive into new friendships, and ministry. It scares the crap out of me, but staying here in this unknown and unsettled place, feels even worse.
My theme verse for the week: Psalm 70:4-5
But may all who search for you
be filled with joy and gladness in you.
May those who love your salvation
repeatedly shout, “God is great!”
But as for me, I am poor and needy;
please hurry to my aid, O God.
You are my helper and my savior;
O Lord, do not delay.
Saturday, November 2, 2013
love the grave?
(Part 3)
Earlier that same Sunday morning I read Psalm 102 and at the end of that passage it says this:
23He broke my strength in midlife,
cutting short my days.
24 But I cried to him, “O my God, who lives forever,
don’t take my life while I am so young!
And I thought that God might just end my life ... I was having thoughts that I might die. This verse wasn't the only one to come up - there was this one too...
Psalm 30:
8 I cried out to you, O Lord.
I begged the Lord for mercy, saying,
9 “What will you gain if I die,
if I sink into the grave?
Can my dust praise you?
Can it tell of your faithfulness?
10 Hear me, Lord, and have mercy on me.
Help me, O Lord.”
there were a few others as well ... and earlier in the summer before we moved I had struggled for a few days with that fear as well. I eventually dismissed it however, because fear is not from God and I knew it was a lie of the enemy. But here it was again - except this time I didn't really feel afraid ... I was willing to accept it if it was indeed God's will.
Because my senses are still so dull in all of this silence, I think I got a few wires crossed, and I am now finally getting down to the truth of what He has actually been trying to show me from the beginning. So NOW I came to realize that it isn't about my actual death, but this whole thing is in regards to 'the grave' that I had read about from Murray. This passage below is from the chapter called 'Christ Our Life' in the Master's Indwelling...
The sentence of death is on everything that is of nature. But are we willing to accept it, do we cherish it? and are we not rather trying to escape the sentence or to forget it? We do not believe fully that the sentence of death is on us. Whatever is of nature must die. Ask God to make you willing to believe with your heart that to die with Christ is the only way to live in Him. You ask, “But must it then be dying every day?” Yes, beloved; Jesus lived every day in the prospect of the cross, and we, in the power of His victorious life, being made conformable to His death, must rejoice every day in going down with Him into death.
Take an illustration. Take an oak of some hundred years’ growth. How was that oak born? In a grave. The acorn was planted in the ground, a grave was made for it that the acorn might die. It died and disappeared; it cast roots downward, and it cast shoots upward, and now that tree has been standing a hundred years. Where is it standing? In its grave; all the time in the very grave where the acorn died; it has stood there stretching its roots deeper and deeper into that earth in which its grave was made, and yet, all the time, though it stood in the very grave where it had died, it has been growing higher, and stronger, and broader, and more beautiful. And all the fruit it ever bore, and all the foliage that adorned it year by year, it owed to that grave in which its roots are cast and kept. Even so Christ owes everything to His death and His grave. And we, too, owe everything to that grave of Jesus. Oh! let us live every day rooted in the death of Jesus. Be not afraid, but say: “To my own will I will die; to human wisdom, and human strength, and to the world I will die; for it is in the grave of my Lord that His life has its beginning, and its strength and its glory.”
Oh my ... that is stunning.
I haven't fully wrapped my head around this idea ... but I know that these continual sins, these idols in me that seem to be ever present must die ... am I willing? My new self says yes! - but my flesh is fighting like crazy!!
That day as that young woman prayed over me ... I felt assured that God would not take my life just yet - that He still had things He wanted to do with me, and through me. But this death MUST come first. So how do I fully enter into the grave? How do I get my flesh to stop fighting and give up ... I want my Spirit to win! More thinking, more prayer.
Romans 6:
Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? 4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.
Colossians 2:
11 When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature.[c] 12 For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.
13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. 15 In this way, he disarmed[d] the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.
Earlier that same Sunday morning I read Psalm 102 and at the end of that passage it says this:
23He broke my strength in midlife,
cutting short my days.
24 But I cried to him, “O my God, who lives forever,
don’t take my life while I am so young!
And I thought that God might just end my life ... I was having thoughts that I might die. This verse wasn't the only one to come up - there was this one too...
Psalm 30:
8 I cried out to you, O Lord.
I begged the Lord for mercy, saying,
9 “What will you gain if I die,
if I sink into the grave?
Can my dust praise you?
Can it tell of your faithfulness?
10 Hear me, Lord, and have mercy on me.
Help me, O Lord.”
there were a few others as well ... and earlier in the summer before we moved I had struggled for a few days with that fear as well. I eventually dismissed it however, because fear is not from God and I knew it was a lie of the enemy. But here it was again - except this time I didn't really feel afraid ... I was willing to accept it if it was indeed God's will.
Because my senses are still so dull in all of this silence, I think I got a few wires crossed, and I am now finally getting down to the truth of what He has actually been trying to show me from the beginning. So NOW I came to realize that it isn't about my actual death, but this whole thing is in regards to 'the grave' that I had read about from Murray. This passage below is from the chapter called 'Christ Our Life' in the Master's Indwelling...
The sentence of death is on everything that is of nature. But are we willing to accept it, do we cherish it? and are we not rather trying to escape the sentence or to forget it? We do not believe fully that the sentence of death is on us. Whatever is of nature must die. Ask God to make you willing to believe with your heart that to die with Christ is the only way to live in Him. You ask, “But must it then be dying every day?” Yes, beloved; Jesus lived every day in the prospect of the cross, and we, in the power of His victorious life, being made conformable to His death, must rejoice every day in going down with Him into death.
Take an illustration. Take an oak of some hundred years’ growth. How was that oak born? In a grave. The acorn was planted in the ground, a grave was made for it that the acorn might die. It died and disappeared; it cast roots downward, and it cast shoots upward, and now that tree has been standing a hundred years. Where is it standing? In its grave; all the time in the very grave where the acorn died; it has stood there stretching its roots deeper and deeper into that earth in which its grave was made, and yet, all the time, though it stood in the very grave where it had died, it has been growing higher, and stronger, and broader, and more beautiful. And all the fruit it ever bore, and all the foliage that adorned it year by year, it owed to that grave in which its roots are cast and kept. Even so Christ owes everything to His death and His grave. And we, too, owe everything to that grave of Jesus. Oh! let us live every day rooted in the death of Jesus. Be not afraid, but say: “To my own will I will die; to human wisdom, and human strength, and to the world I will die; for it is in the grave of my Lord that His life has its beginning, and its strength and its glory.”
Oh my ... that is stunning.
I haven't fully wrapped my head around this idea ... but I know that these continual sins, these idols in me that seem to be ever present must die ... am I willing? My new self says yes! - but my flesh is fighting like crazy!!
That day as that young woman prayed over me ... I felt assured that God would not take my life just yet - that He still had things He wanted to do with me, and through me. But this death MUST come first. So how do I fully enter into the grave? How do I get my flesh to stop fighting and give up ... I want my Spirit to win! More thinking, more prayer.
Romans 6:
Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? 4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.
Colossians 2:
11 When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature.[c] 12 For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.
13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. 15 In this way, he disarmed[d] the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.
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