I have read and am now reading again - The Gift of Being Yourself - by David Benner. This is the book that S and G gave me to read in Colorado that I initially blew off declaring that I already know myself. Since that night with all the tossing and turning thoughts - I have read it more faithfully and now I think I would declare it as one of the few life changing reads of my life.
Its hard to put into words what I am thinking about it now … because there is so much that's new. So I am going to move along a few chapters at a time and put my thoughts into words.
Firstly, the premise of this book has really surprised me. Basically it is this - to really come to know and be intimate with God - we HAVE to know ourselves intimately. I would have said 'yes' to this previous to reading the book but I probably would have had a slightly different reason as to why. All of my study before this would have pointed me to disregarding and confessing self as sin each time it rose its ugly head to the surface. Because 'self' in that definition would have always referred to sin nature … self=sin nature... in pretty much all that I have read. So therefore my thoughts and logic pushed me to believe that all of my 'self' is bad and I must get rid of it. When self is just defined as sin nature - I would definitely agree - because our sin nature was killed on the cross and is dead. So anything that I would have dug up or was revealed to me by the Spirit would have been declared as sin - confessed - and purged. So intimacy with myself was really only an encounter with the bad… never anything good. Thus when it was all said and done I was being emptied of anything that was 'me'. I really struggled letting go of some things because of that, what would be left then? Empty never sounds that good to me. I had a hard time picturing myself as a vessel to be filled because of this, but instead pictured myself more like a door - either open or closed to what God wanted to flow THROUGH me - rather than how God might want to FILL me -- so that I might want to give to others.
BUT here in this book - Benner separates the false self and the true self. The FALSE self is our sin nature and all the masks that we create in self promotion and protection - and YES they should be confessed and purged - because they are remnants of who we once were. The TRUE self -- is that which is basic to our created being - that imago dei that we all possess. It is our personality, gifts, talents, our individual thoughts and feelings - the thing that makes us who we are (though they are marred by sin). BUT in addition to that - it is WHO we are becoming in Christ - that enlivens and remakes those original pieces - revealing our new creation self.
I would NEVER have thought I had this mixed up in my head. In fact, I probably would have even articulated all of it correctly in conversation. BUT yet I still wasn't viewing it correctly - my mental pictures did not line up with my words. My mind couldn't comprehend the truth because it is so clouded with self-hatred. The constant need to purge and get rid of sin whether Spirit led or me-led, kept me from seeing this distinction.
We have to BECOME more of who we really are - to truly be intimate with Jesus. Back in college I read an Elizabeth Elliot book - I'm not sure which one - but one of the things that stuck out to me and still does is this: a jellyfish glorifies God by just being a jellyfish. It glorifies God by being exactly what it was created to be. So how do I then translate that into how I GLORIFY God? I have to be ME and ONLY ME to glorify God. I bring Him more glory by being entirely ME. And the ME that I am - is the ME that He wants to know - and does know in the eternal sense. He created ME as I am because He likes ME this way. He wants to intimately know ME - the one He created. And the only way I can become entirely ME is by following Jesus, because without my new creature status and the power of the Holy Spirit -- I cannot become fully ME - the ME I am always meant to be.
St. Irenaeus said this: the glory of God is man fully alive. Finally this quote by Irenaeus REALLY makes sense to me. God is glorified when I am all that He created me to be.
BUT there is more …
'Finding our unique self is, noted by Thomas Merton, the problem on which all our existence, peace and happiness depend. Nothing is more important, for if we find our true self we find God, and if we find God, we find our most authentic self.' HUGE. This is HUGE.
At first I balked at this statement, truly I recoiled. This deep spiritual monk declares that all of life hangs on this? Yet it sounds so contrary to scripture. But it isn't. Apparently, John Calvin and St. Augustine agree because they have similar quotes that are scrawled into Benner's book.
I realized as I kept reading just exactly what Benner, Merton, Augustine and Calvin meant. When we discover the unique or true self that is hidden under sin and our false selves, this is what allows us to actually experience God as we were always meant to in the garden. And so when we uncover/discover/grow into our imago dei we can truly relate to God as we are meant to. To do this we must be fully surrendered to God in this process - allowing Him to reveal more of who we truly are. Then we can SEE God. HEAR God. TASTE Him. FEEL Him. Our senses become enlivened to Him as we become more fully awakened. As we grow in intimacy together - we have a deeper relationship, a stronger relationship that when tested - lasts - because we have gone beyond just having knowledge - to experiencing Him too. AND THIS fulfills our created purpose. We were made for intimacy with God - to love Him with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength - and the overflow of this love relationship is what truly allows us to love others. THIS is what glorifies God. THIS is why we must unveil our true selves.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Monday, January 25, 2016
dis-ease
I am stuck in a trap of self-loathing. This week has been a particular struggle. I am not sure why … except that now I am trying to discover my beauty/true self/glory/ new creation-ness … so why wouldn't the enemy try and hurl a bunch of old crap at me.
I think this goes beyond just knowing my identity in Christ … though I think that is a part of it for sure … I need to know those pieces of identity truth … but they need to be understood and revealed to the core of my true self to enliven what God has made in me that reveals His image. Or at least I think that's how it's supposed to work!
Anyway … the self loathing… I am discovering is real and evil and a pervasive disease. It feels like I am trapped in barbed wire, mean thoughts poking and scratching me minute by minute. But the evil doesn't stay in me -- it continually seeps out all over my family esp. my kids. It just wells up in me … the thoughts get me angry - livid even, and any irritation, annoyance, frustration, or unpleasant change, anything that doesn't go my way -- and an eruption of the disease comes out to spread far and wide. And then the self-loathing cycle repeats because now I realize I have done the very thing I hate doing.
How can so much ugliness reside inside of one person? Many days this week it was all I could see. My mind was flooded with it. I was waiting in the car for the kids on Friday as I wrote this out on scraps of paper - that Jesus would come and release me and focus my eyes on Him. Its exhausting to hate yourself this much -- everything is defeated before you begin. It feels like a trap. And I can't find the way out.
Where does it even come from? It dawned on me the other day that this is an awful lot like the screaming queen in my heart. She's the one who sits on the throne and guards the black hole of shame that was hidden for so long. This is exactly how she behaves. She screams to get her way. She screams when you don't give her what she wants. She screams until you shut her up… but really she is keeping you away from that horrible pit … because that level of shit in there is even worse than dealing with her. That pit is so scary in fact I apparently put the screaming queen there to keep MYSELF away. So I have always kept her fed with whatever would quiet her - aka my idols - food, TV, novels -- anything escapist works really well. Sin is so deep. And idolatry is really all the ways we run away from dealing with it. Without even knowing it I did some of that this week … I went shopping, I covered over my quiet moments with TV, I tried to stay away from my kids who cause the most irritation.
This is not the way I want to live.
Last year I had to walk in that dark pit. I wept for so many months swimming in the shame. BUT at the end of that time - even though the crying was done - I never felt healed. It just all seemed to fade into the background as I moved into the numb phase of this Dark Night. Now here I am again staring this crap all in the face again … yuck … and I am not sure what to do - what to know - what to pray except HELP. I just know that I want to be healed. I want to change. I don't want to hate myself anymore - it destroys too much … and who knew it could? I really didn't know it could hurt anyone else … that's really not what I want. So again I pray … HELP.
I think this goes beyond just knowing my identity in Christ … though I think that is a part of it for sure … I need to know those pieces of identity truth … but they need to be understood and revealed to the core of my true self to enliven what God has made in me that reveals His image. Or at least I think that's how it's supposed to work!
Anyway … the self loathing… I am discovering is real and evil and a pervasive disease. It feels like I am trapped in barbed wire, mean thoughts poking and scratching me minute by minute. But the evil doesn't stay in me -- it continually seeps out all over my family esp. my kids. It just wells up in me … the thoughts get me angry - livid even, and any irritation, annoyance, frustration, or unpleasant change, anything that doesn't go my way -- and an eruption of the disease comes out to spread far and wide. And then the self-loathing cycle repeats because now I realize I have done the very thing I hate doing.
How can so much ugliness reside inside of one person? Many days this week it was all I could see. My mind was flooded with it. I was waiting in the car for the kids on Friday as I wrote this out on scraps of paper - that Jesus would come and release me and focus my eyes on Him. Its exhausting to hate yourself this much -- everything is defeated before you begin. It feels like a trap. And I can't find the way out.
Where does it even come from? It dawned on me the other day that this is an awful lot like the screaming queen in my heart. She's the one who sits on the throne and guards the black hole of shame that was hidden for so long. This is exactly how she behaves. She screams to get her way. She screams when you don't give her what she wants. She screams until you shut her up… but really she is keeping you away from that horrible pit … because that level of shit in there is even worse than dealing with her. That pit is so scary in fact I apparently put the screaming queen there to keep MYSELF away. So I have always kept her fed with whatever would quiet her - aka my idols - food, TV, novels -- anything escapist works really well. Sin is so deep. And idolatry is really all the ways we run away from dealing with it. Without even knowing it I did some of that this week … I went shopping, I covered over my quiet moments with TV, I tried to stay away from my kids who cause the most irritation.
This is not the way I want to live.
Last year I had to walk in that dark pit. I wept for so many months swimming in the shame. BUT at the end of that time - even though the crying was done - I never felt healed. It just all seemed to fade into the background as I moved into the numb phase of this Dark Night. Now here I am again staring this crap all in the face again … yuck … and I am not sure what to do - what to know - what to pray except HELP. I just know that I want to be healed. I want to change. I don't want to hate myself anymore - it destroys too much … and who knew it could? I really didn't know it could hurt anyone else … that's really not what I want. So again I pray … HELP.
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
experience and revelation
Something I wrote while in Colorado … I was wondering if the path I am on … the thing I am pursuing is even WHAT I should be pursuing ...
I am not sure where to start.
There is so much.
Firstly, I would say... that over the last 2 1/2 years in this time of silence. God has been directing me - HERDING me. I knew this ... I have experienced some of the course corrections and leadings, I have clung to the visions, I have clung to truth. I have persevered and waited and been patient, other times it has been railing at God, angry, and wildly impatient. All along the way lamenting ... absorbed in the holy complaint. Asking God 'why?', and trying to work it all out in my mind. At different moments on this journey I felt His shepherd hook - directing me - pushing me one way or another with a direction to take or a nudge to get back on track. Even though there has been leading ... in the dailyness of it all it has not felt intimate at all. It has felt awful. Hard. Exhausting. Horrible. Numb. Quiet. The shepherd's hook - does not feel intimate. I am grateful for it ... but it is simply not the same.
What is Intimacy? The dictionary defines it this way: closeness, togetherness, affinity, rapport, attachment, familiarity, friendliness, friendship, amity, affection, warmth, confidence; and also: intimate relations between husband and wife - intercourse.
To me - it is face to face contact. Breath to breathe. Heart hearing heart. Connection. Song of Songs speaks about intimacy. It has different stages certainly, it moves and shifts, and Jesus asks us to change and grow - to mature. But it's that life on life - open - loving - togetherness. This to me is what we all should want with Jesus. Abiding, oneness, union with Christ.
I feel like I'm being told I'm not supposed to want this. Over and over again. By many people. Or at least that what I am asking for is the wrong thing ... or I'm just off the mark or something. Am I? Because this is quite upsetting if its true.
and then later on in the week …
The journey from head to heart
We talk about this journey - as the longest - because we can know something is true - long before we can experience it as truth. Its like the mountains that are 75 miles off here at the top of the hill. I can see them - I can tell they are solid truth. But until I am up in them -- I will never know them. You can't know something without experiencing it. The journey from the head to the heart is long because to get there we have to wait on God for revelation - we have to be touched by Him to make it come alive in us. Isn't that true in all things? Worship follows this pattern - I can sing a song like I have been for the past 2 years - I can acknowledge the truth - I can even raise my hands acknowledging that truth but until God comes in with his presence and speaks those words of truth into my soul - it is only then that I awaken to the truth and worship in total abandon.
A seed can sit for years in a dry package but for it to come alive it needs water and sunlight, soil and nutrients. Thats what is missing from these 2 and 1/2 years. I have had no water. I cannot come alive without it. Is it wrong to seek it? I don't want to come alive for the sake of my life - tho I want that too - I want to come alive unto God -- to bring him pleasure and joy. I want to worship him wholly, to see Him freely, to love him.
I am not expecting this to come in a certain way ... the way doesn't matter to me - what I have known in the past is just a frame of reference - the calling of the garden. I have no prescription for what it looks like - I just want the face to face touch of intimacy to ignite my soul - to enliven it - so that I might worship as I am meant to. I get that this dry time of wilderness is purposeful. I want to honor my time here and embrace it. I know I have not fully done that. But even still life and water and the experience of God are what I am heading for. Isn't that why Jesus came - to have life to its fullest - to take his bride as His inheritance - free from slavery - to walk with Him in the garden.
I am not sure where to start.
There is so much.
Firstly, I would say... that over the last 2 1/2 years in this time of silence. God has been directing me - HERDING me. I knew this ... I have experienced some of the course corrections and leadings, I have clung to the visions, I have clung to truth. I have persevered and waited and been patient, other times it has been railing at God, angry, and wildly impatient. All along the way lamenting ... absorbed in the holy complaint. Asking God 'why?', and trying to work it all out in my mind. At different moments on this journey I felt His shepherd hook - directing me - pushing me one way or another with a direction to take or a nudge to get back on track. Even though there has been leading ... in the dailyness of it all it has not felt intimate at all. It has felt awful. Hard. Exhausting. Horrible. Numb. Quiet. The shepherd's hook - does not feel intimate. I am grateful for it ... but it is simply not the same.
What is Intimacy? The dictionary defines it this way: closeness, togetherness, affinity, rapport, attachment, familiarity, friendliness, friendship, amity, affection, warmth, confidence; and also: intimate relations between husband and wife - intercourse.
To me - it is face to face contact. Breath to breathe. Heart hearing heart. Connection. Song of Songs speaks about intimacy. It has different stages certainly, it moves and shifts, and Jesus asks us to change and grow - to mature. But it's that life on life - open - loving - togetherness. This to me is what we all should want with Jesus. Abiding, oneness, union with Christ.
I feel like I'm being told I'm not supposed to want this. Over and over again. By many people. Or at least that what I am asking for is the wrong thing ... or I'm just off the mark or something. Am I? Because this is quite upsetting if its true.
The journey from head to heart
We talk about this journey - as the longest - because we can know something is true - long before we can experience it as truth. Its like the mountains that are 75 miles off here at the top of the hill. I can see them - I can tell they are solid truth. But until I am up in them -- I will never know them. You can't know something without experiencing it. The journey from the head to the heart is long because to get there we have to wait on God for revelation - we have to be touched by Him to make it come alive in us. Isn't that true in all things? Worship follows this pattern - I can sing a song like I have been for the past 2 years - I can acknowledge the truth - I can even raise my hands acknowledging that truth but until God comes in with his presence and speaks those words of truth into my soul - it is only then that I awaken to the truth and worship in total abandon.
A seed can sit for years in a dry package but for it to come alive it needs water and sunlight, soil and nutrients. Thats what is missing from these 2 and 1/2 years. I have had no water. I cannot come alive without it. Is it wrong to seek it? I don't want to come alive for the sake of my life - tho I want that too - I want to come alive unto God -- to bring him pleasure and joy. I want to worship him wholly, to see Him freely, to love him.
I am not expecting this to come in a certain way ... the way doesn't matter to me - what I have known in the past is just a frame of reference - the calling of the garden. I have no prescription for what it looks like - I just want the face to face touch of intimacy to ignite my soul - to enliven it - so that I might worship as I am meant to. I get that this dry time of wilderness is purposeful. I want to honor my time here and embrace it. I know I have not fully done that. But even still life and water and the experience of God are what I am heading for. Isn't that why Jesus came - to have life to its fullest - to take his bride as His inheritance - free from slavery - to walk with Him in the garden.
Thursday, January 14, 2016
new bucket
… So that night I tossed and turned rolling everything over in my mind. What could he possibly mean telling me that I don't know myself?
Sometimes when I am trying to work out a problem in my head I go back to the beginning … I go back and think on Genesis. Why did God create? What is this all for? How does everything fit in? … these are all the questions that get me thinking. God didn't create because He was bored - He created because that is who He is - He is a creator. What was His purpose in creating humans? … He said - Let us create in our own image - male and female he created them. He wanted someone to be like Him … to share His creation with. He wanted intimacy … He was there walking in the garden with Adam and Eve. That is also why he needed humans to have a choice … why else have a forbidden tree in the garden? He wanted us to CHOOSE him. Because obligatory worship is crap compared with loving adoration. He wants to share Himself -- so He wants us to willingly share ourselves with Him. That makes sense.
Then I thought back to the first day that we sat and talked with S and G. One of the questions that S asked was if my spiritual life were a bucket … where are its leaks? I sat and thought about that a minute and then said - I don't have a bucket anymore … my bucket was taken away. After the women's retreat in September … I felt like the season of lament that I had been in for the previous 2 years was over. A page had turned - but it was blank and I had no idea what it was supposed to be filled with. I prayed and asked God if I was meant to go out and DO something. I was getting antsy - ready for something else to do, experience, be, become, learn … I didn't care which - just something instead of nothing. But He hadn't spoken yet…
Also that night before bed my husband and I had sex. This is always a good indicator of how connected I am with him, myself, and with the Lord. An act of intimacy should be. It reveals something deep within of our hearts… something words have a hard time touching. Sex has been difficult for the last 2 and 1/2 years. My husband is fine - its always me. I can't seem to get my body to feel in the normal fashion. It's been frustrating … and this particular night was no different. And I realized as I was pondering everything later that night that the reason I can't feel my body - is because I am disengaged on the inside. I may be able to laugh again and smile - instead of the insane numbness I felt throughout the summer … but I was still not ALL there. Something was still missing. I realized that I am unable to feel intimate while we are having sex… that my biggest hope for the whole experience will be for my body to just go along with it - so that my husband is satisfied in some way. Of course this is never really satisfying for either of us. BUT admitting this to myself was huge, it was something I instinctively had known but had never put into words.
I began to put all of these pieces together … along with the quote from earlier that day: Only 2 things pierce the soul: pain and beauty. Lack of intimacy. No bucket. And throw in a dash of - 'you don't know yourself'… and the swirling thoughts continued.
If intimacy is the entire purpose of everything … the very reason God creates … then this silence is all about creating more of it. God is not capricious. He loves me, this silence has purpose - it has a plan. If His end goal - is also the exact thing that I want more than anything - then 'intimacy' must be the very place He is taking me (of course to me this seems like the craziest path to get there …). Lament was over - my bucket taken away. The page was turned ready to be written on - just WAITING. I realized that the old bucket was full of my personal shit. All my pain. It was filled with shame and sin. It was full of everything that I had purged over the last 2 years. I had mourned and cried and lamented - moving, and homeschooling, friendships, homes, place, status - pretty much everything had been stripped away. BUT mostly the silence… the frustrating infuriating silence. I banged my fist on God's door every day begging for the one thing I know I should want more than anything else - intimacy. Yet He withheld it from me. Why?
I needed a new bucket.
I simply could not go to the new places I wanted to go with my old shit-filled bucket in tow.
It has taken the last 2 and 1/2 years and a lot of silence to finish filling the old bucket. Silence was the final ingredient to get the last clinging pile of crap to shed off into the bucket. There were places within that I was never going to go without that silence as a motivator … no - not even the silence - but the hope of something more than silence. I would do anything that God called me to because I have experienced my Summer of Jesus. That outpouring of love during that summer 6 years ago continually calls me to intimacy.
So God took that old bucket away (hence the reason I have felt less burdened these last few months since September).
But then as I was laying in bed pondering all of these things - EVERYTHING - began to click into place. I KNOW my pain. I don't know my BEAUTY. I have bits … but as a whole it has been unexplored. This is why I can't be intimate during sex … this is why my body won't feel. THIS is the bucket that God wants me to fill! If I want to get to the place where I am intimate with the Lord - to know His mind, His love, our union … then I have to fill THIS bucket. How can I know God well if I am only seeing Him from one perspective? How can I love Him well when I am loving out of the shit bucket? I can't - because it is only HALF of what I need.
Beauty has to pierce me just as much as my pain does. My mind has seen only one half of this equation, now I need the other half. So now I have a new bucket… and it's waiting to be filled. This one sounds way better.
Sometimes when I am trying to work out a problem in my head I go back to the beginning … I go back and think on Genesis. Why did God create? What is this all for? How does everything fit in? … these are all the questions that get me thinking. God didn't create because He was bored - He created because that is who He is - He is a creator. What was His purpose in creating humans? … He said - Let us create in our own image - male and female he created them. He wanted someone to be like Him … to share His creation with. He wanted intimacy … He was there walking in the garden with Adam and Eve. That is also why he needed humans to have a choice … why else have a forbidden tree in the garden? He wanted us to CHOOSE him. Because obligatory worship is crap compared with loving adoration. He wants to share Himself -- so He wants us to willingly share ourselves with Him. That makes sense.
Then I thought back to the first day that we sat and talked with S and G. One of the questions that S asked was if my spiritual life were a bucket … where are its leaks? I sat and thought about that a minute and then said - I don't have a bucket anymore … my bucket was taken away. After the women's retreat in September … I felt like the season of lament that I had been in for the previous 2 years was over. A page had turned - but it was blank and I had no idea what it was supposed to be filled with. I prayed and asked God if I was meant to go out and DO something. I was getting antsy - ready for something else to do, experience, be, become, learn … I didn't care which - just something instead of nothing. But He hadn't spoken yet…
Also that night before bed my husband and I had sex. This is always a good indicator of how connected I am with him, myself, and with the Lord. An act of intimacy should be. It reveals something deep within of our hearts… something words have a hard time touching. Sex has been difficult for the last 2 and 1/2 years. My husband is fine - its always me. I can't seem to get my body to feel in the normal fashion. It's been frustrating … and this particular night was no different. And I realized as I was pondering everything later that night that the reason I can't feel my body - is because I am disengaged on the inside. I may be able to laugh again and smile - instead of the insane numbness I felt throughout the summer … but I was still not ALL there. Something was still missing. I realized that I am unable to feel intimate while we are having sex… that my biggest hope for the whole experience will be for my body to just go along with it - so that my husband is satisfied in some way. Of course this is never really satisfying for either of us. BUT admitting this to myself was huge, it was something I instinctively had known but had never put into words.
I began to put all of these pieces together … along with the quote from earlier that day: Only 2 things pierce the soul: pain and beauty. Lack of intimacy. No bucket. And throw in a dash of - 'you don't know yourself'… and the swirling thoughts continued.
If intimacy is the entire purpose of everything … the very reason God creates … then this silence is all about creating more of it. God is not capricious. He loves me, this silence has purpose - it has a plan. If His end goal - is also the exact thing that I want more than anything - then 'intimacy' must be the very place He is taking me (of course to me this seems like the craziest path to get there …). Lament was over - my bucket taken away. The page was turned ready to be written on - just WAITING. I realized that the old bucket was full of my personal shit. All my pain. It was filled with shame and sin. It was full of everything that I had purged over the last 2 years. I had mourned and cried and lamented - moving, and homeschooling, friendships, homes, place, status - pretty much everything had been stripped away. BUT mostly the silence… the frustrating infuriating silence. I banged my fist on God's door every day begging for the one thing I know I should want more than anything else - intimacy. Yet He withheld it from me. Why?
I needed a new bucket.
I simply could not go to the new places I wanted to go with my old shit-filled bucket in tow.
It has taken the last 2 and 1/2 years and a lot of silence to finish filling the old bucket. Silence was the final ingredient to get the last clinging pile of crap to shed off into the bucket. There were places within that I was never going to go without that silence as a motivator … no - not even the silence - but the hope of something more than silence. I would do anything that God called me to because I have experienced my Summer of Jesus. That outpouring of love during that summer 6 years ago continually calls me to intimacy.
So God took that old bucket away (hence the reason I have felt less burdened these last few months since September).
But then as I was laying in bed pondering all of these things - EVERYTHING - began to click into place. I KNOW my pain. I don't know my BEAUTY. I have bits … but as a whole it has been unexplored. This is why I can't be intimate during sex … this is why my body won't feel. THIS is the bucket that God wants me to fill! If I want to get to the place where I am intimate with the Lord - to know His mind, His love, our union … then I have to fill THIS bucket. How can I know God well if I am only seeing Him from one perspective? How can I love Him well when I am loving out of the shit bucket? I can't - because it is only HALF of what I need.
Beauty has to pierce me just as much as my pain does. My mind has seen only one half of this equation, now I need the other half. So now I have a new bucket… and it's waiting to be filled. This one sounds way better.
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