God has been dealing with me.
It began with the realization that I haven't been dealing with my hurts or fears or bitterness because I subconsciously was thinking that my life wasn't going to last very much longer so I might as well stuff it down and just get to Heaven. I'm not entirely sure where this mode of thought came from. Perhaps it is that somewhere in me I didn't want to live much longer. It would be easier to die. Not that I would ever do anything to expedite this occurrence, but still was hoping for its swift arrival. Then came the mindset switch.
Lately it has been made known to my thoughts that I can be fairly obnoxious if I choose to be. And I have been choosing to be so more lately. But I couldn't quite wrap my understanding around the reason I would want to be an irritation to those I love. And it was irritating to me because I recognized it as silly and immature. I often suppressed this urge, but the very fact that it existed in me was enough to trouble me. Thus began the search for the answer to why. From the asking, I discovered that lying in the desire to give people a sub par version of myself was a fear of offering the best of myself to people. This fear sprang primarily from recent events where, after having offered specific people what I saw to be my best, I was then tossed aside as worthless. So, my reasoning subconsciously followed, why should I put the effort in giving my best if its only worth the equivalent of refuse? With the realization of this process in me, I was able to adjust my thinking back to understanding that God is deserving of my best. And the funny part of it is, out of anyone who would have every right to throw even the best of intentions aside as garbage, He has the most. But He, out of everyone, never would.
To quote C. S. Lewis, "He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is 'nothing better' now to be had." (The Problem of Pain) And this expresses my mindset toward Him lately very well.
You see, for the past year or so, I have been intentionally holding back a part of my life because I was afraid that if I gave it to God, He would take it away. He kept asking for it, and I knew if I didn't willingly give it, eventually the fact that His blessing was no longer on this area of my life would mean that it would crumble and be destroyed under my own hand as I tried to sustain it outside of Him. Because anything people do outside of God is to be destroyed. We do not know how to maintain life in any form. Anyway, He would persistently ask for a while. It got to the point where I even started hating the first line of my favorite song, "He is jealous for me". I would say, "God, why are You jealous? Just stop. Please. Let me have this. I love it and it loves me and its mine." It reminds me alot of the story of Princess Amanda and the Dragon from the book "Tales of the Kingdom" (If you haven't read it, do so. The end.)
And eventually He did let me have it. He had repeatedly requested my surrender, and I had denied it. So He allowed the circumstances to fall to my own choosing and for me to experience the consequences of my choice.
When that thing that I clung to purely, openly and thoroughly rejected me, then came the thought process of, "If I'm not even good enough for that, there's no way I'm good enough for God." When I read the Bible I would only feel condemned. I would somehow find all the verses that applied only to the areas in which I was failing and found little to no encouragement or life there. Its interesting how death sees only death, even in life. I finally hit a point recently where I reached my end. I asked God to show me He loved me again, because although somewhere very far down inside I knew He did, I was not experiencing it or living in it. And that's not ok with me.
So I was broken. But life is flowing again as God shows me His love. Primarily through songs, which He often does with me. "You don't have to do a thing, just simply be with Me, and let those things go, cause they can wait another minute, wait, this moment is too sweet, would you please stay here with Me and love Me a little longer" ("A Little Longer" by Brian and Jenn Johnson).
Again, to quote C. S. Lewis, on the operation and purpose of pain, "If the first and lowest operation of pain shatters the illusion that all is well, the second shatters the illusion that what we have, whether good or bad in itself, is our own and enough for us. Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us. We 'have all we want' is a terrible saying when 'all' does not include God. We find God an interruption. As St Augustine says somewhere, 'God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full - there's nowhere for Him to put it.' Or as a friend of mine said, 'We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it's there for emergencies but he hopes he'll never have to use it.' Now God, who has made us, knows what we are and that our happiness lies in Him. Yet we will not seek it in Him as long as he leaves us any other resort where it can even plausibly be looked for. While what we call 'our own life' remains agreeable we will not surrender it to Him. What then can God do in our interests but make 'our own life' less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible source of false happiness? It is just here, where God's providence seems at first to be most cruel, that the Divine humility, the stooping down of the Highest, most deserves praise." (The Problem of Pain)
It began with the realization that I haven't been dealing with my hurts or fears or bitterness because I subconsciously was thinking that my life wasn't going to last very much longer so I might as well stuff it down and just get to Heaven. I'm not entirely sure where this mode of thought came from. Perhaps it is that somewhere in me I didn't want to live much longer. It would be easier to die. Not that I would ever do anything to expedite this occurrence, but still was hoping for its swift arrival. Then came the mindset switch.
Lately it has been made known to my thoughts that I can be fairly obnoxious if I choose to be. And I have been choosing to be so more lately. But I couldn't quite wrap my understanding around the reason I would want to be an irritation to those I love. And it was irritating to me because I recognized it as silly and immature. I often suppressed this urge, but the very fact that it existed in me was enough to trouble me. Thus began the search for the answer to why. From the asking, I discovered that lying in the desire to give people a sub par version of myself was a fear of offering the best of myself to people. This fear sprang primarily from recent events where, after having offered specific people what I saw to be my best, I was then tossed aside as worthless. So, my reasoning subconsciously followed, why should I put the effort in giving my best if its only worth the equivalent of refuse? With the realization of this process in me, I was able to adjust my thinking back to understanding that God is deserving of my best. And the funny part of it is, out of anyone who would have every right to throw even the best of intentions aside as garbage, He has the most. But He, out of everyone, never would.
To quote C. S. Lewis, "He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is 'nothing better' now to be had." (The Problem of Pain) And this expresses my mindset toward Him lately very well.
You see, for the past year or so, I have been intentionally holding back a part of my life because I was afraid that if I gave it to God, He would take it away. He kept asking for it, and I knew if I didn't willingly give it, eventually the fact that His blessing was no longer on this area of my life would mean that it would crumble and be destroyed under my own hand as I tried to sustain it outside of Him. Because anything people do outside of God is to be destroyed. We do not know how to maintain life in any form. Anyway, He would persistently ask for a while. It got to the point where I even started hating the first line of my favorite song, "He is jealous for me". I would say, "God, why are You jealous? Just stop. Please. Let me have this. I love it and it loves me and its mine." It reminds me alot of the story of Princess Amanda and the Dragon from the book "Tales of the Kingdom" (If you haven't read it, do so. The end.)
And eventually He did let me have it. He had repeatedly requested my surrender, and I had denied it. So He allowed the circumstances to fall to my own choosing and for me to experience the consequences of my choice.
When that thing that I clung to purely, openly and thoroughly rejected me, then came the thought process of, "If I'm not even good enough for that, there's no way I'm good enough for God." When I read the Bible I would only feel condemned. I would somehow find all the verses that applied only to the areas in which I was failing and found little to no encouragement or life there. Its interesting how death sees only death, even in life. I finally hit a point recently where I reached my end. I asked God to show me He loved me again, because although somewhere very far down inside I knew He did, I was not experiencing it or living in it. And that's not ok with me.
So I was broken. But life is flowing again as God shows me His love. Primarily through songs, which He often does with me. "You don't have to do a thing, just simply be with Me, and let those things go, cause they can wait another minute, wait, this moment is too sweet, would you please stay here with Me and love Me a little longer" ("A Little Longer" by Brian and Jenn Johnson).
Again, to quote C. S. Lewis, on the operation and purpose of pain, "If the first and lowest operation of pain shatters the illusion that all is well, the second shatters the illusion that what we have, whether good or bad in itself, is our own and enough for us. Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us. We 'have all we want' is a terrible saying when 'all' does not include God. We find God an interruption. As St Augustine says somewhere, 'God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full - there's nowhere for Him to put it.' Or as a friend of mine said, 'We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it's there for emergencies but he hopes he'll never have to use it.' Now God, who has made us, knows what we are and that our happiness lies in Him. Yet we will not seek it in Him as long as he leaves us any other resort where it can even plausibly be looked for. While what we call 'our own life' remains agreeable we will not surrender it to Him. What then can God do in our interests but make 'our own life' less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible source of false happiness? It is just here, where God's providence seems at first to be most cruel, that the Divine humility, the stooping down of the Highest, most deserves praise." (The Problem of Pain)
No comments:
Post a Comment