What do you do when you are unsatisfied? What makes a man unsatisfied? Even more so what do you do when you do everything, working hard for the Lord and you are still unsatisfied? Sin is conquered, you are a strong man. What is satisfaction? I think true satisfaction comes when we know God. We sometimes view God as formulaic, and a relationship with him is reduced to mere mathematics. I sometimes have to envision a marriage, or dating relationship to understand my God., simply because they are so similar. Can you imagine working hard for your spouse/sig. other, working hard to have them notice you or exerting a lot of energy into cultivating relationship and it seems in vain or it seems to go unnoticed? You lose sleep over pleasing them and you feel weary. So weary, the grind of life, the grind of love and sacrifice is wearing you down into dust. On top of all that life is moving at break-neck speeds. You are missing out on everything, everyone it seems, you feel like an old soul, people looking up to you isn't as glamorous as you thought it would be, it's actually very taxing. People think your awesome, people think your doing just fine all the time, and it's partially your fault because you don't want to open up, and when people ask how your doing you don't want to say 'bad'. Not sure what people think when they interact with me, but I'm pretty sure it goes along the lines of "he is always doing so well", which could not be farther from the truth. I'm doing well about 5% to 10% of the time, the rest of the time is not doing well, and just doing well at looking like I'm doing well, or I'm bad and doing well at doing bad. It's a doing poorly with finesse.
I wonder how often our being unsatisfied is linked directly to how we ignore how much God is pleased with our work. And then our ignorance of his delight and joy in us, actually leads us to work for him and not talk with him. We neglect prayer by being too busy. "Hurry kills prayer." I think that we also work in order to ignore, sometimes God tells us something crazy, so we write it off as something we imagined. I mean God ALWAYS works the same way right? Well if God made woman and woman is a part of the reflection of God then God probably never does the same thing, and is pretty crazy, because women are freaking insane (no offense ladies, but sometimes I would rather be thrown into a room with a ticking bomb and try to learn how to diffuse it than try to understand or predict you). I mean God would never ever tell us to do anything seemingly insane, right? I mean it's not like he told Jonah to go tell an entire city to repent, a city that would cut peoples heads off and puts them on a pike to decorate the road entering their city. Crazy.
Don't get me wrong we shouldn't jump at everything that seems crazy. There are times when God is hard to hear. In my experience it's usually sin, ignoring God, lack of trust in God, or busyness. When it comes to discernment, sometimes our heart jumps at something and we must restrain it with Logic and Prayer. Sometimes though it is our Logic that we let get in the way. We say that we would rather serve God in another matter. Listen to God whether it be seemingly dull or crazy. Just make sure that your doing the work that he has permitted or instructed.
Sometimes we do good things for people to get them to notice us, sometimes just to please them. It's fine to try to please someone but we must be sure that we don't super impose a view of how people can treat our good work for how God treats our good work. God will never, ever see our work for him, our trying to please him and be dissatisfied, at the same time our work will never, on it's own bring us closer to God. Coming closer to God will bring us closer to God. Not quite sure all that is entailed in that but I have some ideas, like prayer, rest, community, active listening and sometimes working for the Lord.
Doing good things isn't bad (obviously), but it sure feels like it. It feels like a cold cup of water poured on a vast and infinitely thirsty desert. Or as Paul would use, as a drink offering. A drink offering is a drink that instead of drank for personal enjoyment and satisfaction is dedicated to God. How do you dedicate a drink to God? Is he going to come down and drink it, give you a thank you and a high five and say see you later? Nope, you pour it on the ground. The drink is set apart, poured out and not used for personal gain. It seems like a waste. It seems like death. Yup, there it is, the good ole dying to yourself, that illustrious 100 lb cross. And your going to carry it for what seems like forever, but no worries, it's actually not that long. And oh yeah, when your done carrying it your gonna die on it. That is the life of the Christian. I'm not quite sure why we glamorize it.
But there is the resurrection of course. "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, being made like him and somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead." We lower ourselves in faith and by grace we will be exalted.
Oh yeah, and BECAUSE HE LIVES, I can face tomorrow. And life is worth the living BECAUSE HE LIVES.
And honestly, most days that is the only thing that gets me through the day. Before I had the luxury of worrying about tomorrow, now I'm just trying to make it through the day. How's that for health & wealth gospel's 'victorious living'.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Obscurity and True Community: or things on my mind at the moment
Shane Wood (a professor at Ozark Christian College) had a sermon my second semester here at OCC and it has not left me alone, not even for a day, it has haunted me day after day. It was about the Apostle Paul and his road to Damascus. Basically the DT (dominant thought) was that everyone wants the great spiritual, amazing experiences that Paul had without going down the road to Damascus. Paul's road to Damascus leads into something, in other words we have no idea what Paul did while he was there, we just know something about being taught by Jesus directly (Jesus had already ascended, so who knows what that fully means?). It is obscurity, utter obscurity. That's the foundation for the rest of this blog entry.
I have no idea what my life is. It is just one series of random events, God has a good way of keeping me consistently uncomfortable, I find contentment amidst this all, but still. OCC is my home now, for sure, but it's more like a home with a different family all the time. My community changes, shifts, ebbs and flows and it used to freak me out but not so much anymore. Imagine feeling at home but you don't know who is going to walk in the door and stay for a while, a day, weeks, months, years, or just a few hours. I'm fine with it but I hate it at the same time. I desire deep spiritual connections with brothers and sisters and that is hard to find even on a Christian campus, partly to do with my own cautiousness to involve myself with people to a certain degree. You see I have no problem giving advice or getting to know people, I actually love it. I don't even have trouble talking about stuff I've been through. It's the stuff that I currently am going through that I will never talk about. It invites people into my struggle, and that is something I reserve for deep friendships.
Recently I have tried to get to know some freshman, and surprisingly the ones that I have wanted to get to know and spend time with are actually the ones that have little to no desire, or even more so a desire to be far off from me! And the ones that I was frustrated with would come in closer, I have no idea what the deal is there but it's obnoxious. Let me tell you something, what's worse than somebody knowing you and not wanting to be around you, is somebody who has all the opportunity in the world to get to know you and from a distance says to them self that it is not worth the time. People close to you knowing the goodness and the ugliness inside of you is understandable that for a time not wanting to be around, but someone having a general knowledge of you and thinking that your not worth it sucks more, or at least it does to me. To each his own. This season of life sucks a bit and it's hard to keep the noise of my soul quiet at times but I'm a pretty hardened individual, I've been through some stuff, so this won't shake me but I love the mountaintop so much more than the Valley. But still the hard times inspire me, melancholy is good for my soul, it opens up the deepness of my soul and I am much more in touch with and can see more clearly my heart, it's motives and the things that it hopes and trusts in. Anyway...
I don't understand people and their baggage, I am frustrated with every human being I ever come in contact with at one point or another. I get frustrated with God so the possibility of a human escaping my frustration is hopeless. I just don't get why people can't cut the crap and let the past be past, learn from it, choose the way it shapes you and move on. You see this in the incoming freshman, so many come in with a self projected expectation to be somebody different, college is the restart button on who you are and who you want to be, but they come in with this idea of who they want to be and it turns out in the end that it's not even who they really want to be or who they end up being. In fact we spend far too much energy in not being somebody and get upset when we see even a fraction of that person that we don't want to be. Instead we should be looking at who we want to be, align with scripture, throw out the bad, the misconceptions, and take in the new and holistic view filtered through scripture and aim for that. We should search the deep recesses of the heart and mind of God, of qualities to possess and then start aiming for it, even if some of the things we didn't want to be were something that God actually is, we were just jaded by someone or ourselves, we just had a misconception about a quality or attribute.
We just need to cut the bs and be real, be genuine. If the genuine you is something that will damage the community and the people of God then, retreat from community for a time to be with God and ask him to fix that in you, to reveal wisdom and discernment about what is in your own heart. You will never be perfect in this life but at least this will set you in the right direction. But we must not retreat from community for too long, rather we should delve deeper into it and find a few brothers or sisters willing to stand by us in our time of struggle and God's shaping us. Not sure how people view these things but generally, God shaping you into the man or woman you want/need to be is usually the most painful experience, it's like a car wreck on the inside at times, or the hurricane of your soul. It sucks, but it's necessary.
We let our baggage and our pride and every other thing that really has no place in the Kingdom of God get in the way of kingdom. Paul says in 1 thessalonians 2 that people are his joy and crown! Man oh man, you can see the love of God in those words, the love of God for people rubbed off onto him. We need to strive to come near to God so that our intimacy with him will replace our incorrect view of people and community, which is that we try to gain entertainment, cure to loneliness, and every other self gain; replace it with a true love for people, one that seeks to pour into others and serve others, intentional, true community that is birthed from a love of God and each other, and then we can see people as our joy and crown. Read Philippians 2:1-1. Compare and contrast your life with Christ's, and look to see if your love for people brings you as low as Christ brought himself low. Who for the joy set before him (living in community with us for all eternity) endured the cross scorning it's shame.
Btw quick thought: Does God conquer our sin in spite or sin? Or despite our sin? makes a world of a difference in your theology. Are you a means to an end? (God defeating sin through you) Or does God love you unfathomably that he conquers sin in you (defeating sin is a means to and end, which is you, and everyone)
I have no idea what my life is. It is just one series of random events, God has a good way of keeping me consistently uncomfortable, I find contentment amidst this all, but still. OCC is my home now, for sure, but it's more like a home with a different family all the time. My community changes, shifts, ebbs and flows and it used to freak me out but not so much anymore. Imagine feeling at home but you don't know who is going to walk in the door and stay for a while, a day, weeks, months, years, or just a few hours. I'm fine with it but I hate it at the same time. I desire deep spiritual connections with brothers and sisters and that is hard to find even on a Christian campus, partly to do with my own cautiousness to involve myself with people to a certain degree. You see I have no problem giving advice or getting to know people, I actually love it. I don't even have trouble talking about stuff I've been through. It's the stuff that I currently am going through that I will never talk about. It invites people into my struggle, and that is something I reserve for deep friendships.
Recently I have tried to get to know some freshman, and surprisingly the ones that I have wanted to get to know and spend time with are actually the ones that have little to no desire, or even more so a desire to be far off from me! And the ones that I was frustrated with would come in closer, I have no idea what the deal is there but it's obnoxious. Let me tell you something, what's worse than somebody knowing you and not wanting to be around you, is somebody who has all the opportunity in the world to get to know you and from a distance says to them self that it is not worth the time. People close to you knowing the goodness and the ugliness inside of you is understandable that for a time not wanting to be around, but someone having a general knowledge of you and thinking that your not worth it sucks more, or at least it does to me. To each his own. This season of life sucks a bit and it's hard to keep the noise of my soul quiet at times but I'm a pretty hardened individual, I've been through some stuff, so this won't shake me but I love the mountaintop so much more than the Valley. But still the hard times inspire me, melancholy is good for my soul, it opens up the deepness of my soul and I am much more in touch with and can see more clearly my heart, it's motives and the things that it hopes and trusts in. Anyway...
I don't understand people and their baggage, I am frustrated with every human being I ever come in contact with at one point or another. I get frustrated with God so the possibility of a human escaping my frustration is hopeless. I just don't get why people can't cut the crap and let the past be past, learn from it, choose the way it shapes you and move on. You see this in the incoming freshman, so many come in with a self projected expectation to be somebody different, college is the restart button on who you are and who you want to be, but they come in with this idea of who they want to be and it turns out in the end that it's not even who they really want to be or who they end up being. In fact we spend far too much energy in not being somebody and get upset when we see even a fraction of that person that we don't want to be. Instead we should be looking at who we want to be, align with scripture, throw out the bad, the misconceptions, and take in the new and holistic view filtered through scripture and aim for that. We should search the deep recesses of the heart and mind of God, of qualities to possess and then start aiming for it, even if some of the things we didn't want to be were something that God actually is, we were just jaded by someone or ourselves, we just had a misconception about a quality or attribute.
We just need to cut the bs and be real, be genuine. If the genuine you is something that will damage the community and the people of God then, retreat from community for a time to be with God and ask him to fix that in you, to reveal wisdom and discernment about what is in your own heart. You will never be perfect in this life but at least this will set you in the right direction. But we must not retreat from community for too long, rather we should delve deeper into it and find a few brothers or sisters willing to stand by us in our time of struggle and God's shaping us. Not sure how people view these things but generally, God shaping you into the man or woman you want/need to be is usually the most painful experience, it's like a car wreck on the inside at times, or the hurricane of your soul. It sucks, but it's necessary.
We let our baggage and our pride and every other thing that really has no place in the Kingdom of God get in the way of kingdom. Paul says in 1 thessalonians 2 that people are his joy and crown! Man oh man, you can see the love of God in those words, the love of God for people rubbed off onto him. We need to strive to come near to God so that our intimacy with him will replace our incorrect view of people and community, which is that we try to gain entertainment, cure to loneliness, and every other self gain; replace it with a true love for people, one that seeks to pour into others and serve others, intentional, true community that is birthed from a love of God and each other, and then we can see people as our joy and crown. Read Philippians 2:1-1. Compare and contrast your life with Christ's, and look to see if your love for people brings you as low as Christ brought himself low. Who for the joy set before him (living in community with us for all eternity) endured the cross scorning it's shame.
Btw quick thought: Does God conquer our sin in spite or sin? Or despite our sin? makes a world of a difference in your theology. Are you a means to an end? (God defeating sin through you) Or does God love you unfathomably that he conquers sin in you (defeating sin is a means to and end, which is you, and everyone)
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