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Saturday, 23 June 2007

Currently Reading
The Pilgrim's Progress (Oxford World's Classics)
By John Bunyan
see related
"The trials that those men do meet withal
That are obedient to the heavenly call
Are manifold and suited to the flesh,
And come, and come, and come again afresh;
That now, or sometime else, we by them may
be taken, overcome, and cast away.
O let the pilgrims, let the pilgrims then,
be vigilant and quit themselves like men."
-John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress.

There comes a point, and it has already come, when we can no longer cower in our corners and wait for the trials to pass, all the while cursing God. Or perhaps we don't curse God in our corners, but simply plug our ears against His whisperings or His chastenings. These trials are meant for us to live through. Yes. they come and are searingly painful, and come again. But until we can learn to "quit" ourselves "like men," we have ceased to serve the Lord through the trials He has gifted, yes, GIFTED, to us for this brief time.

If I think only of myself among these thorns, my eyes are not quite open; indeed, they are shut tight against what I am meant to see. Do I see another among the thorns as well? Do I hear them speak loudly for me to give them heed, for they have seen where I have been and are even more freshly out of the very same darkness through which I have so recently preceded them?

To quit myself in these trials is to both lay down a burden and to pick one up. The old is heavy, but the new is a yoke made easy and the burden light; and I am to prefer it before all the treasures in Egypt. (Heb 11:26), for that is what He-- who was both shamed and glorified upon the cross for my sake-- has commanded of me.

Saturday, 17 February 2007

Difficulty

God is good, even when I feel like he's not. My Lord sustains me even when I am so broken I'm numb. But I can't allow myself to be too numb.

"In all our hearts lies a longing for a Sacred Romance.

It will not go away in spite of our efforts over the years to anesthetize, ignore its song, or attach it to a single person or endeavor. It is a Romance couched in mystery and set deeply within us. It cannot be categorized into propositional truths or fully known any more than the studying of the anatomy of a corpse would help us to know the person who once inhabited it...

... someone or something has romanced us from the beginning with creekside singers and pastel sunsets, with the austere majesty of snowcapped mountains and the poignient flames of autumn colors telling us of something-- or someone--leaving, with the promise of return...

...Yet we cannot deny that the Arrows have struck us all, sometimes arriving in a hail of projectiles that blocked out the sun, and other times descending in more subtle flight that only let us know we were wounded years later, when the wound festered and broke.

It is from this place of heart resignation where many of us, perhaps all of us at one time or another, having suffered under the storm of life's arrows, given up on the Sacred Romance. But our heart will not totally forsake the intimacy and adventure we were made for and so we compromise. We both become, and take to ourselves lovers that are less dangerous in their passion for life and the possible pain that comes with it-- in short, lovers that are less wild.

For some of us who have chosen anesthesia to tame our hearts ...There is a hail of fierce..arrows we try to contain by simply closing the door to the damaged heart places.

Our adversary seduces us to abide in certain emotions that act as less wild-lovers, particularly shame, fear, lust, anger, apathy, and false guilt. They are emotions that "protect" us from the more dangerous feelings of grief, abandonment, disappointment, lonliness, and even joy and longing that threaten to roam free in the wilder environs of the heart. These are feelings that frighten us..

...God became even more wild in His love by sending Jesus to die for our Freedom..."
-- Less Wild lovers, Brent Curtis

I don't need an Opiate. I have my God. And He is neither inaccessable nor tame.

I will bear my pain and He will bear me through it.

Wednesday, 08 November 2006

It's come to my attention that I need to clarify. I did not mean that I was questioning whether or not Morality was relative. I know what I believe about it. I was looking for discussion. Sorry about that:)