There are people that I meet sometimes that I just plain dislike before I get to know them. I try very hard to push that prejudice out of my mind, and to open up my heart to them and usually, I find that they are actually pretty nice people. But that does not change the fact that there are just some people at whom I instinctively heap judgment and scorn in my heart. Today, I realized a big part of why I do this, and the type of people to whom I do it.
I'd met this person about a while back. It didn't take long for that feeling to set in, for some unexplained burning against that person to take hold of me every time I looked at him (I'll refer to the person as male, just for the sake of avoiding saying "him/her"). Everything about him, from his hair, to the way he talked, to his hobbies, even his existence began to gnaw away at my sense of peace. It was frustrating enough to have someone I disliked so intensely in such close proximity to me. It was even more maddening to be at the complete mercy of a judgmental burning that I could not explain. The day ended, and even though I was pretty sure I wasn't going to ever see him again, still I felt some profound type of scorn. And for a long time, every time I even thought of the person, I felt a deeply-rooted hatred that I wasn't even fully aware of at the time. Now, even as I write this I'm beginning to realize why I felt I hated him so much, and how the person at whom that hate was directed wasn't actually...him.
Freudian psychologists discuss the use of defense mechanisms as a way to avoid inner anxiety in a person. One of these mechanisms is the phenomenon of projection, where the defender takes the feelings he has about himself and, well, projects them onto someone else. And looking back at it now, it's starting to make more and more sense why this person (unknowingly, I think) suffered in my heart under the fire of all of this hatred. I'm realizing how much of myself I see in him. In the things he does, the way that he speaks, the things he says when he speaks, the attitude he had towards life, I saw myself. And I could not stand it. Time after time I heaped burning coals upon his head, committing heart-borne murder upon...myself. The only reason I hated this person so much was because he resembled who I used to be before that point, who I was at that point, and, in a way, the person that God wanted me to leave behind in myself.
It's interesting, how effectively I can unknowingly hide myself from my own judgments. Pride, lust, worldliness, all of these things are things I know I must cast out, but at the same time, still have in myself. As a result, I condemn others with the hatred that I should harbor for the sinful nature within me.
JDSN taught once that we must understand the love that God has for us in order for us to even begin to love others in the way we are called to. I'm realizing now just how much this is necessary. I must see the fullness in God's knowledge of my heart in order to know how much it means for Him to forgive me. I must know the egregiously detestable nature that God chooses to overlook in order to give it up to him to change. I must count the cost of what I am laying down to truly look forward to only that which God has promised to give in return. And in the end, the only hope I have to love others as God loves me is to know first how He really does love me; faithfully, unconditionally, sacrificially and patiently.
It's so difficult for me to even realize how deeply the Holy Spirit really has to dig into me to start to bring forth all of this sin in me. There's some odd sense of dichotomy in both the slight frustration that I feel in seeing all of these ugly truths surface as well as the awestruck gratitude that I have in seeing this salvation really come forth (if even in some ways that I don't always like to think about). But if anything, it really is teaching me just how true it is that I am not responsible for practically any part of my salvation. In seeing how wicked I am, not only in my reflection in that person but also my subconscious instinct to hide and avoid such a revelation, it becomes more and more of a reality that it is only by God's hand, by God's calling, and ultimately God's will that I have come to this place in my life. As much as I might accredit to myself even my response to God's call, even the desire to seek comes from Him, and is in His own way the invitation back home. His call might come in some unexpected form, during some unexpected times, in the midst of the most unexpected circumstances. But I pray that I and people everywhere, whether we are saved or not, will listen for and respond to God's still small voice, that we won't be distracted by expectations of God's voice or call in one form, while we are in one state, but open our hearts to the truth that He is always calling for us to come back into the arms of the Creator, the Father, the Savior.
As I continue on this walk, I can't even give an estimate of how much more wickedness and sin will turn up my life. But I can only pray that I will always look to Him who gives me strength, through whom I can do anything, by whose grace and love I was led out of Egypt so that He might dwell in me, and be the Lord my God.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
upon the Rock eternal.
Then He said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."
Luke 9 : 23
It's a heavy devotion, to follow Christ. In denying ourselves every day, we don't only deny ourselves of the worldly desires, like greed and lust. Our call to denial applies to even the more sentimental and seemingly less detrimental parts of our lives; including our friends.
Since coming to Christ, the change that has taken place has drawn me higher, closer to God, and inevitably farther from the friends with which I used to have so many entertaining conversations. It almost seems far away, the time when I hardly cared about the things that came from my lips, when the eternal consequences of my actions was simply an abstract concept, distant and unimportant. I suppose while chronologically, it was only two months the importance and longevity of that change endows upon it a more poignant meaning. I can't talk of the same television shows anymore; I don't watch them. I can't play mindlessly violent video games with my friends anymore; I have eternal matters with which I've decided to concern myself. The whole idea of being a new creation might have been a little easier, had I not inherited the same concern and affections for my friends. In following Christ, the closer I come to Him, the farther I tread from those I still care very much for. An inner yearning that cries for their salvation is stifled by an outer fear of rejection and ridicule for believing in something that my finite and fallible senses can not perceive. And even if I did manage to reach out to them with that concern, how do I tell them of the urgency of repentance? After all, even "Christians" today would rather pass notes in church than listen to a sermon that doesn't promise boundless prosperity, unconditional love, and eternal life in spite of the fact that they show no conviction of the dedication to follow Christ to begin with. It's discouraging to think of the massive oppression that I feel when trying to summon the courage to witness to someone when that someone has been hardened by a world steeped in sex, violence, and rebellion; when that someone is surrounded by "Christians" that claim they have follow Jesus when they are in the very same moment staggering down the other direction; when that someone is bound in seemingly invincible chains that over and over force them back into slavery of an addiction to greed, to lust, to affection from all of the wrong sources, every one of which turns us farther from a Father that is crying to save us from the things that will only bring us destruction in the end.
In facing to such an immense adversity, I realize now that my only hope resides in my God, who in His grace saved even me, from my own self-dug grave. If He can so lovingly reach into a place I never thought I'd ever escape from and lift me up to a height I never imagined I could attain, then who am I to say that He can not do the same for anyone else to whom I share this testimony? Sometimes in feeling despair in my ability to witness, I lose sight of who God really is, and what He has irrefutably done in my own life and in the lives of my brothers and sisters in Christ. No one can deny this work which I know He has done in my life, and I will stand to testify. I pray to a God who saves that He will give me the strength to stand and proclaim this truth in my heart, even if it means I must stand amongst an unbelieving and oppressive generation that looks down on me for my faith in the truth; not my truth... the truth.
Luke 9 : 23
It's a heavy devotion, to follow Christ. In denying ourselves every day, we don't only deny ourselves of the worldly desires, like greed and lust. Our call to denial applies to even the more sentimental and seemingly less detrimental parts of our lives; including our friends.
Since coming to Christ, the change that has taken place has drawn me higher, closer to God, and inevitably farther from the friends with which I used to have so many entertaining conversations. It almost seems far away, the time when I hardly cared about the things that came from my lips, when the eternal consequences of my actions was simply an abstract concept, distant and unimportant. I suppose while chronologically, it was only two months the importance and longevity of that change endows upon it a more poignant meaning. I can't talk of the same television shows anymore; I don't watch them. I can't play mindlessly violent video games with my friends anymore; I have eternal matters with which I've decided to concern myself. The whole idea of being a new creation might have been a little easier, had I not inherited the same concern and affections for my friends. In following Christ, the closer I come to Him, the farther I tread from those I still care very much for. An inner yearning that cries for their salvation is stifled by an outer fear of rejection and ridicule for believing in something that my finite and fallible senses can not perceive. And even if I did manage to reach out to them with that concern, how do I tell them of the urgency of repentance? After all, even "Christians" today would rather pass notes in church than listen to a sermon that doesn't promise boundless prosperity, unconditional love, and eternal life in spite of the fact that they show no conviction of the dedication to follow Christ to begin with. It's discouraging to think of the massive oppression that I feel when trying to summon the courage to witness to someone when that someone has been hardened by a world steeped in sex, violence, and rebellion; when that someone is surrounded by "Christians" that claim they have follow Jesus when they are in the very same moment staggering down the other direction; when that someone is bound in seemingly invincible chains that over and over force them back into slavery of an addiction to greed, to lust, to affection from all of the wrong sources, every one of which turns us farther from a Father that is crying to save us from the things that will only bring us destruction in the end.
In facing to such an immense adversity, I realize now that my only hope resides in my God, who in His grace saved even me, from my own self-dug grave. If He can so lovingly reach into a place I never thought I'd ever escape from and lift me up to a height I never imagined I could attain, then who am I to say that He can not do the same for anyone else to whom I share this testimony? Sometimes in feeling despair in my ability to witness, I lose sight of who God really is, and what He has irrefutably done in my own life and in the lives of my brothers and sisters in Christ. No one can deny this work which I know He has done in my life, and I will stand to testify. I pray to a God who saves that He will give me the strength to stand and proclaim this truth in my heart, even if it means I must stand amongst an unbelieving and oppressive generation that looks down on me for my faith in the truth; not my truth... the truth.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Obedience...?
It's ironic how I can pray for something so hard, and when I receive it, it ends up as something that I try at some level to push back or try to maneuver around.
I prayed today for a way to grow closer to God. As much as He's shown me in the past two months, as much change as He's brought to my life and as meaningful my life is now, it's not enough. I want more, I want to know Him more, and I want to love Him more. It may sound selfish, but I know that nothing is impossible for God, and that He will provide so long as I'm willing to seek earnestly, for the right reasons. I prayed that I might grow closer to Him, to know His ways and to follow them fully, and that He would show me whatever more I could surrender that I have not already. I also prayed that wherever I do not have the strength to lay something down, that He would take it from me, in knowing all of my iniquity and shortcoming. I know that God is a powerful and loving God, and He will provide in His own time, even if I would prefer if it were sooner.
Little did I know how soon it would actually be.
Later today, a sister in Christ actually shared with me something that she felt I should work on in my life. At first, I didn't think it was that big of a deal, what she was telling me about. But immediately I was reminded of the sermon today that I heard, that all sin and addictions are fueled by an illusion of control. I realized quickly how what she was telling me was actually God's answer to my prayer. I thought about how insignificant the surrender seemed at first, but then thought of how defensive I felt to doing it. How true is that? When you tell someone to cease a bad habit, they say, I can stop any time I want. When do they want to? We feel as if we are in so much control, and the more confident we feel of that control the more hopelessly we are trapped in what is quickly becoming an inescapable cycle of self destruction. But why do we need to stop them? What can possibly give us the strength to stop them?
The truth of the matter is, we have a purpose in life. If none of us had a purpose, then who cares? The individual can do whatever he thinks will bring him happiness, and no one has the right to tell him that it's actually tearing him apart. But that is not the case. Each and every single one of us has a purpose in life, and the acknowledgment of that purpose in itself is a step to overcoming. The mere fact that this purpose is much bigger and far beyond our existence is enough to show us that anything we might give up for its sake is expendable and ephemeral at best. Knowing this is part of the strength that Christ gives to those in whom He lives.
In the end, we all end up being obedient to something or other. So, then, what will it be? Will your standard of behavior be a neverending and inevitably self destructive cycle of things that will rot and fade away with time? Or will your actions conform to the righteousness and the Will of a God who knows your every thought, every notion of your inner heart and loves you in a way you can never understand in this lifetime?
I prayed today for a way to grow closer to God. As much as He's shown me in the past two months, as much change as He's brought to my life and as meaningful my life is now, it's not enough. I want more, I want to know Him more, and I want to love Him more. It may sound selfish, but I know that nothing is impossible for God, and that He will provide so long as I'm willing to seek earnestly, for the right reasons. I prayed that I might grow closer to Him, to know His ways and to follow them fully, and that He would show me whatever more I could surrender that I have not already. I also prayed that wherever I do not have the strength to lay something down, that He would take it from me, in knowing all of my iniquity and shortcoming. I know that God is a powerful and loving God, and He will provide in His own time, even if I would prefer if it were sooner.
Little did I know how soon it would actually be.
Later today, a sister in Christ actually shared with me something that she felt I should work on in my life. At first, I didn't think it was that big of a deal, what she was telling me about. But immediately I was reminded of the sermon today that I heard, that all sin and addictions are fueled by an illusion of control. I realized quickly how what she was telling me was actually God's answer to my prayer. I thought about how insignificant the surrender seemed at first, but then thought of how defensive I felt to doing it. How true is that? When you tell someone to cease a bad habit, they say, I can stop any time I want. When do they want to? We feel as if we are in so much control, and the more confident we feel of that control the more hopelessly we are trapped in what is quickly becoming an inescapable cycle of self destruction. But why do we need to stop them? What can possibly give us the strength to stop them?
The truth of the matter is, we have a purpose in life. If none of us had a purpose, then who cares? The individual can do whatever he thinks will bring him happiness, and no one has the right to tell him that it's actually tearing him apart. But that is not the case. Each and every single one of us has a purpose in life, and the acknowledgment of that purpose in itself is a step to overcoming. The mere fact that this purpose is much bigger and far beyond our existence is enough to show us that anything we might give up for its sake is expendable and ephemeral at best. Knowing this is part of the strength that Christ gives to those in whom He lives.
In the end, we all end up being obedient to something or other. So, then, what will it be? Will your standard of behavior be a neverending and inevitably self destructive cycle of things that will rot and fade away with time? Or will your actions conform to the righteousness and the Will of a God who knows your every thought, every notion of your inner heart and loves you in a way you can never understand in this lifetime?
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