I really wish I could find a way to have a very subtle tattoo somewhere on my hands or wrists that would keep reminding me of God. It is so hard to keep him in focus as I go about my daily activities. I think if I were to keep track of everything I think about throughout the day, most of it would be either self-aggrandizing fantasies or paranoid thoughts of all the potential relational or situational outcomes of the future. What a waste of time!
I know that if I could keep my thoughts on Christ this would help immensely in dealing with these significantly large time wasters. Alas, it is not my (human) nature to do that... and really, that is precisely why being a true, passionate Christian is so difficult. Our sin-marred nature works against us at every turn. But what is there in life that could possibly be more joyful than getting to know the source of all joy and goodness? Nothing.
I just got a new computer for work. It is small and sleek and adorable, just the way I have always liked them. Before I would spend hours and hours after getting a new toy just totally absorbed in it. Now....I am grateful for it and I do admire it to an extent, but it has lost its ability to tantalize me to the point of oblivion. I find myself wanting something more meaningful, something richer and fuller than anything like a new toy could provide. No experience here on earth can fully provide what I am after. I am glad too, otherwise I would be stuck craving new toys or new experiences...longing to travel, to taste new things, to try on new things, all the time. I know that I used to feel that way all of the time. But no longer. It is certainly there, sort of in the back of my mind, at times. But ultimately I don't think I could ever really turn back to it now, its so shallow in comparison to what has been presented to me in even the smallest of doses over the last few months.
I am thirsty but all I crave for is living water. LIVING water. Yes, the kind that brings eternal life. Oh, that mysterious term again. I hope to someday be able to grasp its full meaning. Yes, that is part of the longing.... a desire for true meaning, true experience! True love, true joy, peace, and spirit! God, in other words.
How far fetched and otherworldly that sounds when heard from the position of anyone who doesn't desire God.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Sunday, March 10, 2013
dead to me. To ME.
"For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil (2 Corinthians 5:1-6, 8-10 ESV). "
Oh, Sandi...I most spontaneously (of course not by my own doing) read this passage perhaps an hour before your passing. How beautiful.
I don't fully know how to explain what is happening to me. I feel as though for the last 26 years I've lost what little realness of being I ever had, like I was an empty shell playing at life; not much besides a puppet jerked on a string. Simply put I was dead. Numb and grossly uncoordinated in spirit, which is the only thing that can really animate our bodies. I don't know that there was any way I would come to understand this if it wasn't for what I just saw. Oh, thank you Lord of All Creation! I can only continue to pray that you increase that which you have kindled inside this delicate vessel, through your servant Sandi. What a beautiful woman you made in her.
I have been tired of being of this world and of this flesh for some time, but had by those very forces upon my soul been unable to escape it. I don't think I'm fully away yet, and of course won't be until death, truly, but by God's gracious will I will get there and be able to find Real, True, Beautiful Life. A life where the body is filled with the Holy Spirit, connected to and contented by The Lord through our Savior. An existence that does not end at death but is instead freed by it to be fully alive! Alive and reunited with God! It's not heaven that matters of itself it's that that is where God is...beautiful, perfect God that is beyond human description and judgment.
This is something I think a lot of people considering Christians don't understand. When we talk about eternal life, it isn't about "avoiding death" and "living forever." It isn't that at all! It is about living with the most wonderful, perfect being one could ever imagine except that NO ONE can ever really imagine just how wonderful and perfect this being we long for is. It is about living away from all the corruption we see and abhor in the world, living with someONE so wonderful that HE is nothing but peace and love and glorious perfection so far away from the world we live in in these tainted bodies. I honestly don't know if we can understand what is meant in the bible by "eternal life" simply because it is so vastly different from anything we could possibly experience in the physical world.
I could go on and on now. I have so many thoughts and feelings that are both new and newly solid within my mind and being. Just when you think you've grasped something a new light is shined on it and you realize what you've actually been grasping is only straw and mud piled hurriedly into the shape of something solid.
Looking back at my life I see how much I was constantly being shaped by my physical bodily experiences. The chemical reactions in my brain that became my emotions were the only things that ruled my thoughts and responses to life. It's only now that I'm really starting to understand why the bible says we are not to trust our hearts in this way. Everything physical is limited by itself. To deny this is to deny anything beyond the physical. One cannot say spirituality is both a physical and non physical thing, no matter how much we want there to be a connection between the two it is simply not the way God made it...or well, perhaps the way sin has made it. I don't know what it was like before sin was born into the world. I do believe that even our bodies long for a connection that because of sin they cannot have, but it is perhaps felt far more often in our souls, which are at least not made up of such delicate, decaying material.
Oh how complicated this is to explain! Even now my squishy human brain twitches and shakes as I try and leave it out of the equation.
I understand the disconnect I have felt between my body and my soul a little better now. I don't know if I can ever fully process it, being still limited by the physical, which still tries to impose its own ideas about its essentiality in any form of thought or aliveness. But I know in my soul that that is a lie the body itself believes as truth because it has been cut off from the spiritual. The body longs for the spiritual without knowing what it is! Hence all these problems we have....
It makes me so sad (and I will admit, sadly frustrated, although I'm working on my patience) that so many of your creation do not seek you and remain like ostriches with their heads in the sand, wrapped up in their own fantastical, ego-driven pursuits, thinking the world and its potential pleasures are where real meaning is to be found when there is nothing there but a shadow of truth and meaning and pleasure. I wish I could just walk up to people and tell them exactly what they are missing and have them instantly understand and be consumed with the same passion and love Sandi had. But even Sandi couldn't do that, nor did she want to, because she submitted to you in every way. I still have so much arrogance, it sickens me whenever I become aware of just how self-consumed I am. Is it any wonder though, in a world such as the one we humans have created, where arrogance is so blithely excused as self esteem? There is of course a place for self esteem but it is not where our world places it. We find self esteem through our connection with the true SELF, the only SELF that is not merely dust....
But oh Lord, I know I am not even there myself. As much as I talk, they are only words. It is so hard to wake up from my sleep, my hard, cold and empty little bubble that contained my entire world prior to it being burst open through your Grace. I don't know how long it is going to take, I still feel so numb and so resistant to you. I don't know why...well, I do, sort of. I think it will take a while for all of my deadness to seep away. And it will take effort, an active seeking, and prayer, and simply remembering. How difficult that is, and how easy it is to find comfort in my old plastic womb of a life...it is so much more familiar to me, and the only natural way for my body and brain and heart.
"Search me, O God, and
know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous
way in me, and lead me in
the way everlasting!"
~Psalm 139:23-24
Sigh, its all there. Truly this book contains the closest we have to total TRUTH, away from the blemishes and biases of corrupt human minds.
Oh, Sandi...I most spontaneously (of course not by my own doing) read this passage perhaps an hour before your passing. How beautiful.
I don't fully know how to explain what is happening to me. I feel as though for the last 26 years I've lost what little realness of being I ever had, like I was an empty shell playing at life; not much besides a puppet jerked on a string. Simply put I was dead. Numb and grossly uncoordinated in spirit, which is the only thing that can really animate our bodies. I don't know that there was any way I would come to understand this if it wasn't for what I just saw. Oh, thank you Lord of All Creation! I can only continue to pray that you increase that which you have kindled inside this delicate vessel, through your servant Sandi. What a beautiful woman you made in her.
I have been tired of being of this world and of this flesh for some time, but had by those very forces upon my soul been unable to escape it. I don't think I'm fully away yet, and of course won't be until death, truly, but by God's gracious will I will get there and be able to find Real, True, Beautiful Life. A life where the body is filled with the Holy Spirit, connected to and contented by The Lord through our Savior. An existence that does not end at death but is instead freed by it to be fully alive! Alive and reunited with God! It's not heaven that matters of itself it's that that is where God is...beautiful, perfect God that is beyond human description and judgment.
This is something I think a lot of people considering Christians don't understand. When we talk about eternal life, it isn't about "avoiding death" and "living forever." It isn't that at all! It is about living with the most wonderful, perfect being one could ever imagine except that NO ONE can ever really imagine just how wonderful and perfect this being we long for is. It is about living away from all the corruption we see and abhor in the world, living with someONE so wonderful that HE is nothing but peace and love and glorious perfection so far away from the world we live in in these tainted bodies. I honestly don't know if we can understand what is meant in the bible by "eternal life" simply because it is so vastly different from anything we could possibly experience in the physical world.
I could go on and on now. I have so many thoughts and feelings that are both new and newly solid within my mind and being. Just when you think you've grasped something a new light is shined on it and you realize what you've actually been grasping is only straw and mud piled hurriedly into the shape of something solid.
Looking back at my life I see how much I was constantly being shaped by my physical bodily experiences. The chemical reactions in my brain that became my emotions were the only things that ruled my thoughts and responses to life. It's only now that I'm really starting to understand why the bible says we are not to trust our hearts in this way. Everything physical is limited by itself. To deny this is to deny anything beyond the physical. One cannot say spirituality is both a physical and non physical thing, no matter how much we want there to be a connection between the two it is simply not the way God made it...or well, perhaps the way sin has made it. I don't know what it was like before sin was born into the world. I do believe that even our bodies long for a connection that because of sin they cannot have, but it is perhaps felt far more often in our souls, which are at least not made up of such delicate, decaying material.
Oh how complicated this is to explain! Even now my squishy human brain twitches and shakes as I try and leave it out of the equation.
I understand the disconnect I have felt between my body and my soul a little better now. I don't know if I can ever fully process it, being still limited by the physical, which still tries to impose its own ideas about its essentiality in any form of thought or aliveness. But I know in my soul that that is a lie the body itself believes as truth because it has been cut off from the spiritual. The body longs for the spiritual without knowing what it is! Hence all these problems we have....
It makes me so sad (and I will admit, sadly frustrated, although I'm working on my patience) that so many of your creation do not seek you and remain like ostriches with their heads in the sand, wrapped up in their own fantastical, ego-driven pursuits, thinking the world and its potential pleasures are where real meaning is to be found when there is nothing there but a shadow of truth and meaning and pleasure. I wish I could just walk up to people and tell them exactly what they are missing and have them instantly understand and be consumed with the same passion and love Sandi had. But even Sandi couldn't do that, nor did she want to, because she submitted to you in every way. I still have so much arrogance, it sickens me whenever I become aware of just how self-consumed I am. Is it any wonder though, in a world such as the one we humans have created, where arrogance is so blithely excused as self esteem? There is of course a place for self esteem but it is not where our world places it. We find self esteem through our connection with the true SELF, the only SELF that is not merely dust....
But oh Lord, I know I am not even there myself. As much as I talk, they are only words. It is so hard to wake up from my sleep, my hard, cold and empty little bubble that contained my entire world prior to it being burst open through your Grace. I don't know how long it is going to take, I still feel so numb and so resistant to you. I don't know why...well, I do, sort of. I think it will take a while for all of my deadness to seep away. And it will take effort, an active seeking, and prayer, and simply remembering. How difficult that is, and how easy it is to find comfort in my old plastic womb of a life...it is so much more familiar to me, and the only natural way for my body and brain and heart.
"Search me, O God, and
know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous
way in me, and lead me in
the way everlasting!"
~Psalm 139:23-24
Sigh, its all there. Truly this book contains the closest we have to total TRUTH, away from the blemishes and biases of corrupt human minds.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Jesus' high priestly prayer....glorious Savior
When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. "I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. "I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." (John 17:1-15, 17-26 ESV)
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