01.27.09
Posted in love, relationship at 8:18 pm by Administrator
What keeps you from just letting go? What are you holding onto that keeps you from making a leap of faith? When I used to teach swimming, in order for a kid to truly learn to swim, they had to let go of the side and go out into the deep water. There comes a time when we experience a chasm that cannot be crossed by just easing across. We can’t just ease ourselves across. Coming into a relationship of God is kind of like that. Often we never let go of things that we wish to hold onto. Often these are those selfish or self-centered things that we just don’t want to give up. There is a certain amount of fear to letting go those things that we are familiar with and making the leap into the unknown.
In essence, we have to commit to the relationship in order to get where we want to go. Many hang out paralyzed by their fears of letting things go. They never come to the place where they are trusting fully in God. So they never make the leap. We see that in Romans 4:5:
But people cannot do any work that will make them right with God. So they must trust in him, who makes even evil people right in his sight. Then God accepts their faith, and that makes them right with him.
So what is keeping you from making that leap of trust?
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01.23.09
Posted in God Centered, Pain, love, relationship at 11:12 am by Administrator
We hear a lot of ministering to the whole person. There is a desire to feel complete in our pursuit of life. Yet many of us feel that sense of something that is missing. These kinds of voids are felt in our lives. They nag at us and tear at the joy in our lives.
I am experiencing a time in my life where I am facing a tremendous amount of change in my life. So of these changes have been self imposed or self inflicted and others have been thrust upon me. It is in this condition, I feel the anxiety of life pressing in upon me. Yet how I react to these things is reflective of how well I am dealing with these stressors in my life. I wish I could tell you that I am having no problems dealing with these things, but inevitably I cannot.
Into this situation, I came across the work and ministry of Jonathan Brink and Thrive Ministries . He talked about the search for wholeness through our relationship with Christ. How that is a shared journey. How we need to address our own brokenness through our relationship with our God and with those fellow believers around us. I realized how true that is. How so far of the mark in many ways I myself am. I find myself anxious and fearful and resentful and angry about things going on in my life when in reality all I am truly doing is trying to protect myself and my own brokenness. In protecting myself I am cutting myself off from that which can truly make me whole. The sad thing is that I and many others do these things because we think we are protecting ourselves.
I think of several passages in the Gospel of John that really illustrate this for me. The first is John 14:27
I leave you peace, my peace I give to you. I do not give it to you as the world does. So don’t let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
And again in John 15: 5, 11-13
I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing…… I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
I have someone I love very much that I almost lost because I tried to protect myself and be apart from relationship. It was only when I truly stepped out in love disregarding the possible consequences that I was able to overcome my brokenness and reach this person again. I guess this is my own journey that I am making to get back to the wholeness that we all want.
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01.22.09
Posted in Communication, God in general, Pain, relationship at 9:49 am by Administrator
Fear can make people do many things they never thought they would do. It is amazing how fear can force us to do things that we never wanted to do or intended to do. Yet being driven by fear always seems to run counter to being driven by love.
Recently I saw a couple who loved each other very much spiral out of control to the brink of divorce because they were driven by fear. The words I heard most was “I have to defend myself”. Both were worried about the other hurting them so they were driven by fear to “defend themselves” when what they both wanted was to reconcile and love one another. So I ask this question. How often are we driven by fear to “defend ourselves” when what we should be doing is forgiving and reconciling? How often are problems that we are facing escalated because we react in fear? Fear clouds our judgment as we slip into a mode where all we do is think about ourselves versus what God wants. I think that is what the apostle John is saying when he says in 1 John 4:16-18. I like how the Message paraphrases it best to illustrate this point.
God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.
Fear is crippling as I showed in the illustration of the couple who came to the brink of divorce. Yet I am glad to say that this couple ultimately chose love and backed away from the precipice. Yet we need to look at our own lives and see where fear is crippling us. We need to let God into those places and let his love banish those fears. So where ever your fears resides: in your relationships, in your finances, in your job, or where ever else; let God into those areas and let his love set you free.
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