Archive for brokenness
Mercies in Disguise: Finding God in Your Trials
Posted by: | Comments
Seasons of trials and troubles, pain and suffering, disappointments and dying dreams can leave all of us with more questions than answers. We find ourselves unable to box our theological answers as neatly as before. We wrestle with questions like, “Where are you, God?” “Why have you deserted me?” “Are you real, God?” In our trials, we reach for our false strengths and we find that they were only illusions.
Enjoy this post? Share it with your friends by clicking the Facebook LIKE button..
Powered By Facebook Like Post Plugin
Finding Faith to Go On
Posted by: | Comments
When you find yourself with your hopes and dreams lying in a million pieces around your feet, can you find the faith to go on? I found myself in that place about three and a half years ago. Every time I reference the story, I count the years, months, and days since the dam broke and my life was flooded with the violent waters of trouble. There seems to be some kind of solace in making that time further and further away from today. But in another way, my life will always be referenced from that point.
Enjoy this post? Share it with your friends by clicking the Facebook LIKE button..
Powered By Facebook Like Post Plugin
Shattering Illusions
Posted by: | Comments
Most of us have willingly entered a house of illusions, perhaps at a carnival or some circus event. Perhaps we’ve walked into a house of mirrors and were suddenly faced with distortions of our senses. Even though we know that what we are seeing is an illusion, we are nonetheless subject to the illusion. It feels real. Our depth and motion perception is affected. Our brain misinterprets the information it is receiving and gives us a false image.
We often live in illusions, some conscious and many unconscious.
How often do you and I choose, willingly, to live in a house of illusions? We may refuse to face the truth about our finances or our weight or a diagnosis we’ve been given by the doctor. We may prefer a world of fantasies which require nothing of us relationally. We may choose to numb our reality through drugs, alcohol, pornography, shopping, gambling, etc.
Or we may refuse to face the truth about our personal history.
It’s easy to do and can be much more comfortable than the truth. The problem is, however, that when we construct our world around our illusions, we are not living in the truth.
God instructed Isaiah to write to a rebellious lying people (Isaiah 30). These people basically had said to their spiritual leaders that they would prefer not to know the truth. They asked for the prophets and seers to speak and see what was comfortable, easy on their ears and hearts, “smooth things, deceits”, and please, above all, do not confront them with the Holy One.
Enjoy this post? Share it with your friends by clicking the Facebook LIKE button..
Powered By Facebook Like Post Plugin
Facing Sorrow and Pain; Finding Healing
Posted by: | Comments
My son quizzed me about a recent flurry of “unfriending” on facebook that had to do with an ended relationship. Although he had nothing directly to do with the relationship, just because he was a friend of the “ex”, he was “unfriended”. Several others, including myself, had been “unfriended” after this relationship ended.
It was obvious that this individual had quickly moved to eradicate all evidence of the painful end of her relationship.
Oh, that it were that easy to erase pain! Just one click of a button, an “unfriending” or two, and viola!, the pain is gone! (or at least all the reminders of the pain is gone. ) We all know that doesn’t really work. I know because I’ve tried it many times. While we may be able to get our pain out of sight initially, that living entity is going to eventually come kicking and screaming out of its grave for things buried alive are, well, still alive!
Every life has its own measure of sorrow and pain. It’s easy to want to move away from the pain, erase it, refuse to mention it or acknowledge it, but a life lived fully must face pain and suffering and feel it in order to ultimately find healing.
Understandably we are afraid of pain, whether emotional or physical. Certainly a world in perfection, as it was in the beginning and will be again in the end, is a world without pain. Yet in our current reality, pain is a part of life and while we desperately want to believe that there must be a way around experiencing our own pain, avoiding our sorrows also means losing part of the fullness of life.
Enjoy this post? Share it with your friends by clicking the Facebook LIKE button..
Powered By Facebook Like Post Plugin
I’m Sorry
Posted by: | Comments
Like molasses reluctantly ascending from an overturned jar, my words moved from somewhere deep within. The battle raged. I wanted to apologize, and yet, I didn’t. One part of my heart was tender, caring, and repentant. Another part was calloused, stubborn, and selfish.
My two natures each sought victory. I identified with Paul, remembering the words he spoke in Romans 7 of the inner war. For the moment, my Christ’ nature won, yet often my flesh nature waves its victory flag.
Why is it so difficult to say those two little words? I’m sorry.
We can’t maintain healthy relationships without humility and repentance, but we all struggle to allow Christ to rule in our hearts. My flesh nature and your flesh nature are never truly dead in this life and frequently resurrect to remind us.
Paul reminds us in Philippians 2:3-5 that we are to do nothing out of selfish ambitions or vain conceits, but that we are, in humility, to consider others more than ourselves, having the same attitude of Christ.
How do we allow our selfish natures to be crucified? The best answer seems to be “one nail at a time”.
Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, year by year, we walk with Christ. We learn more of his heart and his nature. We learn more of our own heart and our own nature.
Enjoy this post? Share it with your friends by clicking the Facebook LIKE button..
Powered By Facebook Like Post Plugin
