Lay it Down
When beliefs are tested the ground seems unstable. I trust this place with the Lord whether or not I comprehend the landscape. He has removed any liaison between us and is positioning me in His direct line of fire.
I am free to name the prescribed beliefs that I have trouble swallowing. As I describe my symptoms to the Lord I am trusting His diagnosis. Contradictions, disagreements, and interpretive differences are not symptomatic of a fatal flaw or a spiritual disease.
He is forming a revelation that is mine to contain and communicate as Christ in me. Subject matter and delivery style may differ but its validity bears His seal. It is important that I learn to trust Him as He is in me regardless of how or if He is received in me. The perspective He is solidifying belongs to Him. It was here before I was born and will be here after I’m gone.
The message He is ascribing is for me first before it is for others. In Luke 22:32 Jesus told Peter, “When you are converted, then strengthen your brethren.” This has been a lonely season, but my loneliness belongs to Him first, before any other. He maintains His right to comfort me. I am being with Him as He desires at this time so that ultimately it may benefit others.
I press the dark for all that He has for me and resist the craving for external agreements. I am offering Him everything I think about Him, the scope of His redemptive work, and relationship with Him. It is an offering that only He can guard and keep. His intent for me to live from His personal word to me is intense (1 Kings 13).
I’ve thought of Paul and how difficult it would be to do what he did. Paul said he did not receive the gospel that he preached from man nor was he taught it by a man. He received it by revelation of Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:11,12). Upon his conversion he did not confer with flesh and blood. He was privately tutored by the Lord for three years before meeting with Peter for fifteen days (Galatians 1:16-24). After that, he preached his revelation of grace for another fourteen years before coming back to Jerusalem at which time he brought correction to certain apostles who were sliding back under the Law. When they perceived the grace that he was given, they gave him the right hand of fellowship (Galatians 2). Now that’s trusting the Lord with your education!
It feels like a battle to trust the Lord with my education. Beliefs are easily dispensed in neat little boxes. Doctrine can feel like a judge that makes me afraid to think outside the box. I fear being labeled an unteachable, unaccountable, out of order, off the mark, erroneous, and out of fellowship rogue! Phew! That’s a mouthful!
In spite of the fear, I cannot deny that Jesus Christ is personally rekindling my love and hunger for the Word. As I study, my eyes find scriptures that confirm that my doubts and questions are reasonable even if they’ve gone unanswered. Answers will not come through the reasoning involved in drawing conclusions or making logical judgments on the basis of other people’s conclusions rather than on the basis of direct observation. The Lord is exercising His right to reveal Himself directly as He chooses. There is an unfathomable kingdom being uncovered that has so very little to do with doctrine.
(I am not opposing doctrine or saying its not relevant. I am merely speaking for myself when I say that doctrine has strangled my childlike imagination and sense of adventure. One side says this, the other says that – and they both back it up with plausible scripture. Take into account that each verse must be kept in context, as well the need to understand the culture in which it was written, the audience for whom it was intended, the prevalent heresies of the day that were being addressed…and phew!…it’s no wonder I dutifully swallow spoon fed beliefs)!
The pure love of scripture and its revealing of Christ can easily become an exegesis. I’m tired. I just want to know Him, receive His life as my own, and to walk as He walks. I want to express who He is in me without the need to explain a doctrinal position. I feel like I have no position; I’m not one to wade through the positional changes that have occurred throughout the centuries and yet I can no longer be told what to believe or how to interpret. Betwixt, I lay it down in favor of simplicity and union with Christ that translates effectively in everyday living.
God will get me where He wants me to be and open my eyes to what He wants me to see. I want to enjoy the journey and I can’t do that while qualifying my beliefs or struggling to understand one doctrinal position over another. It’s blocking my view of Him. I’d rather trust Him all around and inside and out. If another disagrees with what comes out of my mouth (or pen) then I beg they pray for my understanding while praying for their own.
The Lord offered me a solution once while I was trying to explain to others how my marriage to Mike was restored. What did we do to turn the tide? Did we start applying messages we’d heard on marriage? Did we make a concerted effort to be kinder, love without condition, to honor and respect each other? What brought about such radical heart changes?
In considering their questions, the answer remained the same…nothing. We did nothing; the change of heart came as pure gift. At a pivotal point I heard these words,
“Susan, you have two choices. You can dig around and try to find what you did to produce such stellar results, or you can accept that you did nothing, and humbly receive the gift I have given. Consider both options, decide which one magnifies Me and brings greater peace, and then rest your faith in that vein of living.”
In that moment I understood that life is a gift I receive rather than something I produce by the choices I make. Encapsulated in trust, I saw my way to living free from the fear of Susan. The result was movement – the freedom to explore, speak, move, and to just be who He is in me. That alone gave the new perspective cause for celebration!
I am revisiting the Lord’s offer now with regard to my vain attempts to fit my understanding of scripture into the right doctrinal pocket. I’m returning to simplicity by trusting Christ in me…living His life as me.
[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [ which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope] that if possible I may attain to the [spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body]. Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own. I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward. So let those [of us] who are spiritually mature and full-grown have this mind and hold these convictions; and if in any respect you have a different attitude of mind, God will make that clear to you also. Only let us hold true to what we have already attained and walk and order our lives by that.
Philippians 3:10-16 (AMP)
As I view these words in the light of union they take on new meaning. I am at rest knowing that He who began a good work in me is faithfully completing it!
Nothing and Everything
I thank God for each eye-opening experience. There is darkness in the interior realm that only He can use! Until He brings the light I remain darkened about the cause or source of the disturbances I feel. Today, I glory in the paradox of being the cause of nothing and of everything.
God is at work in me, of this I am certain. Nothing changes in me apart from Him. He is my awakening and my continued slumber. When I finally see what I could not see it feels like I could have seen it sooner…but I could not. Conditions (painful and other) create my preparedness to see, to let go, and to grow.
I see a profound connection between letting go and growing up. In a world that pushes for the right to be heard, disagreement easily becomes a common form of self-expression. It’s a snare to wrestle with a difference of interpretation regarding the interactions between us. It can feel like I don’t exist until differences are heard and acknowledged – but who I really am is safe without it.
Heeding the holy unction to “shhh…be quiet” is teaching me that the practice of going silent, letting go of judgment, and of the pain of my own narrow view, is the secret I’ve been looking for. Not one portion of my true person-hood needs to be right, understood, or agreed with. Going silent is the space that shows me that a hasty reaction to disagreement is the cause of most turmoil. Silence creates this beautiful room for growth and fosters the grace that allows others room to grow as well.
Each time I refuse to respond to mental blows with a blow of my own, another gets to see for themselves that the antagonist they deal with is also in their own flesh. Seeing the source of pain is the beginning of the end of it. There is nothing for me to do with pain but to let it be as “nothing” to me. When I refuse to enter the boxing ring I make a way for another to do the same. By taking myself out of the mix the cycle of antagonism is broken and I am free to face the paradox of being the cause of all and of nothing.
Union is irrevocable. Christ is the Author and Finisher of my faith; He’s at work in me causing me to both will and to work for His good pleasure. He does it all and I do nothing…until I am prepared for action…then it will seem as though I do it all. Choice, action, and change are all irresistible. They are the natural response to His inner work; each surfaces as the obvious next step to that which He’s been perfecting in me. I take the step…but His internal engineering makes the step too unavoidable to call it my own or to take credit for it.
In the Shadow
I recognize His vigilance eclipsing as me. Christ is the watcher and observer within. He bends this heart to trust the Father, the Faithful One who reveals each step. To rest soundly in the mind of Christ is to quietly let go of the impulse to interpret or decode life, or to take impulsive actions in response to uncomfortable happenings.
A train is being derailed in my life for which I am eternally grateful. I recently noticed how pain from old wounds continually resurfaced. Any resemblance to that which caused the initial infliction could stir familiar feelings in me. It’s been my practice to “let them go” and to trust God to unravel the snares. I was judging the amount of “practice” I was needing when He painted the following picture…
I was sitting on a bench at Grand Central Station. Trains were coming and going. A familiar train came into view. Instead of boarding the train, I was glued to my seat and could do nothing but watch the train pass through the station. As I quietly watched “my ride” go by, the painful expression on the face of each passenger gripped my attention. As I looked closer, each passenger looked like a variation of me. I saw the “me” who was violated as a child, the “me” who felt uncovered and unprotected, the “me” who became invisible, the “me” who lost her voice, the “me” who longed for validation, the “me” who felt betrayed, the “me” who felt discarded, the “me” who felt reduced, the “me” who nursed her private wounds. Refusing to board the train offered an objective view. I saw that the recurring pain belonged to the ghost of “Susan past” and had nothing to do with who I am today. I don’t have to relive painful experiences any more than I have to board every train that pulls into the station.
Torment is linked to the illusion of a “me” who feels capable apart from Christ. She feels real; she suffers, she glories, she harbors injury. The world reinforces the conviction of her reality. Her illusion is deeply ingrained and there’s strange comfort in her misery; but suffering doesn’t make her a reality. Christ is shedding my old identifications. The real me would rather be “no one” (happy, free, relying fully on Christ’s impetus) than feel like a separate “someone” whose misery (or triumph) makes her feel alive. The false needs that have held me captive are nothing compared to the One who sets me free. I embrace the full eclipse of our union and trust that His life will overshadow the flesh that longs for glory it can never sustain. I don’t need the life pain offers. I’m free to be no one – offense, defense, forgiveness, and exoneration belong to Christ alone. I live safely tucked in the shadow of His wings.