Objectify Me, Sanctify Me

 

Over heart, I have painfully
Turned every stone
Just to find, I had found what
I've searched to discover
I've come much too far for me now to find
The love that I sought can never be mine

And though you don't believe that they do
They do come true
For did my dreams
Come true when I looked at you
And maybe too, if you would believe
You too might be
Overjoyed, over love, over me

~Stevie Wonder, Overjoyed 

I have had the unfortunate opportunity of being "critiqued" by the opposite sex.  I've been in the position, more than one woman's confidence can consistently weather, of having who I am be compared to those whom I was never meant to compete with...other women.  Needless to say, it left an impression.  And well, I stood looking yet not seeing what He sees... 

Who will love my mind...my heart...and my body?  Who will love...me?  I would like to be married again one day yet I can't help but to wonder...in the eyes of man, do body parts make the woman?  And if so, are they not hallow too?  Are my rounded thighs and the folds in my back profane?  Has life's shaping of my form condemned me to a bed without the heave and heat of balance, the oneness of a holy enrapture?
      
The truth is...most of my experiences as a grown woman have repeatedly rendered the answer 'yes.'  I don't have the snap, bounce, and perk of women on tv, in movies, or self-featured internet videos anymore.  And well, I do not have the kind of resolve that would lead me to be enhanced by the cut and tuck of a surgeon's knife.  My breast have been enhanced though...like flowers under the baptism of rain, they've taken on a slope that my ancestral mothers did not count as loss.  I imagine my fore mothers, with the sun's pucker upon them, bare backed and bountiful.  My breast have taken on the supple dip and honored sway of a woman who has bore and breast fed three young souls.  So why, after the end of a marriage, did I look in the mirror to only see nudity unworthy of desire? 

True enough...there are men (and women) whose idea of a body as a "marvelous work" is more firmly grounded in 1st Peter 3:4 and day-to-day reality; the stretch and labor of a pre and post pregnancy belly, the fatigue on the face of a quiet woman whose 4 month old's sleep cycle ends with a wail in 2 hour blocks, the multi-tasking of a gentle lady who flutters from mayonnaise jar to deli meat and bread...from 4pm homework attempts to 6pm parent conferences.  A woman's work...the deferred hope of 30 minute meal preparation plans that in real-time translate into 90 minute seasoning and simmer, the vertigo inducing merry-go-round known as laundry for a family of 5, and the daily sonic pitched temper tantrums of 2 year old.  And sports practices...dance rehearsals...dental and doctors appointments galore.  The flat pages of a magazine can not hold this picture nor can a touch screen possess it.  No screen fitted fantasy can contain the energy squeeze of insomnia salved and quelled by a 4th graders morning hug before leaving for school.  That is the reality that the bodies of the women I know live in.  Life.  Action.  Love.

Yet true enough too...those same women (and men) seem to be acquiescing to the zeitgeist of reducing what is spirit to only form...labeled in male circles as "t and a".  For Christ's sake, what cruel turn of history rendered women as only a "hole"...as only an orifice, an object for aiding penile contraction and abetting its release?  Thieves.  On earth as it is in heaven...am I not sacred too?  Erected upon the "rejected stone of offense"...whose temple am I and for whose use?

I speak from the experience of attempting to have an intelligent, compassionate conversation with a man only to be asked to bend over and touch my toes.  And in another land not too yonder...the expressed toll to cross the bridge to a man's care and attention was "talking" to his other "head" before the other parts of me (my mind and heart) would be considered.  Like a cumulus cloud my heart laments Fruitvale Station's life quenching tracks...blood on the concrete leaves, blood at the concrete root.  As a kindling fire my mind illuminates in jubilee upon Orion...quantum symbols and esoteric leaps.  By cloud.  By fire.  I feel.  I think.  So why, after the end of a marriage, did I look in the mirror to only see myself as body only, in parts sinful to the sight?

When did God's ruach quickened, earthen vessel choose to scrutinize herself to meet man-made approval?  Does man have command over rain and baptism?  When did male and female become judge over the fearful intricacies that we are too foolish to fathom.  Can man make what is truly wonderful manifest?  

I don't know in totality what it is like for other women yet I imagine that my struggle to see my naturally enhanced parts as part of a whole, as holy (mind, body, and spirit) is a struggle familiar to women young and old.  But this is what I do know...as I consider the possibility of matrimony in the distance, only a man who is conformed by the spirit, whose speech and actions follow hard after Thee will be able to see the stark nakedness, the glory of God that is me as beautiful, in cohesive salvation to the sight. 

As I stood before my bathroom mirror after a mid day shower I stood in the regalia of all of my Shining Mothers' brown skin.  What the world, in all of its fantastical appeal, objectifies The Most High sanctifies.  Justifies in Completeness.  A Truth that perpetually and forevermore transcends this world's trends and facts.  Yet in that moment I could not see myself as a woman who is augustly sweet on the eye.  But in the cool of the evaporating remnants of my cleansing, God...

God saw.  The Most High saw me...as I stood in all my hurts and disappointments.  God saw what I did not see.  Grace reigned over me...stood in the nude with me and discerned the secret shame that salted the tears that had created a river of remembered disregard and harsh sentiments from my cheeks to my shoulders.  And in the power of all that He is...He heard me...embraced me with the arms that set the foundation of this reality and brought Light to dimensions unknown...."kissed me on my neck" and whispered in my ear, "It is good."


But [woman], you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of [Her] who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.   ~from 1st Peter chapter 2


I AM.
I am woman.

 
I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

~Psalm 139:14 

 

          

I Heard Em Say...

From the chapter entitled, Reconciliation...

"Very glibly we are apt to use such words as "sympathy," "compassion," "sitting where they sit," but in experience it is genuinely to be rocked to one's foundations.  We resist making room for considerations that will bend us out of the path of preoccupation with ourselves, our needs, our problems.  We corrupt our imagination when we give it range over only our own affairs.  Here we experience the magnification of our own wills, the distortion of our own problems, and the enlargement of the areas of our misery.  The activity of which we deprive our imagination in the work of understanding others turns in upon ourselves with disaster and sometimes terror.

The willingness to be to another human being what is needed at the time the need is most urgent and most acutely felt - this is to participate in a precise act of redemption.  This is to stand for one intimate moment in loco dei in the life of another - that is, to make available to another what has already been given us.  We are not the other person; we are ourselves.  All that he is experiencing we can never know -  but we can make accurate soundings which, properly read, will enable us to be to him what we could never be without such awareness.  To the degree to which our imagination becomes the angelos of God, we ourselves may become His instruments."

~Howard Thurman, Disciplines of The Spirit

 

With the hardened sight of an adult, I asked in prayer...

Most High,
Through the years, this experience (person, place or thing) has been a thorn in my side.  What do I do when problem circumstances or problem people frustrate my wants and desires?  When will I have relief from this challenge? 

Last month I had Kanye West's, Heard Em Say in heavy rotation.  Adam Levine's vocals have a way of lulling me into a contemplative state...definitely a sweetly finessed accompaniment to Mr. West's lyrics.  There's just something about the whole of the song that stirs my spirit.  It possesses a mindful openness and innocent appeal...a melody where adult experience is tempered by the longing of a child's heart.  And as I allowed the melody to wash over me something happened...my perspective shifted.

 

With the tender ear of a child, I asked in prayer...

Most High,
Through the years, have I been the thorn in the side of this experience (person, place, or thing)?  Have I been the circumstance, the person who has frustrated the wants and desires of those around me?  Have I been the challenge without relief for others...my siblings in God..."my neighbors?"  "Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way" (Psalm 139:23-24, NASB).  Love, show me myself.

And I heard Christ say...
Do not judge [others self-righteously], and you will not be judged; do not condemn [others when you are guilty and unrepentant], and you will not be condemned [for your hypocrisy]; pardon [others when they truly repent and change], and you will be pardoned [when you truly repent and change].   

Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over [with no space left for more]. For with the standard of measurement you use [when you do good to others], it will be measured to you in return" (Luke 6:37-38, AMP).

Love set my focus Higher.  Rather than being preoccupied with, giving an emotional-spiritual unhealthy amount of attention to how I was experiencing life, I chose...I decided...I allowed...I yielded...I submitted my emotional-spiritual occupation and attention to how my neighbors and siblings in God may be experiencing me.  What affect and effect has my presence had in their lives?  

What affect and effect has our presence, yours as well as mine, had upon the Most High's ever splendid creation known as Life?  Truly, what has flowed from the cisterns of our words and actions?  Blessings or curses?  Emotional-spiritual healthiness or unhealthiness?  Truly, have we effected and affected wealth in our siblings' spirit or poverty in our neighbors' heart?  If God searched the whole of me or the whole of you, what would the Most High hear or see?

When I began to ask the Higher questions in prayer, I went from being self-righteous and unrepentant to humble and grateful.  In reality, we all have had moments or even entire seasons of life in which we have had a narcissist-esque attention, preoccupation with our own perspective.  Yet in Grace, the Holy Spirit has a way of turning persons, places, or things in upon us in such a way that the experience par excellence know as LIFE pricks the inner woman/man and sharpens our scope...sets our affections HIGHER.  

In reality, we have experienced the unmerited buffering of full consequence...forgiveness and mercy.  Glory be to Love!

When one considers all of his/her ways, one may find that, in reality, they have not truly received the full measure of what their poor words and their poor actions have deserved.  What if I received my poor words in full return?  What if you received your poor actions in full return?  What would be the repercussion of disappointment and hurt in our own mind and heart?  In affect, how would you have felt?  In effect, what would you have done?  What would that perspective be?  What would the experience of receiving what we have poorly given to others in life be?  Imagine that!  
    
What is the nature of darkness, of one who is unrepentant?  Neighbor, what if solely nursing our own hurts and disappointments...choosing...deciding...allowing ourselves...yielding...submitting to pride (in self - in ones own mortal view) has hardened our sight?  Or biblically speaking, what if walking by another so as to not "defile" ourselves with their perspective/experience has prevented us from bending to lift in Love (The Parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25-37)?  What is the nature of humility?  My brother and sister, what could be the purpose of those "thorns" in our respective lives?  What is the nature of light, of one who is humble?  

Who is the acceptable cistern?
Who is the righteous and immortal view?  

And I heard Em say...
"This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.  So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.
 
If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.  If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts" (1st John 1:5-10, NLT).

For your viewing and listening pleasure :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elVF7oG0pQs
 



     

His Bride's Mind and Heart

"What then is the nature of the discipline that love provides?  In the first place, it is something that I must quite deliberately want to do.  For many of us this is the first great roadblock.  In our relations with each other there is often so much that alienates, that is distasteful; there seems to be every ground for refraining from the kind of concern that love demands.  It is curious how we feel the other person must demonstrate a worthiness that commends itself to us before we are willing to want to move in outflow, in the self-giving that love demands.  We want to be accepted just as we are, but at the same time we want the other person to win the right to our acceptance of him.  This is an important part of the sin of pride.  There must be genuine repentance for such an attitude.  Forgiveness for this sin is the work of the grace of God in the human heart.  A man seeks it before God and becomes aware of forgiveness only when, in his attitude toward his fellows, he comes to want to make available to them the consciousness of what God shares with him.  God enables him to want to love."

~Howard Thurman, Disciplines of the Spirit

I acknowledge that there are many splendid intricacies that I will not know of God until I meet the Most High face to face.  Yet I also acknowledge that it does not quicken my relationship with Christ to choose to acquiesce, to settle myself in that reality.

"My soul followeth hard after thee..." 

When we love someone, we are in the continual process of knowing them.  There is no end to learning another unless we choose to end.  Submitting oneself to being taught, to learning what moves another to speak as they do, walk as they do, laugh as they do, and cry as they do is a part of the perfecting process of Love.

I ask questions and seek to know not because I am attempting to have all knowledge.  It is not within my capacity as a human woman to contain the full height nor the full depth of the all in All.  Yet it is within my capacity to come into not the fullness, but a fullness of Christ.  I question and seek because to love is to open my heart each day to engage understanding my beloved.  The day that we cease to desire to understand another, is the day that we've chosen to engage death...not a physical death but rather a death of relationship.  It is a decision to end abundance and life between us.   

What is the exercise and practice of intimacy?

In marriage, it is my aim to ask questions and seek to know my Groom.  Each day I desire to understand Him.  Truly this human form, in all of its fetters, does not allow for a perfect, all encompassing understanding of what moves my Groom to speak, walk, laugh, and cry.  It is not possible for me to know all of the subtle nuances that culminate His being.  Yet that reality does not justify an unwillingness to question and seek The Knowledge of my Groom's mind and heart.  I ask of Him...

Why do you speak of truth with such unfolding grace?
What leads you to take a walk in the cool of the day?
Where is the well from which the joy in your laughter springs?
When you cry, do your tears prelude a mindful heart?

The day we choose to cease to desire to understand our beloved, is the day that we choose to allow the spirit of communion that is matrimony to expire, to be left bereft of good. 

For me, to seek to understand is to love.  I ask questions about the bible, even while experiencing being significantly misunderstood in my pursuit, becasue I love the Most High.  Those whom I love I ask questions of them and seek to know them. With tender intention, I quite deliberately want to understand those whom I love and those who love me.  I've learned and I am learning that inclining unto one another is the exercise, the practice of those who fellowship...the discipline of those who love.

Of mind and heart, my love is the intellectual and spiritual acting as one in hard pursuit of my Beloved.  For me, "in the name of Christ" means "in the name of Love."  And so, the desire to know the living word and the desire to know you, my brother and sister is the desire to question and seek in the name of Love.  After all, how can we claim, in spirit and in truth, to love those whom we do not affectionately desire to understand each day?  God forbid.  How dare I claim to love someone I do not thoughtfully care to ask of, to seek of?

Selah.

 "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus."

~Philippians 3:12

  



    

The Fullness of Love

Below is the first homework assignment, the first written response that I wrote in my journey to seek and obtain a deeper understanding of The Greatest Love Story Ever Told also known as The Bible...

New Testament: The Gospels and Acts

October 19, 2015

Question #6

Explain Matthew 5:17 in your own words

“Do not think that I came to do away with or undo the ^[f]Law [of Moses] or the [writings of the] Prophets; I did not come to destroy but to fulfill."

In Matthew 5:17, I believe Christ is expressing his intent.  I believe he is revealing the purpose of his life - to remove the layers of tradition that have ultimately hidden the core meaning of our religious undertaking.  As it stands in Romans 13:10, love is "the law" in all its completeness. 

What is the fundamental quality of Moses' Law?  What are the Ten Commandments attempting to protect and further?  Christ, in all his glory, took Moses' Law, all of the commandments and reduced them to their purest element - love.  Love is the fundamental qualifier of our call and ministry.  Love is the elemental nature of God.

Christ did not walk the earth and ascend to lay to waste the call and ministry of his direct ancestors and men of clairvoyant faith.  I believe it was Christ intentions to illuminate, to "make it plain" so that all who see and hear in the flesh or experience him in the spirit "may run with it" in the course (the process) known as life - "to have life and have it to the full." 

I believe his aim was to bring wholeness of understanding unto "the law" that was only known and applied in parts.  Each commandment can serve to stand as a part, a part that attempts to reflect the whole truth.  But what is the whole truth?  I believe the core truth hidden within layers of writings and rituals is community.  Love is a body of many expressions.  Love is host.  The body of Christ is multitudinous.  Love is communal - to love God and, in God, to love one another.  As it is foretold in Isaiah 7:14, Christ is God with us.  Together in Christ (in love) we live the fullness of the law, "the power and the glory" of The Most High.     

~Selah~

To Live in the Reality of a Miracle

 

~Trent Shelton

In bible study or Sunday service (I can't remember which one lol) I heard my pastor express, "Truth is not always easy, but it's always simple."  Even though the road less traveled is the simplest route, it is most often not the easiest route especially when there are so many other avenues (wants) competing for our allegiance.  Over a course of years, in prayer and meditation, some simple phrases were placed in my spirit...

let go

remember the lesson

walk forward in peace

Those phrases have spiraled in and out of my consciousness over the course of time.  Yet a few months ago, in prayer and meditation, a question was posed to me...

What do you need to do to heal?

And the answer was simple..."take up your mat and walk."  The answer was simple yet the unfolding of that truth in the reality of my life took a bit of struggle...many tears...many sleepless nights...a few panic attacks...the loss of hair...frequent migraines...stress induced "fasting"...and many days of wrestling with myself.  Yet that simple question raised my gaze a bit more...changed my life for good.

How so?

Simply put...it shifted my perspective.  I went from waiting on another person to cease behavior that I experienced as emotionally-spiritually hurtful and harmful to standing resolute in the reality that the responsibility of my healing and well-being is mine.  As a woman, I stopped waiting on the man in my life to change, to cease behavior that left me broken-hearted.   And I, in the power and agency that Christ afforded me...I decided to cease choosing behavior that left me broken-hearted.

I stopped blame-shifting.  Make no mistake about it, it was not easy.  But it was definitely simple.  The ego is indeed a lofty tower, a "wall of Jericho" lol that only falls under the sovereign might of the Most High.  And well, like with the wall of Jericho, the Most High's purposes are manifested through people.  I am eternally grateful for the many beautiful spirits who spoke life into my brokenness (my error-ridden perspective rooted in childhood wounds).  Because there came a day, in the reality of my life, when a miracle happened...

My ego crumbled and folded.   

You see...choosing to remain in a relationship with someone whose willful behavior/choices creates harm in my heart and my spirit is a choice...it is a choice to break my own heart over and over again.  But a miracle happened!  I learned to allow the power of Christ within me to urge me to free myself from my own pattern.

You see...I was an emotional-spiritual paralytic and I did not know it.  Go figure lol!  I had been rendered lame by my pattern of complaining, expressing my hurt...believing the illusion of change to be the reality of change...then staying.  Repeat...complaining, expressing my hurt...believing the illusion of change to be the reality of change...then staying.  And repeat.  

You see...the man in my life was not breaking my heart.  I was.  I chose to believe the illusion (his words) when the reality of his actions consistently revealed the truth.  My ego had paralyzed me.  Ah, but with the fall of my ego came the fall of the illusion.  Hmm, and how sweet it is to live in the reality of a miracle!

¹¹ “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” ¹² He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

~Mark 2:11-12 

You see...I chose to let go of a relationship that I experienced as hurtful and harmful.  I stopped waiting on Christ to come to save me from my circumstance (an unhealthy relationship) when He had already done so thousands of years ago.  But how did one question save me?  It allowed the synapses in my mind to spark, to light-up and bend toward the Holy Spirit's leading just enough for me to see...to really see that, in reality, Christ was waiting on me...waiting on me to recognize that I was already healed.  "Take up your mat and walk!"

   

I changed. 

All the simple phrases that the Most High spoke into my spirit over the years have reached a level of fullness.  Yet I am always, we are always, in the perfecting process.  From glory to Glory...

        

For knowledge and application...

"5 Ways to Know Your Spouse Has Truly Changed" is linked below.

http://www.crosswalk.com/family/marriage/doctor-david/5-ways-to-know-your-spouse-has-truly-changed.html

 

Experiencing the Right Hand of Fellowship

"...let the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer."


One of the most freeing choices I've made is letting go of the need to be right, the need to have my perspective (thoughts and feelings) be preeminent.  I've learned and I am learning what matters most in The Process.  Ah, from glory to Glory I suppose.  Like Apostle Paul, I've learned and I am learning to be content in the joy and pain of The Journey.  And currently I am trusting...trusting that what I am waiting for has already gone before me to my next destination...has already arrived.  It's ironic though...sometimes the right thing to do in Life is to allow death to take its natural course.  But for me, I often hold tightly to ghost.  Yet when I allow it, the struggle is over.

I gave up a 10 year ghost this past Friday.  Hmm, let's call it a personal Good Friday.  I gave up the very circumstance that has kept me nailed and suffering...a circumstance that has kept a dear brother of The Way nailed and suffering too.  Someone had to let go.  So I chose to say, "Yes, I will."  I've learned and I am learning that even though endings are painful, the death of the life we once knew must come into completion.  The Great Paradox - the pain of death begets the joy of Life.  If the poverty of death is the great divorce then is not the wealth of life anew not the great reconciliation?  I thought the struggle was right so much so that for years I justified unrest.  I justified the quenching of the peace of Christ in my life.  And then one day I made the choice...I decided that is was okay to be wrong.

Grand Transcendence.  I read once that there are 33 vertebrae in the human spine.  I read once too that the term "homo erectus" means "upright man".  Interesting, huh.  At one point the human race was not aware and then one day, we were.  In our travels we went from being bent-backed with our sights to the ground to being straight-backed with our sights to the Sun.  In our travels, we come into the awareness that we are sentient beings.  Know Thyself - reconciling oneself, coming into agreement with the God in me.  The Sacred Marriage.  When the acceptance of myself and the surrender of myself are naked as one, my life is in continual consummation with Love.  If  to reach an orgasm is to reach a "high point", then what orgasmic experience makes life so very sweet?  To know thyself, to allow another to experience my nakedness.  To have inner peace, to have outer peace.  To love, to be loved.  To walk with Christ, to walk in Christ with another.  To have life, to have life to the full.       

Vertebrae by vertebrae, step by ordered step my sight was set higher.  The beginning of walking in truth comes when I accept that I have walked in a lie and that my walk in the lie must come to a necessary end.  Condemnation comes when I choose to remain in error - the experience of shame and unrest.  Admitting wrong...there is no condemnation in it.  There is no shame in saying, "I was wrong."  So I let go.  Ah, what sweet surrender it is.  Peace. 


A question of pride and prejudice...
If my need to be "right" does not further love, then what does it profit me to hold on to this need?

"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" 

What does it profit me to gain my "right" and lose Love?

In life, I believe much of our struggles in every area of relationship (with ourselves, with our family, with our community and so on) can be stilled unto peace when we allow ourselves to be comfortable with one question...

What if I am wrong? 

The truth is...it takes a willingness to slay myself.

"...I die daily."

It requires a day-to-day willingness to sacrifice my ego at the behest of Greater Good.

One of my favorite short but sweet sermons was rendered by a "reluctant preacher."  It was entitled, "A Good Day to Die."  The truth is...everyday is a good day to die.  Everyday holds within it the High opportunity for us to choose what we really value.  In practical reality, it comes down to discernment.  Usually when we speak of discernment we are usually referring to discerning the motives and intentions, the thoughts and feelings of those around us.  But do we take the time to discern...to examine...to consider...to search through our own motives and intentions, thoughts and feelings?

When I took the time to ask myself, "What am I coveting at the price of forfeiting peace?"  In life, what do we all normally choose over Love?  Pride - the need to be right above another.  But was this not Satan's most audacious flaw?

Did not "the enemy" decide that his/her perspective (thoughts and feelings) were preeminent? I believe pride is the most favored son/daughter of fear.  Pride - the fear of letting go of control cleverly disguised as seeing me, seeing myself as "right"...believing I am right?

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight."

But right in whose eyes (perspective)?  Me, myself, and I?  In relationship, what does it mean in practical reality to "lean not on your own understanding"?  What am I coveting?

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Self righteousness - believing the self to be right.  If I treasure being right, then what is the true state of my heart?

When I allowed The Most High to right my perspective...to right my "right," the question "what if I am wrong" ceased being a source of resistance.  In practical reality, I chose to do what it took to end my own unhealthy patterns (any repetitive destructive thinking)...the choices that I make that serve to frustrate life, grieve the Holy Spirit.  In practical reality, I made up my mind...made the steadfast and resolute decision(s) to do whatever it takes to end unhealthy cycles (any looping destructive behavior).

When I chose to agree with God's Right rather than my "right", I experienced a depth of fellowship that I had not previously known.


May I invite you to get comfortable with the question...

What if I am wrong?

What if there is more to Life, more to God than my perspective (thoughts and feelings)?    

Is God not the God of host (many)?

In all of its many forms, is Love not THE ONLY RIGHT?

Are our words and actions (thinking and behavior) destructive?  Are we tearing down our relationships with our left hand?

Or are our words and actions (thinking and behavior) constructive?  Are we building up our relationships with God's Right?

pride or Love?

prejudice or Peace?

Who is the Most High?

What is our Highest Good?

What if in holding tightly to my experiences and my view (treasured thoughts and feelings), I've been wrong all of my life?  What if we all have been wrong all of our lives?  Yet what if I chose...what if we decided to change our mind about it all today?

"Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."

When the time comes for us all to meet our Maker, will my "right"...will our perspective stand under the scrutiny of "the fulfillment of the law"?

Will mine?  

Will yours?

In practical reality, what is the day-to-day...what is the pattern and cycle of a heart in pride's fallen state? 

Does the means (my experiences) by which I acquired my "right" (my view) justify the ends...broken individuals...broken marriages...broken families...broken churches...broken communities - the compounding of broken fellowship?

What does the reality of my life...what does the reality of yours reveal about the state of our hearts?

Has your need to be right...your fear of letting go of control done "harm to a neighbor"? 

Has mine?
  
"Ill-gotten treasures have no lasting value, but righteousness delivers from death."

To experience the right hand of fellowship, what is required of thee? 

This past February...ironically in our societies month of love, I heard one of my favorite bible teachers express, "Truth is simple."  Well, the simple truth is...I have the power to change.

"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to Him be glory..." 

I have the power to repent, to change my mind about it all and in so doing, quite literally change the course of my life...to have my goings established toward Greater Good.  The simple truth is...I can decide, we can decide to set our affections Higher.

Shall I, shall we continue in sin...continue in the patterns and cycles that break what really matters in Life, in Christ?

In the words of my favorite short but sweet sermon...

Is it a good day to die?

If truth is indeed simple, then is not deciding to do what it takes to further Love's understanding and Love's peace not simple too?

Shall we set our treasures, our affections Higher? 

Is it as simple as changing my mind about what really matters?

May I invite you to take a listen...

 

Love's Power Over Pride

Dr. David Jeremiah