Wednesday, May 24, 2006
limits of the possible.
My limit of the possible is different than yours. what do I mean? I mean the place where the end of your rope is, your wits end. There may be areas of my life that you look at and are amazed at how far i can go on my own and likewise i at different areas of your life.
God starts there. If there was another way He would use that, but because of our pride He will not. He is a gentleman. He would start at the beggining instead of our end. If we could learn to come to Him first, things would go smoother. But somewhere along the line pride and its bastard child self-pity hold us back whispering lies in the name of "logic and reason". The foundation or premise starts with thoughts like "you need to take responsibility for your life "you need to provide for your family". We believe "God helps those who help themselves". What a lie! God helps those who trust solely on Him alone and who lean not on our own understanding. Its the "be a man" syndrome. We need Him to tell us what a man is by telling us who He is. We are made in His image. If we want to know who we are we need to learn of Him from Him. Yes God gives us a mind and we should use it- that starts with correct premises presuppositions based on His character.
God is our "Provider". How could God provide for us, we won't let Him. Everything about our lives proves it. I am talking about culturally. World culture. If i was to look at it from the most positive point of view i would say we feel guilty that we are shirking our responsibility by depending on God. At worst, and I believe this is the truth unfortunately, we are trying to "make a name for ourselves" and build ourselves a tower of Babel to reach the skies (gen). Literally we dont have to look far. Skyscapers are totally impratical ego representations. God tries to nudge us in the right direction while protecting the gift (not right) of autonomy He gave us but we are still drinking spiritual milk struggling with the fact of whether He exists or not. Next we struggle with who is the head of the household. The implications are too important to just live our lives by default and not be thinking of the implications of what we believe and how we live. The burden of Provider is too heavy for mere mortals to carry. "do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?"(matt 6:25) the what choked out the Word? Like seed amoung thorns "the worries of this life, and the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful." (mark 4:19).
I hate to say it but our Christian walk is unfruitful. Certainly people who are not believers see it. Could this be a reason? We are slipping away one desire at a time. One worry about the small stuff in our lives. One day at a time. One non deliberate action or thought at a time. Could it be that simple? Are we at our end yet. Am i at mine?
God starts there. If there was another way He would use that, but because of our pride He will not. He is a gentleman. He would start at the beggining instead of our end. If we could learn to come to Him first, things would go smoother. But somewhere along the line pride and its bastard child self-pity hold us back whispering lies in the name of "logic and reason". The foundation or premise starts with thoughts like "you need to take responsibility for your life "you need to provide for your family". We believe "God helps those who help themselves". What a lie! God helps those who trust solely on Him alone and who lean not on our own understanding. Its the "be a man" syndrome. We need Him to tell us what a man is by telling us who He is. We are made in His image. If we want to know who we are we need to learn of Him from Him. Yes God gives us a mind and we should use it- that starts with correct premises presuppositions based on His character.
God is our "Provider". How could God provide for us, we won't let Him. Everything about our lives proves it. I am talking about culturally. World culture. If i was to look at it from the most positive point of view i would say we feel guilty that we are shirking our responsibility by depending on God. At worst, and I believe this is the truth unfortunately, we are trying to "make a name for ourselves" and build ourselves a tower of Babel to reach the skies (gen). Literally we dont have to look far. Skyscapers are totally impratical ego representations. God tries to nudge us in the right direction while protecting the gift (not right) of autonomy He gave us but we are still drinking spiritual milk struggling with the fact of whether He exists or not. Next we struggle with who is the head of the household. The implications are too important to just live our lives by default and not be thinking of the implications of what we believe and how we live. The burden of Provider is too heavy for mere mortals to carry. "do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?"(matt 6:25) the what choked out the Word? Like seed amoung thorns "the worries of this life, and the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful." (mark 4:19).
I hate to say it but our Christian walk is unfruitful. Certainly people who are not believers see it. Could this be a reason? We are slipping away one desire at a time. One worry about the small stuff in our lives. One day at a time. One non deliberate action or thought at a time. Could it be that simple? Are we at our end yet. Am i at mine?
hd 7:20 PM
1 Comments:
I feel like I want to argue with you. Yet I have no arguments. I want to disagree because I don't want what you're saying to be the truth. God's measuring stick is clearly standing, not in judgement, but more like a gentle magnet to pull us back to balance/center/Him, yet I dislike feeling the pull. Lately I have been feeling like I don't even remember what "letting go and trusting" looks/feels/smells like. The harder choice is to trust in His provision...trust people in our life...trust that there's MORE. The climb out is always mentally harder to start than to actually do. (evidently I'm in a constant climb out!)
