I'm feeling this morning like this whole problem with shame is something that Father is leading me to ponder deeply, once again, at least for a moment? Who knows how long that moment will last? I hadn't even tied together the fact that I had just ordered the new revised version of Wayne Jacobsen's book He Loves Me, but this morning I woke up with that book on my mind. I don't have the new copy yet that has some additional thoughts from Wayne, so I grabbed the original copy and I am going to begin reading anyway.
If our thinking is wrong about this God we say we want to know and want others to know, what we present to the world in word and deed about him will be more about our skewed view of him then it will be the reality of who he really is.
In a conversation with a friend this morning talking about some of this stuff, this whole notion of using love as a weapon came up. If we are using love as a weapon....shame, guilt, fear, unworthiness and so forth, in an attempt to conform some one's behavior, and it being with held by us or the god we "know," based upon some one's performance within a moral code or ethic, it is not love we are thinking about and it certainly, at least to me, doesn't seem to be consistent with the message of Jesus.
Call me crazy if you want for desiring to go down this path of pondering that seems to be so "off the farm" to what most of religion tells folks today. But you know what? The God I am coming to know, is trust worthy enough, and is big enough, to allow me to ask such questions.....Even if I am "off the farm"!!!!!!! I'm learning that it is in this trusting relationship with a Father that loves me UNCONDITIONALLY and allows me to think and explore as a child does, it is there that I learn to walk. Tripping and stumbling is allowed.
10 comments:
I love that tripping and stumbling is allowed.
And for mine, I think the whole thing of shame is getting to the real heart. Shame is what keeps us away from him, from climbing into his lap, isn't it?
I feel like God has dealt with big wads of my shame over the past several years. It's been wonderful to gain a measure of freedom. Bit still - there is a ways to go. It runs so deep, as deep as myself, right the core of myself. I wanna be free totally of shame. Take it away, Jesus. Oh, well, actually ... you have, haven't you? It's just for me to learn to discover it and walk in it. Bring it on, dear Brother.
I just got the second edition on Friday, and read the first chapter on my lunch hour. This time around the first chapter hit me in a way that didn't before. Like the story of the woman and the meadow, I have a 'defining' moment in my buried past that I think God is beginning to bring back up so he can deal with it. I'm starting to think that my night fears are related to this. Will keep you posted.
I'm praying for you Rick.
Well, let me throw in my thing...
I don't feel any problem with "shame" per se, in other words, I don't feel like God's love for me is based on my perfomance. My problem is perhaps one of entitlement. Because I grew up believing that God's love for me is based on His Grace, I feel entitled to His Love no matter what I do. I expect it. But I don't really FEEL any sense that He loves me uniquely/individually. I don't experience it, or appreciate it. I'm thrown in the lot with the rest of humanity.
I don't quite know how to process THAT. I just keep waiting for HIm to pull me out of my misery, and it doesn't happen.
Let me add that I just don't feel like crawling in the lap of someone who isn't there for me, or doesn't seem to care.
Laurie, can you explain what you mean when you said this:
"Because I grew up believing that God's love for me is based on His Grace, I feel entitled to His Love no matter what I do. I expect it. But I don't really FEEL any sense that He loves me uniquely/individually. I don't experience it, or appreciate it."
I'm going to risk playing the fool again here and see where it goes.
Lauri, let's for a moment think about this in a different way. What if a lot of the apparent answered prayers of folks that are asking for "things" (add whatever you like) aren't answered prayers at all. What if it is just people getting lucky and things working out for them? Many people I hear say God answered a prayer of theirs seemed to me to be doing a lot of manipulating to get what they wanted. I have looked back over my life and seen where I have done that very thing and called it answered prayer.
And I am serious about thinking about this in an unconventional way.
The Santa Clause god acts much differently with most folks here in America than he does for most of the other beautiful people in the world, does he not? Why would he? Why us?
Maybe we are thinking about God in a way that isn't based in reality and then leads many here and around the world into much trouble and confusion about God? Many end up feeling like he cares about others more because of things they seem to get when compared to the things they don't get. Maybe we have ended up with a warped sense of how God shows us his love becuase of all of this?
I was talking to someone the other day who is on the verge of what looks like a nervous breakdown because of what looks like unbearable things coming against their family. And I mean unbearable things. They aren't feeling too loved by God right now and they can't understand why he seems to answer others less important prayers and desires and ignores them.
This scenario plays itself out in countless people's lives all over the world. Does God really care about some more than he does others? When it comes to having what we want, Americans have more than any other people in the entire world. This leaves us Americans on the receiving end of "God's blessing" more so than any one else in the world, that is, if we can really measure God's love and blessing by what we get or have. I just think if we continue to look at God answering prayers based on this type of thinking and we measure God's love for us based on the same thing, we end up living with many false assumptions about God and ourselves.
I think this is where I do a lot of tripping and stumbling to be honest. If I'm not supposed to look at my circumstances and wonder if God loves me, where do I look? I'm hoping that it will be found not in circumstances but in a tangible reality of a real relationship with him, but even there am I just setting myself up for disappointment? I've never tried silence, meditation, conversational prayer, etc. -- my denomination taught bible reading, and prayer lists, but I'm hoping that developing other means of prayer and mediation, and times of listening will help to make it a reality. I've had moments here and there, and I must not forget that. My tendency is to forget or question those moments, ugh! More tripping and stumbling ahead, I'm sure.
PS Check out my post for today, and let me know if you have any insight. Thanks for taking the time to chat with me!
Sometimes I feel a little like the spoiled child of wealthy parents, who demands that God show me His love, just because I am His child and entitled to that love. How do I measure His love? Yes, to some extent it is the ease of my circumstances, but also the reality of a real relationship with Him, and the amount of transformation I see going on in my thinking and attitude about life.
I get tripped up with "you don't have to DO anything to receive God's love", but doing nothing doesn't get me there either. I do think that more Bible reading and time in prayer must be important, but I lack the faith that it will do any good. And I do think it takes a step of faith...
It seems to me that measuring our circumstances is always setting ourselves up for disappointment? Isn't that the daisey petal christianity Wayne speaks of in He Loves Me?
Wasn't it Peter that was told by Jesus that he would be forced to go places by others and in turn John might live until his return? Was God's love ever being expressed less for Peter than it was for John?
It just seems we have this all mixed up in our heads? Me included at times. Are we talking about "happiness" or are we talking about freedom? Or should I say; Is it happiness we long for or is it freedom?
Happiness comes from the root word hap. Happen stance. It is a chance circumstance. It is dependent upon our circumstances. When they match up to what we want we are happy and feel loved...when they do not, we are not happy and we are left wondering if we are loved. To me this is not at all what Jesus or Paul, or Peter, or James or any of the other followers of Jesus were getting at. Look at their lives....not an existance I'm guessing many of us would suggest warranted "happiness"? But something was different about them. THEY WERE FREE.
Happiness is about chance and it is the experience of the daisey petal type christianity, is it not? Freedom is about freedom and it only exist when we are connected to and dependent on the only source of life available....the one who is loving us unconditionally even when we can't feel it for whatever reason. Is it our "unfavorable" circumstances that keep us from knowing this and feeling it at the same time?
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