This life in Christ is about
GROWTH and DEATH
happening simultaneously.
Without the one, the other will not exist.
{PHOTOS FROM MY PARENT'S OLD HOME}
we're going to miss it so much.
"cry out for INSIGHT and understanding.
Search for them as you would for lost money.
THEN YOU WILL understand what it means
to the fear the Lord,
and you will gain knowledge of God.
THEN YOU WILL UNDERSTAND
what is right,
just and fair,
and you WILL KNOW
how to find the RIGHT COURSE OF ACTION EVERY TIME.
For wisdom will enter your heart
and knowledge will fill you with JOY."
Don't know about you, but
soul-searching makes me tired and
Maybe it's partly a personality thing, (my fellow sanguines get me on this)! There are friends and family that I have who almost effortlessly unearth the "deep", in themselves and in others. And get this, THEY ENJOY IT!, it actually gives them LIFE. I admire this in others, however when I apply it to myself, I get exhuasted, overwhelmed and sad.
{Three things we sanguines try to avoid like the plague}!
Exhausted because this has nothing to with other people, it's an introverted process, a going inward, a silencing.
Overwhelmed because it's so out of my control. All this chaos of the heart, there's no order or direction or "place" labeled for the things I come upon.
And sad. Sad because I see all the brokenness in me and how black my heart truly is. It IS deceitful above all else, deceiving most of all, myself. And just when I thought things were looking so good, (refer to the previous sentence of decieving myself)!
BUT THIS IS RIGHT WHERE I NEED TO BE,
WHERE'S HE'S CALLED ME TO BE.
A place of forced searching out.
There's a lamp at my feet and little bit of light at my path, (psalm 119:105), and that's about it, and it's really all I need right now. There are a lot of verses about lamps in the Bible, never realized that before, here are a few:
"For You, O Lord, are my Lamp;
the Lord brightens my darkness."
II Samuel 22:29
"For You cause my lamp to be lighted and to shine; the Lord my God illumines my darkness."
Psalm 18:28
"The spirit of man, is the lamp of the Lord,
searching all his innermost parts."
Proverbs 20:27
(verses from Amplified version).
When I've read verses like this before I would often think "my darkness" refers to the trials or hardships one is going through and maybe that's what it does mean. But today it took on another LITERAL meaning....THE DARKNESS IN ME, "my darkness." The things inside me that MUST BE ILLUMINATED, brought INTO HIS LIGHT, surrendered, often again and again.
It was interesting to me that the first two verses from
II Samuel and from Psalm had something to say about a haughty spirit. If you read it, you'll see that the previous verse in BOTH passages talks about the Lord "bringing down" the haughty and those with haughty looks and THEN it talks about the Lord being a lamp. I thought about the fact that pride in ourselves and our own ways of "rightness" BLIND US to the TRUTH of ourselves and our sin, our darkness. In those dark places we cannot even sense HIS LIGHT, let alone see His lamp gently shining on our issues when we are "captured" by our own brightness/pride of self/how "far" we've come/how much "truth" we know/all the conferences we've attended/the experiences we've had/the Bible studies we've completed.
And, sad, but true, it is from that place that we have "haughty eyes", (HIGH EYES), not only comparing ourselves and looking "down" at others, but thinking others are "less" then we are.
Comparing our journeys.
When I cast my eye upon others,
scoping out their splintered ways while I'm stumbling over my own logs.
We can't even SEE our own sin on the stage of our life, it's all backstage rushing through a costume change,
but boy, we've got great seats to the sins of others,
front-row-center!
"Haughty eyes push us toward seeing everybody else's sins. Good eyesight means seeing our true condition."
~Todd Freeman~
This past week I heard a teaching by Beth Moore, (from her study "James~Mercy Triumphs"). She was speaking of her journey toward wholeness and what that has looked like, still looks like.
This is a loose quote,
but still gets the point across of what she was saying:
"wholeness = taking all my pieces and laying them at His feet,
saying 'here, You can have the whole mess.'"
And perhaps ONLY after we give Him our whole mess,
does He leads us into WHOLENESS.
His faithfulness pulls us in.
All of us, every.part.
He says He will redeem us, every.part.
This is the good news, such good news that, as our Pastor once said, "it takes a lifetime to absorb."
The opposites collide to create such beauty within us. the joy for mourning and beauty for ashes kind of stuff. praises for burdens. rebuilding the ancient ruins of the human heart. sense of our wanderings.
I'll take a seat to that production....
front-row-center, please.
"You don't measure me like man may see,
You're looking at my heart,
the core of me."
~Misty Edwards~
