Currently reading: The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus by Brennan Manning

I suspect this book will be rather challenging for me, judging from the first few pages which have given me pause.

Manning says, “Religion is a matter not of learning how to think about God but of actually encountering Him. Losing our illusions is painful because illusions are the stuff we live by. The Spirit of God is the great unmasker of illusions, the great destroyer of icons and idols.”….”God strips those falsehoods from us no matter how naked it may make us, because it is better to live naked in truth than closed in fantasy.”

Ok, encountering God, how scary is that!!!! For me that does not seem to be something that will happen this eternity. I guess I encountered God when I repented my sins and got saved. But how does one encounter an elusive God after that. 

I can enjoy the nature that He created. I can watch the Spirit move among members of the church, joy in the beauty and innocence of a child, but God encounter ME. That is one heck of a pipe dream.

Now I am willing to admit that maybe I have a false idea of what encountering God means. I guess I would have liked to encounter God when I was a kid – you know some kind of Hero God who came down and rescued me – but that did not happen. Guess I would have liked a real presence of God, but for me imagining encountering God is like playing lets pretend or dress up.

But given I may be wrong about encountering God, I am curious how you would define it, and how you encountered God if you are willing to share. For me, just give me the title, “Hopeless case.”

Thanks,

Heather

Great sermon this Sunday. Our pastor was talking about the Beatitudes (Be-attitudes).

Now, I know that we are to try and live by them every day, but here is a twist I hadn’t thought about. Here is the jist of the sermon.

If a child is asked what Beattitude they wanted to pick to live their lives by, they would look at the rewards and then pick the attitude based on the reward.

An adult might look for rewarding work, what would be the most pleasant work to do.

A spiritually minded person would look at loving God, knowing that God would take care of the rest, and if we focused on loving God, our actions would follow.

I sure missed being on line, and will try to come back later with other things to share.

Heather

 

sorry for not posting, we are having problems with our computer and defragmenting, takes forever. Will hopefully be done by tomorrow. Take care.

Heather

Interesting Bible study this week on the 3rd day, but there is much to process before I can share, and we didn’t get to finish completely. A few interesting things is that there is a progression from deliverance to holiness to prosperity. And that pattern is seen all over the Bible. For example, Exodus delivered, then holiness the wandering in the wilderness to prepare for the promised land, then the promised land.

Another interesting thing that I hadn’t thought about is that the Bible starts with a wedding and ends with a wedding. Kind of cool.

I am almost done with Buchanan’s book, but here is an interesting idea that touched me.

P.149 -150 “Our lives should be lived with expectancy. Not necessarily with expectation, because expectation tends to dictate terms. The Pharisees lived with expectation and rejected Christ when He did not fit the rigid narrowness of their expectations. Often I wonder if we, waiting for Christ’s return, do it more with expectation than expectancy. Expectancy is the belief that God will do something. Expectation insists He did it in just this way. Sometimes expectation blinds us more to the God who is here right now than outright disbelief does. The Pharisees couldn’t see Jesus for looking. Or those two disciples on the road to Emmaus. There they are, bemoaning the absence of the very one who’s present with them. What made them deaf and blind? Expectations: “We had hoped He was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” But that hope took a form that shut out surprises, like crosses and resurrection and a deeper redemption.”

I think that I view God in my past with disappointed expectation. I expected Him to do something to stop my father. Expectancy would not have helped back then. I needed interaction, God striking my father dead, God stopping my father, God reaching down and comforting me, God finding me a new home earlier on, God, making my father repent, I could come up with a few actions that God could have done. Instead He did nothing. Frankly I do get puzzled at the uneveness of God’s interventions. One time he saves a life, the next time He doesn’t. But an 8 year old has a hard time understanding God not doing anything. And yet this God wants our trust and belief. Hard to think of God with expectancy in the midst of a crisis.

Sometimes I feel like a mouse in an insidious maze, one that gives a promise of hope but it is all smoke and shadows.

Heather

This cracked me up, from Pastor Tim’s Clean Pun List

******

Here is today’s CleanPun.

*The Songs For Bible Characters*

Noah: “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”

Adam and Eve: “Strangers in Paradise”

Lazarus: “The Second Time Around”

Esther: “I Feel Pretty”

Job: “I’ve Got a Right to Sing the Blues”

Moses: “The Wanderer”

Jezebel: “The Lady is a Tramp”

Samson: “Hair”

Salome: “I Could Have Danced All Night”

Daniel: “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”

Joshua: “Good Vibrations”

Peter: “I’m Sorry”

Esau: “Born To Be Wild”

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: “Great Balls of Fire!”

The Three Kings: “When You Wish Upon a Star”

Jonah: “Got a Whale of a Tale”

Elijah: “Up, Up, and Away”

Methuselah: “Stayin’ Alive”

Nebuchadnezzar: “Crazy” 

Pastor Tim’s CleanPun List
http://www.cybersaltlists.org

Please visit the CleanLaugh Site.

Still reading Your God is too Safe by Mark Buchanan, and working on the second series of Revelation by Kay Arthur. Very fascinating. She is now having us draw out what happens chapter by chapter in Revelation, with a line drawn down the center of the paper for on earth, and then in heaven and beneath the earth – to show what happens, when. Not an artist, but it is good to visualize the book of Revelation, but it takes hours to do this.

Here are a few interesting quotes from Your God is Too Safe

Page 64, he was talking about doubts and said “Sometimes doubting is not a lack of faith but rather an expression of it. Sometimes to doubt is merely to insist that God is taken seriously not frivolously, to insist that our faith is placed in and upheld by something other than seeming conjuring tricks.”

Page 65 “Biblical faith is not sentimental, not sloppy or vague. It excludeds more than it embraces. Biblical faith progresses in an alternating rhythm of yes and no, a taking hold and a letting go, a believing and a doubting.”

He talks about Peter and Thomas and how they both believed one by seeing the other by not seeing.

Page 65 “The word skepticism has an interesting etymology. It means to look at a matter closely, to scrutinize, to study with great care and in minute detail. Based on this definition, what the church needs is not less but more skepticism. I met a mam who told me he didn’t believe the Bible because he was a skeptic. I asked him if he had read the Bible.
     ‘No, not really,’ he said.’I told you; I’m a  skeptic. I don’t believe it.’
     This is not skepticism. This is its opposite–a refusal to investigate, to scrutinize, to ponder deeply. One thing skepticism is not is an excuse for evasion, an alibi for idleness.”

****

This passage hit home to me because even though I am questioning, doubting, looking for God’s presence it is an example of more faith than I ever had before.

I remember once, as a full-fledged witch, how proud I was that I did not invoke God when I went into surgery, did not ask for forgiveness, talk with the local chaplin or priest, or ask for anything but from my pagan gods. I did not give God one moment of thought.

In fact I spent 40 years of not acknowledging God once I turned my back on Him at the age of 8 I never once looked back. I did not pray to Him, depended on myself, never spoke about Him except to mock those stupid Christians who would believe such nonsense when clearly the occult gods had been around so much longer than the new religion Christianity. How naieve they were, or so I thought.

That changed when I felt the need to give God one more chance. I had the idea to read the Bible through once from cover to cover (now where did that idea come from?  I know now that God seeks his children, we do not seek Him on our own.)

When I first started relating to God I raged at him. Innoculous words such as “God is love, God loves his children, He cries tears when you were hurt,” The “footprints poem” would send me into a blithering rage, seeing red. I would fume at God, rant at God, call him a bold faced liar. I told him off but good.

Now that would probably make most Christians cringe, but for me it was the first time I talked with God. The first time I acknowledged His presence. It obviously was not very pious, respectful, Christian, but I was speaking toward God. That meant that He was real in a sense to me. Real enough to yell at. That was a first encounter with God.

My doubts and fears, while not what most Christians would approve, still give God a reality, because I am doubting and fearing something. Not ignoring, Not seeking elsewhere. For me it is a big step. I am hoping that God understands this and does not perceive it as heresy. It is a real seeking.

I still feel that I talk AT God, not TO God. I hope He listens, but can’t quite be sure. The response is not there in a way that I can perceive. I still feel that praying to the wall is more responsive.

Here is a quote that really fits me:

Page 73 “This is the myth of self-reliance. Being self-reliant, being true to ourselves is at the root of our fallenness…But self-reliance also plagues the redeemed. We are painfully aware of this, of how much we withhold and withdraw from the hands of God, how much we clutch our lives and our plans in our grubby, fumbling little hands because we dare not relinquish such treasures to God. Most of borderland’s inhabitants are proudly, stubbornly self-reliant.”

I often ask myself, can I trust God, can I relinquish control. My being in control has not always netted the best choices, but can I trust a silent God? so challenging for me.

Page 126: :”We honestly think that we ourselves and those around us should be proficient with spiritual power, moving and acting with agility and endurance, wisdom and purity, able to conquer long-established habits of sloth and rebelliousness, simply on the basis of our desire and effort and sincerity….Wehave to train to run marathons, climb mountains, play violins.That the most basic idea in the world. It needs no further commentary. We have to train for spiritual life. That’s the most lost idea to the world and it requires whole books and sermon series to establish its value, even its validity.”

He then goes to talk about holy disciplines, which are not really helpful unless they are used for the right purpose, to build one up in Christ. They are not to be used as bragging rights, to compare oneself to another, to gain brownie points in the Kingdom. The sole purpose is relationship with God, or else even holy disciplines are valueless.

Here is one of the greatest quotes in the book. I am going to capitalize it it is so great and found on page 131:

WE HAVE FAR MORE WON’T POWER THAN WILLPOWER ANYHOW.

That thought blew me away. I think I most certainly have a lot more won’t than will power.

But one thing that strikes home is how some Christians in my circle of friends tend to talk about how they have resolved certain issues in their lives using spiritual principles. It is great and I rejoice greatly with them at their accomplishments. But once they have won that struggle in their lives they often get spiritual amnesia and forget how hard it was to get them to the point where they are. They seem to think that if they could do it, it should be a piece of cake for any other believer. They talk about it in such a way that the person feels condemned, and ends up giving up because at that particular point in time it is not what the person needs. The Holy Spirit really does know what is best, and will move us at our pace. So what would be a failing for one person, may be something that is not the issue for another person at that particular time.

I hope you do not mind the searching that I am doing, and I thank you for your input. It helps so much to add to what I am learning.

Heather

 

 

Needs

I was thinking today about how tough I was on the therapists I saw as a young adult. My first contact with a therapist was after a foiled suicide attempt. That therapist saved my life and actually bent the rules to keep seeing me for longer than the six months that was the stint of the usual clinic setting. He helped me to sort out things. Of course I was rather conflicted and by that time (age 18) I was into the occult and witchcraft. Therapists tend to take a dim view of that subject in those days, so they wanted to make sure I wasn’t really losing touch with reality. I remember being the center of a group of therapists assessing my mental state. Not so great being in the hot seat.

Medication did not do well with me either, I remember once being given an antidepresant which caused me to lose facial muscle control. So I gave up on medicine, but that was after I had collected a stockpile of sleeping pills and antidepressants to replace the draino of my suicide stash.

Because seeing doctors in a clinic setting meant that the relationship was short-lived, I became adept at telling my story in a sort of dah, dah, dah, dah fashion. Had it down to a one session, but no emotion attached. At that time there was never any emotion attached to any statements I made to them. I had learned early on that showing emotions meant that my life would be lost, I had many beatings to drum that lesson into me. I did not dare let one emotion slip. So I told the tale, which at that time was rather sparser than what I know now, so many memories were buried and I wasn’t digging there, no way, no how. So it was rather clincial. The doctors seemed more interesting in medicating me and keeping me from killing myself. But not much change occurred.

I remember one time when I also had to sit through a group therapy session (my first and last) and I was stuck next to a woman who was the epitome of my mother and sister, and pushed me so deeply down inside that I didn’t surface for air for a long time. Never went back to group therapy period.

As I got older and went through more of the therapists, I finally divorced my husband (the one who is now dead) and got a job on my own. I was then able to afford a therapist that I could keep seeing not through a clinic. I was so needy with this therapist that I ran him through the wringer. I don’t know where he is now, but if I did, I would apologize. He could do nothing to please the neediness inside. He didn’t say the right words, ask the right questions, or respond in ways that would fulfill the gaping needs inside.

Of course, needy as I was, I wanted him to do this instinctively and saw it as tremendously uncaring that he did not respond the way I wanted him to. I was very suicidal at the time, so often had panic phone calls with him, and I guess he tried hard to appease me, but probably was as baffeled by my behavior and frustrated as I was with his. It also didn’t help that he was seeing my roommate as a patient as well. The best thing he did was to encourage me to write things, and I began journalling, a thing I am doing again through Xanga and also I wrote an autobiography. It was pretty good, but at the time I wrote it there were many tell-all autobiographies about sexual abuse. I sent it off and got two personal letters from editors and one from an author, but the market wasn’t there. Right now the book is sitting in my pastor’s office. He does not want me to have it back because of all the pain inside, but wants me to re-write it to reflect how to spiritually handle what one went through. Not ready to do that yet.

The last therapist I had was more in control of the therapy situation, in that he did not let me take control with emotional games, and I guess we went the furthest. It was there that I uncovered just what went on in my past and was able to see my mother’s role in what happened to me. It was incredibly painful times, and I even cried a few times in his office. Something never before that had happened. By crying I meant a few tears. But inside there was so much conflict. This therapist is the one that I asked if I had kids did he think I would abuse them. He told me no, and he was right. I have not abused my kids. I was fully prepared to have an abortion if he had any thought that I might have abused my kids.

Well marriage and kids put therapy on hold for a long time. But the memories and hurts do not stay buried even though there is business, and the pain, hurt and depression eventually emerged again.

Now I am blessed with a pastor who is also a pastoral counselor and we have really sorted out issues. By no means am I near the end of the journey, but it is funny how, when God is in the mix, so much more is accomplished.

I guess writing this is because I realize that I treat God pretty much like I treated my therapists. I tend to not let him hear my real feelings about issues, tend to push the emotions down, not want to draw attention to myself, not share all that I really should share. I want something from God, but don’t know what it is, how to ask him, how to reach out to him and if he reached out to me I would run scared. I hope I am not driving God crazy, but there is so much neediness and I don’t know how to get those needs filled by God or anyone else for that matter. Perhaps the damage is too deep. Perhaps there is no healing possible, perhaps it is as hopeless as I feel.

I wish I knew what to articulate about the needs I had, I guess that would make asking God easier.

Heather

I have been so touched lately by the outpouring of care and concern on my fears, doubts, and questions about God. I suppose that if there was ever a manifestation of God on the earth, it would be the love shown here.

Abba, people seem to feel so close to God, so close that they, like Jesus, call him Abba. I wouldn’t dare do that. Erik Erickson mentions in his books that if a person is to develop basic trust they have to have experienced unconditonal love. I would guess that the Abba of people’s experience is that kind of a God, but how does one relate to unconditonal love if it was never a part of your experience.

In a recent Bible study our teacher drew three triangles on the blackboard

at the apex, the point of one triangle was spirit, with the base being soul and body.

triangle 2′s apex was soul with the base being spirit and body

Triangle 3′s apex was body, with the base being spirit and soul

The questions was who is in control (at the apex), in healthy spiritual life Christ is in control speaking through our spirit to direct our soul (mind and emotions) and body.

Any other configuration is unbalanced and unstable.

Well, this person here is very unbalanced and unstable. I think that for me the problem is CONTROL.

If you grow up in an abusive household you do not have control, or if you find a way to get control it is not of the healthy kind. In my household my parents held the control, did the abuse. The only methods I had for survival was to learn to control my emotions and expressions, to store away some draino for a quick exit if things got too bad (the only poison I could get my hands on at 8), and to go so far inside with anything that was childlike, tender and sensitive so that it could not be destroyed by them. Also to make sure that if something really mattered I would act as if it did not matter beause if they knew it mattered, it would be used as a weapon against me.

Problem is, I ended up with the priority of finding a way to be in control to protect my life. Now Christ is here wanting to be in control, to be the authority in my life, and the idea of relinquishing control to Him is so difficult.

No matter how much I read the Bible, read about Christ, I am having a difficult time feeling that He can be trusted with control in my life. It boils down to why He didn ‘t protect me back then. Until I find out that answer, I think I have dug my heels in about turning over control.

Of course, logically, I sure made a mess of my life so my control isn’t all that great either, and I know that there are many things that I have no control over.

I think the biggest fear is that if  I reach out to Christ and He doesn’t respond, then I am left with absolutely nothing. At least now I have the illusion that if I reached out maybe Christ would answer. What if I reach out and He doesn’t. Better to pretend I guess.

Still snowing, six inches on the ground. kids are having fun with it though, and I should take out stock in hot chocolate.

Have a great Sunday, and thanks for listening.

Heather

 

Currently reading Rosamunde Pilcher’s Coming Home for my women’s book club. Seems to be an interesting World War II novel.

Also reading Revelation (The Bible) and Your God is Too Safe by Mark Buchanan

We are waiting to hear how much snow we are going to get, I think about 10 or more inches of snow. sigh.

If you do not mind, please keep me in your prayers. I seem to be in a downward spiral of emotions, memories emerging, and sleeplessness. I know it will pass, but it is tough dealing with it in the midst.

Well, our pastor is on part vacation, part evangelical trip, so today’s Bible study was done by the assistant pastor. My husband commented, Pastor Don makes things sound easy, Pastor Ted seems to complicate things. Today’s Bible study was Pastor Ted.

It was very interesting though and part of it seems to fit with Buchanan’s book. I am hoping I can get this down clearly.

He started out by asking an interesting question, “Can satan cast out satan.”

The responses were mixed, I stated that yes he could. This, believe it or not was the right answer. I got this from all the years of counselling with my pastor. See, I came to this church with a background of the occult, big time. I remember telling my pastor that I was a white witch, that I only did good things, healing and helping others through divination. He recommended a great book for me to read The Beautiful Side of Evil, which if you haven’t read it is a good description of how satan works through what appears to the senses to be so good.

My pastor explained to me that when I was doing a healing here was what was happening. 1. satan is the author of sickness and disease, so the sickness came from satan. 2. When I laid hands on people, cast a spell, read the cards satan removed his hand of sickness from off of the person. I was led to believe I had effected the healing with the help of whatever god or goddess I was invoking, but really it was just satan lifting his hand of sickness off of the person. At any time the satan could return the sickness, it was not a thorough healing as one that can come from God. 3. That satan wanted people to think that there were two different kinds of witchcraft good and evil, so that they would be fooled into thinking that they were doing good works, so thus would please god.

Eventually I was able to see this, and once I saw through the deception, I was flabbergasted.

Well, today’s Bible study added something that really excited me. At one point Jesus said that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. When satan does his tricks and removes the disease to fool us, what is that but a kingdom divided against itself!!!!!!!

To continue, we looked at Acts 19: 11-20 the seven sons of Sceva,  who were casting out spirits by the Jesus whom Paul preaches. The spirits ended up possessing the sons and the Israelite priest saying that, Paul I know and Jesus I know, but I do not know you, and the spirits came onto the priests.

We also talked about the people today who claim to cast out demons. Some demons are not really demons at all, but just our problems with our own flesh. But the ones that claim to cast out demons may not be really doing so, it depends on the fruit of their works, and whether or not the person is changed. See, Jesus even said that seven more spirits will come into a house that has been vacated by one if that house is not filled up with good word. (paraphrase). That satan could also be doing a trick by making the spirits seem to be leaving the person, but it could be a trick, that we can only tell by the fruit of what happens to the person and how they change.

He spent time talking about generational curses (something I am still working at understanding).

He also said that today many churches do not preach the truth, that they want a friendly God who is kind of like a supermarket, and that they speak as if God will benignly look at us when we sin. That they do not speak so much of how God wants to purify us and bring us closer to holiness.

That is where the Bible study started merging with some of what I have been reading in Your God is too Safe. In this book they talked about Uzzah, who was part of the plan of David to move the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. That Uzzah decided to do it in a very grandiose way (chariots – the height of fashion of those days). when God had decreed that the ark was to be carried on the shoulders of the priests. That Uzzah’s way was outward show, whereas being carried on the shoulders was much more about worship and closeness to God. Well Uzzah reached out to balance the ark as if God needed Uzzah’s hand to protect Him, and in touching the ark (another rule that God said should not happen) Uzzah treated God too familiarly and ended up being struck dead. Basically when we worship in our own ways, making God our own god, doing our own thing, picking and choosing what we will accept from the Bible we are doing a similar thing to Uzzah and our worship is dead worship, not alive in Christ.

Buchannan says on p. 32, “I recknon this: the idol of the nice god, the safe god, has done more damage to biblical faith–more damage to people coming to faith–than the caricatue of the tyrant god ever did.

P. 33 “Scripture elsewhere tells us that the “ruler of the air has blinded our eyes” to the truth. But one of the main ways the devil has done that is through the cult of the safe god. The safe god has pretty much killed the power of recognition in us, and so when the real God comes into our midst, we mostly don’t even bother to look up. The safe god has no power to console us in grief or shake us from complacency or rescue us from the pit.”

He goes on to say that God is a consuming fire whose main purpose is not to get us parking places, make the weather confrom to our will, etc. His main purpose is to make us holy.

P. 33 “The God who truly is, who seeks you and me, who desires our holiness, is far more loving and comforting than the safe god. And the true God is far more fierce and fearsome than the bullying and petulent god of our imaginations. But His anger is not irritability: It is the distillation of His justice, His hatred of evil. It is what we would want, even demand, from a good God.

****

Now regarding generational curses, I think my salvation helped to break one because I did not perpetuate the abuse I received as a child onto my children and I did not marry a man who abuses either me or my children. I married a loving and gentle person. So that curse was broken.

I am still working on my relationship with God and boy do I need help with that. I often think that God wants works, and I figure that He will only like me if I am doing good things. Yet I also fear God and project the evil of my father onto God and run from Him.

Never once did I know a God with the kind of familiarity that David had, or some people seem to have where they assume God’s love , and know that they are safe in God’s hands. I keep being afraid that God will be fickle and turn. That is as much putting God into a box as reaching out like Uzzah did.

One day I was reduced to tears when I watched a little kid fall down and run to his father’s arms and crawl into the lap with an assurance that his father would hold him, comfort him, and take care of him. I never once knew that kind of safety as a kid, so when people tell me to run to God’s arms, crawl into his lap, let God close, I freeze, I break out into a cold sweat, and run away. Or else try to hide, I don’t know what a natural relationship to God is. I think that in a way I am too broken inside. Too unable to do this.

I know this sounds crass, but it took me about a year before I could say “I love you” to God. I was afraid that if I said that that God would tell me to scram, that he didn’t love me, that I would be rejected. I am more comfortable with the distant, judgemental God that some portray God as, and I know that God is not that cruel.

How does one learn to trust God? How does one have a comfortable, relaxed relationship (respectful but relaxed)? How does God want me to approach Him? Does God really want and love me? I have so many questions and fears.

Got to get off and let my husband on computer. Thanks for “listening.”

Heather

Our music minister taught Bible study last night because our pastor is out of town.

She spent time talking about God’s discipline of His children. How it is based on love and varies due to spiritual growth.That he disciplines the New Born way differently than he would discipline someone who is very mature in faith. The idea being that he grows us up as we grow up our children, constantly pushing them a bit further and a bit further.She talked about Hebrews 12:5 Hebrews 5:8, and Romans 12. That we will find a peaceable fruit of righteousness as we renew our minds to make more room for the mind of Christ.

She talked about being very careful what we feed, do we feed our spirit or our flesh. And that often many say they are struggling against the devil when it is really the flesh that is the struggle.

But we were rolling in the aisles laughing when she said the following: Here is the gist.

In the Old Testiment there were many sacrifices that were given which were pictures of what would take place in the New Testiment. Now, we as Christians give the sacrifice of prayer (incense), the sacrifice of praise, and the sacrifice of the flesh as we put the old behind us, pressing forward to become more Christ like.

In the Old Testiment the Israelites did a lot of sacrifices, and one example was the dedication of Solomon’s Temple, that thousands upon thousands of animals were sacrificed, making one big bar-b-que. (because they did eat some of the animals sacrificed).

So she said that our sacrifice of the flesh gives new meaning to “WELL DONE, good and faithful servant.” We rolled laughing.

But truthfully she also said that as we burn off more of the flesh, what remains is Christ-like. When it is all Christ-like, then we will no longer have the suffering connected with the flesh.

Heather