Category: Soul Growth

Soul Help, Soul Warning

Soul Vapor

“I could try to outrun the sun with my superhuman striving. I could try to hide in the dark with my subhuman shame.” Leeana Tankersley

 

What will it take to stop us?  To get us to think about what we’re thinking about; to grasp what we’ve been given?  Our rush to activity or our search for hiding places can rule us.

A few years back, I was jogging past a graveyard on a lazy summer morning thinking about what the day held, I tried to decipher what was worth worrying about.  The morning was a bit misty and the graves to my left quite obtrusive on a hill facing me, staring. As I passed by, I imagined I was being watched, examined and spoken to.  It was an alarming thought.  What might they say?!  How many of those buried people even had the privilege to take time to jog when they were alive?  How did they spend their lives and were they glad?  What would they do differently if they could?  What would they say to me?

 

I’m compelled to write on their behalf.  To shout what they might say.  We’ll be on that hill under the ground in a few short years!  I’m compelled to write for the ones who will join us on this planet; for my future grandkids. That they would see the end from the beginning, embrace it and live it wisely.

 

Can we ever get our heads around the idea that our lives are so short?!  Those feelings of, “where did that month go, or that week of vacation?” When I want to suspend the moments, the talks, the sweet looks, the lingering, the dialog.  I want to go back and say something else or not say it.  I want a chance to embrace more of what’s going on and enter in or bow out more gracefully.  There’s always too much for us to take in in a day.  That’s the vapor…it’s there, you hardly see it, and then it’s gone. That’s us.

 

Our hearts get fickle, anxious, greedy, tangled and weighed down…and we just don’t really believe that the next life is much more important.  You know, if you want to know what you really believe (not what you say you believe) look at what you’re living for; what you’re most anxious about; what you think about most. And walah! you’re busted.

 

We need to “escape into the truth”! (Alexander Chee) Away from the whirling dervish of life and give attention to the unseen parts of our being to reorient ourselves.

 

How can you plan your escape into truth; so that the rest of your earthly vapor prepares you for what will last forever?

It’s a matter of time.  Stop now, find a space and place to ponder your vapor. (James 4)

It’s a matter of time, until your life dispels into the beyond.

Then what will you say to the one jogging flippantly past your grave?!

Soul direction, Soul Help, Soul Warning

Soul Future

As we grapple with and embrace God’s incredible grace, we are free to be forgiven, to walk in joy instead of shame and rather than judge others, we can love.  What a relief and what a gift!

 

This is my stance before God – justified freely forever!

 

SO THAT I can now live a different kind of life.   Because I have freely received, I can live in obedience.  That’s the point, the reason He saved us, so we are free to live for Him and not for ourselves.  And that’s ironically always better for me!

 

“We must stop using the fact that we cannot earn grace (whether for justification or for sanctification) as an excuse for not energetically seeking to receive grace. Having been found by God, we then become seekers of ever fuller life in him. Grace is opposed to earning, but not to effort.”  Dallas Willard

 

If not, why would He say,

 

“Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things I say?” (Luke 6:46)

 

So, although there are end time judgments that won’t concern us, there is one we need to take note of.

 

The Judgment Seat of Christ will focus on the believer’s words, works, and faithfulness.

 

“So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” 2 Cor. 5:9,10

 

Though we are freely given eternal life, we are responsible for what we do with the life God gives us on earth.  How we need His grace for this!

 

“If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” Gal. 5:25

 

“…each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved…”  1 Cor. 3:13-15

 

“So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.” Romans 14:12

 

“… don’t receive the grace of God in vain”! 2 Cor. 6:1

 

Picture yourself at the end of your life; insert yourself into your future…what will you wish you’d have been and done?

What will you regret?

 

What can you do now?

 

“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word…”  John 14:23

 

Difficulty to opportunity, Soul Warning

Soul “Not Enough”

A very popular and effective taunt to our souls is, “You’re not enough.”  Not enough for your own responsibilities, for those you’re responsible for; for your job, for your personal life, for anything.  So much lack, so much need, so much pressure, so many limitations.

 

 

 

I’ve stayed there too long at times.  It’s quite convincing. Because I am so inadequate.

I think that’s the point.  We are in utter need of so many things.

“Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God who has made us adequate…” (!) 2 Cor. 3:4-6

 

Ok so we’re inadequate yet He makes us adequate.  How does that happen and why don’t I feel adequate?

 

I wonder how the little boy who brought his lunch felt when he offered it to feed the thousands of people.  I wonder if he felt adequate.  I doubt it!  It’s ludicrous to think it would make a difference.  How often am I there thinking, “how are you ever going to make a difference in this sea of need?”

 

What good would it do? What I have is nothing or very little in contrast to the need.  That’s exactly what Jesus wants us to bring to him.  The bit that we have.  Our “nothing”! We offer and He multiplies.  When we need to give and we don’t have much, we bring our little lunch, and let Him take it and do something with it.    I don’t have to be adequate but with Him, I’m made adequate. 

It’s quite freeing.

So, although what I bring to a situation, to a conversation, to a crisis, to a job, to a person, is and always will be inadequate, next to Him we’re in it together.  And He’s the focus.  I show up with my “I don’t know if this is anything, but here…”  I offer, I watch, I engage with Him.  I wait. I expect His work.  It may not look at all like I thought, but he receives what we bring and expands it.

 

Actually, the boy may not have had the guts to bring it at all.  The disciples just mention it as almost nothing.  But Jesus received it.

“One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?”  John 6:8, 9

 

So what you have in your hand, the experience, time, talent, skills, trials or goods, may seem like next to nothing.  It may be inadequate for what your day may need.  But we bring it and rely on Him for what He wants to make of it.

 

So my inadequacy is actually a great reminder to me of where to turn to make me adequate!

 

Flip the switch:  When the overwhelming comes your way, telling you you’re inadequate, you can give thanks for the reminder and turn to the All Adequate One.

 

As Saint Benedict put it, “Always we begin again.”

Soul Warning

Shaken Soul

I’m shaken after meditating on Psalm 78.  And it’s interesting that it came up in my reading this most holy of weeks, where our remembrance of the first holy week is full of defeat, blundering and failure.  It is a bit encouraging.  Not that we want to excuse our failures, but encouraging that there’s hope for us.  Sin will never satisfy like obedience does.  It only creates more ravishing pull.

 

Getting a glimpse of what our sin does to God:

God vulnerably shows His heart in Psalm 78

  • :40 His people grieved Him in the desert
  • :41 They limited God (i.e., in their arrogance “allowed” only so much, thinking they knew better) Of course, He can overpower but often waits for an invitation.
  • :41 They pained the Holy One!
  • :42 They didn’t remember His power (after all they’d seen!)
  • :52-55 He guided them, brought them out of slavery and gave them an inheritance yet they
  • :56-58 rebelled, turned back, provoked Him and aroused His jealousy.

 

Who puts up with this?!  Who is this God?

 

So He had to let them go…he had to give them up in order to get them to turn back. In an earlier cycle the same happened:

:34 then they sought Him, returned and searched diligently for God and remembered…

 

there is always redemption when we turn toward Him.

What our sin does to us:

  • :18 they focused on their desires rather than His promises. (Our desires can be good things, but not at the expense of remembering and asking God.)
  • :22 it fostered unbelief
  • :32 in spite of His answers they refused to respond either to miracles or to judgment.
  • :33 they missed what God had for them.
  • :36 they “flattered” him (praised Him with their tongue but their hearts were far from Him)
  • :37 their repentance was shallow, no heart change

 

How lurking sin (like an enemy) tricks us, pulls us, limits us, sets us back, saps us of strength and life.  We take it lightly, not realizing the depth of consequences. Yes, there is grace greater than all our sin!!

Amen! I’m so glad.

But there is also grace before we sin; so we don’t have to sin.  Grace that gives us strength and power to choose otherwise.

Hallelujah!

Grace to walk in newness of life, to “not let sin reign in our bodies to obey its lusts” Rom. 6:12

 

“Don’t receive the grace of God is vain.” 2 Cor. 6:1

As Beth Moore says:

I say this with tremendous empathy to those of you in my former estate. I earned the right to my defeat. If you knew the details of my past, few of you would wonder why I couldn’t escape the cycle of sin-cry-repent-repeat. But if Jesus had just left me there, I’d be dead by now.

 

Who puts up with this?!  Who is this God?

 

He is the One who let our sin put Him on the cruel cross to bring us hope.

 

Hallelujah!

What small choice will you make today applying His grace so you don’t give in to sin?

“Flee…and pursue…” 1 Tim. 6:11

OR

What drastic measure do you need to take to keep you from the pull of sin?

“…throw it away…” Matt. 18:9

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soul Growth

Soul Dispossession

Dispossess  –  dɪspəˈzɛs/   verb

deprive (someone) of land, property, or other possessions.  syn.- divest, strip, rob

 

 Feeling slighted by something taken from you?

 

Reading in Numbers 20-24, how the Israelites “camped… journeyed…set out…and dispossessed…” peoples of their lands by God’s hand, is disturbing and seemingly cruel.  There they were, the new kids on the block, barging in on someone else’s territory. What right did they have?

 

Well there’s a bigger story going on that stretches back centuries before, when God put His hand on Abraham, from a godless nation and called him out, dispossessed him so that he could eventually possess (centuries later through his descendants).

 

It is God who is doing the dispossessing.  His inalienable laws had been defiantly ignored and spurned.   Child sacrifices, unutterable abuses and atrocities reigned.  So He was on the move to reclaim His ways and show the right way to be human.  And He chose humans to represent Him.  That was a huge risk because it didn’t always go the way He desired. It put His name to shame, yet He patiently worked His plan.

 

Though the battle is the Lord’s, we still have to step into the land and use our swords with skill.  That’s what the wilderness training is all about.  Choosing the right battles; the battle to believe with courage and not shrink back because of difficulties. To dispossess the enemy of what is ours; rather than focusing only on trying circumstances like God’s people in the time of Hosea:

 

“Although I trained and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against Me.” Hosea 7:15

 

We’re ushered into this world that is ruled by forces that work at taking our identity, our hope, our freedom and our creativity.  So we are called on to go into the lands of our souls to dispossess and repossess God’s territory.  Just as the Israelites had to go into battle together with God, so we go in to take back what has been stolen, killed and destroyed (John 10:10).

 

God calls us out, to call us in.  He calls us to dispossession (taking what the enemy has stolen), to call us into possession of real life.

For me, self-doubt can get in the way of walking in courageous faith.  I am joining Him in dispossessing the enemy of his pull in this area. And finding this is a mercy to keep me depending on Him.

 

  • What area in your soul needs to be dispossessed (or taken back)? Dignity, value, belonging, joy, freedom from fear or bitterness, faith?
  • What are you demanding that God hasn’t given, keeping you from contentment?  Could that demand be taking the place of what He wants to give?
  • What might you need to repossess by the power and authority of your Creator and Redeemer?

 

“Abundant life in not abundance of blessing, it is abundance of power to live and love [in our messy world]; to put God on display in our difficulties.” Larry Crabb

 

Soul Growth

Ice pack on my Soul

(written Nov 2014)

I’m thinking out loud as I sit here with an icepack on my shoulder.  :-/

I feel quite wimpish to say that I have ended up crying during physical therapy sessions on my shoulder several times this week.  The poor gal wasn’t sure what to do with me…and my partially “frozen” shoulder isn’t a bad case but it kills, what she does to me.  And now I have to do the exercises at home…ugh.

I’m very determined, though it feels like torture innoculation or something…I’ve almost cried doing it to myself, but I want my shoulder back!  So I inflict pain upon myself because I believe it’s going to make a difference.  I do have my doubts!

 

I have to wonder if this physical principle can carry over to when God seemingly inflicts pain on us.  He’s after strong joints and better strength & flexibility and freedom of movement…in our lives.

 

Some possible parallels:

 

Shoulder:                                                                   Soul:

 

Physical trauma/gradual debilitation                      Emotional trauma/gradual debilitation

 

Unknowing neglect of joint/muscle                        Denial, neglect of soul

 

Physical Pain                                                        Psychological pain/spiritual pain

 

Limited motion                                                     Limited caring/giving/awareness

 

Annoyance w/exercises                                         Annoyance facing self

 

Decreased strength                                               Decreased resilience

 

Physical Therapy = a choice to cooperate, to embrace temporary pain to work toward increased motion (slowly).

It is “annoyance with a purpose”! 🙂 It leads to increased strength and the ice afterwards helps the pain and inflammation go down.

 

Where do I need to apply PT principles to my soul?

 

Perhaps there’s been a trauma big or small…that you have not revisited.  It’s not going to just go away.  The Dr. told me about my shoulder, “the sooner the better; the longer you wait the harder it is.”  It will cause pain and that’s so that you know it’s there and it needs attention.

 

If you notice limited ability, capacity or joy, could that point to a need in your soul?  What about the annoyance of taking a look at it and asking God what he’s drawing attention to?

It’s annoying because it takes us where it hurts, where we don’t want to look, but it also begins the path toward increased movement, freedom and strength in our inner lives…leading to the ability to love freely and give of ourselves…

 

I noticed improvement after 2 weeks of PT on my shoulder…I think we can apply the same process to our souls if we pay attention to the pain.

Try this soul therapy exercise:

 

  • Stop, sit, deep breath, in and out, close eyes, wait…
  • Then notice what is the first anxiety that comes, don’t push it away, let it sit with you and tell you something about your soul.
  • Listen, breathe, accept, open your eyes.

 

What did you learn?  It may be painful.  That’s a start.

 

And what could the “ice pack” be?  Something that soothes and numbs after a hard workout to chase away inflammatory thoughts…?

Maybe ice cream! 🙂  Definitely soothes the soul.

 

Better would be soothing music of God’s all encompassing love for you or a talk with a friend about what you noticed or a moment of casting a care upon the One who cares.  (1 Peter 5:7)