What's Wrong with Self-sufficiency?

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)

I have been enjoying a teen devotional each morning this year that sometimes elicits some very good insights for me. Today was one of those times. This verse was the one under consideration and the comments about it got me to thinking about this issue of being poor in spirit that has somewhat baffled me all of my life as it has the author.

He posed the question, What is wrong with self-sufficiency? I believe he hit the nail right on the head. After all, self-sufficiency is something that nearly every one of us in this culture have been trained to pursue all of our lives. We spend a great deal of time, training and energy on trying to cultivate independence from others, skills to market ourselves and years trying to get a better job in order to make more money in order to....

But then the author brought up another text that puts this issue into a different light, which is what usually happens whenever we are willing to look at life from heaven's viewpoint instead of our own assumptions and culture. What does God have to say about a group of people who have worked all their lives to become self-sufficient?

Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked... (Revelation 3:17)

Yes, I know that it is very easy to spiritualize away the meaning of both of these verses. That kind of reasoning is often used whenever we are still caught in the trap of compartmentalizing our lives into different sectors and carefully keeping them separated from each other. We work hard at religion when we go to church or other religious functions but feel free to be a different person to a great extent when we are out in the “real world” as we call it. Oh, we may feel come compulsions to restrict how far we go in our “secular” life so as not to damage our religious reputation, but we find no problem with living a double life. After all, isn't there even a text in the Bible that warns us against becoming over-religious?

So what is the problem with being self-sufficient in our secular life as long as we don't feel too self-sufficient in our religious life? Isn't that how we are supposed to interpret these verses? After all, the only thing we can imagine a person being who is not self-sufficient is somebody who lives as a free-loader mooching off the charity of others and we certainly would never want to stoop to that level.

But one thing came to my attention this morning while I was reading this. It is the issue of complete honesty with one's self which is possibly the most difficult thing for many of us to ever accomplish. Deception is one of the most important elements of Satan's kingdom and has been his main mode of operation since the very beginning of his rebellion in heaven at the throne of God. And self-deception is a given for anyone born into this world as a sinner which all of us are today.

The fact of the matter is that every one of us are really poor in our spirit. It is in our spirit where the real problem of sin affects our lives the most and sin has impoverished our spirit more than anything else. But self-deception that has been strongly reinforced by the deceptions pushed on us by the world around us keep us from understanding or believing the real truth about our own condition. Religion as we have almost always known it plays right along with this notion of the importance of self-sufficiency though it has a different spin on it at times. But if we really want to know our true condition as heaven sees it we must be willing to open our minds and hearts to the possibility that reality is radically different that what we have been led to believe all of our lives.

This is often a very frightening and intimidating proposal whenever it is encountered, especially for people who are confident in their religious life. Some people are forced to face the truth about themselves through tragedies or traumatic events in their lives and later come to deeply appreciate what at first they strongly resented. They realize that through intense trials they were actually given the opportunity to get in touch with reality and the true poverty of their own spirit and resources, and as a result they chose to turn to the only real Source of spiritual wealth and cast their souls completely on His mercy.

However, trauma and trials are not guaranteed to bring this wonderful result about in every situation. The choices each one of us makes are dependent on our own willingness to acknowledge the truth about ourselves whenever we are exposed to it. We can either embrace the truth of what we could not see before and humble ourselves to accept it from heaven's perspective or we can choose to go into even deeper denial in our effort to cling to the self-deceptions or religious scaffolding we have depended on for most of our lives.

I have been learning that this is not just a one or two time event but is something that occurs on a regular basis. I am daily faced with choices and opportunities to receive convictions from the Spirit about the real truth about myself that I have to decide what to do with. In fact, I have come to sense that if I am not under conviction about something for a long period of time that there is something likely amiss in my own relationship with heaven.

The most effective way that God uses to expose the poverty of my spirit is to allow me to see it in contrast to the beauty and attractiveness of His perfect Spirit and goodness and kindness. I am finding that the more real truth I discover about what God is like as opposed to what religion has often taught me, the easier it is to see my own inadequacies by contrast. For it is a fundamental truth that it is the kindness of God more than anything else that leads me to repentance. (Romans 2:4)

So I see that self-sufficiency is not all that it is cracked up to be. In fact, it is something to become legitimately alarmed about and a cause for concern and investigation. For to enter the kingdom of heaven requires nearly the very opposite of all the things we assume are true from our life in the kingdom of darkness. And just because we are very religious does not exempt us from still discovering that much of our life is still operating under false assumptions. After all, those described in Revelation 3:14-22 fully believed they were religiously correct and had nothing to worry about.

Father, thank-you for Your mercy in revealing to me my true condition. And thank-you for doing it in increments and not all at once most of the time. Your are so kind and gracious and merciful to me, but I need to perceive that so much more clearly. Continue to increase Your light in my heart and mind and mold me into the prince that You created in Your image. Dwell in me with Your Spirit today and cause me to reflect Your gentleness, kindness and goodness to everyone that my life may touch today – for Your name's sake.

Slow Clay Posts

I have been fascinated to observe the different sources or locations from which people arrive on my blog sites. Even more interesting is to see that many times it is the pictures that I selected for illustrations that seem to attract people to look at my sites which is still a bit baffling to me. I have not figured out how people can track a link from a picture on the web to a blog that is utilizing that picture. I plan to do some more research and investigation into this soon.

I realize that I have not been writing nearly as often on this blog as I used to. There are several reasons for this. The biggest reason is that most of my thoughts and ideas have been absorbed by my nearly daily postings on my other blog site, deeperword.blogspot.com where I have been carefully meditating and analyzing how the Word of God applies to me personally. This emerges from my daily times early in the morning listening to God and marinating in the Word. Even then I sometimes have difficulty getting my thoughts posted regularly even after they are written because of my increased busy schedule. I often have to leave the house for work before I have time to edit and post what I have recored that morning and end up doing it later in the day. Sometimes they even pile up until the weekend when I have time to finish each one and back-post it to the day it was written.

And that is the second reason that I have had less presence on the web over the past few months on this particular blog. God has blessed me with the opportunity to have a good amount of work this summer with a friend that I met at the Barbershop chorus that I joined early this year. In the past couple weeks we have been working long hours on starting a new home for a customer that will have solid log walls around the house and log siding over the rest of the attached parts. In the past few days we built the garage and put the roof trusses and decking on. We hope to dry it in tomorrow before the rain starts that promises to last all weekend.

Another possible explanation for why I have not spent more time posting to this particular blog is possibly something I might call cyclic – whatever (can't think of a good word to fit here). It is just that there seems to be times when ideas tend to coalesce more often and become more persistent in their need to be processed and captured. But then there seems to be other times when life tends to get more involved in other directions and I wonder what is going on in this arena. But it is during these cycles that appear to be something like down times that I sense somehow that the things I learn during the more spiritually intense times are trickling down deeper into the heart level many times and much of the unseen absorption is taking place. I don't know if that makes any sense but right now it seems to be the best way I can explain it.

I have been requested to lead out in a Bible study class at church this coming weekend. It is the first time they have asked me to do anything like this even though I had previously asked to be involved more. They have tended to act almost afraid or suspicious of me in the past and I suppose that this may be a test of the waters so to speak to find out if I am “safe” to interact with others within the structures that currently are in place. Of course this all may be just my own imagination and lack of mind-sight on my part. I certainly have a lot of improvement in this area to gain.

I know that the notes I have prepared are far more than I could ever possibly have time to cover in the very short time alloted for the study. That is already very frustrating to me but I also must learn to be patient and to develop a much more settled level of trust with them before suggesting alternative ideas to deepen the level of people's interest in hearing God in His Word.

Much of my heart dialog is being expressed on my study blog as I mentioned previously. And even though it revolves around what I am currently observing in the book of Romans, what I am recording is almost always very personal and many times uncomfortably vulnerable. That has not come back to bite me yet as I was afraid when first beginning to blog but that is still a very real possibility. However, as I have revealed in previous blogs I made a decision sometime back that I want to be a more open and honest person and these blogs have been probably my main outlet for expressing my deeper emotions, frustrations, convictions, dreams and desires.

I suspect that as the weather changes in the fall and I find myself homebound more often due to rain-outs at work that I may cycle back into a mode of much more writing again. But most of all I intend to pursue my passion to seek God's face, to discover the feelings of His heart, to be much more sensitive to the voice of His Spirit and to be much more tuned to the promptings and impulses that are available to all those who are truly led by the Spirit of God.

With that in mind I sometimes have to restrict my desires to write to allow my heart to have the time and space to grow without being constantly under the scrutiny of my paparazzi left brain taking notes for its next writing stint.

I have been disappointed that such very few people who actually visit my sites are willing to touch base with me in this venue. But then I continually remind myself that this platform is not something I want to turn into a means for leveraging others or trying to manipulate what they believe, but this is a venue for me to simply express what I am experiencing deep inside. I still find it very difficult at times to share with others verbally what I find much easier to put into writing. And I also remember that God is in charge of all these venues and that the thoughts He shares with me and that I simply report in these posts really belong to Him and are not mine to claim ownership over. As such, it is His business if He wants to use what I post to be a seed of truth or a channel of encouragement for someone without any need for me to know how or where He is using this. My position is to simply rest in Him, express what He is doing in me – which is the real definition of a witness – and leave all the results in His hands.

This reminds me of the parable of Jesus that He gave in response to His disciple's request to have more faith. That story has remained in the back of my mind for a number of years ever since I saw its much deeper meaning. It was not so much the activities of the servants in that parable of Luke 17 that were important but it was the attitude and disposition that they had in relationship to their master that was the key ingredient of the story. God has many times reminded me that that is the direction I am to move toward and the closer I get to having that kind of relationship with Him the sooner I will have much more faith myself. With them I will be able to more honestly say, 'We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.' (Luke 17:10)

I Want to Fly

I woke up a while ago from a kaleidoscopic of dreams involving various emotions, desires and problems that swirl around from my past. After I woke up, a thought began to condense that was amplified by the reading I enjoyed a few minutes later. I need to capture it before I lose it.

In my dream I was riding along a highway and saw a small group of people laying on top of a large kite-type wing riding it like a hang-glider. Then I saw other various similar flying contraptions, some without people on them and some being towed by boats or cars. Immediately an intense desire welled up within me to be able to fly on one of those. My desire to fly has been one of the deepest longings all of my life and when I was younger I used to have frequent dreams about flying, though many of them included great difficulty and inhibitions.

The dream moved on to other unrelated but strange and unexpected events involving pets, estranged family members and the collapse of a trailer house with our things in it after being hit by the wing of an old fighter aircraft taxiing past. I have no idea if any of these things have any meaning for me or they were just a collage created from the process of filing away yesterday's batch of memories. But the intense desire to fly continued into my waking consciousness and linked with the verse I read from one of the devotionals I read.

And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; (Revelation 14:6)

I have heard this text espoused and expostulated all of my life, but I never linked it with my own personal craving to be able to fly like the angels do even though that is exactly what I have always wanted. One of the conditions that I always had associated with my desire to fly was to have as little props as possible while enjoying the freedom of flight. In other words, gliding would be better than motorized flight and hang-gliding even better. Better yet, I heard about para-gliding in which a person could catch an updraft with nothing more than a carefully designed parachute type outfit and could soar around in the air under a giant canopy with very little apparatus involved while enjoying the thrills of seeming weightlessness and seeing the world from high above the ground.

At one point in my life I did manage to earn a private pilot's license but I have not been able to afford to fly for many years now in that capacity. But my desire to fly has not diminished much and I think that maybe it goes beyond just a fancy of my own and is rooted in a primordial function for which humans were originally destined to enjoy and has been stymied by the entrance of sin.

But there was another little element of my dreams that alerted me to something that I believe might be very significant in this context. As I watched some of the flying contraptions I noticed that some didn't have anyone on them and the reason was because it was against the local laws. This stirred up a bit of resentment in me that laws can be so limiting to restrict the natural desires of the heart that are implanted by God.

Upon reflection after I woke up I sensed that there was more to this than simply being prevented from having a good time for a few minutes riding around on something similar to a hang-glider. In fact, the more I consider this in the light of the messages from the three free-flying angels in Revelation 14 I think there is something here that may be very significant. For the longings and desires that have been slowly awakening in my damaged heart currently under reconstruction by the Spirit of God includes an intense desire to be free of the inhibitions that have suffocated my spirit for all of my life and prevented me from thriving and growing and really celebrating life with joy and abandon. And that is the same feeling that I begin to experience when I am allowed to really fly.

One thing that seemed drawn to my attention was the artificial restrictions imposed on those who fail to conform to the ways that the world demands they must live just a few verses earlier.

And he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. (Revelation 13:17)

This is accomplished by the means of rules, part of the counterfeit system of control that has been invented by Satan to mimic the true ways that God relates to His created beings. I have explored this at some length before, but to put it simply, God operates on principles but the world follows the lead of the great deceiver and imposes artificial rules, laws and commands to accomplish its goals. The counterfeit system is based on force and fear and coercion while God's form of “government” is rooted in relationships linked with bonds of real love, selfless service and joyful community. The principles that “govern” all the universe far transcend just the spiritual dimension. What we have labeled as laws delivered by God throughout the ages are often simply revelations of innate principles of reality that have natural consequences both good and bad depending on how we cooperate or try to violate those principles.

But men's laws are based on the artificial system of government developed and refined by Satan, originally Lucifer who once was the closest created being in the whole universe to the throne and the mind of God. This angel is so well acquainted with the ways and truths about God that he is able to counterfeit them extremely convincingly and deceive many throughout the universe into thinking that his new ideas are superior to the ways of God that he considers too weak and too restricting.

In this context it is interesting to see the basic elements that will be involved in one of the final confrontations between the ways of God and the inventions of men following Satan's lead. One of the core beliefs promoted by the world is that community and success must be based on creating rules and laws that force everyone into conformity for the good of all. Law is considered the solution for nearly every problem in this world. But laws and regulations must be backed up by the threat of force through artificial means of enforcement in order to induce fear which is the primary emotion utilized to motivate all who are under the domination of Satan and his agents.

One thing I have noticed about the counterfeit system of law-dependence in this world is the ease with which laws can be enacted and changed on a whim. Laws are almost always created to promote the selfish interests of those in power and whenever another group of people achieve power they immediately follow the same pattern and use their position to impose their own will through laws on those around them.

Sadly, religious people have bought into this counterfeit way of thinking and viewing reality and are too ready with a great deal of condemnation and contempt for anyone who dares to challenge the whole concept of artificial law itself. As a result many people have come under criticism or have had their reputations maligned and destroyed by religious leaders and followers alike simply because they were trying to follow their conscience and the Spirit's leading in their life in contraflow to the imposed restrictions of laws and man-made rules. Religious people often have mistakenly believed that men's laws somehow carry a certain amount of divine weight and must be considered somewhat equal with the far greater principles of reality often referred to as God's laws.

Great wrongs have been committed and excused by following this kind of thinking. Christians under the reign of Hitler demanded that everyone should go along with his ideas and the laws he instituted because they were the rule of government and God commanded us to obey earthly authorities. This sort of logic has been repeatedly used all throughout history and is still very much in vogue today. However, the more I have contemplated and considered the ways and methods of God in relationship to His people the more I see the fallacy of this line of reasoning. On the surface it first appears to be very compelling, but upon closer examination I see that it is a very diabolical deception designed to control and suppress the true people of God by inducing fear and false guilt within their hearts to secure their compliance to men's artificial rule system of control.

So what does this have to do with flying? I think it has a great deal to do with it. For if my heart was designed to experience the thrill of uninhibited flight in dimensions far more important than just my physical body, and if that is God's real plan for my life, then I can be sure that the world's system is going to set itself up against the plans of God for His children and will employ anything and everything possible to prevent God's people from enjoying the freedom of the sons of God. And one of the methods that will be employed most is the full use of the artificial system of law with all its associated guilt, fear, condemnation and intimidation. It will culminate in the use of laws that will prevent God's people from participating at all in the economic system of the world which is another aspect of the counterfeit government that we live under.

Just as men create laws that prevent us from enjoying physical flight with freedom, so too are many of men's laws calculated to prevent us from flying in other dimensions of our life. So if I have a mindset that is controlled by the idea that men's laws are on a par with God's principles of creation and reality, then I am very vulnerable to the manipulation and inhibitions of the world designed to prevent me from following my heart in the ways God desires for me to do. I not only will be prevented from enjoying the thrill of physical flight on this earth but far more importantly I will remain grounded in my spirit and soul from following the lead of the Spirit of God in many other areas of my life.

Romans 8 tells me that those who are the real children of God will be led by the Spirit of God. But that leading will often put them at odds with the artificial restrictions of this world that are subtly designed to force us in a different direction. The tension between the world's system and the gentle, quiet leading of the Spirit will intensify until there will be a complete break between the two and the world will forcibly expel from society those who refuse to comply, they will be completely shut out of the world's sphere of privileges.

Those who have all their life served God from a spirit of fear, have tried to follow His “laws” from a spirit of duty and obligation rather than from a passion induced by and responding to His love for them, these will find it foreign to their thinking to break with their habit of obedience based on fear and will be overcome by the greater fear induced by the world's increasing threats against those who refuse to comply. But those who have been weaning themselves away from the counterfeit model of life on this earth and have instead invested their efforts toward intertwining their hearts with bonds of love and joy with the very heart of God will have a faith that will be found to be their vital link to the salvation provided for them by Jesus Christ. As Revelation puts it, they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death. (Revelation 12:11)

Like the angels that they are listening to, they will have learned how to truly fly. For it is not just the words of the angels in Revelation that are significant to God's children but the example and demonstration of how to live life with joy, with fullness of heart, with loud shouts of praise and honor for their God - this is the example that those in tune with the heart and mind of God will learn to emulate. And as we learn to align our thinking and affections with the true ways of heaven we will find that we are in the midst of the greatest flying lessons we could ever imagine even right now. We will learn to fly so well that we will be prepared to fly away from this earth and join the angels in their joyful abandon of praise and song in devotion to the greatest Lover in the whole universe.

Living in Front or Back

Something I heard Jim Wilder say a few days ago in his series called Joy Bonds has ignited a lot of questions in my mind as I have pondered it and thought about the enormous implications of it in my own life. To properly understand it one must allow themselves to become familiar with the context in which he said it and how the brain develops and operates. If this is not appreciated properly then to just hear his statement out of context might sound like something bizarre or even like heresy.

Much of what Wilder teaches revolves around the immense importance of developing the right orbital pre-frontal cortex of the brain or what he often refers to as the “joy center” or the “banana”. This part of the brain grows mainly in response to being stimulated from the outside by being around people who genuinely desire to be with that person, who are glad to be with them, who consider them to be the sparkle of their eye. When face to face communication of this feeling is experienced then this part of the brain can grow and increase in size and deep bonding takes place. The amazing thing is that this can happen at any age. Unlike most of the other parts of the brain, this part maintains fetal tissue that always has potential to produce new growth under conducive circumstances. But there are periods of time in a person's life when growth is much more likely to accelerate.

As he explained the difference between this part of the brain and the back of the brain where things operate very differently, the implications began to take on ominous significance. The front of the brain that is developed by joy is where our creativity thrives, where our sense of freedom and true identity and uniqueness is cultivated and where we can bond with other people in joy-bonds that are rooted deeply at the heart level.

Jim says that if you want to stop a person from acting like themselves, then the easiest way to do so is to scare them. When we operate from the back of our brain we are usually reacting in fear. When we live in fear from the back of our brain it operates in ways that are purely problem-solving with no interest in the values cherished in the front of the brain. The back of the brain cares little about our real identity or our morals or even what it might be like us to normally do to act like ourselves. It is only concerned with making the problem go away that is causing our fear or threatening our safety, and it will do so with whatever means will work as quickly as possible. When a person is in extreme fear and through a lack of maturity is thrown to the back of their brain temporarily under intense circumstances, they will often do very strange or unusual things that is very unlike them that may surprise and even shock those around them as well as themselves upon reflection later. This is most likely what happens under the condition called temporary insanity.

The part of the brain that chooses whether we live from the front or the back of our brain is called the amygdala. It is something of a clearing house for incoming information and decides which part of the brain to send the information first. If it decides that what it sees might be dangerous it will attach a warning tag to the information which will immediately alert the brain to activate different parts of the nervous system for action. If the brain has little joy capacity in the pre-frontal cortex and has not practiced how to act like its true self under stress, then the person will easily move to the back of their brain and will become blinded by fear and will remain in a mode of problem solving and doing whatever it takes at any cost to make the problem go away.

The part that really impacted me was when he explained that if we find ourselves always looking for results instead of learning how to act like ourselves, that is a sure sign that we are operating from the back of our brain. He gave the example of people involved in ministry for others who come up to him during seminars with questions about things that seem to stump them in their work with difficult cases. They come to him in hopes that he can solve their problems that they have run into in dealing with people that seem stuck in their emotions. But the very attitude of hoping that Jim can solve their case on the spot indicates that the people in ministry are trying more to solve a problem than to learn how to act like themselves. This is a sure sign that they are likely operating from the wrong part of the brain than what is needed under those circumstances.

When I heard this I realized something very significant. If we approach ministry with an attitude of problem solving instead of using our joy strength and the joy center of our brain, then we will always run into difficulties because the Spirit of God cannot work well with us while we are living from the motivation of fear. We will be sucked into the trap of trying to fix people's problems or focusing on eliminating their pain instead of listening to the heart issues and being willing to be glad to be with them in their problems.

Perfect love casts out all fear and God is love. Jesus stated very explicitly that He promised to be with us always. That is a statement of joy, for the brain's neurological definition of joy is someone who is glad to be with me. So when Jesus states unequivocally that He will always be with us He is addressing the most important and basic craving and need of our brains to thrive and grow and be healed back into our original design and purpose for life.

But if we try to help other people by trying to solve their problems or take on their problems as our own and get into a mode of problem-solving, then we are trying to do something the hard way that God has never asked us to do. For our greatest need is not to make all of our problems or other people's problems go away, but to learn how to act like ourselves under any circumstances by learning to live in joy with each other. This is why a sense of community is so central to the kingdom of heaven. Without others glad to be with us no matter what circumstances or emotions we find ourselves in, we will often lack the strength to endure or the capacity to know how to respond correctly.

Instead of focusing on how to solve every problem as we are usually taught by the world's system of thinking, we much more need to discover our true identity as implanted in us by our Creator and then joyfully live out that identity with our unique style as God designed us to do. In short, we need to learn what it is like us to do, how to act like ourselves all the time. It is God's job to solve problems and our job to live in trust that He can handle His job.

Learning to act like ourselves is at the core of the process of maturing, and maturity can only effectively take place within community where we live in association with others who can help us learn how to act like ourselves by example and encouragement. When we feel the acceptance of others who are glad to be with us even when we malfunction, who are willing to believe in us even at times when we don't believe in ourselves, who are there to love us, to respect us and even to confront us when necessary and hold us accountable, then we can grow and thrive and blossom and mature. For the most important way that we learn is by imitating the example of a more mature mind by watching how they respond under similar circumstances that we experience.

As I thought about the implications of all this I began to realize how much of my time I spend in fear and problem solving instead of learning how to act like myself by tuning in to the Spirit of God to learn my true identity. Over the past few days I have increasingly been asking God to show me who I really am, to reveal to me my true identity as He sees me. I also find myself asking Him to help me see others in their true identity instead of the typical reactions that my brain uses to analyze and evaluate them. This is a whole new experience for me and as yet very unfamiliar. I cannot say that I have had any dramatic breakthroughs yet but this is the direction that I realize I must move if I am to make progress in getting out of living from the back of my brain.

I am also becoming shocked at how many things I approach in a problem solving mode instead of a basis of joy. As I become more aware of this I realize why it is so difficult for me to help other people who are in emotional difficulties. To compound the difficulty I am a male and males are typically wired to be more of a problem solver than just a caring listener. I have been working hard to address that too but am not sure that I've made very much progress. I find it somewhat baffling to know just how to listen to a hurting person without letting my mind rush off into figuring out how to offer suggestions or plunge into the middle of their situation to fix the problems that appear to be causing their pain.

But as I have become more aware of what is really going on inside and what part of my brain I am functioning in, I have had more awareness of my option to choose to switch to a different mode if I am willing. I can turn to God in my mind and ask for more perspective, for more compassion, for more focused attention on what is going on in another person's heart without being so distracted by trying to solve their problems that are frankly beyond my ability to solve anyway. I am realizing that it is not really my job to solve other people's problems – that is God's job. And if I try to take on God's job in other people's lives I will certainly get very bogged down in discouragement and frustration and will end up with a great deal more problems in my own heart that I won't know how to solve very soon.

What I have also realized is that my own fear of entering into more active ministry with others is exposed in what I am learning. Because I am afraid they won't experience dramatic change from my ministry I am secretly afraid people will think less of me and that would be a problem I wouldn't know how to solve. Because I am more focused on getting results than in being willing to be with them and come to God alongside them, I am really living in fear instead of joy and thus am incapacitated for effective ministry.

But as I have chosen to let go of both my problems as well as other's into God's hands I have also begun to sense a feeling of peace and freedom which I suspect is what I am supposed to feel as I move more into the front area of my brain. That is encouraging to me and gives me hope that maybe I too can learn to live more in joy instead of fear and shadows. I want to learn much more how to be genuinely glad to be with people who are hurting as well as those who are rejoicing, while knowing how to act like my unique self. For a true sign of maturity is coming to the place where I can act the same way no matter what emotion I am in or what circumstance threatens me. When I can remember who I am at all times and my connection with God can be alive and real under any circumstance, then my maturity will be to the point where I can become a mentor for others to be attracted to and learn from. I can then show by example how they can connect with God and learn how to act like themselves with their own unique style and personality. And that for me will be a most satisfying and fulfilling source of joy.

The Empty Fuel Tank

I had another dream last night that woke me up some time after 3 AM. But when I woke up another situation immediately took over my thoughts and after awhile I realized that I should just get up and process it with God, for I was unlikely to get any more sleep unless I ignored the invitation and then lost this opportunity.

The details of the dream seemed less important than the use of it to activate certain parts of my emotions that needed to be addressed in the current situation. I am finding myself increasingly in tension with someone I work with and I have been wondering why for the past several days. It is slowly becoming more clear – though not nearly as much as I want – that likely most of the problem is with me. But the complicating factor is that it is hidden almost entirely behind a blind spot in my life.

I think that I have been making jokes at someone else's expense thinking that it is completely in harmless humor. But I am being convicted that this may not be the case at all from the other person's perspective. I, in fact, may be in the process of tearing down the “joy bonds” that God has been working to build up. My study of Romans 14 is being applied to myself in a very personal and practical way here and I want to allow it to have its intended effect on my character and personality.

So then let us pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. Do not tear down the work of God.... (Romans 14:19-20)

As I think back I slowly begin to realize that many of the things I have been saying lately are not up-building or encouraging for him. My intentions may have been innocent enough, at least I think so from my limited or blind spot perspective, but the potential effects of my words have been more along the line of tearing down the work of God in his heart.

As I prayed about this and dialogged with God about it for some time this morning, several things came to my attention. Some of the principles that I have been learning recently began to fit into place with each other quite effectively. Those who have been educated from some of the same sources that I have been exposing myself to over recent years will recognize some of the context from which I am coming.

I am having a great struggle learning how to act like myself because I don't know very well at all what that looks like. My problem lies partly in that my perception of my identity is based far too much on my past behaviors and mistakes instead of on what God reveals about my true identity. I feel like I need to be able to visualize in my mind what it would look like for me to act differently so that I could then actually begin to act it out in reality. But when I find it difficult to even visualize myself acting differently than what I do then I know I have a very serious identity problem.

What does it mean to act like myself? What I am referring to here is based on the presumption that acting like myself is referring to my real self that God designed me to be, not the false, selfish self that has been fabricated by the many false gods that continually hang around and assault me with lies about my identity. This group of false gods has been with me most all of my life and are so familiar that they often convince me that they are really me. But no matter how much my past is reflective of their attitudes and ways of relating and doing things, they will always be false and will never change their minds or their ways. I must find my true identity in the Source which designed me in the first place.

Another aspect of learning to act like myself is that I learned how to do this by imitating my parents or others who mentored me. So if I am to learn how to act like myself and like the “us” that is my true family, I have to have a much clearer perception of what my true Father acts like so that I can imitate it more readily. And this has to happen in the right-brain part of me, the heart level or it will never really be effective in changing and transforming me from the inside out.

Another insight was given to me as I thought about these things. I noticed that even when I did catch glimpses in my imagination of what it might be like me to do to resolve my tension with my fellow worker, that I lacked the motivation to actually want to follow through with acting that way. I realized that just knowing how to act properly or what love might look like, which is difficult enough in itself, was not sufficient to actually get me to go ahead and carry it out. I asked God what I was lacking to motivate me to take action on any insights that He might give me as to how to act like myself.

I then sensed that very important thing that is lacking is passion – the kind of passion that pulses from the very heart of God and is the source for all life and energy throughout the entire universe. If I try to have love without passion then it is like having a wonderful, shiny new sports car without access to any fuel with which to fill it. I can sit in it and image myself screaming around corners and feeling the exhilaration of a thrilling joy ride, but without the fuel of passion I am just living in a dream world.

But I have been carefully trained all of my life to be afraid of passion. Passion was always considered something very dangerous and out of control. It was something that could never be trusted as so must always be suppressed, ignored or locked up in the deep recesses of a prison within. But God did not design us to just sit in a broken vehicle and imagine ourselves getting somewhere. He designed our brains and our souls to actually thrive and grow and mature in vital connection with the resource of His passion. For without passion we have nothing but a cheap imitation of real life.

So much of my problem is that fear is preventing me from living life with the passion that God implanted into me early on. My passion was perverted, mislabeled, condemned and suppressed. It was done so effectively that most of it I can no longer even find inside of me. I feel that much of the life or passion for life has eluded me and I am just doing little more than putting in time. But God is telling me that He has very different plans for me. And that somehow includes a re-infusion of true passion that will empower me to carry out the things He is telling me are necessary for healing and reconciliation with those around me.

Right now I feel like a have a love/fear relationship with passion. It is something I crave deeply and yet fear intently. In my damaged heart passion is inextricably linked with fear, shame and guilt as well as pleasure, satisfaction and desire. At times it almost feels like having the brakes and the accelerator on at the same time. That is a recipe for a lot of internal tension that affects all of my relationships.

So what I need is vision to know what it looks like to act like myself and passion to be empowered to fulfill the vision. I have to leave this in God's hands. I am praying for the right spirit and perspective to act on my need to reconcile and confess my faults to my brother without being prevented by my fears or pride. I want to repair our relationship and live in such a way that I am building him up instead of tearing down the work of God in his life and in mine. Right now I don't know just what that looks like, but I want to seek God's face more intensely so that I can see how to act like myself more consistently.