Wells or Springs

Our mind is like a cistern. Our heart is like a well with capacity to be a spring.

Living from our left brain is like drawing water from a cistern. You have to keep putting water into the cistern at least as much or more than you draw out or you will rub dry. That's why we often develop such an obsession for learning facts and formulas and programs etc. Since we largely live from our mind instead of our heart we have to keep a constant supply of new things to stimulate new possibilities and live in constant fear of failure since we were not really designed to live primarily from our mind. This is our condition from the Fall.

Our hearts are more like wells. While it may be much more difficult to draw up the water it does not require pumping water into it – except maybe for priming purposes. This is why it is so effective to open another person's heart by being open yourself. It is very much like priming a well and it is extremely effective most of the time.

Beyond this, God has much greater designs for our hearts. He wants us to become not just wells, which still have the potential of running dry, but He wants to make us into springs of life that nurture and splash joy on everyone around us. The obvious difference between a well and a spring is the amount of work to receive life from them. Both are deep holes in the ground. But a spring is spontaneous and energetic in exuding life and is nearly impossible to restrain. God's plans involve a whole community of life-givers that swell together into an unstoppable river of Life that originates from Him and sweeps others along into the current as it returns to Him in joy and praise and worship.

Feel free to send in your ideas to add to these if you would like to develop them even more. I would like to add your insights to swell this little trickle of a spring (or well).

Growth

We have started reading a book by John Powell that is clarifying the process of liberation that we are experiencing. I have ordered a number of his books from Amazon.com to help us learn how to connect to each other and learn better how to live from our hearts. The book I am reading right now is called Why Am I Afraid To Tell You Who I Am?

This book has already helped me understand a great deal some of the thinking patterns, the turmoil and the blocks I have been struggling with for years. It also lays out very practical steps for overcoming these blocks. A previous book which I just received but have not read yet is called Why Am I Afraid To Love? I am eager to get into it as soon as I am done with this one.

Yesterday I experienced another opportunity to act like myself under stress, which I did not handle too well once again. I had come up about 1 inch short of enough laminate flooring to finish my hallway and when I purchased another box of the same brand I discovered that it is completely different and won't interlock with what I have. Furthermore, the material that I need is no longer available. My stress reaction was not a whole lot different than it has been in the past and my anger was pressing hard to unload on someone. I was aware of what I was feeling but knowing how to “act like myself” while in the emotions was still very difficult.

My normal reaction to this problem is to do everything possible to fix it with the least expense possible. This is not wrong, but can easily play into influence from the spirit of Mammon among other spirits. As I searched various stores for possible brands of flooring that might fit what I had with no success I analyzed my feelings and responses as I prayed for guidance as to not only what to do but how to feel. I am reminded that my peace of spirit is far more important to God than resolving this particular problem. In fact, it is not at all unlikely that God allowed this problem to give me yet another opportunity to practice this lesson. Intellectually I know God has a solution of some kind for this and I will see it work out. But faith is resting in peace, acting and feeling confidence in His resolution while having no knowledge of what it looks like.

Another part of this growth is sharing not only the problem with my spouse but sharing my ongoing feelings with her as they happen without judgment. We are actually making progress in this area too. It is very different than what either of us are used to doing, but it is very necessary to move into the future that God has for us together. So we discussed it this morning and decided that if we have to replace the whole floor with new flooring then maybe we should attempt to match the flooring from the adjoining room so there will not be 3 different colors all converging in one corner. I will look into that today. But I feel much better about the whole situation than yesterday now that we are sharing the process of resolving this problem and acknowledging that it is not about my value or identity as I might be secretly feeling.

I am also picking up my daughter today coming home from Norway. This will open up a whole new chapter on this growing process that will be good to see what God has planned. At the same time another lady is coming in to stay with us for a week or two that has very serious challenges to living in reality and getting along with people. We will need a lot of grace and our open communication will be even more important to keep process what we are just beginning to learn and experience.

I am Afraid Because...

Maybe I am afraid to say very much in this group...

Afraid I will be prodded so much I will lock into depressive resistance.

Afraid that some who thought I have wise counsel will change their mind and all the things I have been learning and sharing will be discredited.

Afraid that I will not get to the root lies and find true release – once again.

Afraid that what I say will be used against me either here or outside the group.

Afraid that, as usual, my mind will disconnect and shut down my deepest emotions and pain and block out access to my deeper pain and issues.

Afraid that others will try to oversimplify my problems in an attempt for a quick solution.

Afraid I will not be understood.

Afraid I will create resentment in someone's mind for being so self-focused.

Afraid I will feel guilty for telling things that I later regret.

Afraid no one will care about me deeply and openly.

Afraid someone will show me affection even though I often crave it.

Afraid that most men cannot understand some things about me as well as some women can.

Afraid I will be censured and condemned for feeling that way.

Afraid there won't be enough time to finish processing and healing.

Afraid God won't show up as dramatically as I wish He would.

Afraid of showing too much emotion in public.

Afraid of losing control of my environment and composure.

Afraid that no one will have the maturity, wisdom and compassion to take me all the way to the real source of these fears so I can face them squarely and come away freed.

Afraid that after this session that those who are here for me now will be too busy or distracted or annoyed to continue this open, honest bonding.

Afraid that after I make myself vulnerable that others will refuse to be vulnerable equally and then I will feel exposed with much shame and regret.

Afraid that I will still be stuck and paralyzed in attempts at deepening my marriage.

Afraid that I will never be able to be close and open at the heart level with my biological children and they with me.

The Heart of the Earth

This morning while waking up another thought came to me. The Garden of Eden was to the earth like our heart is to our own being. Since God designed us to live openly and nakedly from our heart He placed Adam and Eve in the heart of the world to live naked and unashamed. When they received the sinful, twisted “programming” of Satan and moved quickly to a focus on external identity in place of internal value they immediately begin to experience fear and shame and loss of personal worth. They then attempted to fix the problem by addressing the externals and looking for someone to blame only aggravating the situation exponentially.

Because of this new condition, God had to change their physical circumstances to match their internal condition. Since they had chosen to live outside their hearts He required them to leave the Garden, the heart of the world, provided external coverings for their nakedness and gave them someone to lay their blame upon—an innocent lamb. He did this to protect the heart of His new world from experiencing the same defilement as their hearts had experienced until the plan of restoration for all humanity was sufficiently progressed to allow them back into the Garden. This will take place after the Second Coming of Jesus when all the saved are introduced to heaven where the original Garden was transplanted temporarily for protection until the New Earth is restored.

Thus God illustrated how He is dealing with our own heart. He initiated protection for the “heart” of the world by personally keeping it with Him. He also protects our original hearts as He designed them with an angel with a flaming sword to keep us from trashing it completely until we learn to live from it once again in innocence, honesty and naked transparency. This is the object of salvation – salvaging us, restoring us to our original function and design. “Getting to heaven” is almost incidental as simply part of the process of restoration, not the main focus of salvation. The main passion of God in salvation is to accomplish full reunification of the broken relationship of intimacy between Him and every human being willing to accept a vital connection to Him at every level of existence. He is hungry for our affection. He craves to make us outlets and channels of His own feelings and emotions. He wants us to experience the joy of closeness to Him and to each other that He created us to experience. And He is relentless in pursuing His passion until He has drawn every willing soul into the redemption that He has provided in Jesus Christ.

Then humanity will again have access to literally live once again in the “heart” of the earth, the original Garden of Eden restored to the original earth from which it was taken so long ago. The New Earth will externally reflect the restoration that has taken place internally within all the redeemed.

And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, "To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever." (Revelation 5:13)

“The great controversy is ended. Sin and sinners are no more. The entire universe is clean. One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation. From Him who created all, flow life and light and gladness, throughout the realms of illimitable space. From the minutest atom to the greatest world, all things, animate and inanimate, in their unshadowed beauty and perfect joy, declare that God is love. {GC 678.3}

Why Anger

The back of my brain has been quietly analyzing ideas and mulling them over subconsciously as usual. When it comes up with a possible conclusion it then offers it up to my consciousness for affirmation. These ideas are not timed as far as I can tell, they just appear when they are ripe. They formulate from inputs and updates both new and old.

One of these appeared a couple days ago and I quickly had to write it down before I lost track of it. I have been a little puzzled about the nature and substance of the emotion of anger. People have a lot to say about it and against it and often have such strong opinions about it they cannot be objective or open-minded to new views of it. But I now think that in many cases anyway, if not always, anger may be more of an “intensity indicator” of other emotions than a stand-alone emotion.

In analyzing my own experience of when I become angry, it often does not make sense for the situation. But if I carefully uncover the original feeling that preceded the anger and then see how or why anger follows it, it begins to make a lot more sense. For instance, in my case many times anger follows almost instantly after shame or fear. Because I feel frustrated by either my inability to express those emotions from fear of exposure and shame or my belief that others will not recognize the depth of those feelings, I then employ anger to attempt to force them to recognize how intense my original feeling is.

Of course this obviously is not very effective at all since I never expressed the original emotion to start with so how would they know how intense it was. But my emotional mind is not so much concerned with being logical as it is desirous of being understood. That's why someone who can have the ability and desire to look past the anger and gently expose the original emotion and synchronize with it has much more influence than simply reacting to the anger and thereby amplifying it. This too may be much of what Jesus was talking about when He said, “Do not resist an evil person”. Resistance tends to amplify the frustration whereby a gentle and loving spirit sees past it to the pain and shame that is screaming to be recognized.