Lost in the Moment

…and he cured my Corona virus! At least the fear of it…or at least my awareness of it…for 20 minutes.

So I’ve dabbled in the magic arts, ergo online counseling. Started well enough. Just like the shrink at home…pointed questions dwelt on, unnecessary reminders of stuff we talked about last week, jostling office items around during our session, etc.

Yeah so the term shrink it turns out does not refer to the size of your problems. But I did get a hat and a ring with my shrink’s initials on them. anyway…

Word to the wise, avoid larger scope issues and get down to the nitty gritty…symptoms. Why? Because shrinks are adept at this issue, and they love talking about them.

And what else makes a good shrink? 10 minutes late starting equals 20 minute (not 30) session!

He was nice tho. Had a nice southern drawl.

Would Moses have gone to Egypt more willingly had he had a smaller sea to practice on parting?
Would Noah have built the amazing boat had he known for sure somehow he was gonna be justified for his actions?

Do you ever think life would be better if we could get an idea, just a glimpse maybe of what God’s up to?

A trusted friend recently told me upon answering a deep theological question about knowing God’s will…”well…it’s a mystery.”

Upon him saying that it felt like honey on my tongue. That we can all lean back, and do without having to know why.

But then maybe the doing is not so independent of the why.

Me…def spinning my wheels like ever. I feel like I’m finally gaining ground, then the door of woeful challenges slams on my foot. Just as I’ve started to figure out the formula. ‘Do such and such by 9am. When you decide to fast, make sure not to cheat. Work harder in the morning to make the evening lighter.’

I’m sure we can all identify with the struggle of productivity. But…when we ache to get behind the scenes for a second, couldn’t that just speed things along?

O yeah. God’s timing isn’t ours. He is slow to anger (very grateful). He transcends time and space. I’m glad we have a personal being in all of this, but the book of Ecclesiastes tells us our lives are just vapors, in and out. So..where does the nicety of God maybe being slower to act then we are come in?

One thing I’m sure I learned from Divine prompting is the concept of when you need to turn around, do it as quickly as possible. Don’t wait for things to make sense, or the feel like it to come in. Act in faith…Preaching to the choir I”m sure. Bc when the lights go out you just gotta follow the sound of your friend’s voice.

But then, maybe in God’s sovereign thought process, I was meant to find the last task a bit too sudden and huge to be completed at the drop of a hat. So…here I am getting some blogging done. Feels like a whiny session but then we all like to whine a bit at times right?

I read earlier that Hope is what makes the light of the tunnel big enough to be worth following, or maybe important enough. The fear of death propels many of us to keep striving for life. But here, rather the hope that all things will be new can enrapture us.

I’ll close on this idea. The theological term, Immanuel means God with Us. Us faithful Christmas lovers all know that. But have you thought on John’s revelation considering the term Immanuel? Mind-blowing. 

Immanuel is both the beginning of Jesus’ life on earth part I, AND the beginning of Jesus’ life on earth part II. When we die we go to heaven, but when our bodies are resurrected and the old earth’s time is spent, we won’t go to heaven. Heaven will come to us! The New Jerusalem! God With Us!

Every man’s battle is not mine and mine is not theirs. Theirs may be more feasible than mine or vice versa. So what is it that makes it EVERY man’s?

My vote is we all come from the same, personal, artist, i.e., one who initiates and develops a craft. So if we are family, then we must have something to talk about. I’m leaning toward the nudge. Lol.

What is the nudge you ask? I say to you it is the very reason behind you having that question to ask. If you don’t know what it is, you’ve been frozen half your life, or you’re stuck in that old river de-nile.

Should we heed this moving of our seeming conscience? Would it make us look crazy?..Feel crazy?..or wind up being much ado about nothing, likening our chances to fight it off harder the next time it surfaces?

..and it will resurface. When I’m in the dentist’s chair, at the grocery store, virtually any public place where I could reveal my inner ability to speak to strangers.

Well…what if I don’t want it to come back around? Can I take pills to make it go away? Can I do more cardio, more intensely? Can my counselor/pastor/podcaster help it subside?

Jesus chimed in. 2 sides, no middle ground. Try the other. See where it gets you.

Sure makes me coming back for more. But then Jesus…why do you ask so much of me, how do you expect me to carry a cross every day? I know you did, but that was You (God), not me.

Couple things I know about the nudge. “It only takes a spark to get a fire going! Soon all those around are warmed with its glowing.” That is when a tiny grain of faith takes the worry off of me, and becomes the gratitude for we.

So…if alot of good tends to come from a little, seems like I would be busier. No answer for that one just now. But I do need to check out one more podcast..

Maybe a good teaser for a monologue about how as John Locke put it, “Love is the act of making the other better”.

Don’t get me wrong. I love that quote. But I digress. The angle I wanted to steer toward has to do with moderate to severe mind altering (LEGAL!) medications.

Now I have a friend who struggles with anxiety pretty bad. But he refuses meds because he “wants to be able to feel”. I totally get that. I admire that. But I guess my approach could be said as “I want to be able to feel the meds”.

Disclaimer: the aforementioned individual pastors a large church. I take care of a dog and a rather unruly roommate. I mention this because it seems unethical for someone in his position, esp. of accountability to try out mood altering pills. But for me…Bring on the crucible! Forge me in the fire of experimentation…And I wonder why I have this kind of time on my hands.

Let’s see…point for this entry. Probably that I lose my thought if I write more than 10 words per sentence. :/. Humor aside. I gotta admit my admiration for my friend def leads me to see the grass as greener on his side of the fence. My meds certainly help me through the day, and they help me not get in trouble (later episode). But I’ve always thought, when I take a med that actually works pretty well, I’m cheating, I’ve got the code to save the princess!…and I’m not sharing.

Here’s the thing though…If you have any reverence for the Holy Book (Word of God, the Bible), you may know the letter to the Ephesian church mentioned that those of us who are “In Christ”, they are already seated, in their spirit, “in the heavenlies. To me this means, the spiritual world is, albeit far fetched to our unwilling imaginations, more real than what we see, touch, taste and feel. When Jesus said to store your treasures in heaven, he wasn’t talking about stuff you wait til the end of your life to deposit. No, you got auto deposit, so get it in gear.

the tough thing to grapple with is, are my meds hindering my looking above? My testimony is I’ve been doing a sort of evangelism lately, briefly encountering folks at public places. Now mind you, this work unnerves me to death. When I’m afraid, I cry out, go look for a bandaid. Fear rooted in alot of lack of faith, or in my pride, or unwillingness to learn. Point I’m trying to make, is I’m not gonna sit here and say there is no drug that can help. Clearly no drug can solve the problem. But there are some out there that will mask things pretty well or well enough at times.

My housemate and I were just talking about how Jesus came not only for the sick…but within that category He included…sinners, probably even equated the two categories. So be encouraged that if you do have a debilitating, in this case, mental struggle, you are strong in God’s kingdom. But sinners, even more. I know in my case my sin so often is an addendum to my sickness taking its toll on me. It doesn’t have to go that way. I can make better, on time choices. “But when we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father”.

Me, I’ve tried the med-free life, for a time, til it got tough. But this entry is not about whether or not to ingest a pill. Just wondering, Paul said to fix our eyes on Christ. That makes me so often visualize myself straight up raising my stare off the pavement and onto Jesus’ eyes, like Peter leaping out of the boat. And Jesus, always pressing the other side of the envelope. Did He say to Peter, I commend you for your faith? Know, Jesus was the rock that he is, speaking to the rock of the church in training. Don’t lose faith, Peter. Don’t put your hand to the plow and let go.

as far as psychosomatic meds go, keep an open line with your doc, or switch to one you can talk to. If you want to get off of stuff, do it the doc’s way. But in all things keep in mind, the place being prepared for you, for all of us sealed by the Holy Spirit, is our clear and present reality. Not depression, not anxiety or grief…not principalities, nothing can separate us from our Father’s love.

and turn to him when things get hard. for me, I’m a bit of a whiner. I can’t bring myself to pray in hard times bc my pride gets in the way. I say things like,”it’s no use saying I’m sorry…again. I’ve just gotta change my behavior”. All along forgetting that changed behavior begins on your knees.

One last thought…I love discovering new implications of Christ fulfilling the law. That is, sinners in Jesus’ day were they who Jesus spent time with, partly to stick it to the Pharisees and their religion with the law. But also to show He was the one who could forgive sins, mostly evidenced by a miracle. But also, to fulfill the original fall of man from the garden. Sinners are sinners because they are born under the law, and often times because they have little to no hope of cleaning up.

If you think you’re a sinner who is dependent on Prozac and the like, be encouraged. Hillsong in my fav song King of Kings sings “then from heaven you came running. there was mercy in your eyes”. Mercy has triumphed over judgment bc judgment has not understood it. What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God”. Keep your eyes on Jesus and lock your car. In other words, keep taking your meds. Lord sabaoth, King of Angel Armies will make a way.

..Back in the saddle again

Will I ever not be afraid of good works?

Remember –

•  if He is for us who can be against us?

• Greater is He who is in us

• He is strong to save.  He rejoices over us with singing.  We can come straight to the throne room bc He loves us.

• He has plans to prosper us, not to harm.

• He gave us a spirit of love, of adoption (more difficult than blood child), not spirit of fear.

• Love covers a multitude of sins.

• Think on things that are pure, peaceable…glass half full

• Concentrate on the future – on HOPE – PREPARE!!!

am I alone in seeing these words, “the way to happiness in Jesus” as to be the most arduous words in scripture?

“it’s the same old story…no guts no glory”.

I have observed there are times when this flows. But the vast majority of my time is spent cowering from the first step. After all, the first step unveils the invisible bridge. But it’s the enduring perseverance that wields the holy grail.

As a kid, I never quite grasped the benefit of obedience, or that trust was found inside obedience. I reasoned that the disobedience was more fun or interesting, or just cool, or even that it was uncontrollable at a certain point.

I love how in the New Testament how Paul admonishes Timothy to not be afraid of a youth (himself) instructing this elders. This gives a “know it all” like me hope. Maybe I shouldn’t trust parental or peer wisdom so much as that from God in me.

But then I gotta get folks to bounce ideas off of. Bc I surely wouldn’t want to go on some voice in my head, right? Thankfully I don’t have to obey these folks or their advice, but I desperately yearn for someone who understands where I am.

But God made us so uniquely wonderful that this wish may never come. Maybe the safety in many counselors is inerrant in that we should not be seeing safety, over faith at least.

I had a friend of a friend who died recently, who was known to obey nearly every idea that came across his brain. Now obviously that is impossible, but what a concept of remaining open to God’s nudges. my guess is that what he deemed achievable was what came to fruition, while the completely outlandish were exiled to the occasionally.

the only conclusion I can offer, is trust and obey when you hear God nudge you in the little things. this will bring confidence for accomplishing those bigger things.

Who remembers being grounded? Serving time in the room for something you feel destined to repeat. Seeing that correspondence carry out to adulthood can spell disaster. As adults, time away means time lost, in our vocations, relationships. after all, we don’t know when our last day will come, or when God will come back, assuming we’re not talking about sabbatical.this time lost can lead to setbacks psychologically, or at worst, road blocks without seeming detours. life is full time, part time being too demanding with the stops and starts.

But what about being or getting in over your head? Can a drowning man swim his way out? His mercies are new every morning, but when apathy starts to return to life, will we care? one might ask as did David Bryrne, “well, how did we get here?” Have your retraced your steps to the last place you remember having it somewhat put together?

We must be vigilant, but there are certainly times when this idea doesn’t pay the bills. So…take it one day at a time. baby steps. Sing praise to your Creator, “in the middle of your enemies”. Resolve to faithfulness in handing the battle back to who it belongs to,
God. Perhaps, be vigilant in the little things, remembering we will not, we can not be trusted with larger things without first being faithful to baby steps.

If you don’t know the story of Jim Elliot, he was a romantic Christ follower who developed a dream to reach out to the unreached with the Gospel. In her book Through Gates of Splendour, his wife Elizabeth recorded his martyrdom at the hands of the Auca Indians he finally visited. Their story is also depicted in the recent movie, The End of the Spear. Basically, there was a vision, to reach this primitive tribe off the coast of Ecuador. A team assembled, provisions used to coax the natives, and finally the team landed on their beach, only to be “gunned” down with arrows.

So I was sitting in the dentist chair, awaiting yet another crown, when I decided 45 min is too long without reading material so I grabbed a mag from the waiting room. The mag was Outsider, and one article struck me from first glance. I’m leaving out names simply for my own laziness, but it was one guy from Thailand who developed a dream and a plan to do the same sort of mission, to an island tribe off the coast who was totally untouched by modern society.

So his plan culminated in paying off local fisherman to drop him on the beach where the tribe frequented. There he would present useful goods to try to coax conversation. I’m assuming he had studied the language. Well, striking to me, same fate…murdered upon setting foot on the island!

They say history has a way of repeating itself. Well in Scripture, typology is the thing – lots of imagery or symbols pointing to the Christ, the Messiah. This is not the same thing as history repeating itself, nor was the man from Thailand a modern day Jim Elliot. All I’m saying is I read Through Gates of Splendour while on a mission trip IN Ecuador, and when I saw this article I nearly fell out of my chair.

if your boredom and spare time continue, check out my more “well rounded” blog at obviousgrasp.wordpress.com. The title is A Risky Mess

Suffering: for good or bad..Which is worse?

(Not referring to which is better, but to which is for lack of a better word, more challenging.)

Suffering consequences from wrong actions…

Or suffering the torture and entrapment of doing right?

Better to suffer for good than bad I know, but there is a certain sense, this side of hell at least in which suffering for good is just too extremely intense to bear.

Saints need perseverance, to endure to the end, but we also are called to be perfect which who can grasp?  When I am not perfect, temptation starts to loom, thus it becomes more challenging to turn back to right.  One wrong decision can cause a cascade leading to more suffering consequences and re-sowing instead of reaping.

I think maybe the one advantage suffering for good has is to avoid the Groundhog Day effect that comes with consequences, i.e., you keep repeating the same vicious cycle of apologies, patronizing, disappointment from others, others having an idea what you’ve been up to.  Ok, so that’s more than one advantage.

But my reason for writing is not to state the obvious but to make a case for suffering for wrong.  Solely because as David knew, suffering for right leads to persecution from outsiders incl. friends, or in Job’s case, from God.  He’s always testing our hearts for some reason.

I suppose with the subject of suffering, it’s like a long process of learning to walk.  Like…half a step..crash…another quarter step…fall…two steps forward…roll back down the hill and so forth.