Monday, August 17, 2009

Redeem

I know exactly what I did and why it didnt work. You cant just ignore hurt or sin until it goes away, because it never will with that mindset. It might be hiding away in the back closet that you kept it in, but while you arent paying attention it will be eating through the floor and the wires and its spores will be slowly steeping into the air ventilation system, and before you know it, it has slowly taken over and destroyed more than you even know.

And I did that for a little while. Until I went to open the closet where I kept it hidden and realized that the mold had spread into other areas and now I had to deal with ten times more than I originally thought. Bitterness is a dirty little root.

Recently my pastor had me reading a book called "When People are Big and God is Small." In Gods sovereign timing and grace, this book surprisingly spoke directly into the issues that I was facing. Specifically, one of the last examples hit really close to home, when a counselour is talking with a 27yrold woman who has complaints that her needs arent being met and she wont be better until people start fulfilling her and loving her, and he asks her 3 questions: 1. "What do you need" 2. "who or what controls you" and 3. "where do you put your trust." They are questions basically designed to help this woman see what she is giving the most weight to in her life and pointing her to the statement that "we tend to be controlled by the things we think we need." Ugh. She has her hope in the wrong thing. This book makes it easy for me to see some of my problems stem from a ridiculous fear of man and a terribly lacking fear of God.

Alot of people dont correctly understand fear of man/fear of God stuff... And its more than "being afraid" so to speak.. Its about who or what motivates you, controls you, where do you put your hope, how do you decide things, what controls your thought life. For example, purely example, if I had hard feelings toward someone and I COULD NOT get over them, and thoughts of this person consumed my mind, I shunned and avoided this person even if it destroyed unity in the church, thoughts of how they hurt me consumed my day, spent alot of time with a victim mentality, blah blah, thats a (freakishly) unhealthy fear of man. But, someone who has a healthy fear of God would realize that God is bigger than our pain, that He can redeem all of the hurt and make something beautiful out of it, and that we need to persevere and strive to surrender our pain, longings, issues to God no matter how hard it seems to be.

I was also listening to a sermon last night about forgiveness, and learned that my actions regarding "forgive men when they have wronged you & your heavenly Father will also forgive you" (mt6:14) is directly related to how I grasp the gospel. I think that in my case, I am being hurt by certain people way too easily because of my disproportionate fear of man, and I need to strive to forgive them eagerly because Christ forgave me, and simultaneously strive to make God numero uno.

God is redeeming my brokenness and making something beautiful with it. He is teaching me, the hard way albiet, but thats usually how I learn best, alot about forgiveness and dealing with hurt and sin- dead on -straight up- right away, not letting it linger and poison the rest of the water. He is also teaching me about his love and his plan, and how incredible and perfect it is. I dont know what I need. He does.

Im a little vague, and possibly unhelpful. But Ive said what I need to say.
I challenge you to ask yourself those threee questions and see what you come up with. Whom or what do you fear?

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