“Submission is not about authority and it is not obedience; it is all about relationships of love and respect.”
REVELATION 4
9Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, 10the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:
11“You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being.”
JOURNAL
Years ago I read "The Shack". It was an experience that played a role in healing my heart. Of course not the book itself...but it helped me confront some of my own bitterness and anger. It helped me to see all the ways I allowed my hurts to block me from opening up to God and therefore laying down my pent up hurt. I was a mess...still am in alot of ways, but I was in a place where I was using hurt and anger as a way of excusing my own sin. I was quietly blaming all kinds of people and circumstances for why I was experiencing failure and moral compromise.
The problem was never really the ways I experienced hurt and betrayal, but rather how I processed it and held onto it. I was angry and secretly wanted certain people to pay and experience pain. I in turn wanted to be vindicated, comforted, celebrated and loved. What I ultimately realized is that I had to acknowledge the pain from the past but also let it go and lay it before the throne of God. I then had to realize that everything I ever wanted I had already been given in the love and grace of God. That was tough to accept and embrace...still is.
There are days when those old hurts resurface...there are days when I feel desperate for love and acceptance. The reality though is that humans are flawed and humans are incapable of loving perfectly.
To expect or hope that somehow my experience will be different is to live in a delusional, hopeless fairy tale. Yet we are not without hope, Jesus came and died and promises that if we will trust him, surrender to him...we will experience indescribable joy that will mend the hurts of living in this world. Unfortunately this won't inoculate us from heartache...in fact we may experience it in an even greater capacity, but we are promised to have the strength to endure, the love to overcome and the grace when we blow it. What more could we ever want??
He has put eternity in their hearts (Ecc. 3:11) I struggle with how I know things could be, should be—Disney World with the family every day!— as opposed to what they are. It’s a tough line for me to walk. That scripture from Ecc. says to me that we all have a memory of heaven—where it IS DW every day—and we want to recreate that heaven here on earth. I have tell myself, There is a heaven—and this ain’t it! For whatever reason God has given us an Adversary who is the Prince if this world, a Liar and the father of lies. We can’t beat him, we are lost if we join him, all we can do is, exactly what you said, surrender-to Christ, trust, hope, persevere until we get home, and try to help as many others on the journey as we can.
ReplyDeleteP.S. If you ever need someone to tell you how wonderful you are, call me😘