I'm gonna admit that it's been harder to figure out the lines between what I blog about and what I don't. There are times when I don't think I have enough energy to really address a tense issue that I'm wrestling with at the moment, even though it kind of encompasses my thoughts, rendering me unable to really write a post becuase in some weird way I feel like I'm lying or stretching. That's the thing about blogs, it's just a controlled presentation of self. Really, I just need to find one thing that I could write about forever, and suddenly I have a post.
I really didn't think about what I was getting into when I pledged to post everyday. I just thought, yeah, it would be a break from reading Google Reader and general input, and allow me to output. But even my penchant for Google Reader has changed. I actually don't compulsively check it anymore, and I have let the feeds languish up to the dreaded 1000+ articles. I actually don't read as much, period. Ben has a habit of sending me theological papers and documents and I haven't been reading it as immediately as I used to. He'll usually send me something and I would've read it and be ready to discuss it, when sometimes he didn't even read the whole thing.
It probably has something to do with my quiet times. It's odd but lately, I've been living this verse: "If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given you." (Forget the reference...I know, that sucks, I should know...A-pack was long time ago). I think I really have been abiding (different translation of remain) in Christ, and oddly enough I've been receiving many blessings that I wished for, and then much, much more. Like Ephesians 3:20 "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us". But the weird thing is, I acutely feel a sense of laziness within me about my quiet times. Like I'm not really getting anything out of it.
Ugh, I guess I just don't know how to handle myself when I feel unaware yet somehow aware of myself. It's like I really need to repent/rejoice, but I don't know how. Like I wish there was something I could cry about just to shake me into a complete surrender to Christ. I'm uncomfortable in the in-between, and afraid that God thinks I've grown enough to handle this vagueness and I'm just gonna have to trust that He's right (and He most assuredly is). BAH, this murky life is frustrating!
Showing posts with label numbness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label numbness. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Friday, August 8, 2008
Friday and Sanctification
Man, how a day does drag on so. So much so that I'm writing in my blog without any real sense of purpose. I hate how this feels, I hate being wasted (and I don't mean that in an alcohol sense).
I put up some pictures at my desk today, and I think that stuff really does make a difference. I also have this calendar that I'm highlighting blue for everyday that passes and green for any vacations I've planned. It's depressing to think that it is really most of what I think about. Someone was telling me how kinda awful it is for someone to have all their hopes and joys into a fabulous vacation that last for a short period of time versus being in the arms of Jesus for all of eternity...I guess sometimes a vacation is all I can grasp at, it's all I can hope for. It's a numbing mechanism in my brain that has turned way on recently. Sometimes it's not even that far off in the future, it's just what I'm going to be doing tonight and with whom and for what purpose.
I think after processing the themes in my first blog posting below, my heart, my body, my mind just gets exhausted. That place where you experience the realization of your extreme sinfulness (in a sense that not only do I sin, but I am a sinner) and the powerful holiness and grace of God. That's exhausting...it's exhausting crying about it with overwhelming tears. But it's so much at the heart of reality that it's difficult controlling my emotions even just typing this in at work! I think if you spend enough time with me nowadays and I allow myself enough room for grace, I just come to that place and break down. Wow, no wonder I've been numbing my mind to dull my soul.
So my counselor gave me this illustration that we come down to the valley to realize the depth of our sinfulness so that we go up the mountain, receiving the grace that brings us joy and peace and a relationship with Jesus, a person. Of course! Basics of Christianity right?...I guess I have fears that I haven't really reached the bottom of the valley, and in order to reach it, there needs to be a lot of prayer, and to pray is to change. Instead of going there, I think this past week I've started to prefer to just pretend that the valley is great, that the valley is just fine for now. But there's this weird tension of the Christian life. There's this call to do that, to wrestle with God, but there's also the whole waiting for the Spirit to move...it's going to take time. It's not like by the next time I post I'm going to say, YAY, I'm no longer a sinner and I'm completely sanctified. NO! I am justified, yet being sanctified, and none of it is because I love God, but because He loves me. So just because this takes awhile, it doesn't mean I do nothing and ignore my helpless state, and just because I'm a sinner in great need to be sanctified, doesn't mean it's going to happen in my time. It's not magical, it's supernatural.
I put up some pictures at my desk today, and I think that stuff really does make a difference. I also have this calendar that I'm highlighting blue for everyday that passes and green for any vacations I've planned. It's depressing to think that it is really most of what I think about. Someone was telling me how kinda awful it is for someone to have all their hopes and joys into a fabulous vacation that last for a short period of time versus being in the arms of Jesus for all of eternity...I guess sometimes a vacation is all I can grasp at, it's all I can hope for. It's a numbing mechanism in my brain that has turned way on recently. Sometimes it's not even that far off in the future, it's just what I'm going to be doing tonight and with whom and for what purpose.
I think after processing the themes in my first blog posting below, my heart, my body, my mind just gets exhausted. That place where you experience the realization of your extreme sinfulness (in a sense that not only do I sin, but I am a sinner) and the powerful holiness and grace of God. That's exhausting...it's exhausting crying about it with overwhelming tears. But it's so much at the heart of reality that it's difficult controlling my emotions even just typing this in at work! I think if you spend enough time with me nowadays and I allow myself enough room for grace, I just come to that place and break down. Wow, no wonder I've been numbing my mind to dull my soul.
So my counselor gave me this illustration that we come down to the valley to realize the depth of our sinfulness so that we go up the mountain, receiving the grace that brings us joy and peace and a relationship with Jesus, a person. Of course! Basics of Christianity right?...I guess I have fears that I haven't really reached the bottom of the valley, and in order to reach it, there needs to be a lot of prayer, and to pray is to change. Instead of going there, I think this past week I've started to prefer to just pretend that the valley is great, that the valley is just fine for now. But there's this weird tension of the Christian life. There's this call to do that, to wrestle with God, but there's also the whole waiting for the Spirit to move...it's going to take time. It's not like by the next time I post I'm going to say, YAY, I'm no longer a sinner and I'm completely sanctified. NO! I am justified, yet being sanctified, and none of it is because I love God, but because He loves me. So just because this takes awhile, it doesn't mean I do nothing and ignore my helpless state, and just because I'm a sinner in great need to be sanctified, doesn't mean it's going to happen in my time. It's not magical, it's supernatural.
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