Misidentification

There are occasions when I return to an exercise in uncensored writing.  It is how I unload without the hindrance of feeling the need to watch my words or over-analyse my faith posture.  I express confusion, doubt, anxiety, torment, anger, or any other emotion, without preaching myself a sermon on why I should or should not be feeling those feelings.  The Lord uses these occasions to unravel tangled messes.

The twisted subject of weight loss is a good example.  I have been emptying my soul on this subject for some time.  It feels like the whole topic has taken the form of idolatry. Have I let the quest for weight loss identify me?  Do I believe that others judge me based on outward appearances?  Is that how I judge myself?

I think too much about the need to lose weight.  The cycle of failure on this subject is intense.  Voices from the past are still audible. Confusion mounts:  Am I simply not resting my faith on His ability in me? Is this a thorn in my flesh meant to keep me relying upon the Lord?  Should I leave the subject alone because of how all-consuming it has become?  A reasoning mind can find support for all three variables, which only adds to the paralysis.

This much I know, my way of escaping confusion is to allow the search for His reality in me to be my singular quest.  All the other questions, answers, and needs will fall in line behind that one quest.  I want to exercise discipline, but I want it to be discipline attached to the awareness of His life in me. I don’t want to revert to the impotence of self-discipline that ends up in self-disappointment.

I want to tap His discipline in me as a means of knowing Him.  I want to experience His presence as He flows  through this vessel.  He is able to do far more than I can ask or think. So, here I am, surrendering all of this…again!  I shift my focus back to Him, to seeking His face, and trusting that He will awaken my hunger to know Him as He really is.  Christ in me is temperate. Who I really am is temperate. I deeply desire to manifest His attributes, bear His fruit, and  reflect His character. That is the true nature of my being, the natural bend of this new creation.

The mind gets desperate when it wants a new problem to solve and will attach itself to anything. It craves a conflict to resolve. It will tackle any topic, even the examination of scripture. In deciphering truth it only creates more encryption. It deliberates contradictions only to debate its own confusion.

A humble heart knows far more than a proud mind. I know nothing at all unless I know that God alone knows it all. I know things that I don’t know I know, and there are things I don’t know that I think I do. Questions persist and beliefs remain untested, but disputes or variances in interpretation can offer new meaning to old explanations.

I don’t want to speak as though my take on a subject is immune to disagreement or forget that the word of God is filled with paradox. Mystery sits tantalizingly out of reach and paradox remains a contradiction in logic – but the spirit effortlessly extrapolates the truth from both ends of the spectrum.

The mind is linear. It prefers cut and dry or black and white with no shades of grey. It calls for “either” “or” and chokes on the abstract of “both.” Its insistence on true or false, right or wrong, or good or evil evidences little desire for relationship with the One who knows apart from reason.

My mind has been busy examining a point allowing the ego to satisfy its many needs. It needs closure on a subject that remains open, it needs to be right, it needs truth carved in stone so it can feel in control, it needs to justify the time it has spent pondering the subject, it needs to feel alive. The ego wants to be my hero!

Yes, the hero; the one that figures it out and presents me with “absolute truth” on the subject of choice. It wants to conquer the enemy and deliver the head on a silver platter. It wants the glory, the prize, the homecoming, the parade. It wants to usurp the throne and be the interpreter of truth, the great delineator, the one I turn to in times of trouble. Dare I say, it wants to be God? But the ego is denied…

Revelation is a gift that’s given by God alone. He shines light, imparts insight, and awakens the understanding. God gets to be the hero and the knight in shining armor. He rescues me from the curse of living with reason as my only guide. The tyranny of the mind can be unbearable and my opinions make me crazy.  I lay it down…again!

Old belief patterns concerning God are triggered through radical actions of faith. When the internal realm is our guide, we must dismiss the external circumstances that suggest we not do that which our gut says we must. We are both delighted and apprehensive – our heart is at rest while the flesh trembles. We trust the source of the decision, which allows us to applaud our own courage…but the timing of the spirit can feel audacious!

We take a leap, and then the panic hits! Little what-ifs with dismal paint brushes systematically sketched pictures of doom. Where was my original trust and abandon? Fear began a litany by suggesting that God used peace to trick me into taking a particular action just to teach me a few more hard lessons. Trepidation offered small consolation that I’d make it through and character would be built…and in the end I’d be grateful for the demanding experience. This interpretation has appeased me through many rough seasons…but now it seemed misguided.

Confusion and dread were present. I had a decision to make. Would I believe that God was engineering my demise just to build character? Or would I trust His benevolence to prosper a dream He’d planted? Must every lesson come through pain and heartache? Or could I abandon a false need for suffering? Circumstance always aids comprehension and what looks like conflict, confusion, or an onslaught of doubt, is often a catalyst for increased faith.

I recognized the ego trying to attach itself to the education process as it deliberated which lessons I still needed to learn or repeat. Ego wants the glory that only an abiding life can produce. God doesn’t need me to figure out the lesson He’s teaching so that the ego (with its misguided notion of a separate identity) can jump on board and help Him along. It’s false to think I must know ahead of time what the next lesson is going to be.

True lessons come through the spontaneous life of Christ. He isn’t trying to teach (in a separated sense) or needing cooperation or collaboration to ensure success. He teaches by being Himself in, through, and as me. Learning occurs in me, not to me. It’s the effect of union with Christ; a natural by-product of the new heart. It is a component of who I am; I have no need to be taught…and yet, I will learn.

There’s a paradox at play. When I say, “I can learn,” the role of teacher, lesson, and student are integrated as one. But the idea that there’s still a “lesson I need to be taught” separates me from the teacher and from the lesson I need to learn. The words suggest division, lack of completion, and the necessity of an outside source. In reality, I don’t learn externally – which doesn’t mean that outside sources don’t ignite internal lessons…they do. But the outside source is not my ‘teacher’ because it has no power to cause me to learn. Learning is a response, an ability that is gifted in and through union with Christ.

There’s not a hard lesson waiting to be taught, only a life of learning to be spontaneously lived…in peace and joy and the absence of fear…