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All true meaning comes from being loved.  To love unconditionally promotes safety in others.  A glorious sense of belonging permeates the air.  If I put conditions on my love then you are left with only the struggle to be lovable.  This is slavery – the place where performance pressure is in full swing.  How miserable it is to try to be loved – how ecstatic to be loved just as I am.  Trying to be loved creates bondage, being loved fosters freedom. To fear the loss of love is to live in the struggle to behave lovely at all times.  This destroys freedom by raising an impossible bar.

Fear has a cruel nature and unyielding torment.  Its objective is to shroud the present moment – the place where Love dwells.  God wins my heart by loving me in spite of myself, right here, right now.  He leads me to my highest and best without making me feel inferior or defective along the way.  Love completely disarms fear.  If fear compels me to “get more” or to “hold back,” then Love bids me to “let go” and “live extravagantly.”  Love is all for me and my freedom is its goal.  When love sets me free then love for others is unrestrained in me.

I’ve been watching myself squirm in this time of seeming blindness.  While trusting God I occasionally find myself wishing I could see a little further down the line.  As I settle down I remember that “seeing” comes to me in His time.  He brings truth and unveils the answers to the prayers that lay hidden within me.

Seeing clears the path between the inner kingdom and the outer world.  It is the evidence of our relationship – the fruit of our union. I follow in the dark until the light shines.  I want to see…and each day a little more clutter is removed from my view.  As I go, my opinions fall away.  Letting go of old thoughts is like breaking out of a cage.  I am my own prison and He’s here to set me free.

He removes the deceptions that I’ve perceived as real.  He molds my desires in conformity to His will and brings me to full agreement with Himself.  He constrains my longing heart and noisy head.  I find my desires and trust them to be His will.  He reveals the snares, their roots, and the wisdom for chopping them down. I can rest…He is perfecting that which concerns me!

When I look at mental anguish I see the soul struggling to find solace.  Inner noise is vexation and letting go of the racket is the key to calm.  Lack of forgiveness, judgment, and self defense are large contributors to noise pollution. Dwelling on an offense or tightly clinging to a principle is crippling.  The cross of Christ is the threshold for letting go.  The cross offers energy for living and dying – that which needs to die finds the power to do so, and that which longs for life finds new birth.  With the cross as a pen and my heart as the paper, writing is an avenue of healing.  But even writing, without the cross, can be just the soul’s inferior coping mechanism.

A hungry soul aches for a place to crucify the accuser and its endless demands.   With every cross-less attempt to stop the chaos, 10 more voices amp up the volume.  My soul has no way to escape this abuse on her own; forgiveness becomes my true lover and the cross our marriage bed.  The kindness of the cross mutes the noise and filters the false from the real.  It is my passage to soundness of mind, wholeness, congruity, simplicity and true union.  Some may look at the cross and call it crazy – but those who’ve danced with insanity know the difference.

Turmoil occurs because the soul believes she is the crux of my being.  The soul is like waves in the sea, tossed by changing winds of doctrine.  She is not the wind, nor the gravitational pulls that cause a tide to rise and fall.  She is simply a responder and expresser of that which influences her.  With proud thinking she mimics the authenticity of the spirit.  She struggles to make peace with the world’s view – forgetting that the real me is dead to it and has no need to conform to its image.  When the soul is influenced by memories of a false and fallen self she continues to crave the trivialities of the world.  She clamors for position and longs for recognition, but the true self knows herself beyond such limiting needs.

Living like a temporary Nomad is an exercise in letting go.  Living on a “need to know” basis easily fans the illusion of independence.  I’m surprised by how readily I crave the security of knowing my next move so I can feel in control!  The Lord is saying, “You are in what feels like upheaval. Don’t be afraid NOT to think about it.”  Hmmmm, now there’s a fresh idea!  What would happen if I stopped thinking about circumstances?  Isn’t it obvious?  The thoughts that chase me in circles have no power to change the situation.  Yes, I believe I’ll take a new approach – I won’t think about it anymore.

A different approach is being offered and I get to prove its validity…again!  I’m receptive because even though the language is familiar I know I haven’t mastered the message.  In lieu of thinking about my situation I will observe it and remain quiet by keeping all judgment far away from it. I will give the fresh approach a chance to reveal its own value.

I am happier when I notice, watch, and learn from “what is” rather than thinking about how I can change “what is” into something else.  The key to higher thinking is in NOT thinking – so room is made for God to fill the space with His higher thoughts.  I may think my current condition needs to change.  God thinks it’s perfect just the way it is.  I think it’s bad.  He thinks it’s good.  I think it’s hurting me.  God thinks it is healing me. I think it’s standing in the way of my journey.  God thinks it is my journey.

Thoughts are addicted to the abstract of change. They look at a situation – judge it good or bad – then immediately analyze remedies and improvements.  The reason thought can’t help is because the truth is…nothing needs to change.  All is as it should be.  The compulsion to change my circumstance is rooted in the illusion of an incomplete nature.  Judgment uses the feeling of being incomplete to strengthen the false need for change.  I end up trying to change the very things that are in my path to perfect me.  Struggle is a part of the process.  I live in perfect imperfection where both impotence and capability become divine manifestations of Christ in me – they work together to bring me to maturity.

Not everyone sees the power of weakness; many shun frailty or pass judgment on the flawed by demanding change (ultimatums rarely work).  I would not want to miss the budding life of Christ in anyone (or in any one area of their life) simply because the full fruit is not yet hanging on the vine.  If I’m going to take the liberty of judging a tree by its fruit then I’d do well to make sure I’m looking past the flesh and deep into the heart – remembering that God alone knows the heart of man.

Relationships that are judgmentally abusive are not healthy; they keep me “thinking” I need to improve.  If I still judge myself, demand my own change and punish myself when I’m incapable of producing it, then I will take that same abuse from others.  If I believe I’m defective, I’ll stay close to those who help me to feel bad about myself.  The abuse will feel normal because it is mirroring my own opinion.

Nothing needs to change – which doesn’t mean that nothing changes.  Change happens; but I believe how change happens is often misconstrued.  I remember when someone was tired of my apologies.  I was repeating the same mistakes even though I vowed to change.  I was told, “Susan, change isn’t change until it’s changed.”  I was dismissed for my inability to manufacture change.  Here I am (decades later) and I find the statement is true; and yet to complete the saying I would add, “change isn’t change until it’s changed…and it isn’t changed until the lack of change has changed all it hopes to change in me.”  In other words, I can’t change simply because I want to.  There is a greater work in motion and I do not control the seasons.

When I consider that nothing needs to change then I enter the atmosphere where change can occur. I rest, for God is continually at work in me causing me to will and to work for His good pleasure.  He who began the work is faithful to complete it.  I trust the finished work of the cross and the “little leaven” that is leavening my whole being.  I can trust that God has won, and Christ is the life now living in me.  Once I’m convinced that I am incapable of changing myself then I can trust God with this that He calls “me.”  It is THEN that I can walk away from judgment’s abuse and all the thinking that goes along with it!