Is the pain we go through only so that we can handle more and more pain throughout our life (like how vaccines work)? Or are they so that one day the Hope will be even more glorious??
And I treat my relationship with You as if it's based on emotional manipulation. I constantly tread upon the egg shells of the cross....but not the real cross, it's the cross of my own making. Surely, I reason, I must remember this. Must constantly repent. 'We need to stop visiting our tombs and talking to our dead old men' (The Supernatural Ways of Royalty).
I have forgotten the grace. Willfully and by mistake. I have worried and feared....not placing my faith or trust in Hm and what He's done. Who IS He? What HAS He done? Is it because I keep forgetting this or because I've never really known? I feel like I'm going slightly insane....
I am tired. Tired of trying to make myself hear You. Trying to encourage myself in You. Can You come and speak to me? Encourage me again? This emotional rollercoaster. Spiritual schizophrenia....one day hearing You, the next day not, then hearing you for two and then not for five. Back and forth, no steadiness. No consistency. I've forgotten what a mountain looks like. All I seem to remember is this valley.
I am feeling slightly detached from LIFE...you know? Slightly detached from Him. and I'm tired of TRYING to BE something. This indistinct feeling that somehow the ME that I am is inadequate, not enough, when I am in a relationship with Him. I desperately want this to be a RELATIONSHIP and not a duty. But it can so easily slip into a duty.
When did You stop being enough?
When did I stop looking at You face and only looked at Your hands? Have I ever REALLY seen You for who You are, and not simply for what You've done?
As I looked down at that cup of blood, that cup of love, and the immensity of it nearly drowned me.
She whom I set free, is free indeed.
Really? Have I been simply unthankful or living in a prison of my own construction?
And when I least expect it He comes and says, 'After all this pain, and sorrow, and lies, and despair....are you brave enough to believe that the dawn is coming?' It's like we walking around the palace, creeping about like we are the servants when He's made us His children. Yes, we should know that we were paupers once, but we are called to walk about the palace now as legitimate children and heirs. We are trying to serve Him, the King, when He wants us to sit at His table. He's dressed us up in royal robes and changed who we are in His kingdom. Why do we insist on doing the mopping, as if to repay Him - somehow - (we feel the need to) for this grace? We get dirty doing 'His work' and He washes us every time.
'What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, she is no different from a slave, although she owns the whole estate. She is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by her Father. So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might recieve the full rights of daughters. Because you are daughters, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out 'Abba, Father'. So you are no longer a slave, but a daughter, and since you are a daughter, God has made you also an heir.' (Galatians 4:17).
'Reviewing the sinfulness of our past in order to become humble is perversion. It actually creates shame; and shame is a poor counterfeit of humility....in reality it is much more humbling to live in the liberty of unearned forgiveness.'
'Repentence was needed....true repentence is to change the way you think....my shame was over my humanity, and my discouragement was over who I wasn't (not a secret or unrighteous habit).'
'We no longer live in the bondages of our past - performance and c omparison,....but we know our worht in simply loving Him'
(The Supernatural Ways of Royalty)
Today is the first day in a long time...a very long time, that I feel excited and passionate about being a Christian. About living this life again. This week has been one of those foundation shifting weeks where the perceptions of everything change. I feel a level of peace....and joy (is that what this feels like?) in Him...in You, that I haven't for an age. And then the change came and I didn't even realise.
'Have heart my dear
we're bound to be afraid
even if it's just for a few days
making up for all this mess
Light up, light up,
as if you have a choice,
even if you cannot hear my voice,
I'll be right beside you dear.'
(Snow Patrol, Run)
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