I Must Turn Aside and Look Into This Matter

In some of my recent thoughts (on both of my blogs) I have shared about the inevitable struggle-grind we all are confronted with.

It was in becoming flesh that God in the person of His son Jesus Christ fully entered into our plight/struggle, and transformed it, and in so doing has established a living hope for all.

From the book, Amazing Grace, (A Vocabulary Of Faith), Kathleen Norris shares this: ‘I am grateful now for that experience of pain and struggle; it makes my present enjoyment of worship all the sweeter.’

And this: 'I didn't do living right, at first. When I was six months old, I nearly died. All wrong, for an infant, to be so caught up in the last things. Naturally, the hospital was called Providence; in all likelihood, as I was in danger of dying, a nun baptized me there. My official baptisim came four months later, in the arms of my grandfather Norris, a Mthodist pastor. Six months of age is too early to learn that one's mother and father are helpless before death. But the struggle that took place in my infant body and still-forming, pre-verbal intelligence was between life and death, and I am convinced that a sense of something vast, something yet to come, took hold in my unconscious and remains there still.'

Rich

Love, Freeing us to be Real

I was catching up on some blog reading the other day and came across this from Lisa over at
http://lisadelay.blogspot.com/

I liked very much what Lisa has to say in her response to Cole’s questions.

It was this in particular that spoke to me; ‘What sharing your faith (Christian apologetics) boils down to is something more than just preaching and defending the Good News. Humans are in rebellion against God in their hearts. The bible points this out in the narrative story of God's interaction with people. Many thirst for something missing --which is the missing reconciliation with God. They long for peace, but also many are in opposition to God. And some (basically) hate him. We have to know this when we talk to people who don't believe. Spiritually it boils down to submission, doing things God's way....for you and for those opposed to God. Submission is never easy-- and not very cool in a society that prizes freedom, independence, and choice. Paradoxically, it is God's authority that brings comfort, clarity, and relief.’

Believe me when I say that I know it was the unconditional love and acceptance of God the Father that we were all created for, and it is this love that is doing what NO law could ever do, but!

These are simply a few thoughts here on what I think I saw in Lisa’s words that spoke to me.I think one easily forgets that humans are in rebellion against God in their hearts, and yes we are all thirsting for that which is missing, His total loving acceptance, but there is this innate built in (because of sin) opposition towards God.
Once again I know it’s the Love of God the Father that releases me to be able to relinquish my will (submit-why is that such a bad word) in place of His, aka, doing things His way.

Yes it was by grace through faith that the miracle of the re-birthing took place, but for one to forget or not even see that within our flesh (and I know that is no longer who we are) the residual effects of sin, (and that is not just some defect, but a rebellious (birth mark stamped within us) defiance, the very spirit that permeated Lucifer-Satan that invaded all of humanity) is living a lie.
It is always truth being held in tension that brings forth the real. It will always be within the battle of the struggle and strain that we are experiencing Life, or as one person once said, ‘God doesn’t give us over coming life, but Life as we over come.’

Nothing thrills my heart more than seeing the Captain of my salvation, my elder brother Jesus Christ agonizing in the garden, and that was all about that which was a part of his flesh, that which he took upon himself in the incarnation battling over his will vs the will of his Father.
What I especially love about this royal battle was that he did not try and put on a happy God face as if having to strain-struggle was something drastically wrong with this God-man.
Read the story for yourself, He invites those (his friends) to be with him in this place of great agony.

God forbid that we as believers should ever let anyone see us sweating, straining, struggling, and why should they, there is no more resistance or rebellion in our flesh-is there??

Rich