I have been banned from posting personal things or controversial things on Facebook. That is the world I have come to live in now. For this season, I am isolated from the main outlet that I have used to voice my worries, fears, failures, and weakness as a sign that even pastors lives suck sometimes. So, if I cannot use Facebook anymore, then this shall be my outpost of sharing what is or isn't good in my life.
I have, in fact, cut my Facebook "friends" down considerably. I have continued to follow those in the church as "acquaintances" only because it is still a way for THEM to share the suck of life. They are under no ban nor limitation for what they are allowed to post. But I have limited Facebook posts to only those I know can be there to hear what I say and express the appropriate response.
But for this day, I felt I should share what has been happening in my devotion life. I have found a new desire to greet each day with a time of spiritual reading, Bible reading, meditation, and prayer. I was in a wasteland of abandoning these things. I was dry inside. There was no spring of living water. Now, I daily come to this well. I look forward to it. Even on days I do not "want" to do it, I hear the Holy Spirit gently urging me to return.
Yesterday, the day after the visit to the principal's office (meeting the SPR with the DS and being driven over by a bus), I had no interest in reading my devotions. I avoided it at home because I left my iPad at the church. I could have used another device to read them, but by golly it wasn't going to happen. I got to work and unlocked the office, the entire time telling God I wasn't going to read anything because I didn't feel like it. But the Holy Spirit, the annoying urging, was gently saying, "read". My response, quite literally, was "Shut up God." Three times I heard "read" and three times I responded "Shut up God".
When I sat down at my desk, I had just said my last "Shut up God" when I reached for my iPad and opened it to read my devotions.
What unfolded was words that spoke into my heart and soul what needed to be said. That is what I have been experiencing every day. My devotions are the words that I need to hear at that moment. Yesterday, my brother in Christ who constantly annoys me with wisdom beyond his years, asked me to consider "why am I here?" Today, the readings spoke to this question.
From A Year with Thomas Merton,
How much I must admit and renounce ambition and agitated self-seeking in my work....God will take care of me, for in my confusion and helplessness I nevertheless feel (believe in) His closeness and strength....To live more abandoned to God's will and less concerned with projects and initiatives.
Maybe I have become to centered on self-greatness. I am arrogant. I am ambitious. I am self-seeking in my work. But those are things to which I must die. To be abandoned to God's will means the church will have to accept me dying to self. Let God's will arise to the surface to lead as I abandon my need to be the center of the project or initiative.
From Year With God: Living Out the Spiritual Disciplines
"The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still." Our choice is either to trust our plans with all our heart or trust our God....God prompts us to act without plans in place and with no guarantee that everything will come together as it should.
I think I have been plying myself with platitudes that sounded like this. But true trust was never at the heart. I still wanted to know the plan and have the iron-clad guarantee. God didn't promise me any of that. God didn't promise rewards and prosperous ventures and being accepted. The opposite was very true for Jesus. His reward was a trial. His prosperity was a bloody wrap and crown of thorns. His acceptance was being mocked as the king of the Jews and the son of God. Even the ones who did accept him were not quite sure what he was about.
I whine a lot. I get that. I am reproved for withdrawing because I am not being friendly and social. I am rebuked for being transparent. I am at wit's end for the emotions that are just bouncing off the inside of my heart and the thoughts they inspire screaming inside my head. The peace I have encountered lately has been blessed. It has enlarged my life to have calm in the center of all that is going on around me.
That peace is interrupted by the turmoil of rejection, betrayal, and life circumstance. I am finding it some what easy to recover, though. I have it again today. The Lord is fighting for me. Not just fighting against the turmoil inside my heart and head. God is fighting FOR me. God wants me for something. God isn't showing me what that is, yet. God wants me to wander toward it with trust and faith. That is where I move from here and now. I must trust that God will provide. If the peace can come easier than before, than the rest must be able to fall into place as I trust to take the next step. Even if I don't know where it will land.
Exile from Facebook isn't exile from truth. Nor is it permanent. God will make a way through the sea. Welcome to the wilderness.
I have, in fact, cut my Facebook "friends" down considerably. I have continued to follow those in the church as "acquaintances" only because it is still a way for THEM to share the suck of life. They are under no ban nor limitation for what they are allowed to post. But I have limited Facebook posts to only those I know can be there to hear what I say and express the appropriate response.
But for this day, I felt I should share what has been happening in my devotion life. I have found a new desire to greet each day with a time of spiritual reading, Bible reading, meditation, and prayer. I was in a wasteland of abandoning these things. I was dry inside. There was no spring of living water. Now, I daily come to this well. I look forward to it. Even on days I do not "want" to do it, I hear the Holy Spirit gently urging me to return.
Yesterday, the day after the visit to the principal's office (meeting the SPR with the DS and being driven over by a bus), I had no interest in reading my devotions. I avoided it at home because I left my iPad at the church. I could have used another device to read them, but by golly it wasn't going to happen. I got to work and unlocked the office, the entire time telling God I wasn't going to read anything because I didn't feel like it. But the Holy Spirit, the annoying urging, was gently saying, "read". My response, quite literally, was "Shut up God." Three times I heard "read" and three times I responded "Shut up God".
When I sat down at my desk, I had just said my last "Shut up God" when I reached for my iPad and opened it to read my devotions.
What unfolded was words that spoke into my heart and soul what needed to be said. That is what I have been experiencing every day. My devotions are the words that I need to hear at that moment. Yesterday, my brother in Christ who constantly annoys me with wisdom beyond his years, asked me to consider "why am I here?" Today, the readings spoke to this question.
From A Year with Thomas Merton,
How much I must admit and renounce ambition and agitated self-seeking in my work....God will take care of me, for in my confusion and helplessness I nevertheless feel (believe in) His closeness and strength....To live more abandoned to God's will and less concerned with projects and initiatives.
Maybe I have become to centered on self-greatness. I am arrogant. I am ambitious. I am self-seeking in my work. But those are things to which I must die. To be abandoned to God's will means the church will have to accept me dying to self. Let God's will arise to the surface to lead as I abandon my need to be the center of the project or initiative.
From Year With God: Living Out the Spiritual Disciplines
"The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still." Our choice is either to trust our plans with all our heart or trust our God....God prompts us to act without plans in place and with no guarantee that everything will come together as it should.
I think I have been plying myself with platitudes that sounded like this. But true trust was never at the heart. I still wanted to know the plan and have the iron-clad guarantee. God didn't promise me any of that. God didn't promise rewards and prosperous ventures and being accepted. The opposite was very true for Jesus. His reward was a trial. His prosperity was a bloody wrap and crown of thorns. His acceptance was being mocked as the king of the Jews and the son of God. Even the ones who did accept him were not quite sure what he was about.
I whine a lot. I get that. I am reproved for withdrawing because I am not being friendly and social. I am rebuked for being transparent. I am at wit's end for the emotions that are just bouncing off the inside of my heart and the thoughts they inspire screaming inside my head. The peace I have encountered lately has been blessed. It has enlarged my life to have calm in the center of all that is going on around me.
That peace is interrupted by the turmoil of rejection, betrayal, and life circumstance. I am finding it some what easy to recover, though. I have it again today. The Lord is fighting for me. Not just fighting against the turmoil inside my heart and head. God is fighting FOR me. God wants me for something. God isn't showing me what that is, yet. God wants me to wander toward it with trust and faith. That is where I move from here and now. I must trust that God will provide. If the peace can come easier than before, than the rest must be able to fall into place as I trust to take the next step. Even if I don't know where it will land.
Exile from Facebook isn't exile from truth. Nor is it permanent. God will make a way through the sea. Welcome to the wilderness.
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