Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Just Jesus

Somethings's shifting in the foundation. I'm making myself vulnerable by posting these things, but have a suspicion I'm not the only one who struggles with this.

Childhood scars go deep. Not too deep for Jesus  though.  At times Holy Spirit will root them out, peel back the scar to expose the raw flesh underneath. It's not pretty, ugly in fact, and odorous. But without the peeling to expose and clean, it'll keep on festering and nothing will change. In fact the infection will go deeper, spreading malevolently through the body, bitter roots going deep. I don't want that. I think it's happened a bit already and I want it out.

Children can be mean. Survival of the fittest is often their law. They don't know it. They just live in the flesh and pecking orders happen. Because they're sinful...all of us are...
They talk behind each other's backs, say spiteful, hurtful words...and exclude....
This one was an easy target, already having a wounded spirit.
It's what draws meanness out of kids in the first place. Wounding begets wounding. It seems to be a spiritual law.
So the cycle goes on. Insecurity lodges deep. All manner of sinful agreements made with anger, bitterness, jealousy,unforgiveness, revenge, hurt, fear, and deep, sad loneliness.

Then she grows up and Christ comes in and it's all better. Right?  No!

Because He doesn't just make everything better. That would be nice, but then we'd circumvent the process and the learning to trust, again, and we wouldn't yield our will and repent of the evil agreements made in the heat of pain and our own self centered sinfulness. Let's be honest.

Then the Savior takes her and plops her right back into what feels like the same situation all over again. All those years later. But with grown ups.

And she has a choice. Dig out those old boxes of offense, open up to the stinking, rancid mess and start adding more. More judgement, more rejection, more insult, more misunderstanding, more competition, more SIN (we're being honest right?).

Or!

Open the box and let Jesus look. Because that's what He asked to do.
"Move over and let Me see in there." His hand gentle on her back as she's peering in at the hopeless mess.
He digs down through that black, make-me-wretch refuse, looking for Truth.
"Lots of lies in here, hmmm over there...more misinterpretations, let Me shine a Light down there. It's so dark."
He turns and faces her, gentleness caressing with Words spoken patiently.

"Instead of adding more to this, let's do something different this time. All the things you feel are happening...may be happening. True. What does that mean? Nothing much when you think it through, because when you are in Me, what anyone thinks of you doesn't really matter.  Really.  At all.
That doesn't take away your responsibility to love and forgive and be forgiven and function fully as a member of My Body.
What it does is remove your need to respond to the opinions of others. Because outside of Me, other people's opinions are insignificant. You would like everyone to like you. But it's not going to happen and that's okay."

He makes me think of Max Lucado's book "You are Special" about Punchinello. The book that Belinda made me read out loud to her, sitting right there on the step in her foyer years ago. I was too locked down then to let it penetrate or draw a tear.

Now it makes sense and I understand it without a tear because...I'm not sad anymore.
Still sorting it out. Yes. Just learning not to be all hung up on me.

That's the crux of it all isn't it. Who am I thinking about? Because if it's me, I'm in trouble. Then I go back to those boxes and start pulling out insecurity which is really just the flip side of self sufficiency and pride. Two sides of the same coin.
Thinking about me...not so good. Thinking about Christ is good and I get His perspective on it all. It doesn't change anything about the situation, but it does change everything.

Leaning thankfully into His understanding.