The core fears I have are about circumstances.
I have no control over my circumstances though!
It's just like the rocks that hit my front windshield on the freeway that cost me $50 to replace through my insurance and time and inconvenience to my parents. Yet above all those bothersome things about the circumstance stands my disdain for being a nuisance by accident. I hate that I had no control over what had happened! I didn't even see the rocks coming until they did. I wasn't able to stop them. I wasn't able.
And not once did I stop to think about the able-ness of God to stop them, and why He may have not stopped them out of love for me.
Because all I see is that rocks that cracked my window-- which had me waste time calling my insurance and repair technicians, time and money and inconveniences to others-- are all JUST BAD. Why? Because I said so. And I control what's bad and good in my life, not God. Meanwhile I have no problem curtailing all the other areas in my life where I may have wasted time, money or been an inconvenience to my parents, and I either ignore those times or just bundle them all into a big fat self-disdaining drawer. I'm either too good in my view or too bad. However, I'm learning more to be both and to give both parts of myself in submission to God. My good attributes as well as my bad ones. Both need to be dependent on God--the good ones for continuing goodness, and the bad ones for healing and transformation. The moment I am not in submission to Christ is the moment I fall into sin and all that sin reaps (greed, anger, bitterness, hatred, self-pity, lack of self-control, etc).
So, in this specific train of thought, my fear of circumstances are what drive my behaviors toward sin..trying to become able. I often find that I naturally lean toward those abilities I have had success in, and steer clear of the ones I have not. If I have had success in being beautiful or found intellectual then I will uphold those things most, while a lack of success in relationships, commitment or self control I will not attempt as much. I am constantly trying to be able UNTIL I realize the truth that God is the only One who is able.
Rather than submitting to the able-ness of God and accepting that He loves me through every self-perceived "bad" circumstance, I perceive good and bad based on my standard of able-ness: me.
It's much easier to be hard on myself and hate myself than to look at God and think "wow, I'm so loved by You."
Or it's much easier to justify my anger and affirm my own feelings by my self and think, "it's not my fault, so don't get mad at me, I'm innocent." All the while my soul cannot deny the feelings of defensive disdain at anyone who might try and make me feel guilty.
When a whole dependency on God for one's able-ness is not accepted, then every effort one makes to become able breeds a lack of love for others--especially when they are unable to meet the standards you place on yourself-- and a lack of love for the self that is in Christ since you are really trying to be "able" apart from Him.
So how can we live wholly dependent on God for our abilities, our able-ness?
Through humility as the truth of our weaknesses and sinful natures are unearthed beneath the layers of lies and phony cover ups we try to present to people.
We live dependent on God when we live in the truth.
The truth when speaking to people, the truth when speaking to God, and the truth when speaking to ourselves.
Recognize your human limits by the amount of love you have for others and for God and for your self that is in Christ. The heart is deceitful above all things, but it is also where your treasure is. There are lies and there are truths in there! There are sins in there and there is the Holy Spirit in there.
Knowing that I am good is harder to me than knowing that I am a sinner sometimes. And at other times, knowing that I am a forgiven sinner is more difficult (especially when it requires forgiving an offensive person) than knowing that I am good or justified in my responses.
Whatever happens today, be honest, and take time to submit your honesty as well as your phony cover ups to God. Not to be right, but to be loved by God. Sometimes knowing I was wrong brings me more love from God than doing what I knew to be right. But other times doing what I felt God wanted me to do brings more love than falling into the temptation to sin. So rather than trying hard to be right and trying hard to not be wrong, I must try and believe that God loves me, all of me.
In every circumstance.
"So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." -John 8:36
What's more free than that? Haha. Freedom is liberty from punishment and enjoyment of life as one who is supremely loved unconditionally. Then, and only then, can I be a vessel of love for others by God. Only if I know with increasing certainty that both failure to be loving and success in being loving is indeed loving--not by my ability but because God is able. I just run to the truth.
"and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." -John 8:32
The truth is...
To be honest I think....
Honestly I feel like....
Jmegrey
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