People who go to the funeral of someone they once loved cry bitterly.
I think I cry almost every day because I see how I am to attend my own funeral for my Self.
Recently a situation arose where I found myself battling to believe that God was for me. That I could do this thing or task--and not only do it--but do it genuinely with joy overflowing in my heart. I was placed in a schedule that conflicted with me and the reasons of conflict were not so black and white until I brought my feelings and thoughts to God as honestly as I could.
*when I don't go to God for answers/help I go to whatever else will help me cope: sleeping, food, watching movies, Instagram, busyness, exercising, lying to myself, day dreaming, hanging out with friends superficially, isolation, anger, resentment, bitterness, crying, apathy, reading, writing, and whatever else that works for the moment. But in the end only God, being eternal, can give me lasting help.
I turn to God as I am.
Why do I feel...
"trapped" -the need to please forces me to do what I don't want to
(ungodly coping temptation arises)
"Dread, even if mild"- not getting to rest at home but being forced to be somewhere I don't want to be
(sinful coping temptation arises from lack of satisfaction)
"Fear"- of failing to commit because I don't like it
(unhealthy coping temptation arises from feelings of inadequacy)
"Stuck"- in this commitment when I don't want it (coping temptation arises from frustration of lack of joy)
"Distaste"- for days when it might be boring and I don't like it
(Negative thinking leads to coping temptation to avoid bad feelings from negativity)
"Annoyed"- that I can't say what I want to say (self-loathing leading to numbing coping temptation to not be around me in my head)
"Scared"- I'll be doing it in vain or be seen for who I really am
(coping temptation to avoid seeing myself)
"Stressed"- about not being able myself to do it and if I can't handle every other responsibility (coping temptation arises from lack of self worth and wanting to run from it because I want worth and if I can't have it now I don't want to feel anything, especially worthlessness)
"Anxious"- that I will fall into temptation more easily because of the unpredictable
(coping temptation arising from fear of the cycle and habit)
"Tense"- about what will happen that I cannot predict or prepare for
(coping temptation)
"Boredom"- my feeling which will lead to temptation
"Time loss"- my time loss leading to anxiety and temptation
I don't know why I'm down or in a haze.
I don't know why I can't just stop coping the way I do that is not faith-in-God.
My failure to have faith weighs in me like an avalanche I am buried beneath.
I am pressed down but not destroyed, crushed but not despairing. Yet I am deeply perplexed.
I feel I don't know what to do.
My body feels strange and I feel neither hunger nor satiated.
I feel crippled and weak.
I feel scared and unsure.
What is this Lord?
Where is Your love and voice?
What's going on, I want to know.
Is it for me to know now?
And if not, how do I rest in this feeling of unrest?
The seed that dies will bear fruit, Jamie.
Burial.
What happens when someone dies?
They don't wear clothes anymore except the ones someone else dresses them in for the funeral.
They don't talk anymore.
They don't go to sleep and wake up anymore.
They don't hear music anymore.
They don't give hugs to mom anymore.
They don't drive cars anymore.
They don't take naps anymore.
They don't meet with friends over coffee anymore.
They don't read or write anymore.
They don't think about what they need to do next anymore.
They don't cry anymore.
They don't dance or sing anymore.
They don't feel pain anymore.
They don't interact with other living people anymore.
They don't check Instagram anymore.
They don't eat food anymore.
They don't take photos anymore.
They don't wash, cut, and eat fruit anymore.
They don't make sunny side up eggs anymore.
They don't poop or pee anymore.
They don't get old anymore.
They don't worry about money anymore.
They don't worry about being beautiful to people anymore.
They don't have soft moments of thinking about eternity anymore.
They don't study or work anymore
They don't think about the reality of dying anymore.
They don't experience mortality anymore.
They don't go to church anymore.
They don't read the bible anymore.
They don't pray the way they did anymore.
They don't breathe anymore.
They don't relax at home on the couch anymore.
They don't aspire to travel anymore.
They don't have ideas anymore.
They don't make plans for the future anymore.
They are gone forever from their life here.
They are only faintly remembered until they fade completely.
If I died I would stop. Many of the things dead people don't do anymore are things I like to varying degrees. But dead people don't have any of those things anymore, whether those are good things or bad things.
If I died I would become a don't instead of a do.
So many "they don't" and only two "they are"?
At a glance it looks like quite a steep loss.
All the losses and only two things at the tail end, and those two things at first glance look awful.
But the word of the God I say I believe in says,
"I assure you:
Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground
and dies,
it remains by itself.
But if it dies,
it produces a large crop."
-John 12:24
The choices are to pick between a life of having all the "they don't" of dead people, or pick a life of much smaller scale in what "they are" for the hope of what God says is more than meets the eye.
Biblically, this is also to live a life that remains alone (even if it doesn't look that way because of all the things you'll seemingly have as a non-dead person) or live a life of death and donts that produces a large outcome from two "are".
What does this say about dying to the flesh, but living in the Spirit of God? Clearly to die in the biblical sense does not mean to overdose on pills or jump off a 50 story building. That is death in one blip of a sense. It happens and it's done in the physical context. But death in the biblical sense is eternal. It never stops happening daily because the death of this kind is what brings in the life of another.
“and with every unrighteous deception
among those who are perishing.
They perish because they did not accept
the love of the truth (that only if one does will one bear anything of value and worth.)
in order to be saved.”
2 Thessalonians 2:10
The truth must be loved, not just believed or known. The truth must be loved. It must be of worth and nobility to embrace a life of don't.
Perhaps it must feel and be valuable to only be faintly remembered and then gone from the life once lived. Who feels like they love being forgotten? Nobody does, nobody that has some kind of value feels that way. Because to have value is to be valuable and to be valued is to be unforgettable.
One kind of person that might think they are this way is the suicidal person. They think they value death for a good reason.
But the difference is the heart of one who values death but lives and the one who values death and chooses to kill themselves for that value.
The reason behind why they value death are literally lifetimes apart. The Christian values death but continues to live because to live is to value the valuable things about death (which is the loss of their self). But the suicidal person values death not for the gain of Christ or for the loss of self but instead desires to take their lives or to die because they don't value Christ, and as such they don't have any value at all. For apart from Christ they only have themselves which is only darkness and hell. They value death because it means they can rid themselves of their problems, their bad feelings, their darkness, their life on earth that feels like hell, and they have only themselves in their heart apart from Christ.
I fall into this delusion at times thinking it's okay. To feel as though "death would be easier" or that I wish for death to happen now because all of the things in life are too hard for me. I'm not as severe to ever have been suicidal but the thought is as the seed of such and therefore must be dealt with seriously and right away. I could end up becoming someone who then entertains thoughts of suicide, and I do not take that lightly. I have friends who are at that point, and from there it is a battle of another caliber that I do not wish to enter, albeit praying for them to have victory over it.
So I consider that those poisonous seedling thoughts can be coated in false holiness when I think thoughts like "I would rather just die and go to heaven where I can be with Jesus." As if Jesus never died to make residence in my heart is a reality. As if I am not already with Jesus now. These are lies I must be confronted with when they creep in.
Because if Jesus is true and His words are true then his spirit dwells in me. The reality of Him that I want is in me, rather than someone I await to be my reality when I die and go to heaven. The physical death would only change the view of Him I see the way glasses change the vision of how one sees another person in front of them, it does not change the person in front of them.
"And if the Spirit of Him
who raised Jesus from the dead
lives in you,
then He who raised Christ from the dead
will also bring your mortal bodies to life
through His Spirit
who lives in you."
-Romans 8:11
So then what does the suicidal person or person who values death in this way really want, since it is not Jesus?
The desire for self in the heart that seeks to kill and destroy them.
But the Christian who values death, and because of this value of death chooses more so to live passionately, values having Christ, since this ongoing death is also the ongoing and ever increasing attainment of life in Christ. The proof of valuing Christ is in valuing death through how one lives. To place value on all the things about death--the life of don't, to value the "they don't hug their mother, they don't eat eggs, they don't have ideas, they don't make plans, they don't see their kids graduate, etc--in view of having a life of what they are: "they are gone forever, only vaguely and temporarily remembered until truly gone forever from the minds of men" because such a death means to them that they love the truth: Christ laid down His life to give us eternal life. It is valuing or loving the truth, and the proof is in valuing a life of "don't" passionately.
They love the whole truth, the details in the truth, and the smallest strokes of the truth because it leads them ever more to the final truth: that God loves them and wants to be with them forever.
So, what do you value? Death for the sake of preserving your self, or death for the sake of living to gain Christ more?
I see more clearly that perhaps the situation that invaded my schedule was meant to reveal my heart. It showed me how every feeling of tension, stress, and fear all stemmed from a big part of my self at the center of it all. What I wanted, what I could do, what I felt, rather than me celebrating that I am dead and alive in Christ. I am still learning to see Christ as beautiful and the process is arduous the more I don't see how wretched I am. My self keeps getting in the way and trying to lie by claiming that one day I will be better on my own if I have this or do that, but the Word of God tells me the truth that I am only darkness through and through, and that Jesus is the proof of this truth in that it took his death to give me light and life.
So as I daily wake up, eat, walk, talk, write or sleep, I do so knowing I will struggle in the pain of seeing my darkness yet I will rejoice when the proof of His light meets me at the end of that struggle. This means, it's okay if people see me for who I really am. It will hurt, but I pray for endurance to be met with the love God reveals through that.
Lately, I've been learning about the value of having a preference and knowing you have a voice to speak up about what you honestly prefer or like. I see now that this is true, I do have preferences and since they are truly in me I should reveal them, but the purpose to show my preferences is not to prove I am right as a person, rather the immense value in showing my preferences to others is to know more experientially that I am wrong, wicked and that my self is what causes dissension and disunity with others. It is of great value to know that I leak more and more because such experiences lead me to experience God's grace and love more and more. I am to be honest not because it makes me right but because it makes me wrong and being wrong makes me see Christ more. So I continue to walk in honesty, showing my preferences and my values more openly with others in hopes that my heart will see God in each one that reveals me as wrong.
"What a struggle it is to die!", says my Self.
"What a joy it is to know and be loved by God!", says His Spirit in me.
Jmegrey
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