-science experiments
-the bad parts are what direct you to get it right.
-the bad parts are what inform you as to where things got stuck and went wrong.
-the more specific you know the position and details of the mistake the more accurately it can be diagnosed for correction.
The goal of our testing is to be in the will of God. As we get to Him we discover mishaps and "stuck" parts that we use to help direct us rather than discourage us.
The mess ups are what direct you.
You live not in fear of messing up but in rejoicing that you are in the process of getting God more closely, and like a science experiment you use the areas of failure to help you know how to get it right. Failure no longer marks you, but they direct you. Labeling yourself as a failure just means you don't believe Jesus finished in giving you the number one reward that makes you anything but a failure. So then if you believe in Jesus you fail in life not because you are a failure but because you are being taught how to live in your new gift of life from Jesus. You cannot be a failure and believe in Jesus. You can only be one or the other. To believe in Jesus means you fail and learn. To not believe in Jesus means every fail means you're a failure.
So I'm writing this to believers in Jesus who find themselves failing at times.
If you never mess up you will never know where you need help when you find yourself "stuck" in anger, depression, loneliness, or addictive behaviors.
If you never mess up you will remain in sin.
But if you mess up and end up in sin, allow God to closely examine your heart to show you where one failure branched off from the other until you get to the source of the problem, not just that one part that you disliked.
If the same failure keeps happening you should take that as a sign to go further into your heart.
Once one part of the experiment goes wrong it affects the entire process after that.
So stop right when you reach that point. As soon as you notice something off. Whether that is the behavior, (this is where it most easy to stop because it's the most obvious mess up)
the coping mechanism,
the feeling on feelings,
the feelings beneath feelings,
the perception or meaning you held of things,
the expectations you had,
or the truth who you are and what you were made to desire.
And backtrack until you understand where the root of the problem came from.
Usually the most obvious problem is our behavior.
Then by our behavior we can discover our coping mechanisms.
Then we can figure out our feelings that led to that.
Then the feelings under those feelings that led to incorrect feelings by our thoughts which led to incorrect coping mechanisms which led to incorrect behaviors.
Are you following this? Slow down and understand until you do.
That's not the end.
Sin runs deeper than our feelings.
Underneath those incorrect feelings are perceptions (how you perceive things), meanings (what certain words or things mean to you, how you take them in), and core beliefs.
But before these are corrected you must go back even further to what led to these being incorrect.
Expectations.
What did you expect from this particular moment in your life?
Once you are aware of the incorrect expectation you will find that further back you will see the truth of who you are (by what you expected) and what you are made to desire (and the incongruent expectation).
So from that point of the truth of who you are and what you are made to desire (God), you can begin the journey with the Holy Spirit to shape you from that point of desire and truth to lead to what you will expect when you know the truth of who you are and how God is shaping you to desire Him through every situation.
Or put another way, God is shaping you to desire Him through every mess up.
From correct expectations you will be led to correct meanings of things, correct perceiving of situations and correct core beliefs that you are expecting to be shaped by this or that to grow your desire for God.
These corrected perceptions, meanings and core beliefs will produce correct feelings.
For example you may find that a hardship in your life now produces a feeling of hope because you perceive that you are being shaped to desire God through this.
Then those feelings will produce other feelings like being sad or angry in the godly way that stems from hope because you hate the sin that goes against God.
Those feelings will produce motivation sufficient to produce ways that you begin to cope when something happens to you, because you will cope to regain hope not to regain "feeling better" from the feeling of hurt, or to regain "control" from the feeling of being out of control.
You learn to cope in ways that stem from those corrected feelings that came from the deeper feeling of hope. (I've learned to cope through more conversations with people who I see God in, or with prayer, or reading God's word, or writing, sometimes resting, or praising, many times crying, etc...all of which bring me closer to hope).
These correct coping mechanisms lead to behaviors (or your will power) to do what you think will please God.
When you're coping because you have hope then that coping mechanism will lead to a behavior after you've found hope through coping.
When you're coping incorrectly (addictions) because of an incorrect feeling for example,
You feel bored because under that you feel lonely and under that you perceive that you are alone because you look around and no one is with you, and you take that to mean you are alone, and then under that core belief you find that you expected life to look like there would be someone there for it to be right, and under that expectation you discover the truth that you don't believe God is actually with you or that his being with you is your greatest desire.
This is the truth of who you are, and this is where you are asked to believe that Jesus died for this person who rejects God as their only desire.
And this is seeing the truth and believing that you were made to desire God (even if you don't right now, but the whole reason Jesus died was to redeem this part of you. To bring you to God means to bring you to a place where you can say with all your heart, mind and strength "I love the Lord." He becomes your greatest desire.
The truth will set you free. But not everyone wants the truth. They don't want their ugliness to be exposed like that. So they don't submit to God in every mistake as a blessing from Him. They don't want to be corrected.
Proverbs 12:15 says,
"The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,
but a wise man listens to advice."
Fools just want to be right.
Wise people listen to advice because it is in being corrected that we are on our way to be right! Being wise is being right!
Fools want to be right but more than being right they just want to get their way. In fact, they don't really care about being right, they just care about getting their way even if their way is getting hell. A person who desires hell will from there have hellhound expectations, hell bound perceptions, meanings, core beliefs of things, hell bound feelings, hell bound feelings from those feelings, hell bound coping mechanisms, and ultimately hell bound behaviors. Because at the root of all those things they desire Hell (which is any other desire than God.)
Getting God is not just about your behaviors.
It's much deeper than that.
At the root of getting God is desiring God.
Jmegrey
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