Kindling fears, past regrets, and self loathing.
There are deep murky waters of disappointment,
This reflection of me upon the filthy water is scary.
The me I see is not who I want to be.
Why have the waters gotten dirtier,
It must have been my heart opening more.
The more I saw the more I abhorred
Who has taken my dreams more than this monster?
I was robbed and held at gunpoint by the enemy in my own skin.
I want to understand.
I want to change,
but this corruption is deeper
than just a behavioral ban.
It's a soul wound all bruised and bent.
I'm completely disfigured on the inside it's so painful to handle again.
Your eyes on me feel nice, but why can't I see what You do?
All I see is this ugly body with unaccomplished things.
What is meant by all this sorrow and suffering?
Hold my soul's bent figure as You unfold me.
May the pain subside in time for me to see,
The beautiful me.
My true identity.
I'm not fourteen or seventy three, so I've had some time and more time will help me see.
Or if the beauty I long to see is not the one I expect to see, help me understand this strange epiphany.
“Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage.”
Philippians 2:5-6
My identity is not a matter of necessity?
How do I consider my righteousness given to me by Christ?
It's not to my advantage?
What then is it for?
The good news is about my salvation, but
is it much more?
Is my salvation a kind of by product of what's truly good in being remade in Your Son?
What is there to being saved that's more than just this salvation?
“My goal is to know Him
and the power of His resurrection
and the fellowship of His sufferings,
being conformed to His death,
assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.”
Philippians 3:10-11
Know Him, understand the power, join in suffering, take death, and somehow resurrection?
Sounds...bleak.
Where in all of this is my beauty? My identity of someone I want to be. Where in all this is me?
But it is to Know Him.
It is to know the power of His resurrection.
It is to suffer as He also suffered for me. (There's "me")
It is to make room for suffering unto death. (There's me)
It is to assume or believe that I will also continue in His steps into resurrection from the dead.
The goal of all this is (according to Scripture, by Paul's letter to the Philippians):
1. To Know Him
2. To be convinced of His power to rise from the dead.
3. To suffer as He did.
4. To willingly die as He did.
5. To rise as He did.
So where have my goals been different things?
Well, yea.
So what's so great about this goal? (1-5)
My goals of identity seem much more pressing and good.
The ones above sound like a lot of death and suffering. Knowing, power and rising too. But why the suffering and death too?! Why is that necessary? I suppose it's much like the way we know our friends better by entering into their experiences with them as closely as possible, it's how we know them more. It's a way of trusting them more, and it's loving them more because we have more of them to love.
So as I know Him, and the power of His resurrection, I take steps into His kind of suffering, and I find a willingness to suffer even unto death as He did, not because I must but because to do so is to enter His experience by relationship. In suffering and willingness to die from it, ...what a dreadful thing! So much resistance in me of something like that!
I don't want to die! I don't like suffering. But to know Him and His power to rise is to know the lesser things even if they feel like big great devastating things! The more I suffer the more I see. The more I am bent toward a willingness to die from suffering the more I know His love for me. That I gave Him what the world now gives me. But instead of turning my back on this pain and suffering, like Jesus I can willingly die for the joy set before me. Only if I do hear from Him that that's what I'm doing. And how do I know He's telling it and speaking to me?
By the power of His resurrection displayed in me.
What does that look like?
The power of His resurrection?
What does that really mean?
“For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.
Their end is destruction;
their god is their stomach;
their glory is in their shame.
They are focused on earthly things,
but our citizenship is in heaven,
from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ.
He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subject everything to Himself.”
Philippians 3:18-21
So the power of His resurrection is to know that this body is decaying, but a new body will be given, one that I can't now see but believe to be as glorious as He!
Oh that is so hard to believe.
It is indeed a difficult thing.
Much of this power is known through suffering.
The way in which I see the body I have decaying.
I then see more clearly the need for a new body.
This one is to die willingly because death will come no matter what. This life is short in comparison to eternity.
So suffering does help me see.
But it is still suffering that I feel burdened by until He speaks.
To reveal Himself and the power of His for my new body.
I get and I gain because I suffer in letting go of what's killing me destructively.
Oh the God I love is compassionate to me!
To love a wretch like me that clings to lies and wanting whatever is dazzling for my temporary body.
But oh! I know I'll fall again and I'll weep in grief.
In tender moments like these, I ask my Father to hold me. Softly, sweetly, until I sleep.
Keep speaking Lord,
Let grace open my listening.
But. How will I know that this is Your will?
What if I miss the call You purpose for me?
“We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, in Him.
He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together.
But now He has reconciled you by His physical body through His death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before Him —
God wanted to make known among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery,
which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
I labor for this, striving with His strength that works powerfully in me.”
Colossians 1:14, 17, 22, 27, 29
I can't miss what's in me, nor can I do anything apart from His strength working in me. It's impossible to not be in Your will and Your purpose for me! That's so safe, now I can sleep. I don't have to worry about messing it all up,....but really? How can it be? That's too good to be true isn't it? It's such good news!
I love the gospel.
But there's a nasty critic in me. Parading as a holy thing. Telling me I'm a lost cause if I don't do more--making me worry and causing me to hide from God like Adam and Eve after falling and seeing their naked bodies. Ashamed of the body they saw, and now this trap of lies and shame of my body tries to make me run from Him.
“Therefore, God’s chosen ones,
holy and loved,
put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, accepting one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a complaint against another.
Just as the Lord has forgiven you,
so you must also forgive.
Above all, put on love —
the perfect bond of unity.
And let the peace of the Messiah,
to which you were also called in one body, control your hearts.
Be thankful.
Let the message about the Messiah
dwell richly among you,
teaching and admonishing one another
in all wisdom, and singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, with gratitude in your hearts to God.
And whatever you do, in word or in deed,
do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”
Colossians 3:12-17
I look at my life in the name of Jesus not in the name of my degree, accomplishments, or status.
This body.
“For we know that if our temporary, earthly dwelling is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal dwelling in the heavens, not made with hands. Indeed, we groan in this body, desiring to put on our dwelling from heaven, since, when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. Indeed, we groan while we are in this tent, burdened as we are, because we do not want to be unclothed but clothed, so that mortality may be swallowed up by life. And the One who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a down payment.”
2 Corinthians 5:1-5
“For we must all appear before the tribunal of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or worthless. Therefore, because we know the fear of the Lord, we seek to persuade people.
We are completely open before God,
and I hope we are completely open to your consciences as well.
We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to be proud of us, so that you may have a reply for those who take pride in the outward appearance rather than in the heart. For if we are out of our mind, it is for God; if we have a sound mind, it is for you. For Christ’s love compels us, since we have reached this conclusion:
If One died for all, then all died. And He died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the One who died for them and was raised.”
2 Corinthians 5:10-15
Raised in resurrection power,
Jmegrey
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