I think life is just harder for me than it is for other "normal" people who at least fall within a bell curve of what that is. For me, it feels harder, it feels as if I have to try extra hard to find peace of mind. I can't rely on ignorance because the only way I find peace is by thinking. I have anxiety when I don't know and anxiety when I do know, and so there is this deeper craving for knowing "beyond knowing."
I crave integration with observation. Maybe this is another way of saying I wish I did what I knew and I knew what I did. But I don't. And not knowing makes it hard for me to find balance...because I think my balance is in integration. Everything is connected and so everything has a purpose. Therefore when one thing is "broken" is wreaks havoc in my mind. Because that one thing starts a chain reaction of brokenness in my mind that makes all of me completely ruined. In pieces. Life feels like a row of dominos and every new piece of knowledge gets added to the line. The longer the line the more fascinated I am at how vast and amazing life is, but somewhere along the line a piece falls over and ruins everything...I'm left having to pick up all the parts again and the process is daunting. There are 15 million pieces or more and every time they get knocked over, it's as if what once fascinated me is now trash.
I find the frailty in the fallen millions of pieces. I get to re-building and start to see my peace and confidence grow again as I take each piece and put it aright. During that time (picking up the pieces) I find more pieces there than I remember and this new discovery excites me. It's as if I don't have to really be disappointed in the wreck because I've been rewarded the treasure of more! My life domino has grown into an intricate design that mesmerizes me....but one little push and the whole thing falls back down.
That's how I feel. Or maybe it's more like I just feel like sadness and instability are genetically more present in me than in most people. I don't take any medication, although I have seriously questioned the wisdom in that, but my dad was a doctor and said I should wait it out in case it was just "all in my head."
That's the weird thing about all this, and about life in general...it's all in our ....invisible area. Our "personhood." Our character, personality, or whatever you want to call it. Who we are is invisible...just like God. I suppose it could be what He meant when He said "let Us make man in our image." (Gen. 1:26), or at least part of what He meant. Jesus was not invisible, yet when Jesus is mentioned it says that He took on our flesh (John 1:14). "The Word became flesh..." So our visibility seems to be separated from the part about us that bears God's image.
Otherwise maybe it would have said He just came down. But Jesus took on something that was never who He was from eternity, and that was a body...human visibility, tangibility.
But He still carried the same image we had. Which was His invisible part.
You know what else is crazy? The mind is part about us that we have no limit. God is limitless.
Yet we assume to be God when we think that our minds can reach a level of certainty sufficient to satisfy us. It's not that we can't know, but it's that we refuse to believe.
Many times I have thought to myself:
"what if what I'm believing is wrong?"
I would often think:
"what if what I think is right is actually wrong?"
Now that sounds innocent enough, even "open-minded," but the poison beneath that is a desire for a level of certainty that only someone who knows the end of all things can know. So why in the world would anyone be so adamant on getting their hands around such an impossibility as omniscience?
Two things come to mind:
1. It mattered because being wrong or right has consequences.
2. Being made in the image (and not the exact substance) of God I think we are constantly mirroring what we see of our Father, and since God seems to know a lot we have a hunger to as well.
Now the thing revealing about that is that WE LIVE WHAT WE BELIEVE. Because our thoughts are our invisible person, our inner man, our personality and our character. We are what we think. Regardless of that being right or wrong, we bring on our own circumstances by our being who we believe to be--not on the outside, but on the inside. The beliefs we hold on to will be what shape our view of the world. Now someone can have "different" beliefs that are opposite to another person, but that doesn't invalidate that they are seeing the world in their view. In other words, it's not about a "wrong" or "right" view, but about a good or bad view.
Bad view= bad world
Good view= good world
This is where the power of positivism gets its popularity in the media and best-selling authors. But having a "good" view without God is like having to drink water again every morning in order to be filled. It will last until either water runs out or something happens (like your water purifier breaks or you get into an accident and lose your ability to swallow or whatever. It requires your effort in world to continue holding on to the good view, and you might be able to hold onto it for almost all your life! But there is an inevitable day when your ability to hold on to your "good view=good world" will collapse. When self-ability runs out, so does your world.
Now take that a step further:
Self-as-God = self-destined life
(you could make yourself a good or bad kind of god-person with a really good or really bad life)
God as one true God = God's destined life
This means that the Person who holds your worldview in life, meaning you adopt all the beliefs given to you (since they are GIVEN that obviously means they are not inherent in you--meaning, these beliefs are not originally yours! So having pushback from your own views should be expected.) Taking on God's worldview means you take His beliefs and His thoughts and receive them as a gift for how to view the world over your original or self-made ones. It's like being brainwashed in the sense that what you are thinking is not your own, but the difference is that being brainwashed implies coercion or force...or lack of choice. Also brainwashed people probably don't experience pushback because their brains are mush. There is no "them" in there is their brain is washed. Having God's worldview is not brainwash in that sense because you are still very much present. You are making a choice and choosing God's views over your own. It is not brainwash, it is freely choosing what to put in your brain very intentionally...no mush.
As mentioned, your beliefs are your world and essentially are you. We are what we think until we are no longer able to think ...whether that's death or a state of vegetation. (Which puts me on a rabbit trail thought that mentally handicapped people are probably more willing to have a God-view because they must be most aware inwardly of their inability to view life in a "good" way because of their handicaps. And maybe people who get struck with amnesia or Alzheimer's or put into a coma or vegetation state in actuality "leave this life" more truly than death would appear to show.) Anyways...
So subsequently, the person who holds your worldview (whether that's you or your mom or God) holds your life, and this is also the person who holds your life for as long as it is possible--since worldview holder also holds destiny.
Since God cannot die, I just assume that means never. I could be wrong, but if God cannot die, even though we can, then it at least shows that having His worldview includes having His lifespan.
I just scrolled up to the opening paragraph of this post and I chuckle because all that came from a broken belief. A belief that was my own. I wrote:
"I think life is just harder for me than it is for other "normal" people who at least fall within a bell curve of what that is."
I even made it sound REASONABLE or well-constructed and thought out. Because thinkers are more likely to be right, right? That's a passive way of saying "because thinkers are more likely to make better gods." Not right if there is only One true God. But possibly right if there is no God, but then you're still left with the weight of the world on your shoulders. And geez, that's a lot to carry!
You might think:
"but I can't help that I think this way..."
Of course you can't! Because it's you. It's your beliefs inherent in you. That will always be there for as long as you exist in the way you do now. Although the moment we think of something perceptibly "good", like this post, it's easy to think "this was MEEE!!!" Hahaha.
The question is can you grab hold of what God says know what He thinks, and if you own a bible then the answer is yes. The bible is full of what God says and you're more than welcome to it. You can learn God's worldview and make it your own, the way you pretty much make any new thing your own, by owning it. You make it your own and it's yours! This gift of God's worldview is the gift of receiving God Himself! Take on His worldview which includes the centrality of belief in Jesus and you take Him. He will hold your life better and longer than you can.
"Do not be conformed to this age,
but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind,
so that you may discern
what is the good, pleasing,
and perfect will of God."
-Romans 12:2
So the only conversation I would be interested in now is about those who don't have access to a bible or are absolutely unable to read one ...maybe they are feral or locked up in a room, or they don't have a translation in their language. What about them? Which is atrocious! How could anyone have the cruel audacity to block someone from having the life of God? How? I mean, I am one of them. How because we are broken pieces and only when we leave the pieces as they are, fallen, can we see God standing there offering us entrance into something way beyond a length of dominos.
Adam was like the first domino who screwed us all up (though we couldn't have done any better) and Jesus was like the last domino.
When He got knocked over by all of us, God picked Him up to show us "It is finished."
Indeed it is finished means more than "hallelujah I'm saved!" It means we can leave ourselves broken in order for God to pick us up and carry our lives for as long as He has the ability to. We leave ourselves to His discretion. If He moves us left we go left, if He moves us right we go right. If He places an obstacle in front of us then it is no longer an obstacle but an experience. Where He moves we move, and what He does we do, but we never move the pieces themselves. We continually agree with God wherever He goes. We take on His worldview.
From one helpless domino to another,
Look, God is in the room.
Stop messing with His dominos. Stay down. Haha. When you get up you mess with everyone's life getting knocked over again the moment things get out of hand for you. Let Him carry you in this life and beyond death. And know that there will, for as long as we are dominos (alive in this world), there will always be a number of others who will continue to wreck the line.
When your thoughts are not God's thoughts, and the heaviness weighs down on you because you see the connectedness of it all, stand down domino. In doing so hopefully it will be one last wreckage, and hopefully you will stay down.
And then there's grace....
To be continued,
Jmegrey
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