"Would your husband say the same thing?"
"Uhm... good question," I said back to my therapist. "No, I don't think he would use the word, cult, but we have talked a great deal about ghettos, in relationship to where we have been in organizations. And how we don't want to live that life any longer. "
This was part of a conversation I was having with my counselor as I was trying to process where I've been, where to go and where I am.
It is said of me I write raw. I've been holding off on this piece well, because... I was hoping to have more understanding but this morning, I realized this is not a place to walk alone. The finishing sentence or neatly tied up concluding paragraph won't come, that the process is just that a process, a journey, a moment by moment discovery. I haven't been walking this journey without help, I have welcomed in and sought after insight and wisdom from those that are upon my path and I have spent hours in silence and solitude. Daily I pray for the Holy Spirit to do that which He was sent forth to do and lead me into truth.
But there are moments where I don't know what to think and I don't know what to do and I don't know the paradigm to sync my heart, my feelings, my thoughts to.... and I come back time after time after time to the prayer attributed to St. Francis... "God, who are you? God, who am I?"
And I linger over Merton's prayer:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does, in fact, please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this
you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore, I will trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
I want to know Him.
I want to know Him as He is..
I want to be that which He formed and fashioned me to be...
I don't want to abide by some dogmatic this is who we are because I am a Christian and this is what I am to believe...
It grieves my heart at times when I see postings on social media that do not resemble the biblical Christ and yet with pride and certainty the poster pontificates their position. Grieve is not an overstatement.
I want to touch the heart of Christ and know that heart beat. I want to lean upon Him and not my own understanding. I want to trust Him when He leads me to the proverbial Samarias. I want to be the good Samaritan not the religious fool who is in a hurry to get to some meeting or participate in that which they think "god" is doing and miss the very opportunity that is before me.
BUT I DID...
I was that fool... I did miss out...
Folks.. here, here is the truth... here is the confession... I spent 23 years in Christian ministry only to look back now and say many are dangerously close to coming face to face with Jesus and hearing that they were never known. I was there. I was there. Consumed with the doing and not stopping to listen, to be, to wait... Consumed with my own thoughts and vision and not pausing long enough to see that I left that which the Father is doing twenty miles back.
Listen, I will give that I am in process. I am processing through and in a great deal of paradigm shift. I know not where this is going. I know this I can't do that which I have done before.... Not the whole baby out with the bath water but the bath water must go..... It doesn't work...
I tried to keep up not wanting to be left behind or left out, and the truth of the matter was that in all that striving I have realized I did miss out on the most precious moments that can not ever be gotten back. Ever so grateful for redemption and time now.
The fact of the matter is I love and hate that I have come to a place where I just don't know... I don't know what life with Christ is supposed to look like, the "guides" I have seen or followed said this or that and then some of them said we don't do this or that and others have said this or that is acceptable. I think the fact of the matter is we don't know.... Liken unto Peter sitting on a roof top about to encounter the reality that it doesn't matter what food people eat. Liken unto the Judaizers who thought all needed to be circumcised to be accepted in. Liken unto those who were horrified that a woman was breaking a bottle of perfume and washing Jesus feet with her hair and tears. Liken unto the fact that He who cleansed the lepers, (on the sabbath), allowed women to be in His company, hung out with tax collectors, perpetually unclean in the eyes of the religious; does things that the religious communities of every time say is heresy.
That is the God I follow. The One who did not come to abolish but fulfill the law is the One who time after time after time left the religious with their mouths on the floor as He left the people feeling and knowing God and His love.
There's a new song coming out by Bethel's Jenn Johnson and I couldn't ever be more grateful for the timing of a song..... The lyrics are amazing...
My only prayer these days is that my heart would not faint and that courage would reverberate within me and keep me strong to walk this road, where the truth is I just don't know... But to sum it all up... I'm beautifully in over my head.... and that's ok
Then You crash over me and I’ve lost control but I’m free
I’m going under, I’m in over my head
And You crash over me, I’m where You want me to be
I’m going under, I’m in over my head
Whether I sink, whether I swim
It makes no difference when I’m beautifully in over my head
Whether I sink, whether I swim
It makes no difference when I’m beautifully in over my head
I’m Beautifully in over my head
I’m Beautifully in over my head
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