Month: January 2019

The Wall

What is a wall?

A wall is a boundary. It says this is where your domain ends and my domain starts. A wall protects those within from harm. John 10 describes a sheepfold. You can tell the good guys from the bad guys because the thieves and robbers climb over the wall.

It is highly irresponsible to not have good boundaries in your life. Even to have boundaries around your own behaviors so that you can act responsibly and show propriety in your life.

A life without a boundary invites corruption.
A life without a boundary accepts all evil as normal.
A life without a boundary disrespects yourself.
A life without a boundary is shapeless.
A life without a boundary is meaningless.
A life without a boundary is open to any shifting wind.
A life without a boundary is lawless.

Beautifully Broken – Forever

This morning as I was worshipping God, I had a heavenly vision of people dancing before the throne of God. Interesting observation that while there were many that were lost in their joyful dance celebrating their connection to God and His forgiveness, there were many others who were standing around just watching and I could hear their thoughts. They were thinking things like “Who are they to dance before God, I know what kind of life they had”, or “I’ve lived a righteous life, why don’t I feel like dancing?”.

The truth is, you will never come even close to knowing Gods love until you fully realize your own brokenness.

We may try to hold our broken lives together on our own strength by our own means in order to “Save Face”, but only the blood of Christ can truly hold all those broken pieces together to make something whole and beautiful again. There is no pleasure on this earth that can compare to the pleasure of knowing God and His love for us.

I have been broken all my life. Only recently have I found the courage to embrace and own my own brokenness. In my weakness Christ is glorified. I don’t care about worldly things.

Read the bible and pray. If you don’t know where to start, the Gospel According to John is a great place for beginners. If you don’t know what to pray, you can start with “God I hurt, I feel broken. Show yourself to me that I may feel whole again.” If you feel like you don’t love God enough, just pray “God help me to love You more”

When I prayed to God to help me love Him more, His answer was to show me just how broken and needy I was. The person who is forgiven a great debt loves more deeply that the person who is forgiven little.

Beautifully Broken the Early Years

I was quite a lonely child growing up. In fact I feel that loneliness has produced the greatest ongoing pain in my whole life. I was the youngest and my next older sibling was my brother who was 6 years older than I. I was definitely not in his circle of friends to hang out with. My parents were older than most kids parents my age. They didn’t do much with me either. Most of my school classmates lived far away and none really close enough hang out with. I believe that I pretty much left alone to navigate the complexities of life on my own.

I can remember at times really hurting for some or any connection from anybody. Walking around the house just sobbing. My dad’s quick answer was “Stop your crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” You see he espoused the firm belief that “Children should be seen and NOT heard”. The only comfort I received from my mother was “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” Yes that’s right. Not very comforting at all.

What they seemed to be teaching me was that its was never OK to let people know that I was hurting and even if I did, they don’t really care anyway. Years of going to church didn’t help me much either. Mostly when I would meet somebody on Sunday morning and they greet me with “How’s it going?” Instead of answering the question deeply and honestly like I would want to, I would just say “Fine” and move on. To say more is not only socially unacceptable, but has the potential to create even more damage when their reaction shows how much they just don’t really care. It’s the same way in most of our modern culture. Suppress your true feelings. Don’t admit to feeling any pain. Just smile and be nice. Meanwhile that inner pain just becomes like background noise in your life. Perhaps like a toothache that is never treated, always there and never acknowledged or dealt with and maybe growing more severe over time.

I believe that over the 60 plus years of my life, the people that I have shared this pain with have for the most part wanted to be ‘fixers’. What I mean is that their answer mostly external “Try Harder” exercises. They say things like “You are thinking wrong”, “I had worse parents than yours, and I got ‘over’ my hurts”. In the past several weeks. I believe that I just hear Jesus saying “I know you are broken, I love you anyway. I came an shed my blood out of my ultimate love for you.”  I see myself now still broken and I believe I have to accept that. My broken pieces are being knitted back to wholeness by the blood of Jesus which is the only thing that can keep my broken pieces together.