b-utter shame

So, yesterday i wrote this (great?!) blog about love, shame, and intimacy. then, i went home and felt lonely. literally just moments after writing this blog i was faced with the reality of my own emotions. i was alone. and a little jealous of friends with boyfriends and husbands and babies. and in a society that values marriage and family above singleness in many ways, there can be shame associated with the single life. What’s wrong with me that i’m not married and cherished by a man and bearing children? Not only do I ask myself these questions, but my family and (even) well-meaning strangers ask these questions: Are you seeing anybody? Do you have any children? Why do these things have to define my life as a success or failure? Well, they don’t. But sometimes i get distracted from the awesomeness of God and i let my emotions, my loneliness and jealousy, take away my attention.

But it wasn’t until i was sitting there, eating butter out of the tub and watching netflix that i realized that i was facing the very challenge i just wrote about. (ok, don’t judge me too harshly on the butter….i’m on a low carb/no sugar food plan, so comfort foods just don’t exist in my world and i do love butter. it was all i could find in the house. diet coke and butter was my comfort of choice at the moment). so i’m sitting there, watching a woman birth a beautiful baby, and as the fifth tiny spoonful of butter melts on my tongue, i realize that i’m feeling lonely and jealous and i’m covering it with BUTTER! Talk about covering my shame.

So i asked myself: Self, what was that brilliant thing i wrote earlier? i wrote that intimacy is the answer and just stop and sit and ask the Lord to give you what you need in that moment. This is where the rubber meets the road. Do i really believe what i wrote? If so, then i need to try it. live it. i put the butter away. and….

i pulled out my painting supplies. very urgently, i think in an effort to quickly redeem myself. Then i play the exciting new album i just bought: Kim Walker-Smith singing The King is Here (collaborated with by the awesome Christa Black). and i begin to paint.

white canvas. it annoys me. i want to canvas to feel what i feel. so i start with black. and with every brush stroke i declare, out loud, who God is to me. you are the only one that satisfies me. you are the Lord of my life. you are the most beautiful person i know. and i keep painting until the whole canvas is black. then i let the Lord guide me with every color and brush stroke after that. purple, he says. purple? blah. no wait, dark purple. i splotch out this cornucopia shape slowly into the black. cornucopia*? what is that, anyway? that thing that holds fruit at thanksgiving, i think. Then blue/purple, same shape, just twisted a bit. then a blue one, then a green one, then yellow, each getting smaller. so now i have these cornucopia swirls. now, i had an image, a silhouette of Jesus with a crown of thorns in my mind, but i didn’t know if i had the skill to put it on the canvas. So i asked the Lord, what next? flip the canvas, he said. ok, that’s easy enough. now, we are going to paint that image, but upside down. upside down?! i probably can’t do it right side up! Do you trust me? he ask. Let’s do it together. upside down. sigh. sigh. sigh. ok.

So i get my little angled brush and away with the white we go. I painted carefully, trying to listen to His guidance and NOT my left brain (that critical, no, that isn’t right, side of the brain). i took it slow. i trusted. he guided. we painted. the king is here. the king is here.

And, voila! I turned it around and i could see the King!!!! And in that moment, i felt so completely loved and adored. all the crap i was feeling earlier was GONE. i knew he loved me. i knew he was with me. and i knew i wanted more time with him. So i turned out the lights and sat in his presence, listening to music, and lost track of time.

I share this, because sometimes we can hear / read good teaching but what does it look like to apply it? Well, for me, this is what it looked like to push past the shame, and stop wallowing, and let the Lord love on me. Find an activity you can do with the Lord that allows him to speak to you, or just sit, or whatever you can do to enter his presence. If nothing else, read Psalm 100:

Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth.
Serve the Lord with gladness;
Come before Him with joyful singing.
Know that the Lord Himself is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Enter His gates with thanksgiving
And His courts with praise.
Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
For the Lord is good;
His lovingkindness is everlasting
And His faithfulness to all generations

This Psalm tells us we enter His presence through praise. so, if you can do nothing else, then just sit and praise Him and who He is. come to think of it, that is how i started my painting! not declaring how i feel but what i know to be truth.

*cornucopia, by the way, i looked it up and it is the symbol of abundance and nourishment. Not that’s good stuff!!!!

Here is the final result : )

love shame intimacy

love your neighbor as yourself. seems simple enough. but what if you don’t love yourself? what if you know all the flaws and shortcomings and sins about yourself that no one else does? What if your thoughts are selfish and wicked? What if you judge other people? We judge what they wear, and what they say, and how they spend their money, and how they show love. I judge.

love your neighbor as yourself. i think this principle is less something to strive towards and more a reflection of reality. I think WE DO love our neighbor as we love ourselves. the problem is the way we love ourselves. the problem is what we think about ourselves. we see weakness and sin and failure and then when we look at others, guess what we see?? weakness and sin and failure. we turn the hatred for ourselves outwards towards other people.

I have to learn to see Christ in me before i can see Christ in others.

If i may take this a step further….

Shame is the key to this issue, in my opinion. When Adam and Eve became aware of their sin for the first time ever, shame entered the world. Then, instead of continuing the relationship built on intimacy and vulnerability, they covered the parts of their bodies that represented the intimacy that had been broken. The covered their bodies from each other AND from God. Shame took their eyes off of each other and what they had been given and put it on themselves. They thought covering themselves was the answer. And we do the same thing today. We cover our shame with other stuff (anger? food? cutting? distance? lies? silence?) and separate ourselves from intimacy with God and with other people. Even though intimacy is the answer. Intimacy is the answer. Intimacy is the answer. did you get that yet? Intimacy creates life. Intimacy creates good fruit. Intimacy creates. So the enemy attacks intimacy and tricks us into separation, self hatred, and shame.

In the Old Testament, men lived in a visitation society. God came and met with them then he left again. We no longer live in a visitation society because Christ died for our sins and the Holy Spirit has come and lives inside of us. All the time. And because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we live in a season of GRACE. not judgement, but grace. we are covered by His blood and when God looks at us He sees the reflection of Himself that He placed in us in the womb and longs to call out our destiny and our beauty. He longs to draw near and give us experiences with Him.

Our prayer must arise: Father, what do you think of me?

When we know what the Father thinks of us, and how much he loves us, and is overjoyed by us, and is ravished in love with us, then we can finally RECEIVE his love, as he is the source of love, and then, finally, we can love others. And then, finally, we can uncover our shame and enter into intimacy with God and with our friends and family.

So the next time you want to cover your shame with a DQ blizzard or a tv marathon or a shopping spree, just stop and sit and ask the Lord to give you what you need in that moment. and once we learn to get our needs met from the source of all things good, then we can start to give others around us what they need too: love.

True versus TRUTH

Graham Cooke has a great saying (well, many great ones, but this is one):

>>Just because something is true doesn’t make it truth.<<

Like many of his great sayings…i nod uh huh…then wait, what??

I’ll explain with an example: someone says “i have an anger problem.” Oh really? Have you been redeemed by the blood of Jesus? If so, we know that from 2 Corinthians 5.17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

What are these new things that have come? The Holy Spirit has come, for one. John 14.16-17 “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”

And what does the Holy Spirit bring to us? TRUTH. And…Galatians 5.16/22 “walk by the Spirit…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

So, lets bring it together…if my anger was dealt with on the cross, and i’m a new creation in Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, which embodies patience…then God is not dealing with my sin, he is calling out my righteousness! i’m gonna repeat that….God is not dealing with your sin (that was already dealt with on the cross), he is dealing with your righteousness! When we hold onto the negative stuff (anger, bitterness, fear) then we give the enemy legal right to use those things against us, instead of giving them back to The Lord.

So, when you are in a situation where you would normally loose your temper, God is not giving you opportunities to be angry, he is giving you opportunities to practice patience! WHOA! He sees you through the blood of Christ, so he isn’t seeing your sin. He is helping you walk in your new nature. In the Spirit. In truth.

This relates to many of us because we are busy trying to “manage” behaviors (like anger management!) and we are not accessing the freedom available in Christ. We are not realizing that the old is gone and the new has come. Oh that we could learn to live in the freedom and truth that God has given us!

What do you do? First, make a list of those bad habits or behaviors….then make a second list of the opposite of each one (anger -> patience, negativity -> joy, these are just my examples…but find a truth in scripture about who you are in Christ that is the opposite of the old nature) Then BURN the first list and keep the second one with you to remind you of what the Lord is calling out and what you are practicing.

PS, this is totally ripped off from Graham Cooke and written in my own words. I take no credit for these ideas. But I would like to hear your thoughts on the matter?

The final step is to pray according to the new information. Here is how I pray for this truth in my life:

Heavenly Father, I praise you for who you are and how you love us. Thank you for sending Jesus to die for our sins and taking on all our junk so that we may be free and know you personally. Thank you that you have buried our old nature and we receive your Spirit of Truth to guide us. Thank you that you desire the best for us, Father. I ask for your Truth to resonate in my heart and mind. Help me not to drudge up my old self and focus on the part of me that is dead. Instead, help me see what is inside of me that is a reflection of YOU. Call out my righteousness, and do not let me resolve myself to a life of bad behaviors and contentment with old lies. I want to know what YOU see in me. Call out my righteousness. Awaken my awareness to the Spirit living inside of me. Call out my righteousness. Stir my heart to recognize and practice the fruits of the Spirit daily. Call out my righteousness. Do not let me get distracted by the old but live in the new. Call out my righteousness. Lift my spirit and breath your life into me. breath your truth into me. I choose today to practice patience. I choose today to BE patient. I choose to tap into the deep well of patience that lives inside of me and call it out! Father, may my thoughts and actions bring you glory and honor today. In Jesus name I pray, amen.

Prayer (when distracted by my negative emotions during worship)

Boldly approaching the throne of grace, I come.

Bowed down. Repentant heart. Hungry heart. Longing heart.

Clear my mind, Father.

Let your presence make every stress and fear and anxiety and lie of the enemy fade as dust in the wind…let your presence fill those gaps, open gaps left by the junk that is leaving. Let your Spirit pour into the deep places, leaving no crevice unfilled.

Fill me up Spirit. Increase. I want more. more. more. As much as I can handle. I want it all.

(at the bottom of this journal page this verse is printed: “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” – Matthew 5:6 HAHA! Immediately I got to read the answer to my prayer! My spirit cried out for fulfillment of what God had already promised! Those are the best prayers. God’s promises are an invitation!)

Prayer from John 18:6

I began to think on a verse during corporate worship yesterday:
John 18:3-6 Judas then, having received the Roman cohort and officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. So Jesus, knowing all the things that were coming upon Him, went forth and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” They answered Him, “Jesus the Nazarene.” He said to them, “I am He.” So when He said to them, “I am He,” they drew back and fell to the ground.

The Lord gave me a prayer, which I wrote down, and want to share with you in regards to these verses. I hope it brings you hope and encouragement, as it did for me.

Oh, Father, let us cry out to you, let us proclaim who you are and search for you as the soldiers and disciples did. No matter what reason we seek Him. Whether we seek Him to blame Him, or judge Him, or follow Him, or betray Him. Let us all, for whatever reason, search and cry out “Jesus of Nazareth!” and let Him turn and respond, “I AM” and let the GLORY of that realization FALL on us. Let us have no power or resolve or fear or doubt or rationality or knowledge that would allow us to stand and process that realization. But let us have no strength to stand in the reality of who you are, in all your majesty. Let us fall, and rest, in your GLORY, that truth and peace and strength may engulf us and the I AM that is I AM will the the realest thing we have ever known.

The ark of Moses?

Recently someone asked me “what is the Hebrew word for Noah’s Ark in the Old Testament?” This simple question led me to the most interesting discovery.

The immediate answer is tevah (pronounced tay-vah) in Hebrew. Genesis 6.13-14 says “And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark (tevah) of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark (tevah), and cover it inside and outside with pitch. (NKJV)”

So I ventured, as I normally do, to look at other times this Hebrew word is used in scripture. Is this the same word as for the Ark of the Covenant? No. Is this a word for boat or vessel? No. Is this word used anywhere else in scripture? Yes!

Only one other story uses tevah and it is found in the story of baby Moses. Exodus 2.3 ” But when she could no longer hide him, she took an ark (tevah) of bulrushes for him, daubed it with asphalt and pitch, put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river’s bank. (NKJV)” Most translations will translate the word “basket” with footnotes to “chest or ark” at the bottom of the page.

So at this point, we ask ourselves, what was the writer thinking when he recorded this story? What did he want us to recall or know when reading about baby Moses? More plainly stated: why this word in these stories?!

For a side note: Traditionally, Moses recorded the first five books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) called the Pentateuch or Torah and are believed to be given to Moses by God. Scholars believe, however, that these books are a composition made over the years. This is not a teaching about authorship, so that is all I will say about that. What is significant for our purposes is to note that the same person who recorded the story of Noah either also recorded the story of Moses OR was familiar with the story of Noah when the story of Moses was written. So….back to the train of thought …

Tevah comes from an Egyptian word that means box or chest. This same word is used for coffin (recall the pharaohs that were buried with lots of treasure).

There are some obvious similarities in the stories of Noah and baby Moses:

water – the threat to their lives
ark (tevah) – the box they were placed in
pitch – used to seal/protect from the water, the work of each builder to ensure the box would survive!
impending doom – from the water
salvation – they were both saved from the instrument of their death (the water)
deliverance – both men were deliverers! Noah was the instrument of deliverance for mankind and animals, and as an adult, Moses brings the Israelites out of Egypt (and ultimately THROUGH the same water he should have died in! Come on, that’s good stuff!).

These boxes were built by human hands with FAITH that a divine hand would guide them to safety.

Hebrews 11.7 By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

1 Peter 3.18-22 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.

These stories represent early pictures of salvation. Today, we practice baptism as a symbol of our salvation, that we ourselves are drawn out of the water and saved by the same divine hand.

I can’t help but picture us today, building our boxes and laying on the pitch (real thick!) but at some point we have to settle in and trust the hand of God to guide us and trust Him to bring about, not only his salvation in us, but deliverance for others through us.

uncaged lion origin

One of the first things you should know about me is that I believe in God, the one true God, and I believe He still speaks today. I live in a community of believers that practice their faith and long to discover the depths of the goodness of God.

One evening, a respected friend got a word for me. She said that I was like a lion, willing to receive friends into my mane to offer comfort and protection. And that I was very willing to roar and protect those I cared for. But she also said that the expectations that were placed on me, as a lion, were simply those of a caged lion. That only God knew the way an uncaged lion would behave and that he wanted to reveal this level of freedom and behavior to me.

One of my favorite verses is 2 Cor 3.16-18 …but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

So her word to me reminded me that as I continue to stare into the beautiful face of God, that the bondages of this world will break and fade away and new levels of freedom and glory will be received. And that is my hearts desire. To know the goodness of God more than I know anything else. Not to be a lion walking in circles in a cage, with desires and abilities unmet and unrealized, but to be the lion that runs free through the land, knowing the strength and power that belongs to him.

http://www.gloryglimpses.com/2008/07/hes-coming-song-of-solomon-28.html …this is a prophetic artist (and friends!) blog, she painted a running lion, representing Jesus. A print of this painting hangs in my bedroom. Jesus is the ultimate example of an uncaged lion, He operated in total freedom and authority, and He longs for us to run alongside him.

uncaged lion

idiotropic meanderings

Month: January 2013