Reboot

So I've been dealing with a lot of stuff lately. And its been rather intense. I've been describing it as a reboot – because I feel like I've been stripped and brought back to the very basics again. Here are some entries which I pray will be useful and liberating to you or anyone else who reads this.

1/19/11

Daddy, I've been trying to be somebody. - not realizing that trying to be somebody is counter productive. I am nobody and nothing. But because of You – You make me everything and royalty. And that is grace and that is not something I can strive for. Its just Your merciful unwarranted gift.

1/20/11 I'm not okay. I don't have it all together. I am not perfect. I'm not 100%. I have flaws and fears and failures. I am weak. And You're okay with that. You're okay with me. Exactly where I'm at is where You love me and abide with me. You see me in my entirety. You see my glass castles. You see all the parts of me that are real and firm and the parts that are fluff and illusion. Lord , just like You showed me earlier, You are tearing down my flawed structures and raising up a palace. I've been letting my appearances get ahead. I've been striving to live at a certain significant and glorious place instead of just being where I'm at, and being who I am. Daddy I feel like I'm getting rebooted – like its a full system restore. Back to the very beginning. Back to the core. I'm dying all over again. I'm learning all about laying down everything again. And now the enemy is trying to tell me I'm not what I used to be – that I've fallen back. My flesh might be telling me that too. But I believe You're telling me I haven't fallen back. I'm not less than I used to be – I'm more - though it may not seem like it. Its a time of demolishing some of the structures in my soul. And a time of scraping and cleaning everything.

Right where I am

Is where You want to be with me

Just as I am

Is how you see and love me so

God why should I try to hide or pretend or front? You see me just as I am. And you see every part of me as clear and simple as a map you've drawn.

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I don't want to act ever again – not with You who see right through me. There is no need for me to be ashamed. You see me in all my entirety and You still love me completely!

For example – as I was reading Colossians I asked what it meant to consist in Jesus and I closed my eyes, but I didn't feel like I got anything – and part of me said “He never speaks.” And then, like usual, I immediately covered that up – and the shame of thinking that thought – and followed it up with a more Christian thought to try to cover it and make You forget I said that. But then I realized something. You heard the thought and You're not worried about it. Over the last five years, the great pattern of my life has been seeing how You DO communicate: visions, words, dreams, conversations. So I don't need to run from my doubts and fears. You're not scared of them. You're not ashamed of me.

Dad I feel like You're teaching me how to pray again, even how to think again. How to be with You more earnestly, more truthfully, more simply; without striving, without pretension, and in real faith – whatever size that may be, it matters not.

Now I can ask Your help and be weak with You, and now I don't have to hide my doubts and fears, my thoughts, or anything from You.

Dad, I think maybe I overshot or overran my mark – or got ahead of myself. I wanted to be like the powerhouses in their hay day – John G. Lake, Curry Blake – I wanted their mantle, authority, their testimony – and so I tried to gain it by acting like I had it. Point in fact – I have You, don't I Daddy – so I have the same God who empowers them. But in trying to ACT like something – I guess I created a barrier between my true self and the person I was acting like. A barrier which I put in between me and You I guess. I felt like I was trying to hold myself together- but that probably wasn't true Daddy. I was trying to hold a character - an act - together. An act which was unknowingly keeping me from You. You probably hated that character, that act, that barrier. I bet You were eager to just be with me naked before You again.

1/23/11

Oh Daddy this morning I wanted to be raw still and to hold on to that feeling of closeness, realness. But I started feeling desperate again trying to get the same feeling as yesterday and the day before- trying to get back in the same place. And I felt like I was clutching at straws God . God – I hate that feeling. It feels like I'm losing it, like I'm slipping, like I'm already on that path of defeat, sliding back as I try to go forward. But then came calm assurance. You didn't go anywhere since yesterday or the day before. I didn't fall into some other far away place while I slept. I don't have to walk the long road back just to be with You authentically again. No. You stay with me. You never let me out of Your sight. You stay with me wherever I go – from the prayer chapel, to the party, to the internet, to wherever I go when I sleep. And You're never ashamed of me – never withholding Yourself from me – no matter where I go or where I'm at spiritually – even when I run away. You follow me. Oh Daddy, You're right here right now. And You meet with me and long to meet with me exactly as I am always. I don't have to feel like I did yesterday to meet with You and be romanced by You today. You accept me wherever and in whatever state I am: in busyness, in quiet moments; amongst family, in the woods, in my tiredness and hunger and frustration, and in contentment and peace; amongst my fears, in my courage; in my purest thoughts, in my selfish and sinful ones: for better or worse, for richer or poor, in sickness and health, eternally with no qualifications, no limits,and no end. Because Your Spirit is true and Your words are real, “My son, you are always with me and all that I have is yours.”

Oh Daddy – I pray for a continuing calm awareness that I don't have to strive to be with You and to be Yours. I don't have to work to get or stay there. I am there always because You stay with me. Such is grace.

Oh Bridegroom,

I think its so amazing that You love me right when and where I am when I worship You. Its so amazing. I found myself thinking about something completely different from You as I worshiped in church. And I suddenly became ashamed and saddened because I realized I was thinking about something else as I sang love songs to you. And I remembered a moment in Gone With the Wind when Rhett Butler jumps out of bed in disgust and anger because he saw and knew that Scarlet was laying with him but thinking about Ashley Wilkes. Oh Gosh, I began to feel like an adulterer and cheat. But then I remembered that line from 1 Cor 13 “Love does not envy” and it became true to me that even if my mind strays as I worship you, You love me. And You know exactly what's going on in my head, and You accept me, and You're not mad or upset or jealous or worried or afraid of my weak heart and my sometimes infidelitous love. You still enjoy me and my love.

The Word, the Person, and the Love

So, I decided to start flipping back through some of my journals from China today. There is some really thick stuff in there that I think could and would be quite edifying to people – especially people in certain circumstances. But I saw this entry and thought it somewhat pertinent for myself as I am seemingly being called back to the basics by the spiritual leaders in my life. I hope this is useful and encouraging for anyone who might read this as well.

3/7/10

Daddy, I want to write this to search it out more and to serve as a possible reminder to me in future days.

"When you determine to read the word of God, don't simply determine to open a book about God and to search out and probe the truths and wisdoms of God. But rather, when you open those pages; stop and reposition yourself soulfully. You cannot wrest one truth about God or yourself from His word that He does not will you to have and that He does not assist you in attaining. All your study, all the years of your life spent in craning and straining your eyes and mind into understanding the truths of His word will largely be for naught unless the Spirit of Christ instruct you and teach you – something He deeply desires to do. So when you open that bible, make a deliberate soulful effort to get down on your knees and open up the binding of your inner being; to wrest open the front end and back end of your heart and mind and to lay yourself open at His feet. To lay there like an open book, at His fingertips, at His mercy, under the gaze of His knowing and loving eyes. Because it is not you who will reveal the truths of God in the bible. Its the Word-made-flesh, and the Spirit of the Word which needs to reveal you; to turn through the pages and to flip into the deep chapters of your soul and to shed light therein. In summary, don't often make the mistake of approaching a revered but dead book of words; but come before the Living Word, opening yourself up to it/Him, allowing the probing, searching touch of each passage of the Spirit of God to go where it will, shed light where it will, burn where He will, within you."

Remember: “For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? 1 Cor 4:7

I wrote this months ago, while in China. And I've noticed that in the time that has taken place from then till now, the reading of my bible has fluctuated back and forth between relational and alive to static and routine. I hope that I will continue to grow in consistently seeing God's written word as deeply personal and real and dynamic - as alive as a love poem recited face to face with the person of one's heart.