Fresh means not stagnant, decayed, fermented or rotten. God’s life is fresh, bright, original, innovative, creative, clean, and crisp. Can we discern the difference? Here’s a primer. Is there a thin layer of slime on it; is there a lot of bugs around it or has the color of it changed from green to orange? These kinds of signs are mini-clues that foods, thoughts, or words, reek, (stink, duh); are not fit for consumption. How do we keep it airy? Check the source, my friend; cool and clear beget cool and clear. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good for the use of edifying. Nevertheless, even when the origin is unsullied, it can no longer be refreshing if we wait too long to use the substance. Things will be bitter to the taste, or bland or just funny; strange to our palate, unfriendly…
Healing at the Cross Posts
In our suffering we may face gloom at dawn, and dawn after dawn, on and on, it stays. Grieving pain is longsuffering, expanding, lingering. It keeps on keeping on, reduces curing to schemes of preservation; ignores the total healing potential. Bodily aches require pain relievers, salves, creams, and rest. Pain of loss needs equal kinds of attention. First of my strategies in soul-trauma was to eliminate downward-turning advancements toward the mind-emotion-conscience etc. especially feelings. This exercise was simply “wound protection,” accepted since making peace with the loitering wound was considered a normal function. I became acquainted with just how much my wound would endure, which was not that much. I nursed it; after all, it assumed a prominent place in my soul. Woundees are a particular breed. As one of them, I didn’t really savor being around negative people. I craved love and attention; it was easy to discern skeptical…
Many are failing the grace of God, forsaking their diligent looking, and allowing for a troubling root of bitterness to develop, defiling many. This is written in Hebrews 12:15. Yes a lot of believers are spineless, but David was not. In 2 Samuel 12:20 it says “Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the LORD, and worshiped: then he came to his own house; and when he required, they set bread before him, and he did eat.” The verse above culminates a former lusting; a wandering eye in a time of weakness, and an affair. Then, it was followed by a denial, a woman’s pregnancy, a panic by all, and a husband’s murder. Not done yet, we see a cover up, a chastening by God, a rude awakening by David and acknowledgement of sin; his repentance followed that,…
The Mirriam Webster dictionary describes an identity crisis as “A feeling of unhappiness and confusion caused by not being sure of what type of person you really are or what the true purpose of your life is.” The Free dictionary says it this way; “A psychosocial state or condition of disorientation and role confusion occurring especially in adolescents as a result of conflicting internal and external experiences, pressures and expectations and often producing acute anxiety” Theorist Erik Erikson coined the term “identity crisis.” He said “it is a time of intensive analysis and exploration of different ways of looking at oneself.” He described “identity” as: …a subjective sense as well as an observable quality of personal sameness and continuity, paired with some belief in the sameness and continuity of some shared world image.” James Marcia said, “The balance between identity and confusion lies in making a commitment to an…
People, martyrs, discernment, peril, fierce, bold, leader, govern. Let’s do this thing; I say “people,” you say — whatever comes to mind. Here goes. People?-personalities, Martyr?-hero. Discernment?-666, Peril?-run, Fierce?-lion, Bold?-politician, Leader?-statesman, Govern?-rule. That was my turn, now is yours — Potato, melon, kale, overt, dog, cat, loss, karat, shell, dorm, banana, potassium. Go ahead friend. Enjoy free-association. Words are connected how? – Broadly, narrowly, more narrowly? — Rhyme, meanings, similarities, opposites, impressions, or likenesses? For instance, “broad groups” as in type of food, area grown, chemical makeup, tree or vine, habits etc. Narrow takes a broad answer and tapers it more: area grown? tropical, moist, dry, hilly, flatland, fertile soil, barren waste, swamps and etc. “Narrower” goes with another constricting sub-category: fertile soil? chemical, dung, compost, naturally, crop rotated, “Miracle Grow.” Why we doin this? For fun? Yes, have you ever taken a large jar of mixed fasteners, screws, nails,…
Love allured me as my barely remaining chance. Nothing else attracted me. My shattering had stamped out any lingering self-effort in me; even the sense of nerves stirring had vanished. Inertia bound me. I became the man under the bed covers on a cold winter morning, paralyzed. I concluded, “The next transpiration of events would take place toward me, but not from me.” Then God came to me. He found me in my pool of blood, so to speak, and said “live.” Did you hear? God began to talk to me — thoughts of love, reintegration, joining, and joy. Love counterpoised my “death of soul,” percolating the threat and leaving it to seem like a mere concoction of my imagination. Then it set on fire a new beginning. Love’s infiltrating spheroid introduced an orb of extreme well-being in me, a far superior one with warmth and surety. Now, enveloping…
We are now learning to apply the Word which we have learned, to put it on, to use it, and put it into operation; this changes everything. First we had become skilled at the knowledge-level of God’s Word, too much of which swelled our foreheads. Before that we were dunces; some wore the hat. Our nifty education of the Bible helped most of us create labels, models, stereotypes, and superlatives to define our environment and make our life easier. We put the world in a storage crate, and some of us built battlefields for our toy soldiers; or dollhouses for the little girl’s version of war. “Authenticity” we defined as “close to genuine as possible” and this was our path of advancement as we pressed toward our own brand of “Realism.” Very noble, but our Bible philosophy was getting tilted as our lifeless human behavior bent stagnant. Something remained amiss,…
Psalm 34:2 teaches that the humble shall hear thereof and be glad. Hear what? Hear the Word and keep it. “The meek will He teach.” “The meek will He guide in judgment,” Psalm 25:9. Sounds like humility and meekness open some doors to a real God and His living Word? Yes. Humility comes from living in the effects of a crucified self life with its’ old consciousness removed, while meekness is a devotion to the newly opened God-consciousness in resurrection. These are two functions experienced in soul and spirit. They alter the mind, breaking will, emotions and conscience. In essence, humility relates to the process of death; meekness with the life following. So, as we take baby steps with our God in Micah 6:8, our steps are firmed up in faith-meekness in which we condition ourselves to “see as good” the perfect plan of God and receive and apply the…
The old story factored relevant, as pig pens are pig pens no matter how a person gets there. I certainly found myself in the same disgusting state as the wayward son, barely surviving with only scraps of nourishment fit for swine. The thing that I and the prodigal shared was the ineptness that took us into our groveling conditions but also the ham-fisted incompetence toward getting out. For the out of control youth, the face in slop was preceded by the low-paying hog-feeding job, and prior to that was a kind of hysteria. Yes, the Bible teaches that the boy’s waste of substance with riotous living caused an emotional trauma for him. His unfortified ability to control things was lost and the bottom was dropping out of his big strategy. In his soul’s lowest of the low, nothing of his self-made mess was faceable for him now. For me, the…
“Man is pushed by drives but pulled by meaning, and this implies that it is always up to him to decide whether or not he wishes to fulfill the later. Frankl “Man, which thinks and perceives, could not be called in Scripture, “heart,” unless the will were the peculiar central feature in a man, which precedes perception,” Franz Delitzsch. “The thing in the abstract, or the final sub-stratum in every phenomenon, is the will.” Arthur Schopenhauer. “choice is will where knowledge enlightens it.” “Meaning-fulfillment always implies decision making.” “The effort which goes into the exercise of the will is really effort of attention; the strain in willing is the effort to keep the consciousness clear, i.e., the strain of keeping the attention focused.” Rollo May, “Intension is a stretching toward something.” “Meaning has no meaning apart from intention.” “Each act of consciousness tends toward something, is a turning of a person toward…