A Place called "Weak"

I tend to think of Weakness as this place I go to by accident. Not only am I disappointed that I didn't arrive where I wanted to be, but I'm frustrated because I was trying to avoid this place altogether. "Why am I here again!", and "I don't want to be here!" keep screaming in my head. I feel angry, afraid, trapped, hopeless. There is something suffocating about this place that makes me feel desperate. I'm embarrassed for having come to Weakness in spite of all my efforts to avoid it. Nothing is going the way I want it to go, and I'm struggling with my failure to do anything about it, struggling with my failure to be strong, struggling with the thought that People will think I'm weak, and  get the wrong impression of me.

Have you been there too?

{I've said it before and I'll say it again.}
I hate being weak.
I hate being reminded that I am weak.
I don't like it when my own failures and mistakes remind me that I'm weak.
I don't like being reminded that I am weak when other people correct me.
I don't like feeling weak, period. Exclamation mark.
Stupid feels weak;
crying feels weak;
being wrong feels weak;
fear feels weak;
losing feels weak;
saying I'm sorry feels weak;
not defending myself feels weak;
letting someone else win an argument feels weak;
failure feels weak;
vulnerable feels weak;
loneliness feels weak;
falling behind feels weak;
emotions feel weak;
and feeling weak just plain feels wrong.
So, I conclude, anything that makes me feel weak must be bad and must be avoided.

Am I right?
Is weakness like that for you?
Is it the undesirable, accidental, unwelcome, uncomfortable, temporary stop you're forced to go to against your will, that should never be part of your journey?

What if weakness was something entirely different?
What if weakness was a condition, a permanent condition with no escape?
What if weakness was a good thing?
What if it was better than strength?
What if?

Could you believe that?
Could you believe it is even possible?

Optimistic Delusion

Ever notice how little children insist on doing things they aren't able to do? Not content with what they've already learned, they want to do what bigger people do, and we have to tell them "you can't do that!" Does that make them give up? Absolutely not, it only seems to make them want to do it more.
Then we grow up into adults who delude themselves into thinking that they are strong enough to do things they can't?

I am a dismal failure at snow skiing.
In spite of that, I still used to tell myself that I should be able to ski, all I had to do was try harder.
That's how I found myself duped into riding a ski lift in the Sierra Nevadas one Christmas. Why would I ever think that I couldn't ski?  It shouldn't matter that I don't seem to have the strength in my legs to stop skiing, or that I have a fear of heights, or some strange aversion to going fast. Why should that be a problem?
I couldn't even get off the ski lift without falling, and that's when I began to seriously doubt my resolve. What was I thinking when I thought I could do this? After a few more falls and the terrifying sensation of picking up speed, I was crumpling, or at least as best as one can crumple while wearing ridiculously long, heavy, floppy poles on their feet.
"I can't do this!" kept screaming in my head. "Why can't you do this?", my other personality kept yelling back.  "I don't know! Because I'm too weak! Because I'm a pitiful failure! Happy now!"
Oh great, I'm going to melt into a weak-looking mass of tears. Perfect! Would somebody just shoot me now, I'm going to die here anyway.
I can't understand it. Millions of people can ski, why can't I? I should be able to do this! I should be strong enough to pull myself together, stand up on those blasted skis and sail down this incredibly steep and slick mountainside. Instead, I'm staring into my husband's face while he walks my skis down the mountain one step at a time with his skis, patiently telling me I can do this, in response to my cries that I can't! Ugh!
I hate being pitiful.
I hate being weak.
I want to believe that I can do anything.
I'm always telling myself that I should be able to do this, and angry at myself when I can't.
It would seem that my working premise is that I should be strong enough, that I should be able to cancel weakness with strength of determination. Does it work? Not usually, but I keep thinking it will.

Do you do this too?
Do you say to yourself, "I should be strong enough to do this"?
It isn't that I think I'm strong, but that I have this optimistic delusion that I think I should be strong.
Does that delusion trip me up when I try to crosswalk? Every single time! As long as I keep this delusion alive, I refuse to learn God's purpose for weakness in my life. As long as I keep telling myself that I can be strong, I refuse to die to self. Every time I have this hope of finally finding strength in myself, I lose out on the true power of weakness.

A dead man has no strength of his own; he never says to himself, "I should have been able to do that".

Bungee Walking

So you want to walk by the Spirit, only this isn't the first time you've been here prepared to take that step.
Do you wonder how this time it's going to be different? Have you given up hoping it could be different?
Maybe you have wanted to work on your spiritual life for a variety of reasons, but eventually end up discouraged with where you are in this walk. Why is it so hard? Why does it seem to not stick? Why do I always seem to be back where I started?
Could it be that this is normal, that you will always find yourself here at the beginning again?
Geez, that's not exactly what you were looking for, is it? You were hoping maybe to be free from sin, pain, struggle, and doubts. You were hoping to arrive with other spiritual giants and never be criticized or judged. You were hoping to never have to feel bad about yourself again.
I had that hope too.

I wonder if the disciple Peter ever felt that way.
The disciples were a group of men that spent every moment with Jesus. For three years, they saw His miracles, they heard His teachings, they felt the sting of His rebukes. That didn't keep them from experiencing failures, making blunders or saying stupid things though.

Example: Matthew 16:13-28

Jesus asks the disciples if they understand who He is? Peter, keeping in character, pipes up first with the right answer, confessing that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, and he is rewarded with some super-charged words of affirmation from Jesus. "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you but My Father who is in heaven." Then He follows that with even more amazing things about building His church, and giving Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven. I'm not going to debate just what Jesus meant by those words, but regardless of the meaning, I imagine Peter must have felt pretty pumped after getting that kind of praise from Jesus, especially if his love language was words of affirmation.
But then it all goes wrong when Jesus starts to teach the disciples about the suffering side of the Servant, and Peter blurts out, "God forbid it Lord! This shall never happen to You."
"Satan," this is what Jesus calls Peter, "get behind me for you are a stumbling block!"
Your priorities are wrong, Peter, you have a mind not intent on promoting what God wills, but on what pleases men.
It disturbs me to think that Jesus could be saying the exact same thing about you and me? Are we not more on man's side, ie. our side, than on God's? Are we not more intent on our own interests and plans than on God's plan for us?
Jesus is finally letting the disciples in on God's plan, and they are less than excited about it. Death and suffering clash with their goals, just like they clash with ours. Note that, what Jesus says to his disciples next, takes us right to the point of crosswalking.
"If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me."
This is how it is going to be. If you are going to follow Me, you're going to have to take up your cross as well. You can't value your life here on earth more than your eternal life, you can't hope to profit from this world. In other words, you are in for some suffering too, if you are serious about being my disciple.

A problem arises when we want to take charge of the reforming process. We come with our own purposes in mind, with our own stipulations, with our own expectations. We also feel a little entitled to give God suggestions on how, when, where and by whom it should be done.  So when the process gets difficult or we don't like where it's going, we derail, or take a detour, or make a bypass, or take any route that shortens the track, thereby, insuring that we circle right back to the beginning, again, instead of going straight.  Though we will always have the flesh with us, we don't have to live by the flesh, we don't have to be stuck in this bungee style perpetual looping.

This time, walking by the Spirit will be different because you are going to follow Christ His way.
The result will be that...
you'll know authentic fruit of the Spirit, especially peace and joy.
you'll know the Spirit's power, while boasting in your own weakness.
you'll know victory over sin.
you'll know that Jesus Christ is the only One who makes your life worth living.
you'll know that the Father is completely trustworthy.
you'll know that grace is overwhelming.
you'll want to please God and not yourself.
you'll accept the tools God uses.
you'll know those tools to be weakness, humility, suffering and repentance.

My hope is that, through the next chapters, you will be inspired with a vision of how beautiful each of these things are to God and desire them in your life as much as He does.

The Bank of Just Return

Take a moment to consider this.

Have you ever thought, or do you think now, that Life owes you something, or even, that in some way, God owes you? (though you may be reluctant to say that out loud)
Do you ever expect or hope for a return on life's hardships?
I mean, that life has been unfair and you've been slipping credit slips into your Bank of Just Return in the city of Fairplay.
Have all the sacrifices you've made in life been free, or have they been made with an unconscious expectation of payback? You thought you were denying yourself, but actually you've been investing in a savings account that is earning interest. Eventually you hope to make a withdrawal, or cash in your investment. That expectation of payback, of reward for all your sacrifice, makes it impossible for you to die to self. You know there is a reward in heaven, but you've got a major investment here as well, one that has been accruing interest and you aren't ready or willing yet to give it up, or lose it.

Your sacrifice wasn't really a sacrifice by death, but a transfer of reward to a later time. If you are coming to this process already in the habit of sacrificing your needs because you think you don't matter, you may be trying to redefine that as dying to self. They are not the same thing. Does your dying leave you feeling crushed, hopeless, discouraged? You may be trying this backwards. You can't die to self, unless you are sure of the life that you have in Jesus, otherwise, there is no hope in death. Only the life of Jesus in us has the capacity to sacrifice, expecting nothing in return.

Death requires a sacrifice of debt, because a dead man can't get paid.
Owing or being owed is a form of bondage.
Christ did not come to you that way, He gave His life to pay your debt, so that you can live freely in Him. What gain can you get from this life that could compare to that? Really! There is nothing this world has to offer that can satisfy like Christ Jesus. Trust Him to satisfy all your needs, to love you as you've never known love before, to submerge you in His grace and mercy.
"If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God." Colossians 3: 1-3

Are you clinging to what life owes you?
Are you holding out because you need to know the reward first, to know what's in it for you?
Are you holding God on a tight leash?
Are you convinced that you matter so much to Christ, that He was willing to purchase you with His blood, and that before God, you stand accepted in Him?
Are you crazy?
What could you ever get from this life in the flesh that could improve on or be better than that?
Or as Paul said it,

"I press on 

in order that I may lay hold of that 

for which also I was laid hold of 

by Christ Jesus"

 Philippians 3:12

Start crosswalking today and everyday,
being owed nothing
and "owing nothing except to love one another".
Romans 13:8

Beware of the Snare

We fear man's disapproval or judgment.
We worry about what he thinks.
We base our value on how man reacts to us or treats us.
Do I have to be loved to be okay?
If I do,
I might as well build a trap and then step in to it.
Proverbs 29:25 
"The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe."
Beware of the snare.
It's all DANGER and leads us towards insecurity
and away from total trust in the Lord.


Journal entry:
August 26, 2009
Lord,
I feel that old struggle with the fear of man waging war in my mind. Comparing my popularity with that of others, watching friendships and wondering if I am as well liked. Asking myself "why don't they like me? Why am I not good enough? What do I need to change that will make them like me more? What do they have that I don't?"
Then You showed me, the Trap is laid, that is the fear of man, and I am caught in it.
There are things, so many things, that need to be changed in my life. By your grace and power, you have applied the sharpened tools and the fire to change me.
But why is change necessary?
You change me so that I reflect your glory, bear your image, so that others see Christ in me. Your blade makes me more like Christ.
But I must remember that the purpose of change is NEVER, EVER to make others love me more or accept me more. It's NEVER so that I would attract more friends to myself, NEVER so that I can feel good about myself. I've wanted you to change me, "fix me" all for my own benefit. Forgive me that for this moment I was consumed with thoughts of changing myself for that very purpose. In seeking my own glory, I would distort yours, blackening and tarnishing what You have done.
I repent before You, Lord!

My Life is NOT my Own

Paul wrote to the Corinthians A.D.53-54
"Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.
Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord [for we walk by faith, not by sight] we are of good courage, I say,
and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.
Therefore also we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.
For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died;
and He died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.
Therefore from now on we recognize no man according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh; yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

to the Galatians A.D.55
"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me."

to the Romans A.D.57
"For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; for if we live, we live for the Lord or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord's."

to the Colossians A.D.60-61
"For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory."

to the Philippians A.D.62
"my hope that with all boldness, Christ shall even now, as always, be exalted in my body,
whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, to die is gain.
But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I don't know which to choose.
But I am hard-pressed from both directions having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. And convinced of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith."

Do you understand what Paul is writing here to the Philippians? He is in prison right now, and he doesn't know which to choose, to live or to die. Wait a minute! Wouldn't it be normal for us all to prefer to live? But then again, if I were in prison, I probably would rather die. I, of course would be choosing based on what was best for me. Not Paul! His primary desire is not for his own good, which would, for him, mean death, but for the good of others and for the preaching of the Gospel. Don't you get the idea that Paul sees life in the flesh as second best? Weird.
Sometimes I feel like I need to stand on my head in order to "get" Paul.