Have you ever gotten quiet with yourself? I mean real quiet, no radio or tv, no cell phone or Ipad. What do you hear? Today I’m home a bit earlier than expected and I’ve wanted to write something about the need for solitude. Here goes….
I recently read about an ailment called soul-sickness and found it’s meaning so apropos, that I can’t help but share it. Soul-sickness comes in a variety of forms and the one I want to speak about is busyness. Recently my days have been consumed with things other than what I wish for them to be. Partly it is my job and it is necessary, but other times I feel compelled to move to the beat of someone else’s drum and in doing so, I find not only am I exhausted, but I’m also feeling depressed. Joy is absent and those who know me best know what I am talking about.
You know when you have a cold and you ache and you are tired and you feel foggy. Well that describes me, although I’m not ill. I said to a friend the other day, I don’t want to "do" anything, I just want to "be." Which translated means if there is an agenda involved (specifics of times and places) I’d rather pass. I feel too busy. For some busyness assures them of their identity, they’ve got places to go, people to see and things that must get done. They get satisfaction from checking things off their things to do list and feel accomplished. I use to feel this way, I was a "do-er". But all the doing left me unsatisfied and empty. I not only didn’t feel important (not that that is important to me), I felt disillusioned. Have you ever felt – "Is this all there is?"
I have often blogged about being real and I thought I was. I thought I was on the road to transformation until I read this passage in the book The Lazarus Life. "Many of us in the West mistakenly believe that transformation happens when we get more information and get all the facts straight. Many of the programs developed for Christians today are based on that FALSE assumption. More teaching, more seminars and more notebooks do NOT result in a transformed life…The tombs of life teach us that information alone does not lead to a transformed life. Neither does trying harder or wallowing in shame and blame because of all of our failed attempts. Spiritual transformation requires a gut-level honesty about our fears, disappointments, disillusionments and failures. We are transformed when we allow God to do what information fails to do. We are transformed when we look at our lives and become aware of our real condition- no matter how bad it is, and face the truth about it."
What I have found out about myself is that by scheduling myself so much with what I thought were quality endeavors, I have drowned out the voice of God. I am not hearing Him and should I hear Him, I know I would be too tired to react. Cutting back should be easy, emphasis should. When the activities you are doing though are with someone else who isn’t necessarily on the same page as you (maybe not even in the same book!), feelings are apt to be hurt.
Do you know who Lazarus is (in the Bible)? He’s the friend whom Jesus loved, the brother of Mary and Martha and he’s the one who died and Jesus brought him back from the dead. Well, in the book The Lazarus Life the significance of the story is that Jesus "lingered" to the point of it being too late and Lazarus dies and is in his tomb. I am only a quarter of the way through this fascinating book full of symbolism. Stephen W. Smith, the author, equates the Lazarus’ tomb as our areas of darkness where we neither know if we are coming or going. "Without the darkness of the tomb, we still walk in our own light and attempt to live what we think is life." When he described his own life, Smith talked about the sin of busyness which assured him (and me) of his identity (me too) and assuaged his need to be loved. His busyness gave him the feeling of significance. As an extrovert he was afraid of solitude and suspicious of silence. Yet it was in silence that he began to find his true self and he discovered a heart embedded in him that had gotten lost along the way. Ok, not sure if I should quote that or just say I paraphrased a bunch of it…..we will go with the latter. No matter, wow did that all resonate with me!! I bought a green highlighter and I’m finding that there is more of this book being highlighted than left untouched! This writer, who happens to be the brother-in-law of a good friend, leaves me speechless in that he is writing almost to the "t" what it is I’m feeling. Talk about resonating!
For over a year I have been doing Bible studies with a friend and it is only just recently where I feel the message is not sinking in. It isn’t that I’m not interested in reading more and discussing it, although I’m beginning to think, at least for me, there this is an element of pride becoming attached with any dazzling commentary I might make and this is precisely what brought me up short. I’m only giving lip service not doing the application parts. I’m becoming booksmart, but not transformed.
Getting back to "being" not doing – repeatedly it has been stated that our efforts will not get us into heaven and yet we keep busting our butts in an effort to try to please God. What does it mean though if all of our efforts to do good works are conjoined with minds holding grudges or resentments? Over and over and over again, I read that we are to love one another. Loving others is NOT conditional based on their performance or how I feel and yet many of us rationalize our behaviors in this particular manner.
Are we able to forgive and let it go? Or do we only give this lip-service until the next time our noses get out of joint? I don’t want to be that person who won’t allow for people to change, especially if I see them really working on changing! Labels and judging are two attributes I am trying very hard to rid myself of and I don’t want to be associated with those who don’t understand that. I once heard that anyone who has a problem with you in regard to your Christianity is just not liking the Jesus they see in you. Well, the same thing can be said for those who want to hold you in their time warped opinion. It is their problem, not yours. Only those who seek, but more importantly allow themselves, will be transformed.
In quiet moments, I sense God’s nearness. In helping a friend the other day, I experienced true moments of joy in honesty. Yesterday, I sat with a dying woman, holding her hand, talking with her and her daughter. Although she wasn’t lucid most of the time, every so often her sight would clear and she’d look at me in such a way that I was sure I was seeing God’s presence. Both those times I was in the mode of being not doing and I was blessed. There is an unmitigated joy that transcends all understanding when you are in His Presence and once experienced, you never want to travel far from it. I am fortunate to have watched miracles take place because of love and the only way to get a ringside seat is to allow yourself to face the tombs of darkness in your life and be transformed by them.
Get a copy of The Lazarus Life – spiritual transformation for ordinary people by Stephen W. Smith. He makes ordinary, seem extraordinary!
Looking up!
Barb
I recently read about an ailment called soul-sickness and found it’s meaning so apropos, that I can’t help but share it. Soul-sickness comes in a variety of forms and the one I want to speak about is busyness. Recently my days have been consumed with things other than what I wish for them to be. Partly it is my job and it is necessary, but other times I feel compelled to move to the beat of someone else’s drum and in doing so, I find not only am I exhausted, but I’m also feeling depressed. Joy is absent and those who know me best know what I am talking about.
You know when you have a cold and you ache and you are tired and you feel foggy. Well that describes me, although I’m not ill. I said to a friend the other day, I don’t want to "do" anything, I just want to "be." Which translated means if there is an agenda involved (specifics of times and places) I’d rather pass. I feel too busy. For some busyness assures them of their identity, they’ve got places to go, people to see and things that must get done. They get satisfaction from checking things off their things to do list and feel accomplished. I use to feel this way, I was a "do-er". But all the doing left me unsatisfied and empty. I not only didn’t feel important (not that that is important to me), I felt disillusioned. Have you ever felt – "Is this all there is?"
I have often blogged about being real and I thought I was. I thought I was on the road to transformation until I read this passage in the book The Lazarus Life. "Many of us in the West mistakenly believe that transformation happens when we get more information and get all the facts straight. Many of the programs developed for Christians today are based on that FALSE assumption. More teaching, more seminars and more notebooks do NOT result in a transformed life…The tombs of life teach us that information alone does not lead to a transformed life. Neither does trying harder or wallowing in shame and blame because of all of our failed attempts. Spiritual transformation requires a gut-level honesty about our fears, disappointments, disillusionments and failures. We are transformed when we allow God to do what information fails to do. We are transformed when we look at our lives and become aware of our real condition- no matter how bad it is, and face the truth about it."
What I have found out about myself is that by scheduling myself so much with what I thought were quality endeavors, I have drowned out the voice of God. I am not hearing Him and should I hear Him, I know I would be too tired to react. Cutting back should be easy, emphasis should. When the activities you are doing though are with someone else who isn’t necessarily on the same page as you (maybe not even in the same book!), feelings are apt to be hurt.
Do you know who Lazarus is (in the Bible)? He’s the friend whom Jesus loved, the brother of Mary and Martha and he’s the one who died and Jesus brought him back from the dead. Well, in the book The Lazarus Life the significance of the story is that Jesus "lingered" to the point of it being too late and Lazarus dies and is in his tomb. I am only a quarter of the way through this fascinating book full of symbolism. Stephen W. Smith, the author, equates the Lazarus’ tomb as our areas of darkness where we neither know if we are coming or going. "Without the darkness of the tomb, we still walk in our own light and attempt to live what we think is life." When he described his own life, Smith talked about the sin of busyness which assured him (and me) of his identity (me too) and assuaged his need to be loved. His busyness gave him the feeling of significance. As an extrovert he was afraid of solitude and suspicious of silence. Yet it was in silence that he began to find his true self and he discovered a heart embedded in him that had gotten lost along the way. Ok, not sure if I should quote that or just say I paraphrased a bunch of it…..we will go with the latter. No matter, wow did that all resonate with me!! I bought a green highlighter and I’m finding that there is more of this book being highlighted than left untouched! This writer, who happens to be the brother-in-law of a good friend, leaves me speechless in that he is writing almost to the "t" what it is I’m feeling. Talk about resonating!
For over a year I have been doing Bible studies with a friend and it is only just recently where I feel the message is not sinking in. It isn’t that I’m not interested in reading more and discussing it, although I’m beginning to think, at least for me, there this is an element of pride becoming attached with any dazzling commentary I might make and this is precisely what brought me up short. I’m only giving lip service not doing the application parts. I’m becoming booksmart, but not transformed.
Getting back to "being" not doing – repeatedly it has been stated that our efforts will not get us into heaven and yet we keep busting our butts in an effort to try to please God. What does it mean though if all of our efforts to do good works are conjoined with minds holding grudges or resentments? Over and over and over again, I read that we are to love one another. Loving others is NOT conditional based on their performance or how I feel and yet many of us rationalize our behaviors in this particular manner.
Are we able to forgive and let it go? Or do we only give this lip-service until the next time our noses get out of joint? I don’t want to be that person who won’t allow for people to change, especially if I see them really working on changing! Labels and judging are two attributes I am trying very hard to rid myself of and I don’t want to be associated with those who don’t understand that. I once heard that anyone who has a problem with you in regard to your Christianity is just not liking the Jesus they see in you. Well, the same thing can be said for those who want to hold you in their time warped opinion. It is their problem, not yours. Only those who seek, but more importantly allow themselves, will be transformed.
In quiet moments, I sense God’s nearness. In helping a friend the other day, I experienced true moments of joy in honesty. Yesterday, I sat with a dying woman, holding her hand, talking with her and her daughter. Although she wasn’t lucid most of the time, every so often her sight would clear and she’d look at me in such a way that I was sure I was seeing God’s presence. Both those times I was in the mode of being not doing and I was blessed. There is an unmitigated joy that transcends all understanding when you are in His Presence and once experienced, you never want to travel far from it. I am fortunate to have watched miracles take place because of love and the only way to get a ringside seat is to allow yourself to face the tombs of darkness in your life and be transformed by them.
Get a copy of The Lazarus Life – spiritual transformation for ordinary people by Stephen W. Smith. He makes ordinary, seem extraordinary!
Looking up!
Barb
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