If - Then

Do you ever get to spots in your life where you think our doing ok: involved in church, hobby's, going to sunday school, small group here and there. No major fights happening on the home front. You know, feeling pretty good about things and the direction they are moving. Content. Or is it complacent?

That's when you get it, right in the kisser. Comes out of thin air, I swear! Then you spend the next few hours trying to figure out what just happened. Replaying things in your head, going over the What If's, finding a sounding board that can handle what your fixing to lay out there. As I write these words, I'm still shaking my head.

But here's the deal: If we will forgo the desire to lash out in our own defense; If we just take it, like Christ took it, we become vulnerable. Then God has an opening to show up and do what God does.

This is part of what I learned from my time in the vulnerable circle.

1. I can only change myself! 

2. It is my choice to put on Christ or not.

3. God see's me.

I chose to put on Christ yesterday. It was hard to keep my mouth shut when false accusations were flying all around me. I took it. I came home crushed and unable to figure out what to do with all that stuff.

Then this morning, God showed me. I obeyed and He gave me grace by the bucket loads. Every scripture I read this morning was straight from God's heart  to mine! 

If we obey, He is faithful.  

Take the Step!

During a rock-climbing lesson, Dan Clark stops on the vertical incline, as if paralyzed.
He writes, "I could see an outcrop for my right foot, but no place where I could place my hands or left foot."
Yes, he felt stuck. Hopeless perhaps.
The instructor, not far from Dan on the face of the incline, tells him, "Take the step."
"Are you crazy?"
"Once you lift yourself up you may find something you can't see from where you stand."
"Well what happens if I don't find anything?" Dan asked.
"If you don't find anything, " the instructor says calmly, "fall back on the harness and try it again."

This story fills me with hope! At some level it also freaks me out, to fall back, as in...to let go. Of our expectations or our stuck way of seeing and thinking. It's a message that comes to us when we need it most, if we will but listen.

Take the step, give it a try, see what you can see from a new place. It's like at any given moment, we have the power to say: This is not how the story is going to end! I mean, what's the worst thing that can happen? You fall back and try again!

Fear will keep us stuck if we let it. Once we see fear for what it truly is, a lie, we are able to take that step and see things from a different place. Sadly, this is where some churches live, stuck in the fear to take a step, any step, in any direction. We've always done it this way! (Still the words of a dying church) These are words of fear. I refuse to let fear have a grip on me! I know the truth and it set's me free, to take that step!

Fear

Fear narrows the little entrance of our heart.

It shrinks up our capacity to love.

It freezes up our power to give ourselves.

~ Thomas Merton

Fear is the show stopper! Think about it, what keeps us from being all we can be? We're afraid! We fear failing, not being liked or loved, not being enough or being too much. It paralyzes us from doing what God is calling us to do. One of the worst things about fear is it's contagious! We are able to spread fear faster than hope! That my friends, is flat out sad!

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger.
Anger leads to hate.
Hate leads to suffering.
Yoda

At times, I feel fear is the main tool of satan. I know he has more, but fear works so well with us. I want to share a story I read the other day from Sabbath Moment's.

There is a well-known experiment involving a group of monkeys, a ladder and bananas suspended from the ceiling. When the first monkey touched the ladder, the researchers hosed all the monkeys with cold water. (Let it be known right off the bat, I hate these experiments!) Soaked and confused, the monkeys tried to reach the bananas again, but whenever any one of them touched the ladder, all were punished. Soon enough, the monkeys learned the lesson: the ladder is taboo. The researcher then exchanged one of the experienced monkeys for a new one. As soon as he entered the room, the new monkey started towards the ladder. Before he could touch it, the other monkeys pulled him away. After enough thwarted attempts, the monkey abandoned his efforts.

The researchers then exchanged another monkey. After time, not one of the original monkeys remained. Yet the lesson endured: No monkey ever climbed the ladder. (Incidentally, if any of the monkeys had tried the ladder, they would have succeeded. Researchers did away with the water hose early on in the experiment.)

WOW! There are many things we don't try.

There are many ladders we don't climb. For any number of reasons.

Or we try for a while; and then we quit.

Or, we have been told, Don't try. You don't have what it takes.

That may put the kibosh on any enthusiasm in a world of never enough - be it beauty or faith or courage or success or passion. 

What have you been told not to try? What puts a kibosh on your enthusiasm? Does it all go back to fear? How do you feel about that?