CLICK HERE FOR THOUSANDS OF FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES »

Thursday, May 22, 2008

In the natural...

After listening to an Erwin McManus message, I felt led to share it with some of my own feelings...pass the blessing right? It's crazy because I totally needed to hear it at the very moment I pushed "play".

who we are naturally without the Spirit of God is scary. I look in the mirror and on the surface, I'm totally ok, no major bruises, cuts, i don't have a mole on my nose- but there are places within us in our souls that we don't want to look at.
But boy or boy do we find ways to drown out these places. I do. I just have to keep myself occupied which makes me too busy to deal with it...
Maybe you sleep from person to person because the one you truly loved broke your heart. Or, on the opposite end, you shut out everyone, never truly having any deep relationships because of fear....or maybe you crank on the radio in the morning because you don't even want to think about what you said last night to your husband. I'm sure you've sat like a veggie infront of the TV after that fight you had with your parents, just to help you forget the yelling.

We don't like being alone with ourselves. That struck me because it spoke truth to me in such a way. Sometimes i don't like myself. Sometimes, instead of dealing with our ugliness, we drown out the voice that will actually help us deal with things.
It was compared to art.
People rather look at landscapes, something we know and are comfortable with, something spotless...because knowing what it is reveals its beauty...
then you have picasso...



where's the beauty? the pieces just don't fit...confusion, dispair, death, suffering...this was painted during a time of war, after the machine gun was invented and soldiers didn't return home due to the lack of training against this unknown killing machine. People were stunned that this was what war was. Their loved ones were not coming home, and if they did, parts of their bodies were left on the blood soaked battle field. So with all this exposed, all these feelings of the truth being revealed....
Picasso was actually making a statement about inner being of humanity. No more perfect landscape pictures of farm houses, flowers, or kittens.
We're not so good after all. You mean we might have ugliness inside?

Once we stop and consider who we are, it's not so good.
Once we go beyond the surface, what we find is massive despair and suffering.

This painting is actually hanging at the United Nations...

I've seen people of great desperation...starving, injured, broken...but yet there are still people here in the United States that hear about a suicide and say, "HOW COULD THEY DO THAT?" or someon who lost self control and lashed out at another person and saying something so horrible to them "HOW COULD THEY SAY THAT?"

But it's in every one of us.

I was lashed at this week by another teacher. Mocked for my faith, because there was nothing else she could find against me. I wanted to attack her back. And after I walked out, in my heart, I knew "I've been there". I was in the wrong room at the wrong time, and knew it wasn't personal. But my natural, without God, wanted to attack her. My ugliness wanted out.

It caused me to think of my place of desperation...all i could see was a pit with no life and no hope. But until I realized I couldn't do it on my own, that's all I saw, the walls from the pit up around me.

I encourage you, that pit of despiration-it's there so God can bring you out. It's there so God can lift you up so high you can look back and see how far you've come.

When you hear words of hate, actions of violence, thoughts of suicide from another-in a way they're reaching out to you. God's choosing you. Paul promised us we'd get offended, we'd be beat up on...but to always pray for his spirit to guide us so that we may see what God sees in it. Do what God would do in it. Don't judge these people for their hurt. Reach out and help. Remember we're so scary without God's spirit. If we all did exactly what our first reaction was, we wouldn't have any friends. Think of everyone in the world who don't know Him yet. They don't know what it feels like to possess His life. A lot of scary people running around....and to think, we are like that without Him too.....

This truth became so apparent when I went to Africa. I had a hard time loving the natives...the kids, no problem, the adults? There were many times Gary held me at night because i was crying and angry at them for their choices....People are hopeless. Hurting. We need to stop judging them and start helping them. Remember it's all about the heart.


I was so blessed by this message. I think it was from April 18, 2008 if you want to look it up on itunes, for FREE from mosaic church

1 comments:

sammie said...

Last night I went around the room and asked my girls what they were going to take away from NRG ( our young life program for spring) and one of them said I learned to except people for who they are where they are and not judge them at all, just hug them. Out of the mouths of children.