Tag Archives: Guilt

Holding On

10 Replies

Recently I discovered myself holding on to something.

Heavy-Burden

I had been holding on to it for quite a long time. I can remember when I began holding it. You would think I would have let go by now. I couldn’t.

The brutal honest fact is that most of the time I didn’t know I was holding it. I had become so comfortable with it that I forgot I was holding it.

During a counseling session a couple of weeks ago, I suddenly realized I was holding it.
(Yep. Counseling. Mom it’s okay. People can know that your 42-year-old son is seeing a counselor.)

It was heavy. Unbearably heavy.

How did I become so comfortable with this extremely heavy burden?

Over the course of almost three decades I had learned to live with it. It is a close comfortable friend. Well, not really a friend.

I’m sure you understand. I’m sure there is a person in your life that is always around. You’ve tried to leave a few times, but the separation never really happens. They are with you.

Always.

Many times they are present during the good times. But you know in your heart the soul piercing dagger they wield will show up eventually. Once again you will wonder why you put up with their mere presence in your life.

But you know why you let them remain. They are comfortable. An always present baseline of sorts.

Soul sucking people. Soul sucking events. Soul sucking, joy killing actions.

Why do we hold them so tightly?

What I’m holding isn’t a person. It is an event. More accurately, a series of events.

These events came to me one at a time. Each one found a place to sit in my psyche. One at a time doesn’t weigh too much. All together is a different story.

 

Are you holding something tightly that is destructive? How long have you had a death grip on it? What would happen if you let it go?

 

**Read “Letting Go” to learn more about my depression and ongoing recovery/”battle”.

Explaining Love and Law

Leave a reply

“…because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.” – Ephesians 2: 4-5 (NIV)

I love you God

After reading through Monday’s post and comments a few times, I realized I didn’t explain myself very well. I wanted to explain one thing, and it came off as something a little bit different. If you haven’t read Monday’s post, you may want to read it before continuing. Click here Love and Law

What I realized after reading it over again (and again and again…), is that I didn’t properly tell you where I was stuck.

You all understood the Love part. I need to let the grace and love of Jesus flow into my heart.

The stuck part is in my head. It is not, as I failed to explain, the Law. I’m not hung up on the rules. I’m not legalistic.

I’m stuck on the academic.

The desire to understand doctrine and theology, to decipher the words written by respected theologians and ministers, grabs me. It has grabbed me for decades.

I like reading what they wrote. I like reading about their lives.

John Calvin
Martin Luther
Abraham Kuyper
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and many more.

Sad to say, I can remember thinking more than a few times over the years, the sermon I was hearing needed more details on the doctrine and theology of the sermon topic. I wanted to know the roots and foundation of the pastor’s points.

Did the words I was hearing from the pulpit, in the music I was listening to, in the words I read in the dozens of books I read every year, fit with the doctrine and theology I believe? I wanted to understand the intricacies of the doctrine and theology. (I’m sure I’m not the only person trying to come to a complete understanding of the Trinity while on this side of Heaven. Right?)

Now I intend to pay attention to both. Love and Law. Or more accurately, love and the details of the love working in me and through me to better understand it all.

Let the Love of God flow into me so that I may better understand His Amazing Grace.

Il Divo – Amazing Grace

 

SELFISH

7 Replies

“Dreaming and walking down the road to awesome is not inherently selfish” – Jon Acuff

092213_2323_SELFISH1.jpgIs it wrong to want to publish an award-winning blog or to write a New York Times best-selling book? In a word: No. If you have been called by God to do something, it is never selfish to desire to be wildly successful at it! God has called you to a task, a mission, with a purpose for you. God wants you to be wildly successful.

Let’s make sure we are clear though. You have to desire that success for His glory. His glory alone. For many of us (myself included) this brings up the question of how to combine “wildly successful for God’s glory” with “wildly successful for my income and for my family”. It can sometimes be difficult for us to come to terms with success. Satan does some of his best work when he twists our success into pride. He also does some of his best work when he takes our success and plants rapidly growing seeds of guilt in our psyche.

I was brought up with the guidelines that I was to work hard at my job, do my best, don’t rock the boat, and collect the pay check. These things are all good. But why have these ideas become purveyors of guilt, and why have they put in us a fear of asking for something better? Is asking for a raise a selfish act if you’ve been a loyal, hard-working employee? Is it wrong to desire a job you truly enjoy?

I’m trying to walk down a road that will bring me to my personal “awesome”. Fear sometimes tells me to stop dreaming and stop walking down the road. No more. I am going to walk down the “road to awesome” with a purpose and a goal. I will walk and dream with intent. I’d like to invite you along for the walk. Join me.

What dream have you put aside because fear has told you to “do the right thing”?

If you want to see how some other people are being “selfish”, check out my friends at FrankenStart.