A little Finding God
I really am scraping things up from the bottom of the barrel here, but since blogger has gone and rearranged the furniture (as Ben put it), it now tells me over on the left that I have 57 draft posts. I wondered what was in all those 57 posts that were never actually released to the public, so I had a little look. Among them I found this one, with excerpts from Finding God by Larry Crabb, from back in May 2008. So, after removing all the weird fontness, I decided to let this one come up into the published posts. It might seem a little out of left field (hee hee!) now, but here it is.
What would it be like if you desperately desired to be whole, beautiful and good, but fully trusted God to give you all the desires of your heart? Can you see that you would no longer blame yourself for what happened? You would not develop a poor self-image. Rather, you would enter your pain with the courage of trust and hope in God. Knowing that you are fully forgiven, you would admit your failure to love. You would move from "I hate me" to "I judge me" and then continue on in the strength of forgiveness and hope ... Either we live under pressure to grow, or we celebrate grace ... the enjoyment of Christ's acceptance gave rise within me to a deeper longing to be like Christ, a longing that intensified dependence on God's spirit and, at the same time, weakened my internal demand to be better. I no longer needed to be better, I wanted to be.
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Nothing matters more than how we relate to God and to others. The fallen structure begins with doubting God, then hating him, and ends with using people, protecting ourselves from them, and leading unreleased lives, with the good that God has placed within us safely tucked away beneath self-centred efforts to avoid pain. The godly structure begins with trusting and loving God, and it ends by freeing us to love people with all the beauty and richness of our unique identities.
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When we honestly acknowledge how others have failed us, we begin to see how hard we work to avoid further injury by withholding from others whatever makes us feel vulnerable. Such withholding generates a longing to exist more fully with all that we are, to give our tenderness to others who may trample it underfoot, to move more strongly even though we may fail.
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Notice how hard you work to protect yourself from more pain and to preserve whatever self-esteem still remains. As you enter your inside world and find it filled with an angry passion to survive, you may think nothing else is there. But there is. Look for a quiet urge within you simply to live, to rest, to go about your business without having to prove or protect yourself against anything, to enjoy existence, your existence, at its deepest level. You want to live honestly, peacefully, happily.
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Doubting God is a far more serious problem than whatever mistreatment you have endured: it is the root of all sin. As you expose your demanding spirit, you will soon experience a passion to rest, to make no demands because you trust the one in charge, to live in an environment where you feel safe to develop your potential rather than always to stay on guard against danger. You will more clearly see that you must live consciously in the presence of a reliable refuge in whose strength you are free to live your life rather than attempt to hang onto it. The desire to know God as protector and liberator will grow within you. And you will seek him with more of your heart.
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Have you found a healing that releases you to love others better, or do you find superficial healing through self-affirmation and boundary-setting? Which offends you more - your ongoing pain, or your ongoing sin? Which do you value more - healing or forgiveness?
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God knows everything about you. He is thoroughly aware of all the personal struggles that threaten to undo you. He knows your history and your present life, all of it. And all he says to you is, "Christ".