As I shared in my last writing, January is a get organized, place in order, and clean-out time of year for me except…. when it comes to books. Books and I have trouble parting ways. When I shed a few, I usually have to make a few glances through them to make sure I am ready for the final goodbye. Electronics have made referencing more effortless, but it is far less satisfying than a book with a cover and binding, dog-eared pages, etc. Some of my favorite books I have received as gifts have been collections of customs and traditions, answers to trivia questions, and how idioms (sayings) came to be used. I also collect children’s books and everything from Mother Goose, Brothers Grimm, and Irish and Chinese Fairy Tales.
As a child, I read everything I could get my hands on. My parents made sure I had copies of children’s Bibles and Bible stories to even out my literary pursuits. My Dad was always sharing with me to make sure I remembered the difference in that the Bible contained accounts and actual history. Not stories or legends, the Bible was based in Truth, not imagination or folklore. Dad compared reading fiction to one taking an adventurous trip. Exciting but temporary. He would say, Truth is home. It’s where we always return to; it’s where we live.
As I look back at those simple words, I realize how profound the truth found in them really is. More than ever, I realize how vital it is to have my heart and mind centered on God’s Truth. If not, I can easily be overtaken by the disappointment that comes by clinging to things that simply are not true. For instance, I have heard there is someone for everyone all my life. Nice thought, but then God called me to work with single people brought me single friends who never married and lived very fulfilled and purposeful lives. Another false belief that colors my thinking is “the Lord helps those who help themselves.” Untrue. The Bible is filled with verses about the Lord helping those who humble themselves and declare themselves helpless. When things go wrong for others, I have often heard that “he got what was coming to him, (or her),” but the scripture discounts this false belief. It teaches us that God’s mercy is based on His unconditional love toward us and that if we all got what was coming to us, it would be death. Yet we are offered total forgiveness that is anchored in the justice of the cross, not the human perspective of fairness. Think of all the happily ever after endings we have clung to that are based on what we could attain or expect, or even what we feel entitled to. Prince charming didn’t show, the pot at the end of the rainbow wasn’t gold, the three wishes weren’t granted. I laugh but see the irony. And have come to recognize that God has much bigger things planned for me than even what my imagination can come up with: Scripture.
Literature isn’t the only way my velcro mind can pick up thinking that weighs me down. I have lived in a culture of talking heads as far back as I can remember. We have been encouraged to get in touch with our feelings by ‘experts’, and work through them to resolve the issues that trouble us in this life. While it is healthy for us to acknowledge our feelings, it is equally healthy to confess and express them to God in prayer. I had an experience where my feelings were so complex I couldn’t make peace or resolve them.
At the age of 42, I was found by a half-sibling through the courts seeking to contact me. As part of a closed adoption, I was stunned and shaken. I began to pray about how to respond and tried to sort through my feelings. Should I make contact? The more I did this, the more confused I became. After several weeks, one day during mediation, I said to the Lord, ‘This can’t be hard for you, a simple yes or no to my question should be easy, yes or no God? Why aren’t you answering me?” God plainly answered me with this challenge, “You haven’t asked me the right question!” I responded and asked, “What is the right question?” God then answered with life-changing words so profound they still affect me even as I write this. This came to me “Sharon, you haven’t asked me how I feel about this; you haven’t asked me how I could best be served through these circumstances .”The false belief that my feelings could lead me to a decision was shattered in that revelation.
Even now, some 20 years later, I still have unresolved feelings about some of this experience, but oh, I have great peace. Because my resolution did not lie in the examination and working through my own feelings but in God’s perspective. All of us have faced emotional challenges, failed expectations, perhaps even betrayals, but the resolution comes when we accept that God has made His Truth plain to us in his word about how He feels about the things that bog us down. We cling to the fact that relationships can be healed if we just resolve our own feelings. We tell ourselves when we get a handle on how we feel, we will move forward. Families stay estranged for years based on this myth. God has revealed to us about employing forgiveness, letting love be our highest aim, serving others with humility. Christ has told us how He feels in His own words about broken relationships, anger, hard-heartedness. Should I be so led by the false belief that I live from the perspective that my feelings are more important and considered more highly than the Creator’s? The most poignant Truth of all of this experience for me was that the more I looked within myself, the less clarity I attained. But when I looked into the heart of God and learned more of Him, I, in turn, learned more of myself. This makes sense! I am made in the image of God, not the image of myself. When I need Truth, I need to look at the specs as an engineer friend of mine put it so aptly.
Pulling the lint of lies away from a Velcro mind, take the grip of Truth. It takes the nail-scarred hand of the Redeemer to give me the strength to surrender those falsehoods that I believe and, in some instances, has used as foundational Truth to build my life on. I learned why life seemed so shaky and scary at times. Sometimes, my thinking was simply based on the enemy’s lie.
I am a person that believes it is essential in this life not to get Heaven and earth mixed up. Though I am living on an eternal timeline, I still dwell in a fallen world. I get glimpses of what Heaven might be in rapturous moments of worship and deep meditation. But when I open my eyes, Yep, I’m still here. Christ has come to me, but I have not yet gone to Him. I associate this thinking with this analogy. I could go to a department store with many floors. I ride the elevator and get off on a floor, may be looking for housewares. but the floor I got off on is children’s and sporting goods. I could search for my housewares all day, but I will not find it until I get back on the elevator and arrive on the floor marked housewares. Right now, I am on the floor marked Earth. I could look for Heaven all day on this floor, but it isn’t going to be fully realized until I get on the elevator and ride up and get off the floor marked Heaven.
There, I will find everything I have read in the Bible and more than I can even conceive about Heaven. This means I get to live with the hope and excitement, the anticipation and the joy of all God has promised me in that place. But for now, I can adjust my search for what He has for me in this place and stop struggling with the disappointment and failed expectation of how life here on earth isn’t measuring up. I can focus on the new mercies He brings every morning. The miracles He does to bridge the gap between here and there. And… I can try to invite others onto the elevator. I can tell others about the wonderful place I am going and how God is preparing me for the arrival instead of complaining and whining about how hard it is to wait. I can tell them Heaven is real. Not a myth, not a legend. It’s a happily ever after based on Truth not a tale. It’s home, where we always return to. It’s a place to live.
Lord, help me to recognize all the pitiful lies I believe that shortchange me out of experiencing all you have for me. Remind me you are the hero in all of my life story.
Come back next time when the 5 o’clock worker realizes experience isn’t always the best teacher in the vineyard as we continue in the series “The Velcro Christian.”
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