There is no middle ground in holiness. But there are gray areas that we often cover over with black light logic from the 60's and new age thinking instead of white light insight of the Spirit.
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Thoughts
Keeping ahead of the sharp perceptions of the focused.
Wisdom is the yielding of the puzzle to the puzzled. The piece sought after in the puzzle is the peace found in the search. The piece found is the wisdom given in the step of the continued search and so on. Don't give up. Take in.
Understanding the relationships between relationships.
Busting my asphalt. Hosea 10:11-12
When someone is hurting, often many respond in some form to see what’s wrong in order to help. The wrong is usually the first thing to be assessed as would a doctor with his diagnosis. When we respond to someone, we often appear as the doctor in our own mind ready to diagnose because we are highly emotionally charged when we recognize the call. While this is good in the beginning, this thinking blinds us often to the coming inconvenience that may overwhelm or overtake us even more than the emotions generated in our response and desire to help someone. This inconvenience is a delayed response or no response to the diagnosis or assessment by the one who needs the help. This can be no big deal in the beginning because in the short time that has elapsed as in a car wreck, the one who is hurt will soon be well because we now probably know what is wrong. We probably even know the common sense simple answer to the problem.
Yet often the number one thing necessary that is missed through the “doctors" thinking is to comfort. Understanding comes through comfort and not the diagnosis. Comforting just makes the diagnosis receivable. The inconvenience that can overwhelm us is that the event often not only reveals the problem causing the event but reveals a deeper wound of past experiences that may have never been healed because of the busy doctors around us. We as helpers have been so accustomed to receiving value in growing numbers of people, money, or opportunities to act that when someone needs help, we easily get frustrated when time is required to walk or sit alongside someone longer than we expected. We just don’t have time.
We can become a danger to them in becoming more aggressive and direct in our demands to respond to the problem as we know it. The problem is we don’t have a doctor shortage but what we really have is a shortage of comforting nurses. Much of our discernment needed to help someone is given us through our willingness to comfort no matter how long it might take.
As Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 2:7,8:
“But we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.”
As this reveals it may not be just an issue of doctors and nurses but mothers and fathers needed in the church. However the more we care for others the more relief we need from our cares. Cast them no matter how big or little on the Father because it matters to Him. 1 Peter 5:7.
Gentleness can break a bone so that it can heal. Proverbs 25:15
Music for Cross training. Hebrews 5:7-14
From habit or coping into true desire where the fear of bad news transforms into self acceptance. My eyes turn inward with grace rather than on me with with brutal honesty where the Smile is met, not anger. A soft answer is heard unattached to my wrong questions. I bow in a moment of genuine humiliy long enough where the authentique me is tasted. Not as poison, but as genuine desire still frought with the lingering residue Brennon Manning speaks of as an imposter.
The spread of coloring-beautifying-wisdom enables good conduct with an acute sense of crucial timing in building a future even after failure. This truth frees to discover unlocked joy, power to share, and peaceful life in the fast lane. Hope allows one to be rationally successful with failure as well as renews a gentle but firm understanding-conscious repentence-of the reasons and tendencies underlying those failures. Hope doesn’t come from a disciplined life, but a covenental one with a Father who inspires with courage. Disciplines of hope are spiritually discerned in failure more often than success.
Hope then, is inferred and imparted, not deferred. Proverbs 13:12
There is no curtain on the cave in the light of hope meaning that with hope there is always a next step. That first step is more often simply allowing someone in.
We tend to raise our own standard in isolation that we can't meet as we would in a gym by raising the bar with more weight that strengthens us physically. Yet lowering the bar onto another’s shoulders strengthens spiritually and emotionally from which hope emerges.
Companionship awareness, then hope assured.
When intention and action are wedded as emotion and effort are wedded, the hot seat of performance becomes the mercy seat of faithful work. As Kurt Beasley says "Clothe yourself with careful thought because the forecast for this event is 100% chance of propitiation." Roman 3:21-26
When my hope is greater than my luck the internal walls of self protection come tumbling down. People sent for me surround and walk around those walls until they crumble and fall. Those walls of frozen pain and anger melt slowly away from the words of those who heal. I am introduced to the real me as I begin to regain sight of me as my eyes widen with understanding and confidence of evolving self knowledge. To have walked so long with someone I hadn’t met is difficult which is often why life seemed so hard and superficial. That someone turns out to be the true me. Thus love others includes loving yourself and it affects the way I relate to others.
But, before this transformation I didn’t really know who I was. So when I meet someone that brings out my true self often referred to as the best in me, living becomes so much more that I dreamed. This newly discovered potential which seems too good to be true can create more dread than the fear of bad luck. Psalm 126
I begin to realize how much I have learned to motivate myself by fear using negative thinking techniques. “I don’t want to…”, “I can’t….”, “I never….”, “I won’t…”, What if…?”, Yeah, but…”. As my self introduction unfolds I start cutting away at who I am not or am no longer. The energy released is then rechanneled for a different and much more productive battle of regaining my thought processes and overpowering the negative tendencies in my thinking that blinded and deafened me to myself and others. I begin to judge another's motives less harshly and more with good judgement. 2 Corinthians 10:4,5
On discovering the value of who I am, risk has grown because that recognition is a lot to lose now. Yet brought to the surface is my vested interest in unbelief. Many of my commitments are based on the old distorted views.
The unfolding or “exposure” of me is often a slow and painful process of freeing the mind. The experience is that my head repeatedly seems to be hurting from overwhelming , yet exhilarating momentary losses of words. I can’t help but take a deep breath since no ”self help” is needed and the right words are given to me in time. Judges 13:17,18
My tears, hidden behind the cheeks that now declare “slippery when wet”, become far more sensitive, yet eerily more confident than before. Psalm 69:6
Fear and dread begin the transformation process into the practical necessities of courage and confidence. Psalm 138:3.
Celebrate! as the future becomes something to look forward to and the past now energizes the present. Isaiah 8:12,13
This is not a shoe company but they do get walked on.
Letting it all out is not always healthy honesty and is at times the wrong kind of courage.
Boldness is not about being fearless but about being able to see the door that is opened whether the door is into a heart or into an opportunity and entering. Now that is something for which to pray.