Maybe being so all or nothing makes me also either completely in, or completely out of love. A friend pointed out to me, it's like I love entirely. Wholehearted. Oh that's great I thought, because no one has returned that yet. Instantly He whispers I have. I feel like Peter in the storm, calmed by the voice of the Savior.
But jumping into something wholehearted is of no value if it is not received and returned I think to myself. My 'wholehearted' is getting smaller and smaller each time this heart is broken. I think if I keep doing this eventually my all in will be small and shattered. I don't think anyone sees the way I jump in with every ounce of myself, that I jump in and leave all else behind. They see that I am fast, that I am spontaneous maybe, but they don't really see what my heart is doing on high speed, pouring out, giving all. No one sees it because I don't want them too.
I see it. I made you that way. It is what I love about you. And why I will call you higher.
My mistake, his mistake, this break, has been like a blanket of doubt over my being. I am not doubting my choices, in them I have peace. Instead I am doubting my person, my ways, my identity. Maybe I need to change everything. The enemy loves this, he basically taunts and says see where obedience has gotten you? Fearful Christians don't get broken like this. I know He threatens and taunts with this because a fearful Christian is dead inside, and paralyzed to growth. And really is there such thing to be in Christ yet still in fear?
Voices of the 'wise ones' in the world confirm my doubts, that me, in my purest form, in my most exposed state, is wrong. All or nothing is unwise. Who I am, is in need of change. Not that God can't change me, no they don't say that. Just that there is a great need and that what I thought was God-given is actually dangerous. Like as if I didn't know that my heart was broken as a result of the way I love recklessly. They say seek His word but they reject His voice, alive in our hearts as we live by the Spirit. I know His voice cannot be heard by a heart afraid of being recked by Him. A heart afraid to give up comfort and reputation and to seek only His face.
My tears are hot against my face as I drive home angry. This failure, this dream ended has exposed my inner self to the world around me. Open to be analyzed and judged. Gossip is like stick poking at the pieces of my heart, just moving them around and making them more distanced, harder to place back together. I don't have the world's view of success or perfection to prove them wrong so instead I nod and smile while inside the truth is burning, longing to be spoken with power.
Okay, I have a mission now, I see it in front of me. Be slower. If God speaks, don't obey right away. That is what they are saying isn't it? Obey later. Is that even possible? Is there any parable or verse that advises us to hear the word and let it sit before we act?
Maybe my anger and shame shows that I value my reputation higher than Christ even though a year ago I surrendered it to Him. Told Him I wouldn't care about it anymore, that following Him was my heart's cry even if it meant being scorned by the world. Something laid down, I have picked back up in my weakness. Maybe I shouldn't feel so defined by what people think. Maybe I should stop making sure people know what happened and that I'm not crazy. It is making me exhausted after all.
I love you.
His voice creeps in gentle and soft to my barren mood of bitter. I know you do. You say it all the time. I snap at Him like a Father who asked me to do the dishes when I'm busy. I smile, I know He can handle it. What God is this who is so intimate and close? Who is defined as love. The sweetness of His presence calms the sense of injustice and anger in my heart and He reassures me He is working, in me and in them.
Their voices all say the same thing "Let yourself heal, don't harden your heart, rest, stop moving, just slow down, be good to yourself, don't be busy, don't pour into anything right now, just be alone and heal, you will know for next time to not go into something like this, let God minister to you and teach you how to not let this happen again, now you see how deceiving emotions can be". They even surprise me when they say this has answered their prayers. Like they were on my side, praying for my marriage to not work. Little do they know their prayers have ripped up my heart, not because of how this ended, but because I realize the little faith of the people around me, how when they didn't understand in logic, they couldn't understand at all. I see now what eyes they see the world with and I will not let my understanding come the same way theirs does. I will never explain this to ears who won't listen. I am too tired. I am tired of the word love being thrown around to cover actions when judgment and unbelief sounds more accurate. If only they knew that true love will always lead a person to Christ, deeper into His heart, and higher into the heavenly places. Masked love leads me to worldly wisdom and a life that makes sense and is safe and easy and all the things they perceive as good. I do not yearn for a life like that, I had that before, it was Him who called me out. I yearn for Him. And He has called me out of complacency and has marked out a race in front of me, I will run with endurance. I don't feel too dramatic to say their words have been chains and weapons that have entangled me. I really shouldn't open my heart up to people if I know they are going to fill the open space with doubt and discouragement.
Some words of their wisdom match up with what The Shepherd says to me, so now I am confused. But their tone is of shame and it is not at all like His. He says rest, come to me, I have seen everything, you obeyed me, I will take care of the rest, you walked in obedience, I see it, I see you. I love you. They say words somewhat like the Shepherd but their tone adds we are so relieved this didn't work, we knew from the start it wasn't good. I say if you think something is only from God if it works out perfectly, what are you going to do if I get sick? If I die? If something actually devastating happens to me? Or what if I sell all my possessions and move my small children to a third world country to live in the dirt and see people saved? That would be irresponsible right?
God speaks words to my heart that only can be understood through the Spirit. He says that through this heartbreak, through this sacrifice, through this relationship, this failure, this fall; chains have been broken. A boy once chained to condemnation and the law and covered in fear has now had His eyes opened by Love and has received the beginnings of True Freedom. Christ has blessed me with the privilege to share in the pain of Calvary with Him and through that He has set another child free.
What a rich experience. I have learned obedience as Christ did; through suffering. And this man has learned freedom like I did; through the love of Christ.
How mysterious and complex and deep. And how disheartening to be covered with judgement and sympathy and concerning glances when deep at work here in every move has been the Power of God. The same Power that worked to raise Christ from the dead.
We have to be able to see that something in life can be from God, even if it fails. We have to trust that God never fails, but we cannot associate His faithfulness with circumstances. I need faith around me to remind me that God was in this. And that I heard from Him at the start, even if His same voice called me to leave. Their doubt and unbelief is choking my faith out of me. I am too tired to fight for what they are stealing. The I told you so in their voices is going against the voice in my heart saying; you were walking in faith and obedience, I love you. The mistakes I have made are so many, choices made have ended in this crash and burn, but these mistakes are not what they think, not what actually happened. If only they would be made low enough to listen.
Critical spirits have made deaf ears and blind eyes.
In this mentality of being all or nothing, in a place of fearlessness, willingness to jump. I abandon myself and I find God in ways that I could not do with caution and fear. Should I be patient, should I seek counsel, should I wait on the Lord and be certain it is His voice I am following. Yes. A fool would say no to that. And God is the author of my faith, I trust Him to continue to work that in me, and to use people I love and trust to do so. But once I know in my heart that it is God I am resting on, I will never do anything but give all of myself to Him and I will give wholly of myself to the people and places He points me to. Will I fall and stumble and make a mess and be broken? Probably. And that scares me. Especially now when love feels lost and foreign.
But is there any other way to be? Wholehearted.What is the alternative? Lukewarm, afraid. Seeing God, or being spit out of his mouth? Brokenness won't make me hardened. It will make my wholehearted look messy, but lukewarm is not an option.
I think maybe people are afraid when someone gets broken. Like people would rather see a life fine and happy and secure. I'd rather see someone messy, broken, but in love with Christ and following hard after Him. That is the only way to have true life.
Here is what I think; I would rather love wholeheartedly, jump head first, be all in, and have no hesitation in following His voice, His word, and then be broken. Absolutely crushed by failure and dead end situations. I would rather that, I would choose it every time. At least I obeyed. Can patience and caution save me some heart break? Of course. But the mouths who are telling me this are living in caution, not faith. How appealing is caution now? Their religious hearts make caution so unappealing.
If I want to go higher and deeper into the love of the Father than ever before, I can't be anything but wholehearted, and a worker who looks back and hesitates is not fit for the plow.
Their confusion screams so loud and their own doubts toward God invade my heart "But it couldn't have been God you were trusting, look at how it ended. It must not have been Him, it couldn't have been His voice because it didn't work out, it didn't make sense. You can't hear His voice and just act like that, it has to be a slow process. This whole thing was messy, at least He rescued you now. Praise God." You praise in pride of being right. Will you praise when it doesn't go the way you wanted? If the bets don't fall in your favor and I ever prove you wrong, will you say praise God then?
When God spoke to me for the first time and said "Come to me" He never promised success or ease. He never said I wouldn't be heart broken. But He did say that if I walk by faith in what He does and says, not by sight and logic, that I would see His face. He also promised that people would not understand. That the spirit of religion would ring loud and clear and that age and understanding would attempt to control my faith.
They tell me to seek wisdom and the people they point me to are dead. Dead in fear. In lukewarm hearts beating defeat. If the fruit of wisdom is fear I will not seek it. If the result of slowing down means dulling passion and flames contained down to candle size, I will run faster.
I would rather live my whole life broken hearted and messy, than to only ever do things with parts of my being. I would rather be reckless and get burned, than stay inside watching the fire yet never feeling its heat.
They say age will teach me otherwise, I say if age means what they have I will not grow older. If their wisdom is leading me to the lives of dead faith they lead, I will not follow their footsteps. If their words will lead our generation to where we stand now, feeble and shaking, I will not follow.
If my biggest mistake is that I am too involved, too passionate, too all or nothing, I don't know if I can stop, and I don't know if He has asked that of me.
I wonder if age and wisdom would have taught Mary Magdalene to save half of her expensive perfume for another time. Or to not use it at all at the feet of a Man. It was really a waste after all. And maybe her caution should have told her that crying at His feet in front of men was embarrassing and wrong. That if she really needed to do that she could wait for an appropriate time, not interrupting the celebration with her big scene. She was really acting on emotions as she wept at His feet.
There is a difference between emotion and reverence.
If we are afraid to fail, to break, to be perceived as wrong in the world's eyes, we may never see God. If we think when something doesn't look 'wise', or doesn't work out, or doesn't appear logical then it can't be God, if we think that way, we won't hear from Him. If we claim "He is not a God of confusion" and use that as an excuse to stay complacent in logical situations, we won't endure to the end. Not only will we not endure but we will miss out on the fullness, making less of the sacrifice and refusing the precious inheritance that was bought for us by His blood. If we read the Bible we will see that the people most greatly used by God were messed up. They were all over the place, broken by what God led them to do. And most often it involved their plans being redirected, not logical. And I guess too in most cases it involved the wise church people around them being critical and hesitate.
If God says build an ark, I won't wait 6 months and pray to be sure. I will go and buy some wood that afternoon. If people ask, I won't say oh I'm just seeing how it goes, I'll just buy a few pieces each day. I will say, God said to build an ark, I'm selling all my stuff to buy wood. If a year later God says, you don't need the ark anymore. I will cry. And I will feel stupid. I will have to now go around and look for clothing and buy back my stuff from all my friends. I might look back and think, ah I should have prayed longer and maybe applied for a carpentry program for the year, just wait it out and see if next year He still wants the ark. I might regret some aspects of how things played out.
But when I stand before the throne, only by His grace, Jesus will look to the Father and say, she knows me. I am her Shepherd and she hears my voice, she doesn't listen to the voice of strangers. The Father, who sees all things will look at me and say, you obeyed like a child, and so you are. You are an heir of my kingdom.
And what didn't make sense for a few generations, will make sense for eternity.
Seems logical to me.
If I am known as someone who makes a big mess, who is up and down, all in or all out, who seemly destroys things by being fast and spontaneous, and seems to be head fast on a path of relentlessness, but who burns with passion and You know what else fits that description?
Fire.
Martina Sobey.
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