Now Entering the Kingdom of Self

I am sitting in my living room after a week of seclusion. I took time away from twitter, friends, clients, running, my family, people in general. I have had nothing left to give. I usually make contact with clients who text or email me non-emergency questions during the week just to let them know that I care for them, that they are on my radar screen, but even this was difficult. It seemed that lots of success lately has made it very difficult for me.....which is a strange thought. I have been training for a marathon in December, my practice has grown and things have been going well...so why am I so drained?

We rule our own hearts. Simple thought but complex as to how it plays out in our lives. Few of us allow unfettered access into the deeper places within us, but that is what God has designed us for. Deep connection. But this is far too disturbing. God would ask that we not protect our hearts from the things that happen. Now, let me clarify, He would ask that we not protect our hearts from what happens, this is different than allowing anything into our lives. The distinction is that we control what affects us by denying the reality of how events affect us. I'm suggesting that if someone hurts you in someway, most of us will "stuff it", deny it, or act like it never hurt us. But this isn't living in Truth, hurtful things hurt and God would want this to be true when it happens to us. And God is certainly asking us to allow Him to transform and work in our hearts all the time. We reject this because we still want to rule our own hearts apart from the King.

But, why am I so drained while things are going well? I'm in control of my heart. I didn't cause the growth in my practice, I can't. My field is based so heavily in referrals that much of a counselor's growth is up to God. He brings me clients not me. Bad events or good events all point to the one thing that all of us are afraid to admit, we can't make it happen. When my practice grows and it has nothing to do with me it reminds me that I'm at His mercy. When we lose our baby and there was nothing we could do, it reminds me that I'm at His mercy. I would much rather control my own heart without waiting on my King to show up in the good or the bad. If I rule I get to make rules, what comes in, what goes out. God never designed our hearts this way. We all live in some sort of spiritual dissociation where we decide what has happened to us and what is true, what is to be forgotten and what is painful or not. But if we do this in the hard times how do you stop doing that in the good times, a filter is a filter not easily taken off.

Let me clarify one more time. In my heart, if I'm king, I would choose to grow my practice in a way that I knew I would always be successful. God isn't interested in this. God being King makes Him interested in me showing up and caring for clients. His prosperity isn't about money, its about what happens inside of me that changes me into what He wants me to be. If I'm king I show up with clients that are easy with easy presenting problems. If I'm king I choose people needing advice about what cat to buy or how to make a good queso-dip. Since He is King I am given wounded people who need to understand what it means to be Loved, to see that others are willing to pursue their hearts, that they have value and that someone is willing to bleed for them. Its like the realization that people have when they finally understand that their marriage isn't about their happiness but more about learning how to Love their spouse without regard to themselves. It turns from blessing to a place where even in the good times we MUST LOOK TOWARDS HIM or we will hopelessly fail at it.

We are either okay with God moving in our lives either way, good or bad, or we are not. We can't have it one way and then another, we love it when He moves and hate it when He moves in hard ways, the position of our hearts simply doesn't allow this. When He moves He moves, when He acts who can reverse it? We are ultimately at His mercy. Success calls us to look towards Him if we are honest, if we look at it Biblically. Look at the story of Job, success isn't a right, it is something He gives. So if you find yourself where I am, drained and tired after really great things happening, just remember that this might be a sign pointing to something in your heart. "Now Entering the Kingdom of Self" and under this might be something in your heart that asks "Do I have what it takes, and if not will He take it away".

Ministering to others while WE are in suffering?

Jesus did so much more on the cross than die. I mean the most important thing He did for us was on the cross for sure, dying, but to not look further is to miss something important. I am not saying, more important, just something important. Look at Jesus and the rich young ruler, there is more to that story than a man who didn't follow. The story of Zacchaeus has much more to hold than where Jesus ate. The story of the adulteress woman holds more than Jesus being equitable to sinners. The story of His birth holds more than just a baby being born. In all of these stories is a store house of commentary by a God who wanted us to know Him and His heart. The cross is no different. This story is the linchpin that holds everything together for us to be sure, but in it are many invitations to our hearts. The obvious is that we can receive salvation because of this amazing and loving sacrifice. But to look closer, there are other invitations that lay at the foot of the cross.

In His most dark hour Jesus was caught in the grip of the very thing He asked the father to remove, suffering. From the garden where Jesus' request was not filled to the cross where He was covered in it, suffering, like never before, entered Jesus' story. The One who was sinless became sin, He who was our ultimate blessing became a curse, hanging from a tree. However something else was happening as He hung there for us, something that had nothing to do with His beautiful act of salvation. He began to Love and care for others in the midst of being broken spiritually and physically. As He was becoming sin He was living out perfect Love. As He was receiving all of God's fury He was living out perfect Mercy. As He was unable to be comforted He lived out giving perfect comfort. All of this in the midst of suffering.

"When Jesus saw His mother standing there, He said "Mother, here is your son" (speaking of the disciple John) and to the disciple He said "Here is your mother." In His suffering Jesus was taking care of those around Him, speaking Life into what He was witnessing as He died. He was engaged so fully with those at the foot of His cross that He was moved to invite them to be comforted and to be taken care of upon His leaving. The thief who hung next to Him was comforted while dying when Jesus said that He would be in Heaven with Him. The soldiers who were stealing His clothes were prayed for by Him that they would be forgiven. All of this happening simultaneously in His greatest day of suffering. He was always moving towards people as He lived out Love, Truth, Mercy, Grace, all despite what was happening around Him. So, what am I trying to point out here?

Suffering has a purpose for us and others. Suffering is much like Truth, it never comes back void. In the hands of the Master, suffering avails much in our hearts and lives, as well as in others' hearts and lives. But the problem is none of us are willing to sit in suffering for any extended period of time. We wiggle and wriggle our way out of suffering as quickly as we can as if it were an acid bath eating away at our skin. Oddly, I guess it is, eating away at our old flesh to make us new, but we are far too busy getting out than sitting in it. In our suffering we find Him. There is no question that He is always present in the very place that we wildly run from. Always. And in suffering and loss we have the opportunity to be stripped bare and find a place where He is all that matters and all that seems to make sense. This is where Christ lived all the time, all that matters is Him. To move into the lives of others effectively to live out Love, True Love, it takes us to a path none of us want. Suffering, loss and brokenness are the very road He calls us to when He wants us to invite others to the Deep, so they can call others to the Deep. But get this, we most effectively call others to the Deep when we are living in the middle of suffering.

Exactly! We are far too engrossed in our own lives and heart protection to give of ourselves from the deeper places, until we find brokenness. To the degree that you have experienced brokenness and have suffering in your story is the degree that you have compassion for others. Compassion without brokenness is sympathy at best. Compassion as a result of broken places in our hearts is an offering beyond us of Him. Broken people who are in pain often shock us because of their passion for Him during the loss. I see it each week or month on twitter, someone praising the King in the middle of pain, glorifying Him as they hurt...all the while our hearts are stirred to move towards Life with Him because there is something in our hearts that can't deny what they are saying. To speak that He is all I've got because it is text book, means little to me. But to hear a mother in agony over the loss of her child speak those words, that is where we see Him. When we move towards suffering we must be engaged in our story. This means we must be engaged with those in our story. And if we do these two things we can not help but speak Truth and Life to others while our world is shattering. We have no choice, if we submit to suffering, we submit to His plan in it. His plan will ALWAYS be to glorify and praise Him in ways that make others want to know more about it. This is what Jesus did on the cross and this is what we are called to each time we face suffering.