I kindly urge you to read the previous blogpost series entitled Revealing the Hurt, (see Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3), so that you can more clearly understand this continuation of our journey…
We are ready to learn how to get back to who God made us to be, to walk away from that false person inside who loathes themselves, lives in fear and walks alone. It is done by breaking the pattern that keeps drawing us back to our destruction.
As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness. Pr. 26:11 NLT
There is no problem with anyone who lives as their authentic self. It’s that mask that we hide behind, that we built to hide our imaginary flaws, which keeps us from living life in all its glory.
We cannot pause to take life in, because we’re too busy running from our past, and what we’ve made it mean. Ironically, we cannot heal, until we embrace those unworkable patterns that make up our unconscious behavior and acknowledge what we’ve been up to. We have been prisoners of our own thoughts.
In that prison, we fluctuate falling into two pits – one fraught with thoughts of inadequacy and loveless-ness, and the other burning with your desires for what you think you do not have.
Yet knowing that you suffer from an unavoidable condition, is by no means a reason to condemn yourself! You deserve compassion for having had to endure the unconscious cruelty that has been handed down to you. And so, does everyone else.
Everyone has that faultfinder in their head. It is modeled after, and moderated by, the devil himself. But those who love Jesus possess a vital edge:
Little children (believers, dear ones, you are of God and you belong to Him and have [already] overcome them [the agents of the antichrist]; because He who is in you is greater than he (Satan) who is in the world [of sinful mankind]. 1 Jn. 4:4 AMP
God has a good plan for you; and if you remove the gulf between you and Him, He will see that you gather the fruits of it. It doesn’t matter what you have thought or done. When you confess and repent, it’s a new game. Jehovah wipes the slate clean and undoes the damage that you wreaked in your ill-begotten state.
Yet God will not violate your free will. You must pray for His help; you need to choose the Light. Realize that if you could have fixed your problem(s), you would have done so by now. It’s just that you were knocked off your divine path as a child, and you need Him to get back on it.
What happens when you don’t? We’ve seen good Christians fall, even when they’re doing their best to be godly. Didn’t they have enough faith? I don’t think that is the answer in most cases.
First, many people mistakenly think that the devil takes a hike when you saddle up with God. Just the opposite! He double downs on his efforts to separate you from your Creator. It’s going to be up to you to not to listen to or act upon his suggestions.
Secondly, we swim in sea of humanity, whom for the most part, are godless – either by choice or through ignorance. It can break us down, back into the mire of our old ways. We aren’t even aware of it until our lives begin to crumble once more…
Still, we can always return to God and begin anew. Yet, what if we could greatly reduce our ‘backsliding,’ and thus, our valleys of suffering and spend most of our time on the peaks of life’s joys?
After 50 years of researching human behavior, I have amalgamated a particular pathway that works for me. In fact, it brought me back from the brink of death, and it continues to do so.
How does it work? We must become a detective to acutely investigate all of the sneaky ways the world tries to pull us down into its miserable muck. In addition, we apply that same process to uncover all of the games that we unconsciously play, to satiate the desires of the flesh.
It allows us to become hyper-aware of all those shenanigans and nip them in the bud when they first raise their ugly heads. It also reminds of to enlist the Holy Spirit to come back home – to reclaim our perfection through Christ.
You don’t have to understand that perfection, you only have to embrace it. You already possess all the attributes of His Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal. 5:22, 23.).
By getting out of your head and back into your heart, you will manifest these qualities; and then love, acceptance, and happiness will lose its elusiveness. Self-judgment will be a bygone practice, and you will attract that person who will share with you, your rediscovered joy.
This is the most important task that you will ever take on, because it is a matter of life or death – to either live in and by the light of God, or to remain in darkness and die by degrees.
Like any endeavor in life, you must possess the right tools. For this path of recovery, (in sequence of application), they are: willingness, God, meditation, steadfast awareness and inquisition, and action.
WILLINGNESS
No one can give you your life back. You must take it back; and you can only do that if you are willing. Jehovah will not work on your behalf unless you are willing to follow His lead.
That’s why it is so important to make sound decisions (in alignment with God), because in order to preserve your free will, your Creator must let the consequences of your free-will choices play out. Better to have your outcome to be favorable through intentional choices rather than have them based upon those you make unconsciously.
Finally, you must be willing to change your ways of being and doing in order to shed that unworkable life that you suffer through.
GOD
(You can’t call Jehovah a ‘tool,’ because He is the center of everything we need to live our highest and best life. But humor me, just for the sake of presentational syntax.)
Maybe you’re thinking, ‘I can change my life by myself.’ How’s that working for you? Clearly, for many people, it is not. We all need help to rise above the fearful chaos that was thrust upon us as a child and from the unique model that we morphed it into. Given that most people share in that all too common affliction, we must reach out to the only solution – the hand of God.
Jehovah is love. So, He is whom we must go to, to restore the love in our lives. When you return to Him, He covers you with His forgiveness, and no longer remembers your past thoughts and deeds (Is. 43:25). If God forgives you, who are you to not forgive yourself?
When you embrace the guidance of your Creator, that devil-inspired-and- encouraged voice in your head, will be reduced to an impotent squeak (Rm. 16:20). God will heal your wounds (Ps. 147:3) and place you back on your path, for achieving the life that He has planned for you (Pr. 3:5, 6.).
God helps you make all the right decisions in life by filling you with His wisdom, when you are ready to receive it.
We definitely do not thrive when we depend solely upon our own cognition. THAT IS OUR PRIMARY PROBLEM!
For as he thinks within himself, so he is. Pr. 23:7 NASB
We literally become what we think. If our focus is on God and what He thinks, we will understand all that is true and good for ourselves and everyone else:
…those who seek the LORD understand everything. Pr. 28:5 CSB
Living without the wisdom of God is not an option for those who desire a good life:
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Hos. 4:6 NKJV
We must look at what we have wrought, and learn:
The ear that hears the rebukes of life will abide among the wise. Pr. 15:31 NKJV
When we have God (perfect love), we can cast our fears away:
“Do not be afraid…I am your shield; your reward will be very great.” Gn. 15:1 CSB
MEDITATION
We first encounter the word ‘meditate’ in the Bible, just before Isaac encounters his bride-to-be (Rebekah):
And Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening. Gn. 24:63 ESV
God also gives us clues on what to meditate about:
“Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.” Josh. 1:8 NLT
…whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things. Phil. 4:8 NKJV
So, meditation is not a foreign or objectionable concept to God. We are commanded to contemplate His word continuously. That way, we can accurately apply it, which makes for having a great life. In addition, we also find that meditation is also a tool for making the mind a ‘still place,’ to prepare us for communing with our Creator (Ps. 4:3, 4.).
I bring this up because there are many false notions about meditation in some of the body of the church. Some even go so far as to describe it as a process for emptying the mind, which allows the devil to rush in and set up house. This is a total misconception. Furthermore, that devil has already taken residence in your head a long time ago, in the form of ‘ego.’
Meditation is a tool for slowing down the mind, creating a pace where we can watch it and the ego do their worst – looking for the lies we’ve created that bind us. Then, we can unravel them.
It is also a very powerful tool to facilitate our re-entry into the present moment, freeing us from the past, to contemplate a different way of being. If we stop running from the present moment and from ourselves, we can deconstruct our impressions of the past, and create a space where God can come and heal us from our self-inflicted meaningless meanings of hurt.
When we take care of our present moment, we can help bring about fulfilling consecutive moments (i.e. our future).
Meditation helps you embrace whatever life is offering, (whether or not it is attractive to you), and be happy in that moment. It frees you up from the deluge of your opinions and from the punishments you administer to yourself when you don’t meet them.
In other words, it helps you exorcise your false persona, so that your focus is trained upon what is beneficial to you and not to that voice in your head.
Lastly, the practice of meditation is for enlightenment (spiritual growth), and it’s good for your health (lowers blood pressure, reduces anxiety, sharpens your focus and increases your compassion). It reveals the qualities of your spirit to enable you to see who you really are, and be able to fall back in love with yourself.
In a nutshell, it is for unlearning what you think you know. This can be very scary for those who are strongly attached to their mask. Ironically, it is that very camouflage that perpetuates their suffering…
Next time, we’ll look at a simple method of meditating…
Goodnight and God bless.