Of doubts and 'what if I am just psyching myself?'...

Doubts plague all thinking people.

And some of us, we are prone to question, and so to doubt; more than others.

But because the world loves to operate and talk as if we all know what is going on, to harbor doubts can be scary for us. It smacks of a lack of faith. It feels like we are missing something. It feels like we may be have a loose screw jangling noisily that only we can hear. So we berate ourselves and make ourselves feel worse.

But then with I read a cry like this,

Why have you forsaken me? ~ Psalm 22

and know that we who doubt are safe.

Psalm 22 has been called the Messianic Psalm, and right here is the cry from the pain-fraught, anguished soul of none other than Jesus. He cries out that God has left the scene! Jesus on the cross and felt the Father’s absence as the sin upon Christ caused the Father to turn His face away.

If you ever felt the stung of rejection.

This is what Jesus felt. For the first time. In the most awful way.

Because of you and I.

Rejection is at the root of all our doubt. It is the fuel for the “what ifs…” we utter frightened within our hearts. And all of us have felt this sting before.

We think God is all ready to reject us.

But he is the sting-remover; the One who wants to come close and apply a soothing balm to this sting that acts up and cause us to shrink back, become cynical and even paralysed us into non-action.

What if she laughs at me?What if he doesn’t believe?What if I am wrong?

More than once when journeying with people, they say at some point, “I think I am only psyching myself. I am tired of pep-talking myself…”.

I get that.

The pep talk, the one we do to remind ourselves of hope; yes it can seem pretty lame. It’s just words, and often with a stinging pain, it feels plain powerless to make any real difference. Besides, some of us just aren’t the talking kind.

But listen. We talk to ourselves all the time.

We even talk to ourselves that what we say to ourselves is useless, or useful.

It’s kind of circular and silly;  or  it is powerful and deserves repeating.

It really works.

However –

Our self-doubting capabilities will kick in. So we demand some evidence -

If I am worthy, then why doesn't anyone notice?
If I am gifted, then why is my life so ordinary and I am so wrecked with pain?If I am loved, then why do I feel so miserable and weak?

I get this too.

We need to talk to ourselves.

But we need more than preppy, happy, ’clappy’ shorthand ways of describing life. We need more than clichés.

This means it is pretty important that we talk to ourselves properly.

Takes time.

Takes effort.

Takes quiet.

Often helped with a journal.

If you want to have a great conversation that unearths truth and sends light exploding in strange corners of your soul.

If you want to be real and authentic; which is required for intimacy and communion.

If you want to feel free and lighter.

If you want to sense a trajectory to your life.

Then talk to yourself properly.

Don’t stuff your feelings or ignore your fears. Don’t kick those doubts or trash those tuggings.

If you reject yourself, you make yourself more prone to seeing rejection in others’ responses to you.

Even more – rejecting yourself is an affront to the God who made you.

This is the God who declared each of us fearfully and wonderfully made. There is no mistake or manufacture fault from His point of view. But it's so hard to believe this when we live in a world that defies this truth and trample upon it in a thousand ways; demanding that we prove our worth and earn our space here. Founder of evolutionary biology Richard Dawkins recently tweeted that couples should simply abort their babies because it's immoral to give birth to a Down Syndrome's kid. That's saying a lot - and talk like this floats around in the air we breathe in each day. It can get hard to talk ourselves to a place of security.

This is why, the self-talk must give way to silence – when we listen to God talk.

Whether we intentionally shut up and read Scripture, and scrawl sightings.

Whether we sit quiet and wait.
Whether we walk in the great world he made and let bird, water, light send their echoes of delight into our souls.
Whether we draw, doodle, make music, move or squish mud to be amazed that these hands and this body and this mind can come together and convey beauty and longing.

For in the end, we are reflectors. We reflect what we absorb.

“In the beginning was the WordAnd the Word was with GodAnd the Word was God…Through Him all things were made;Without him nothing was made that has been made.In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”
~ John 1v1-4

The Word that's always been is what forms and makes and shapes. The Word gives definition and stirs to life. There is the promise here that we can be set alight by this Word that gives life. 

If we ever hope to have some light on our lives, the most important self-talk is to remind ourselves to go to the Word, the Life, the Light.

For a little more dissecting, here's the good, bad and ugly of doubts .

My One Word for the year

Yes. In one word.
What do you think your 2014 will be about?

I want to invite you to try this. It is fascinating experience. It is a dare, a dream, a desire and a desperate grasp for life. For we are trying to live well, be brave, be enough for the task, and rise above the swelling tides. One word for our life of such ebb and flow, turbulence, trials, and trails!

"What is your one word"? the fellow sister wrote in her blog. I was drawn in immediately. One word for what? I can never say anything with one word {although 'persnickety' works very well with the children}.
The writing me immediately began to lose touch with daily reality and I began to experience all the fits and spasms that come with such an activity!

How can one word describe my year? 
Will it be a prescriptive, prophetic, hopeful word?
Should it be a colour, an outcome, an object or a verb?
If a word came to my mind, dare I accept it?
What if I picked the wrong word and lived my year all wrong?

Normal panic you would say, that comes with any choices with some weighty consequence.

Of course, the word is meant to surface out of a conversation with God. 

So a few words came forward to present themselves - all really shades of me wanting to be top dog. The up side of me wanted Glorious, the darker side hissed Needing, and the Thesaurus that sits next to me begged to have its guts examined.
I told God all the words that came when I walked, wrote, dreamt...and then - a word came and I just knew it did not originate from me. It made sense, of course, it does, but I wouldn't have quite seen it.

So my word this year is RENEW. Nothing fancy. Sort of disappointed in the way of words, one may say. It's so simple. Just two syllables, almost flat where the energy department is concerned. Like, renew one's passport, an administrative process...

But, I think the One Word is
an invitation,
an anticipation - and therefore it helps me look out for God's handiwork in my little life.

So I am going to have to trust that what feels old, tired may get a fresh zest.
So I am going to beware the areas where I tend to lose hope.
So I am going to expect and pray and work new-ness.
So I am going to return to some old solid stuff I have neglected for it's going to be revived.

My word for 2014 is RENEW. What is yours?

Here are some examples ~

Try it!

Hope Again!

I recently had one of those moments.

Everything seemed bleak and too much. I felt stuck, trapped, foolish, and small. But I stepped away from myself.

 

I ran to the Royal Bosom of Hope - and the Word, and words... helped me see clearly, and although all is not as I wish, courage and hope arise within me... and as this well-written piece about Peter, Paul and all of us reminds us...

Don't Lose Hope for your hope points to Something Larger {click here}

Won't you run to the Royal Bosom of Hope too?

and cling, cling, cling... and... climb!

An old Word made new - when God's Word seem distant

I am doing a search through my Bible, a quick scan of verses and passages related to a subject I am examining It's a hunt for traces to line up a path of understanding. Along the way I come to an old friend, a verse I had read, re-read, cherished and remembered as a teen:

For the LORD is a sun and shield,

He bestows favor and honor;

No good thing does he withhold

From those whose walk is blameless. (Psalm 84v11)

I recall easily the force of conviction and utter joy at the discovery I'd this promise. How i step abroad with easy confidence that the world and all it holds lie wide open before me; mine to uncover and treasure, enjoy and enrich. How my future beamed bright with good stuff labeled with my name waiting to be dispatched at the right time. I did quiver a little at the blameless walk bit, but I hide behind a mighty Cross and knew I meant business and kept short accounts.

So each time the sun rises and I  felt the warmth or the sting of its tropical rays, I would remind myself God's power stands near and touches me enough without overpowering me. Each time things go awry, I entrust myself to One who will protect me like a shield so I am not completely defeated, but can arise again.

But now i feel the distance of twenty years and many episodes of disappointment, failure and heartache standing between me and these feelings, this word.

It is easy to fill up with questions and cynicism. They fill the air we breathe, and as redeemed fallen beings whose diet is to reach for the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the effortless bent is to seek to calm our fears with what answers we can find. Adult life entrenches this habit: we are proved at work and in our relarelations by the power of what we know-to-work. We are called upon to provide answers, solutions, options.

Yet at the same time, we experience a widening and deepening chasm between what we do know and what we do not. We recognize as problems multiply with complicity at work, children who refuse to conform, weakening bodies, our own unruly souls... that our true knowledge and ability, and - control - is flimsy ay best.

It can be a time of increasing piety.

It can be a season of aching get-by-each-day..

Or

We can turn afresh to those promises and take a deeper look.

In what way is God my sun and shield?

Can we be made to wait because giving us something we want, which we deem to be good can become something bad if it was given too early?

Can the waiting be of value in itself; and indeed be the time-space needed to experience God as sun and shield?

Together with my scouring of verses, I read a Spurgeon piece that bears these lines:

"...we will drive away our griefs, and set up our banners of confidence in the name of God. 

Let others lament over their troubles. 

We who have the sweetening tree to cast into Marah's bitter pool, with joy will magnify the Lord.....

we will not dishonor our Bridegroom by mourning in His Presence.....

Do not men of Grace find their Lord to be campfire and spikenard, calamus and cinnamon...

O sweet Jesus, you are the portion of your people! 

Favor us with such a sense of your preciousness, 

that from its first to its last day we may be glad and rejoice in You!..."

The paradox of being fully immersed in life and yet being lifted beyond it...living a dream, trusting the Great Invitation to live full and free, real and rugged is held by a thick cord that will not snap with our changes. It is called Grace. 

And it is made possible by the Resurrection!

write exercise

wokay. my son will barge through the front door in exactly ten minutes.
i have not written anything of length for weeks! so here goes. a writing exercise - where i randomly and intuitively pull out ideas, words, feelings...
colour - i see black.
o dear. certainly not a very pleasing chromato-zone unless you are some artsy minmalist. Hmm, i wonder what it shows. Yes, there are some severe things going on requiring grave thoughts..
word - change.
who, what, when? One of the things i thought about this morning was Psalm 1. i thought of the time i read it slowly and spoke about its meaning and several youths broke down and cried...there was a part of me that wished they thanked me more. Caught! this needs change - the need for "thank you's"...surely NOT any indicator of humility which lies at the heart of true spirituality.
Yes, i am also longing for change. No one of us is happy with the status quo - within and around us. But change, at what pace, what price, by who and for what end, in the end? Change can arise out of restlessness, envy, pride or purpose.

OKAY, the son comes in..and asks, "who is home?" with a tantalising lilt.
i ask him, what colour are you thinking about. He closes his eyes and says 'red!'

I got to go. It's an emergency!!