Being Gentle with Myself in the Questions - Part II

(This is a part of my "loaves and fishes" offerings - click here to see the original post. Being Gentle with myself in the Questions - Part I is here.)

I have so many contradictions:

• I want to be wanted...I fear to be wanted.
• I want to be useful...I don't want to have others' unrealistic expectations imposed upon me.
• I love and thrive to be alone...I ache in being alone ...

Is this normal?

How can I invite others to deep places of these painful questions and contradictions, with an invitation also, to surrender even in the midst of unsatisfactory answers? I know the discomforts of living by faith with a nebulous, Mysterious Lover. The heights and depths and widths of His Love both surpass my understanding and whet my appetite for the more. But "the more" is daunting, and my doubts ebb and flow as constant and rhythmic as the tides. When the tide is low, so much in my life and soul feels exposed, stranded, stuck.

Breathe. I must remember to breathe.

I hear an echo of voices past and present urging me to be gentle with myself. I cannot hear this enough, It is easy to dispense similar advice to others, but honestly, I struggle to know what it looks like in my day to day life and calling. It makes me wonder if the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23) – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control – is as much a gift toward myself as it is toward others? In other words, how can I be gentle with my neighbor if a) I have not experienced God's gentleness and b) I have not been gentle with myself? Without these primary experiences, any gentleness I show to others is contrived and likely manipulative – existing only to portray my spirituality, not embody it.

• How are you able to be gentle with yourself? 
• Or how have you experienced the gentleness of God?
• What difference might it make to be more gentle with yourself? 
• Which area of your life do you struggle most (i.e. have high expectations of yourself) in being gentle?
• What does your heart want to pray?

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If you are asking ultimate life questions - trying to “figure life out” - or ready to consider some of these deeper longings of your soul, please consider journeying with a soul friend – a trained spiritual director. Spiritual Direction is an ancient practice in the church – where you companion with a person who journeys alongside and lends you courage to pay attention to all that your life – your true life – is voicing and longing to voice and contribute to a world in need. A Spiritual Director does not direct or coach your life – but (s)he will help you overhear the nuances of your own soul in tandem with the True Director, the Holy Spirit. For more info or questions on how to find a Spiritual Director and/or ask what Spiritual Direction is all about, click here or on the links below.

 

• creating unhurried space for the soul 
• soul care retreats, resources and coaching

For more info about reFresh - go to www.mysoulrefresh.com

Creativity and Safety are incompatible...

 This is a repost of a blog by Cole Nesmith -

Last night, I dropped my friend, McKenzie, off at her car after house church. When she got out of the car, I said, “Be safe.” Almost immediately, I looked at Josh – sitting in the passenger seat – and said, “I’m never going to say that again.”

We live in a culture consumed by safety. There are organizations completely dedicated to making sure we’re safe while working and traveling and eating and doing just about any other common practice. And, being good westerners, we’ve allowed our cultural obsession for safety to define our lives as Christians. We’ve spent the last several hundred years sterilizing our relationship with Christ into a religion that is neat, defined, predictable… might I say, systematic?  We’ve worked hard to eliminate as much of the unknown as possible, and we wonder why we feel distant from a God who exists in the mysterious.  Today, we try to compensate with our heads by creating large educational institutions where we can further define and attempt to know God intellectually.
Hence, today, my friend Dustin called me and asked :

What happened historically that caused Christians to stop being influencers and creators of culture?  Where did our creativity go?

The answer : It was driven out by our fear of the unknown and our lust for answers.
Creativity and safety are incompatible.
Creativity is willing to step into the unknown and bring something new into existence.
Creativity is about an unbridled heart that is so free in who it was created to be that it is unstoppable.

Creativity is central to EVERYTHING God does.  And I’m not just talking about the creative work of the land and seas and animals and you and me.  I’m talking about things like redemption, peace, beauty and hope.  These things can only exist when we tap into the creative heart of God.
When I pass a homeless drug addict on the street, I can respond with my earthly, uncreative heart that sees what is before me.  Or, I can choose to look on with the creative heart of God that sees something that is yet to exist.  God looks onto what seems like a dark canvas of nothingness and imagines a beautiful life – a tree bearing all kinds of good fruit that nourishes those who come to eat of it.
Recently, I was talking with a guy  who has lived and worked in Haiti for the last 27 years.  He said,

“the most difficult thing to overcome in Haitian culture is the pervasive mindset of “present hedonism.”

And it seems that statement is true for lots of Americans (especially American Christians) as well.  We’re only concerned with the present, the now, today.  We’ve lost the ability to dream.  In short, his assessment is that one of the largest hurdles in Haiti is a lack of creativity.

That night, I posted this online :

Thinking about two future Haitis : One rebuilt on the foundation of creativity and the other built on the foundation of utility.

And the sole response :

I like the one where their foundation is Jesus

And that’s where we stand today – in a world where Christians have erected a wall of fear, prejudice and sterility between creativity and Jesus. But when we truly look at the heart of Jesus and the river of the Holy Spirit, all we see is the unexpected.
I remember going to the Grand Canyon several years ago.  I was on the road with some friends, and we drove all through the night.  The next morning, when I woke up, we were parked in a campsite several hundred yards from the hole.  I was so excited to start exploring that I skipped breakfast and jogged up the path to the canyon.  It was beautiful.  We hiked all day along the ridge occasionally walking out on the narrow pieces of rock that jutted from the main path – only 3 feet wide with hundreds of feet of cliff on each side.  And no rails!

God wants to take humanity deep in the mystery of Himself, but for generations, Christians have stood on the bank of the river of His Spirit.  And over time, the river has carved out a canyon before us.  That canyon gets deeper and deeper.  The rushing waters that we’re meant to swim in get farther and farther away.  Some thought about diving in for a while, but eventually the river just looked like it was too far down to jump in.  So we started building a fence.  And today, that fence keeps us safely perched on top of the canyon.  We have taken to study the rocks and the sand and the bushes.  We become intimately acquainted with the signs of what once was.  And as we turn our backs to the river, we settle into the comforts of the land.

But I’m so thirsty.  And I know that there are people in the world that are too – people that are ready to swim in the river of God, not exactly sure what will happen, but ready nonetheless.

So, what do you say we tear down the fence, stand on the edge of the cliff and jump into the unknown, beautiful, creative heart of God?"

So what do you think?

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