the costs of mistaking the groan

Most people mistake they're groaning as justifiable dissatisfaction and therefore live as disgruntled pursuers of fantasy, never understanding the truth of the groan, destroying everything in their lives under the auspices of seeking it's fulfillment.

If complaining is the pornography of groaning, then relentless pursuit and commitment to the "groans" entire satiation, is it's adultery. Either with pornography or restless adultery, you cheapen the groan to an apparent place of "achievable", all the while drinking down lies that lead to your death, and the death of everything you use.

Proverbs 1:19 Such is the end of all who go after ill-gotten gain; It takes away the lives of those who get it.

self hatred is often just masked pride

Proverbs 15:32-He who ignores discipline despises himself, but whoever heeds correction gains understanding.

Shame is prides cloak-William Blake

Pride, hiding out as shame, makes differing words and counsel un-receivable. Shame, not identified as the pride it is, makes the giving of counsel, and it's giver, unable to be perceived as anything but an assaulter, which is often not the case. Ones pride masked as shame makes everyone else the problem, which means the real issue is never addressed, and often gets protected from being so, by the false assignment of calling it shame, instead of the pride it is.

As a christian, to despise yourself, often stems from a need and commitment to a higher view of oneself than God holds. This context makes gained understanding not worth having, because receiving it would be an admission to your inherent need, striking at the heart of the pride itself. This is why, in your unidentified pride, someone loving you enough to discipline you with the truth can only be treated as an assault. Self righteousness most always looks like defensiveness, resistance, and passive aggressive attack.

Below are insightful comments on this issue from my friend Evy Brooks-

"but he wears this despise in such a way that he presents himself proud as a peacock because he can't even understand that he despises himself

and in this posture of self-deluded pride, he rejects the Lord but doesn't understand this either because the target of you/your words is close and easy

and so he denies himself of the very thing he proudly believes he is pursuing and defending,

which creates distance, walls, and ultimately he heads home with his greatest fear self-fulfilled: he is alone and ugly.

but you are the one who wears those names in his eyes, and you feel the loss he protects himself from."

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart (and ears) be also" Matthew 6:21

Elizabeth Elliot - "The more we pay for advice the more we are likely to listen to it. Advice from a friend which is free we may take or leave. Advice from a consultant we have paid much for personally, we are more likely to accept, but it is still our choice; we can take it or leave it. But the guidance of God is different. First of all, we do not come to God asking for advice, but for God's will and that is not optional. And God's fee is the highest one of all; it costs everything. To ask for the guidance of God requires abandonment. We no longer say, ‘If I trust you, you will give me such and such.' Instead, we must say, ‘I trust you. Give or withhold from me whatever you choose.' As John Newton says, ‘What you will. When you will. How you will.'"

Once a black sheep, always a black sheep

Quote from my mom this thanksgiving when recalling a accidental fire "David, I didn't say you burned down that house, unless you lied."

Piles of Stone

1 Samuel 7:12 -Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the LORD has helped us.”

To pile up stone has been in the history of the people of God, an outward symbol to reflect an inward reality, that God is the helper and deliverer of his people. If you study the history of Israel through the Old Testament what you would find is the story of of life on a journey, marked by piles of stone, standing as symbols littering the landscape of a peoples relationship with God. One could imagine others who would come past on a later journey, seeing these piles of stone marking the landscape and wondering what could they mean, why were they here, what was the story behind each of them?

Ebenezer is the given name of a stone by Samuel, the prophet of the Lord. It means in the original hebrew "stone of help." It served as a marker of the redemptive commitment of the Lord to his people. They were piled up, so as to say, this day will not be forgotten nor will the Lord whom they represent.

The hand in this photo is of my dear friend. As we shared stories and tears the other day, the Lord decided to display His love and commitment to me yet again through my dear sister. With her help, I found a pile of stone in my past, a picture of God's faithfulness, one that had been forgotten, and that only through hearing my sisters life and story, could be uncovered. It was an ebenezer. A pile of stones drenched in a 24 year olds tears. A season of life marked by deep pain and yet an ever growing abiding experience of the Lord's presence and love for me. I remembered, I went back into the story, I wept, I was comforted now, as I was then. Sometimes you can never cry enough the first time life happens. You just can't. So you go back. I am grateful to not go back alone.

So she piled up some stones for me, some small pebbles under a bus bench in the heart of 12 south, to serve as a reminder that the Lord himself is our "stone of help." We laughed knowing that they would probably be swept aside soon by a passer by, but for that ( molment :), excuse me, moment, it was as though a son and daughter of the true Israel, fellow pilgrims on a sacred journey, stopped and stooped, to pile the stones as their forefathers, joining in the great ongoing narrative of redemptive history, of those who's lives are marked by piles of stone, marked by the Lord, his relentless help, his unchanging love.

Yes and No

"If we cannot say no, then our yes means nothing." - Peter Block

Saying no can be one of the most difficult things for a human being. The desire to please, be accepted, be loved, be known almost inevitably feels linked to saying yes to others and opportunities. Yet what we find often in saying yes to everything, is that we are spread so thin across a variety of relationships and situations, that the life that were were seeking to find in saying yes to these things has avoided us entirely. Instead of experiencing the fullness of life we so desire and were created for, we traipse around as pedestrians in our own existence, exhausted and perpetually disappointed. We must learn to say no, so that when we say yes, it means something. And what it would mean, is that I know what I want, and what I don't, what will and won't fulfill the deepest desires of my heart. To discover these things is a journey of first saying no, that then leads us to a place of saying yes to the things that truly matter.

It is only through the spirit led willingness to say no to something or someone, experiencing either death of those lesser desires, or discovering the true desire underneath the outward manifestation that we are saying yes to, that the begins to teach us what it is we really want and were made for. It is only when we have a sense of this truth, that we then can begin to make decisions that have volition born of spirit led conviction.

Proverbs 19:22 -"What a man desires is unfailing love, better to be poor than a liar."

Without this understanding, we will crush everyone and everything in our lives with the weight of the eternal desire set in our hearts by God for his unfailing love. This then frees us to say yes to others and opportunities from a different posture. A posture of desire not demand, of openness not expectation, of peace not anxiety, of adventure not obstacles, of love not fear.

The Danger of How before Why.

We live in a modern age of "how to" and believe that with the right answers we can fix anything and master our own realties. Yet oftentimes despite my own efforts, failings, and redoubling of efforts, my experience tells quite a different story. I am far less in control than I want to admit, and my efforts often seem to be like trying to turn the titanic with a rowboat. I wonder why I don't stop rowing and ask if maybe the ship needs to sink. My continual efforts are often directed towards answering the wrong questions, and therefore no right answer to the wrong question will satisfy the deepest desires of my heart for purpose, meaning, and love. And yes, I did just assert that all of our efforts in life are derived at answering those heart questions of meaning, purpose, and love.

Proverbs 19:22-"What a man desires is unfailing love, better to be poor than a liar"

"Taken in isolation, and asked in the right context, all "How" questions are valid. But when they become the primary questions, the controlling questions, the defining questions, they create a world where operational attention drives out the human spirit. Therapist Pittman McGehee states that the opposite of love is not hate, but efficiency. This is the essence of instrumental bias, our bias toward action, control, predictability. While being practical is modern cultures child, it carries a price and we are paying it. The price of practicality is a way of deflecting us from our deeper values." - Peter Block

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.

"Love is never efficient but always effective" - Randy Draughon

"Authentic transformation requires more time than we ever imagined." - Peter Block