A favorable hope is better than a bad possession.
-Don Quixote, Part 2 Chapter VI
I work so hard to battle fear only to find it growing again like endless weeds in a garden. How do I choose God's cure when facing fear and insecurities? I want to badly to take hold of my own life to control it. To live through the line of Cain.
I find myself feeling violent and proud fighting for my fragile illusions of control. We have no control.
There is faith or fear
God or money
grace or nature
Why is this so hard?
Why is the path back to God so terrifying? Why is it so hard to let go?
I talked with Toni Saturday before I left for Norwood and she pressed some buttons revealing these seeds of fear sprouting in my garden. I thought I took care of these. I thought I rid myself of this stuff.
But now I am finally seeing this battle is the heart of life. The heart of Christianity.
Like someone after reaching their goal weight stops the diet is surprised at the scale so to was I surprised at my fear.
My heart knows Your promise, Oh God, but my head is restless looking for security in the stuff on earth. I know you warned about treasure that will rust and rot but to my physical eyes it all feels so real.
I have been awakened once again to realize how powerless I am. Only this time I am now aware that this battle will never end.
I will spend this life fighting the urge to create illusions of security, control, and power.
What sort of guarantee can any of us truly have here? Everyone is only chasing safety.
We would all rather settle for the bad possession than the hope.
At least the possession is tangible. At least in Egypt there were steady meals. Yes it was slavery but its better than the unknown of the desert.
This constant battle of worry and fear, it gets old. But it is so worth fighting. To live in sleep isn't life at all. To fight fear is the only way to live.
Give me Your peace, Oh God. Give me Your life, Oh God. Give me Your security. It is the only path to life.
Vinyl Theatre - Breaking Up My Bones
-Don Quixote, Part 2 Chapter VI
Cain and those who followed his lineage sought to escape God's limitations through the curse. Driven by fear and insecurities, they became a violent and proud people who defended their fragile illusions of control, autonomy and power, even at the expense and death of the other.
Their grasping for security left them feeling deeply restless and even more insecure.
Those who are humbled by living beholden to the curse - to the limitations imposed by God through creation - are brought to a place of desperation before God and can then receive the hospitality of God. In turn, those who received the hospitality of God are freed from the fear of death, and those who have been freed from the fear of death are no longer threatened by the other because God has empowered them to risk extending the welcome of God to the other.
The curse is God's invitation into the good news of the cure: that the Lord will provide and his people need not be afraid. It is an invitation for God's people to relinquish their illusions of self-sufficiency and security, to receive God's radical hospitality, to live freed from the fear of vulnerability, scarcity and death, and in so doing, extend the hospitality of God to all the nations of the world.
-The Curse: God's Invitation Home, Robert Lockridge
I work so hard to battle fear only to find it growing again like endless weeds in a garden. How do I choose God's cure when facing fear and insecurities? I want to badly to take hold of my own life to control it. To live through the line of Cain.
I find myself feeling violent and proud fighting for my fragile illusions of control. We have no control.
There is faith or fear
God or money
grace or nature
Why is this so hard?
Why is the path back to God so terrifying? Why is it so hard to let go?
I talked with Toni Saturday before I left for Norwood and she pressed some buttons revealing these seeds of fear sprouting in my garden. I thought I took care of these. I thought I rid myself of this stuff.
But now I am finally seeing this battle is the heart of life. The heart of Christianity.
Like someone after reaching their goal weight stops the diet is surprised at the scale so to was I surprised at my fear.
My heart knows Your promise, Oh God, but my head is restless looking for security in the stuff on earth. I know you warned about treasure that will rust and rot but to my physical eyes it all feels so real.
I have been awakened once again to realize how powerless I am. Only this time I am now aware that this battle will never end.
I will spend this life fighting the urge to create illusions of security, control, and power.
What sort of guarantee can any of us truly have here? Everyone is only chasing safety.
We would all rather settle for the bad possession than the hope.
At least the possession is tangible. At least in Egypt there were steady meals. Yes it was slavery but its better than the unknown of the desert.
This constant battle of worry and fear, it gets old. But it is so worth fighting. To live in sleep isn't life at all. To fight fear is the only way to live.
Give me Your peace, Oh God. Give me Your life, Oh God. Give me Your security. It is the only path to life.
Vinyl Theatre - Breaking Up My Bones