Showing posts with label hiding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hiding. Show all posts
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Mummification - Part 1
I’m going to make an attempt to describe what happened to me emotionally and mentally over the past 30+ years. I used the word “mummify” in a conversation with my husband recently. It seemed to identify so succinctly what religion had produced in my life.
I used to believe that God was displeased with me whenever my behavior fell below an unseen line of acceptability. In the same manner I thought that God was pleased when I measured up to His standards put forth in the Bible. I would feel guilty or ashamed when I failed. Conversely, I would feel pretty good about myself when I succeeded. Not only did God have these standards for me to keep but I also had to keep a posture with the church people that indicated I had my act together. I had to act right for God and them too.
This created a false me. It created responses that were not true to my heart. I felt condemned at times and didn’t think highly of my ability to carry through on some of the behavioral requirements for a good Christian. When I did achieve it caused a “good for me” attitude, which also was not my true self. Over time, layer upon layer of fakery smothered my soul.
This is much like what happens to a mummy. The mummification process in ancient Egypt was the way a deceased person’s body was embalmed and wrapped. The abdomen cavity was emptied and dried. The organs, which had been removed, were also dried and put back into the body. Even the cloths used in the drying process were put inside to make the body look like its normal proportions. The outside was prepared with oils to keep the skin elastic. A final application of good smelling oil was made just prior to wrapping.
The wrapping process began with the head and neck. Then the fingers, toes, arms, and legs were wrapped. Between each layer trinkets or charms were placed to protect the dead person from evil spells or actions. A priest read spells out loud while the body was being wrapped. These spells were to ward off evil spirits and to help the deceased pass to the afterlife.
When the wrapping was complete, the body was placed inside a coffin and that coffin inside another coffin. The ancient Egyptians believed that the deceased must then pass through the underworld on its way to the afterlife. There his heart was to be judged by his good deeds on earth. If his heart was found to be pure he would live for all eternity in the beautiful “Field of Reeds”.
After years of guilt, shame, fear, and false security, I lost my ability to think and feel in healthy ways. I lived my life thinking that my feelings were not important. My opinions about how things were to be done also were not important. Emotionally and mentally I shrunk. My strength of mind and heart diminished.
It seemed that God had checked out of the process also. This happened gradually. It wasn’t like I woke up one day and thought that God had disappeared. I simply was not aware of what had happened to me over time. I knew that I wasn’t happy and that my life was empty. Any evidence of spiritual fruit was nonexistent. At least that was my perception. I had unknowingly declared fruit bankruptcy and stopped trying to please God. About this same time I got slammed into a wall.
This “wall” incident was the end of the road to my Law keeping ways. Why do I say Law keeping? I thought my behavior mattered to God. I thought that he would not and could not accept me unless I acted in the right, good Christian way. This meant being filled with the Spirit and having all the right fruit flowing out of me. I believed in cause and effect religion. If I didn’t perform properly, I was doomed. If I performed right, I’d be blessed and problems would be avoided in life. Obviously this did not work. The wall proved it.
My life was kick started into survival mode. It was the beginning of me recovering my soul. I was right where I needed to be... empty and finished with my ways.
Read Part 2…
I used to believe that God was displeased with me whenever my behavior fell below an unseen line of acceptability. In the same manner I thought that God was pleased when I measured up to His standards put forth in the Bible. I would feel guilty or ashamed when I failed. Conversely, I would feel pretty good about myself when I succeeded. Not only did God have these standards for me to keep but I also had to keep a posture with the church people that indicated I had my act together. I had to act right for God and them too.
This created a false me. It created responses that were not true to my heart. I felt condemned at times and didn’t think highly of my ability to carry through on some of the behavioral requirements for a good Christian. When I did achieve it caused a “good for me” attitude, which also was not my true self. Over time, layer upon layer of fakery smothered my soul.
This is much like what happens to a mummy. The mummification process in ancient Egypt was the way a deceased person’s body was embalmed and wrapped. The abdomen cavity was emptied and dried. The organs, which had been removed, were also dried and put back into the body. Even the cloths used in the drying process were put inside to make the body look like its normal proportions. The outside was prepared with oils to keep the skin elastic. A final application of good smelling oil was made just prior to wrapping.
The wrapping process began with the head and neck. Then the fingers, toes, arms, and legs were wrapped. Between each layer trinkets or charms were placed to protect the dead person from evil spells or actions. A priest read spells out loud while the body was being wrapped. These spells were to ward off evil spirits and to help the deceased pass to the afterlife.
When the wrapping was complete, the body was placed inside a coffin and that coffin inside another coffin. The ancient Egyptians believed that the deceased must then pass through the underworld on its way to the afterlife. There his heart was to be judged by his good deeds on earth. If his heart was found to be pure he would live for all eternity in the beautiful “Field of Reeds”.
After years of guilt, shame, fear, and false security, I lost my ability to think and feel in healthy ways. I lived my life thinking that my feelings were not important. My opinions about how things were to be done also were not important. Emotionally and mentally I shrunk. My strength of mind and heart diminished.
It seemed that God had checked out of the process also. This happened gradually. It wasn’t like I woke up one day and thought that God had disappeared. I simply was not aware of what had happened to me over time. I knew that I wasn’t happy and that my life was empty. Any evidence of spiritual fruit was nonexistent. At least that was my perception. I had unknowingly declared fruit bankruptcy and stopped trying to please God. About this same time I got slammed into a wall.
This “wall” incident was the end of the road to my Law keeping ways. Why do I say Law keeping? I thought my behavior mattered to God. I thought that he would not and could not accept me unless I acted in the right, good Christian way. This meant being filled with the Spirit and having all the right fruit flowing out of me. I believed in cause and effect religion. If I didn’t perform properly, I was doomed. If I performed right, I’d be blessed and problems would be avoided in life. Obviously this did not work. The wall proved it.
My life was kick started into survival mode. It was the beginning of me recovering my soul. I was right where I needed to be... empty and finished with my ways.
Read Part 2…
Friday, March 21, 2008
Love and Acceptance
All of mankind possesses an innate need to be loved and accepted by God. The garden in Genesis is where this was first experienced and it was there that it was severed. Adam, Eve, snake, tree… yeah, that. Mankind has been striving ever since to find ways to get back to God. The methods of reconnection seem innumerable. Man doesn’t even know most of the time that that is what he‘s trying to do.
God is the only one who can truly meet this need for love and acceptance. When we were children our parents became the source for the meeting of these needs. Many parents are great at loving their children. Most are not. Thus we develop methods that are meant to make us feel loved and accepted. I’ve heard these methods described as survival strategies. Many times these strategies don’t work and we realize they will never work, so we convince ourselves that we don‘t even have the need and we say things to ourselves like, “I don‘t need to feel loved”, “I don’t need anyone else”, “Since God seems to not care, why should I?”. We become survivors in our own minds. We internally declare self-sufficiency. What we are really doing is shutting ourselves off from life… the life that God intends for us.
Over the years my own techniques for survival have proven themselves a failure. Continuing these strategies into adulthood after salvation almost destroyed me. One of these strategies was to hide emotionally. I wouldn't show my true feelings. This was developed from a combination of learned survival strategies as a child and a belief that Christians aren’t supposed to show that they have problems. Religion taught me I needed to perform properly to be loved and accepted by the Christians around me. When my life fell apart three years ago, I failed to understand what was happening in all the grief I was experiencing. Faith broke down.
Previous to disaster, I was half-living, half-dying. I was not honest with myself, with those around me, or with God. This dishonesty was blasted away, however, and I was forced to confront the person hiding inside me. I was forced to be honest with myself, God, and those I loved. The beliefs I held concerning God were obliterated. I am thankful for that. I started on a journey of restoration that has been quite unpleasant at times. It has been and still is to some degree the ultimate “desert” experience. It's been amazing. Allow me to digress for a bit.
When I became a Christian at the age of 17, I accepted Christ by faith and was saved by His grace. In Ephesians 2:8,9 Paul wrote, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” I knew I had become a new creature II Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” I not only felt new inside, I acted new outside.
Even though my salvation didn’t come by my own works, it didn’t take long before I began working to grow my new life in Christ. It was about then that the shine wore off. I had begun by grace and subtly slipped into thinking that I needed to maintain the relationship with Him by doing things that made Him seem (feel) close to me. I had no idea that I was doing “works” by trying to gain my sanctification (moving towards perfection). I was told by religion to do a number of things in order to work out my salvation, such as attend church, read my Bible, pray, witness to others, love others, etc. I wasn’t very good at doing most of these things. Even though I rarely missed a Sunday meeting time, I did not read my Bible regularly or perform any number of other things that I was supposed to do. I felt I wasn’t a very good Christian. I knew I was saved but I didn't seem to measure up.
After years and years of trying I still felt mediocre in my performance, and also in my relationship with God. It did not feel like He was very close to me. I couldn’t say that I felt love for Him. I tried not to think about it too much. Who knows where this could lead a person, right? Questioning and all that. I spent years in this pattern… many years… doing for God but never really feeling loved and accepted. Religion (or perhaps legalism) taught me that if I obeyed the rules I would please Him and everything would be alright in the end. Besides I didn’t esteem myself too important a person. I went along to get along.
It had to all break down eventually don‘t you think. I became lukewarm in my relationship with God. I did just enough to get by, all the time with no “victory” in life. The “abundant life” was not happening in me and quite frankly I saw very little of it in others around me. This happened over the course of somewhere between 10-15 years.
The process of restoration was set in motion over three years ago. One of the first things God showed me was that He wanted to show His love to me. This was a huge step for me. I didn’t know His love. Gradually He began showing me, through writers of books and the internet, how it is that He loves. A book entitled He Loves Me by Wayne Jacobsen helped me a lot. It was simple and to the point. It took me back to my early foundations in Christ and slowly my spiritual house was being built up again. But it wasn’t the same house. It couldn’t be the same house. I didn’t want the same house.
Father began showing me that He was not who I thought He was. He showed me that He wasn't religious or a legalist. I had never thought in my mind that He was religious or a legalist but the life I was living proved otherwise. My self imposed obligation system made Him into a legalist. In the Old Testament, God knew that the Israelites wouldn’t be able to obey all the Law. His purpose in the law was for His people to turn to Him in their failure and for them to realize they would never fulfill the law. They could never work their way to God and earn His love and acceptance. I was attempting to do the same thing. It took two of the three years in the restoration process to get me to this point… the end of myself. So… I gave up. I stopped trying. I stopped trying to protect myself from hurt. Experience proved to me that all my efforts couldn’t keep me safe regardless of my actions.
What did I miss the first time around? I believe, as Christians, we are meant to allow God to perfect us. It’s a process. It’s referred to as “working out our salvation“. Philippians 2:12-13 says, “…work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Notice that God is the one doing the willing and the working in us for His good pleasure. We don’t do it ourselves. We don’t know how to. God does it in us. This is a gift just as salvation is a gift. We allow the process and cooperate with Father in it. If we try to do it in our own strength, to perfect ourselves, we will fail. This is what I tried to do. I thought it was up to me.
How does it work? Romans 6:10,11 says, “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus." I Corinthians 15:31 says, “…I die daily.“ Galatians 2:20 is the verse that opened my understanding more than any other verse, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” My old nature is dead. Not my body, not my flesh. The “old man of sin” is dead. I am a brand new person. I do live a life in the flesh, but I live it by the faith of Jesus. My body was not renewed. That is where sanctification comes in.
There are changes that Father wants to work in me. My job is to simply live by faith believing that He will do it. Philippians 1:6 says, "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." He that started the work, perfects and finishes the work. Faith is trusting. Trusting comes from loving. Loving comes from Father. John 13:34 states, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." It is His love in me that loves others. I don't have agape love outside of Him.
Survival strategies are being replaced by faith. I don’t need them. Because my body has not been renewed yet, there remains flesh patterns in my physical brain and my physical body. Trusting Him to fix me is the key. Believing that He will do what He says takes all the pressure off of me. I’m free to be the person He created me to be. Living life through Him is so totally liberating. Father designs us distinct from all others and desires to live His life through us as His original creation.
I know that Father loves me. He accepts me. I sense His nearness. I’m learning to recognize the still small voice in this relationship with me that He has so graciously begun again.
God is the only one who can truly meet this need for love and acceptance. When we were children our parents became the source for the meeting of these needs. Many parents are great at loving their children. Most are not. Thus we develop methods that are meant to make us feel loved and accepted. I’ve heard these methods described as survival strategies. Many times these strategies don’t work and we realize they will never work, so we convince ourselves that we don‘t even have the need and we say things to ourselves like, “I don‘t need to feel loved”, “I don’t need anyone else”, “Since God seems to not care, why should I?”. We become survivors in our own minds. We internally declare self-sufficiency. What we are really doing is shutting ourselves off from life… the life that God intends for us.
Over the years my own techniques for survival have proven themselves a failure. Continuing these strategies into adulthood after salvation almost destroyed me. One of these strategies was to hide emotionally. I wouldn't show my true feelings. This was developed from a combination of learned survival strategies as a child and a belief that Christians aren’t supposed to show that they have problems. Religion taught me I needed to perform properly to be loved and accepted by the Christians around me. When my life fell apart three years ago, I failed to understand what was happening in all the grief I was experiencing. Faith broke down.
Previous to disaster, I was half-living, half-dying. I was not honest with myself, with those around me, or with God. This dishonesty was blasted away, however, and I was forced to confront the person hiding inside me. I was forced to be honest with myself, God, and those I loved. The beliefs I held concerning God were obliterated. I am thankful for that. I started on a journey of restoration that has been quite unpleasant at times. It has been and still is to some degree the ultimate “desert” experience. It's been amazing. Allow me to digress for a bit.
When I became a Christian at the age of 17, I accepted Christ by faith and was saved by His grace. In Ephesians 2:8,9 Paul wrote, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” I knew I had become a new creature II Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” I not only felt new inside, I acted new outside.
Even though my salvation didn’t come by my own works, it didn’t take long before I began working to grow my new life in Christ. It was about then that the shine wore off. I had begun by grace and subtly slipped into thinking that I needed to maintain the relationship with Him by doing things that made Him seem (feel) close to me. I had no idea that I was doing “works” by trying to gain my sanctification (moving towards perfection). I was told by religion to do a number of things in order to work out my salvation, such as attend church, read my Bible, pray, witness to others, love others, etc. I wasn’t very good at doing most of these things. Even though I rarely missed a Sunday meeting time, I did not read my Bible regularly or perform any number of other things that I was supposed to do. I felt I wasn’t a very good Christian. I knew I was saved but I didn't seem to measure up.
After years and years of trying I still felt mediocre in my performance, and also in my relationship with God. It did not feel like He was very close to me. I couldn’t say that I felt love for Him. I tried not to think about it too much. Who knows where this could lead a person, right? Questioning and all that. I spent years in this pattern… many years… doing for God but never really feeling loved and accepted. Religion (or perhaps legalism) taught me that if I obeyed the rules I would please Him and everything would be alright in the end. Besides I didn’t esteem myself too important a person. I went along to get along.
It had to all break down eventually don‘t you think. I became lukewarm in my relationship with God. I did just enough to get by, all the time with no “victory” in life. The “abundant life” was not happening in me and quite frankly I saw very little of it in others around me. This happened over the course of somewhere between 10-15 years.
The process of restoration was set in motion over three years ago. One of the first things God showed me was that He wanted to show His love to me. This was a huge step for me. I didn’t know His love. Gradually He began showing me, through writers of books and the internet, how it is that He loves. A book entitled He Loves Me by Wayne Jacobsen helped me a lot. It was simple and to the point. It took me back to my early foundations in Christ and slowly my spiritual house was being built up again. But it wasn’t the same house. It couldn’t be the same house. I didn’t want the same house.
Father began showing me that He was not who I thought He was. He showed me that He wasn't religious or a legalist. I had never thought in my mind that He was religious or a legalist but the life I was living proved otherwise. My self imposed obligation system made Him into a legalist. In the Old Testament, God knew that the Israelites wouldn’t be able to obey all the Law. His purpose in the law was for His people to turn to Him in their failure and for them to realize they would never fulfill the law. They could never work their way to God and earn His love and acceptance. I was attempting to do the same thing. It took two of the three years in the restoration process to get me to this point… the end of myself. So… I gave up. I stopped trying. I stopped trying to protect myself from hurt. Experience proved to me that all my efforts couldn’t keep me safe regardless of my actions.
What did I miss the first time around? I believe, as Christians, we are meant to allow God to perfect us. It’s a process. It’s referred to as “working out our salvation“. Philippians 2:12-13 says, “…work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Notice that God is the one doing the willing and the working in us for His good pleasure. We don’t do it ourselves. We don’t know how to. God does it in us. This is a gift just as salvation is a gift. We allow the process and cooperate with Father in it. If we try to do it in our own strength, to perfect ourselves, we will fail. This is what I tried to do. I thought it was up to me.
How does it work? Romans 6:10,11 says, “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus." I Corinthians 15:31 says, “…I die daily.“ Galatians 2:20 is the verse that opened my understanding more than any other verse, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” My old nature is dead. Not my body, not my flesh. The “old man of sin” is dead. I am a brand new person. I do live a life in the flesh, but I live it by the faith of Jesus. My body was not renewed. That is where sanctification comes in.
There are changes that Father wants to work in me. My job is to simply live by faith believing that He will do it. Philippians 1:6 says, "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." He that started the work, perfects and finishes the work. Faith is trusting. Trusting comes from loving. Loving comes from Father. John 13:34 states, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." It is His love in me that loves others. I don't have agape love outside of Him.
Survival strategies are being replaced by faith. I don’t need them. Because my body has not been renewed yet, there remains flesh patterns in my physical brain and my physical body. Trusting Him to fix me is the key. Believing that He will do what He says takes all the pressure off of me. I’m free to be the person He created me to be. Living life through Him is so totally liberating. Father designs us distinct from all others and desires to live His life through us as His original creation.
I know that Father loves me. He accepts me. I sense His nearness. I’m learning to recognize the still small voice in this relationship with me that He has so graciously begun again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
