A routine check on the structures we build to define expressions is increasingly important, especially in this social climate of sameness and group-think. For instance in developing consistency we check for limitations like constancy in method or expression, where we engage in the exact same way as we always have even when the mandate has evolved.
Quite curious about structures - Necessary to build something of dreams, but dangerous to unconsciously find yourself confined by one. It began as one of those things I find myself considering now and again:
“Don’t be confined by the structures you setup to build something meaningful.”
But like much of those it’s building up to a completely new pattern of thought. And thoughts change you - beginning in the mind and marrying with the other components of the soul. After all, as a man thinks in his heart, so he is.. And then who can’t you be?
“..and man became a living soul.” - Genesis 2:7
In a sense then, those out here doing the work of the soul are making an outsized contribution to the Lord’s work. And we must all be those people. Not just for others, but first for ourselves. We will heal and be healed. If not for many other reasons like to love and be loved, but that a healed soul truly sees, hears and understands. And much of the process to craft lively stones fit for the divine architecture of all things, from the broken stones that we are, will require us to do these 3 things. See beyond what exists, hear inspiration from realities far more advanced than ours and certainly understand these things.
We will heal and be healed. If not for many other reasons like to love and be loved, but that a healed soul truly sees, hears and understands.
For me it’s been a month of intense movement and really it’s been that way for at least two. Everything can be changing for you and yet you look the same to everyone else. It’s the most curious experience that takes sensitivity to little things to discern. That’s one thing I’ve been compelled to pay more and more concern to in this season - the little things. “Will you not be aware of it?” A new way is being built up in the middle of nothing. A new thing starts with a new way, and a new way with as little as a new thought.
I would say I’m dealing with all of it quite well. About as gracefully as a toddler deals with new emotions.. and it has required a number of motivational moments.
Me to myself:
But thankfully it’s not quitting that counts. Interestingly one of the first things I received by way of spiritual direction at the cusp of the year was “I will never leave or forsake you”. Seemed super cute at the time, but 20 days in and countless desires to quit and run later, I see it was a veiled instruction. I can’t quit on me if God won’t. And He must’ve known it would come down to that. The realization that in the midst of my gross inadequacies and outright disobedience - He just won’t give up. I figure He must see something I can’t and so I abandon the notion to quit for a desperate search to catch a glimpse of what He knows about who I really am.
“..that the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling..” (Ephesians 1:17-18)
The spiritual man is in a relationship and every relationship has a language. God will drop bread crumbs for me and I have to be ready to follow. Mostly they lead me first to myself - to reclaim a piece of my soul fragmented by trauma, and in that place I leave behind the fillers that soothed the void. Then they lead to the fullness of some form of truth in reality. The most dynamic of these “bread crumbs” - dynamic, as they happen often and always to an end - is the inward nudging to conduct spiritual business, or relations, in a specific way in a specific season.
The spiritual man is in a relationship and every relationship has a language.
Recently I’ve found myself drawn more and more to a meditative state - journaling more often than in the 3 years since I began, asking more questions and listening in for answers, praying in the spirit and hearing in it too. I suppose you’d only appreciate that your mind can achieve great stillness when you’ve experienced great unrest. And you can only appreciate the peace and familiarity of a God-message when you’ve formerly had to untangle them from the deep conditioning of your life, and dust from them the traumas of your past. So the journey of spiritual growth is part of a very honest journey of healing.
Perhaps it’s time, or at this time it’s necessary. It just feels like a spiritually generous season, like the heavens are opened after a time. But what is sure is that it won’t be enough just to see or to hear in the spirit, but to do so better - clearer. Whatever needs to change in our practice for that to happen, is not a suggestion but an instruction. And the soul will be worked as part of the process.
Every thought, every idol (including the idolatry of people) and every system setup in our souls will be brought under subjection to obey Christ.
The hardest part of change can be getting people around you comfortable with the idea that you had the nerve to. The only way forward is through, and is it even change if it doesn’t have you fine-tuning boundaries and being comfortable with a little discomfort. Boundaries work both ways. The health of boundaries we set for others is in how well we filter their influence on us through our relationship with a higher influence. And the health of the boundaries we operate within is in their flexibility to God’s will. This is the part where we learn to let go, and my goodness all the good that will come.
The hardest part of change can be getting people around you comfortable with the idea that you had the nerve to.
Sometimes we feel change coming and the need to be so controlling of it. If God shows mercy He will ignore that (read: refine us) and do exactly what He wants to do anyway, that’s exceedingly abundantly better than whatever that weird thing was we were planning.
Selah.
Grace-Grace.
“Everything can be changing for you and yet you look the same to everyone else.” “God will drop bread crumbs for me and I have to be ready to follow.”
Thank you