What if you lost everything--and got it back?

Can anyone help me out here? I saw a powerful quote on one of those church message boards a few weeks ago, and with my Swiss-cheese-like memory, I can't quite remember how it goes. But the point of it was this: You know all that stuff you're worried about right now? All that stuff that drives you crazy? Your kids, your job, your car? What if you lost all of it--then got it back? How would you feel about it then?

I already thought this was a pretty profound way of saying that we shouldn't take things for granted. Something we all know, but need to be reminded of. And then I recently got a real-life example of how this idea works through a harrowing experience of a close friend.

This friend lost her job awhile back and had to sell her house for financial reasons. She ended up moving in with her sister in another state while she's trying to get back on her feet, so almost everything she owns is in a storage facility here in Georgia. That in itself has been pretty depressing to deal with as the months drag on. Just think, when the seasons change and you'd like that coat--oops! It's in storage. Suddenly have an urge to sew? The machine is in storage. That book you'd like to re-read? Well, you get the point.

And other things haven't been going well. There are health issues. There was a car accident. The new job is extremely stressful, and another layoff is possible. So my friend's nerves were nearly at the breaking point.

And then came the horrible letter. It was from the management of her storage facility, telling her there had been a break-in, and that they hadn't been able to reach her by phone when it happened. They told her the police had come out and taken extensive pictures and were working on the case.

Frantic, she tried calling the management, but naturally they were closed for the evening. She called the phone number they had provided for the police and spoke to someone who wasn't actively involved in the case, but who told her that if they had sent someone out to take pictures of a storage facility break-in, that usually meant one thing. Everything was gone. Sometimes, it seems, thieves simply take a truck to a storage facility, load everything into it, and worry about sorting through it later.

Everything was gone. Bear in mind, for my friend this meant more than furniture and sewing machines and clothes. She lost her parents when she was a teenager, and all the photos of them would be gone. A fellow writer, she had hand-written and type-written manuscripts from pre-computer days that she would never be able to duplicate. All gone.

Or so it seemed.

She was devastated. She could hardly speak or breathe when I talked to her that evening. Then I called her the next morning, after the storage facility in Georgia had opened and she was able to talk to someone. Now she heard the incredible news: nothing was missing! Yes, there had been a break-in, and some of her knitting yarn had been scattered on the ground, but it appeared that everything else was intact.

Suddenly, her situation was just the same as it had been a couple of days before, with health issues and job stresses and all the rest. And yet, everything was different. She had her photos and memories, and her manuscripts. Things she had taken for granted, but that now brought her such joy. Just by going through this with my friend, I felt more grateful for everything God had blessed me with and allowed me to keep.

I'm sure life is still hard for my friend, and it will be hard to hold onto that moment of joy. I know it's hard for me not to slip back into ingratitude and whining.

But wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all live as if we had lost everything, and gotten it back?

When Should We Question?

I just read an interesting post at a blog called Christ and Pop Culture. I honestly don't listen to much contemporary music so I'm not familiar with the artist they're discussing, David Bazan. But apparently he has recently renounced his Christian faith and has released an album of songs that reflect anger with God and doubts about His motives.

The author of the article, Chase Livingston, goes on to say he wasn't surprised because 1) it seems to be happening to a number of his friends lately, when the questions and the doubts get to be too much, and 2) he had always heard questions and doubts in Bazan's music even when he was a confessed Christian. In fact, Livingston says he had liked Bazan's lyrics for that daring to pose realistic questions that a lot of Christians wouldn't admit to. He thought that posing questions could actually strengthen faith. Now, however, he's wondering about the difference between questioning that builds up or tears down.

I find this discussion to be really pertinent as I search for the kind of stories I want to read--and write. I sometimes feel like the Goldilocks of the literary world. This book over here is too sweet and unrealistic in the way all problems are explained and everything works out for the good guys who believe in God. No one has questions that can't be answered. Then this one over here is so full of questions and doubts that it leaves me feeling depressed and miserable. There are publishers whose lists of guidelines are unbelievably rigid--down to the point of not allowing Christian characters to say the word "darn" or play cards. Then there are groups espousing faith and literature who seem to believe that books just aren't any good unless they poke and prod at every belief.

I've noticed, even in the Bible, that sometimes those who question are rebuked by God--and sometimes He responds in a gentle manner and comforts them. So when should we swallow our doubts and keep them to ourselves, lest we hurt the faith of others or even offend the Lord? When should we share our questions and be transparent and discuss them openly?

The Proper Order by Fred Pruitt

Hi guys,

I said I would try to post my friend Fred Pruitt's writing on The Proper Order, which I felt strongly related to what I have been blogging about in my last couple of posts, and to some of the struggles I have been going through lately. I know Fred from years ago in Macon, and started out as good friends with his daughter. We have all since moved apart in distance, but Fred and his wife Janice have a ministry, and thankfully Fred inspires me still through sending me his articles. You can find out more about him and his ministry at www.thesingleeye.com

I hope this blesses you as much as it did me!

Taken from an email:

Dear _____,

..... Only one thing I might tell you that might put you into a touch of rest. You speak of re-training the "synapse patterns" of your brain according to the mind of Christ.

This is tricky business, because while it is good to study, to seek answers, to desire the wisdom of God, there comes a point when you realize you already have and are what you are looking for. You have already said it in yours to me: "according to the mind of Christ that He had been showing me."

Well, brother, you know where that is, don't you? It is in you. You already know. You already are. Yes, it is being worked into your consciousness, but I will go out on a limb here and say this: it is not being worked into your brain!

You can partially "train your brain" to think with these new ways, and you can go quite a way with it. But it will always be the outer servant of the inner man, and never the repository of Spirit truth, understanding, knowledge, etc. To the rational brain, all that God stuff is at best "fleeting glimpses." We can take conceptual truth, word descriptions of the life of Christ in us, and use that for our rational brain to have some frame of reference and to continually remind itself of Spirit reality which it cannot see, but what has so often happened in the Church over the centuries is that conceptual truth -- which is only a description of Truth -- in people's minds hardens itself into THE truth, when of course it is not. It is an error to take our rational understanding and make its descriptions of truth to be as if they ARE truth. This is what makes for the endless doctrinal wars and splits, or part of the reason anyway. (There are other factors that contribute to that strife as well, but we'll just stick to this subject for now.)

Christ in your inner spirit is where you and He are joined together as one. Our outer self-consciousness, which includes the soulish part of our makeup, is tied to this world and to partial sight, and will never attain "by sight" in this life what our spirit already sees and lives in. Now this is part of the reason the great majority believe they are two, not one. Because of this "outer self consciousness" which always sees the partial, the negative, the unreal, the appearance, and in contradiction to that outer, there is the Spirit/spirit within us, which sees and knows the Truth and Wisdom of God. Even people (in Christ) who don't know our union truth sense this supposed "twoness." That's where the two-nature doctrines come from, from this "experience" people have of seeking the things of God, wanting to be godly, but always falling short in their assessments of themselves.

That might seem, thinking logically, to make you "two," but what happens to us is at some point (that God determines) we realize that this is how we "work" in our oneness. God has determined that the outer shall serve the inner. In some sense the "outer" can be nearly synonymous with this wrongful self-consciousness I've been describing in my various articles, because it so "self" conscious. It is not exactly it, but it is predominant from birth and is closely tied with our "Saul," while our David is the inner us (Christ/I as one) who is coming of age, but really cannot take the reins of government until the outer consciousness realizes its own place in the scheme of things: it must become inert, as if dead, and do nothing, until moved and activated from within by the Spirit/spirit. Then it acts, but only as servant, because now, as says Isaiah, "the government is upon His shoulders." The government of our lives, obviously!

Now this outer brain is part of this makeup, and it can never own the truth for itself. It learns to express it, and there we learn in faith to leave our partial sight and jump to the Invisible -- no sight -- which is as irrational as one can be, seen from the perspective of the outer rational brain. In the Fall it became the predominant part of us where all the decisions were made, where all knowledge of this world resides, etc. It was made to know and express the things of this world, but to be motivated and empowered from within by the Holy Spirit joined with our spirit. But in the Fall spirit became hidden and Satan invaded there, and kept us in darkness by only activating for the most part the outer part of us, making it master instead of servant as intended.

Now in Christ that proper order is restored. But since God wants us to walk in understanding and not as automatons, He wants us to be aware of the order and its workings. I have explained the order. Spirit runs the show. Spirit understands. Spirit lives in the revelation of God.

The outer consciousness, which is mostly our conscious house of dwelling while in this life, sees mostly only the partial reality of this world. Its specialty, appointed by God, IS the things of this world. It is created to traffic in this world, to understand and in a sense master it, as Adam was to be master in this world. He was to bless the world through his outer self which did the business of this world, while living out of and in his spirit joined to God, which directed and ran the outer world out of a paradise or continual inner Sabbath of rest within him. The Fall upset the order, so that his inner house of spirit darkened and was invaded, and the outer, left in the world as if alone, gained the predominance and continued that way in all the generations of Adam.

The proper order that is restored, is that we now live again out of that inner paradise and continual Sabbath of rest within us. We are complete. We are whole. We are full. We do not need anything. Everything is given to us freely of God -- in Spirit/spirit.

This is an inner consciousness, to use Norman's term, and I stress, it is NOT an outer consciousness, nor does it ever in the time of this life become so. To the outer, the "inner" remains mostly hidden and unconscious. It does not make it untrue or unreal, just unseen. The outer continues as before to see and react to the things of this world in its partial sight. But it also, like our inner selves, has become the house of Christ. He, in us, has become now the master of the outer self, the soul self, like he is the master of the winds and sea. He peacefully rests, even sleeps sometimes, in the back of the boat while the boat is tossed on the sea. He wakes and rebukes the winds and boisterous seas, and we marvel, "What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the seas obey Him?" But here is the kicker -- that "manner of man" is now you and me. Inwardly He and we are one, so that we are there in Him in the back of the boat resting even in the storm. Outwardly (like the disciples) we are being tossed in a boat in a storm and we quake with fear, but inwardly we are at peace, whether the waves and winds stop or continue. Because when we have realized the oneness is intact regardless of the ups and downs of our knowledge, emotions, or outer self-consciousness, then we begin to realize that we ourselves are the Sabbath rest of God, inwardly in us. It makes no difference what the soul is doing or what the brain knows or doesn't know.

"As a little child," He says we are to be.

When Gabriel came to announce to Mary she was to bring forth the Christ, at first her rational mind reacted, which is normal and proper, so she asked, "How can this be, seeing I know not a man?"

Gabriel gave her the answer, and then she went into spirit, beyond the rational understanding, "Be it unto me according to thy word." From wanting explanations, to the simplicity of, "Oh, that's how it is. Ok, I'll take that."

There is where the rational brain and the synapses which keep firing off, "danger, danger," or "Oh my God, we're going down," finds its rest. The "training" finally takes its full effect when we learn the end of all that is faith, "O God, this is just You here, doing what You do. I can lie down and rest here (my rational outer self-consciousness), for You, O Lord, always make me to dwell in safety and peace." (Ps 4:8).

Getting back to this operation, what we finally come to realize is that this IS our oneness. To seemingly operate as if we are two -- one part of us that sees, knows, and traffics in this world as it is appointed to do, which means it sees need, lack, terror, danger -- and the other, inner part of us, that lives in the rest and peace of God, which continually sees the fullness and completeness of God. It is two operations of the same person. When we see that, we really begin to know rest, which starts with accepting ourselves where we are, as we are, as the right expression in this world of God who lives in us and flows out of us according to HIS working, by His Spirit, whether with our understanding or not.

So this is just a little tweak here to remind you of things no doubt you already know. Thank you for giving me the privilege of writing you. I am really blessed to know you and look forward to more times together.

In the precious love of Jesus,
fred

My "Revolutionary Road", Part II

I promised you a follow-up to Part I, and I don't want to split this one up, so please hang in there with me. Here goes...

I feel like this is difficult to write, partly because I am still smack-dab in the middle of it, still going through whatever this trial is. I would probably not be writing this, but I feel that God wants me to share some of the discoveries I have been making through His Spirit. I personally believe that God is preparing me spiritually for whatever it is I am supposed to do out here in LA, and is taking my faith to a new level. Right now, though, it just feels like I don't have much faith. Oh, I believe in Him, I love Him, but I have been wrestling with Him. I feel like I don't trust enough, like I don't love enough, like I have too many desires and distractions, and am having trouble putting Him first.

You know, I never understood until recently that whole story about Jacob wrestling with God. I always thought that sounded just wrong of Jacob. Who was he to wrestle with God? Why would God enter into such a thing with a mere man? I never liked the story much. But now I understand, I think.

Did you know this life is not about our happiness? I think I must have. Suddenly, however, seemingly out of the blue, it's a concept I'm having trouble with. Take "true love", for example. It's a concept we're all raised with, and I have come to think lately that subconsciously it has been a notion which has ruled many of my dreams and hopes over the years. That idea of one day finding that happiness which we all seek, which will be fulfilled in the perfect mate.

That's what Kate Winslet's character must have hoped for in the movie "Revolutionary Road", or she would not have married Leo DiCaprio's Frank Wheeler. But does it ever live up to our expectations? I hear once in a while about a marriage which is still full of passion many years later, or ones that get better over time, but still these are not the relationships we read about in the books. I once heard a line on one of my favorite TV shows of all time, "Northern Exposure" that I could not forget. RuthAnne, the store owner, is proposed to by a traveling salesman, and she declines, telling him that he is a romantic, and romantics are always disappointed with marriage. That stuck with me, and scared me a little.

The "Twilight" books are actually what acted as catalyst to this recent worry of mine. I say worry because I should be trusting it to God, but I mostly just worry obsessively over it. They portray such an amazing love story, and there are some really nice elements to the story. However, is it healthy to get drawn into such a romantic story? Does the dream for such a relationship become an idol when we make it so important? I understand all of the things I think I should- that God is who we are ultimately longing for when we long for that, that our happily ever after will be in Heaven with Him, that I need Him and nothing else.

But that does not keep me from wanting other things, or thinking sometimes that I am kind of sad that there is no marriage in Heaven like there is on earth. Of course, I don't think God says there will be no romantic love, but Jesus says there is no marriage (forgive the paraphrase). So I try to trust more, and only end up falling short in my thoughts. Thankfully, a friend reminded me yesterday in a wonderful piece of writing, that the thoughts are not always in sync with what the Spirit knows to be true, and that our inner selves are one with Christ no matter what our thoughts are doing. Right about now, though, I sure wish my thoughts would straighten up.

It all comes down to that whole thing that it is not about me. I started reading "The Purpose Driven Life", which my mother gave my years ago and I had not read yet. I was feeling unhappy and homesick and confused here in LA, even though God has provided over and beyond what I could have hoped for already. I was thinking I would be happier somewhere else, even though I have wanted to be in a position to pursue my dreams for so long. I was confused and needed direction. The first line of the first chapter says, "It's not about you."

Wow- really? I have become so self-involved over the last few years that I must have forgotten what I already knew. I went through so much with my divorce and tried to be so faithful to my marriage and do what was right, I think I came out with this idea that the rest of my life would be about me being happy. And that is not it at all! I believe God wants us to be happy, but His purpose for us is first, and ultimately, we are here to serve His purpose and Kingdom. Some of His beloved, faithful, highly-used servants and prophets suffered horrible earthly ends. Wasn't Isaiah sawed in half? The problem is when you are self-involved and have long-held notions and dreams about what you want that you think will make you happy, it is really tough to let go of those.

So there you go. I am struggling daily to surrender these dreams and hopes, even if that is ultimately what He wants for me. That is one reason I was so fascinated by "Revolutionary Road", because that is what most of us just don't get. We expect to be happy because that is what we were designed for- life with God. But we don't live in the world we were designed for. My reward is in Heaven, not here. And it is really hard to accept this and I constantly fail. I am a romantic and can't help but hope for these things. I can't help myself at all. I just hope that eventually, I will have such a strong love for Him and trust in Him that the rest just follows. I thought I did, but it's amazing what the Spirit will expose that we don't even have a clue is lurking underneath.

Recently my roommate and I were talking about the Bible, which is pretty cool considering she told me in clear terms before I moved here that she is not religious and does not like to talk about religion. Somehow we got on the subject of Abraham, and she wanted to know why God would make him wait all that time for what was promised to him. I think I started to tell her about learning to trust Him, which is true, I believe. But then it occurred to me. Maybe God wanted Abraham to realize that what he wanted so bad, to have a son, just was not as important as he thought it was. Not as important as serving His purpose and loving Him. It turns out, for Abraham, the two went hand in hand, but they may not always. Even Jesus prayed to have His cup taken from Him, but God's purpose was more important to Him than anything, so we can all be thankful for that fact!

I know some of you out there are romance writers, and please don't think I'm dissing on romance. I am a romantic dreamer of the most extreme kind, I think, which is one of the reasons this is a hard lesson to learn. But it's also a lesson that will hopefully help me to store up my treasures in Heaven, as Jesus commanded, and help me keep perspective out here in this place where what is really important is perhaps harder to see than it is anywhere else on earth. If I can ever come out on the other side of this trial, that is. Maybe you can send some prayers my way if you are reading this. I also may post my friend's article about the inner and outer consciousness, and oneness with Christ. It's great! Thanks for your patience with the long post! And one more thing- I am really thankful now that God is willing to wrestle with us and doesn't just quit on us!

Kristi's Revolutionary Road: A Response

First, I am doing this blog post because I’m afraid you missed Kristi’s entry on the movie Revolutionary Road, and how it pertains to some of her own struggles. I don’t think the email update went out to subscribers, and it’s too good a post to miss.

Second, I started writing a comment on her article and realized it was turning into a post of my own. So I’m putting it here instead.

It’s funny. I know almost nothing about the movie Revolutionary Road, but this is the second time I’ve read about it in the last couple of days. The other time, it was only mentioned briefly, in an article bemoaning the fact that people don’t want to go see realistic “adult” dramas these days, but instead seem to want escapism in the form of fantasy or comedy. This article mentioned Revolutionary Road as one of the supposedly high quality dramas that no one wants to see.

Well, duh. I know Christian fiction is sometimes criticized for glossing over the rough stuff of reality. I’m one of the people who has made that criticism. But I think we need balance in our stories—books, movies, whatever. We shouldn’t be afraid to admit how tough life is, but we should offer some hope. Not pat, easy answers that ring false, but hope.

I think everyone knows how tough life can be. Do we particularly need literature to tell us that?

What we don’t know, sometimes, is that there is hope when things seem hopeless. Kristi asked what we would say to folks like the couple in Revolutionary Road. Well, obviously, one of those pat, easy answers would be that they need God. I haven’t seen the movie, but it sounds as if these people are hopelessly mired in earthly things, in their own petty ambitions and concerns.

Ted Dekker has a great book called The Slumber of Christianity, which talks about this very thing. That Westerners, including Christians sadly, have lost the ability to imagine Heaven and so are concentrating on finding fulfillment in the here and now. And human beings are wired for the eternal, so that’s never going to work.

I’m starting to ramble on, but this is Kristi’s subject, so I’ll let her pick this thread back up in her next post.

My "Revolutionary Road"

This is part movie review, part attempt to share just a small tip of the iceberg of what God has been doing in my life lately. That part, in particular, will probably be spread out over several posts. I started to write about it recently and had to stop, because I was having a difficult time explaining. But I'll try, because it really is awesome, and it just shows how God truly "works for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose." (from Romans 8:28) Hopefully you can follow my efforts...

First- the review, or perhaps it's more of a synopsis and how it bares on my own life. Therefore, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW! "Revolutionary Road" came out recently on dvd, and it was the first pairing of Kate Winslet and Leo (I call him Leo) DiCaprio since they starred in "Titanic" together. The reason I was drawn to the film is how similar the themes sounded to themes I've experienced in my own life. It is about the Wheelers, a married couple in the 50's who move to the suburbs and are basically destroyed by the emptiness they come to associate with their mundane, typical lifestyle. As I watched previews for this movie, I strongly empathized with the idea of finding yourself suddenly living a life separate from the one you had envisioned. At one point, April, played by Winslet, says, "I saw a whole other future. I can't stop seeing it."

April is an aspiring actress when she meets her husband, Frank. Next thing you know, they are married and have two kids. They have moved to the suburbs to a place on Revolutionary Road, hence the name. They moved because that's what people do when they have kids, right? You can't raise kids in the city, right? They always thought of themselves as a special couple, who would do something big- something DIFFERENT- with their lives, and they have both become miserable in the life they have chosen. Frank soon starts an affair to try to fill the void.

Eventually, April gets it into her head that the solution to all their problems is for them to move with their children to Paris. This is where Frank said he had been the most alive, when he had been there before, and he always wanted to go back. April says she will work over there and he can take time to discover what he wants to do with his life- what will make him happy. Kate Winslet, as usual, delivers a stellar performance, as her desperation to escape the mundane is always just barely contained, keeping you dreading the moment when the plan will surely fall apart, not knowing what she might do when it does.

And, of course, it does. She discovers she is pregnant, and sees her unborn baby as an impediment to getting to what she thinks will really make her happy- moving to Paris. Meanwhile, Frank has been promoted and offered a lot more money, and his dedication to the move is already being tested. When he discovers his wife's condition and her desire to abort the baby, and sees her attitude of motherhood in general being a mistake for her, which apparently he had somehow missed all along, he is horrified and tells her the trip is off.

The rest of the movie is a devastating series of events which show the result of Frank's continuous deliberate self-delusion, and April's final acceptance of the fact that she is in a life she neither wants, nor can leave. She does leave, though, through the unholy act of killing her baby and herself in the process. I personally wanted to see them get to Paris with all their kids and live there for a while, only to find themselves in basically the same state of spiritual and emotional bankruptcy they had endured in the States. But, alas, the writer went in a different direction. It gets to the same point, though.

One of the interesting aspects of this film is that there seem to be no characters who find the answer to filling the "emptiness" and "hopelessness" which pervade their lives. One character- one of their neighbors who recently spent time in an asylum- is the only one besides the Wheelers who actually admits to the harsh reality of reality, but he can offer no solution. The rest simply find less drastic, but no more effective ways to deal with these feelings, which they cannot afford to admit to themselves.

An older couple on the block, in the final scene of the movie, sits together in their house speaking of the Wheelers. The wife, played by Kathy Bates, drones on about how they were never suitable to take that house to begin with, and so on and so on. Meanwhile, the husband looks at her and slowly turns down the volume on his hearing aid, until there is silence. And that ends "Revolutionary Road."

Uplifting, huh? Why, you might be asking yourself, would I want to engage my time in such a heavy, depressing movie? I'll get into that more in my follow-up post. But let me leave you for now with this question: What do you think is the solution for the real-life Wheelers out there? Because in one way or another, whether we live in Paris or Alaska or Los Angeles, whether we are incredibly poor or really rich, whether we cure a disease or homeschool our kids, we are all the Wheelers in one way or another, or at least we all start out that way.

To be continued...