Scientists just saw a new auroral light around Saturn's polar cap. As I was looking at the picture I was thinking that God must simply have a blast creating. How many such events and visuals exist across that galaxies that we will never see, but God made them just because He thought it was cool!
you can read more at: http://www.livescience.com/space/081112-saturn-aurora.html
MC
On Sunday, as we wrapped up John chapter 18, we were dealing with an issue embedded deep within the chapter; betrayal. In chapter 13, Judas had taken his Que and left the other disciples and Jesus. Escaping under the darkness of night to sell out the one who loved him.
Julius Caesar gasped out the words, "Et Tu Brute'?" as his friend Brutus plunged the knife into his back…William Wallace fell back stunned at the battle of Falkirk as he captured a noble from the opposing army only to find out that it was none other than Robert The Bruce, the one Wallace thought he was fighting for and with…We see it again in Gladiator, The Chronicles of Narnia, Star Wars. Betrayal is a meta story in most all the epic movies that make their mark on our hearts.
The hardest wound to heal is the wound of betrayal. It attacks every sense and faculty. Injustice happens between people, betrayal happens between friends. When their is unfaithfulness between spouses. When a business deal between friends goes south. When someone at work sells you out to promote their own advancement.
In John 18 there were some key questions that if not answered correctly lead us to making some bad choices in our lives. The first question was thundered by Jesus. As the army of soldiers and temple police approached Jesus and His band of disciples in Gethsemane, Jesus said, "Who are you looking for?!" Stunned, they replied, "We are looking for Jesus of Nazareth." The whole entourage fell back to the ground as Jesus replied, "I AM"
While John doesn't reveal to us the "Judas Kiss" that the other Gospel accounts reveal, Judas is right there leading the way. I wonder how deep the pain was in Jesus as He looked at, and into, the heart of a man He had given 3 years of His earthly life, and was about to give His life blood for within some hours upon a Roman cross.
I believe Jesus is still asking that question, "Who are you looking for?" Are you looking for a Jesus who fits what you want God to be? Are you looking for a Jesus that will help you be successful in life? Are you looking for a Jesus that will help your political party? Are you looking for a Jesus that will give you everything you want? Are you looking for a Jesus that was formed for you by a Hallmark card?
Many people are looking, but they are looking for "their" kind of Jesus…we need to simply be looking for the real Jesus, as he is, not as we want Him. Any other Jesus is anemic and truly unable to help.
The second question in John 18 came from Pontius Pilate. As he was having a higher level discussion with Jesus, who was bound before him, Jesus remarks that, "I have come into the world–to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice." To this Pilate responds cynically, "What is truth?!"
If we haven't sought out the real Jesus, not the Jesus of our culture, but who He really is, then we will fall for any truth that sounds kind of right. By the way there is a new truth out there trying to pull you away from Christ every day. Most of these other truths come so deceptively disguised. In fact they even camouflage themselves in a veil of spirituality. But the heart of their message is a very different Jesus. Their Jesus exists to simply make you happy not holy. Their Jesus would never call you on your sin and selfishness. Their Jesus has just enough truth to entice you but leave you empty after you try it for a while.
We humans have an incredible capacity to repeat the sins of Adam by making ourselves God, and God our servant. Sometimes we work really hard at spiritual things and then subconsciously believe that God "owes" us, again, we have replaced truth.
When we miss Jesus' question of "Who are you looking for?" and Pilate's question of "What is truth?" then we cry the third statement out of John 18 with the crowd…"Give us Barabbas!"
There is a real, knowable, personal God, who has been fully revealed through Jesus Christ, who says to us that, "I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me." If we settle for an imitation Jesus, and a culturally crafted Jesus, we will ask for Barabbas when we are faced with a real choice.
We have choices every day to choose between a false Jesus and the real Jesus, and sometimes, if we aren't grounded in the Truth, we choose Barabbas, and God says, "Okay, have Barabbas." Then when Barabbas shows up and our world falls apart we get angry at God for allowing such pain to enter our world, and He says, "You asked for Barabbas."
Deep cuts. Anguish that causes you to heave and sob from a place that you didn't even know existed in your body. Anger, befuddlement, exasperation, rage, love, pain. There is no end to the descriptive words of betrayal.
Every person has experienced betrayal at some level. So while we talked briefly at some processing steps to work through, I really didn't much time to expand those steps. So Let's look at the 4 movements to breaking free from the death grip of betrayal.
1. REMEMBER:
In my own journey, when the wound of betrayal has come, it has been hard to get to a place of perspective, it just hurts. Your hurt is real, and your anger is understandable. In fact those are necessary emotions that you need to experience if you are going to move beyond the pain into healing. Their is a loss to be grieved, and in our culture we do not know how to grieve. If we don't grieve, the pain collects in our soul poisoning our heart. So the first step is the Remember that you are not in this thing alone.
In other words, you must invite God into the process with you. Here we are aligning our heart to His, so that we can experience something beyond the anger and pain. God is with you even when you don't sense Him. And perhaps the biggest lesson of the betrayal of Jesus by not only Judas, but by all of us, is that He really does know how it feels, the pain, the emptiness. His promise to never leave you or forsake you are tender words spoken to a reed that is crushed in soul and spirit. He knows, He cares.
This will not make everything all better, but it does bring in some God-light to a dark place, and reminds us that there is still presence and hope. This will begin the healing journey together with God.
2. RECYCLE:
Once we have invited God into the healing process, and allow the Holy Spirit access to the wounds of betrayal, we will begin to become aware of how the pain has affected our life. The attitudes, thoughts, mental sermons, wrongful reactions all need to be recycled.
As we feel angry, we ask God to help us recycle it into peace.
As we feel hopeless, we ask God to recycle that into faith.
As we feel resentful, we ask God to help us extend grace.
As we want to avenge our wrong, we ask God to retake control in our lives.
As we feel fear, we ask God to replace it with courage.
As we feel hatred, we ask God to recycle that with forgiveness.
Recycling the pain happens as we allow God in the process as the director, not merely as a spectator. It doesn't come easy, and it won't just happen with one little prayer. This is a moment by moment, breath by breath surrender to the will and care of God in our lives. Perhaps the first step here is to ask God to help you desire to get to the point where you want to recycle the emotions. So that leads me to the third step.
3. REPLACE:
We need to replace self-rule with God-rule.In other words, we need to let go of our desire to exact judgment, and have everything come to a close the way we want it to. When we take control of the retribution and justice of the betrayal, we have just taken over God's sovere
ign role as the giver of all true justice. That doesn't mean we become a door-mat mind you, but it does require that we turn over the controls to Him, even when events seem utterly wrong to us. We must trust that God is at work.
One thing I have learned over the years is that God is far better at dealing justly with people than I am. And that when I try to take on God's job, I generally end up far worse than I was when the betrayal first happened. If you have been gripping onto the betrayal and holding it as yours, then you need to repent of playing God and ask God to call the shots. He will have some soul work for you to do. This work will lead to a greater trust in His goodness, and will hep you move from driver to back-seat driver, and then finally as guest. The biggest hurdle to the replace step is the fourth movement.
4. RELEASE:
Finally, the way out of the vicious betrayal jungle is to release the offender. This is always the hardest step because a wronged person feels that to release the offender is to let them off the hook for what they have done. With the betrayal wounds so deep, this goes against their sense of justice, and their desire to make the betrayer pay for the pain and damage they caused.
Some psychiatrists I have read have stated that upwards of 90% of their client load would begin to experience healing if they would be able to do one thing…forgive the person(s) they are resenting, and holding anger towards.
Unforgiveness can also be sly and deceptive. In fact, it can even feel good…for a while. Forgiveness isn't about the person who is forgiven as much as it is about the person who forgives. To remain in a state of unforgiveness keeps us disconnected from the goodness and voice of God. Jesus states that if we desire being forgiven by the Father, we must forgive those who have wronged us. He didn't say that just because, no, He knows that unforgiveness slowly erodes your soul, making you a prisoner of it's slow death.
Forgiving the offender is also not a one time shot, but rather you will need to release your offender many times. Sights, smells, and sounds will transport you to a place of vivid memories of the wound, and you will need to release again. Many people have asked me, "how will I know when I have forgiven them?" To that I would say there are a couple good signs:
1. When you see the person, does your stomach still knot up and give you a sick feeling? If it does, then you still have some releasing to do. When you can see them and not feel it in your body, you have probably released them.
2. Are you able to pray for them and honestly ask God to bless them as they are? If you can, you have probably released and forgiven them, if you can't you need to keep forgiving as it enters your mind.
To forgive doesn't mean that you have to be best friends again, or even friends for that matter. There is a long road of trust building ahead of a deep betrayal. In fact, the person may still not even be safe enough to be around, and you may still be too fragile to be in their company without getting re-triggered by their unchanged behaviors.
So we forgive to release ourselves by releasing the offender. We forgive not because they have asked for forgiveness, but because we choose to be free, experience healing, and place God on the throne of our lives instead of ourselves and our agenda.
None of these movements are easy, but they are necessary if you are to live the abundant life. Jesus experienced betrayal so that you could experience life, real life.
May you use these steps to experience the freedom that can only come from Jesus Christ today.
Dei Gratia,
Monty
I found myself longing for the longing of Francis. There were so many stories, so many events, both joy-filled, and crushing that captivated my reading, thinking, and meditating. In the book, one chapter began with the title, "Embracing the Wound." In this piece, the editor, Mirabai Starr, expounded a bit on a certain encounter Francis had with a leper that forever changed his life. So read on…
Embracing the Wound
What is within yourself that horrifies you? Can you gently resist the urge to turn away and instead allow yourself to turn toward it? Can you not only face that which repulses or frightens or offends you, but embrace it? Can you let yourself be irrevocably transformed by the encounter?
Early in his awakening, Francis, who was raised with wealth and privilege, crossed paths with a leper. The man's face was eroded by disease, his sores oozing. With the help of two sticks, he hobbled on the rotten stumps of his feet, dutifully clanging his clapper to warn passerby of his proximity.
That day, before Francis had a chance to register the sound, he found himself face-to face with the leper. Everything in him wanted to run. Revulsion rose in his belly like bile, and his heart thundered in his chest. He drew a deep breath.
"Good morning, brother," he said. Then he walked up to the man and took his ravaged hands in his own. He brought them to his lips and kissed them, then released his hands and pulled the astonished leper into a close embrace. He stroked the man's sparse hair.
A powerful wave of love washed away any traces of horror. What was ugly became unspeakably beautiful. Francis saw no difference between this man's physical wounds, the suffering of humanity, or Francis' own shattered heart. No difference between deep sorrow and profound joy. Compassion and gratitude.
Francis never again turned away from brokenness, in other creatures, or in himself. Can you embrace the one inside you whom you were taught to disdain? Can you invite the banished one home?
*******
The wounds of ourselves and of others scare us at a deep level. "What if their wound infect us?" or better yet we might think, "What if their wound affects us?" To embrace the wound in others will leave us different, stirred, affected. The degree in which you engage the wound of society might even infect you, not physically, but spiritually, and that will affect every area of your life.
Jesus seemed to always head towards those whose life choices or life's circumstances had built a wall of isolation around them, that only a love that embraces wounds could melt. Once the outside wound is touched by grace, the inside wound begins to heal. To embrace the inside wound is no easier than staring into the oozing sores of the outward condition.
We often live so long with our wounds that they become one with who we think we are. We begin to identify more with the wound, than with the One who would, with love, touch and heal the wound. Sometimes the wound allows us to justify our behaviors, or serve as a scapegoat for our weakness in character. So to embrace the wound is to admit that we are not the wound, and if healed, we must stand on our own.
Sometimes it is easier to embrace the wound in others than to embrace the wound in ourselves. God would gently speak to all of us the reality of the wound within, and the truth that His Son came as the remedy for the wound, or as Isaiah says, "By His stripes we were healed."
To close this rumination, I leave you with one more prayer of Francis
Where there is love and wisdom,
there is neither fear nor ignorance.
Where there is patience and humility,
there is neither anger nor annoyance.
Where there is poverty and joy,
there is neither grasping nor greed.
Where there is peace and contemplation,
there is neither anxiety nor restlessness.
Where there is awe of God guarding the dwelling,
there no adversary can enter.
Where there is mercy and moderation,
there is neither excess nor harshness.
~St. Francis of Assisi, The Admonitions XXVII
It was a sinister feeling, foreboding, eerie, like the clenched throat and stomach you had when you were awash in your first scary campfire story. The tension was mounting about some story of a severed hand which was never found. That tidbit of information was beautifully wound into the factional account that the very place where the flames of the fire leapt into the oblivion of the night just happened to be the last place the severed hand was spotted before it used it’s bloody digits to crawl off into the darkness of the night. Then…"Shazam!" a hand appears from nowhere and screams engulf the night sky!
That was the feeling that settled over me like a mist when I saw Sam, Bilbo and Smeagle at the Gates of Mordor in Lord of the Rings. The journey to Mordor was hard enough, but now a new courage was required of our reluctant heros.
The Dark Lord Sauron’s massive eye was ablaze atop the tower looking…searching…hungry. My first thought was, “man, don’t go in there, that’s nuts!” But in “there” beyond the great gate into the desolate plains of Mordor was the point of the quest, the conclusion, or at least, the next destination.
I have often felt that my soul is a very real depiction of the phantasmal Middle earth. The journey to the center of the soul, to deal with realm of Mordor, to dethrone the Dark Lord of myself who rules with an eye always wary, always watching, protective of what might be lost or exposed.
Truth be told, I think we long to dethrone the powers that rule the Mordor of our souls…we journey towards a God-centric life. We have adventures along the way that seem dangerous, risky, and life giving. There is change in the journey, and the goal of allowing Christ to destroy all the darkness within us through His light and truth propel us when we are tired, angry, lost and unsure.
But then we stand gazing at the massive gates that lead to Mordor. We cast our eyes out across the desolate and seemingly endless desert that stretches depressingly towards that burning eye in the center.
Our feet tremble a bit and then stop. “Do I really want to go there?” “Am I really ready for this last push?” “Is this really necessary, doesn’t God love me the way I am?” The civil war begins inside as the eye searches out our weakness.
All of the other roads we had traveled, though hard, were familiar. I could use the tools I had to survive, improvise, astound and move forward. Yet here, in this place, each trail was unknown, every hill seemingly insurmountable. None of the tools in my kit worked…this is a new desert, a very different desert unlike any land I had ever seen.
Darkness covered everything removing my courage the way an extinguished candle’s smoke races towards an opening. Where am I? Who am I?
St. John of the Cross calls this “The Dark Night of the Soul.” When we come into full contact with who we are, the same way Isaiah did when he was in the throne room of the Almighty. When he got a glimpse of the holy, he saw how unholy he was, he saw how powerfully the Dark Lord Sauron of Self ruled his interior.
The Dark night comes upon you when you have been on a journey, a purposeful journey, of knowing God. Not just doing the religious thing, the church thing, or the right thing, but doing the surrender thing.
When we truly engage the journey of following Jesus we will end up standing before many gates that lead to a place that Jesus longs to cleanse, free, and rule in the Middle earth of our souls. Each new gate, and each new dark night has its own level of foreboding attached to it. Each new dark night opens the gate to a new desert you have never traveled and the tools that got you through the last desert may not be effective in the new one.
Yet one thing remains the same…surrender…trust…light…not trust in some generic god that is here one day and gone the next. Not a weak hope that things will turn out okay in the end…Not a self manufactured light that is unable to shine into the darkest of places. Not a surrender that can easily be negotiated out of when the road is hard.
No, it takes the living Christ, illuminating a path that seems impossible to you in a land that is foreign to you on a journey that seems avoidable. Trusting that no matter how dark it gets on your journey, no matter how bad you look, how battered your body, in your heart you know God will never reject or abandon you. On this journey we surrender our plans and routes regardless of outcome, knowing God is with us.
Most turn around at the gate and never experience the journey to dethrone the king of self that rules over Mordor…and the same never experience the depths of love and light that come from facing those deep fears and going forward in the power, strength and person of Jesus Christ.
There is a reason your old skills and tools don’t seem to help much in this new land. If they did, you would not need Jesus, and until we fully grasp that apart from Christ I can do nothing, the Dark Lord of Self will always remain.
He is okay with some small victories here and there, but to loose the kingdom is where the battle truly kicks up. This happens when we burst through the gates intent on moving forward…dealing honestly with what we see in the recesses of our heart.
The only way we can ever get here, to face what comes out of the darkness, is to hold tightly to Christ, clinging to Him as if he were holding onto us as we dangled over an endless ravine.
If you find yourself at the gates sometime soon…go for it, you will never be the same!
Remember the brightest light comes after the darkest night. God is not done with you yet, let Him move you to the deeper life found only in Him, and when Mordor falls…you’ll be ready for the next adventure!
Dei Gratia
MC