Tag: heart

By Faith

“To turn head faith into a personal possession is a fight always, not sometimes. God brings us into circumstances in order to educate our faith, because the nature of faith is to make its object real. Until we know Jesus, God is a mere abstraction, we can not have faith in Him; but immediately we hear Jesus say — “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,” we have something that is real, and faith is boundless. Faith is the whole man rightly related to God by the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” – Chambers

Faith is a fight. That’s something I don’t often think about. I think faith in God is more like faith in a chair, that it will hold me up when I sit down. But spiritual faith is much different. It is the only means we have to be rightly related to God.

Faith is not something we can conjur up when something big comes up that needs our full attention and resources. Faith is a bit by bit proposition. God brings us into circumstances we cannot control to educate our faith. Then our mind goes to work to figure out how to get us out of this jam.

But herein lies the fight, to turn our thinking, not off, but into something that touches our heart. It is not a matter of thinking ourselves out of trouble, but by faith, believing God has the solution if we turn our lives over to Him and give him full control. We don’t turn our minds off when we do this. Neither do we avoid the issue by running away to hide from the pain. No, instead, we think ourselves into moving through it, into getting our gut to follow our mind, into having faith that the object of our faith is real.

God, in this moment, you have my full attention. I know I am self-centered and self-serving. I have faith in your power to remove lust from my heart. I unconditionally surrender myself to you, and to walk the path of sobriety you have made known to me for today. You have the power to restore me to sanity. I believe in your ability and desire to help me, help me in my unbelief.

Fine Wine

But when He uses someone we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, to crush us, then we object. Yet we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed—you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed. – Chambers

There are many things that make a wine a fine one to drink. The grapes, the harvesting, the crushing, the fermentation, the storage – all these have a role in the fragrence and the taste of wine. Riding through wine country in the Yakima this past weekend always reminds me of the fragrence of the grapes on the vine and the bouquet of a fine wine.

Chambers says, “If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed.” The crushing comes in some set of circumstances to which we vowed never to submit, never to be crushed. But the exact nature of our crushing is not ours to control. All we can do is submit to the process of being made into wine. Our role is simple submission. “When we finally decide to submit our lives and our wills to God’s direction, our burdens will become manageable.” – The Recovery Bible

Our wrongs hold us in bondage, both the perceived and the real ones. Surrendering is the only way beyond the resentment we feel. When we hang on to resentment, we separate from the person in our heart. – White Book, p. 50

I see know how this was activated early in my relationship with my wife. The only way I could be emotionally superior was to win. The only way I could win was through resentment. At first, it turned her into the perpetrator of the wrong. Holding on to resentment eventually made her the wrong I experienced each time I could not deal with my own feelings. I became addicted to the exhilerating feeling of winning the emotional battle until the wrong attitude itself became the addiciton. I became the sin I was trying to escape.

God have mercy on me. Create in me a clean heart. Releive me of the bondage of self that I may better do thy will.