But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
🌿 Romans 6⋮21
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We were not created and designed to perpetually live from emotions of depletion, or to exist in self-imposed echo chambers.
Thinking that it's normal to always struggle, or reversely to "never" have problems, makes us incapable of generating lasting, beneficial change in the midst of challenge. This inability signals we're not fully alive.
Romans 6 above gifts a beautifully abrupt question to destroy the stress we endure when refusing to own the truth of our life – right now. Choosing to pause and critically self-reflect sows a seed to conquer ignorance. Deciding to sharply investigate and lay to rest past and current actions leading to persistent disappointment is to move in power.
It's hard to accept that some of what we have experienced was within our control – and that some of it was not. Combined, these two realities can unearth a feeling of devastation or denial. At other times, we soar from the relief in knowing that we did the best we could – based on what we were aware of, and knew from the information we had access to.
Courage to stop, stand square in the face, and confront the habitual behaviors we tolerate within ourselves that invite [unneeded] suffering and loss is also to move in power. The trouble is not in experiencing struggle, even repeatedly. The trouble is found when we refuse to unmask what is at the root cause of our difficulties. Investigation then must shift into excavation – digging deeper beyond the surface of our assumed cognitive abilities to perceive and uproot all the elements contributing to unfavorable outcomes.
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The fruit we are getting from a set of active habits determines whether we will live well, or die dry.
These habits consist of cyclical, repetitive behavior-actions, thoughts, speech, genetic/inherited dispositions and spontaneous coping mechanisms we invent along the way. These habits are systems of operation that are learned, conditioned, adopted or created out of what we think is necessary to survive – or even to thrive. Habits that are formed and held onto as useful – based on our personal definition of what we think "power" and "agency" is.
When these habits deliver the outcome of unexamined reoccurring pain, suffering, confusion, loss, instability, this calls death to meet us before our time. It is a dry dying – unprepared for, empty of fulfillment, leading to unresolved regret, guilt and shame.
Reactively, we start to ask:
What did I do to "deserve" this?
Why am I always dealing with this same problem?
When do I get a break?
Whose fault is it?
Very rarely do we ever start the above thread of questions with:
How do I break this cycle of suffering/loss/disappointment – so it does not happen again to myself, or to those I love and who will come after me?
Who has experienced something similar and has overcome it – so I can learn from them how they dissolved this challenge?
What am I ignorant of concerning my own life, family history/legacies/habits, or spiritual gaps of understanding?
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Within the teachings of Jesus Christ, the reality of sin is unmasked from its hiding place as a stealth, undetected obstacle to experiencing the living joy, pleasure, and power of God's move within us.
My pastor and elder teachers define sin – simply – as the deep spiritual imbalance of not loving God, and not loving our neighbor. Our recognition of and acknowledgement of sin is not to be used as a weapon of condemnation toward ourselves, or others. That is not our responsibility, or place in Christ.
Instead: our individual responsibility is to admit/agree that we do sin – that we have made [and will again in the future] make mistakes against our dignity in God being expressed freely, cleanly, potently as His love for us.
Most critically: it is our responsibility to self-correct and stop the acts of spiritual imbalance we commit against ourselves and others.
Even while we know we are imperfect and will fall, we still position ourselves in Christ. We still exert energy and focus to fortify and rebound from being trapped by sin as a gripping place of failure.
Forgetting – and in many cases never knowing – who we truly are in God, invites sin [lack of love] to grow in our behavior and existence, where we treat and view it as a "necessary evil" in being human. Sin and ignorance are yolked together.
NOT knowing and having trust in God being who we are truly made in the image of makes us susceptible to snares of repetitive loss, failure, and the death of our soul.
When we move through life in fear and insecurity – cloaked as "realistic" pessimism, dysfunctional over-analysis, and avoidance of cultivating our deepest inner life needs – our view of our own value and place in the world is distorted. Looking outward for human approval and recognition – at the expense of our soul well-being and inner life stability – invites sin as a deflective, habitual reaction to try and "repair" our inner world sense of loss.
Sin takes on many bold and silent forms. We all – myself included – have engaged in some form of sin/living and acting beneath our potential, power, goodness and love for [and in] God. Whether we ever choose to openly, honestly admit it to ourselves, or others, is irrelevant. Until we stop to reflect on what actions/thoughts/feelings we habitually enact regarding our perceived value in the world – versus in God – the pendulum between sorrow and success [in the most vulnerable areas of our life] will continue to swing wildly.
Our greatest drive to persistently live in the depth of love, rest, and grace we know we're meant for will continue to be a silent, unmet craving – until we consciously deconstruct and put to death the paths we've walked [and still tread] out of ignorance.
March 28 | 2024 ❤️‍🔥
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