Inner Journey Blog

Recovery

The inner journey is also about the recovery of ourselves and recovery from our losses.  Our deepest needs were never met growing up and can never be met in the externals or circumstances of the world around us.  So, our spiritual connectedness also becomes a source for recovery of our emotional life, a healing for our brokenness, and a way for our deepest needs and most critical needs to be fully met.

No one grew up with perfect affirmation, security, sense of belonging, a deep sense of being fully loved for who we are, or a full acceptance of our truest self.  Our parents may have been among the best (or not), but none of them were perfect.  As a result, these deep needs continue to cry out.  We were created for eternity.  This means, we will always long for that which is perfect.  Our deep needs desire to be met perfectly so that we feel most fully connected, loved, embraced, affirmed, and appreciated.  These are not selfish needs.  They arise out of the deepest parts of who we are spiritually and emotionally.

So spiritual connectedness is bringing of our broken parts to a God who can perfectly heal, touch, and meet the deepest needs of our soul.  It is about a recovery of our splintered, broken self and an integration of ourselves with ourselves and with God.

In the Moment and Addiction

Addiction is the escape from the present moment.  It is the survival mechanism for not facing and experiencing the full experience of right now.  It is an attempt to run from what is.  The paradox is that it separates us from life itself.  All sin is that which separates us from ourself, life, and others.  It is the retreat from life.  Thus all sin moves us into separation from self and others leading, therefore, to death.

Letting go of addictions is the necessary step into life.  Not trading one addiction for another, but the willingness to face life's on life's terms and step into life with self-will.

From an Earlier Post: In Pursuit of God

In Pursuit of God.

God really cannot be pursued in the sense of catching someone.  He has already caught me.  Nevertheless, the primary occupation I have is to make room for that pursuit… to desire… to want Him so much that I am willing to allow Him to break down the barriers in me that keep me from experience Him, in His glory, more deeply.  He is the Great Experience.  He is the Life.  He is the Beginning and the End.  Life itself, in fullness, begins with HIM.  In the beginning GOD.  My eyes must always wander away from myself and onto HIM if I am to experience anything beyond the confines of empty self.  Self is always empty unless it begins with the Giver of Life.

So I pursue God.  This means I make room for Him first.  I turn toward Him.  I turn away from the attachments and pursuits that come most readily to heart and mind: the pursuit of providing for the day, the pursuit of serving others that wait for my service in the day, the pursuit of some comforts that will make the day easier, the pursuit of my purpose, however God-inspired, that offers me the sense of significance that I both need and crave (often too much).

So, the pursuit of God becomes primary because He is life itself. Then comes the pursuit of containing God in my soul-- a soul that has mostly learned how to dissipate itself and the presence of God as readily as water falling through my clasped fingers.

The soul is mostly trained by sin.  Sin is the blindness that keeps me from seeing what already is: that I am united to God in an organic and abiding way.  This is why He does not need to be pursued.  God and His kingdom are already fully and completely within me.  All of His glory, His beauty, His love, His presence dwell deeply and completely within me.  Yet sin blinds me to this reality.  Thus it separates me from it.  Sin, at the most interior level, misses the mark and causes me to experience myself quite apart from the Divine that I have been fully united to through Christ.  Christ is in me.  The Spirit of God dwells in me.  The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ fills me. Yet sin blinds me to this causing me to experience life as a spiritual pauper, without any sense of my reality in God.  Thus the spiritual prince lives the live of the poorest beggar.  This is the first action of sin--blinding my interior eyes to the reality of Christ in me thus, in effect, separating me from Him in experience though He has united Himself fully to me in reality.

So, the pursuit of God becomes the breaking down of the barriers created by sin: the attachments to the things of this world (as substitutes for the God within who is missing), the guilts, the self-incriminations, the inner lies, the false humilities, the well-trained "little faith" mindsets, the lethargy toward His word because of the misguided spiritual practices that have made it a duty rather than a life-releaser…

Nevertheless, I am unable to break down the barriers of sin and pursue God.  It's all a grace that He must give.  I can do little more than want Him… to move my heart toward Him in the slightest way so that the wind of His reality catches the small sail that I may have which then moves me deeper into that wind.

As soon as I think I have made this pursuit a priority, I find myself swept along by the "many" things of Martha that not only sweep up my day but my weeks, months, and even years to come.  Suddenly I realize that my pursuit of God is no longer at the very center of my life, nor has it been for sometime.  Nor do I feel capable of putting it back into its proper place.  In His mysterious way, only God seems to be able to cause me to come to another "end of myself" experience where I once again renew my primary pursuit as primary… at least for a season.

Hopefully, by His grace, in each of these cycles I learn just a little more of what it means to sustain that pursuit and to sustain my soul-- a process that seems to require that I develop both boundaries and faith in order to walk out the priorities that I say that I have-- to remain committed to the cultivation of a life with God as the only life worth living-- to remain committed to that vocation no matter what other circumstances in life assail me.

God's Beauty

The beauty of God is seen in the beauty of life.  And the beauty of life is a reflection of the holiness/beauty of God.  I am not sure we have a word that can describe the essential "awesomeness" of God.  We see it all around us, yet it is a mere shadow.  We use words like "breath-taking," and "stupendous," and "wonderful," and "majestic," but can any words describe the Creator from whom all that we can imagine as "glorious" derives from.

I am reminded again today that the opportunity of the day is to experience God's reality within the midst of every moment that I am living.

From Thomas Merton

"What we need is the gift of God which makes us able to find in ourselves not just ourselves, but Him; and then our nothingness becomes His all.  This is not possible without the liberation effected by communication and humility.  It requires not talent, not mere insight, but sorrow, pouring itself out in love and trust."

More on a Life of Prayer

A life of prayer is more than just set times to converse, reflect, or meditate in God's presence.  It is also a way of life.  It is a way of being alive.  It is about opening one's spirit to God's presence that is in every thing, every moment, and every activity.  It is being alive to life itself recognizing that God is fully present in that life and in that moment.  It is about perceiving God in the everyday and the ordinary.  It is about recognizing God's glory that is present in every moment.  It is about recognizing God's absence in the moments filled with loss and brokennes, yet also recognizing God's presence in the midst of that brokenness.

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Life of Prayer

I have been reflecting on the reality that prayer, and the life of prayer, is where life, fully alive, is lived.

Everything else, by comparison, is living superficially.

It is in prayer and contemplation that I am in touch with my own deepest places and with as much reality of God as I can, at any one moment, contain.  It is a relationship that is at the basis of all reality.  It is relating to God as friend, lover, father, mother, comforter, protector, and sovereign all at the same time.  Nothing else can touch the dynamic of my soul infused with God's reality.

Yet, I am continually pulled away by the triviliaties of life.  My excitement level rises as I pursue goals, complete projects, and perform well in situations that are meaningful to me.  Certainly, these are life experiences that are meant to be enjoyable.  But I find myself trying to live off of these external experiences and they can not deliver anything more than a moment of satisfaction.  When I look to these things for a deep sense of life, I am condemned to a roller coaster existence riding the ups and downs of the successes (and failures) of life.  In the end, they prove to be fickle and superficial if I look to them for any measure of deep fulfillment.

For a deep sense of life, I return to the one thing... the one pursuit... to love God through prayer every moment.

Receiving Love

Receiving love is the most significant grace that God gives His people.  I find it is not necessarily something that I can work up myself.  I can know that I am loved, that I am God's beloved, that His love towards me has been proven.  Yet the grace is that His love penetrates the defenses of my heart and the lies that play in my subconscious mind bringing a deep transformation of identity.

Contemplation and worship make room for the grace of love received to penetrate.  We wait on Him.  We make space for Him.  We open our spirits and hearts to the best of our abilities.  Yet we are dependent on Him for the grace to touch us deeply.  By faith, we press on, but our hearts hunger for the deeper things of God speaking to the deeper places of our soul.

The Love Story of Rebekkah

Isaac and Rebekkah provide one of the great love stories that reflect the preparation and readiness of the bride for her bridegroom.  As we prepare ourselves for union with our lover, we see that Rebekkah had the virtues that prepare one's soul for this wedding.  Her servant heart, her readiness to follow immediately, her openness to God's leading all point to the virtues we seek so that our soul is ready for its lover.

Isaac: a Type of Christ

I have been enjoying looking at the promise of Issaac, in Abraham's life, as a type of Christ: a promise that Christ will be fully formed in our life by faith.

Abraham, as the father of our faith, exhibited such dynamic trust that God would fulfill His miraculous promise: a son would be born.  For us, the promise is just as miraculous, the life of the Son, Jesus, will be fully formed in us as we walk the life of faith, trust, and service.

More to follow...