Coming face to face with the truth is painful. For when confronted with the truth of ones own situation there is no real place to hide.
How the hell did I end up here?
How could I have been so stupid to think that I could ever succeed my way to the top?
This week has been the most sobering, humbling and all together most painful exposure of my short comings to date. I gotta say this really is horrible!
Wretched man that I am, Who can set me free from this body of death?
Every other blog I have sat down to write has always been written with the underlying intention to make a vain display of my abilities. I love to use long and complicated words and baffle people with cleverly strung together semantics and rhetoric. However, I now find myself in uncharted territory. For all the intelligence, all the talent, all the ability don't mount up to a hill of beans when we're faced with the truth. So to coin the Roman:
'what is the truth'?
The truth is I'm weak, and so in need of a savior it aint even funny! I'm lonely, in pain and stricken with a pride issue so big you can see snow on the peak. I suffer from the sycophantic need to try and impress my peers. I don't have the ability to handle rejection. I hate myself, choosing as I do to create situations where the inevitable result will be rejection, which in turn reaffirms my own feelings of self loathing fulfilling the prophecy lol. I'm plain messed up!
I'm the biggest charlatan on the face of the planet. I preach grace, the acceptance of God, the saving life of Christ, and yet I live in a state of perpetual bondage. I'm a total fraud! Jesus I'm Your's save me!
I'm tired! I'm tired of this performance! I've got nothing left to give, I'm sick and tired of trying to impress people, thinking in some way that public affirmation will make up for the private hell I'm living in. I'm tired of limping around.
I know in Whom I have believed.
Jesus.....my Life, my Love, my Everything please help me! I need You , I cant do this anymore . I 'm so sorry! I'm not making a declaration to live better for you, to live in a more acceptable way. I'm asking you to do what I cannot. I'm finished. There is no way my brains or my abilities are gonna take me through this! The pain of trying has become too great, I cannot continue, if You don't do this no one will. I'm so broken, so desperate, so altogether alone besides you.
Father thank you. Thank you that You so loved the world that You sent Your only Son.
Who can set me free from this body of death? Praise be to Jesus Christ our Lord...
agape <><
I must be the last person in the country to have caught onto the whole "heroes" phenomenon, but finally I can say now that I'm hooked. There is without doubt some of the most profound truths to be found within the dialogue of "heroes", a program which so beautifully has captured what can only be described as a physical and spiritual renaissance. The awakening of the protagonists as to their abilities and the knowledge of how to use them effectively and responsibly must strike a very strong chord within us as a grace community. The most formative time in the process of the three phases seems to be upon us , the 'teenage phase' as Mr Walsh would define it. It's the time we begin to move in the power of the indwelling Christ, experimenting as to the limitations of the power within us, much in the same the "heroes" are beginning to understand the function and purpose of their individual powers. The parallels that can be drawn between our own lives and the events unfolding on the screen in front of are is amazing.
Listening to the conversations of people as they discuss which character they feel they identify with is interesting, as it is undeniable that we all see ourselves in relation to one of the "heroes". It was quite amusing the first time I discussed my own particular feelings of identification. I was sitting in a dark room watching "heroes" with a very good friend when I turned to him and said:
" Yeah you know I think it's Jessica I identify most strongly with ".
My friend looked at me with a confused look and started to chuckle. You gotta appreciate the scene, Jessica had just hacked 3 people to death in a murderous frenzy. Not the thing you wanna think is potentially possible of the person sitting to your left in a pitch black house on a quiet Sunday evening. I'm not sure what my friend was thinking to be honest with you , lol.
It has been truly an amazing couple of days at the “I am my beloveds” conference! The level and sophistication of the teaching was simplistically complex, if that makes any real or valuable sense! To see Paul and Steve truly ministering in the power of the Spirit was a real thrill.
I wish to share a personal revelation that the Lord has highlighted to me only this afternoon. Anyone who knows me, or has even observed me at any grace east event could testify as to the fact that I am often to be found amidst times of fellowship lost deep in thought. With a far away look of perplexity plastered across my face, I sit giving the impression of being caught up in some revelation or considering some higher point of doctrine. It is often my want to engage Paul or Dean in some higher point of exchanged life theology in order to reinforce this image of being in some kind of higher operation, perhaps systematically mapping the landscape of this grace continent upon which we now find ourselves, but the truth is radically far removed from this picture of intellectual pursuit! The truth is that I am scared to death of rejection. I find it interesting that in one the effect of this fear is to drive them towards a frenzy of activity, and yet in another it leads them towards the perfection of the art of invisibility. My logic goes along the following lines:
If I do not interact at any level, if I do not seek acceptance, I cannot experience rejection.
This may seem somewhat ridiculous in the light of the level of understanding of the grace message that I am in command of, but the Lord has shown me this through the practical outworking of His resident spirit. I have become so set in my methods of self protection that I have simply learned to live with the notion that my life is supposed to be lonely. The Lord has shown me the truth and the truth has set me free. I realised today when I was sitting alone at the conference how much I hated these times of loneliness, how retarded my fellowshipping skills have become. When I was a drug addict I was a veritable fireball, full of confidence and daring. Since coming back to some semblance of reality I have been locked up by fear, never wanting to speak or acknowledge my social disability. I thought that somehow I had become repulsive to those around me, having no confidence in th Spirit of Christ inside me. I really felt that with this revelation came an enormous healing deep inside me.
I now feel I don’t just know the fact that God’s acceptance of me means that I can suffer the rejection of man, I now feel I am liberated by it. I don’t understand I am a new creation; I stand as a new creation. It is so amazing to experience the practical nature of grace, for too long the intellectual theory has governed my life.
I thank God for the true salvation of grace, I thank Him that He has set me free to experience life, and life in super abundance.
Agape <><
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paul franklin
Hc07
