Thursday, January 6, 2011

THE JOURNEY THROUGH THE WALL

THE PATHWAY TO HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY -  THE JOURNEY THROUGH THE WALL – LETTING GO

The Christian life is a journey – A journey involves movement, action, stops and starts, detours, delays, and trips into the unknown.  Think for a moment about the day your journey started… your journey in following Christ.  What was that like?  What were the days and months like that followed?  Was your first year like a honeymoon or more like death or both?  What has your journey been like over the years?  Do you see any patterns.. any places that represent some of the terminology I just used in defining journey?   WOW.. I do…  (audio - some of my story)

Now.. let’s think about some of the people in the Bible..  what were their journeys like?  Abraham.  Moses.  David.  Do you see some differences?  Do you see similarities?  What about those you know right now – what do you see?

So, what’s this business about ‘a wall’ as this lesson is titled?  Pastor Scazzero explains the wall as being a part of the stages of faith.  Let’s go through them together as he writes in “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality”.
Each stage/season builds upon the other. Just as physically, we grow from babies to adults, faith grows/ or spirituality grows / builds in stages or seasons.

Stage 1: Life-Changing Awareness of God – the beginning of our journey when we become aware of His reality.  We realize our need of Him and His mercy and grace – we start our relationship.
Stage 2: Discipleship – characterized by learning about God and getting to know Him.  We are learning what it means to be a Christ follower – we get connected in a community and get rooted in the disciplines of the faith.
Stage 3: The Active Life – the ‘doing’ stage. We get involved and actively serve – work for God.  We take responsibility for using our talents and gifts.
Stage 4: The Wall and the Journey Inward – The wall compels us into an Inward Journey – hopefully.  What could this possibly mean for us?  I believe the author is trying to communicate to us that there comes a time where we get stuck it seems – there’s a wall.  It is in this place that the Lord is attempting to get our attention to go inward which is where we can grow and heal.  Do many stop here or try to skip over it?  What do you think?  I think so.

LifeCare is starting up a ministry called the Synergy Gathering - a place where everyone fits!  A place where we can take an Upward, Inward, and Outward Journey together as God leads...
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Which leads us to the next stage…in our lesson tonight.
Stage 5: The Journey Outward – Once we pass through the wall and go through our inward journey, we begin once again, to ‘do’ for God.  We may even return to doing the same things we were doing in service before or it could be something new .. regardless, what makes it different now is that our service comes from a heart of love.. our ‘doing’ comes from having a grounded center in God – We are at the place where we have discovered and rely on God’s deep perfect, unconditional love for us – all of which impacts our work for Him.
Stage 6: Transformed by Love – God, who is love continues to send books, people, circumstances, etc to keep us moving forward.  Philippians 1:6
being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
He is faithful and determined to complete His work in us – whether we like it or not!  J  His goal as written by John Wesley is that we be made perfect in love, that Christ’s love becomes our love both toward God and others.  We realize love truly is the beginning and the end.  By this stage, the perfect love of God has driven out all fear (1John 4:18).  And our spiritual lives are all about surrender and obedience to God’s perfect will.

Let me share a couple of real life examples of what this looks like – I recently read a book called “Crazy Love”.  I highly recommend it.  Here are a couple of real life examples of people living the ‘surrendered life’.. the life of full devotion to Christ.
 - Rich Mullins, Cornerstone Community Church, Rings (see "Crazy Love" or listen to audio)

Let’s go back to Stage 4 – what do you think prevents people from moving through this stage?  What do you think brings them to this stage?  I think for most of us, the wall appears through a crisis:   death, job loss, divorce, financial challenges, depression, a bad diagnosis, even a negative experience at a church or with fellow believers.  God can and will use a variety of life circumstances to get our attention to the need for the inward journey.  The choice is ours to make it of course .. but the opportunity is there in our painful situation.  I think it was Dr. James Dobson from Focus on the Family that coined the term having a ‘crisis of faith’.. He talked about this extensively as he discussed the book he wrote “When God Doesn’t Make Sense”.  During the tough times, we go through doubts.  We question, the church, God, or faith.  In fact, it seems like we have more questions than answers.  Sometimes our wall is a series of events that pile on one after the other.. and we feel we are breaking underneath the load of it.  Nothing seems to work anymore – our prayers, our duties, our efforts, etc..  all of which are really means to go over around or under the wall.  The wall represents that inward journey – that journey into the pain we have been discussing.  We must go through it in order to get to the other side.  Will we go through the wall only once?  I think not… as we consider Paul, Moses, Jeremiah, Elijah and many others in the word.. it seems that they went through several walls in their lifetime.  Why?  Well it seems that we all have some tendencies to get too comfortable.  We get complacent.  God will use those times as opportunities to take us even deeper inward until there is no more. So.. what does a healthy faith… a healthy response to the wall look like?

Well it definitely doesn’t do what most do.. ‘count it all joy’.. speak Romans 8:28 immediately.. it doesn’t pretend there are no emotions surrounding this event.. it doesn’t ‘act like’ it’s strong for the weaker in the faith but inside the voices are different..  It doesn’t smile and keep on singing…

A genuine faith…emotionally healthy faith, admits the following:
§        I am bewildered
§        I don’t know what God is doing right now
§        I am hurt
§        I am angry
§        Yes, this is a mystery.. maybe I’ll never get it or understand
§        I am very sad right now
§        God, why have you forsaken me?

When we are in this place it may feel as if God’s presence has evaporated as described in “Dark Night of the Soul”.  We feel the door of heaven has been shut. We feel the darkness, helplessness, weariness, a sense of failure and defeat, emptiness, dryness.  The Christian disciplines that have served us for so long, just don’t seem to work during this time.
What could God be up to during this time?  What is he purging and purifying in our lives?

St. John of the Cross wrote the following as well.. His perspective was that ‘the dark night is a loving fire’ to free us.  He lists 7 deadly spiritual imperfections that must be purified:

1.    Pride:  if this is an issue we will have a tendency to condemn others and become impatient with their faults.  If we have pride… we may be very selective on who we let teach us. (note – I believe we can learn something from ANYONE) – get your eyes off the messenger and on the message.
2.    Avarice: (def excessive or insatiable desire for wealth or gain : greediness, cupidity )  discontent with the spirituality God gives us. Never have enough learning, are always reading many books rather than growing in poverty of spirit and our interior life.  more and more knowledge with little or no action...
3.      Luxury:  take more pleasure in the spiritual blessings of God than God Himself.
4.    Wrath:  easily irritated, lacking sweetness, and have little patience to wait on God
5.    spiritual gluttony: resist the cross and choose pleasures like children do.  I would also say this would be considered using our liberties without taking others into consideration / causing them to stumble - we use our liberties in appropriately
6.    spiritual envy:  feel unhappy when others do well spiritually.  Always comparing and complaining
7.    Sloth: run from that which is hard. Aim is spiritual sweetness and good feelings only

We discussed in earlier classes about the importance of emotions / paying attention to our feelings in order to know God and ourselves.  “The dark night of the soul” protects us from worshiping them or giving them greater place than they should in our lives.  Our pursuit of God cannot be based upon feelings and experiences.  They are important but .. they cannot be the priority.

How long will this last? – when we go through the dark night or hit the wall and need to go through it?  It varies for everyone.. the length of time, the intensity, it is all different.  Will it only happen once?  Probably not.. sorry for the bad news..  God has predestined us to be conformed into the image of His son.  One way this happens is through the wall.. through the dark nights.  Keep in mind that we are not talking about the typical annoyances and trials of life.. this is not about traffic jams, annoying bosses, cars breaking down, barking dogs in the middle of the night, etc.  These are what James refers to in James 1:2-4

Trials and Temptations
 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Walls are David fleeing from a jealous king for 13 years in the desert.  Walls are Abraham waiting 25 years for the birth of his first child. Wall are Job losing his 10 children, health and possessions in a day!
Next class we will discuss what life is like on the other side.. we do have blessing to look forward to.








THE PATHWAY TO HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY - LESSON 11:   GROUP WORK
THE JOURNEY THROUGH THE WALL – LETTING GO
1.       As you consider the stages/ seasons of faith where would you currently say you are?  Share your journey that brought you to this point.
2.       Share your reaction to the real life stories shared from ‘Crazy Love’.
3.       What has been your ‘wall’(s) during your walk with the Lord?
4.       Of the 7 deadly imperfections that need to be purified in us as we grow in Christ, which are those you have seen change and those that God is currently purging from your life?
Pride:  Avarice: Luxury: Wrath:  spiritual gluttony: spiritual envy:  Sloth:

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