"Practically Divine" - Week 5

"Come to find out,” is not a new phrase to me. I know it was used by many during my years of growing up. I’ve used it frequently as an adult. What about you? Do you have a history with this phrase?

After reading this chapter, I realized I’d never thought enough about what the phrase means. “Come to find out,” assumes a change has been made. Becca covered so many different topics of change in her writing. My chapter is all marked up. I wonder how in the world I’m going to organize only four days of study surrounding it all. We’re going to try, though, and I bet God is going to come through with our clarity and vision.

I believe I enjoyed this chapter so much, because it gave a voice to my own experience over the past 10 years. My story is nothing like Becca’s. Yet, some of the outcomes have been the same. I will begin today by quoting a section of chapter 4 that was very helpful for me. It also gave me a little bit of pause when I read it the first time, so I sat with it a bit. On page 86, Becca wrote,

“This idea of stepping onto new ground on a whim or with new thoughts is especially important in cultivating our faith. If the story of faith that you grew up with doesn’t work for you anymore, if the God you have proclaimed has grown too small for all the wisdom you have gleaned from the crumbs you have collected, you can change. My mom often would say, “You are free to believe what you want.” In some ways, she probably meant that, since I disagreed with her, even though I was dead wrong, I was free to think that way and see where it got me. But she was so right. We are free to believe what we want. That is a God-given right that is practical and divine. We are free to come to find out.”

Amazing! You know what gave me pause, right? God being too small for my own, personal wisdom? Could anything be further from the truth?

Then, Holy Spirit took me on a journey back. He reminded me of the first months after my entire life was shaken to the core. I remembered exactly what it felt like during that first year of rebuilding. Suddenly, the neat little boxes and the safe, Christian world I’d created to keep myself and others I cared about safe wasn’t enough to keep me upright and breathing. In reality, I cried out to God in complete honesty and said, “There has to be more to You than I’ve been believing! If I’m going to survive this, You must be more to me than the rules and guidelines I’ve been following.”

My own life experiences had sent me into a deeper faith, and the God I’d been serving had grown to small. Come to find out, though, God wasn’t too small at all. I just believed in smaller, more manageable versions of Him. It took a crisis, a new experience, a deeper desperation to change. But, change is what saved my life and set me on a more vibrant and real love relationship with Him.

THIS is the journey, ladies! Why on earth have we believed the lie that what we learn about God in the earliest, most immature seasons of our Christianity is the absolute Truth and will not change throughout our days? We don’t believe that about anything else! When I learned how to add numbers in first grade, I wasn’t done with addition. I hadn’t exhausted all there was to know about putting numbers together. When I learned about government and how it works in elementary school, I didn’t finalize my understanding. No! As I’ve studied more history and experienced more of life and the effects of government and politics, my knowledge base has grown. I have changed my mind on a few things. Our GIANT God who we will never completely understand this side of heaven cannot be any different. As we grow and mature as a Christian, experience different things, and hear testimony from others who know God in different ways because the experiences of their lives have required it, we get to change our mind.

Over the past two years, my life has insisted that I return to regular counseling. I don’t know why I struggle with so many things or why I keep needing help to muddle through thoughts and the inner workings of my brain, but I do. My godly, Christian counselor has been instrumental in teaching me to sit with my thoughts. She encourages me to take my thoughts and emotions to Jesus and ask Him what they mean. Then, I get to wait to see how those thoughts we meant to lead me closer to my Savior.

So, on page 82 and 83, when Becca talked about studying our thoughts, being alert to them, and waiting, I was shouting, “amen.” We are far too quick to shut down our thought life! We’ve misinterpreted key scriptures believing we must “should” ourselves into mature Christianity. I believe that’s proof that we’ve created boxes much too small for our God. He’s VERY secure! He knows who He is, and He is not afraid that something or someone may show up bigger than He is. I have to believe that we can go to Him with our doubts and questions, ask Him to guard our hearts and minds while we struggle with Him, and completely trust that He will care for us and teach us in those moments. I am convinced that He is not shaken at all by our wavering and questioning.

In 2 Corinthians 10:5, Paul said, …we take captive every though and make it obedient to Christ.

What a powerful verse! I’ve studied it a lot of years. I used to believe that it meant I take every negative thought, lay a Bible verse over it, and then force/will myself to believe the Truth over my negative or anxious thought. Well, I wasn’t completely wrong. I do think it is in our best interest and even our birthright as daughters of God to believe His Truth over all. However, we live here on this fallen earth in bodies that are flesh and weak, so we can’t “should” through our circumstances. That won’t bring lasting change. At least it didn’t for me.

No. Taking our thoughts captive and making them obedient to Christ must mean sitting with Jesus AND our thoughts. He knows them, and He knows how to heal them. He can only fully heal when we are ready to fully deal with them. In my experience, Jesus has repeatedly covered me in His care and compassion. He’s led me to grieve whatever has caused the negative thought patterns. Then, He’s allowed me to see that the fallen ways of this world grieve Him too. I am not wrong to experience confusion over the darkness and pain of this world. But, the more I allow Him to love me in it, the faster those thoughts lose their power. They are insignificant compared to the love Christ.

“Come to find out,” Jesus can handle all of my questions! God is bigger than ANY box I may try to put Him in, and the negative circumstances that taught me these things are gifts and not curses.

Today, will you sit with Jesus and something in your mind that you’ve been trying to simply cover with Christian thought or Scripture? Will you ask Him if He wants to teach you something through it? Is it possible that He is changing the way you look at this life from the inside out?

I find this part of the Christian walk fascinating and inviting. It’s an adventure and not a destination we will reach here! Our destination is Heaven where all our blindness will be made sight. Until then, let’s keep learning, growing, and changing.

God, this is a lot! We can never outgrow You. But, I wonder if we outgrow our understanding of You. And, I wonder if religion has made us afraid of that out of fear for what could happen if…. Today, we confess that we do not have to fear. Your perfect love casts out fear, so we are free to change and develop in our beliefs. When we get to Heaven, I am certain there will be a list of things we understood incorrectly. When our faith is made sight, those things won’t trip us up anymore. In the meantime, give us the courage to push beyond any manmade limitation to finding more and more of You. We trust You with our minds and with our hearts! Amen.