Spiritual Unrest

The last couple of weeks for me have been turbulent. I always forget that when you make an attempt to get more intimate with God, you can never remain the same. It is virtually impossible. Flesh can't see God and live. God doesn't kill you all at once because it could send you into cardiac arrest, but what He does do is strip back the layers one by one and sometimes many layers at once--so just when you think you're in the clear as far as your mess, God unlocks another trap door that has more of your junk tucked away.

It is not easy to have God reveal our faults, let alone someone else. God really knows how to jack you up and get all in your business (yes that is technical spiritual lingo LOL). Growing up is painful, annoying, awkward and unsettling. And while it is all those things, I actually like being uncomfortable in my walk with God--because discomfort indicates growth. God is constantly shaping me to look more and more like Him. He is truly the potter and I am the clay. Could you imagine if real clay could speak when it was being molded and shaped into a pot? It would probably squeal horribly and repeatedly resent its maker, but later marvel at the complete work. I want to see the complete work at the end of my life. I want my Maker to be pleased with His creation. I want my Maker's blueprints of my life to be manifested.


Spiritual Rebellion
One of my biggest spiritual problems is submission. I am rebellious, stubborn, pigheaded, argumentative, uncooperative, unyielding, and a reign of terror when it comes to getting my way. While I will do what people ask of me I rebel, resent, and despise in my heart--this is not submission. Bishop illustrated it clearly one time: If you tell a child a hundred times to sit down and on the last time he finally obeys, yet is still standing in his heart--he is not submitting, he is simply obeying with his actions and not with his being. It is the same as not obeying at all because there is still the sense of rebellion and stubbornness present. I am that child who has remained standing in my heart.

In order to submit, you must have a willingness to obey even if you don't agree with or like something. Submission with God is allowing His will to be done in my life. At Palmer Theological Seminary's ministries conference I attended in early March, one of the prayers we prayed was: God, your will of my life. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else. And the director of admissions warned us to only pray that prayer if we meant it. I did pray it but I wasn't expecting God to create havoc in my life.


Submission = Holiness
I am currently reading Mother Teresa's book No Greater Love. I came across the chapter on being holy and was stunned by her statement: "Submission, for a person who loves, is more than a duty; it is the secret of holiness." So before I can even count myself as holy I have to submit and yet before I can do that I have to love. If my desire is to be holy I have to will it. And because that desire is truly of God and not of my own natural inclination then I have to recognize that "holiness consists of carrying out God's will with joy." In order to do God's will I must submit. Mother Teresa goes on to say:

"The words 'I want to be holy' mean: I will divest myself of everything that is not of God; I will divest myself and empty my heart of material things. I will renounce my own will, my inclinations, my whims, my fickleness; and I will become a generous slave to God's will...it all depends on the words: 'I want' or "I do not want.' I have to pour all of my energy into the words 'I want'."

Again, it is all about submission--it is not about my will but His.

While I have taking the first step in submitting by going to seminary and not continuing to run away from God's call, I have a lot to work on in terms of receiving God's entire will for my life. God doesn't only require submission in one event or one aspect of our lives, He requires it in every aspect, including our submission to leaders, spouses, bosses, and in serving others. Submission also includes returning good when people treat us with evil. It is loving enemies. It is refusing revenge. Submission is rooted in love.


Submission = Uncertainty
I think what I dislike the most about submission is the huge element of uncertainty. True submission means that you are relinquishing all of your control. It means that you are putting God (and anyone else) in the pilot seat. It means that you are going to trust God's judgment (and in the instance of people, you are to trust the God in them). I admit that I am a control freak and an avid planner because I like to be aware of what is going on. While I enjoy elements of surprise, I don't want my entire life to be a surprise.

In the movie Fireproof the little girl in the beginning asked her mother "Who am I going to marry?" And her mother answered "It's a surprise." And while I thought it was extra cute, I didn't really think anything more of it. But what I realize is that while I wouldn't say God wants our entire lives to be a "surprise" He does expect that we trust that He will guide us, that He will be our lamp, that He will illuminate our path even when we cannot see ahead.

God doesn't always leave us "in the dark" about things, but there are definitely times in our lives where God doesn't give us clear cut directions because He is wanting us to simply wait on Him for the answers in His timing, or because He wants us to trust Him when there is so clear plan laid out, or for whatever other reason He chooses. What I learned from the ministries conference is that uncertainty is okay. We are are conditioned our entire lives to have all the answers and when we don't have the answers we are told to make up something. We are rarely told to wait on and trust in God. And it can be years before He gives us the answers or in some cases He has already given us the answers but we haven't submitted ourselves to His response or simply thought our way of doing things was better.

And sometimes He delays our answers because we aren't ready to submit--for example I moved to Philly two years ago and wanted to know why God sent me here. He sent me to Philly for a number of reasons. However He didn't reveal that I was supposed to go to seminary until a month ago--after all just last year around this time I was journaling about how I refused to be in ministry and dealing with people's problems. I was not ready to submit a year ago to that calling.

It has taken more than two years of conditioning, more than four years after college and trying to make my own way in this world to realize that my way stinks and always has and that I want something far greater than I can ever achieve or plan for myself. I have learned that God has had plans for my life even before the world was created--God has been in the planning business an eternity before I even came into existence, why not trust that He has so much more for me? Why not submit to His will? My way has failed time and time again?


Submission = Struggle
It is not easy, even when we know that we have failed, there is a self-centered and fleshly part of us that tries to convince ourselves that we can make it without God and that if you try long enough and hard enough life will eventually work out on your behalf. We have to counteract every single year we have served ourselves in order to be able to serve God. I have served myself for 25 years--it just may take at least 25 to be able to serve God without my agenda attached (though I hope not! I do realize though that it just may be a life long process).

It is also a constant struggle until our fleshly inclinations completely die, until our know-it-all syndrome is annihilated. We think we know what is best for us--but what we think is our "best interest" changes with the blowing of the wind. God showed me a perfect example of this after I went to China. I told God that I didn't have a desire to go to China, but Japan and I didn't understand why He was sending me to China instead. Well after the trip, which ended up being one of the best experiences of my life thus far, He recalled a conversation I had with an international student while I was still at college. The student was from China and we talked a lot about the culture there and she even shared music with me. I was enamoured and desired to teach English there--God had to replay the tape for me to realize that it was in fact what I wanted--I had completely forgotten, and even if it had not been my actual desire to visit, I was still intrigued with the culture. So God calling me to serve there was not random, nor was it an anomaly--it was actually something I desired. And as a result I discovered my love and skill for teaching which caused me to pursue my current job that eventually led me to Philadelphia.

But even in the things we don't want to do, don't desire, or don't feel like doing, those things are always for our benefit and our growth. God just doesn't call us to places and people for the sake of doing so. He always has a purpose, even when we don't see it and may in fact never see it until we stand before Him and He shows us the bigger picture. He does not ask us to submit with the knowledge of why we are doing so, but just submitting to be obedient, to carry out His will, and to serve. There is no certainty in submission except knowing that you are pursuing complete fulfillment in what God has for your life. You may not know how you are serving God or His people in your submission but that point is that you are serving Him, you are being obedient, and that you are manifesting the maker's blueprints in the Earthly realm with the promise of your whole life having a purpose in God's overall plan.

"...Lord, make me a channel of thy peace, that where there is hatred, I may bring love; that where there is wrong, I may bring the Spirit of forgiveness; that where is discord I may bring Harmony; that where there is error, I may bring Truth; that where there is doubt, I may bring Faith; that where there is despair, I may bring Hope; that where there are shadows, I may bring Light; that where there is sadness, I may bring Joy.

"Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort, than be comforted, to understand, than to be understood, to love, than to be loved, for it is by forgetting self that one finds, it is by forgiving that one is forgiven, it is by dying that one awakens to eternal life."

-Daily Prayer of the Co-workers of Mother Teresa. Adapted from the Prayer of Saint Francis. Quoted from No Greater Love by Mother Teresa.




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