Recovered In Christ

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to  this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:1-2

When I first started highschool I was terrified, from a combination of many things. Being out of my comfort zone, having to figure out where all my classes were, where was I going to sit, who was I going to have lunch with? Would my junior high friendships survive this? All the new smells, sounds and information rushing at me. Definitely a major shock, especially to an emotionally damaged kid like I was! Out of all the pressing issues around me, finding my assigned locker and learning how to operate my combo lock was at the top of the list. In the winding hallways and corners of my huge school – finding and opening my locker was a huge deal! It was a pathetic attempt to stave off the spiraling horror of my life – perhaps an oasis in the desert or maybe nothing more than a mirage. If I could just get myself to that locker and get it open – I could avoid thinking about and dealing with all the questions I was hopelessly lost about. How do I explain my crazy abusive parents to my friends? How could I make myself beautiful and hope that the boys, who’s attention I desperately wanted would not see the ugliness my mother told me was there. How could I focus on the conversation about weekend plans while avoiding thinking about my mother’s suicidal rants? How do I pretend to be normal?

If you’re looking for a story of how I overcame the hellish depravity of my family life, or the narcissistic pressure of self-centered fear..and soared to great heights of confidence and some great spiritual lessons, you’re out of luck! This highschool story does not end in any glory – it was brutal, and it stayed that way – for a very long time!!! I eventually dropped out and stopped playing the double life of being ‘normal’ – I ended my own personal torment of that by abandoning my life to crime, vanity and drugs!! That really cured my highschool jitters and obliterated my self-consciousness!!

Many years later…after my KING in shining armor (God) rescued me and delivered me – and walked through many fires with me – I happened to go back to school – I started University  – in a place with even more winding hallways…and more uncertainty, I was close to a decade older than the students in my class! Was I nervous? Yes. Was I obsessed with finding all my classes and what the boys thought of me? Kind of! LOL!

Was I in torment? No. Was I LOST? No. Why? You see – I had even worse odds against me, I was a single mother out of my element in this school. I had been out of the ‘habit’ of learning for more than 10 years. It was 10 times bigger than my last school! I knew even less than I did in highschool and yet had way more expected of me. Why was I not tormented? Why did I have the answers and solutions to things that had baffled me before? Why did I have so much confidence in the face of so much uncertainty?

Because I was not following the world anymore – even though I was fully immersed in it! I was not following what was expected of me, I was not following my family or my feelings. I was following God. I was no longer conformed to the world – I was transformed by the renewal of my mind and was THEREFORE able to discern the Will of God.

This is the point I am trying to make, that small example of being back in school is a microcosm of being in the world but not of it. I am surrounded by so many Christians who can’t seem to choose a pair of socks without the crippling doubt plaguing them of “I’m not sure this is God’s Will for me” – they are constantly unsure of what move to make – they can’t seem to make any spontaneous decisions and somehow that’s been spiritualized into them believeing they are deferring to seek God’s Will rather than their own in that situation. But this is far from the truth. In truth – they are still approaching the world with a mind that is still conformed to it – attempting not to be!!! Rather than a mind renewed by being a living sacrifice to God which comes as a response to the mercies of God! A renewed mind that would have the power to test and discern what is the good, acceptable, perfect will of God.

They are like a highschool graduate who has never found their locker in the 4 years they were in highschool! But they can’t seem to see how ridiculous it sounds to keep asking “Where is my locker?” umm..after 4 years of being in that highschool and not finding your locker – I’d start asking something more along the lines of “What’s wrong with me?” – If you’re a real Born again Christian and yet you still keep asking “Is this God’s Will for me” I’d start asking “What’s wrong with me?”!!

Instead of trying to figure out God’s Will for you in each and every step of your life, wrestling with the silliest of questions like whether or not to go to a specific place, or worse, cut yourself off from the world, thinking that’s the only “safe” path to holiness- ask instead “Am I conforming to this world – keeping a carnal mind trying to discern the spiritual?” If so – you’d be better off to start praying the prayer that Jesus Himself prayed for us “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17)

Jesus’ prayer on our behalf:

“I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.”

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” – Jesus