My Labyrinth

A MESSY REFLECTION

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face;
And the things of the earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.

I've come to a point where I find it unbelievably hard to describe my life in the present.

There are some interesting specifics that have happened these few weeks, but I'm weary of recalling them right now. I'm scared they will lead me away from an accurate expression of my actual condition.

I'm going to go freestyle for a while now, just to try to get a sense of what's in my own head. Because truly, I really cannot find out what is actually in my heart. My own heart feels like a labyrinth to myself. I navigate around, sometimes thinking I've found the core issue, but then later finding out that I'm wrong.

Let me come up with a few words that I now think more or less describe my current sentiments. Awkward. Stuck. Dispassionate. Hopeful. Confounded. Waiting. Lonely. Loveless. Afraid. Frustrated. Empty. Safe. Protected. Trapped. Cold. Anguished. Composed. Conflicting. Imploding. Exploding. Envious. Content. Guilty. Relying. Trusting. Striving. Lazing. Fine.

I'm just fine, I guess. But it's a different kind of fine than what I used to know. It's a concoction of so many things, good and bad. And the extremes are powerful. The bad is horrible, and the good is amazing.

Self-pity is a choice. It's a choice I've been making for eighteen years. It is the drug I use as a painkiller for my self-caused inability to reach out to people. Oh, poor me, whom nobody truly understands. Rubbish. The only thing about me worth pitying is that I'm a sinful wretch and a dishonest brat.

I realize that this inability in me is not truly noticed by others, even those I consider closest to me. Sure, they're probably aware of some social obstacle I have, but they do not see its severity, and my utter despair and helplessness before it.

The mystery of being transparent is opaque to me. Like I said, there are too many layers I find in myself. I deceive even myself regarding what I truly desire. And I deceive others, trying to look happy or disapproving or concerned or indifferent based on what I want to manipulate them into thinking or feeling.

And yet, is it that simple? I would very much like to tell everyone, "I don't care about people!" But I don't expect them to believe me. And to seriously think about it, I'm not sure I can absolutely pronounce that judgment upon myself either.

Oh, the mystery of living peacefully in the world yet not being of the world. I cannot solve this Rubik's Cube. It is so hard, it is so extremely difficult. I am such a giant hypocrite, a two-face, a three-face, a prismatic array of colorful illusions and lies. My desperation to cover up my own failures and weaknesses is breathlessly anxious, so cunning such that I even try to defend my own glory by admitting weaknesses when I find necessary. And I've gone so deep, that I cannot, or would not, show my true self. Indeed, truly, I confess, I don't even know who I truly am anymore.

I know that only God can tell me, and let me know my true value and the true extent of my vices. I've been praying for Him to reveal my sins to me, but so far I find that His process of doing so is still ongoing. Because my self-righteousness and pride is immense, it will take a heavy blow to wake me from my folly.

Lord, I say this in anguish and with great terror of Your positive answer to this prayer; shame me, O God, for I am proud and conceited, and am so foolishly confident in my own abilities. Bring me to shame! Break my desire for reputation and the carnal approval of men. It will hurt, and I will be faced with my worst nightmare, which is the exposure of my embarrassing self for the world to mock. And I will try to withdraw from that and still attempt to defend my own glory, but expose me, O Lord! Show me no pity in Your discipline, which is but temporary, for in doing so You will truly show me pity, and I will find you. Lord, I give my all to You; if You will not take me and mold me, I am doomed.

Oh, how confused I will be! How confounded I will be by God's providence in allowing me to be shamed. But all my life, the Lord has been teaching me one great truth, that if there is one thing in life that a person must not forsake, it is Him! There is no one of greater worth. Do I truly believe that? I wish I believed it more. And with everything my frail self can muster, I will pursue the gaining of this faith. The destruction of my fleshly desires is the glory of God, to proclaim Him worthy, because He is worthy in Himself.

Lord, guide me.

This has been a severely disorganized post.

Concerning Love; Concerning Imagination

What follows are my thoughts on two topics. Note the lack of Scripture references, thus anyone who reads it is advised to discernment. I confess, however, that it was my intention to put the issues as Biblically as possible, according to my extremely limited knowledge of the Bible's system of truth.


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MEDITATIONS ON LOVE AND FORGIVENESS

These are thoughts I had particularly after reading the Bible books of Exodus, Leviticus, Mark, and Luke, R.C. Sproul's God's Love, and Jonathan Edwards's A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, and after listening to Paul Washer's sermon excerpt titled by the video uploader as "Your Weakness Should Drive You to Christ".

An excellent test for examining how much we hold onto God's promises of justification in Christ is how much we love people, especially our enemies.

By "love", I do not primarily mean a warm, fond feeling that we have because we like some people for who they are. In the Bible, love is used as a verb so many times more than it is used as a noun.

I mean love as a visible graciousness to everyone regardless of what we felt about them, knowing the profound fact that we were also enemies in God's eyes when He saved us in Christ.

Thus, if we find our hearts unwilling to give up on all of our own dignities and benefits for the sake of others, it means we have yet to hold on to God's forgiveness even more, because evidently there is some disbelief that God has forgiven us.
 
The problem that keeps us from understanding forgiveness is twofold:
1) We do not understand the Law. (antinomianism)
In other words, we do not truly know and feel our sins to be heinous toward God, because we do not really believe that God's standard is that high. Thus, we don't deeply understand the need for forgiveness and don't run to Christ.
2) We do not understand grace. (legalism)
We don't believe that God is merciful enough to forgive sins that are that great. This is because we think that God is like us, sinfully vengeful. We express this ignorance in two ways: we try to earn God's forgiveness, or we find ways to deny and hide that our sins are so great.

This realization has only become so clear to me recently. It is at once a high standard and a door of mercy. It is a high standard because it's hard to love selflessly. But it is a door of mercy because now I know I don't understand God's justification deeply enough, and I can pursue it.
 
The remedy to the problem, obviously, is to learn of God's Law and His grace. The ways are various, but Scripture is exceptionally effective in teaching us both. And, perceiving our lack of love should constantly drive us to Christ, praying to the Father; otherwise, we may become self-satisfied with our disproportionate works that appear godly and forget this wonderful thing of God, which is salvation.


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MEDITATIONS ON IMAGINATION

This was a seriously bothersome issue in my life, and I wanted it fixed. I misuse my imagination so badly I needed to sit down and write about how to deal with it.

The definition, for the purpose of this exercise, will be "the mental activity in which a person visualizes scenarios and material things that are not empirically perceived in that moment."

God's purpose:
- Closely related to the human quality of creativity, imagination seems to belong to the conception stage of the creative process. Thus, imagination glorifies God as a part of human creativity.
- Imagination is a response to the hidden mysteries of God; imagination is possible because there are things that are not revealed to us. Imagination expresses our wonder and desires, probing into the possibilities of what God has in store, based on what we already know. If we know everything there is to know about everything (which God does), imagination would be impossible, because there would be no reasoning process. God gladly uses our imagination for worship (types, foreshadows, parables, images).

Problems after the Fall:
- Plotting sin.
- Twisted and blasphemous visualizations of God.
- Addiction to indulging in fantasies, which in essence expresses dissatisfaction with the reality God gives to us.

While still in this fallen world, it is good to:
- Envision, to the utmost of our Biblical knowledge, the life and glory of heaven.
- Abstain from any imaginings that do not point to the Celestial City, and that settle comfortably in itself or in this temporal age.