It's All About Me

Every day a new "reason" pops up to NOT do this public sharing of 10 years of my prayer journal thing anymore.  Today, the voice sent to whisper in my ear says, "You're making it all about you, when it should be about God.  You're too self-preoccupied."  I read Brennan Manning say "Preoccupation with self is always a a major component of unhealthy guilt and recrimination."  Got it.  Very true. As he also said, "conversion by concussion" is not productive, and I have attained quite a few lumps on the head over the last few years.  I have been gathering a quilt pile that is monstrously tall with these years of accumulation.  Why not just go embrace my gardening blog again--not so personal.
Then again, maybe the reason I don't want to share here is because I'm realizing I spent an awful lot of my time sounding like St. Teresa of Avila when she said, "Lord, if this is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few!"  But mostly, I remember this was a commissioning...and if David wasn't too good to get self-preoccupied when he wrote all those Psalms of his who am I to think I should be "above such things."

I guess I'll just have good chuckle and get on with things.
For the post-title's inspiration and to share the chuckle, see this:
http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=KKWK67NX


Between that December camp-out on spiritual skid row and the March epiphany came 3 months of looking deeply at the concept of suffering.  This is a synopsis of those studies.


Studies on Suffering--ranging from Dec. 2003 through March 2004

"You can't drink grapes!"  Oswald Chambers says this.  If you're to be used as sacramental wine, you must first be crushed.  How many of us "count the cost" as Jesus told us to when we consider venturing into ministry?  How might this crushing appear?  Moses started toward Egypt with God wanting to kill him and his wife throwing their son's foreskin at him, from the circumcision she had to perform--presumably because he wouldn't?--and calling him a husband of blood (What?  Who preaches from that story?) from there to leaving Egypt, trapped at the Red Sea saying, "Do not be afraid.  Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord,which He will accomplish for you today."  From Exodus 4 to Exodus 14, a lot of cost-counting happened!  A lot of wine was produced! 
What are my grapes of ministry?
What is the Solomon baby for me?  Is there some church program, some ministry that blesses me even as I nurture it?  Would I give it up rather than see it be cut in half?  How many church splits have I seen where a "mother" wouldn't allow another to have the baby even if it meant the baby dies? Wouldn't put the baby's life above issues of fairness? (Oh, but we have walked living representation of this facet of Your love intimately, You know, God!) It's a cost...

What is the perfume I'd pour on Your hair at any cost, O Lord?  Would I take what could bless so many and instead use it only to bless You?  Would I do this even if drew much criticism for its neglect of social justice, criticism so logical that I, too, could be convinced to doubt my motivation, that I could be guilted into believing this  leap of passionate devotion should draw condemnation?  Could I be  a blessing just to You and an offense to all others, if such were fitting? It's a cost...

What is the circle of companions to Job for me, O Lord?  What kicks the dog that is already down in my spiritual life?  Who or what, albeit well-meaning, repeats all the recriminations, the condemnations, and the bitterness that I struggle so valiantly to require get behind me?  Who or what takes my darkest, most enigmatic humiliation and tries to make me own it for the wrong reasons?  Who am I most expected to bless nonetheless?  It is a cost...


The last one, I think as I look back now, is the most recent of the costs counted...