NOTE: From my facebook notes dated originally at October 31, 2009.
"The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me to preach the good news to the poor. He has send me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of the vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion --to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of despair." -Isaiah 61:1-3a
I thought of this the other day as I was texting one of my friends about something going on his life. I think I thought I was preaching to him, but that didn't work out, I ended up preaching to me and crying on the way to school because of that realization.
A phoenix is somewhat of a legendary type bird. It essentially dies by exploding on itself and turning into a pile of ashes, but eveytime it does that it comes back more beautiful than before. In the passage above, we're called to give our pain and hurt, our ashes, to God and He will in return offer us beauty. Sounds like a great deal right? Well it is, the problem comes with us actually giving it up.
It is my current hypothesis that when people we love hurt us, and I have been hurt very badly by someone I love dearly so this is firsthand, it is hard to hold all that hurt. It keeps you up at night, it makes you sob tears you didn't know you had left and hold conversastions with people who aren't there, and write letters you will never send, but even with all this, it's harder to give it up, to forgive. I think that we don't want to give it up or forgive because even though it is painful all that hurt is the sometimes the only connection we have to that person. If we give it up, its out of our hands. We can't do anything to create beauty there, God has to, and that's flipping scary.
I honestly am not sure I have the strength in me to give up hurt, to give up my painful connection to someone I still love so much and always will, but if I don't give it up, there will never be beauty. I can't wait for humans to change, because we are stubborn hypocrytical beast, God has to do it. But it is so mind boggling-ly hard. Why can't God just give us the beauty and then we can give up the hurt? The answer is simple, faith. We are called to live by faith, to trust God, so why don't we?
I want to be free from hurt, but not my connection to that person. I want the beauty without the faith. But it won' t come so I have to work on the faith of giving up the hurt and taking the beauty afterward, because it takes faith to fly like the phoenix, more beautiful than ever before.
NOTE: As of right now, God has proved His awesomness and worked in ways I couldn't imagine to free me from myself and burden of trying to control, or rather giving me a realization of my inability to control.
"The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me to preach the good news to the poor. He has send me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of the vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion --to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of despair." -Isaiah 61:1-3a
I thought of this the other day as I was texting one of my friends about something going on his life. I think I thought I was preaching to him, but that didn't work out, I ended up preaching to me and crying on the way to school because of that realization.
A phoenix is somewhat of a legendary type bird. It essentially dies by exploding on itself and turning into a pile of ashes, but eveytime it does that it comes back more beautiful than before. In the passage above, we're called to give our pain and hurt, our ashes, to God and He will in return offer us beauty. Sounds like a great deal right? Well it is, the problem comes with us actually giving it up.
It is my current hypothesis that when people we love hurt us, and I have been hurt very badly by someone I love dearly so this is firsthand, it is hard to hold all that hurt. It keeps you up at night, it makes you sob tears you didn't know you had left and hold conversastions with people who aren't there, and write letters you will never send, but even with all this, it's harder to give it up, to forgive. I think that we don't want to give it up or forgive because even though it is painful all that hurt is the sometimes the only connection we have to that person. If we give it up, its out of our hands. We can't do anything to create beauty there, God has to, and that's flipping scary.
I honestly am not sure I have the strength in me to give up hurt, to give up my painful connection to someone I still love so much and always will, but if I don't give it up, there will never be beauty. I can't wait for humans to change, because we are stubborn hypocrytical beast, God has to do it. But it is so mind boggling-ly hard. Why can't God just give us the beauty and then we can give up the hurt? The answer is simple, faith. We are called to live by faith, to trust God, so why don't we?
I want to be free from hurt, but not my connection to that person. I want the beauty without the faith. But it won' t come so I have to work on the faith of giving up the hurt and taking the beauty afterward, because it takes faith to fly like the phoenix, more beautiful than ever before.
NOTE: As of right now, God has proved His awesomness and worked in ways I couldn't imagine to free me from myself and burden of trying to control, or rather giving me a realization of my inability to control.
