When Losing is Gaining part 2
As promised last week I am back to talk more about the practical ways I was able to lean up against the awkwardness of questioning God's voice in my life. Now if you're looking for a "how to hear and discern the voice of God in your life" this is not that blog...sorry not sorry!
Honestly, if you have someone in your life telling you how to hear God's voice, and what he's saying to you, my advice is to run like the wind away from that! It has been my experience that God speaks to different people differently; what may work for some doesn't work for others. Unfortunately, there is not a user manual when trying to hear God's voice in our lives.
I personally think this is intentional, especially for me in my own walk. If I had some sort of direct line, or rote combination to hear God's voice, where would the learning be? Where would the seeking be? And most importantly, where would the need for faith be? I love the authenticity of coming to God as we are. Like Christ we can, with confidence, approach God in prayer, even in our weakness. This is how it says it in Scripture:
With this scripture in mind, I began my quest, knowing that I was allowed to stumble along my way. Though, this thought of imperfection and uncertainty was against everything I had previously known to be true. I remember reading about Paul in Sunday school as a little girl. In the back of my Bible was a map charting his whole journey. In my mind, his whole walk was mapped out, every step right there. There was no questioning, no uncertainty, just that neat yellow line. And the title of that map was The Apostle Paul's Ministry. That silly little girl thought, "certainly if Paul got a map to follow so will I." Friends, I am 47 years old, and STILL haven't gotten my map!
Instead of a map, I have found wise counsel that I trust from people who are a little further down the road than me. If I were numbering points this would be my number one. I know this sounds a little contradictory to my previous advice but let me explain. Those with wise counsel will always lead by example and, instead of giving you answers, explore the questions with you. For me, I have been blessed to be surrounded by family and dear friends with whom I can wrestle over these questions. Oftentimes, they have pressed up against the same questions in the quiet spaces of their own lives, which is always reassuring to hear since my default thought is that nobody else is going through this.
Another good tool I found was to allow myself to sit with the questions as they arose. In the past, I had tried to quickly dismiss any questions that pressed up against my faith. But, as I mentioned in last week's blog, after some inner work I realized that I was defining some of my cherished ideals as truth. The mistake was that ideals can be colored by culture, religious affiliation, and sometimes even political views; the real truth is unchanged by these things. A simple exercise I did involved making two lists:
Next, pursuing community in this space is crucial, I talked about this last week but I feel like it is important enough to state again. My go-to in situations like these has been to completely withdraw from others until I knew the answer. As we explored last week, Jesus models a completely different way. Away from the masses, but in the presence of his true followers, Jesus delivered what some may say is the most controversial sermon of his ministry. In what we now call the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus encouraged his disciples to wrestle with the law of Moses and offered his followers the gospel of grace.
Of course as I was asking, seeking, and knocking I turned to the Bible and prayer. I did however take a different approach that I had taken before. My prayers went from making personal requests known to sitting in a contemplative space and quietly allowing questions to rise to the surface of my heart. Honestly, I still have questions and I don't have definitive answers to most of them. What I am finding is that, if I am quiet enough, God's grace is louder than any question that may trouble my heart. It is from this posture that I am learning to live with the unanswered and beginning to know the test of my faith produces perseverance.
If you find yourself in this space, my encouragement is to embrace the awkward! Ignatian Spirituality describes it in this manner, 'agere contra' which literally means to go against or act against. Of course the question arises what are we going against? And the answer is our own certitude to the environment around us. We see Jesus do this several times in the Gospels: when he met the lady at the well, or with the woman caught in adultery, or even when he encountered the women with the issue of blood. Time and time again Jesus practiced agere contra (or embraced the awkward) and in doing so he changed the hearts and minds of many.
When we agere contra, we open ourselves to authenticity and are more able to clearly hear the voice of God. If I may, I'd like to end with a simple question you might sit with this week: How can you agere contra or embrace the awkward in your life? It doesn't have to be big, like so many things, starting small can have great rewards.
Honestly, if you have someone in your life telling you how to hear God's voice, and what he's saying to you, my advice is to run like the wind away from that! It has been my experience that God speaks to different people differently; what may work for some doesn't work for others. Unfortunately, there is not a user manual when trying to hear God's voice in our lives.
I personally think this is intentional, especially for me in my own walk. If I had some sort of direct line, or rote combination to hear God's voice, where would the learning be? Where would the seeking be? And most importantly, where would the need for faith be? I love the authenticity of coming to God as we are. Like Christ we can, with confidence, approach God in prayer, even in our weakness. This is how it says it in Scripture:
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us, therefore, come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Hebrews 4:15-16 NIV
With this scripture in mind, I began my quest, knowing that I was allowed to stumble along my way. Though, this thought of imperfection and uncertainty was against everything I had previously known to be true. I remember reading about Paul in Sunday school as a little girl. In the back of my Bible was a map charting his whole journey. In my mind, his whole walk was mapped out, every step right there. There was no questioning, no uncertainty, just that neat yellow line. And the title of that map was The Apostle Paul's Ministry. That silly little girl thought, "certainly if Paul got a map to follow so will I." Friends, I am 47 years old, and STILL haven't gotten my map!
Instead of a map, I have found wise counsel that I trust from people who are a little further down the road than me. If I were numbering points this would be my number one. I know this sounds a little contradictory to my previous advice but let me explain. Those with wise counsel will always lead by example and, instead of giving you answers, explore the questions with you. For me, I have been blessed to be surrounded by family and dear friends with whom I can wrestle over these questions. Oftentimes, they have pressed up against the same questions in the quiet spaces of their own lives, which is always reassuring to hear since my default thought is that nobody else is going through this.
Another good tool I found was to allow myself to sit with the questions as they arose. In the past, I had tried to quickly dismiss any questions that pressed up against my faith. But, as I mentioned in last week's blog, after some inner work I realized that I was defining some of my cherished ideals as truth. The mistake was that ideals can be colored by culture, religious affiliation, and sometimes even political views; the real truth is unchanged by these things. A simple exercise I did involved making two lists:
- the things I believed when I was a kid
- the things I know to be true now
Next, pursuing community in this space is crucial, I talked about this last week but I feel like it is important enough to state again. My go-to in situations like these has been to completely withdraw from others until I knew the answer. As we explored last week, Jesus models a completely different way. Away from the masses, but in the presence of his true followers, Jesus delivered what some may say is the most controversial sermon of his ministry. In what we now call the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus encouraged his disciples to wrestle with the law of Moses and offered his followers the gospel of grace.
Of course as I was asking, seeking, and knocking I turned to the Bible and prayer. I did however take a different approach that I had taken before. My prayers went from making personal requests known to sitting in a contemplative space and quietly allowing questions to rise to the surface of my heart. Honestly, I still have questions and I don't have definitive answers to most of them. What I am finding is that, if I am quiet enough, God's grace is louder than any question that may trouble my heart. It is from this posture that I am learning to live with the unanswered and beginning to know the test of my faith produces perseverance.
If you find yourself in this space, my encouragement is to embrace the awkward! Ignatian Spirituality describes it in this manner, 'agere contra' which literally means to go against or act against. Of course the question arises what are we going against? And the answer is our own certitude to the environment around us. We see Jesus do this several times in the Gospels: when he met the lady at the well, or with the woman caught in adultery, or even when he encountered the women with the issue of blood. Time and time again Jesus practiced agere contra (or embraced the awkward) and in doing so he changed the hearts and minds of many.
When we agere contra, we open ourselves to authenticity and are more able to clearly hear the voice of God. If I may, I'd like to end with a simple question you might sit with this week: How can you agere contra or embrace the awkward in your life? It doesn't have to be big, like so many things, starting small can have great rewards.
Posted in Devotional
Tagged with questioning God, losing faith, how to, Hebrews, Apostle Paul, map, wise counsel, questions, prayer, ask, seek, knock, awkward
Tagged with questioning God, losing faith, how to, Hebrews, Apostle Paul, map, wise counsel, questions, prayer, ask, seek, knock, awkward
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