Your “WORDS” hurt my heart. I feel helpless. Our paths have seldom crossed, but the same blood flows through our veins. I have read many of your previous words and gathered a glimpse of who you are, but only a glimpse. I am left with my inability to help you. We share the same blood of Jesus, but I still feel helpless. It is obvious you are hurting . It seems clear to me you have made good choices in life. Noble choices. Selfless choices. Kingdom choices. Tragically, those kinds of choices do not lead to success as this world defines success. People that make the kind of career and family choices you have made are not looking for worldly success. You are reaching for a higher success. Kingdom success. But you still need to live in this world with the reasonable expectation of a happy family and being able to provide for them.
If I am reading your words correctly, God is still your Father, (even with the question mark.) Your faith is low. You feel fear. It feels like this hard time is lasting forever. Satan is calling you a failure. You are weak from the constant fight. Your feelings have turned on you. You feel forgotten. You are asking for forgiveness for your self-perceived lack of strength and for being irresponsible. You are looking to be freed, finally, from this situation by a Father you still consider faithful and your friend forever.
Those are really some words. They are understandable words. They are the words of a warrior weary from battle. But in the kingdom you are fighting for, they are words with no substance. Worthless words. They describe things that are momentary, just waiting to be replaced by words that are real, true and eternal.
Words like these;
The Lord watches over me with never blinking eyes, I lack for nothing.
He provides me with a safe and pleasant place to lay my head. He takes me by the hand and leads me to quiet waters.
He continually renews me.
He directs me to the right ways because of who he is.
Despite the fact that my journey will sometimes cause me to travel down roads where death obscures the sun, I will not be scared, because You are right there with me.
The weapons You carry make me feel safe.
You provide and prepare everything for me that is good and you do this right in front of those who wish me harm;
Anointing oil runs down my face; my container is not large enough to hold all you have for me.
Without any doubt, what is good and Your undeserved favor will be right behind me every day I live, and when I breathe my last breath, I will live in God’s house forever.
Mark. Psalm 23! (What version is that?) THANK YOU. Real, true, and eternal words, indeed. And absolutely worthy beyond measure. My feeble dabbling in semi-poetic expression of struggle are not worth mentioning in the same breath.
For the record and for your encouragement, I spent this morning with a new friend speaking of the things of the Spirit and praying with him, a truly blessed time. I will not despair today. And I did not intend to wound you or anyone by placing my words here! Nor was it a cry for help, or for pity. Indeed, I did not even post it in real time. I almost always delay posts to give myself some perspective, and I wrote this some days ago. I should say, rather, that it more like just came to me. I don’t ever set out to write poetry or anything similar–in this case, alliteration–on purpose. Almost always in such cases I am just jotting down something that pops into my head. The additional crazy boundary about this was accepting only words starting with the same letter. (When it was finished I counted the words that didn’t start with F and since it was FIVE I felt it doubly appropriate.)
Much of your interpretation above is pretty accurate, with the exception that’s I’d say the “Father?” wasn’t a questioning (at that point), just direct address. An opening like a “Hello? You there? Mark?” kind of thing.
But since my feelings were real that day, and have been similar on other days, I imagine other people probably also have similar feelings, too. (And wonder how many resort to harmfully medicating those feelings versus simply identifying them.) And so the decision to share them while, at the same time, as you point out, failing to close the circle for anyone, failing to point anyone to ultimate Hope or to Jesus or even share my personal resolution… was a purposeful one. Does every Psalm resolve? Even if better times are on the way–for Joseph, for Job, for me––at the end of some days all I have is calling out to God.
I don’t particularly care for story writing that MUST quickly resolve, especially prematurely. I’m often not as interested in hearing the Happy Ending (though that IS the best, the Kingdom-like part!) as I am in witnessing the pilgrim’s responses DURING the rough going. Of course the Cross is where all burdens must, and can ONLY, fall off! I join you in hearty agreement about that. And I receive your exhortation to cast aside words with no substance.
Maybe someday I’ll look back on this tendency to want to write only when I have groaning to do and see it for mere whining. But my hope is simply to engage in the same kind of questioning I see from David. OF COURSE there is no hope in the Dark apart from the Light. But sharing stories along the way WHILE I’m still crying out and still awaiting God’s answer seems more palatable to me than adding spiritual benediction artificially. Maybe someday I’ll consider my solution… incomplete.
I praise Him for the additional measures of Goodness and Blessing on their way to me, today, before they’re here. And there is Good IN suffering, too. HIM. In sharing difficulty publicly (or with a few, here), sometimes I feel (overly?) sensitive about sharing platitudinous-sounding words (which the Words of God definitely are NOT) out of a desperation to attempt to not write people’s endings for them. Only God knows the roads ahead of each of us. And sometimes the road ahead may contain suffering. It doesn’t mean His goodness will be limited or defined by our feelings during that suffering. But I find the expression of our feelings still pretty valid. Not everyone will agree with me. (It’s not the hearts of people who “have it together, all ducks in a row” I imagine touching when sharing such things.) But maybe someday even I won’t agree with me.
My life’s thrust, though I may not say it aloud at every turn, is still, “Trust Christ.”
Your “WORDS” hurt my heart. I feel helpless. Our paths have seldom crossed, but the same blood flows through our veins. I have read many of your previous words and gathered a glimpse of who you are, but only a glimpse. I am left with my inability to help you. We share the same blood of Jesus, but I still feel helpless. It is obvious you are hurting . It seems clear to me you have made good choices in life. Noble choices. Selfless choices. Kingdom choices. Tragically, those kinds of choices do not lead to success as this world defines success. People that make the kind of career and family choices you have made are not looking for worldly success. You are reaching for a higher success. Kingdom success. But you still need to live in this world with the reasonable expectation of a happy family and being able to provide for them.
If I am reading your words correctly, God is still your Father, (even with the question mark.) Your faith is low. You feel fear. It feels like this hard time is lasting forever. Satan is calling you a failure. You are weak from the constant fight. Your feelings have turned on you. You feel forgotten. You are asking for forgiveness for your self-perceived lack of strength and for being irresponsible. You are looking to be freed, finally, from this situation by a Father you still consider faithful and your friend forever.
Those are really some words. They are understandable words. They are the words of a warrior weary from battle. But in the kingdom you are fighting for, they are words with no substance. Worthless words. They describe things that are momentary, just waiting to be replaced by words that are real, true and eternal.
Words like these;
The Lord watches over me with never blinking eyes, I lack for nothing.
He provides me with a safe and pleasant place to lay my head. He takes me by the hand and leads me to quiet waters.
He continually renews me.
He directs me to the right ways because of who he is.
Despite the fact that my journey will sometimes cause me to travel down roads where death obscures the sun, I will not be scared, because You are right there with me.
The weapons You carry make me feel safe.
You provide and prepare everything for me that is good and you do this right in front of those who wish me harm;
Anointing oil runs down my face; my container is not large enough to hold all you have for me.
Without any doubt, what is good and Your undeserved favor will be right behind me every day I live, and when I breathe my last breath, I will live in God’s house forever.
Mark. Psalm 23! (What version is that?) THANK YOU. Real, true, and eternal words, indeed. And absolutely worthy beyond measure. My feeble dabbling in semi-poetic expression of struggle are not worth mentioning in the same breath.
For the record and for your encouragement, I spent this morning with a new friend speaking of the things of the Spirit and praying with him, a truly blessed time. I will not despair today. And I did not intend to wound you or anyone by placing my words here! Nor was it a cry for help, or for pity. Indeed, I did not even post it in real time. I almost always delay posts to give myself some perspective, and I wrote this some days ago. I should say, rather, that it more like just came to me. I don’t ever set out to write poetry or anything similar–in this case, alliteration–on purpose. Almost always in such cases I am just jotting down something that pops into my head. The additional crazy boundary about this was accepting only words starting with the same letter. (When it was finished I counted the words that didn’t start with F and since it was FIVE I felt it doubly appropriate.)
Much of your interpretation above is pretty accurate, with the exception that’s I’d say the “Father?” wasn’t a questioning (at that point), just direct address. An opening like a “Hello? You there? Mark?” kind of thing.
But since my feelings were real that day, and have been similar on other days, I imagine other people probably also have similar feelings, too. (And wonder how many resort to harmfully medicating those feelings versus simply identifying them.) And so the decision to share them while, at the same time, as you point out, failing to close the circle for anyone, failing to point anyone to ultimate Hope or to Jesus or even share my personal resolution… was a purposeful one. Does every Psalm resolve? Even if better times are on the way–for Joseph, for Job, for me––at the end of some days all I have is calling out to God.
I don’t particularly care for story writing that MUST quickly resolve, especially prematurely. I’m often not as interested in hearing the Happy Ending (though that IS the best, the Kingdom-like part!) as I am in witnessing the pilgrim’s responses DURING the rough going. Of course the Cross is where all burdens must, and can ONLY, fall off! I join you in hearty agreement about that. And I receive your exhortation to cast aside words with no substance.
Maybe someday I’ll look back on this tendency to want to write only when I have groaning to do and see it for mere whining. But my hope is simply to engage in the same kind of questioning I see from David. OF COURSE there is no hope in the Dark apart from the Light. But sharing stories along the way WHILE I’m still crying out and still awaiting God’s answer seems more palatable to me than adding spiritual benediction artificially. Maybe someday I’ll consider my solution… incomplete.
I praise Him for the additional measures of Goodness and Blessing on their way to me, today, before they’re here. And there is Good IN suffering, too. HIM. In sharing difficulty publicly (or with a few, here), sometimes I feel (overly?) sensitive about sharing platitudinous-sounding words (which the Words of God definitely are NOT) out of a desperation to attempt to not write people’s endings for them. Only God knows the roads ahead of each of us. And sometimes the road ahead may contain suffering. It doesn’t mean His goodness will be limited or defined by our feelings during that suffering. But I find the expression of our feelings still pretty valid. Not everyone will agree with me. (It’s not the hearts of people who “have it together, all ducks in a row” I imagine touching when sharing such things.) But maybe someday even I won’t agree with me.
My life’s thrust, though I may not say it aloud at every turn, is still, “Trust Christ.”