Yesterday (true story) I was up on a stool
Rearranging about thirty books
On a single recently painted shelf
When suddenly
– C – R – A – C – K – !!!
The shelf broke
Knocked me off the stool
Books came tumbling down
I came tumbling down
Inches away from a plate-glass table
Books on top of me
Shelf on top of me
My first coherent thought was
“I’m not hurt!”
How’s that possible?
“Oh, it be!” said God.
My head had landed, like I said,
Inches from the glass table!!!
There had been too many books
For that kind of shelf.
(I was so glad it happened to me
And not to a guest.)
All through the day I kept hearing
“I’m not hurt! I’m not hurt!”
Then God told me to examine the evidence:
Three nasty bruises and one scrape
But zero pain and
Great thankfulness.

If you’re wanting to do the thing
That’s most nearly right
And your habit is to start out
With God front and center
The decision you need,
Miraculously made
Feels a wee bit scary,
All that remains is to push forward
Right now, and trust.

I think there are a lot of us out here: rescuers, wanting to love and bless people right into the kingdom! But we’ve got to heed Chuck Crisco’s wisdom and honor the God-given vehicle that will bring him all the way in. Lots of love, lots of prayer and lots of letting go on both our parts will bring the trust that is required:

“Love doesn’t mean we are required to fix others. Being a “rescuer” often short circuits the learning that other person cannot get any other way or bypasses an insight of wisdom that can only come when they get it from God.

“Lift others burdens that are in excess, but don’t feel obligated to save the world. There is already a Savior of the world and its not you.”

Last time I checked I was human. That being the case, I have the occasional day or twenty in which the only things I can really see about myself are my failures. My inability to be better at relationships. My lack of business and entrepreneurial savvy. My past mistakes. My present mistakes. My busted window A/C unit, held together by duct tape, my ’99 Buick Regal that manages to produce dubstep sounding tracks without the radio even being on, and a sometimes anxiety-inducing lack of “wealthy” status.

Hey, like I said, I’m a human being. And I, like everyone else, have those days (or months).

In such moments, I wish I could honestly claim the confession of the late Brennan Manning as my own, when he said, “My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it,” but alas, as comforting as the sentiment is, the honesty part is not always present.

But it will be present here…

Sometimes my deepest awareness of myself is that I’m a failure. I know, I know, it’s not the actual truth, and what I do doesn’t define me, and so on and so forth. I know all of that, have memorized every cliche’ that goes along with that, and may have coined a few of them myself. But the truth is that those things simply are not my deepest awareness of myself all of the time.

I swear to you, sometimes I just want to quit, and have just had enough. One does not exactly become Scrooge McDuck by challenging people to think outside of the boundaries of the comfortable, but one does accumulate a vault filled with hate mail, personal attacks, and the like, which they find themselves swimming in far more often than they’d wish. Some days that sort of constant sock in the gut, coupled with the lack of reward, is all that I’m aware of, and all I’d like to do is give up.

On those days, my deepest awareness of myself is my own weakness; my own inadequacy.

But while my deepest awareness might not exactly be in line with God’s, it is still his awareness that remains true. The truest thing about me is that I am, in spite of and in light of everything else, deeply loved by something, someone, beyond me. I am caught up in a dance that has been shaking the foundations of the cosmos since their creation. I live within an embrace that I did nothing to earn an invitation into, and I daily inhale an atmosphere that first exhaled me, in love, into being.

That is the truth that I’m rarely aware of, but am constantly saved by. If its truth depended on my awareness, I would be damned, and to be pitied above all. I would be without hope or salvation in this world. If my head always had to be on straight, in the game, and thinking in perfect agreement with a God whom I’ve yet to even catch a true glimpse of, I’d might as well check out now.

But it’s not based on what I know. It *is*, even if I feel it isn’t. It’s reality, even when I’m feeling suffocated by an alternate one.

And that’s Good News.

If you’ve been told that you must *know* in order for the truth to be made true, you’ve been told a lie. The deepest truth about you remains true even if you haven’t the strength to stand in the midst of it, or believe it.

And thank God for that.
Jeff Turner

Statistics reveal that most people in the world are more afraid of singing in public than of death itself! I believe that such a fear is a great one to overcome. It’s amazing how much gets freed up in one’s psyche (soul) upon facing this bugaboo once and for all – and performing onstage is a lot of fun, to boot!

Some years ago I determined to take the bull by the horns and accept the challenge. I enrolled in a singing workshop in New York City at the Turtle Bay Music School to perform in a live CABARET at its culmination. I was scared spitless! But, having taught at various colleges in NYC, I knew that if I worked out my performance thoroughly in advance I could handle ‘appearing’ in public.

Singing, however is a whole ‘nother thing, especially when it comes to the aspect of smoothly transitioning back and forth between the lower tones (chest voice) and the upper tones (head voice). I had observed other newbies hit a screeching sound, which I recognized as sheer terror at that juncture, and determined that I would not be doing any such transition!

I chose an up-tempo song with a non-challenging range: “Fever” and opted for a key that was in my SPEAKING RANGE – which eliminated most of the triggers for terror. Then I performed it at home several hundred times over the next few months, imagining a full audience in front of me.

On the day of the show I felt like I should be going to the hospital instead of the nightclub!! . But I went! . And I performed “Fever” two nights in a row at the “DON’T. TELL. MAMA” cabaret. I was ecstatic! . I had done it! . Twice!

I’m hoping that anyone reading this – you – may take courage in the face of crippling fear, when you know God is on your side, and step out and “do it afraid!” The sense of being free from this kind of fear is at once awesome and humbling.

—O-V-E-R-C-O-M-I-N-G—

“THEY THAT BE WITH US ARE MORE THAN THEY THAT BE WITH THEM.” = IS ONLY TRUE WHEN YOU SEE BEYOND THE PHYSICAL SENSES INTO THE SUPERNATURAL REALM.
2 Kings 6:8-16 KJV
Then the king of Syria warred against Israel, and took counsel with his servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp. [9] And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel, saying, Beware that thou pass not such a place; for thither the Syrians are come down. [10] And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of, and saved himself there, not once nor twice. [11] Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled for this thing; and he called his servants, and said unto them, Will ye not shew me which of us is for the king of Israel? [12] And one of his servants said, None, my lord, O king: but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber. [13] And he said, Go and spy where he is , that I may send and fetch him. And it was told him, saying, Behold, he is in Dothan. [14] Therefore sent he thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the city about. [15] And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do? [16] And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.
“THEY THAT BE WITH US ARE MORE THAN THEY THAT BE WITH THEM.” PROVES TRUE WHEN YOU LOOK BEYOND THE FIVE PHYSICAL SENSES.

Another inspiration to be gleaned from staying alert to an extra-dimensional impact on our realm is when Jesus was teaching in the synagogue and hit on something that ruffled the feathers of the Pharisees:
Luke 4:28-30 KJV
And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, [29] And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. [30] But he passing through the midst of them went his way,
WHAT DID JESUS DO ? . HE PASSED THROUGH THE MIDST OF THEM [UNNOTICED] AND WENT HIS WAY !!!!

I just love it when someone else comes along and spells out – step by step – exactly how we can make a leap of faith that otherwise seemed prohibitive, especially if that person is super famous and well anointed:

“Don’t waste time bothering whether you love your neighbor; act as if you did. You’ll presently come to love him.”―CS Lewis

DID YOU USED TO BE A “SOCIAL DRINKER”?
AND THEN DISCOVER THAT YOU LOOKED FORWARD TO IMBIBING A LITTLE BIT TOO MUCH ?
SO YOU DECIDED TO SIMPLY QUIT ENTIRELY ?
AND YOU’VE BEEN QUITE OBEDIENT FOR A PRETTY LONG TIME ?
B-U-T . . . .
WHEN YOU HAPPEN TO PASS BY AN OLD WATERING HOLE (BAR!) YOU STILL NEED TO SQUELCH FORMER LONGINGS ?
THERE’S GOOD NEWS FOR YOU !!
IT WAS GOD WHO GAVE YOU THE ANSWER TO YOUR PRAYER FOR RELEASE FROM SELF-DEFEATING BEHAVIOUR. HE CAN TAKE YOU A-L-L THE WAY INTO PERFECT FREEDOM WHEREIN YOU SILENTLY UTTER A LOVE-FILLED PRAYER FOR THOSE PEOPLE WHO ARE STILL STUCK [VALUING THE ‘FIX’ MORE THAN THE JOY OF FULL VICTORY], AND PASS BY LIGHTHEARTED AND VERY HAPPY !!

What some people just don’t realize is that Truth is true no matter who tries to hijack it, whether the pope, the president, or the people. It doesn’t bend and flex to accommodate us: we need to do the accommodating – in our sometimes prideful, vulnerable minds. Truth is. Nothing can be put to it nor taken from it. Jesus is God: Who in the world can disprove that?

LOOKING AWAY FROM THE “EVIDENCE” AND LOOKING DEEP INTO THE HOLY SPIRIT IS NOT BEING EVASIVE. It is how we apply the truth that heals.

We cannot do anything helpful at all if we’re overwhelmed by the seeming “evidence”. We know that God’s view of the universe as well as His Kingdom is impeccable.

What are you impressed with?