Time To Review

(Originally August 11, 2005)

I went to church this past Sunday, the 7th, as I said I would. All the Sunday content below (the audio, for instance) occurred after I left church. In retrospect, I'm surprised at how much time I had left in the day after I'd 1) Worked at Starb's and 2) went to church.

The sermon was by a guy who was either David Wilkerson's son or nephew. He was a strange looking fellow. He had 70's hair, a pin-striped brown suit that was wrinkled by the places his bodyweight bulged when he sat down, and a bright blue tie. I saw him as an "edgy youth-pastor" trying to make a statement that says, "Hey, I'm not stodgy and old-fashioned! I'm hip and now! I'm with-it, young people! So you can listen to my sermons!"

Yes, I am harsh with my perceptions. I have an extremely critical inner voice. (You should hear what it says about ME. Oh, wait, you have--haven't you?) This does not mean, however, that I dislike the people I observe.

And this guy's sermon was a mixture of scripture and psychology that made me fight my way from the balcony to the altar at the conclusion. It was all about getting free and staying free. Preachers fight the clock their whole sermon--I know this because I've done it on serveral occasions myself. Yeah, preached. YES. I've been a preacher! Did I not make that clear in the last blog? Heehee. That's why I started a new one. Anyway, preachers want to structure the sermon with an opener, the setup, the content, and the conclusion. This Sunday I noticed the preacher doing all well, except the conclusion. It was a bit rushed and made me worry if others were getting it, but in the end, I understood it for myself and responded.

The sermon suggested that mankind is created with inherent desires that are not wrong to have, such as Adam's desire for more social company than just the animals. And God agreed that his lone state was "not good". (Strange, right? God made Adam as a solitary being, then said it wasn't good. So God said that something he Himself made was NOT good. Meaning what? He admitted He's fallible? Or that He wasn't content with His creation process? And after the whole Old Testament, He still wasn't content, hence; Jesus. And still NOW He's not content, hence; The Holy Ghost. See how preachers digress and fight for sermon time and structure?) So God made Eve for Adam. And then the Man and Woman continued to have desires for more, and took up the Serpent's challenge to nibble the Forbidden Fruit (which I do NOT agree was sex. God made the penis and vagina for sex--else He would've made two neutral creatures which had no genitalia).

The moral of that story is that mankind can and should have desires, but they shouldn't try to satisy them based on lies. So;
1) Adam desiring an Eve was good because God condoned it, but
2) Adam desiring to taste of the Tree to obtain more knowledge was bad because Satan condoned it.

And in the ratrace of us today trying to satisfy our desires, we should base our pursuits on truths, not lies. For instance;

Trying to pursue riches based on inner feelings of inadequacy and sense of worth is a lie. For that matter you can fill in the blank;

"Trying to ___________________________ based on inner feelings of inadequacies and sense of worth is a lie."

And that was basically the sermon. The conclusion fell short on demonstrating exactly how to correct our inner feelings of inadequacies, but I was able to pick it up from there, because...well, you know. I'm all insightful and self-analytical, bloggy and professionally a counselor and whatnot.

And for me, the answer became a matter of realizing myself as a child of God. Just like last week when I felt that God was correcting the lies I had told myself about how to become His child? I had built up a stockpile of qualifications that I thought I needed to accomplish before I felt "right" about going back to church.

As most people have a stockpile of qualifications that they feel they need to accomplish before they feel like they are "happy" or "adult" or "loved". And then they/we go about spending money, time, and emotions to obtain the things it will take to get us "qualified". Plastic surgeries, new cars, high-rise luxury apartments, grande vanilla soy lattes, pashminas, Jimmy Chu shoes (is there such a thing?), sex, more sex, gold pocket watch, career job, and on and on. And we run ourselves ragged. And we get one thing only to discover that it wasn't enough, so now we want something else because maybe THAT will be the answer. Which of course, it isn't.

The answer is in ourselves. Killing all the lies that make us doubt what we are really supposed to be. We're really supposed to be intrinsically worthy of love and life because of who made us, and how HE feels about us. We can't even set this up with an analogy about how human parents care for their children because human parents' love is suspect (Do they just want to carry on the family name? Do they want to show their peers what a good person they are by dressing their kids in good clothes and sending them off to the best colleges and buying them the best cars?). But in God's love, we have a Deity who needs not brag to anyone else about what He feels for us. He doesn't have anything to gain or lose by telling us that He loves us and wants the best for us. We can just trust his motives because nothing is ulterior for Him.

And if He says I'm worthy of love, then damn Satan--I'm WORTHY. I can work in a Starbucks for the rest of my life and still be worthy of love. I might never have a car again. I might have a fat belly for the rest of my life. My teeth might never get corrected and they may just gap until I can pass a pencil through them, clenched. I might have to live in Paramus in the bottom of a crazy guy's house for a year or two!

But

I.

AM.

WORTHY.

So you "get free and stay free" by correcting the inner lies that drive us, and living what is true. That process will allow us the freedom and peace we're all looking for.

I see that this is what prayer is. I can re-affirm that truth as I pray daily. I can 'claim' the truth as I pray. "Thank you for another day, Lord. I am happy to be Your child again. I am happy to know You love me. It feels good to be loved. And I love You too, for making me, and taking care of me. I have nothing to fear when I know You love me. My life is complete in Your love. I really don't need anything else, except what You want to give me."