Happiness or Holiness?

 

It has been over seven months since my last blog and over nine months since my Major Depressive Episode that left me bed bound.  It has been a very slow recovery that has required a lot of patience and kindness for myself with a deepening trust and dependence upon God for my healing.  What I have noticed is that there was nothing that I could do in my own abilities to help me regain my memory, my physical strength, my concentration, or ability to read and write in the way that I love to express myself.  One things is certain, God has been faithful to me through it all and is taking me deeper in my relationship and wisdom of knowing who God is.  That deepening insight comes by increasing my consciousness and awakening to my desperate need for my Savior, Jesus Christ because of my sinful nature.  During my prayer and devotion time this morning, God gave me a revelation and shared with me the importance of seeking holiness instead of happiness.

I, just as Saul/Paul, am the worst sinner.  Today we live in a culture where we believe we are entitled to happiness instead of seeking holiness.  Out of our deep emptiness and void we seek in all the wrong places to fill this dark hole within us with inappropriate relationships, sexual impurity, divorce, living dual or false lives, seeking success, status, gluttony, addictions and on and on and on.  We seek the temporary idols in our life hoping to make us happy not realizing in the moment they do offer happiness, but it is not everlasting.  In fact, often these very things are sinful lusts, desires and addictions that opens the doorway for further destructive consequences in our life. 

How can I speak so blatantly about this?  Because this is in fact what God has revealed to me when He came to deliver and rescue me from my sinful pleasures seeking happiness that not only scarred my soul, but inadvertently left scars on individuals lives around me.  Sin hurts everyone in humanity and creation because we are all interconnected.  Jesus says, 'What you have done to the least of these, you have done to me."  The good deeds and the bad deeds all affect those around us when we choose to live in sin.  We are cohesively missing the mark for what God has called and intended for us.  God does give us freewill to decide how we want to live.  Our choices must be to question ourselves  and ask, "Who are we living for?"  Are we seeking self gratification seeking fleeting happiness, or are we living and seeking God and his holiness in every detail of our lives?  Don't get me wrong, I do believe God wants us to experience happiness, but not at the expense of hurting or harming others which is what sin does.  When we seek holiness, we receive a Joy in the Lord that leads to Salvation .

Jesus humbly came for us not seeking happiness, but for righteousness and holiness.  God had a divine intervention and mission for Jesus to fulfill that would be a sacrifice for all of humanity and creation.  That is how much God loves us and wants to spend eternity with us. 

I often hear people say, "Live life to the fullest doing what makes you happy because you only get to live this one life."  That is where they are missing the mark.  We get a more abundant life in eternity standing in front of the Lord without fault experiencing joy and praise continuously.  We exclaim excuses of why it is okay to compromise and live in sin because of a culture and society that deems it appropriate.  Maybe the times have changed, but God's word is clear that He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.  God's word does not change based on our feelings, desires, culture or the times.  Sin is sin.  God gave Moses on the tablets the Ten Commandments.  Jesus also gave us the way of right living in the Sermon on the Mount.  There is no one sin that is worse or better than another.  All sin is missing the mark and falling short of what God is calling us to.  Sin is rebellion and separates us from an intimate relationship with God.  Today we don't like to offend or hurt others feelings confronting or acknowledging sin individually, corporately, structurally, economically, socially or politically. 

All sin comes with consequences and there will be wrath and judgment for falling away from God.  This is what God has revealed to me as He has  graciously and lovingly shown to me my own known and hidden sin.  I too just as Saul/Paul am the greatest sinner of all.  I have violated everyone of the Ten Commandments in my previous way of being before coming to know Jesus as my Lord and Savior.  I may not have physically violated all of the commandments, but I have violated them in my thoughts, words, and heart.  This is the same as if I had done it physically because God already knows all of this about me and this is where the root of sin can enter and take over. 

So the challenge for all of us is that we can't do this on our own.  God knows that.  Jesus even surrounded himself with twelve disciples to journey with him to be witnesses.  We too must surround ourselves with spirit-filled, God-loving and God-fearing individuals that we can be vulnerable and transparent to sharing our hurts, temptations and shortcomings.  This needs to be done just as Jesus met others in love and compassion meeting others right where they are at on their spiritual journey.  The enemy wants to isolate us so that he can continue to deceive us and put reasoning into our hearts and minds of why it is okay to make excuses to live in sin.  I have been there and done that as well.

I am not speaking to you out of judgment or condemnation, but I am speaking to you from my own personal narrative in love and truth.  This is what God has revealed to me where I now understand the depth of humanity and creation's sin and our desperate need for our Savior.  We are faced with trials and temptations every day.  I continually have to seek Jesus to show me how to live a holy life especially in a world where it feels as though we are walking against the ways of the world. 

With Christmas nearing and reflecting on the significance of the birth of Jesus Christ, it is a gift that is overwhelming to comprehend.  For that reason, I don't want to live my life taking what Jesus did for me in vain.  It is a gift of deep unfailing and unending love, mercy, grace and eternal salvation.  This gift, we must not selfishly hold, but we must proclaim, confess and exalt the name of Jesus .  When I become weak, I go the Garden of Gethsemane with Jesus remembering his own despair where he was seeking God's will and not his own.  He asked three times for his destiny to pass him by if possible.  Jesus admitted that his flesh was weak, but the spirit was willing.  Jesus could not endure his impending death on his own, but with God it was possible.  Jesus chose God's will and holiness instead of instant gratification for happiness so that we all may experience eternal rewards with the Lord with eternal happiness, joy, praise healing and life more abundant than we can comprehend or imagine.  We are asked to trust, be obedient and remain faithful just as Jesus did for us. 

What are you seeking???????  Happiness or Holiness???????  Temporary Gain or Eternal Life???????


(photos are shared from internet)

My Major Depression Has Been a Gift

Tonight as I was walking under the moonlight, I began to hear a revelation from God.  This was a welcoming message to me.  Since my depressive episode over two months ago, it has been a slow process of recovery and healing for me.  I was bed ridden for a week where I seemed "formless, empty and dark" similar to how God described the earth before God created it in Genesis 1.  What was interesting to me during my depressive episode was that I still felt God's presence with me.  Just as "the Spirit of God was hovering of the waters" during creation, the Spirit of God was also hovering over me.  God was my light in my darkest place that I have ever been.

The dark for me was the most painful place I have ever been.  I couldn't think, articulate my words, remember, read, journal, pray, go to the bathroom, eat or take a shower.  It was like I was in a dark tunnel being sucked into a deep vacuum going nowhere.  I knew this was not a good place to be, but I also had the sense that God was with me carrying me through this dark birthing canal in excruciating pain.

It has taken me weeks to gain my strength back, and I still get fatigued very easily.  I am finally able to read, remember, and articulate my thoughts.  I am dreaming again, and God is also now speaking to me by giving me messages.  I know God is healing me where I have experienced another depth or spiritual realm of God's empowering grace.

A part of me wonders if this was an act of God purging and delivering me from more inferior parts of myself and sin.  It was this experience where I realized even more of how God is in control, and perhaps God was breaking my overbearing will power of always appearing to have everything together.  If I have a strong will power, it doesn't allow God to have complete control of my life so that God can effortlessly pour in, through and out of me like a hollowed out vessel so I don't mess up God's divine plan and order. 

It is odd for me to say this, and most won't understand this in the secular world, but my depression has been a gift to me.  It has made me realize that my life story, disappointments and trauma in my life is what has created me to be who I am today, and how God is going to use it for God's glory!  By accepting and understanding why I suffer from Major Depression, I can now walk with others more empathically in their mental health illness revealing their gifts and beauty to them of who they are in Christ.  Not only will this be healing for those that suffer with mental health illness, but hopefully I can offer support to families whose loved ones suffer from mental health illness.  God has placed upon my heart to be open and vulnerable about my story so that I can minister to others in their deepest pain and sufferings.

There is an urgent need to educate the public and church about mental health illness in order to reduce the stigma associated with it so that sufferers no longer have to feel as though they suffer alone in the silence whether at work, school, in their families, or in the church pews. 

If this is how God is using me to be a testimony and vessel for others, I respond just as Mary did when the angel revealed to her that she was going to give birth to a son, Jesus Christ, Our Savior.  Mary responded by saying, "Let it be so" (Luke 1:34).  So I too say, "Let it be so" God!  Use me!  I am your faithful servant.  Amen.   

All For the Greater Glory of Thee!

Tuesday was the fist day of my classes for the spring semester of Seminary.  I had Preaching and Hebrew Readings.  I sat at my desk for nearly three hours Tuesday evening working at reading, translating and parsing the text of Jonah 1:1-3.  That is one hour per verse.  I was thinking to myself that I still have reading to do for my Wednesday class, and I am already feeling exhausted.  The week is not even over, and I have three more classes that I need to prepare for this week.  I am taking a total of 15 semester hour credits.  This is going to be an intense semester with deep theological and critical thinking which does not come naturally for me.  Actually it often makes my head hurt until I can't absorb or digest any more exegesis.  When I get to that point, I must quit and take a break by going within to meet God in prayer and meditation so that God can refill and refresh me.

Tuesday evening was one of those moments where I hit that brick wall threshold.  I decided to pray and meditate from my front office window that overlooks the city lights.  The moon was full and glowing purely, lighting up the night sky.  As I stared at it, I felt as though it was radiating through me filling me up with energy and stamina for this next semester.  I don't know why, but the moon always draws me in with a mystical energy that mesmerizes me.  As I reflect on the demands, the pulls, the flow and energies of the semester and life, the moon's phases gives me an example to the way its natural cycle cannot be altered or changed because it has been divinely set to be where it is at this exact moment. 



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I resonated with the moon knowing that I am also right where I am at with all the demands, pulls, and flow of my Seminary and life schedule.  It has already been divinely orchestrated.  I am invited to walk in it by doing each task that is before me by not looking back, not looking forward, but just being present in the current moment knowing God already has all of this taken care of on my behalf.  By following God's divine order in every detail of my life, I radiate God's glory and experience God's grace.  What beautiful and amazing grace God continues to extend and shower upon me.  It is a gift like no other gift that I have ever received in my entire life.  It has always been there, I was just spiritually blind to it.  It is a gift that makes me desire only God's abounding presence every moment of the day, hour, minute and second of my time.  I know this sounds selfish of me, but since I have experienced God in this way, I long and desire for God's holiness because I don't want anything to compromise this intimate relationship with God.  So this is my prayer.



Oh God,
Let me radiate like the moon in the darkest nights and places of this world.  My prayer is that others "will see you in me."  God, just like the moon shines of your glory, let me too shine of your glory with a pure, loving, merciful, and gracious heart, mind, body and soul.  Let all that I do be honorable and pleasing to you.  My choices, the way I live, how I interact with creation is not about me or for my personal satisfaction, but it is for the greater glory of Thee!  Amen. 

(photo credits are from internet resources listed on the photos or link provided)