Posted on 04/23/2007 11:18:16 AM PDT by Quix
Have prayed since Jr High to be able to love like Jesus. That's a pretty hazardous prayer. The training for answers to that prayer is a lot like the training for wisdom, humility and patience. Lots of long dark nights of the soul; refiner's fires; being ground to powder, blown to the 4 winds--recollected--dipped in vinegar and ran through the manure spreader backwards . . . can all be SOP--common events.
Here are some questions to get us started prayerfully considering these principles and truths:
1. What is the nature of God's Love?
2. Is there any difference in Christ's Love?
. . .
3. How do we reconcile, manage living out God's model of Fierce Love AND Fierce Severity?
. . .
Romans 11:22 (The Message) The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson
. . .
21-22If God didn't think twice about taking pruning shears to the natural branches, why would he hesitate over you? He wouldn't give it a second thought. Make sure you stay alert to these qualities of gentle kindness and ruthless severity that exist side by side in God—ruthless with the deadwood, gentle with the grafted shoot. But don't presume on this gentleness. The moment you become deadwood, you're out of there.
. . .
4. Is Christian Love 99% warm fuzzy and 1% severe or what?
5. How do we discern when to share the warm fuzzy aspects of Love and when the ruthless severity?
. . .
6. How do we keep an accurate, discerning check on our motives as well as our actions--doing what we can to insure that they conform to God's Christian Love?
7. How do we Love whole-heartedly as unto The Lord while still being human?
. . .
8. How responsible are we for the results of our efforts to Love?
9. How long do we wait to judge whether we were truly Loving, or not?
. . .
10. How do we deal with perceptions of receivers and others that we haven't been loving when our spirit indicates and God indicates that we have?
. . .
11. Is the Severity of God less loving than God's warm fuzzies?
12. How can we minimize errors in Loving?
Let us be iron sharpening iron to one another.
Is this what you pinged me about in FReepmail? I, too, asked God to give me a ministry of love when I first received Christ 38 years ago.
I haven’t read the discussion thread that you’re referring to, but I can say that, being myself in the process of becoming a Catholic, I am sensitive to criticisms of the church as well. I just try to remind myself that we are all sinners and this is a fallen world, and each of us need to belong to the church that, in our judgment, most clearly and vibrantly teaches the truth. That, in my judgment, is obviously the Catholics (and maybe Eastern Orthodox, I believe they’re doctrinally very close.) And, I believe that some other Christians, knowing of problems both past and present in their own denominations, are perhaps a bit jealous of that. Jesus told us to be glad when we are persecuted for His sake, and I take that to mean no matter who it comes from, or what their claims may be.
I haven’t read the discussion thread that you’re referring to, but I can say that, being myself in the process of becoming a Catholic, I am sensitive to criticisms of the church as well. I just try to remind myself that we are all sinners and this is a fallen world, and each of us need to belong to the church that, in our judgment, most clearly and vibrantly teaches the truth. That, in my judgment, is obviously the Catholics (and maybe Eastern Orthodox, I believe they’re doctrinally very close.) And, I believe that some other Christians, knowing of problems both past and present in their own denominations, are perhaps a bit jealous of that. Jesus told us to be glad when we are persecuted for His sake, and I take that to mean no matter who it comes from, or what their claims may be.
Obedience is the key, not results.
What if God asked you to love someone who never was capable of loving you back. Are you a failure? Was your heart in obedience to God or to the letter of the law?
I will stand alone before God in the end, will I prove to be a good and faithful servant?
Discuss the issues all you want but DO NOT make it personal!
Quix, you provoked this flame war on the earlier thread - find a way to provoke peace.
Mad Dawg, do NOT carry a dispute from thread to thread.
Asking someone not to contact you . . .
THEN
Cursing them out in a FREEPMAIL
AND
JABBING them fiercely at every public chance plus some—with many inaccuracies
is probably not a good way to close off sensitive communication.
I’m extremely deeply grieved as well as shocked that I have triggered such an upset with you and between us.
I’m still trying to sort out emotions from truth and distortions. I care much for every believer on the forum. I also care for truth.
I have learned a little bit that when I am scratched or stabbed deeply, I want sweet wine to pour out of the brokenness vs vinegar.
I’ve also learned that brother/sister/friendship relationships in The Lord ought to transcend a LOT of garbage, but too rarely seem to make that grade.
I won’t guarantee that I will fail to respond to all your future jabs. But I have been minimizing my responses. And, I have abandoned responding in kind to the negativism.
That is an issue--even a set of issues--that SHOULD be very fitting to dialogue about. The seeming RC dogma, tradition, habit, custom, to go ballistic at often even just hints that RC's and their edifice are less than perfect is a very discouraging frequent, common phenomenon hereon.
Hyperbole is fine with me--especially if fitting. Trumped up hyperbole over miniscule chaff seems greatly overdone. Well beyond wearing one's heart on one's sleeve etc.
There are aspects in all this furor that COULD be extremely instructive to all of us. But typically, the RC's demand that almost everything and everyone kowtow to their construction on reality or else suffer fierce condemnation from pontifical heights.
I do not resonate with your allegation of what I've done. I do not believe I've done that, at all.
I certainly do not rejoice over wrong doing. Had I rejoiced over wrong doing, I'd have gleefully with fangs and claws blazing chimed in on the thread immediately instead of prayerfully waiting 2-3 days or so to comment.
Even my fiercest satire was designed to highlight incongruencies in a system and NOT an assault on even the individuals in Chiapas, per se.
I've read repeated statements that ALL of us of my perspective or similar have ALWAYS done/responded with extremely dastardly things at EVERY opportunity re the RC's. That's simply wholesale not true.
I realize that I may be the only one in need of soul searching and may be the only one deeply engaged in such. In any case, God knows my heart beginning, middle and end.
This strikes me as personal and not a discussion of issues.
Sobering truths for all of us to redemptively ponder.
I pray that those pinged will prayerfully consider your request.
Great points.
I have often, at least in my life, found that God’s generous gentle Love can SOMETIMES come alongside His fierce severity. And, they can each come more or less alone for long periods of time.
GREATLY love those Scriptures and truths regardless of what you think.
imho and in my experience
IRON SHARPENING IRON in Scriptural terms
OFTEN involves lots of sparks and heat.
Exhorting one another is also a one another Scripture.
I wrongly seem to have assumed that the relationships and maturity were up to the challenges.
That has not been the bulk of my experience. Certainly some fit that description.
I realize that you seem to have joined in with those who evidently think that I fit that description. I’m sad about that but it won’t keep me from doing what I can to grow on and walk on.
Thanks tons for your kind words. I suppose that's reasonably accurate. Though doesn't feel like a 100% fit.
It would be relatively easy to capitulate wholesale except for the last 35 years or so of my life. I have tons of experience that screams the other direction. God has often used me in extremely difficult situations, cases, families, couples' lives etc. in rather . . . startling ways . . . to jar loose folks from fossilized destructive ruts. I don't know how else to describe it. I'll try, though.
First, the opposite forces within me. I used to be terminally shy and a chronic people pleaser coming out of the usual REACTIVE ATTACHMENT DISORDERed childhood. I habitually tried to please everyone every way I could in as many sacrificial servant hearted ways as I could virtually obsessively. Of course, most of that had very problematic results at best.
Persistently from fairly early on, my verbal skills--especially my writing would be triggered in provocative ways that seemed to produce the opposite of what I desired and abundantly so. Often, I'd retreat into more of a shell for longer periods before risking saying or writing anything again.
But even back when I was much worse than my flawed state now at hearing God accurately, God DEMONSTRATED with fruitful results that HE WAS USING MY CRAZY, even fiesty, pointed, fierce FOOLISHNESS in spite of me and further that He'd created me the way He had for HIS PURPOSES and I HAD TO QUIT whining and QUIT wishing I was a more foam and fur lined person with a teddy bear personna exclusively. Was not in the plan and was not going to be in the plan. So I'd best just get with the program and on down the road and leave the results to Him.
As I went through my Navy human relations intense group process staff position for 2 years and later into my PhD program and individual, marriage and family as well as group counesling, there came along many other similar opportunities and experiences.
At an innocent Baptist counseling center in San Diego, I seemed to get all the "MISSIONS IMPOSSIBLE." And, interestingly, once I'd tried all the gentle, polite approaches, I discovered repeatedly that creatively fiesty, satirical, mocking etc. sorts of dramatizations would result in great break throughs where nothing else worked.
ALSO, and much more troubling, there would sometimes come along a case where a given individual in the situation would react very fiercely and negatively--such as has happened hereon in these threads. I would be terminally bewildered and despondent. I'm still grieved whenever anything doesn't work out as I'd prefer and any person is offended or hurt--especially a believer.
But God began to show me something interesting over time and to speak to me sometimes gently and sometimes sternly about such happenings. Folks as irate, hostile and angry with me as the one most angry with me hereon currently--would--in 6 months, a year, 3 years, 10 years come back and declare more emphatically that precisely the things I'd said which had most angered them and most left them wanting to strangle me--had been used of God to eventually speak truth and life into their lives resulting in extremely redemptive changes in their lives.
At this point, I have dozens of examples of such.
The struggle is not so much conscience in terms of motives--I don't doubt my motives. But I still hate to see anger etc. result. Grieves me greatly. I prefer to see myself as a teddy bear lover and try hard to act like one.
But I also have a responsibility before God to play whatever role He throws in my lap as I told Him long ago He could spend me however He chose.
Do I just ignore His press within me? Do I ignore all those potential additional people who will be fiercely angry with me for months to years and yet come to a redemptive fruitful place PRECISELY BECAUSE I dared to be outrageously dramatic with them?
That's long been a very torn issue for me. The bottom line is that I always have to do precisely and only what I feel God would have me do. But I do NOT pretend [contrary to allegations otherwise] I do NOT pretend to have flawless hearing of Holy Spirit or anyone else. And I'm always grieved that I MIGHT have heard wrong.
My exprerience with Father is that He expects me to trust all such to Him whether my flaws or just the jury still being out on a given communication. That's still very hard for me to do in anything like the current situation.
I think that fairly well summarizes the tornness and whatever "exammination of conscience" may be going on.
How dare I consign any potential souls who MIGHT WELL benefit from the outrageous dramatizations to NOT having that opportunity just for my own face saving; my own comfort; my own desire to have unruffled friendships etc. Marriages, families, lives have been literally saved through such strategies, methodologies, risks.
I don't think true humility refuses confrontation, but I do think true humility prompts us to use language carefully.
I much agree. I hope the above helps you understand my tornness on that score. I have learned to realize that my words carry more weight and impact than I'd originally thought. Particularly such dramatic ones. But that doesn't let me off the hook. I still don't feel ALLOWED to thereby pretend that I must use ONLY winsome words in all cases and situations.
The long-standing misunderstanding or hard feelings between RCs and Protestants is something that's made immediately manifest when we can write while zealous and post while we haven't given time to proper reflection. I've done that myself, many times.
I certainly wouldn't claim to have NEVER done that. But I really try to do my more or less best to discern whether a given situation is worth that risk; if that risk is really called for or not, etc.
I also feel some added weight because I know my writing can be above average in forcefulness of even the general class of forceful writing and that just THAT aspect carries extra responsibility. Some folks can feel angered by the provocativeness and then more anger because they don't feel they can respond nearly as impactfully for whatever reason.
In terms of the RC's hereon, There seems to be a collective amnesia regarding the incredibly harsh, fiesty, fierce, assaultive phrases, sentences, posts, threads in the direction of my perspective and convictions. Yet, they seem to think they should get away with it without even a comment or quibble.
Most of those of my perspective don't get all that wound up over such because we just consider it as Standard Operating Procedure, mentality, attitude for at least a few if not many of the RC's hereon.
Yet, when anyone of us DARES to have the AFFRONTERY to speak also in intense fiercel language, then all ballistic hell breaks loose because we DARED to be such hypocritical heathen currs as to have the stupidity and sinfulness to DARE to question ANYthing about PRECIOUS EDIFICE MOTHER CHURCH.
But that's just not our reality. We don't buy into that trumped up elevation of an organization to a God-like status--or even to a sacred cow status. We refuse to buy into that reality. We shall always chafe, fight, assert against such a mentality.
We do so not so much because we believe we are 100% right but because we believe [as do the RC's] that there are related issues which ARE ETERNAL LIFE AND DEATH ISSUES. And therefore, are worthy a lot of extraordinary risks and efforts.
Sometimes enflaming a person's conscience is worthy, sometimes you can do that with very humble words, but when that happens you don't usually feel the need to think much of it afterwards because the language you used was so obviously non-confrontational.
Christ was often confrontational. I used to think with only the pharisees. But that's not quite true. He confronted Peter and a number of others in a less than ideally comfortable and winsome tone. But certainly his fiercest language was reserved for those who saw their religious constructions on reality above everyone elses and pure as the driven snow when the reality was quite different.
I'm not here to defend RCism. There are plenty here who can do that more ably than I can. Besides being the mongrel Christian that I am, I'm just beginning to learn my own way through doctrine and doctrinal mine fields, etc.
And, contrary to some public opinion, I'm NOT here to attack RC-ism 100% wholesale. But some things seem to be dreadfully important and eternal life and death issues worthy extreme efforts. It is difficult to impossible for some of us to feel peace in our hearts and spirits and minds to just walk on by on the other side of the road and wink at such gross problems--from our perspective. The RC's have a similar response to us from their perspective. Yet, somehow, their hostile extreme language is OK but our dramatizations are not???
And all this hate!? I haven't written a single word in the least bit of hate. I can IMAGINE why some folks would feel otherwise but the truth is that I have not. I HAVE highlighted incongruencies, gross excesses, contradictions, seemingly glaring hypocrisies etc. I'm not ashamed of that.
I wish you could read my '52 Baltimore Cathechism. It beats the latest version, by far, at least the parts of it that I've read. The reason that I wish you could read it, is that while there would be much you would disagree with, there would be much there that you would genuinely admire.
I don't doubt that.
Sometimes when you really allow yourself to experience another's point of view, with some sympathy, that is, when you come to the defense of your own views, that are in opposition to that other point of view, your defense can become rock solid.
Having long prayed for the capacity to put myself in another's skin and shoes, God has blessed me with such a capacity beyond my expectations. That does not mean my understanding is thereby 100% or flawless. But it has helped my compassion and understanding of others a LOT.
In terms of the RC's, I don't think they have a very accurate guesstimate on my degree of accurate understanding of their feelings and positions. But, there is no readily evident way to correct that which I can conceive of.
For the record, I do see you as a loving person, this post is very good example of that. If you've done something to hurt somebody, intentional or not, and that other person doesn't want to forgive and forget, just let it go.
There's certainly great wisdom, there. But, my nature is to do everything I can imagine doing to try and AT LEAST LEARN ALL I CAN from all such--but WHERE REMOTELY POSSIBLE TO FACILITATE HEALING AND GROWTH FOR ALL CONCERNED and for all the relationships involved. Grandiose, I realize.
I don't mean to be preachy, so forgive me if I come across that way.
You did not come across in the least way preachy. But, YOU COULD HAVE BEEN SHRILL, FIERCE, MOCKING, FULL OF RIDICULE AND/OR ANY OTHER SUCH--and I'd have still tried hard to glean all I could from your input.
I have a LOT of grace for the modes and manner of communications. I do prefer folks to stay in the dialogue as long as it takes regardless. I have a hard time with hit and run patterns.
THANKS TONS for your thoughtful and Christ-like msg. I cherish any other inputs you may have in whatever form. NO need to treat me with kid gloves.
Working hard trying to as openly and vulnerably as I know how.
Sorry.
I felt a peace in the shower to commit to the following:
IF
a majority consensus—say at 70% of respondents to this post—assert to me
that it is their prayerful conviction that my satirical, fierce dramatizations are
COUNTERPRODUCTIVE, MORE DESTRUCTIVE THAN FRUITFUL FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD HEREON
Then I will do my utmost to curtail them say 90-95% of the time and ask a cluster of highly respected bro & sisters hereon to vet the other 5% [maybe not 100%—I hesitate to commit to 100% given I don’t know the future—but would earenstly try to make it very near or equal to 100% of the remainder—a simple majority of the vetting group]
and ask a cluster of highly respected bros & sisters hereon to vet the other 5%.
If the consensus of respondents to this post is more close to 50%, then I will still drastically curtail such writing styles. I’ll have to pray about how much and how much vetting to bother others about, in that case.
Most sincerely,
I think you should take more showers.
Thank you much for your kind vote.
Showers . . . perhaps as in every time before I press the “post” button on hazardous posts? LOL.
Hmmmmm . . . . maybe I could take a virtual shower and see if that was as effective?
What you love you sacrifice for what you do not love you will not sacrifice for.. all in degrees.. Love is sacrifice..
Love, Sacrifice, Service, and Giving are synonyms..
I readily agree with your every word.
Thanks tons.
Please consider post #36, for me.
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