In my last entry, I am sure you all noticed that I seemed a little “happy” with the bold feature and certain words [learn and practice for certain and maybe a few other action words]. Good job! It was quite intentional, as it is a main theme with me that we are in a continual, on going process of growing in our intellectual and experiential knowledge of God through Christ and Holy Scripture. It is all about understanding that we will not hit the mark perfectly this side of heaven. Only Jesus could and did do that perfectly, that is why we worship Him and one of the rest of us.
I thought I would give you a little look at how my learning curve has developed. When I first started to practice Contemplative Scripture reading and Contemplative prayer, which is the practice I asked you to begin to try in my last entry, I felt like a complete dork, sometimes a helpless freak and/or like I was just kidding myself.
First of all, if I even remembered to turn to God, I surely had not read the passage accurately because I approached a throne of shame and went expecting a good old lecture, a nice demeaning, debasing, a trip to the proverbial woodshed, some nice messages of shame loaded with anger that would reinforce the shame I already felt. In my head those messages of shame would sound like: if only you had…, you should have…, why didn’t you…, what secret sin have you not confessed? Any of those remarks sound familiar? So, for me the beginning was to acknowledge that I didn’t truly believe that I was able to come to a throne of grace and mercy. I behaved as if I was still before the throne of judgment. It was my behavior that revealed what I truly believed. In my head I said one thing, yet based on my actions I had to acknowledge that I didn’t believe I had the same access to the Father that I knew everyone else did and this is where change had to begin.
Then, as I practiced approaching the throne of mercy to ask for help my visual thought process changed from a picture of me climbing up a large white robe onto a lap to being scooped up by a large, strong yet gentle hand. All I had to do was begin the assent and then I believed I was not only able but welcomed by the Father and it became easier to ask for help.
Finally, as I continue to practice this process I get better at remembering that truth is more than knowledge for my mind to dwell on and think: “Isn’t that cool.” or “If only that could happen for me.” There are many different ways that these types of thoughts can sound, but I believe you get my point. It is only by practicing what God says that we will turn our head knowledge into experiential knowledge therefore we are continually building relationship with Him. It has been my experience so far that this is how we solidifying what we hope to be true into what we are coming to know to be true.
One last thing, help does not always look the way we tell God it should, hope it should or expect it to. Be open to what the Father knows is best for you.
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