November 29, 2014

Be The Truest, Youest You!

I used to believe that not speaking my mind meant I was showing maturity. And though there may be some validity to the proverb that reminds us “even a fool looks wise when he keeps his mouth shut,” I now see that one who talks isn’t necessarily a fool either. Over the years I’ve discovered some pretty amazing events that can happen as a result of not being afraid to look like a fool.

Here are a few that transpire when you refuse to speak what’s really in your heart:

1. People don’t get to know the real you.
When you never share your opinion (no matter how crazy or seemingly insignificant) no one gets to know who you really are. I’ve made up my mind that I’m gonna be the real me in real life AND online. If I’m not being my true self around people and they love me, who are they loving? Not the real me but only the part that I’m showing them. Maybe those of us who have a hard time accepting love from people are more to blame for not being our true selves so we can know those who love us are loving the TRUE us? Ever thought about that? When you are your authentic self, you get to finally find out who really wants to be your friend and who wants to remain acquaintances. I hate small talk and insignificant conversations. Life is short, cut out the chit chat about the weather and be yourself. You could never know who falls in love with the real you if you are only being a portion of you.

2. You may lose sight of the real you.
Or maybe you haven’t ever given yourself a chance to discover the real you?? If you’ve grown up concerned with what people think about your actions, words or social media posts, you are living in a self made prison. I don’t think I could convince you to take a step outside those barred doors to experience wide open spaces of freedom just by telling you how great and freeing it is. You just have to decide to try it to find out for yourself. The truth? You are free to be you right now. No need to wait for anything. Give it a try. You just might discover a beautiful “you” you have never known.

3. It keeps you living in fear.
Fear is just no good. No one experiences an enjoyable life when things are motivated by fear. I lived this way my whole life. I was always afraid of slipping up and therefore I had to micromanage my thoughts and actions. Sure that sounds “good” but it’s not freedom. It’s mentally exhausting. I wish I had known earlier that there was a better way to live – and had discovered my true self. Anything motivated by fear will hold you back. It takes some discernment at first to discover if fear is the core motivator of most of your actions and words, but once you discover that feeling, you recognize it in the future and go in the opposite direction whenever you feel it.

4. It keeps you worried with what people think about you.
Most of us, if we are honest, have done this more than not and it’s owned us and kept us from enjoying our lives. Don’t let it have another single moment of your thoughts. You are a unique expression of the Divine. No one can be a better you than you! Let me let you in on a secret: people are really dying to experience the real you and those that love you will celebrate your newfound freedom!

5. Injustice continues.
Injustice continues when good people do nothing. Your voice matters! Find a way to respectfully and honorably disagree with injustice and stand up for what you believe in. There are plenty of hidden and blatant injustices all around us. Be a voice for those who are victimized so that their story can be heard as well. Knowledge is power and when we speak up, we create a safe place for others to join in. For example, cyber bullying is a very real problem. When we speak out against it, it exposes it for the cruelty that it is and allows others to feel safer and empowers them to speak out as well.

There are also some beautiful (and at times, painful) side effects that may occur if you decide to speak up and share your mind. It’s important to know that most of these (if not all) are pretty inevitable and it’s good to prepare your heart for them. It is by no means an exhaustive list.

1. Your beliefs and opinions will be challenged.
Speaking out runs the risk of discovering that other’s opinions may potentially be more thought out and more sound than your current one. Decide to be flexible and teachable. Sharing your thoughts opens the “floor” for others to share theirs. If you hold your opinion and beliefs loosely, and allow others their right to have their own perspectives, the threat of needing to be “right” vanishes. You can freely listen to others ideas and not feel defensive. Not speaking out can definitely keep you further away from awkward or uncomfortable conversations and might seem like a good solution on the surface, but I can guarantee you that speaking up will accelerate growth in your heart and mind in faster ways as you train yourself to share but also listen to other points of view and not be close minded.

2. You may lose close friends… maybe even family if your now public ideals rub them the wrong way. For the most part, people like to hang around other like minded people. In some regards it’s a wonderful way to not feel alone in your perspectives and beliefs, but in another it can create a very stagnant pool of reasoning. In arenas like this, new ideas are rarely introduced and if they are it’s usually snuffed out quickly because those thoughts are in the minority of the collective group. For this reason, growth happens at a snails pace and those who introduce differing perspectives typically get the boot from that community…or at the very least, emotionally shunned especially if their ideas are considered too far “out there.”

Once you begin speaking out you will discover many people liked the “old you” better because it didn’t really challenge their current thinking and therefore they choose to stop associating with the “new you” that has refused to stay silent any longer. Some people are ok with your thoughts if they stay “over coffee” but feel threatened once they take on a bold or outspoken stance in public arenas. This is good news, though it can feel excruciatingly painful at the time. I don’t know about you, but I would rather be around people that like the more honest me that challenges the status quo and isn’t afraid to be stretched by differing ideas than the ones who would rather me stifle any parts of me to make them feel more comfortable.

Staying in a mindset of forgiveness and having a “face like flint” when it comes to maintaining the “real you” will help guide you through those painful times. Just know, you are not alone and the pain will gradually subside as you find others who absolutely adore the genuine you coming to the surface. Those who walked away? It’s their most tragic loss but your authenticity is humanity’s extravagant and wondrous gain!

3. You will acquire new friends that love the real you.
There’s nothing better than having people who like being your friend with no pretense. You will find that you are no longer always trying to be a better version of yourself for their sakes, but instead are free to be yourself, flaws and all. When this happens you begin to experience being loved and accepted exactly as you are. This is an honesty that creates the must needed foundation for a healthy relational life.

4. You discover that you are not a nobody, but most definitely a very special somebody – and when you’ve discovered it, you are able to see everyone else as beautifully special as well.
Speaking out honestly, helps others who have felt silenced find their voice. Don’t ever underestimate the influence you can have on even just one person. I could never have imagined that so many people would have contacted me to thank me for just being myself. I’ve felt like a nobody my entire life, and now I’m realizing that most everyone feels this way at least once in their life, but most probably do more oft than not. When fear keeps our hearts imprisoned it’s comforting and brings us hope to hear someone boldly speaking the quiet recesses of our heart. So go on a journey and let people tag along for the ride. There are gonna be the haters, the judgers, the scoffers, the lovers, the receivers and the lurkers. But as the courageous Taylor Swift says “you gotta shake it off” and continue following the way of love and journey into becoming more true to who you are. It’s so worth it. I promise.

5. You find you love yourself a whole lot more.
Oh boy!! Way way more! In fact I hated myself when I was keeping silent and stuffing down what was inside me. It was literally killing me from the inside out. Loving yourself is the base of all love. To love others as you love yourself, you must first discover how to love yourself. It’s not the easiest journey, but the most rewarding one!

I hope this has given you some very real reasons why being courageous enough to share your heart with others is more important than idle chitchat on Sunday mornings or at your local church BBQ’s. Humanity wants to get to know the real you – all the time!

Go discover the reverberated facet of the Divine only you can portray! All of creation is expectantly waiting to experience the unveiling and healing power of your True expressed Divine Self.

The benefits far outweigh the costs, so……what are you waiting for?

November 22, 2014

What do you have to lose?

Why challenge everything you’ve thought was true and believe?

How else do you grow?

Either you will be further convinced or have a perspective change that leads to more freedom, peace and joy. Win-win, I think.

I ask challenging questions to remind us never to stop doing so. Don’t become complacent in ANYTHING you believe to be true. For some, that’s a frightening thought because if you can’t be sure of anything, it can feel like you are lost in space. But let me tell you, after the “lost in space” feeling subsides, excitement about living every moment in the present and embracing everyone who comes across your path as a different aspect of God creates a very safe and wonderful experience. When you get out into the “wide open spaces” you realize there’s nothing to fear, and you aren’t lost, never have been, and you aren’t falling. You begin to truly live for the first time. It’s a beautiful place I wish for everyone. Religion keeps us on lock down and though we may feel safe holding onto it for a time, it’s tether will eventually give way, make no mistake about that.

It’s hard to question all we’ve been taught to believe. We are taught to accept that “His ways are not our ways.” if something doesn’t add up or make sense. I’m no longer ok with that cop-out answer. I’m going after the hard stuff and finding more joy and peace than ever before. I believe God wants us to have answers and enjoy the adventure discovering them. I no longer believe God’s answer is “I work in mysterious ways.” and “You must just believe.” It’s just not good enough anymore. There ARE reasons it doesn’t add up, the question is, are we willing to have the courage to discover why?

Below is an excerpt of books that I’ve been enjoying. It’s like listening to conversations I have with God. It’s definitely worth the read.

(Book Excerpt #32…Note: this is a passage from the book “The New Revelations.” It is a dialogue between a simple human being, Neale Donald Walsch, and God. This excerpt picks up where the last entry left off. For purposes of continuity, daily reading will prove very helpful.)

NEALE: Yes. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said in a speech to students at Georgetown University in November of 2001 that the international terrorism of today, which had only just then reached the United States, dates back thousands of years.

“In the first Crusade,” Mr. Clinton said, “when the Christian soldiers took Jerusalem, they first burned a synagogue with 300 Jews in it, then proceeded to kill every woman and child who was a Muslim on the Temple Mount. I can tell you that story is still being told today in the Middle East, and we are still paying for it.”

GOD: This kind of religious insanity continues to this very day, on which you murder with the invocation, “Allah is great!” The enormous irony and the immense sadness is that some humans do not even see the contradiction.

This is the effect that your organized religions of exclusivity and righteousness and retribution have had on you. They have solved nothing. They have, in fact, enlarged the very problems they were intended to solve.

NEALE: But religion has done a lot of good in the world. Look at its charity work. Look at the millions whose lives it has touched in positive ways.

GOD: Religion has indeed done good in the world. As a helping hand and as a change agent in the lives of individuals it has produced many blessings. As a force for societal evolution, however, it has not fared well.

Why have your organized religions been so singularly ineffective in bringing about a general uplifting of human morals, motivations and modi operandi? Why have they been totally unsuccessful in producing any significant shift in wholesale worldwide consciousness?

This is the issue humankind might do well to address. Yet this is the question you are afraid to ask.

NEALE: And if we asked it?

GOD: You would find that it is not for lack of effort. Most organized religions have been sincere in their attempts to bring about social change and a new way of life.

It is for lack of understanding. And it is because of stubbornness.

Most of organized religion has not changed its basic point of view for centuries and, in some cases, for millennia.

Let me restate that, so that you can appreciate its full impact.

I said, there has not been a significant new idea brought into most major organized religions in hundreds and thousands of years.

Indeed, the very idea of “new ideas” is anathema.

This conversation, the conversation you are now having, will dare to present some new ideas. Do you dare to look at them? Do you have the courage to expose yourself to some new thoughts on the subject of God, even if you think that you may not agree with them?

Your largest religions and their leaders resolutely refuse to. They cannot acknowledge that there may be something they do not know, the knowing of which could change everything.

Yet it is true that when they insist that they have all the answers, religions provide none.

And so now you are faced with an important question. This is another stating of the question asked before, the question facing all of humankind in this moment.

Will you move forward into new and unchartered seas? Or will you allow the tide of events to sweep you back to the rocky shoals upon which you have already crashed your hopes a thousand times?

Will you go back to the exact words and phrases and to-the-letter interpretations and literal applications of your old religions, as fundamentalists of every religion would have you do, or will you dare to explore, suggest, recommend, and create a new spirituality—one which does not reject everything about the old, but improves upon it, carrying humanity to grander heights?

Do you have the courage to take the Five Steps to Peace?

NEALE: What if I say that I’m ready? What if I say I can admit that many of our beliefs—not just our religious beliefs, but also many of our ideas about economics, politics, education, philosophy, and much of our culture—are no longer working? What then?

GOD: Then you are ready to explore what could work.

Then you are ready for new revelations.

Visit http://www.CWGConnect.com if you wish to personally connect with Neale and ask any questions or discuss this material in depth.

November 18, 2014

Shift Happens.

Shift happens – eventually to us all. Sometimes we can get completely thrown off guard by the gigantic paradigm shift that occurrs when we choose to make small changes to our lives. I know it happened to me this way. I made one courageous decision to not let fear rule my life or motivate my choices any longer and before I knew it – SHIFT!!!

Every aspect of my life has changed because my perspective changed. The things I believed or saw before, I now see and believe differently. Instead of bringing more fear, it brought more joy and peace into my heart. That fruit alone convinced me that subtracting fear from my life was a healthy and much needed change. I had no way of knowing the amount of change it would produce in my life, though. I guess it just proves how much fear ruled me before. The dust hadn’t even really settled from this shift when I found myself in unfamiliar territory. I was now in the very midst of the mindsets (or way of thinking) that I had been previously told was “off limits” and ideas that I had been so very scared to explore before.

Looking back I can see that this new SHIFT in my life very much resembles the story of night terrors a child in her bedroom might endure. She watches the scary shadows on the walls move and the scary sounds those creatures are making outside the window all the while trying to find solace from underneath her thick quilt which engulfs her all the way up to the chin. Finally the child builds up just enough courage and pushes past her fear to sprint from bed to the doorway where she reaches up on her tip toes to turn on the light. Only then does she realize that it was all in her head. The tree branches were just moving in the wind, the large stuffed giraffe happened to tilt forward very time the air conditioner would turn on in the house, and the creaking noises were that of the family dog walking up and down the hardwood floors in the hallway. The seemingly very real “monsters” were actually due to her over active imagination.

I often remember the end of the Indiana Jones movie “The Last Crusade” (click the link to view the video clip) where it looked like a huge chasm between “Indi” and the Holy Grail but once he surrendered and took a “leap of faith” he found sure footing. More important than holding onto faith, it also took letting go of fear. Fear will keep us from stepping into so much greatness. I realized that before this great Shift, I had come to a cross-roads in my life. I talked so much about Jesus being an example OF humanity instead of for us (like I had once believed), but I hadn’t really taken the leap of faith to start living like I truly believed it. It was time, I decided, to either stay in head knowledge, or step out into experience.

Instead of the experience Indiana Jones had, mine resembles more a high cliff with the dark unknown abyss below. I had been told since I was a toddler that the abyss held hell fire and brimstone. Moving anywhere close to that cliff ensured being ensnared by hell’s flames, so I dared not get close and I stayed far away from it. Even though some of my journey would take me close at times, I would always remember the caution that I had been given (sometimes at that very moment) and anytime I got too close, I made sure to turn and run far away.

Until…. one day I had an epiphany: I had been taught my whole life to let go of fear and run towards love (God), though whenever I got too close to the “cliff,” the only tactic used to keep me from it was rooted in fear. Paradoxical huh? What a crazy awakening that day was!! How in the world had I missed this? The community that I had associated myself with had defined love and fear for me so distinctly and for so long (umm….brainwashed?) that I had stopped using my heart to gauge which one made me feel fear or feel love. Instead I had become accustomed to using my head to determine which was which. In essence, I was told “Follow your heart!!” with the unspoken, underlying message “unless it leads you over there to that cliff. In that case, don’t follow your heart in that direction.” Of course the rationale is “It’s for your own protection!” but what was so scary and why did I need to be protected if Jesus had declared everything as “It is finished!”?

And that is when I realized that the institution who claimed to know the way (truth and life?) of complete freedom was actually still control masked in a certain made-up definition of “love.” What a sad day that was for me. After the mourning had subsided a little, I then began the journey to try and discover who I was supposed to be afraid of and why in the world it seemed that if God couldn’t keep me safe I had to be afraid for myself to keep myself safe? It was time to start back at the beginning and decide where things had gotten off course:

“God is love.”

Check. Moving on.

“Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.”

Woah! Wait a minute here. Back up and read that again. I realized that if I was afraid of this hellish abyss and this same fear was keeping me from discovering if this hell even existed, then I needed to simply realize that God wasn’t in this, for there is NO fear in love (God). If we believe a God of Love would create a place to fear us into obedience or relationship, it is so very obvious that we have not experienced the deep, extravagant love of God. It’s that simple. Have you, like me, let your head decide for you what love is and what it isn’t? If so, try something new; listen to your heart: “There is NO fear in love. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.”

I also had to recognize that my intuition (Holy Spirit) was nudging me towards the “cliff” to investigate and explore it for the very first time. So moving forward with the new concrete understanding that there is no fear in love, I decided I didn’t have anything to fear and began moving forwards to new discoveries.

As I neared the edge, my heart continued to confirm that I was going in the right direction, but my mind was screaming “WARNING DANGER!! TURN AROUND NOW!!!!” Strangely, the louder the screaming in my head became, the less and less I listened to it because it was frantic and panicky and full of fear. That, I knew, wasn’t the Lord so I paid no attention to it’s pleadings.

As I got closer to the precipice, I peered over and saw what I had at one time thought to be a deep hole, a dark abyss; but as I got closer and got a better look I noticed that it didn’t look like I had always imagined it. Since I had nothing to fear, I decided to step out into the vastness and see what the fuss was all about. Lo and behold…. my feet caught on the smooth pebbles and I saw the last thing I expected: Ripples!

I saw instantly that instead of a hole in the ground there was a fiery reflection in water!

sunset-redpurple-reflection2
It was a red-orange sky reflecting into the water that had been giving off an image of a fiery abyss for far too long. We had had it all wrong! I can now tell that a SHIFT is happening collectively and the sun is finally shining light on an old “boogeyman” that has kept me and so many others bound in religious fear for centuries. A new dawn is busting through the clouds of our understanding. When we view it from a lower perspective, it seems terrifying, but when we look up…. we see just how mistaken we were and how majestic the bigger picture truly is. We are now free to explore the wide open spaces where once we thought we were confined.

It was amazing at how almost instantaneous my entire perspective on God and myself changed once I got close enough to examine and experience everything in the light of day. Any fear from before completely dissipated. Why had it taken me so long to silence the fearful concerns and follow my heart instead? As I floated in the clear, refreshing waters I realized that we have nothing to be afraid of – ever. No matter how hard someone tries to explain this, nothing will truly change for us unless we decide we want to experience this fearlessness. This new way of seeing is more glorious and beautiful than we could have every imagined!

Sadly, fear wasn’t the only “letting go” I would experience on this journey.

What happens when you near the ledge and those who were originally walking with you begin to feel the terror within that comes from getting too close? They will be forced to make a very difficult choice. If those you are traveling with are not ready or unwilling to let go of the fear that has encompassed them their whole life, they will instead be forced to let go of your hand and turn away from that which is scary. And then, from their unchanged perspective, you begin to look like a lunatic walking toward the blaze.

The only way for others to also experience this SHIFT along side us is for them to gather up their courage, discard that old friend – fear and take their first step into the unknown. There we learn that we can never be lost and fear is most definitely an illusion.Until that day, however, we who dare step into the crystal clear waters will instead be viewed as those who choose the flames.

November 6, 2014

The next “Great Awakening”

What if Jesus never saw a bankrupt soul or loved “in spite of” sin? The woman at the well may have felt bankrupt, and others may have judged her to be… But what if Jesus saw instead completeness, wholeness, abundant life of living waters already within her and he was trying to open her eyes to what was already true about her and to see what he saw? How we perceive ourselves and God affects our reality. But which reality do we want to live from? Ours or God’s (Love)?

It’s our choice which perspective we view life through. I have found one of two core perspectives in operation within us at all times: separateness or oneness. Most live from a perspective of humanity in need of a Higher Power (God). Christians, specifically believe humanity in need of being saved from their sins and sinful nature. But I say we have more of a need of being saved from this dualistic idea of God and humanity as separate entities than being saved from our sin. Sin isn’t the core problem… It’s a symptom of our false dualistic perspective . Duality of mind is what causes sin in the first place.

For us to assume that Jesus saw humanity the way most people see themselves and others as “wretches” or “sinners saved by grace” separate from God is, I think, an incomplete notion. I don’t condemn it nor do I think it’s wrong – it’s just incomplete. With a oneness mindset, you no longer see separatism and this has become my favorite attribute of Jesus.

A Christian’s first “born again” experience is an awakening, but it’s not the last one we will ever have – hopefully. Realizing I am lost, a sinner and in need of a Savior is an amazing awakening… But there is more! The next awakening builds on and grows from that perspective but it also throws out false notions we collected along the way – only if we will let it. In fact, I will go so far to say that for us to move into our next “born again” experience (aka seeing things from a different perspective) will only happen if we are willing to let every “absolute truth” be shaken so completely so that whatever is true remains and what isn’t will fall away. We then can choose to let those things go so that they don’t delay the next paradigm shift from taking place.

Every awakening is, in a sense, “getting saved” from the last perspective and false notions that we’ve acted upon – even with the best intentions. (Saul killing the Christians is a great example of this.) Needing a Savior takes on a whole new (freer) meaning for me now… It doesn’t discredit the first born again awakening for the need to be saved from sin, but I see what I need saving from now in a completely different light.

Being afraid to step into another awakening is valid, but I wish I could convince my friends that it’s just as glorious if not even more glorious than the first born again experience. We are called to transform from glory to glory. Transformation begins in the mind, with our perspectives. Transformation cannot happen if we aren’t willing to allow ourselves room for perspective change. We don’t have to worry; we can be sure that any greater revelation or perspective will always include the core truth of the lesser one. There’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of.

Observing the way Jesus was able to so easily forgive sins (among other things) doesn’t imply that he saw sin the same way we do. If we look at Jesus’ message (actions and words) as a whole we see Him trying to get his audience to change their perspective more than declaring how wretched they were and how much they needed him to save them – though we have taken many things Jesus has said and assumed that they imply this. A separateness mindset reads the bible through a dualistic lens and misses much of the meat in those precious words.

There was a beloved song that helped usher in the “Second Great Awakening.” It was written much earlier by a man named John Newman. To this day, it is still one of the most gut-wrenchingly honest songs of all time. It tears heartbreakingly at our souls. When someone is completely honest and vulnerable about their own heart, it will produce attraction. We are attracted to bold vulnerability because we identify as a humanity with similar core needs and desires. Many Christians still deeply identify with the “saved a wretch like me” line. There is a valid reason for this. Newton had an epiphany, an awakening! Light in the darkness! “I was lost, but now I’m found! Was blind but now I see!” These words perfectly define an awakening. This song resonates with us because the problem of duality within creates deep feelings of being lost. His discovery is very valid, but is this an accurate final truth of who we are?

I see Christianity right now, collectively, still in the pig pen of wretched thinking, all the while trying to convince ourselves to get up and walk like the heir we know we are supposed to be. The heart “knows” who we are but the head is not fully convinced. Why? Because we still choose to stay separate in our thoughts when we think of ourselves and our relation to God – even if it’s in the slightest degree. We say “we are the body of Christ” and “we are one in Christ” but we don’t really believe that it’s true, for if we did it would be more our reality than an analogy.

Eventually, though, enough will be enough and we will choose to leave the “I’m a wretch” beliefs of the muddy pig pen and make our way back to the home of our Father. We only thought the first awakening of “getting saved” was the end to our prodigal journey… But it was just the beginning! What most consider to be the “saved” moment was really just turning around and starting for home.

We’ve mistaken the mud and filth for the luxurious home of our birth! It seems absurd doesn’t it? But somehow we’ve convinced ourselves that we are pigs – I mean, we are covered in mud and smell like them so we must be right?! We’ve believed the troughs are thrones and the slop is gourmet. Not until we fully and completely grab ahold of our Oneness with the Father as Jesus did, will we ever fully understand what coming home feels like.

“We who have discovered our perfect righteousness have our thoughts anchored in Christ. If you still see yourself as imperfect, God will reveal to you that you are wasting your time to imagine that you can become more accepted and righteous than what you already are!”
Philippians 3:15 (mirror bible)

There is a greater awakening upon us, though it’s not the final awakening by any means! Jesus came to show us the entire way home. He wanted to remind us of our origin in God. Not some form of superstitious thing that happens to us and “changes” us when we say a prayer and acknowledge Jesus as Lord. Paul wrote the awakening in terms of becoming a “new creation” and yes once your perspective changes you feel like a completely different person!! You act differently and you view EVERYTHING and EVERYONE completely different – even yourself. Maybe you remember when you first got saved and how everything was new and exciting? Yeah it’s like that! But even better and brighter! I know it doesn’t seem like that is even possible but it’s just something you have to experience to really get. No amount of me expressing this to you will ever convince you that what you have come to believe as riches has turned into rags. We stay in one perspective too long, and it becomes stagnate and full of dis-ease. Just as you had to make a decision to choose to acknowledge your need for a Savior in order to be “saved,” yet again you will have to choose for yourself to want a complete saving from dualism to oneness. “Amazing Grace” is beautiful and wonderful but necessary for those who remain dualistic in thinking; for Grace is the road home.

November 3, 2014

When all else fails, try something different.

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” G. K. Chesterton in What’s Wrong With the World

I’ve read this quote many times over and I’m just gonna call “Bullshit.”

After 30 years of pouring my whole life into something and dotting every “i” and crossing every “t” that Christianity (from numerous denominations) taught me and instead finding more and more death and the promised “abundant life” no where to be found… After constantly believing that it wasn’t working because somehow I must be the problem or must be doing it wrong…

I gave up…

Not because I left it untried….no. I had given it my whole all, my very life was on the line. Even when it proved false over and over and over again – I chose to believe that “I just must not be smart enough to challenge this -so I will just try again.” All the while being told that there is to be no striving in true Christianity – yet I couldn’t help it – striving to find a way to live and love like Jesus was my whole obsession. To live the Christian life the way I was taught brought nothing but striving. No, I didn’t leave because it got too difficult either. Quotes like Chesterton’s would find me in my moments of doubt and remind me that giving up on Christianity was only done by those who were weak and who had “lost the faith.”

Instead I found Christianity to be a liar. A fraud. A religion who follows a facade of Jesus but not the Christ that He embodied. Who knew I would have to leave my beloved institutional Christianity to actually find the Christ my soul longed for all along? I can tell you honestly, I never once expected it.

When I came to the end of putting into practice every thing i could learn about turning my miserable existence around, I had to make a hard decision – either turn a blind eye to the continuous failure this striving was creating or decide that maybe it was time to listen to the Spirit of God inside me and leave religion behind like a placenta after birth. It provided nutrition for a while, but staying attached was killing me slowly. I’m not saying Christianity is bad – I’m just saying it’s not the end – and this quote easily makes that claim.

Tides of the Mind

an introvert's journey to discover her true-self

Month: November 2014