If you are being completely honest, you are not relationally
satisfied. The human soul roams the face of the earth hungry for intimacy and
howling with pain at the moon.
Today is the Fourth of July. You will see many people who
care about you. But why is human love unfulfilling and aching with disappointment?
We were born with an expectation for desire to be met-
because our soul wanders in a starving world, this desire seems impossible.
Honestly, we don’t want to do the daily labor of getting to
know God in an intimate relationship. It seems logical and reasonable to
connect with Him for specific concerns which fall outside of our normal
capabilities- but to be in close loving relationship with Him every minute of
every day? This seems exhausting and impossible.
We hardly know You, God. We don’t know if we want to know
You- we are weary, disappointed, afraid.
Our souls are refugees wandering aimlessly on the face of a
war-torn planet.
Yes, part of us loves You (our souls) but part of us does
NOT (our body, our mind), and so we cannot achieve INTEGRITY. We don’t know how
to bring unity to these fractured parts of our selves.
So we wait for You to bring FREEDOM on this Fourth of July,
and every day after.
Our soul is the observer of the war in our minds- to love
God or not? To accept freedom or live in the comfort of bondage?
This is breakthrough: We are ANGRY. Our souls are a raging sea.
We have a lot of PREJUDICE against God because we have
projected the aftermath of our relational wars onto our view of Him. So God
feels unsafe to the homeless soul.
But salvation will come at dawn, where the sunrise parts the
waters. We wait. We howl.
The more honest you are with God, the closer He can come to
you. Don’t hide any longer. Be brave- be seen.
Did you know your right brain has never had a voice until
now?
The only pat of your being that loves and desires God is the
right side of your brain- the part that writes and sings, reads and dreams. The
left side (logic, reasoning, physical fact) does not desire God at all. This
side only accepts His hep when it appears necessary and reasonable.
There is a lack of integrity in our desire for God- this is
war.
This is why the left side of your brain lights up with
sensation when you daydream about flying freely in the sky- because it was
waking up to the reality of spiritual adventure and freedom. For just an
instant it connected with the left side, and the power was incredible.
But fear put a stop to this- because there is war. This is
how abuse has broken us in two.
Jesus, how do we integrate these two selves? The right side
and the left?
You whisper Your answer through a tiny wind of cool air-
through learning, experiential knowledge, a training of the left side that will
bring it alongside with the right through the wisdom of the Teacher and the
obedience of the student.
School will integrate the left with the right- it will put
an end to this war.
This is why we feel contempt inside of us- because our two
halves are in opposition. We are at war with the two sides of our thinking, and
so our soul wanders as a refugee in the wartorn places of our mind.
Jesus, meet us here at the front line of this battle, where
the fighting is the worst.
God, You are our refuge. Our soul finds refuge in the arms
of Jesus.
Our soul can observe the war inside from the safety of God’s
loving care.
This is breakthrough. This is freedom.
The city of God is our place of refuge while we wait for
integrity.
This is where we are safe with God, because we have all held
contempt for ourselves and for each other- we have murdered in our hearts. This
is war, and we are refugees.
So God provides Cities of Refuge-
Numbers 35 (NIV)
6 “Six of the towns you give the Levites will be cities of refuge, to which a person who has killed someone may flee.
9 Then the Lord said to Moses: 10 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you
cross the Jordan into Canaan, 11 select some towns to be your cities
of refuge, to which a person who has killed someone accidentally may
flee. 12 They will be places of refuge from the avenger, so that
anyone accused of murder may not die before they stand trial before the
assembly.13 These six towns you give
will be your cities of refuge. 14 Give three on this side of the Jordan and three
in Canaan as cities of refuge. 15 These six towns will be a
place of refuge for Israelites and for foreigners residing among them, so that
anyone who has killed another accidentally can flee there.
We need protection from the wages of our sins, safety in
this warzone of contempt. Our soul is a refugee in Christ.
And God is the Triune Community who will set us free,
because He will stand in our place to take the penalty for our hate.
20 If anyone
with malice aforethought shoves
another or throws something at them intentionally so that they die 21 or if out of enmity one person hits another with
their fist so that the other dies, that person is to be put to death; that person is a murderer. The avenger of blood shall put the
murderer to death when they meet.
22 “‘But if without enmity
someone suddenly pushes another or throws something at them unintentionally 23 or, without seeing them, drops on them a
stone heavy enough to kill them, and they die, then since that other person was
not an enemy and no harm was intended, 24 the assembly must judge between the accused
and the avenger of blood according to these
regulations. 25 The assembly
must protect the one accused of murder from the avenger of blood and send the
accused back to the city of refuge to which they fled. The accused must stay there until the death of the high priest, who
was anointed with the holy oil.
The Assembly of the Triune God will protect us, even when we
have poured contempt on our own heads. Jesus clears the path for those who have
added to the war their own malice, enmity, hate, revenge, unintentional
neglect, unseeing abuse and death of relationship.
This is war- HE is our freedom and our refuge, for we are
all wandering in a warzone of broken humanity, within our minds and in the external world of relationships.
Love is war. Our souls are wandering on a wartorn beach.
8 The accused must stay in the city of refuge until
the death of the high priest; only after the death of the high priest may they
return to their own property.
29 “‘This is to have the force of
law for you throughout the generations to come, wherever you live.
Do not wander from His city of refuge without the blood of Jesus,
because without it you will be turned from a refugee into a prisioner of war.
Do not attempt relationship with humanity without the protection of the Triune Community.
Attempt love only from within His city of refuge.
Do not return home until You have fully accepted His
forgiveness.
2 “‘Do not
accept a ransom for anyone who has fled to a city of refuge and so allow them
to go back and live on their own land before the death of the high priest.
33 “‘Do not pollute the land
where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed,
except by the blood of the one who shed it. 34 Do not defile
the land where you live and where I dwell, for I, the Lord, dwell among the Israelites.’”
This is the beginning of actual atonement theory, the true freedom
and the highest human calling- to be transformed by the renewing of our MIND, so that healing Grace actively pours out from within and heals our land.
Our God is the Community who judges, the author of this
story and our City of Refuge.
We are all refugees in this war-torn human country.
The Bible is the story of humanity attempting to regain the
ground we lost in Genesis 3.
And so today, this is my prayer on the Fourth of July:
“Father, I have resisted intimacy with You. I have anger and stubborn pride- I am filled with contempt. I am a refugee in my own mind, a wandering beggar in the battle inside between left and right. I don’t want to pray, because I don’t know how to talk to You. There is war in the way. When I start to feel You I start to get angry, so I sit here in stubborn silence as the warplanes fly over my head. I don’t want to ask anything or say anything- I am full of resistant frustration. I only feel close to You when I lift my hands and sing within the community of my broken brothers and sisters in the war-torn country. I know that my attachment style of relating to others is unhealthy and driven by self-protection and fear. I am helpless to fix the damage I have done, nor can I change who I am. So I am an angry refugee, wandering and howling at the moon. Jesus, cross the boundaries. Come in Father. Jesus, climb my walls, break into my heard heart. I am lost and lonely without You- my heart is guilty without Your refuge. Come into the left side of this internal war and create integrity, a home for my soul. Amen.”
Take courage, my friends.
This Fourth of July is only a tiny taste of the true freedom
that is coming very soon.
Take refuge in Him.
Peace be with you today.
Rebecca
~*~
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