Freedom (You Are A Refugee)

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.

 The soul is a refugee in the war of the human mind.

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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A Decade Plus Two {A Love Poem}

 It was just twelve years ago that we said “I do”.

Over twenty years since we said “I love you”.

So much has changed in a decade plus two!

We have fought the good fight- facing hard things, standing tall in trials.

Sitting in difficult times.

Waiting for God's plan for our pain.

Fighting together through seasons of refinement.

Yet one thing remains the same-

In the bad and the good, the blessed and the broken,

We continue to walk together towards Him.

We sometimes look back with longing, it's true.

Our address has changed a few times.

Our family has grown by two.

Our church home has come and gone and been made new.

Some people have let us down, but others have held us up.

Our faith has shifted, our perspective has matured.

Our Savior has begun to work in us in much more disciplined ways.

So much has changed!

But one thing remains-

We continue to walk with Him.

For as much as God has stretched us since we first joined hearts,

I look forward to seeing what twelve more can do.

A decade plus two has brought up deep truths,

About who we are in Him and who we are with others.

Yet twelve years of learning is only the beginning...

Keep growing, keep going, keep walking together with Him...

Always in love.

Rebecca

~*~

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view my creative writing,

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You Are His Favorite {My Ambivalence}

We long to love and be loved by the people who can no longer live in our neighborhood because of deep wounds and betrayal. This ambivalence is a deeply human experience. Our Father has strategically placed certain people in our lives to gently but persistently reveal our own brokenness. He does this in order to draw out the worst in us. Only then can we appreciate our value as the favorite child of God.

Truth is, you are His favorite child.

Say this out loud to yourself- it's true. What feelings come up for you as you speak this statement? Most likely, you have conflicting emotions.

And so He wants you to see the depth of your enemy’s failure so that you can grasp the true depth of His abundant forgiveness and love for you.

Recognizing the ambivalence in the soul caused by betrayal is a great place to start. 

Ambivalence is the experience of two conflicting feelings at the same time; disgust and desire, love and hate, invitation and rejection. When you think about the broken relationship(s) in your life, you may experience ambivalence. I know I do- as much as I desire reconciliation, I equally desire full and public restitution for all my suffering.

It's selfish. It's human. It's honest. It hurts.

Let's dive into this very human experience of ambivalence together, shall we?

Think now of that one person who is impossible for you to love. Perhaps they are in your church, among your extended circle of friends, or even in your family. They stand tall among their peers, they hurt you, and they cannot be safely approached for discussion- you are helpless to change their opinion of things and it is hopeless to think of the restoration of your relationship with him or her. This feeling of resentment you hold against them is as solid and fixed as a very large rock weighing you down. Down. Down.

Generally speaking we are incapable of seeing the true brokenness within ourselves. We are quick to extend grace to our own person, forgiving our daily mistakes, but hesitant to extend this empathy and compassion to others. So Jesus can use the pain of an impossible betrayal to deliver a gift- motivation to seek a change of your own inner person. Our own failures are easier to overlook than the failures of our enemies, so God does His most powerful work here, in the places where we nurse our offense towards His favorite children.

Think again of that one person you cannot love. Because all of us have people that we Do. Not. Like.

Maybe we admit it, or maybe we avoid it. But to be human is to have enemies.

Jesus had numerous enemies, and He was God. So who are we, flawed humans, to think we can avoid this reality? Enemies are inevitable.

It is not a question of whether you will have enemies, it is a question of whether you will love them.

So here it is: you have the privilege to be called the favorite child of God. AND your enemy is entitled to this privilege as well.

Not fair? Not in human terms. Love is the Kingdom currency.

So you can both stand side by side in this same privilege of ridiculous love because scarcity does not exist in Kingdom economy. There is no limit of Gods’ favoritism for His children. Just because I am His beloved does not mean another is not, or that others are less so.

But we don’t want to share the benefits of belovedness if there are people we decide do not deserve it. So we judge harshly and often- the scarcity mindset says that love is limited and should not be extended to just anyone.

This week God spoke this statement to me, “I am going to reveal to you the depth of your betrayer's failure so that you can grasp the reality of My forgiveness.”

Resistance sets in. We argue with Jesus. We want to reserve the right to judge the ways in which others have wronged us. It’s based on experience and repeat offense, and we are smart and observant. We will not be duped again. They deserve to be loved less than us. We are not stupid. Their sin is much more damaging than ours.

Damaging to whom?

We are so foolish.

Oh no, we say to God, “that person” does not deserve to be as beloved as I am. Look at what they have done! They fall shorter than I do, just look at how they have messed up. Look at their life, it’s obvious how wrong they are!

It’s a soul-distorting comparison game. Because you are messy too. Your sin damages also. Is there a limit of acceptable sin? Where does Grace fit into this equation??

Yet we choose to avoid our own failure and focus on that of our enemy, and we withhold the love of God from those we decide are no longer our neighbors.

After all, even the Jews agreed that you love only those who are close to you:

Leviticus 19:18 (NLT)

¹⁸ “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

We like to love our neighbors, the people who live close to us but probably know little about us, those who see our best and never cross our bad side. The people nearby who we only have to speak with when we feel like coming outside.

The people we can quietly retreat from when we fall short, maintaining our good standing with them because we only see them when our best foot is forward.

We see our neighbors only on Sundays, or only when we gather for an occasional coffee or dessert, perhaps just in passing to get the mail. These people are easy to love.

Our neighbors are the people who do not mirror our sins but reflect only our goodness. Yes, it is easy to love only those who do not see our capacity for shortcoming, the truth of our mistakes.

So this makes Jesus offensive when he declares the new Kingdom currency which extends out beyond our neighborhood- love.

⁴³ “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’^[a] and hate your enemy. ⁴⁴ But I say, love your enemies!^[b] Pray for those who persecute you! ⁴⁵ In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.” Matthew 5:43-45  (NLT)

Why did Jesus say “You have heard the law that says ‘hate your enemies’”? What is Jesus talking about here? It does not say “hate your enemies” in the Jewish law. His listeners had not heard the law say that. The law only said “love your neighbors and fellow community”. So where is Jesus extrapolating the word hate from this command?

Did He misquote the law or forget what had been written before He came?

I hardly think so. It’s Jesus.

Oh, well then, perhaps in typical Jesus fashion he was talking about the hearts of his listeners, who heard “love your neighbor” and deciphered permission to “hate those who are not”.

If there is an inner circle, this implies there are people on the outside. If there are neighbors, there are therefore outsiders. Who is marginalized from your heart? Who have you cast away from your community, no matter how justified you may have been in doing so? These, these are the enemies. This is where “that person” you are thinking of resides, in the shadows on the outside of love.

Jesus said “hate” because he knew that some of his listeners had heard it said “don’t bear a grudge against your fellow community members” and assumed a condensation of meaning that allowed them to hate those who were deemed “outside” of their social circle.

Some people may not be safe for you, and they may need to stay outside of your neighborhood. I understand that completely.

But they are still loved by God. So what to do with them?

Jesus says to love. So we killed Him.

Now to be fair, He did not say “allow enemies into your neighborhood” or “invite them back into your intimate circle”. This may come with time, or it may never come at all. You may be willing to reconcile, but the other party may be unwilling. You may change, and the other person may remain unsafe. The distance between you could possibly be permanent. 

This is not a problem for love- such reunion is not required, because the love Jesus talks about is a mindset and not a moment.

Jesus said a much harder thing than “reconcile” or "close the gap"- He said we must endow upon the enemy the rights and privileges given to a favorite child of God, even if they remain outside of your circle of safe people.

You can extend the fruits of the Spirit to someone who is not allowed in your neighborhood- they do not need to enter your inner circle of companionship to receive the Grace which flows through you from your Father.

Because the fruits of Grace do not depend on proximity to be given or received- they only require submission to the empowering teachings of Jesus.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer within the circle of Kingdom belovedness.

I don’t know how to do this well at all.

When it comes to reconciliation and forgiveness, I am a terrible student. At best, I am beginning to pick up bits and pieces of Jesus teaching and only just starting to fit them into something tangible. Most days I fail- occasionally I succeed. It’s a long and arduous process, mostly just because I make it so through my stubborn resistance to His teachings and my repeated persistence in living on my own broken terms.

After all, it’s convenient to have enemies- it makes this life easier. But it makes spiritual transformation much harder.

I did learn one thing this week that I want to share here with my readers: my enemies are beloved favorite children of my Redeemer. Not for how they hurt me, or for how they hurt themselves and others, but because they bear His image and my Father longs to lavish His love upon them just as He is already doing for me.

Think of that one person you cannot love well. Because all of us have people that we Do. Not. Like. Choose to see them as a favorite child of God, not merely tolerated by Jesus but fully loved by Him. Just as you are. Even in your stubborn clinging to your old ways of living, He calls you beloved.

And nobody wants to love their enemies on an actual, practical level, which is why the Messenger was killed.

It is a daily discipline to love your enemies, because the entire body and brain rebels against it until we take captive the thoughts which hold us hostage to hate. This takes a lifetime to accomplish.

So when you are on the other side of this life, when the Kingdom comes, your race is won, then what is the one thing you look forward to having the most? For me, it’s this: Reunion and reconciliation with the people I call my enemy.

I look forward to shalom with those who have wounded my heart. I long to love and be loved by the people who can no longer live in my neighborhood because of deep wounds and betrayal.

In heaven I want a long and genuine hug of deep affection from those whom Jesus will call my enemies- those unsafe brothers and sisters in His family.

When Jesus says “love your enemies”, who specifically comes to mind for you? That is exactly where Jesus wants to begin His work in you.

He wants to unite broken relationships among all His favorite children. Not to force our hand, but to break down the walls which boundary our hearts from fulfilling relationships. Enemies do that to us- influence us to boundary up our heart so that we can withhold our love. Not because of who they are, but because of who we become as a result of our reaction to their own brokenness.

Truly, I look forward to having deep, rewarding and meaningful fellowship with the people in my life who have inspired me to build up walls. Some relationships may not be fully repairable in this lifetime, but we can still affirm the beloved inheritance that God is offering to them.

We can watch the value of our enemies rise up, up up as we open ourselves to the power of increasing Grace.

And you are making progress if you experience ambivalence towards your enemies as we attempt to love them.

Because enemies are people who cause deep ambivalence within the soul- a longing to both forgive and to punish at the same time. 

And I read recently that it is a sign of maturity to become aware and accepting of the reality that there are fellow children of God who bring out ambivalence in me, both because of how they choose to live their lives and because of how I choose to live mine. A collision of interests, because neither party has in mind the interests of God.

If you feel ambivalent towards your enemies, you are making significant progress. This means that love is beginning to shine through the cracks in your high walls. Not so that your enemies can get in, but so that you can climb out.

Should some relationships require distance indefinitely for very valid reasons, that painful reality does not exempt those people from falling under the “enemy” category which Jesus talks about. That person who will never be safe for you indicates a place in your soul where God wants to begin His healing process. Irreconcilable differences can only be healed when favoritism is set apart from scarcity.This is a Kingdom economy with a currency of unconditional love.

And a nuance here: I don’t mean to become doormats, letting unsafe people trample upon your heart. I mean to become empowered to recognize an enemy as a favorite child of God with all due rights and privileges. You do not need to get close to “that person” to picture them standing alongside you under the light of forgiveness and grace which covers you both in a blanket of redemption. This is the seed for Kingdom victory in your soul.

Could you stand hand in hand with that person in front of the cross and receive forgiveness together?

For the rain falls both on the wounded and the wounder, the one who causes pain and the one who receives it- Jesus recognizes this contradiction and He is working to correct it. Not by withholding the rain, but by extending the dramatic effects of His transforming grace.

This week God clearly said to me, “I need you to see the depth of this person’s personal failure so that you can grasp the deeper truth of my forgiveness.”

I didn’t like that, but it gave meaning to an area of frustration in my life, a place where I have been working to invite Jesus to heal and repair- an ongoing process that means picking up my cross daily and following Him, even when I really Do. Not. Want. To.

This process of picking up our cross and following Him is redundant. It is meant to be so, because we are a stubborn and forgetful people. So we need that one person who’s betrayal reveals the extent of human failure, because that one person reveals the extent of God’s love.

He loves your enemy JUST AS MUCH as He loves you. What does this mean for your relationships?

The problem with accepting that you are God’s favorite child is that the scarcity mindset says that if I am His favorite, others are not. The Kingdom reality is that we are each His favorite.

We need to see each other’s failures because it is a mirror image of our own. It helps us see ourselves more clearly. And God knows we need help to see inside our own hearts, so He strategically placed certain people in our lives to gently but persistently mirror our own brokenness and bring out the worst in us so we realize our desperate need for Grace.

You were His favorite child before you accomplished a single thing- He loves you just as much today as He did the first day you were conceived. Nothing can change that- nothing can knock you out of His favoritism. Even that one person whom you cannot love- nobody can take away your favored status except yourself, by refusing to live in it.

When we see the sin of our betrayers, we feel anger. When we see that same sin within ourselves, we feel shame, because that same judgement we cast out has now been cast back on us. So Jesus steps in to break the cycle of unforgiveness which we are helpless to stop.

When shame loses it’s power in the light of our favored status as a child of God, our sin does not go away. In fact, in comes into sharper contrast against the divine and holy love of our King. But instead of hiding our failures from Him, we can begin to present them honestly and openly, again and again, because we trust He will not turn away or punish us.

Take up your cross again. And again. And again.

When we think of that one person whom we cannot fully forgive today, we must begin to also think of that one place inside our self which we cannot fully invite Jesus into, for that is what that one person mirrors within us. That is the first place He wants to transform.

So love your hurting brothers and sisters, because it is good for your soul. Love them from a safe distance or love them up close. But love them either way.

So as you go about your week, think of the ways in which God is using the sinners around you to wake you up to the depth of His redeeming love. Instead of carrying around the weight of that one person’s terrible wrong (and it is terrible, I am sure), take on the lighter burden of appreciating how good God is to love ALL His children in the midst of such rampant brokenness. He wants you to see the extent of human betrayal so that you can grasp the truth of His forgiveness.

When you think of that one person, think also of the promise that you are His favorite, too, and there is no scarcity of forgiveness in the family of God.

You are His favorite child, so you can afford to love your enemy today.

Do not annihilate your enemy, but incorporate them into the Kingdom reality.

Practice loving your enemies because this is the art of soul care.

Here to close is my prayer for this week, as I look ahead at the challenges I face:

“Father, You say to Your children to come as you are- so I come as I am. A bit restless, longing for more, desiring attention and validation from Your Spirit, wanting to stay asleep but compelled to wake up by the people around me, expecting the worst but wanting the best, full of sin but open to grace. Jesus, I invite you into the mess that is my frail human soul and I hope that You will wake it up today to the glories of Your provision and blessing. I know I fall so hopelessly short of the human ideal that You established during Your ministry here on Earth. I also know that You are my loving Father who draws near to me even in my sin and shortcoming. I see my imperfections and so do You- together let’s continue my spiritual transformation one small step at a time today. Walk with me, Jesus, and teach me Your way, the only way to live.”

Join me, brothers and sisters, as we learn how to love the children of God that we do not like.

With all my imperfect love,

Rebecca

~*~

Support my work by following my page.

To read my story or

view my creative writing,

please visit my original blog site.