Not Feel Better, But See More of Him

After all these years,  I have begun to understand where so much of the pain comes from in our lives.

We are living in our efforts, striving in the flesh, rather than trusting that He who has been from the beginning is also been there for us, from the beginning.

As long as a person sees his circumstances from his own limited perspective, he will feel despondent and lost.

Once again, there is nothing but pain and frustration awaiting every person who relies on his or her conception of God rather than trusting the Almighty Yahweh, who has revealed himself in the Word of God, through His Son.

As we see more of Him, we are transformed from glory to glory.

Why, then, do we feel bad? We are trying to fill the infinite within us through finite means, and such efforts will leave nothing but frustration and emptiness.

Not feel better, but receive life and that more abundantly -- there we find the answers to every need.

When I learned that it made no difference how I felt, my standing before God, and His grace in my life cannot be affected.

This new revelation has taken a great deal of time for me, since for so long I have been taught that what I was thinking or feeling made all the difference.

No.

Who we are has nothing to do with us and everything to do with what He has done for us.

Why did I not believe this? Why do so many other people not believe this? Because we have received a mixed message, that God loves us unconditionally if. . .

IF!

For me, the brutal element was "if I work the Twelve Steps." Later on, the punishing element has been "if you do your part."

Jesus was not mincing words when He shared with His disciples (just before His arrest and crucifixion, no less):

"1I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. 2Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. 3Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. 4Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. 5I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. " (John 15:1-5)

Jesus is not just someone who helps us once in a while. He is the vine, and we are branches which cannot thrive, unless we rest in the Vine. We are called not to strive and survive, but to revive in Himself and thrive through His life flowing through us.

Why do we feel bad, oftentimes? We want to be saved, successful, and certain through our feelings.

Yet we are not saved by feelings, and God's blessings in our lives do not depend on feelings, ours or other people's, either.

Instead of trying to make people feel better, the focus needs to be on seeing Him who has been from the beginning, that no matter how we may feel, we can both know and believe (and the feeling will follow) in His love, and that in His love perfect in us, we can see that as He is, so are we in this world. This love perfected then casts out all fear, removing ourselves in the flesh from frustrating God's grace in our lives.