LOSING TO WIN #4
THE CONNECTION
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Years of investigation revealed
the structure of the heart without presenting a cure to loss’ devastating effects.
I often cried out to God to show me the
way but my hopes for recovery remained frustrated. I remember telling my wife that if the Bible
is what it claims to be, the solution has to be in it, somewhere. (2 Timothy 3:16 & 17)
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I knew Jesus said, “I am the
way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:5)
However I took His statement to mean He was the agent directing me to
the way. His description of the role His
Father intended Him to play on Earth was that of a healer. At the beginning of His ministry Jesus announced,
“…he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted.” (Luke 4:18 KJV) He was obviously
the Great Physician. However; with the
arrival of His Holy Spirit, He became more than a doctor of the broken-hearted.
He became the actually medication.
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I wondered, “How can I have been
such a mess for the past five years while the medicine was in me the whole time?” Two decades earlier I had been born
again. Without a doubt He was alive
inside me. According to my drawing He
and I had a Spirit to spirit connection. A personal connection with God ought to provide
ample power to straighten the erratic orbits of any soul. Why then, didn’t God simply circumvent my inadequate
will power and automatically heal my broken-heart?
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Allow me to address that
dilemma before discussing the cure. Much
like our physical sight, our spiritual focus is mono-directional. We see only what we fix our spiritual view on.
(Psalms 25:15 & Hebrews 12:2) The
human spirit can set its focus on only one thing at a time. To view the needs of the soul, our spirit
turns outwardly, away from its central location where God’s Spirit connects
with our spirit. Therefore during the
grief of loss, our spirit loses focus on the Holy Spirit. It is, as if,
we have our back to His Spirit.
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We often feel God is absent when
a loss or a catastrophic event disturbs our minds and our emotions. The Bible assures us that He will never unplug
our connection. (Romans 8:38 & 39) God
also promises that He will never leave or forsake us. (Hebrews 13:5 & Deuteronomy
31:6) Furthermore the Bible promises that God will never turn away those who seek
Him with their whole heart. (Jeremiah 29:13) We, who are connected, can be confident that He
will not pull the plug on His connection with us.
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Nevertheless, the experience of
God’s abandonment is a real sensation of the heart. I call it False-Separation. The feelings are real. The actual fact is false. False-separation automatically
produces a “double-minded” soul. The emotional-half feels an absence while the rational-half knows better. Thus the person is “unstable in all his
ways.” When the loss is great or the catastrophe
is severe, false-separation creates an unmanageable situation for the
spirit. Not only does the spirit lack the
energy resources to force reunification of the two halves but while focused on
the soul the “eyes” of our spirit cannot see the Holy Spirit connected within.
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The unstable soul bombards
the spirit with inordinate desires from their spheres including; power,
pleasure, riches, and fame. The
desperate spirit may choose to focus on one of these as it seeks to calm the inner
chaos. This personality turmoil is common
in both Christians and non-Christians.
The nominal or non-Christian may even set their focus on some kind of
spiritual substitute. The dynamics of
loss does not discriminate. Every one depends
on something extra in their life to “lift” their spirit’s vitality in order to
hold them together and thrive. Any of us
could latch onto a trial solution or even an addictive quick fix when our
source of extra adopted energy appears to be inadequate or thought missing. Usually
the trial solutions are something bigger, better and longer lasting. However, the human heart is actually built to
be satisfied with only the biggest and the best which is eternal. That of course is God. When God is in the center of the heart He produces
no regrets, shame, or addiction like other solutions.
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In my case, I complicated the
issue by allowing church ministry to crowd into the center of my heart. And it was extremely addicting. There are many “holy” spirit-fillers. It could have been any God-focusing distraction: a
Christian cause, a campaign for righteousness, our denominational liturgy, a
church creed, some Biblical controversy, adherence to church culture. Any of these or others can crowd into the spot
reserved within the heart for God’s connection.
There is one remedy for them all.
That remedy is our perception that God is alive in our heart.
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There is a scripture that guided me
before my “falling-apart” and then took
on added significance afterwards;
“Therefore this is what the lord says: If you
repent, I will restore you that you may serve me; if you utter worthy, not worthless words, you
will be my spokesman. Let this people turn to you but you must not turn
to them.” Jeremiah 15:19 (NIV)
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As I originally entered
professional ministry the captivating words in that passage were those italicized
above. The words that echo in my spirit now
are those I placed in bold type…“repent” and “turn”. Both of those words are actually the same
Hebrew word, KAL. All three carry the
concept of turning around.
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Repent has two meanings. Unfortunately, I accepted the least important one.
It does mean to forsake or turn away
from sin. However turning away from sin
cannot be successful without our spirit first turning toward God. Emphasizing turning away from sin is an empty
exercise if there is not a turning toward God.
If repentance is turning away from sin, then managing the sin is our
job. That assumes that if we really want to
and tried hard enough we could just turn away from sin, at will. When we find that it doesn’t work that way we
either quit trying or think we must try harder.
But repentance is first and foremost one of the lightest burdens we will
ever carry. (Matthew 11:30) For the Christian or non-Christian the required
action is not to exert more human energy but to rotate our spirit’s focus in
the direction of God’s Holy Spirit inside us. It is God and His Spirit’s power
that transforms or weak will into a force more then sufficient to the task of
managing our demanding soul. It is merely
turning to face the living God within.
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That turning of our spiritual
eyes toward Jesus’ Spirit is our side of the two-way connection…Spirit to
spirit. A. W. Tozer called that process, “inwardly
gazing Godward” which is the remedy for the confusion and pain of loss. The problem is not actually sin but the blinders
of a diverted focus that permits pain to corrupt. Furthermore, painful emotions and the
“worthless words” of negative thoughts are not the problem either. Those disturbances of our soul are intended to be
an alarm. They warn us that we have
turned away and need to repent. Turning,
or should I say returning, my spirit toward God’s Spirit within held the
promise of a restored and satisfied heart.
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In conclusion, the underlying problem
of loss as well as other life altering tragedies is our diverted consciousness
from God’s spiritual connection. The
distraction of grief, accompanied with the perception that God is absent, sends
our spirit restlessly searching for wholeness.
Like many of us who get locked in loss’ confusion and pain, I needed to
repent (to turn around) and look at God within.
Refocusing on God satisfies our hunger for wholeness.
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However the turning and
refocusing were not unconscious reflexes for me. I was not sure “what” I was actually supposed
to see or how to look inside my spirit for “it”. I feel there must be others with those same
questions. Therefore I intend to share the
process refocusing that brought God’s restoration to my heart. The next LOSING TO WIN entry called “Seeing God Within”
will address those issues.
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