Posted by John on April 10, 2001 at 06:58:42:
In Reply to: a little bit of my heart posted by Bryon on April 09, 2001 at 19:22:42:
Before I say anymore I want to make it clear to everyone that I am talking to Bryon. I only say this because chances are someone won't understand my message and will take it wrong. If you find value in it cool, but it isn't for you. Thanks for understanding.
Everyone has posted some great things about how we all feel from time to time and how to deal with it. I guess everyone has to find a way to get by... but I'm not satisfied with that, and I wager you aren't either. Did God create us to simply get by? Is it inherent in this world that everything has to be so damn difficult? What happened to the freedom we are supposed to have? Wat about the easy yoke and the light burden? These are God's promises, but we have so much other junk in the way that we can't see it. I am really just reiterating what you said. The thing is we can't live with the masks up... you think I don't live with one up? Why do I consistently scream for change? Because I want this damn iron mask that i have built to come off!
Anyway, i sincerely belive that these feelings of alienation, struggle with materialism, and time managment are culturally derived. TV, news, ads, everything inundates us with these values. We have to have a house, a job, a dog, a car, a TV, a stereo, a computer with the fastest possible internet connection so we can look at things we don't want to see and buy things we don't need. We need credit cards for those unexpected expenses and "retail therapy", we need microwaves, water picks, electric can openers, and motorized tie racks! This is all worthless. But then if we recongnize this fact, why do we attempt to stay in this culture? Wouldn't it be better to forgo it? To absolutley kill it rather than submit to it? I think you have figured out by now that it is impossible to balance the two. Either we pursue God or we live in this world. Well the world isn't working out too well is it. And we aren't the only ones who see it! Remember the message of Fight Club? The difference is that we know who is real and who has a better way, but we need to be cleansed of this mentality that is killing us. Man strip it away. Whatever you need to do to get rid of it, do it. All you need to survive is food and water. How easy is that to get! Everythign else can be done away with. Start stripping it away piece by piece. Burn it down in your life and see what is underneath, if it isn't pure then you can burn it out again. You have to hit the rock bottom of what will no longer be destroyed, and that is God! Now do I mean you have to give up everything and live in the woods? No, but if that is what it takes for you to get it out of your head, then do it! Do it now while you have the mind to. I think it is possible to come to a point where you can live in this world and not be in the least affected by it, but brother we aren't there. So whatever you need to do to blow your world away do it. I know man because I spent years doing it. I still do it, but finally I am seeing some improvement. It started when I was fifteen man, four years passed and all i did was hate everything about myself and everyone else. I knew how pointless it all was. Then finally God blew my world away. Literally I watched in a sort of teary-eyed trance as this gentle wind blew the walls and sky and ground right away. And when I looked up i was crying and in a brand new world. It looked almost identical to the room I was in in the first place, but something in me had changed. In my perceptions the world had been blown away. Maybe this is what you need. I know you want it, but your scared to do it. you feel alone and that is because you are. There is no one in your own world but you. Kill it and let God's world become yours. There you can drop the mask. This is the Kingdom of Heaven. It isn't here or there, but inside us, and everywhere. It is in our renewed minds and transformed hearts. It is the the reason we can live here as children of God. And I promise you it can be done and that you won't be alone there. You will be in the company of all of God's saints. And I can tell you I will be there.
But how? How do you do it? This is why I keep screaming about simplicity. Start by right now cutting out every thing that isn't necessary. Skip it right now. Forget ambtition for awhile, forget anything that doesn't directly affect your survival. Just exisit in this. Go to work, care for your dog, and pray. Play music if it helps your head. Continue with your appointments. But cut the crap out. You'd be surprised how much you don't really have to do. Forget feeling obligated to your friends for awhile, they'll survive, and if they hate you later, they weren't really friends. Pray as if God is sitting in front of you, take him to work with you, let him help you through the day literally. If your having trouble getting something done, or concentrating, ask God to do it for you. Forget trying to pray right and just talk to him. It takes practice but you'll begin to see him everywhere. You know you can't keep going like you are.
I will follow this up with a more personal email.
: I thought about posting anonomously, but then I thought, what's the point? If I did that, no one would know the little piece of me I'll be leaving. Anyway. It's around seven o'clock and I've got a hell of a lot of things to do. Instead I'm here because I found myself looking for a person to call and talk to that would just be a sounding board. I though of a few but, they are the one's I usually go to and I wanted to let someone else know this time. Well, it's you. There isn't much I wanted to tell you, but here's what I got. I have a lot of trouble going on inside and it all stinks of confusion, bitterness, shame, guilt, doubt, fear, condemnation, and pain. We live in a time where people just seem to assume everything is okay judging by their own ability to mask their troubles, ya know? I am having a really tough time holding up the mask. It's good I know, but along with that comes the fear of the unknown. Unknow reactions, unknown fears, unknown... I'm facing some real tough decisions. They're tough because I haven't had the integrity to make them when they wouldn't have been so tough. I have been doing a lot of soul searching and am left feeling barren because the account doesn't seem to yeild much eternal profit. I am in need of extreme simplification. I want to let it all go, but the burdon of responsibility says I can't. There is a little person inside of me that is screaming for God and all He has for me, but there are the demons right beside him choking the life out of him. Are they really demons? Who knows, but lets play a while okay? I have no other word for them. Some people might look and say that I have it made. I have a job, nice "stuff". I have grown limbs that extend to these things that are so temporal. They have become the machine in my life. God says in His word that it is for our best that we take time and wait upon the Lord, for those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. How do you do that when there is no time? I feel like I am going to split in two!! I swear every thought I type up here there is another to counter it with doubt and hopelessness!! I don't want to live like this anymore. I have been faced with my past for so long that it has become a living breathing demon on my shoulders. I have habits that destroy people. I have longings that in the long run have no value whatsoever. I think about everything! I think, "I have to get my playing in shape in order to make the band the best it can be musically. If you have only so-so players how can you expect to get anywhere? I have to learn this new technology to have any value in the job market. I have to get my house in order, for how can I be an effective minister of God until then? I have to fix this. I have to be this to this person and yet another to another." I just can't keep up... There are simple answers and then there are the real answers that tell you how to be whole in Christ. I feel like all of it lies on my shoulders, to make it all work. Even with my relationship to Christ. Because..."if you don't read the word then how will you know God's will for your life? If you don't study the word then how can you REALLY know what it's all about? If you don't pray, then how do you expect to hear from God?". Where is God in all these demands? Where is the staying power? I pray for a feverish, fervent heart for God and all I see is shit! I feel like the grass in the weed where the word immediately gets choked out. I don't want to be in that part of the parable. I want to be able to die to everything that I want. The all "knowing" I. Satan said I. I am tired of saying I. Is there no hope for the grass among the weeds in the parable? What if I am one of the people that doesn't make it? Is that already in the master plan? I need some serious freedom from the shit all around inside me. I don't know where it came from. I didn't ask for it. I don't want it. Yet I have it. I am not the only one I know, but I am dead to others as long as I am where I am. I am tired of making it all "work". I am afraid that I will let go the wrong way. I don't want to be looked up to. I don't want to be regarded. I don't want to be asked what I think, because I'm damn tired of thinking. And because all they will be seeing to ask or to esteem or to regard is this damn mask that I have up. When it comes crashing down will I crash with it? I have lost a lot of will, to live, to care, to try. I have no strength to continue. This is my being, my state, where I am.