Welcome: An Introduction

Sharing the insights I discover as I explore and experience the mystery that is our reality. Join me in my journey and share yours.




Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Avoiding Emptiness


"In order to kill the self, we must be ready to endure all the wounds of life, exposing ourselves naked and defensless to its fangs; we must accept emptiness. Every sin is an attempt to fly from emptiness.
                    ~ Simon Weil



"I came to in a gloomy wood..." Gustave Dore


When I think of the above quote I think of how we are called to empty ourselves of our egos, attachments and illusions and fill ourselves with God through the lifelong process of sanctification; of transforming our hearts to be  more and more like Christ. In Romans Chapter 6, the apostle Paul relates the truth that when we accept our blessed Savior we die to our old selves and are raised anew in Christ.

As God renews our hearts and minds through His Spirit they are transformed in His love and mercy. How often, though,  through the pursuit of our own pleasures and desires, do us humans neglect this call God has for us? How often do we also avoid this call because it forces us to look at how things really are, it makes us face our true characters and flaws and encourages and prompts us towards change?  Nobody likes to feel "naked and defenseless" to the truth.  Reality and the need to change can be very uncomfortable. Instead of dwelling in the presence of God we dwell in the pleasure of our own transient and fleeting pleasures to avoid such truths.  Instead of emptying ourselves so God can fill us we fill ourselves with trivial and meaningless things that distract us and keep us from the full revelation of God's glory and the realization of our shortcomings. This is where I start to think that perhaps, indeed, sin does have a role to play in the avoidance of emptying oneself.

Our avoidance of the presence of God in filling our hearts, in order to pursue our own pleasures could very well be considered a sin, for it separates us from God in a way that is unnecessary but created entirely by us. We create the barrier that blocks us from our Creator.  Our inability or unwillingness to shed our old skins so that we might be transformed by the glory of God is our choice and to deny a God, who gave us His all, to work through us to magnify His glory and manifest His Kingdom here on earth because of our own selfish attachments...well how could that not be a sin?

Not only could the means at which we use to avoid empyting ourselves so Christ could fill us be considered a sin, but it also creates a great disservice to ourselves as well. We fail to experience the most beautiful precious gift there is-

John Piper puts it this way:
“Every sin is the failure to treasure God above all things.”

How can we be treasuring God above all things when instead of opening our hearts to Him we are closing the gates of our souls to Him and opening it to other things?

It's not always comfortable when  we get rid of the clutter of our false egos and scatter the  illusions we have about our lives. These illusions can make things oftentimes seem a lot better than they really are and bind us to the attachments that feed them and obscure us from really seeing the reality that surrounds us. Let's go back to part of the passage:


"...we must be ready to endure all the wounds of life, exposing ourselves naked and defensless to its fangs..."

When we take away the things in life that obscure our view of who we really are and what are lives truly consist of, it's often a view that is unsightly, filled with perverseness. Us humans have a great way of implementing "escapism" to protect our egos and keep us on plateaus that are comfortable, yet don't encourage positive change and certainly don't propel us down the path of sanctification. We fill our time, thoughts and attention with things like movies, the internet, alcohol, drugs, sex and other pursuits that might not be all too bad or immoral but when we use them to avoid God and growing in our relationship with Him and developing in our identity in Christ, that's when they start to become stumbling blocks (or sources of sin) that keep us from fulfilling our full potentials.

David Adam describes sin this way:

Sin is living below par when it is within our power to alter it. Most often this happens when we have lost our vision and no longer see where our true riches lie.

When we avoid emptying ourselves of the trivial things that steal our affections from God, we lose our vision of our identity in Christ.  When that happens we take our eyes off the most precious treasure there is: experiencing the presence of God and letting Him work in our lives to His glory. We lose out on experiencing the richness and fullness that there can be in our spiritual walk and instead accept the shallow and superficial road that only leads to temporary pleasures and ultimately a sense of restlessness as our purpose can never be totally realized and fulfilled. Our souls will only feel satisfied when resting in the heart of our Father and that comes about by emptying them so that He might fill them.

May we all find a moment today where we can come before God in silence and open our hearts to Him, emptying them of all distractions, and simply welcoming Him into our hearts.  God will do the rest. He will reveal to our innermost selves the areas that need to be changed and with compassion and mercy He will provide our hearts with the healing, encouragment and strength for the journey onwards.

Any thoughts? I'd love to hear them! Please leave them in the comments Section!

15 comments:

  1. Hi Jessica -

    While reading your post above, a few lines stood out as I've been reflecting upon this for months now. You said,

    "Instead of emptying ourselves so God can fill us we fill ourselves with trivial and meaningless things that distract us and keep us from the full revelation of God's glory and the realization of our shortcomings."

    I've been fascinated by how busy people think they are; jobs, children, exercise, and mostly communication technology. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, messenger, chat rooms, text messaging, and cell phones.

    If you observe, many people are spending useless time doing things they consider busy-busy, important stuff. Very little of it is actually meaningful. It's merely passing the time, or choosing the time they do have and filling it with meaningless busy-work.

    All of this busy-work has nothing to do with getting closer to God. This busy-work blinds us to God's love. Have a good Wednesday. :)

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  2. I think pleasure is part of life and should be enjoyed but not to the detriment of others. Pleasure is pleasurable, hence the word. To live blinded from what is offered to us is a life unfulfilled. God may be love, but love is all around us. So enjoy it, experience it. Just don't let it consume you. Enjoy the little things..

    So @bjbohls, I feel it is so wrong to put God before your own child! Also jobs to feed them and exercise to be around longer with them. Your comment was beyond my comprehension. Very narrow.

    Sorry Jessica and thanks, you are a shining light in my evil Hellenistic path, lol

    A

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  3. @bjbohls..... God put us beings here for a purpose... Taking care of loved ones is one of those purposes. Those who work for a living are taking care of their loved ones. God is within us and one does not need to prove to another how and when we devote our thoughts to him....
    Jessica sometimes in silence we hear his voice and sometimes during the most busiest of time... His voice is always there we just need to be more aware of it...
    Love and pleasure is every where and is meant to be experienced and touched but not at the cost of hurting another intentionally....

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  4. In the article I wrote:

    We fill our time, thoughts and attention with things like movies, the internet, alcohol, drugs, sex and other pursuits that might not be all too bad or immoral but when we use them to avoid God and growing in our relationship with Him and developing in our identity in Christ, that's when they start to become stumbling blocks (or sources of sin) that keep us from fulfilling our full potentials.

    God made all of creation for our pleasure...experiencing pleasure is not a sin, it's when we put things (even those that bring us pleasure) over God and seeking,experiencing and growing with God that that becomes a problem..a sin..blocking us from not only fulfilling our full potentials but experiencing an even greater joy and pleasure than can ever be found in the pleasures the world offers.

    Love you guys, thanks for your comments! :)

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  5. Are Yoga and Myself the same person? Spooky!

    A

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  6. Hey A ;) I answered you and Savira collectively because I was addressing the points that you both made that were the same...Savira had said:

    Love and pleasure is every where and is meant to be experienced and touched but not at the cost of hurting another intentionally

    And you had said:

    I think pleasure is part of life and should be enjoyed but not to the detriment of others.

    I just wanted to make the point that I wasn't necessarily saying that pleasure wasn't to be enjoyed, but enjoyed in context! ;)

    Thanks for your comments...I always love to hear your thoughts :)

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  7. I guess we should not forget our priorities in life..and as A rightly said,God has given us certain responsibilities to look after,and neglecting those will mean going against his will..so it comes to the same thing,we can still be connected to Him by doing what we have to..keeping in mind to thank God for everything.

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  8. I am thankful that I live and love knowing that God is with me at all times. Jessica, your words are beautifully expressed. I found out that with God I no longer have to worry about money and I have more abundance now than I ever did before. If you listen carefully God will show you the way. I would love to share just one of many examples I could share. When working at a safe home for abused and neglected children I used to get upset that the state sent us sexually aggressive children added to the mix of children who were victims of abuse (there were a dozen children in the home at most times, which was our maximum capacity). I commented "Isn't this like adding the fox into the hen house?" It made our work very difficult. As the years went on I was promoted and the monetary compensation in no way equaled the responsibilities I didn't ask for ("thanks God" I often said, knowing I was supposed to be learning something)I thought I should be making 2-$3 more per hour. When the price of gas rose so much that it no longer made sense for me to make the forty five minute commute I looked for a similar job closer to home. God provided - the first job I applied for and got was less than 15 minutes away from home, I got the money I felt I was worth, and guess who I would be working with? Young males who were raised in environments with little respect for others, who were caught being sexual offenders. I learned that in the correct environment, with therapy and people who believe they are capable of change they too can heal. Our God is amazing and I am so thankful for the mysterious ways our creator provides. I am very hopeful about all our futures as more people learn compassion over judgement.

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  9. I’m not the world’s best ascetic – which many equate with the sanctification process – but I believe that the heart that esteems God above all else is on the way, and that He will help us pick up the slack… He who is able to keep us from falling and present us blameless and with great joy… (Jude 1:24).
    For those who may question, John Piper’s quote, “Every sin is the failure to treasure God above all things,” isn’t by any means condemning taking pleasure in created things, but rather gaining true perspective of what, or Who, is most important.
    I find this quote by Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain helpful:
    Every time you find in God’s creatures something pleasing and attractive, do not let your attention be arrested by them alone, but, passing them by, transfer your thoughts to God and say: “O my God, if Thy creations are so full of beauty, delight, and joy, how infinitely more full of beauty, delight, and joy art Thou Thyself, Creator of all!”
    Thank you Jessica for this inspiring word.

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  10. Thank you Alpana for your thoughts and stopping by..~blessings

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  11. Carol, thank you so much for sharing your experiences and your message of compassion over judgement. It is amazing how God works, sometimes things can seem to make no sense at all but when more time passes and parts of His plan are revealed, they start to make beautiful sense in a way that we wouldn't have known otherwise if we didn't go through the experiences (often in the form of trials) that He sent our way. Thank you for stopping by and for your thoughts and reflections :) ~blessings

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  12. Thank you so much Debra for that beautiful quote, it really sums up everything I was trying to express! To put our pleasures in context, recognizing the Creator in the creation and experiencing things not for our pleasures in and of themselves but to bring glory to God and grow with Him through them. I always love your reflections :) ~blessings

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  13. "Sin is living below par when it is within our power to alter it."

    WOW. Powerful and true.

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  14. Glad you liked that line, it stuck out to me as well when I read Adam's book! Thanks for stopping by :)

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  15. @ Bjbohls: Great comment!

    We are here to live, PERIOD! Which means we live to experience. We choose what and how to experience life and there's nothing sadder to listen to someone complain that they're too busy to do the things they really want to do, and then to actually see how they spend their time on unpleasurable tasks. I worked with a woman like that. If I had a dollar for every excuse she gave me....

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