The Question is not, "Dare we Desire, but dare we not desire?"
Alright, so I've posted three things in one day, it is making me feel better...before I get into the heart of what I'm going to say let me share with you how left of center I've been feeling. I'm always a little askew, but here lately, just the last several days, I have had the most nervous feeling in my stomach. I tend to be worrier, but there really isn't anything for me to worry about, but my stomach is in knots and my thoughts are all over the place. There is also this feeling of loss, maybe it is better to say no passion. I don't no what's going on, but if it could stop that would be great...I felt like if I was going to be honest I might as well start there, and if anyone has a great wisdom shine down on them from Heaven about this, that would be awesome...if not God will whisper it to me in the end...
Alright, enough jabbering about that, moving on to my topic for today. I am slowly winding up my study on the "Journey of Desire" by John Eldridge, before I go back to revisit the "Sacred Romance" by him I thought I would go back and re-read what I highlighted and what I wrote. Now, I tend to take my dear precious time through studies, so some of the stuff I wrote was like from a year ago, and when I read it it really made me uncomfortable, and at the same time I felt like God was saying you need to share this...and I was like God you are sooo funny...funny funny God, and He was like, no Melissa I'm serious...and with a big gulp I immediately started to protest and was like, but God if I write this they will think I'm a freak, couldn't I tweek to more of my liking, and He was like sorry kiddo...this is you, and if you are going to start living a reflection of me you might as well start by laying it out on the line...and to be honest I read Kat's blog about her weaknesses, and it was like a blow to the gut, so bear with me as I share some personal stuff with you guys...not as deep as I can go, but give me time...so many of you are using your blogs as a witness, I'm trying, but let me start by being honest right off the back...I enjoy praise for myself, and honestly when I write, sometimes I desire the praise to come back on me...it makes me feel good...I'm sorry for that guys and know that I come from a true place, Jesus please take my thoughts and actions out of what I'm about to write and place your wisdom so that it might touch someones heart....
ALRIGHT I'VE RAMBLED ENOUGH HERE GOES...
First a little from the Journey...
Scripture: Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. - Isaiah 55:1-2
Beginning on page 39 of "Journey of Desire"...
Notice that the people who aren't so good at keeping up with the program but who are very aware of their souls' deep thirst are captured by Jesus' message. Common folk tear the roofs off houses to get to him. They literally trample each other in an effort to get closer to this man. I've never seen anyone acting like this in order to get a chance to serve on some church committee or to hear a sermon on why dancing is "of the devil." People act like this when it's a matter of life and death. Crowds trample each other to get out of a burning building; they press into the mob to reach a food line. When life is at stake and the answer is within reach, that's when you see human desire unmaksed in all its desperation.
TS Eliot wrote...Endless invention, endless experiment, Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; Knowledge of speech, but not of silence; Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word. Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is th wisdome we have lost in knowing...
Continued from Journey of Desire page 41...
We don't need more facts, and we certainly don't need more things to do. We need Life, and we've been looking for it ever since we lost Paradise. Jesus appeals to our desire, we no longer hear or understand what he is saying. But we have returned to the message of the synagogue; we are preaching the law. And desire is the enemy. After all, desire is the single major hindrance to the goal - getting us in line.
Christianity has nothing to say to the person who is completely happy with the way things are. Its message is for those who hunger and thirst - for thos who desire life as it was meant to be. Why does Jesus appeal to desire? Because it is essential to his goal: bringing us life.
Christianity refuses to budge from the fact that man was made for pleasure, that his beginning and his end is a paradise, and that the goal of living is to find Life. Jesus knows the dilemma of desire, and he speaks to it in nearly everything he says.
When it comes to the moral question, it is no simply whether we say yes or no to desire, but always what we do with desire. Christianity regonizes that we have desire gone mad within us. But it doesn't seek to rectify the problem by killing desire; rather, it seeks the healing of desire, just as it seeks the healing of every other part of our human being.
The Questions Folks...here they are for all the world to see...
Prayer:
Dear Gracious Heavenly Father,
I honestly don't know what to say. I have so much spinning around in my head right now, some things I can't even understand. First, off I know You created me with a specific plan in mind, and I'm so greatful that you chose to save my LIFE and when I look over my 23 years I see truly how far you have brought a very weird and akward frizzy-headed nieve young girl with braces on her teeth and what you have done in my life. Up until now you have shown me that I'm truly safe and complete in your loving hands. I now understand that you want to have me experience passion, pleasure, and ecstasy, words that are rarely reflected in the Christian faith. I'm ready to take this journey. To walk this path. I know it will be hard, but I also know that you will never leave me. I am so ready for something more. I am ready for you to ROCK MY WORLD! I love you...Melissa (written one year ago)
First question: What news would bring you relief and joy right now? (Don't make it sound "spiritual" - think about your actual life.)
OK this is not spiritual at all, that I was magically the weight I desired to be. That a huge Hollywood manager wanted to manage me, and that Joss Whedon had to have me act in Angel (angel is now cancelled), and a movie deal with Steven Speilberg was underway. That school was over (praise God it is), that I was meant to be loved by someone special, and that I had a nice peaceful home in Montana...Ha! Ha! The sad thing is I could go on and on...
Question 2: In all your living over the past year, has it ever really crossed your mind that you were meant to live in Paradise - that this life you have is not the "habit" your heart was designed for - not even close?
I think I've always felt the great pain that comes from the loss of Eden, the desire for the richness of nature has always taken my breath away, I can't get enough of it. I want it to seep into my bones...Nature is God's artwork screaming the story of His love for us!
Question 3: Now think about the things that have "turned your head" recently, those things that have roused some hunger within you..even if they merely seemed like "temptation". Can you see in those things your longing for Eden?
I feel sometimes that every nerve in my body becomes super-sensitive, almost painfully aware of the desire of Eden that I have lost! I get lost in passionate love stories, and I will admit I long for some handsome and strong man to consume, take my breath away, far more than having sex, I always feel it is an act of desperation, I need! Oh! how wrong it is, but how true!
Question 4: And all the hassles and disappointments and deep heartaches of your life - how do you think about those?...
I honestly feel as if they are something I deserved, that somehow, some way I did something wrong, that I deserved it to happen, or even worse that it was typical of my life story, the way things go for me. I can never get a break. This is the way things will always be...
Question 5: As I wrote, I'm fully aware that all of us now, so far from Eden, "have desire gone mad within us." Our desire for ecstasy isn't hardwired to God, and we all know it can run in some pretty wild directions. Are you aware of a desire within you that unsettles you? What are the desires that have historically gotten you into trouble?
I feel that there is one huge desire in me that is unsettling, but very intoxicating at the same time. It is hard to get around, it consumes my being. (It also leads to a habitual sin of lust, ugliness, and shame...from which I haven't derived a root) So much so that I've created a fantasy world within my mind that can make this desire manifest, and I live in this world daily and in great extremes. It is the need to be special, not only that, I will admit, it is the need to be praised, dare I say worshipped, to be placed on a pedistal that, in my fantasy, I can never fall off of. It is the cancer, or the fuel to the fire of all my other desires and it often leaves the realities of this world very dissappointing and causes me to go to embarrising lengths to please people, which in the end only causes deep pain and rejection, a problem I often don't want to rectify or know how to!
Question 6: How have you dealt with that dilemma in the past? What has been your recipe for handling desire in a godly way or at least to keep from getting you in trouble?
I have to be absolutely and completely honest I have done absolutely nothing to try and rectify the dilema nor have I even thought about what it could mean. Instead I've been devouring it like a mouthful of sticky blueberry jam on a warm butter biscuit, I sit gorging myself blissfully happy, all the while getting my hands and my face greasy and sticky with the content of my fantasy. When real life doesn't play out the way I invisioned I only retreat more. I don't know how to get out of it, I want in away, so I can live in the moment, but in other ways I'm like "no way Jose", that this desire is my desire for God is completely baffling and I don't know how to re-direct the current of energy. I need help...some sort of understanding...
Finally...are you the Prodigal Son or the Elder son...
This is the way it is for me, most of the time I am the older son, striving to be the best that I can be, I've got the "perfect Christian" mentality shooting out my ears, and then when the pressure of this way of life gets to be to much I quickly become the Prodigal son, indulging myself in my own brand of earthly desires to escape to be free from it all. Invevitably I come crawling back likcing my wounds falling into the Father's arms, and then once He has tended to me, it isn't long before I feel better and start acting like the older son again. Such is my life...
So there it is, the questions and the answers I gave nearly a year ago. I was stopped in my tracks, partly because they say a lot more to me, than they might say to you, and also because I can see how far I've come, but I also see just how much I still live my life there. God is working a good work in me, and being honest about who I am is the most important. I know that I've given you a lot to digest, so I'm not going to write for a few days, please be honest with me...I'M CRAVING HONESTY...to be honest with you, I often feel like a freak, incomplete in some fashion, and my desire is to be able to show all facits of myself to the world...I think this space gives me more of the opportunity...I hope that you will take a look at Becca's Interview and my 30 random facts about me below...somehow I think they all fit and any words whatever they might be would be appreciated...thanks to everyone who reads...may you be blessed.
Alright, enough jabbering about that, moving on to my topic for today. I am slowly winding up my study on the "Journey of Desire" by John Eldridge, before I go back to revisit the "Sacred Romance" by him I thought I would go back and re-read what I highlighted and what I wrote. Now, I tend to take my dear precious time through studies, so some of the stuff I wrote was like from a year ago, and when I read it it really made me uncomfortable, and at the same time I felt like God was saying you need to share this...and I was like God you are sooo funny...funny funny God, and He was like, no Melissa I'm serious...and with a big gulp I immediately started to protest and was like, but God if I write this they will think I'm a freak, couldn't I tweek to more of my liking, and He was like sorry kiddo...this is you, and if you are going to start living a reflection of me you might as well start by laying it out on the line...and to be honest I read Kat's blog about her weaknesses, and it was like a blow to the gut, so bear with me as I share some personal stuff with you guys...not as deep as I can go, but give me time...so many of you are using your blogs as a witness, I'm trying, but let me start by being honest right off the back...I enjoy praise for myself, and honestly when I write, sometimes I desire the praise to come back on me...it makes me feel good...I'm sorry for that guys and know that I come from a true place, Jesus please take my thoughts and actions out of what I'm about to write and place your wisdom so that it might touch someones heart....
ALRIGHT I'VE RAMBLED ENOUGH HERE GOES...
First a little from the Journey...
Scripture: Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. - Isaiah 55:1-2
Beginning on page 39 of "Journey of Desire"...
Notice that the people who aren't so good at keeping up with the program but who are very aware of their souls' deep thirst are captured by Jesus' message. Common folk tear the roofs off houses to get to him. They literally trample each other in an effort to get closer to this man. I've never seen anyone acting like this in order to get a chance to serve on some church committee or to hear a sermon on why dancing is "of the devil." People act like this when it's a matter of life and death. Crowds trample each other to get out of a burning building; they press into the mob to reach a food line. When life is at stake and the answer is within reach, that's when you see human desire unmaksed in all its desperation.
TS Eliot wrote...Endless invention, endless experiment, Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; Knowledge of speech, but not of silence; Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word. Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is th wisdome we have lost in knowing...
Continued from Journey of Desire page 41...
We don't need more facts, and we certainly don't need more things to do. We need Life, and we've been looking for it ever since we lost Paradise. Jesus appeals to our desire, we no longer hear or understand what he is saying. But we have returned to the message of the synagogue; we are preaching the law. And desire is the enemy. After all, desire is the single major hindrance to the goal - getting us in line.
Christianity has nothing to say to the person who is completely happy with the way things are. Its message is for those who hunger and thirst - for thos who desire life as it was meant to be. Why does Jesus appeal to desire? Because it is essential to his goal: bringing us life.
Christianity refuses to budge from the fact that man was made for pleasure, that his beginning and his end is a paradise, and that the goal of living is to find Life. Jesus knows the dilemma of desire, and he speaks to it in nearly everything he says.
When it comes to the moral question, it is no simply whether we say yes or no to desire, but always what we do with desire. Christianity regonizes that we have desire gone mad within us. But it doesn't seek to rectify the problem by killing desire; rather, it seeks the healing of desire, just as it seeks the healing of every other part of our human being.
The Questions Folks...here they are for all the world to see...
Prayer:
Dear Gracious Heavenly Father,
I honestly don't know what to say. I have so much spinning around in my head right now, some things I can't even understand. First, off I know You created me with a specific plan in mind, and I'm so greatful that you chose to save my LIFE and when I look over my 23 years I see truly how far you have brought a very weird and akward frizzy-headed nieve young girl with braces on her teeth and what you have done in my life. Up until now you have shown me that I'm truly safe and complete in your loving hands. I now understand that you want to have me experience passion, pleasure, and ecstasy, words that are rarely reflected in the Christian faith. I'm ready to take this journey. To walk this path. I know it will be hard, but I also know that you will never leave me. I am so ready for something more. I am ready for you to ROCK MY WORLD! I love you...Melissa (written one year ago)
First question: What news would bring you relief and joy right now? (Don't make it sound "spiritual" - think about your actual life.)
OK this is not spiritual at all, that I was magically the weight I desired to be. That a huge Hollywood manager wanted to manage me, and that Joss Whedon had to have me act in Angel (angel is now cancelled), and a movie deal with Steven Speilberg was underway. That school was over (praise God it is), that I was meant to be loved by someone special, and that I had a nice peaceful home in Montana...Ha! Ha! The sad thing is I could go on and on...
Question 2: In all your living over the past year, has it ever really crossed your mind that you were meant to live in Paradise - that this life you have is not the "habit" your heart was designed for - not even close?
I think I've always felt the great pain that comes from the loss of Eden, the desire for the richness of nature has always taken my breath away, I can't get enough of it. I want it to seep into my bones...Nature is God's artwork screaming the story of His love for us!
Question 3: Now think about the things that have "turned your head" recently, those things that have roused some hunger within you..even if they merely seemed like "temptation". Can you see in those things your longing for Eden?
I feel sometimes that every nerve in my body becomes super-sensitive, almost painfully aware of the desire of Eden that I have lost! I get lost in passionate love stories, and I will admit I long for some handsome and strong man to consume, take my breath away, far more than having sex, I always feel it is an act of desperation, I need! Oh! how wrong it is, but how true!
Question 4: And all the hassles and disappointments and deep heartaches of your life - how do you think about those?...
I honestly feel as if they are something I deserved, that somehow, some way I did something wrong, that I deserved it to happen, or even worse that it was typical of my life story, the way things go for me. I can never get a break. This is the way things will always be...
Question 5: As I wrote, I'm fully aware that all of us now, so far from Eden, "have desire gone mad within us." Our desire for ecstasy isn't hardwired to God, and we all know it can run in some pretty wild directions. Are you aware of a desire within you that unsettles you? What are the desires that have historically gotten you into trouble?
I feel that there is one huge desire in me that is unsettling, but very intoxicating at the same time. It is hard to get around, it consumes my being. (It also leads to a habitual sin of lust, ugliness, and shame...from which I haven't derived a root) So much so that I've created a fantasy world within my mind that can make this desire manifest, and I live in this world daily and in great extremes. It is the need to be special, not only that, I will admit, it is the need to be praised, dare I say worshipped, to be placed on a pedistal that, in my fantasy, I can never fall off of. It is the cancer, or the fuel to the fire of all my other desires and it often leaves the realities of this world very dissappointing and causes me to go to embarrising lengths to please people, which in the end only causes deep pain and rejection, a problem I often don't want to rectify or know how to!
Question 6: How have you dealt with that dilemma in the past? What has been your recipe for handling desire in a godly way or at least to keep from getting you in trouble?
I have to be absolutely and completely honest I have done absolutely nothing to try and rectify the dilema nor have I even thought about what it could mean. Instead I've been devouring it like a mouthful of sticky blueberry jam on a warm butter biscuit, I sit gorging myself blissfully happy, all the while getting my hands and my face greasy and sticky with the content of my fantasy. When real life doesn't play out the way I invisioned I only retreat more. I don't know how to get out of it, I want in away, so I can live in the moment, but in other ways I'm like "no way Jose", that this desire is my desire for God is completely baffling and I don't know how to re-direct the current of energy. I need help...some sort of understanding...
Finally...are you the Prodigal Son or the Elder son...
This is the way it is for me, most of the time I am the older son, striving to be the best that I can be, I've got the "perfect Christian" mentality shooting out my ears, and then when the pressure of this way of life gets to be to much I quickly become the Prodigal son, indulging myself in my own brand of earthly desires to escape to be free from it all. Invevitably I come crawling back likcing my wounds falling into the Father's arms, and then once He has tended to me, it isn't long before I feel better and start acting like the older son again. Such is my life...
So there it is, the questions and the answers I gave nearly a year ago. I was stopped in my tracks, partly because they say a lot more to me, than they might say to you, and also because I can see how far I've come, but I also see just how much I still live my life there. God is working a good work in me, and being honest about who I am is the most important. I know that I've given you a lot to digest, so I'm not going to write for a few days, please be honest with me...I'M CRAVING HONESTY...to be honest with you, I often feel like a freak, incomplete in some fashion, and my desire is to be able to show all facits of myself to the world...I think this space gives me more of the opportunity...I hope that you will take a look at Becca's Interview and my 30 random facts about me below...somehow I think they all fit and any words whatever they might be would be appreciated...thanks to everyone who reads...may you be blessed.
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