God is delighting in the essence that is being released as my heart is being squeezed.
This is some ways has been a very, very rough year. In other ways it has been one of the best that Gabi and I have enjoyed. High and low, up and down, in and out. I tremble to complain because of the goodness of God, Pastor Carter, Concord, my friends and family. There are way too many blessings to even begin to think about yet God still delights to squeeze me in one area in my life.
A few years back it was the betrayal of a daughter and a son. The son I looked to as a brother and one of my best friends. Though he was not blood his heart seemed to care for mine. Later, I would learn that he longs to love but has no backbone and allowed the women in his life to rule him. God have mercy. The pain he caused, God reaching in and teaching me about true friends and foolish reliance upon weak men. I was nice. I am not nice any more. Then a daughter. God used me powerfully in her life. And then another friend turned her heart against me. God has done of wonderful work of raising her femininity and purity from the dead and I was a guardian of her heart. And she betrayed my heart. The pain of this is beyond measure and numbs me even to this day. There are sins that I would gladly give account for but I have done nothing against this woman. And other weak men, especially of Tres Dias have followed their lies. Again another wound.
God delights to use another means of grabbing my heart. He delights in the pain of the heart and the effect that it has upon the soul. This brokenness releases the true essence of the heart. His Spirit is allowed for flow freely beyond understanding. My heart is able to touch others, bring His healing through the wounds of my heart. I am wonderfully humbled by His presence and power in my woundedness. Therefore, I delight in the wounds of my friends, though I still suffer from their sin. I quiet myself in my anger and rage toward them and direct myself toward the hurt and move toward God. As I exchange my anger for my hurt He then delights to release His anger toward them. Not in a vindictive way but redemptive. He reaches into their heart to get their attention. I do not rejoice in the pain necessary to bring a saint from their sin but I rejoice in God's justice. He is just. Pain for pain they will share. That is, if I release the anger. If I hold to the anger, I just add to my soul pain which has very little value. My heart pain matures me and those around me. Shared heart pain matures those who share in its grief.
So saint, stay with the pain. God will discipline in His time and His way. Every child is disciplined for their own sin. You can't convict or convince someone of their sin. God must do it. If they harden their heart God will judge them. Sometimes for all to see. I have seen this several times and not once did I or the hurt person rejoice over someone being judged. It is horrific. It is complete. It is terrifying. Always.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Tears of a Woman
Tears of a Woman
I dedicate this post to two of the most beautiful women I have ever met: my wife Gabi of over 33 years and my daughter Tori of over 20 years. Your beauty has humbled me and your tears have taught me all that I know about women. Thank you.
Women are created by God to be moved by hope. Peter warns a woman to make sure that her hope is authored by God and nothing else. (See 1 Peter 3:1-6). It is easy for a woman to become deceived and her hope comes secretly from her soul and not from her faith. Like Ishmael of the Old Testament God refuses to pretend that a child born of false hope was a child born of faith.
When a woman cries with her heart it is because God and her are creating a new tomorrow. When a woman cries with her heart her faith is reaching into her heart to find God and her together and then creating the desired future that they both long for. Sometimes the tears and the groans are too deep for human understanding and she just cries and groans. Eventually, she will mature into her prayers but it may take a season.
If you are a man and in a relationship with a woman you must catch her tears as they trickle down her cheek. You must learn to treasure them for they will teach your heart about the spiritual DNA of a woman's heart. If you try to learn with what she says out of her mouth and understanding, you will live a life of great frustration and you will lose in the end.
Pray through her tears. Listen to her God. It is NOT going to make sense to you. They are tears from a feminine heart. You will never understand her spirit. God will have to translate for you. And do not ever try to understand her soul. She does not even understand her soul. That is a very dangerous place for men to go. Stay close to her God and you will stay close to her heart.
I dedicate this post to two of the most beautiful women I have ever met: my wife Gabi of over 33 years and my daughter Tori of over 20 years. Your beauty has humbled me and your tears have taught me all that I know about women. Thank you.
Women are created by God to be moved by hope. Peter warns a woman to make sure that her hope is authored by God and nothing else. (See 1 Peter 3:1-6). It is easy for a woman to become deceived and her hope comes secretly from her soul and not from her faith. Like Ishmael of the Old Testament God refuses to pretend that a child born of false hope was a child born of faith.
When a woman cries with her heart it is because God and her are creating a new tomorrow. When a woman cries with her heart her faith is reaching into her heart to find God and her together and then creating the desired future that they both long for. Sometimes the tears and the groans are too deep for human understanding and she just cries and groans. Eventually, she will mature into her prayers but it may take a season.
If you are a man and in a relationship with a woman you must catch her tears as they trickle down her cheek. You must learn to treasure them for they will teach your heart about the spiritual DNA of a woman's heart. If you try to learn with what she says out of her mouth and understanding, you will live a life of great frustration and you will lose in the end.
Pray through her tears. Listen to her God. It is NOT going to make sense to you. They are tears from a feminine heart. You will never understand her spirit. God will have to translate for you. And do not ever try to understand her soul. She does not even understand her soul. That is a very dangerous place for men to go. Stay close to her God and you will stay close to her heart.
Tears of a Man
Tears of a Man
I believe that when God creates us, He creates us as masculine and feminine spirits. It is NOT our body that determines our masculinity or our femininity but the breath that God breathes into us.
I began to notice that men cry differently than women. I tell the women to NOT catch the tears of her husband or her sons over the age of ten. When a man cries, when a tear rises up in his soul and overflows out into the atmosphere, for most men, it is because God is squeezing his heart.
God Almighty reaches inside of the man's chest, grabs the man's heart and then perfectly and completely squeezes the man's heart. When the man relaxes and lets God have His way, the tears are released. If he tries to hang on, hates appearing weak, then he swallows the tears down into his soul to hide them in his bowels.
These hidden tears rot and putrefy into anger and then into bitterness and ultimately into rage. The man now has to use emotional energy to keep the expanding rage for exploding out of his soul onto everyone around him. This will eventually lead to exhaustion and then long term depression.
There are two basic reasons for God to squeeze a man's heart. First, God is seeking to destroy the three E's that every man is born with. 1. The Easy 2. The Escape and finally 3. The Excuse.
Most men long to find the easy way to do anything. They move toward easy woman, easy work and even an easy war. Second, they are always looking for the escape, how to get out of things, how to pretend they did not hear or see something and if that does not work to have a ready excuse of why they can not be held accountable for what happened.
Second reason why God squeezes a man's heart is after He has squeezed out the easy and the escape and the excuses He squeezes to get the essence of what He has placed into the man's spirit and heart out into the atmosphere. God entrusts a part of His own heart to every man He creates. He then creates corners for the man to get painted into so the essence of the man's heart can be seen by all those around him. We get to know God when His men get squeezed. You get to know who belong to the devil as well, when they get squeezed.
So if you are a man, God's man, be ready to get squeezed. This is why God wants most of us married, with children and in challenging jobs. We are made to be squeezed.
When my daughter dates a man like I used to be, my heart is being squeezed. When my son acts the fool and dates a young lady who has known only fools my heart for both of them is being squeezed. When I wound my wife with a short, mean word and she responds gently, exposing the hurt, God reaches in my chest and squeezes.
I believe that when God creates us, He creates us as masculine and feminine spirits. It is NOT our body that determines our masculinity or our femininity but the breath that God breathes into us.
I began to notice that men cry differently than women. I tell the women to NOT catch the tears of her husband or her sons over the age of ten. When a man cries, when a tear rises up in his soul and overflows out into the atmosphere, for most men, it is because God is squeezing his heart.
God Almighty reaches inside of the man's chest, grabs the man's heart and then perfectly and completely squeezes the man's heart. When the man relaxes and lets God have His way, the tears are released. If he tries to hang on, hates appearing weak, then he swallows the tears down into his soul to hide them in his bowels.
These hidden tears rot and putrefy into anger and then into bitterness and ultimately into rage. The man now has to use emotional energy to keep the expanding rage for exploding out of his soul onto everyone around him. This will eventually lead to exhaustion and then long term depression.
There are two basic reasons for God to squeeze a man's heart. First, God is seeking to destroy the three E's that every man is born with. 1. The Easy 2. The Escape and finally 3. The Excuse.
Most men long to find the easy way to do anything. They move toward easy woman, easy work and even an easy war. Second, they are always looking for the escape, how to get out of things, how to pretend they did not hear or see something and if that does not work to have a ready excuse of why they can not be held accountable for what happened.
Second reason why God squeezes a man's heart is after He has squeezed out the easy and the escape and the excuses He squeezes to get the essence of what He has placed into the man's spirit and heart out into the atmosphere. God entrusts a part of His own heart to every man He creates. He then creates corners for the man to get painted into so the essence of the man's heart can be seen by all those around him. We get to know God when His men get squeezed. You get to know who belong to the devil as well, when they get squeezed.
So if you are a man, God's man, be ready to get squeezed. This is why God wants most of us married, with children and in challenging jobs. We are made to be squeezed.
When my daughter dates a man like I used to be, my heart is being squeezed. When my son acts the fool and dates a young lady who has known only fools my heart for both of them is being squeezed. When I wound my wife with a short, mean word and she responds gently, exposing the hurt, God reaches in my chest and squeezes.
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