Blessed Confusion
Submitted by theshovel
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PDF versionI hate confusion, I want simple answers. I want those answers to be consistent and I don't want them to change from day to day. I don't like the "grey area", I want things either black or white. I want truth to be a fixed reality so that I can know without a shadow of doubt that life is as certain as knowing that 1+1=2. Somehow though, over the years confusion has resisted my every effort to avoid it, and living has convinced me that life is not as predictable as simple mathematics.
In 1972, I took my only college computer course, and it about drove me nuts! As each lesson got more complex I got more confused. Through a little chit-chat, I discovered that my classmates lacked the confusion that was stressing me out. I mean, I was learning and doing the lessons, but my "inbox" was filling up faster than I could process it!
With a couple weeks to go, the teacher asked for a show of hands on our progress, and I sunk down in my chair. All hands were raised for the earlier lessons, but gradually dropped as he continued. Slowly I realized I was in a very small group, and was in total shock to find I was the ONLY one still raising his hand! The teacher said, "Well, the rest of you know who to ask for help." I WAS BAFFLED!!
The point is that I ASSUMED no one else had any problems based on their seeming lack of confusion. I have since come to realize that I am the most confused about a particular thing when I am actually understanding it!! Why the confusion? Simply that in seeing clearly I have become aware of a multitude of ramifications connected to each new understanding. But by comparing myself to others the inevitable confusion became compounded so that all I could see was failure. The comparative confusion is what keeps us living in defeat, but the reasonable confusion of displaced perceptions in the face of a new reality is a wonderful thing.
In Christ, we haven't been given a new batch of "truth", but have been brought into a new reality. That reality is Christ, and He IS truth. Why are we so quick to assume that confusion only indicates something has gone wrong? Don't we know that the outworking of His life within us is going to clash with those established habits, reactions, routines, and patterns of thought that have been built upon the old rationale? Everything we see in Christ is opening wide expanses before us of a life that runs contrary to all we have known in this world. So be comforted in the knowledge that another chunk of the old perception is getting dislodged. Let the confusion remind you that you are but a stranger in a world that bases its understanding and worth upon what it can figure out, and not in what it really is.
Comments
Re: Blessed Confusion
Posted: September 7, 2001 by Dan
Hi Jim you are right about confusion there is many times I get confused in my thinking and I think I am not trusting God when it comes.But I know He is faithful not me. What I have read for your website has help me in that confusion.I thank God He is renewing my mind to His way of thinking. Love
Posted: September 7, 2001 by the shovel
« I thank God He is renewing my mind to His way of thinking »
Hello Dan!!
Yes, indeed, for His ways are not the ways we learned in this world. The wonderful reality is that He has put His way inside us, for Christ IS the way, the truth and the life!!!
Love,
Jim :)
Posted: September 7, 2001 by Michael Daniel
Hey My Good Friend,
Well once again I am just tickled to life at how God speaks through you. Blessed Confusion! Who'da thunk it? Why, if we knew the How, What Why, Where and When Of God we wouldn't need Him would we? He has to keep us guessing in order to keep us. Absolute certainty begets absolute independence. Absolute independence begets total self-reliance. Total self-reliance begat absolute separation and absolute separation BEGETS ABSOLUTE DEATH!!! Bring on the confusion!
Praise God for the glimmer of doubt He places in all of us. Praise God for the frustration and confusion He purposes so that we turn time and time again to the simple childlike faith IN HIM He desires in all of us. Even in grey, HE IS OUR RAINBOW! Even in confusion HE IS OUR ASSURANCE! Even in doubt, HE IS OUR CERTAINTY! Praise God! For as He crucifies the death of the illusion of self and awakens us to WHO WE ARE IN HIM we submit and surrender to the ONLY LIFE THERE IS!!!
Oh how glorious when the last, hideous, remnant, of self is rended from us. Then, and ONLY THEN may Jesus manifest His totality in us, through us, AS US!!!
How long will we defy Him? How long will we believe in and justify the illusion of self and the works of the flesh? When will we DENY AND DIE and stop telling our Precious Father what we think we want and ASK HIM WHAT HE WANTS? When will we finally say; "Okay Daddy, do what you will! I give up all earthly ambition and provision and just simply believe that You are God, You are my Father, You love me unconditionally and You will take care of me. You will provide for me. In fact you already have BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD!!! I BELIEVE! I BELIEVE! I BELIEVE!
But I doubt. I am confused. So Father, if You would, please be "The Faith" I do not have. Please be "The Hope" I cannot maintain, and please continue to remind me that You are "All of You in all of me."
Jesus...be!
Thanks Jim
Posted: September 7, 2001 by the shovel
Indeed!! Who'da THUNK it?? :)
Michael, my precious brother, there is no doubt that you have been down the bitter path of utter disappointment in the fleshly life and have seen with the eyes that see the invisible to know that there is no other life than that of Christ!!
Thanks bro!!
Jim
Posted: September 7, 2001 by PKW
This if my FIRST time replying online, so I may have to deal with a little confusion here. ;-) I have replied via email a time or two.
Anyway, I just wanted to say that I appreciated the timing on this DIG because I have been sick for 23 days now. It took me a week-and-a-half before I went to the doctor, then 10 days of antibiotics, and that ended on Friday. I am healing, but it is so slow. I have been prayed for by friends and family and myself. But, I also have been doing a number on myself. That old sticky situation of thinking there just MUST be some sin to confess and then things would get back to "normal." It's not that I'm sinless, but when one goes hunting for sin... It's CONFUSING!
Thanks for all the encouragement I get from your digs.
Posted: September 7, 2001 by Richard
" It's not that I'm sinless, but when one goes hunting for sin... It's CONFUSING!
Thanks for all the encouragement I get from your digs.
Wow!! What do you think would happen if one were to go "hunting" for the "Sinless One" that is joined to us, maybe the opposite of confusion??
Who knows maybe the mind of Christ would really blow us away, in fact so far away that the only thing we would want to behold is the "Sinless One" in us!!
Wouldn't that be a trip??
Richard
Posted: September 7, 2001 by Michael Daniel
My Dear Friend,
You are perfect! You are the "Righteousness of God in Christ", and you have absolutely NO SINS to confess! You are ill for reasons only God knows, but you most certainly are not being punished. Why would God punish anyone for sins He has already forgiven us for?
You may say; "Well, I know I'm forgiven for my past sins and maybe even my present sins, but there's no way I'm forgiven for my future sins."
Jesus died and we died with Him 2001 years ago. HOW MANY OF OUR SINS WERE FUTURE SINS THEN?
ALL OF 'EM!
We have been totally redeemed, totally sanctified, totally justified, and TOTALLY FORGIVEN!!! When our Precious Father looks upon us He sees Jesus Himself! This is absolute truth!
I encourage you not to believe a word I have written here. Test The Holy Spirit of Truth within you. The Messiah is your Life and dwells within you in His Holy Spirit and you have no need of teaching from anyone!
You are loved UNCONDITIONALLY and that is that!
I love you all,
Posted: September 7, 2001 by Rick
excellent letter jimmy boy!!!!!!!!!! i love this one, along with all the others of course.
Posted: September 7, 2001 by Sherri
"Did you realize that in greeting you who are in Christ I greet Christ Himself? Oh, yes, for He is your life, and He is more real than your next breath. I wonder who it is that tries to convince us that our relationship with God through Christ must be sought after in a clinically sterile and separate manner apart from the nitty gritty rubbing of elbows with one another? Don't we know who our life is? So, why do we keep waiting to see Jesus when He is closer than our next breath, for we actually have seen Him and have gazed into His eyes many, many times!"
This in itself was a wonderful little mini-shoveletter or shovelnote!! : )
"Everything we see in Christ is opening wide expanses before us of a life that runs contrary to all we have known in this world. So be comforted in the knowledge that another chunk of the old perception is getting dislodged. Let the confusion remind you that you are but a stranger in a world that bases its understanding and worth upon what it can figure out, and not in what it really is."
Yes, control and predictability are very important factors in life to us! More so than we care to admit to, and more so than we tend to even be aware of most of the time!!
And yes, 'strangers' indeed!! We become more and more aware of this 'supernatural separation' as we come to see from time to time the fruits of the confusion ... the tearing down of the seemingly endless walls of illusion and deception that tend to lead us into our various delusions ...coming to see what is true reality as opposed to the facades we find as we journey here.
Good stuff, as usual Mr. Shovel, Sir!
: )
Posted: September 7, 2001 by Richard
Hi She-Shovel (Sherri)
Good to hear your typing again, hope your getting recharged!!
coming to see what is true reality as opposed to the facades we find as we journey here.
Isn't it painfully wonderful to be left with NOTHING but the True living reality of His Love and Life in the nasty now and now?!!
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