THE LESSON OF BEING RATHER THAN DOING

One of my very best friends and I are bringing in the new year with one of man’s oldest struggles before God.  We are wanting so much to be able to “do” simple everyday tasks of dressing ourselves or straightening a space without having the effects of extreme pain or complete exhaustion.  We wrestle with God as we try to accept our physical restrictions and find ourselves so very discouraged because we cannot perform in the way we desire.  In the world of “doers”, it is totally impossible, without the help of our God, for any of us to accomplish his plan, as God tells us to “Be still and know that I am God.”  (Psalm 46:10a)

At the end of last year, my friend got COVID and began having problems with her menstrual cycle.  The issue with her menses reminded me so much of the Bible story of the woman who was bleeding for 12 years and who was healed by her faith as she touched the edge of Jesus’ cloak. (Matthew 9:20-22) 

My friend has suffered with Fibromyalgia for many years which involves dealing with pain, exhaustion, and brain fog daily and like me, she also battles depression.  Over the years, she had learned how to not allow the Fibromyalgia with its crazy symptoms and her depression to rule her life.  Despite her many physical challenges, she has accomplished much for God, using her many talents for his kingdom in a powerful way, including leading a small group of us women, disciples of Jesus, who reside in Williamsburg Virginia. 

The two of us are crying out to God and to our sisters in Christ so that we may embrace God’s primary lesson during our current health challenges.  We desperately want to learn God’s call for us to “be” rather than to “do” and to totally trust that he will provide us with our much-needed manna.  We yearn to willingly give up our desire to be in control of things and to prayerfully accept all our limitations.  BUT these are hard lessons!

The age-old struggle of mankind is that as humans, we desperately want to be in control, fighting God because he has given us limitations.  (For me, I call this struggle, “my god complex”.) We endlessly try to find our identity in what we do rather than whose we are.  As humans, we ooze with this strong desire that those of us, who know Jesus, many times forget that it is only because of God’s grace that we have whatever we have and that we can do whatever we do.  God is the Creator and the sole provider of all things.  He grants us our own existence and our talents so that we can “provide” for ourselves and for others.  HE is the one who is really in control of ALL things, and we never have been, nor will we ever be.  

The only thing that God allows us total control over is our will.  He gives us free will—the will to decide whether to follow his way by truly surrendering all to him.  And as with all things, it is only through God’s power, love, and grace that we are even given the ability to obey any of his commands.  Father, I beg you now to give my best friend and me the hearts that we need to embrace our current constraints and just be your daughters, looking only to you to meet our every need.  We started this New Year with this challenge for us to totally trust in you.  Lord Jesus only you can help us do this.  You know exactly what it is like since you have lived here with us, being like us in every way while you were here on earth.  Holy Spirit help us to hear God’s voice and be okay with resting your temple.  So be it!

As humans, this task of surrendering to God is totally impossible and that is why we will always need our relationship with God.  Even Jesus as a human understood this as he begged God in the Garden of Gethsemane for God’s will to be done.

Matthew 26:42

42 He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”

Jesus begged God, the Father, for his help three times before he could finally face God’s plan in fulfilling Moses’ law where he became mankind’s sacrificial lamb to atone for all sin every one of us has ever and will ever commit (even the one that we are doing right now in our struggle to give our “control” over to God).

So, on December 29th as was planned, I received a pacemaker/defibrillator implant.  Due to the late hour of the outpatient procedure, I had to stay in the hospital overnight and was released the next day. 

I have spoken with two other individuals about their experiences with these types of implants.  One stated that he had no pain whatsoever—no pain with the surgery and no pain during the time that his body was healing from the surgery.  The other said that immediately after the device was put into his chest, it was the most pain that he had ever endured in his life, however, he remembers only having this pain for the first 24 hours.

This is day 5 for me and though the pain is not as intense as it was the first day, it is still there, thus limiting me from being able to “do” the things that I want to do.   For instance, currently, I cannot dress myself with any shirts that require pulling over my head.  I sit around in my pajama tops because they button in the front.  I don’t know why but I feel very lazy when I am sitting around in my pajamas all day.

It was just two days ago that I could finally extend my left arm enough so that I could type.  I felt like a fish out of water as I could not use my computer without my left hand.  My thoughts flow so quickly that even trying to type them out has always been a difficult task, but to try to do it with one hand.  Forget it.  For a few days, I had to do my quiet times and my reflecting on how I have been feeling about all these things using the old fashion pen and paper.

In the latter part of December, God revealed to me how much I hate having any type of limitations.  I detest when I am sick, exhausted, or not able to do what I think that I need to be doing.  It is so difficult for me to just be still and know that God is God.  

To make matters worse, I am arguing with my own mother.  I am an obsessed doer, who has recently discovered that I identify my whole worth by my ability to perform.  We all live in this world of doers.  But I live with my elderly parents, who also have cancer and their own physical limitations.  As I am going through these health challenges with my lungs being riddled with cancer and my heart failing, I find myself constantly competing with my mother in our acts of service.  UGH! We keep telling each other, “I can do it for you.”  LORD, I beg you to change my heart and my attitude.  Please Jesus, make me humble before my mom by graciously accepting her request to help me.  Fill me Father God with great love and gratitude as you have blessed me with such loving parents.

Because my default mindset is perfectionism, as God has been exposing these flaws within my character, I am so tempted to rely on myself and give up.  Being so paralyzed with discouragement and fear, I just want to crawl into the hole of doubt, hopelessness, and despair.  But because of Jesus’ great love for me, I have a personal connection with God.  I can cry out to him about my crazy thoughts, feelings, desires, and ways.  God, the only one who can change my heart, hears me, and answers my prayers.  He gives me the trust that I need in him.  God has been working hard to reveal things to me so that by his grace, I can change.  

God has only just recently revealed to me the extent of my god complex. 

It started with my initial reaction when I read the word “limitations” in the chapter called “Enlarge Your Soul Through Grief and Loss” of the book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero.  I cried and cried, wrestling so much with God about this word, understanding more fully now the fact that I truly am not at all in control of anything.  This is a tough truth to accept because of my deeply rooted god complex.

The thing is for all my Christian life, I have used those all too familiar phrases, “God is in control” or “If it is God’s will…”.  I also have said things like, “I hate it but I’m a people pleaser.”  I even have been crushed recently with the realization that my default is to just “do” what pleases God, much like out of duty.  But it was not until now that God revealed my true struggle, which is the same age-old struggle of all mankind.  I want to be God, not just be like him but to be him.  I have a severe case of the god complex.  So, I detest that I have limitations because they prevent me from what I think needs to be done.

I could blame Eve as Adam did because this sin seemed to have started with her in her desire to be as God, knowing good and evil:

Genesis 3:4

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

But satan just pulls out what is already in each of our hearts.  Eve just did as I so often do.  She just made the decision herself and did it.  There was no mention of a discussion with God nor with her husband Adam to get their input about the situation.  

Genesis 3:6

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

And the rest is history: man has fallen from the grace of God as Adam and Eve committed the first sin.

So, God has graciously revealed to me these two deadly mindsets and heart desires that constantly wrestle within me.  I have a severe god complex, wanting to prove myself to everyone all the time and to do all kinds of crazy things to try to save loved ones from any type of suffering and I am a perfectionist.  These ways have crippled my relationship with God, keeping me from being willingly and totally surrendered to him.

But thanks be to God, once again as I look at Jesus’ example.  I have cried over my limitations but wow Jesus, being God himself, took on the limitations of being a human, totally humbling himself for little ole me!

Philippians 2:6-8

6 [Christ Jesus] Who, being in very nature God,    

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

7 rather, he made himself nothing    

by taking the very nature of a servant,

    being made in human likeness.

8 And being found in appearance as a man,

    he humbled himself

    by becoming obedient to death—

        even death on a cross!

And I have Jesus’ example throughout the New Testament as to how he always just “did” things not because he was God, but because he was God’s Son, only doing whatever he saw his Father doing.  Jesus was not into “doing” but into “being”.  Because he was God’s Son, he chose to imitate God in every way and did NOTHING BY HIMSELF!  Wow, Holy Spirit help me to be just as Jesus was in every way.

John 5:19-20

19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.

It has always been hard for me to see Jesus as a human.  Well basically because he is God and because of my warped view of who God is.  Watching the series, “The Chosen” has helped me a lot with changing my view of Jesus—my view of God.  https://www.angel.com/watch/the-chosen

The team, that puts this show together, does such a fantastic job of depicting Jesus as a human, with physical limitations and all.  Though sometimes the story line does not follow exactly the stories in the Bible (I am sure that this may be one of the reasons why the cast recommends that you read the Bible for yourself), the show does a most excellent job of displaying the human emotions on screen.  It has helped me to shift my view of the old Bible stories.  It gives new meaning for the importance of orally communicating something through “story telling” rather than just reading silently to yourself.  It has helped to put more human emotion and deeper godly convictions into me rather than me just gaining knowledge from my own Bible studies. 

With the show “The Chosen”, I get to see the common issues that we all have with interacting with one another.  The stories clearly demonstrate our tendencies to be so judgmental and critical toward one another and even toward people of other cultures.  I see why James and John were known as the Sons of Thunder as they were ready to strike down the Samaritan people who did not welcome Jesus as he was on his way to Jerusalem: 

Luke 9:51-55

51 As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; 53 but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. 54 When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” 55 But Jesus turned and rebuked them.

Many times, I have reflected on some of the show’s different stories lines, that embellish various stories in the Bible.  Like for instance, the Bible does not indicate that any of the 12 Apostles had a physical disability nor that Simon Peter’s wife had miscarried a baby.  Though these embellishments are not accurate biblical facts, the premise behind the stories are pulling from what I believe are biblical truths.  These reflections have cause me to see my cancer in a different light.  As with Job, I see God using different challenges to continually show me how God is the only one who is in control and how he is always delivering me from my god complex.

So, with all these resources, God is training me in how to rest and to be his daughter with embracing my need for limitations.  My different struggles are just reminders to emphasize that I am never in control but thankfully my Lord always is. 

Yes, there will always be tasks to do, and I have different responsibilities, but God just wants me to give all things over to him and to trust that he is the one handling everything whether he decides to use me to do his tasks or not.  I am only worthy because I have the privilege of being his daughter and as a result, I have the honor of doing his will.

Though I struggle with limits of my physical body as it is trying to battle the cancer with inside of me and my sin is ever before me, God always has a plan.  I must continually beg my Savior to deliver me from both my god complex and my perfectionism.  If it takes having to go through these trials to get me to where I need to be for God and if the temple of the Holy Spirit needs to rest, then so be it. 

So, I bring in the new year, as my best friend does, embracing the fact that we are God’s daughters and that he always graciously provides us all that we will ever need.  In this way, we get a chance to be more intimate with God as he guides us to be completely surrendered to his will.

To God be the glory!  Amen!

MEET MONICA!