The Love Wounding of the Spirit
What a peaceful scene. A Psalm 23 picture. A quiet place beside still waters. I love this and oh to be sitting there soaking in all the sounds and smells along with the sight. It’s here in the imagination of the quiet place that my Shepherd has lead me too that I can process what He has been taking me through. Last week I spoke of the encouragement of one the gifts of dying that the Spirit so graciously revealed. How did I get there? This is what this blog will explain. The place my soul has been is stormy and tumultuous. I have thought often in these last days and longed for a listening ear and with timely suggestions and comments! It's has been a very difficult, confusing and humbling time. Yet Jesus is enough.
There is a place in me that is dying and as much as I know that God is in this, and is wielding the weapon of death, it is all I can do to stay pressed into His ministrations. I am numb and wracked with pain all at the same time. It's been difficult getting this into words.
The Holy Spirit has been revealing to me as gently as only He does the truth of my flesh, my sinful nature and its actions yet sometimes I know that the truth is stark and there is no gentle way to show the truth except bluntly. I don't argue with Him, I am just fumbling around in the ensuing fog and unfamiliarity of the knowledge. It is a strong case of what to do now...my reactions and natural instincts are untrust worthy...so there is a strong temptation to lie down and not move. Do nothing. But of course I can't. Sadness and grief wearies me and I am extremely tired. Yet having said all that, I don't know how to explain it...but I know God is in this.
I can sense the encouragement of the Spirit not to run...and not to let myself or anyone else jump in and fix this...as it would only exasperate an already painful situation. My husband has been wonderfully supportive and has not attempted to "fix" me but has done his best to walk in love beside me. And that also is the work of the Spirit. Do not resist the support and love of anyone that Father sends to help us walk through a humbling time. I realized to do that was only fighting the humbling God was working in me to begin with!
I know death is hard...and personal "flesh" death is harder as it is on the inside of me and the instinct is to stop it but knowing that if I do….I really will die. Like a cancer patient who "knows" that chemo is necessary for the healing they require but the sickness and pain of the healing is overwhelming and can assault the senses with a desire to make it stop but that very thought is tempered with the one that says, “if you stop the Chemo you will then surely die.” The dying in me is being initiated by my very own Creator. He made me...He knows me...and He knows what fatal flaws have corrupted His work and is even now working at eradicating the disease of sin in my flesh and soul.
I know this may sound abstract but I, as of yet, still have a very difficuly time speaking out the area of disease in my soul. It reaches so far back...and has permeated all the areas of my life and soul, corrupting much of what I had thought was good...
...I have walked out of that for so long that today, now, I am stumbling around and fumbling as to how to walk, talk, see, think. I am really like a recovering spiritual parapalegic who is learning how to function all over again but instead of being a new born babe I am 54 years old! It is painful to get up yet it is just as painful to stay down...
The book of Romans and Psalm 73 and 91 have been an ointment in the wounds of my heart and soul. I am a burn victim being lowered into the salt water of the Word to rid the body of its dead flesh. In the pain I know there is healing...and I look forward to the onintment of the healing salve of the Word which brings relief to the burned out flesh. I wait in trepidation for the next salt bath as the rotting flesh that yet hangs on to my bones smells of death and decay!
I am not overstating this...this is what death of the flesh is like. Painful, messy and downright stinky at times. Everyone has their own “flesh” issues. Issues which go down to the bone and oftentimes back to the beginnings of life. Praise God that in all this we can be encouraged with His promise that:
The Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, Who consoles us in all our affliction, So that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God. (2nd Corinthians 1:4)
Nothing is for nothing…and everything has far reaching affects. So hang in there…what we are going through has significance for another in the future. As Believers we are truly all linked together in the Lord and what happens to one, happens to us all. None of us are alone.
© 2010 UlrikeGrace
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