Discovering the Real Me Part 6
The Despairing Me verse the Hopeful Me
We’re going to wrap up our series on Discovering the Real me.
So far we discovered that every single human being is on a spiritual journey.
On that spiritual journey you are either languishing or flourishing.
We learned that only God can reveal to us if we are languishing
or flourishing.
By the way how is life going for you?
Fine?
In part 2 we considered the Current Me,
The person you are right now;
And the intended Me,
The person God created you to be.
That person God intends for you to be is a unique expression of
Jesus, the youier you that has been created in the image
of God.
God’s agenda is to transform you from the current me to
the intended me.
In part 3 we focused on the Doing Me and the Being Me.
The doing me is always working to secure a blessing from God.
To do the right things in order to live the good life.
The Being me is seeking the presence of God, not His presents.
Surrender, jumping into the flow of the Water of Life River,
allowing the Holy Spirit to sweep you away into the
desire of your heart—to know God,
is the agenda of the being me.
Part 4 found us examining the difference between the Loner Me and the
Connected Me.
For the Loner me faith is a private matter,
its just between you and God.
The Connected me realizes the great need for
others in this spiritual journey.
The Loner me does fine as long as the Water of Life River
is calm and gentle.
But it never stays calm and gentle,
Sometimes you are swept into the reckless raging
fury of the love of God (Rich Mullins)
only to discover you need others.
The Connected me has discovered they need others to make it
through and that others need them.
Last week it was the Fine Me,
The person who hides all their shortcomings and failures and
weaknesses; verse the Broken Me,
Who has learned that
Brokenness leads to repentance.
Repentance leads to abandonment.
Abandonment leads to confidence.
Confidence leads to release.
(Crabb, The Pressure is Off, pp. 180-181)
A release to become Real.
Today we’re going to look at life in the Water of Life River again as we consider
the Despairing Me verse the Hopeful Me.
I want you to leave here today trusting that
no matter how difficult your situation,
no matter how terrible the trial, tribulation,
no matter how grievous the disaster that has
interrupted your life that
God is writing a good ending for your
story.
Bottom line: Suffering can lead to becoming the Real You.
“God isn’t at work producing the circumstances you want.
God is at work in bad circumstances producing the you He wants.”
(Ortberg, p. 237)
I know you’ve asked the question—
If God is good why did this happen?
If God is good why is this happening now?
Why when things were going so well,
When life was just a lazy tube float down the river of life,
That it had to change.
The water is more than rough its life threatening.
The rapids you are in now don’t even have a
classification except keep out or else.
You’re in over your head,
You’re not in control,
You’re out of resources to deal with your problem.
You’re suffering.
It hurts to be you right now.
And you are wondering “why isn’t God getting me out of this?”
That’s the despairing me talking.
The Despairing Me is on the verge of giving up.
I have a despairing me that I frequently fight.
I’m given to melancholy and depression.
I have the gift of seeing the dark lining of a silver cloud.
I used to think I was a realist,
But Carol convinced me that I was really just
being pessimistic and needed an attitude
change.
Let me tell you, the truth hurts.
The Despairing me sees the light at the end of the tunnel and will give odds
that its really just an on coming train.
The Despairing me has become a believer in Murphy’s Law:
Whatever can go wrong will go wrong and at the worst possible time.
And sometimes the despairing me thinks that Murphy was an
optimist.
The Despairing me’s motto is: “Nobody has seen the trouble I’ve seen.”
Or maybe: “It’ll never work.”
Or perhaps “Its not like in the good ole days.”
I’ve heard the testimony of the Despairing Me:
“I tried Christianity, but it just isn’t working for me.”
Its as if after jumping into the Water of Life River they’re trying to swim
out.
They’re stuck in one of those hydraulics,
That river hole that just keeps you stuck in one place,
And they exhaust themselves trying to swim out.
They keep getting bashed on the rocks,
Sucked under the water,
Spit out, only to be bashed against the rocks,
To get sucked under the water.
It’s real hard to swim out of faith
God doesn’t give up on His own without a fight.
I’ve called it the school of hard knocks.
Fighting God for the things you don’t need,
While refusing to receive from Him the
things you do. (Rich Mullins)
I’ve heard the testimony of the Despairing Me:
Why isn’t God answering my prayers?
The situation is adverse, its difficult, its hard, and its scary.
But God seems like He’s too busy to deal with you,
To zap all the bad away.
The despairing me starts to think maybe God isn’t as good as He’s
promoted to be, or maybe He’s not all powerful, or maybe
He doesn’t care.
Its hard to keep your head above water when you’re thinking thoughts like
that.
Without faith the mountains don’t move.
I’ve heard the testimony of the Despairing Me:
God I hate you!
Who else is their to blame when what you love most is taken away from
you.
When God hasn’t meet your demands, what good is He?
He hasn’t rescued you from hurt and pain and the sins of
others.
He hasn’t changed you into the person you want to be.
He hasn’t blessed what you decided you wanted to do for
Him.
Haven’t you ever been angry at God for not doing what you want Him
to do?
For allowing pain and suffering and tragedy and natural
disasters, and disease and war and hate and
killing and poverty.
How about traffic on the freeway?
To the Despairing me—Job’s wife advice to him when his world came tumbling
down “curse God and die” (Job 2:9) is starting to sound good.
What can we say about life, even life in the Water of Life River?
Ernest Hemingway wrote, “Sooner or later, the world breaks everyone…” (Ortberg, p. 235)
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry. Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms, 1929
But Jesus said:
John 16:33 (NIV)
In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Life is full of pain, suffering;
We can find injustice, oppression;
Hardship, frustration visit everyone;
No one escapes death.
In this world you will have trouble, and you can choose to
despair over every bit of it, but there’s a better way.
In all the craziness that befalls us, take heart, have hope, Jesus has overcome the
world and all that is wrong in it.
The Hopeful Me
The Hopeful Me trusts that God is writing a good story.
And because God is unfolding a story that leads to a good ending
there is power in the present to overcome the world because
you know that your future holds victory.
Romans 5:1-5 (MSG)
By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. 2 And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise. 3 There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, 4 and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. 5 In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!
The Hopeful Me encounters challenges, difficulty, pain, suffering and even death
much differently than the Despairing Me.
The Hopeful me is convinced that the only blessing that God gives is a right
relationship with Him and that through
accepting the fact that we need God to really live,
believing that only Jesus is the way the truth the life, the door to God,
committing ourselves to follow Jesus to God--
that God makes us fit for Himself
When God accepts your faith,
When you throw open wide the doors of your life and ask
Him to enter in the Holy Spirit puts us all together
because of what Jesus has already done for us.
You get a glimpse of His glory,
You taste His grace,
The desire to be and the power to become the Real You,
Is now part of who you are,
And in your new life you can stand and
praise Him.
The Holy Spirit convinces you in the depths of your being that you are
His and that there is more to come.
The Hopeful me trust in God.
The Hopeful me believes that “it is possible that in some way
God actually [uses] adversity and setbacks---
maybe even something like trauma”
to help a person to become Real.
(Ortberg, the Me I want to be, p. 233)
The Hopeful Me knows that troubles in this life are a call to rise to the
challenge and in the attempt discover “abilities hidden within that
would otherwise have remained dormant.” (Ortberg, p. 236)
What a surprise to find that there is a hero within you.
The Hopeful Me thinks that “adversity can deepen relationships” (Ortberg, 238)
“Love meets in shared suffering and broken souls like no other kind of
love.” (Ortberg, p. 239)
The Hopeful Me experiences the way that the valley of the shadow of death
“can change your priorities about what really matters.” (Ortberg, p. 240)
“Affliction is able to drown out every earthly voice…
but the voice of eternity deep in the soul it cannot drown.”
(Soren Kierkegaard, Ortberg p. 241)
“What happens to someone who loses everything but God,
then finds out that God is enough? “ (Ortberg, p. 237)
I’ve heard it said by well meaning Christians
God will never give you more than you can handle
But God gives “people more than they can handle all the time!”
(Ortberg , p. 237)
How many times believer have you found yourself in over your head with no
other chance of making it unless God does a miracle for you.?
I guarantee you will be put in situations that you can not handle, but
“you will never be put into a situation God can’t handle.
Nothing—including death—will place you beyond his flow of
living water.” (Ortberg, p. 237)
The Hopeful Me continues to shout praises even in the midst of disaster.
Romans 5:3-5 (MSG)
We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, 4 and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. 5 In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit
Passionate patience in the hard times forges the tempered steel of virtue,
Of love, joy, peace, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self
control.
The Apostel James said
James 1:2-4 (MSG)
Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. 3 You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. 4 So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.
The Hopeful Me expects that somehow, someway, at the last possible
Second, even after the last possible second, that God will deliver.
That kind of anticipation and expectancy opens our lives to receive
that much more of God’s presence and receive His
strength and comfort into our hearts.
The suffering is the path that leads to the Real You
“Hope does not mean returning to happiness as soon as possible.
[The Hopeful me anticipates and expects that] God comes to us in our grief
and shares it with us,”
becoming our companion in pain,
One who helps carry our burden.
(Ortberg, p. 239)
The Hopeful me trusts that “God is still in the business of redemption,
specializing in bringing something very, very good out of something
very, very bad” (Ortberg, p. 242)
“We cannot count on God to protect us from suffering…
The worst evil can happen to the best Christian.
But we can count on God to enable us to draw near to Him
whatever happens and, eventually, to experience”
(Crabb, the Pressure is Off, p. 195)
the comfort and strength of His presence
You might be wondering what can I do to leave the Despairing Me behind and
become the Hopeful Me.
This is what works for me—
Go with the flow,
Let the Holy Spirit sweep you down the Water of Life River.
When you feel despair, or melancholy or depression
trying to creep into your soul, just confess it.
Let God deal with it.
Now if you’re one who is already given to despair,
Then its time that spiritual habit of contemplation.
Remember God will not reject you when you seek Him with all your
heart.
Use your despair to walk you into the loving arms of your Heavenly Father. My guess is you’re going to need a lot of Love to transform you.
But take heart, God’s got more than enough love for you to do
the job.
God has probably already surrounded you with people waiting to love
on you.
The Despairing Me is overcome by the troubles of this life.
The Hopeful Me prays
“God, teach me whatever You need to teach me,
And teach me quickly,
Use me for whatever purpose, but
I don’t want to stay here any longer than I need to.
So if You need to take me through this painful period,
I welcome it. But help get through fast.”
(Kevin Stirrat, Manna, p. 85)
The Despairing Me is in despair because life isn’t the way they want it to be.
The hopeful me knows that
“God isn’t at work producing the circumstances you want.
God is at work in bad circumstances producing the you He
wants.”
(Ortberg, p. 237)
“Your circumstances—even the best of them—are temporary.
But you—the person you become—goes on forever.” (Ortberg, p. 237)
The Despairing Me is stuck in their circumstances.
The Hopeful Me allows suffering to grow them through their circumstances
And in the process it’s the Hopeful me that discovers who they really are.