"I was tired." He said as we sat together. I had decided right after I had hung the phone up with him earlier that when we met, I would just listen. After a long and embarrassed pause, he sheepishly raised his head just enough to see if I was still in the room. Once we made eye contact he dropped his head again and began to continue the story behind a recent setback. "I had been working my tail off and things around me seemed to be falling apart. No matter what I did or how hard I tried, nothing seemed to change. I just decided to stop trying so hard. I found myself doing something that I never thought that I would ever do.
I went to the bar. I went to the bar and everything changed. Nothing in my life has ever been the same."
He was a friend and came to me because he wanted my advice on how to fix a problem that he admitted he had created.
Things had been rough and it seemed as though he had received no breaks at all. As I listened to the events that he described I began to wonder if I could have handled what he had been through. Deaths in the family, a crippling accident at work, losing his wife and finding out his child had been involved in selling prescription medication at school. This all happened within the space of a few months and as he talked on I found myself genuinely hurting for this man. Why would God let so many things happen to one of His children? Had he done something wrong and was Christian karma against him? These were some of the questions that he asked me and I told him what I am going to tell you now.
I want to tell you HOW GOING TO THE BAR HAS MADE ME A BETTER MAN
Sometimes it seems as though the weight that God places on us to lift is insanely impossible. It hurts, it stretches us and it can cause an immense amount of stress. The bar and the way that it is plated seems unfair and certainly, if we were really loved by God, loved would not look the way that it does. Have you ever felt that way?
Let me explain how God changed my life through my view of the bar.
In order to understand the purpose of the bar and the weights that are allowed to be plated on, we need to first understand something far more difficult to grasp.
Who we are to God.
If I just go through life with the generic phrase (that we don't fully understand) "I'm His child" without really seeing myself as God sees me, then I will forever struggle with the bar that I have been given because I will forever see the plates that are added as some sort of punishment doled out on me for being a bad child. God is seen as the parent who loves me but always has that hand cocked and ready to spank me when I mess up. I will find myself trying to live FOR His affirmation, His approval, His love and every other kind attribute of who He is. God cleansed me at salvation, but somehow it is up to me to keep myself clean and right is the average Christian mindset.
God did not create me to live FOR Him, but to live FROM Him. There is a HUGE difference between the two. I want to show you a very difficult passage to accept.
"I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys." ~ Song of Solomon 2:1
I LOVE this passage because this is the bride of the King making a declarative statement.
The Song of Solomon is a beautiful book and it pictures our relationship with The King.
In the first chapter, she outlines why she does not deserve to be loved by the king, much in the same way that we are with God. She lays out all of her flaws and the King responds to her reasons with one overwhelming response. It is the same response that THE KING gives us when we list out why we don't deserve Him. The response is this, "I LOVE YOU."
The greatest day in our life will be the day that we choose to operate in the way that God truly sees us. Your identity is truly found in who God said you were when He did what He said that He was going to do.
Regardless of how you may FEEL about you, look at what His Word REVEALS about you!!!
"Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God." ~ Romans 5:1-2
I love this passage!!!!
In other words, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we now have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. If you are a child of God, you have been made right with Him! What can you ever do that can somehow overturn what was done for you on the cross? Miss church? Not tithe? Not go to a conference or a special service ? Work on a Sunday? The answer is NOTHING can undo what Christ did for you. Your rightness had nothing to do with you and EVERYTHING to do with Him!
It was because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.
This knowledge allows us to confidently stand and proclaim that we are redeemed and loved and valued and more than conquerors!!!
But bad things happen and we feel forgotten about and overwhelmed because of them right? Read on!
And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us." ~Romans 5:3-5
We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.
When you learn to take the stress and pain that God places on the bar and lift that through Christ instead of walking away, drinking it away, or finding ways to cover it up, yes you will get stretched but you will get stronger!
About the beginning of 2013 I was getting some milk out of the refrigerator for my son. He made a honest well intended remark and kids make honest filter less remarks. Although he did not mean for it to hurt, it buried deep. "Daddy, you have an egg in your stomach."
I looked down and thought, "Wow... where did this come from?" That night I took an honest look in the mirror and I saw that I needed to make a change. I had no energy. I was just existing and physically unable to live the life that God created me to live with Him. I had no energy to be who He made me to be and do what He made me to do.
I was working in a place where demands were high and tolerance was short. It was a church. The mindset was in the absolute opposite of where I felt that God was taking me with Him. Acceptance was performance based and God was portrayed to be of the same mindset. He was painted as the "What have you done for me lately" type. I needed a change.
I slipped out of the house very early one morning while my family was asleep and I went to the bar.
I loaded it up with plates and I began to lift. The more that I lifted the more it hurt and change seemed to take place very slow, but one day I looked in the mirror and noticed something had taken place. The egg was shrinking!
In fact as more plates went on the bar I could feel myself operating with strength. I was not tired like I used to be because I was changing. I said "No" to things that I used to say "Yes" to before and I began to see a person coming to light that was able to have strength and energy enough to perform what God was asking me to perform.
Change in your emotional and spiritual life is just like bodybuilding. Results are not instantaneous and success is 70% a frame of mind. Accepting who you are to God is not something that happens right away.
Fully getting that comes from properly lifting the weight (Trials) that He places on the bar. You will get a proper understanding of who you are to Him if you want it, and before you know it, the weight on the bar reveals that change has truly taken place!
You will be able to look back at where you were in your understanding of Him months ago and see that definition has happened in that understanding. Your spiritual eyes will see clearer than they did before and you will know growth because you used to cringe at the plates God slid into place on the bar, but now you welcome them. They were never a punishment from a tempermental and angry dad, they are designed, through lifting with Him, to reveal what He made you to be. There will be things in your spirit that were not there before and you will discover that you are strong IN the Lord and in the power of His might because you have learned to lift the weight He gave FROM Him and not FOR Him!
This sculpture is AMAZING! It pictures what I am trying to say very well! It is accepting the tribulations in the full confidence that you are who He says you are to Him that allows you to seek His strength to lift.
Each rep shed away things, ideas, and feelings that God did not design you to carry. The things that used to define you outside of Jesus Christ and His resurrection fall away and they reveal you, who you really are. His masterpiece!
If you are oblivious to who you are to Him, then the reasoning behind the weights that are put on the bar will always be some judgement from God because you were not quite good enough this week. You let Him down in your level of commitment so of course He was going to bring hurt into your life right? WRONG! God's wrath was poured out upon Jesus and If you are saved, you will never face it!!! EVER!!!
He teaches and corrects out of love and always for your future.
Trials work work out of you what you need to remove so that He can be everything to you!
We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.
"GOD'S PURPOSE, NOT HIS FAIRNESS, DICTATES THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF OUR LIFE"
When you can see God allowed trials in your life as His love in teaching you His strength in exchange for your own, you will know that true change has taken place!
Looking back, you can see how He has changed your heart, mind, and emotional state from weakness to strength.
You are stronger now now because with each added plate and with each rep that was called for you were being taught that it was His strength that lifted.
The apostle Paul would have blogged it this way,
"For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." 2 Timothy 1:12
Based upon everything that God has helped me lift, I am fully convinced that through Him, I can lift anything else that He puts on the bar!
Truly, I can now say this but with a different meaning....
"I was tired. I had been working my tail off and things around me seemed to be falling apart. No matter what I did or how hard I tried, nothing seemed to change. I just decided to stop trying so hard. I found myself doing something that I never thought that I would ever do. I went to the bar. I went to the bar and everything changed. Nothing in my life has ever been the same."
Climbing with you,
~Dan
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