Humility Study Notes

Many of you who have spoken to me recently would know that I am really working at the moment with willingness towards true humility. I am praying constantly for 'the awakening' of my true soul condition that allows our God connection. I feel passionate about it. The reason being that, as I step into this process I have found that, what I thought would feel humiliating actually feels wholly liberating and what I thought would make me unlovable to everyone (i.e. owning and sharing all my imperfections) has actually opened me to feeling more authentic and I have received the most awesome gift - the beginning of a connection with God. 

As I began to pray and desire this process I found a book (which I also mentioned in my last post) called Brokenness: The Heart God Revives by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. The list I have pasted below has been adapted by me from a chapter in the book. I have it printed out and incorporate into my daily prayer time most days now.  Some of the words in the prayer that I have written that follows the list use a concept that Nancy refers to in the book i.e. (my paraphrase here) in order to be truly 'broken' or humble we must learn to become humble with others, walls down, as well as with God, roof off.

For those who attend the Wednesday group at the Wilkesdale Learning Centre we agreed yesterday to discuss the list at next weeks meeting. I'm posting it here so that everyone may have the chance to read it before then.

By the way if you have never attended this group everyone is welcome. It starts at 10.30am.

I've enjoyed being present with you all the past couple of weeks and I'm excited to think that we all may grow and share in humility.

Love to all,

Mary

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The following list has been adapted from the book:

Brokenness: The Heart God Revives

Humility & Pride

Proud people focus on the failures of others.

Humble people are overwhelmed with a sense of their own spiritual need.

Proud people have a critical, fault-finding spirit; they look at everyone else’s faults with a microscope but their own with a telescope.

Humble people are compassionate; they forgive much because they know how much they have been forgiven.

Proud people are self-righteous; they look down on others.

Humble people esteem all others. They have faith in the potential for good in others.

Proud people have an independent, self-sufficient spirit.

*Humble people have a dependent spirit; they recognize their need for God. They value gifts from God and from others. They do not resist giving God or others credit for the wisdom or gifts they have given them.

Proud people have to prove that they are right.

Humble people are willing to yield the right to be right.

Proud people claim rights; they have a demanding spirit.

Humble people yield their rights; they have a meek spirit.

Proud people are self-protective of their time, their rights, and their reputation.

*Humble people are able to love themselves. They do not DEMAND attention or love out of lack or fear. They do not value themselves above others.

Proud people desire to be served.

Humble people are motivated to serve others.

Proud people desire to be a success.

Humble people are motivated to be faithful and to make others a success.

Proud people desire self-advancement.

*Humble people desire to promote love and God.

Proud people have a drive to be recognized and appreciated.

*Humble people recognise their relationship with God is their primary relationship. They are humble to feelings of unworthiness and sensitive to when they may be becoming arrogant.

Proud people are wounded when others are promoted and they are overlooked.

*Humble people are eager for others to get the credit; they rejoice when others are lifted up. They are humble to their feelings if overlooked and turn to God with these feelings.

                                          

Proud people have a subconscious feeling, “This ministry/church is privileged to have me and my gifts”; they think of what they can do for God.

*Humble people know that the true way to teach or ‘minister’ is through humility and demonstration of God’s Grace. They are not afraid to expose their true selves. They realise what God does for them in every moment, especially when teaching others. They recognise all Truth comes from God.

Proud people feel confident in how much they know.

Humble people are humbled by how very much they have to learn.

Proud people are self-conscious.

Humble people are not pre-occupied with what others think of them.

Proud people keep others at arms’ length.

Humble people are willing to risk getting close to others and to take risks of loving intimately.

Proud people are quick to blame others.

Humble people accept personal responsibility and can see where they are wrong in a situation.

Proud people are unapproachable or defensive when criticized.

Humble people receive criticism with a humble, open spirit.

Proud people become bitter and resentful when they are wronged; they have emotional temper tantrums; they hold others hostage and are easily offended; they carry grudges and keep a record of other’s wrongs

Humble people give thanks in all things; they are quick to forgive those that wrong them.

Proud people are concerned with being respectable, with what others think; they work to protect their own image and reputation.

Humble people are concerned with being real; what matters to them is not what others think but what God knows; they are willing to die to their own reputation.

Proud people find it difficult to share their spiritual need with others.

Humble people are willing to be open and transparent with others as God directs.

Proud people want to be sure that no one finds out when they have sinned; their instinct is to cover up.

Humble people, once Humble, don’t care who knows or who finds out; they are willing to be exposed because they have nothing to lose.

Proud people have a hard time saying, “I was wrong; will you please forgive me?”

*Humble people are quick to admit failure, to feel the cause of their unlovingness and to seek forgiveness when necessary.

Proud people tend to deal in generalities when confessing sin.

Humble people are able to acknowledge specifics when confessing their sin.

Proud people are concerned about the consequences of their sin.

Humble people are grieved over the cause, the root of their sin.

Proud people are remorseful over their sin, sorry that they got found out or caught.

Humble people are truly, genuinely repentant over their sin, evidenced in the fact that they forsake that sin.

Proud people wait for the other to come and ask forgiveness when there is a misunderstanding or conflict in a relationship.

*Humble people take the initiative to be reconciled when there is misunderstanding or conflict in relationships. They are loyal to the principles of love and truth first and always and do not allow pride to prevent them from admitting a transgression.

Proud people compare themselves with others and feel worthy of honour.

Humble people compare themselves to the holiness of God and feel a desperate need for His mercy.

Proud people are blind to their true heart condition.

*Humble people walk in the light – they fully face their true condition and reach out to God from that space.

Proud people don’t think they have anything to repent of.

Humble people realize they have need of a continual heart attitude of repentance.

Proud people don’t think they need revival, but they are sure that everyone else does.

Humble people continually sense their need for a fresh encounter with God and for a fresh filling of His Spirit.

List adapted from http://www.reviveourhearts.com/pdf/uploads/TheHeartGodRevives.pdf

Notes with * beside have been altered from the original text by me. The word broken and brokenness has been replaced with humble throughout.

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“God please help me to be Humble before you today and everyday. Teach me to live with the walls down and the roof off.

I desire to be near you and to bring glory to you. Help me to be humble to my failings and pain so that I may never cultivate addiction and instead live in the shadow of your love every hour and moment of my life.”

A Book List

So I read a lot these days. I always used to as a child and teenager, then I went to university and it all but killed my joy in reading and writing. I used to write a lot as well - poems and stories - in notebooks and on scraps of paper. I'd be out walking and inspiration would hit me. Weeks or months later on I might find a poem scrawled in the borders of a National Parks walking map or a scrunched up serviette. I used to copy down the words of others as well, quotes and phrases, and paste them up all around the house, especially in the loo! My Mum and Dad used to laugh good naturedly at all my 'inspirations and sayings' hanging about our home.

Lately I rediscovered my passion for reading and writing (and for God and Love). I think the first two are a by product of the last two! Reaching for God and for Love again has brought me closer to the more pure me (don't you love how that works?)

Anyway down to the point of my post today - I wanted to share with you some books and blog posts that I have read and that I find inspiring. I want to clarify that just because I've included a book or a blog doesn't mean that it necessarily upholds the teachings of the Divine Love Path. Each title is on the list because it moved me, and nurtured my growth in some way. I found when I began to pray for guidance and truth more sincerely I was led to certain books at times when they were most beneficial to me. Can I suggest that if you plan to read any of the books below that you let yourself be guided to particular ones? I feel they will resonate or move each of us in different ways at different times.

So while I don’t necessarily endorse the views on God or emotions that are expressed in all of these books, I do want to honour every single author, their courage, their vulnerability and their gifts. Oh how I wish I could express myself in the perfect simplicity of some of these authors! (By the way, I've been cruising some blogs lately and I gather that, for the main part, the way to be a chic, informative, and appealing blogger is to keep it succinct. I apologise to you all - I do not possess this knack. Maybe it'll come back to me as I get closer to God. I am, as yet, so verbose!)

Also I've added hyperlinks for most titles in case you want more information on the book i.e. publisher, ISBN etc.

Relationship With God

The Padgett Messages (available at www.divinetruth.com or here)

There is just so much wisdom and truth in these pages. Each time I return to them I find more and more to ponder and feel about. Truly food for my soul.

My feelings about the Padgett Messages haven't always been like this. To be honest when I first went to read them I found it difficult.It all seemed very repetitious and my concentration often drifted. Recently I have returned to them with a passion and find every message rich with meaning and emotion. It’s like I’m reading a different text. The truth is I’m reading with a different heart! If you are struggling with the messages can I suggest something that got me restarted in reading them with gusto? I picked up the Little Book of Truths and just read a few short excerpts at a time. I prayed both before and after each message and sat with my journal and asked God to help me understand the true depth of meaning in the message. It really worked for me.

What’s So Amazing About Grace by Phillip Yancey

Its. Just. Awesome!

The Shack by W.M. Paul Young

I read this book quite a while ago and it really helped me to open my heart to an emotional connection with God.

Brokenness: The Heart God Revives by Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Through the Mists by Robert J. Lees

Emotions 

Healing Through The Dark Emotions by Miriam Greenspan

I have to confess that I am only half way through the first chapter of this book! The fact that I have already put the title on this list should attest to how enthusiastic I feel about it. Similar to when I discovered Alice Miller its refreshing to feel that someone else out there is telling some truth. Its truth that AJ & I talk about all the time but in my stuck times I find that just the reading of such books is supportive and encouraging.

The Heart of the Soul by Gary Zukav & Linda Francis

I found the chapters ‘Boredom’ & ‘Pleasing’ especially relevant to my life.

Feel the Fear… and do it anyway by Susan Jeffers

The strategies Susan outlines for dealing with fear are very much Natural Love techniques and I have not applied any of them - however what Susan states about the nature of fear and how it controls our life really helped me.

The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown

Brokenness: The Heart God Revives by Nancy Leigh DeMoss

I’m really in love with this book at the moment. I’m not entirely in love with the concept within it that love = self sacrifice but I do feel there is a lot to be gained in taking a look at our pride and demanding attitudes that are not qualities of love. The concept of brokenness before God and others is something I pray about daily.

Loss of a Loved One

I Will Carry You by Angie Smith
I cried on nearly every page of this book. The themes trigger very personal things for myself but apart from that Angie is a gifted and vulnerable writer. 
 

After You – Letters of Love, and Loss, to a Husband and Father by Natascha McElhone  

Soulmate Relationship & Sexuality

Are You The One For Me? by Barbara De Angelis
For me the really valuable thing about this book was the insight it gave me into the addictions I have had with men in previous relationships and how willing I have been to overlook simple issues of love.

Female Chauvinist Pigs – Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy

Reading this book was a series of moments that sounded something like this: ‘That’s exactly what I felt but I didn’t know how to describe it!’, ‘I so totally agree’, ‘Where was this book when I was 20?’… you get the picture.

Female Ejaculation and the G-Spot: Not Your Mother's Orgasm Book! by Deborah Sundahl

Eh hemm.. so I want to clearly state that I DO NOT ENDORSE EVERYTHING IN THIS BOOK! Specifically I do not agree with the practices of seeing ‘sex therapists’. I do however agree that our vaginas (for those of us who have them!) store much emotion and connecting to these emotions brings about healing and increased sexual function. Some of what Deborah shares I found to be very relevant to my ongoing sexual healing.

The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler

Family Relationships & Childhood Emotions  

The Drama of Being a Child (previously publishes as The Drama of the Gifted Child) by Alice Miller

Other Alice Miller Titles:     The Body Never Lies
                                          The Truth Will Set You Free
                                          Thou Shall Not Be Aware
I think many of you have heard me speak, write or recommend Alice Miller enthusiastically - enough said - she's brilliant.

Toxic Parents by Susan Forward

Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers by Karyl McBride

Well worth the read with some excellent emotion focused activities in the back of the book that can help anyone explore their relationship with their mother.



Homecoming – Reclaiming and Championing your Inner Child by John Bradshaw

Spirit Life

Thirty Years Among The Dead by Carl Wickland – Unpublished – Free Download @ www.divinetruth.com

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Practicing Love

Radical Hospitality by Father Daniel Homan & Lonni Collins

I love this book! Its not about nice meals and fancy linen - its about hospitality that extends to all strangers and originates in the heart.

Helping Kids with Emotions &/or Relationship with God

'When I'm Feeling...'  Book Series written and illustrated by Trace Moroney


Blog Posts That Make My Heart Soar & Soul Ache

http://thebigmamablog.com/8994/love-never-fails/

Wow, Melanie says so many things in this post, about how Christians do and could interact with the world, that I was trying to say about the way our group does and could interact with others in my post 'On Forming a Cult'

http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com/2010/08/lamb.html

Angie is such an awesome writer! She has a new book coming out this year about FEAR that I can’t wait to read.

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2009/08/what-could-change-everythinga/

I so love this line: “Idols of self-importance die protracted, writhing deaths and the invisibility of prayer terrifies the glory-hungry.”


http://www.ordinarycourage.com/my-blog/2009/2/11/brenes-home-for-wayward-girls.htmlAs a once hard-partying girl who is now trying to integrate all her pieces I thank Brene for her vulnerability here!

If you are interested in books you may like to bookmark this page as I will update this post on an ongoing basis.

Happy Monday everyone,

Love

Mary

How To Hold a Dream

We live in a culture that regularly scorns innocence, passion and vulnerability. All too often we ‘water down’ our true selves in favour of a version of self that suits the cynical and image-focussed landscape in which we live. We are taught to view the preciousness of our childhood dreams and creativity as childish, as too idealistic and unrealistic. [1]

I was taught early that my extremely emotional and expressive self was befuddling and bemusing to my parents. I learnt to be ashamed of this part of myself.

My huge desire to make the world a better place, to extend love to others and change lives for the better, I relegated to an idealistic pipe dream after spending ten years working in our health system and over two years in the Middle East. I came to believe that to be worldly was to face the harsh facts that the world is irretrievably messed-up, that lasting change and peace is a naïve concept. I learnt to judge and be angry instead of grieve the suffering I saw everywhere I went.

When Yeshua began work on the constitution for God’s Way of Love Organisation and as we began to talk about our future vision I had to face how much disillusionment I still carry about the way our world works and how resolute I feel so many of us still are in our decision to deny God and love, to judge our childlike selves and to stifle our creativity in favour of ‘fitting in’.

It seems that to truly embody this vision of ours I must have the courage to grieve my feelings of hopelessness, my belief that the world can’t change. This conviction of mine comes not only from my experiences in the past 30 years but has its roots in a time when a great dream was lost, when Light living in one man was extinguished through murder and a group of people grieved deeply that the presence of God’s Love on earth was so brief. It lived on only in a few of us, and to a much lesser degree. Our devastation was complete and my loss threatened my will to live, my faith and my hope. It broke my heart in a way that now it seems cleaved in two. The wound is covered over by scar tissue and yet underneath is still raw and weeping and excruciating to touch.

To make way for hope and creativity, I must grieve my loss and I must also cease to regard my childlike self in the way that my parents and environment taught me to. We learn to treat ourselves harshly and with reserve to avoid the pain of our wonder, excitement and imagination being stifled and judged by others. We reject ourselves so that we do not feel the grief of how rejected we were by others in our innocent state.

Our tears will free the sparkling children, full of wonder, big ideas and dreams, who are still waiting there within us. We can all learn to be trusting children again – only this time we can come to rely on a God of Love who accepts us as we are and delights in our childlike inventiveness and wonder.

When I consider God’s Way of Love as a vehicle for me (and all of us) to reconnect to this state; as a place that will welcome our tears at past dreams dashed, and teach us to hope again with vulnerable hearts no longer afraid of loss, I am moved beyond words.

I quietly tremble and let my heart release its fear. I allow the tears of my past Great Loss.

In order to hold our dream in my heart I must repair my faith and trust once again in the power, patience and endurance of Love. I must let my tears flow and allow their tracks to create pathways, passageways that may deepen and lead me back to my excitement, spontaneity and creativity.

May the passage of all our tears teach us the wisdom of letting go of expectations and control. May it rebuild in us strong roads of faith, faith in the unfailing strength our Father and the unending generosity of our Mother.

May God bless the beautiful child within you today,

Mary

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[1] Emily writes cool stuff about this here & here

Little Seed

Anna and I shared a beautiful conversation on Tuesday. Between her planting and me processing we happened upon a magic window in which we talked about letting go of being the 'good girl that everyone approves of', our fears of feeling alone, and how much we love God. I received this message from her today and I thought it too beautiful not to pass on.

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Hi Mary,

I had a nice time talking to you yesterday.  I know you’re probably really busy, but I wanted to share this with you, as it’s kind of an extension to what we were talking about.

Last night after I got home, I sat in the shed (all alone!) with the candles on, listening to Amy Grant.  And I prayed to God from the real place in my heart.  Prayed to Help me to want my self, my true self, despite the conflict this brings up inside of me.  Teach me to be brave, and return to my childhood vulnerability and humility.  To remain true to myself and to my relationship with you, no matter what anyone in the outside world thinks or feels or does. 

I cried as I connected back to the glory that I have come to know as God. 

But it’s not easy for me at the moment.  I have just begun to notice that most of the thoughts in my head are me looking at myself as I think another person see’s me.  I’m not connected to how I feel, I’m connected to what other people see and feel about me – really, how my parents felt and saw.  I’m constantly having to stop myself and try to block, then dig beneath these thoughts, to find my own humility. 

This morning I realised that the same addiction that is driving these thoughts (wanting people to see me as great, so then they will envy, or love me) is in play in my relationship with God.  For, in trying to present myself as more ‘loveable’ than I am, or feel, has meant that I cannot connect with neither myself or God, because I’m not really me. 

This brings me to my analogy about the seed that my spirit friends helped me to see this morning. 

I’m a seed.  A little seed.  Full of potential, but to say I am a tree yet, would be untruthful.  To see myself as me is vital, because I can’t grow if I’m trying hard to not be the little seed I am.  Rather than denying I’m a little seed, and proclaiming, “I’m a plant!  Can I’ve some Love now everyone!?”, it’s going “Hey God, I’m a little seed, and I want to grow, can you please help me grow?”

To grow, I must;

1. Sit in the truth of who I am.

2. Desire Love from this place (including learning to love myself, as a little seed)

3. Release the false belief that to be loved I have to be a tall, impressive plant.

Just wanted to share that with you Mary.  I feel it’s going to be really important for my growth from here.

Hope you, and AJ are feeling good today. : )

Lots of Love,

Anna

Just Be True, The Third Sphere & I Heart God

Confession: I wrote this post and then had to go back and edit it. I was trying so hard to express my passion and the deep significance I feel in this realization that almost every second word was italicized or bolded or underlined, or everything all at once! I have reigned myself in a bit. I hope all the emphasis help you read it, and not distract you. (See I even need an underline here! I also talk with my hands when I’m really passionate. Hand talking must be italics translated.)

Warning: this is a long post… it’s sort of more an essay. I’m trying to work on succinct as a concept!

By way of introduction can I say I feel that many of you are going to be tempted to feel what I am saying here is obvious. I probably would have said the same a little while ago but I now see that I really wasn’t getting it at all. The only way I can explain it is to say that I knew the principles but had no concept of what they felt like in action.

It is where the emotional teachings of this Path truly meet the God part. It is the understanding of how the two are irrevocably intertwined and always have been. This deeper understanding is still fairly fresh in its re-awakening to me. I’m still holding it close to my heart, hoping that it will find a home there where it can take hold and flourish. Because of this I’m feeling fairly feeble as I try to do the explaining of it justice. Hopefully, if you open your heart, God can shine the light on the spaces I miss. My words really can’t compare to His Wisdom but maybe they can open a doorway.

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A new day was just beginning and I, sitting on the floor of our ecotent, looking out on all the freshness, was reading the Padgett messages….

“Be true to yourself and you will soon be in God’s love and favour…”[1]

The message continued but I found myself drawn to these words. I scribbled them in my journal and kept reading.

Again I paused; I looked back to my journal and circled the first four words in the sentence. These are well worn words in our world, bandied about in all kinds of situations. But now here they were at the beginning of a sentence that Helen had impressed upon her beloved mate. There was something big there that I was missing. I could feel it. It was niggling at the edge of my understanding.

“Be true to yourself…” – no don’t brush these words aside as obvious for their true meaning is huge.

“Be true…” to what you feel right now, surrender to your emotion, embody it, allow it. Don’t act it out, or avoid, don’t analyze or understand it. Just be true.

It hits me, a dawning no less significant than the one unfolding around me.

To know God’s Love I must go to Him in Truth. Go to Him in the truth of what I feel, just be true…

Yes I know you’ve heard all this before. But have you really? I hadn’t understood it – in my marrow. I didn’t feel what it meant deep within me.

Lots of us feel we must be in truth to receive the Love but do we go to Him in our messiness and sorrow. How can He connect to us if we do not share ourselves with Him, how can we relate to Him if we avoid the state of complete humility and honesty about our own selves?

In all of my talking, journaling, channelling, processing and yes, even blogging I’ve been missing the point. I’ve been seeking to figure out my feelings instead of just embodying them while I cry out to God for Love and Grace. This revelation of my own smug self reliance stings me. The sin as old as mankind itself, has kept me in its grips. In all of my struggles to free myself of emotional error I have overlooked the arrogance in the way I am approaching the entire process.

I’ve been trying to sort myself and my feelings out so that then God can Love me, (now this sounds ridiculous but only if I remember that God is a Loving Parent who accepts me just as I am, and I forget that most of the other people in my childhood wanted me to hold it together and sort things out, and they found me far more ‘loveable’ and adorable then).

I haven’t been asking God for Grace or for Love, for I haven’t believed myself worthy of such things. I’ve been asking for Him to help to me feel – pleading and needy sometimes. And yet I’ve been afraid of His Love and of truly opening my heart to share my feelings with Him.

I haven’t understood that I must use my will to feel and He will use His Will to ease my burden.

I realise now that in order to truly heal I must take my whole self to Him and say ‘Here I am, teach me to love myself just as I am. In this precious, imperfect moment of my existence show me I am worthy. Let me feel your Love.’

My fear and desperate desire for control has made me, in my heart (the place where true longing begins) resist His Love because of what it may dislodge in me. I have been guarding my worthlessness from Him.

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It occurs to me that this is the true transition to the third sphere, or some big step in love, where I stop trying to ‘figure out’ my emotion, and instead am just willing to surrender to it, whatever it is, and to trust God to heal me of it – through His process, not mine. It is the place in which I am willing to be, just be, in the truth of my emotions[2] (not my addictions) and to experience them, at all times.

It is vulnerability – the lesson of my year – that is required. It is saying to God  “I’m terribly afraid that you may reject me but I can’t do this without you. But in order to do it with you I’m going to have to share myself. I’m going to have to ask, really ask for your Love.”

“Man has a will to either accept or reject the Love of God, and until he exercises his will in a way to show that he wants that love, it will not be given him.”[3]

God, I haven’t wanted your Love. I’ve asked for guidance and for courage but I haven’t wanted Love.

I have paid lip service to your Love and haven’t yet yearned for it, in the way of a winsome, lovesick teenager, of a mother for her lost child, of a son for his absent father.. his Father.

I haven’t unlocked the desire that consumes a soul, that is in the heart beat behind every action, present with every word and flavours every minute.

I quake at the thought of unleashing my sheer, unadulterated longing, that my heart may run free and ‘into Your Arms of Love’.

Could I give you my heart God? All the lost and fragile pieces of me, could I offer them up to you? Could I want Your Love so much that I would face all fear and give up all my feeble attempts, these shameful human encounters where I try to earn approval and appreciation, all in an effort to find a substitute for the Love that would fulfill me complete.

In the early dawn, in my dawning, I realize that I have focused on the eradication of sin and error and neglected (because of unworthiness and fear of grief) the inflowing of God’s Love. And now I see that the fastest way to eradicate sin and error is to focus on the Love. The process of emotional, causal release will be the same but it will happen as a natural part of my relationship with God. It is sharing with God in complete humility that changes our soul. When we truly open ourselves God’s Love gives us courage to step into the depths of pain and She takes the cause from us. The gentle surgeon removes the barbs. It is a process with my Maker – not a trial I must endure before I can relate to Her.

It seems to me in our initial unraveling we do and perhaps we must, engage our intellect. God does seem to many of us a far off figure, shrouded in misconception borne of our upbringing and background. We cannot neglect the important work of unhooking from our re-framing and rethinking, and the breaking down of the addictions that have run our lives. This next step though is the substance of the teachings. All of the thrashing around beforehand is just us lost in the bush, trying to orientate ourselves. This realization is suddenly stepping into the clearing and seeing the luminous Path stretch out in front of us. We must each have our awakening of what is truly within us.. just be true.. and be willing to share this self with God.

‘…for until such an awakening comes to (the soul) there is no possibility of it receiving the Love of God into to it..’[4]

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“When we pray to the Father for an increase in faith, it is a prayer for the increase in Love”[5]

If  I block the Love, how can my faith grow?

It ALL depends on the Father’s Love.

I AM NOTHING WITHOUT HIS LOVE.

As I read my notes to Yeshua, he hastens to correct my last statement. It is not true that I am nothing without God’s Love. I can become God’s creation, perfected in natural love. I explain to him that when I wrote the statement I was feeling so acutely how limited I am without this relationship, how insignificant I now am compared to what I once was when His Love made me His child ‘in substance and not in image only’ In my moments of explaining its hard to contemplate how I could even grow in natural love without the Love of God.

And yet in the next breath, I feel the errors of the first human couple still alive within me – this searing, desperate attempt to prove that I am something and someone, on my own, of my own creation. The utter limitation of this state, of trying to have my ego prove its worth, overwhelms me. I’m locked in a futile struggle to prove my value, that blocks the most significant relationship of my life.

Even now, the idea that me, alone;

without doing good works,

without saying smart things,

without knowing,

without showing that I am worthy,

the idea that I am loved and am beautiful without any of these things is so alien. I feel I must make good before He (and he) can love me, before I show myself to Him.

And yet His Love will prove His Love for me.

But I must have humility and openness to receive it.

If I am needy or demanding I won’t receive it. My neediness is a plea that he make it easier so that I may avoid my darkest sorrow. My demand is anger and expectation that I should be able to avoid vulnerability and openness with Him. Instead I must ask ‘with sincere longings and earnest aspiration’, I must truly desire it and be willing to bare my whole self to Him, in recognition that:

“Man is a mere creature and cannot create anything higher than himself; so man cannot rise to the nature of the divine, unless the divine first comes into that man and makes him a part of its own divinity.”[6]

It’s not about saying “God help me feel….”

It is saying “God I feel….”

“God please be with me while I feel.”

“Could you show me your love so that I may have faith enough to step into the darkness?”

It is stopping trying and simply desiring – desiring God, desiring Love, desiring Truth, desiring emotion.

***********

So why am so I afraid to ignite my yearning for God and for Soulmate? So afraid that I hold myself back in the second sphere (and sometimes lets face it, right down in the lower first) – figuring out, analyzing, resisting surrender to the truth of what I feel….

The answer, the reason for my headstrong self-reliance, is that I don’t want to soften into the feelings that for nigh on 2000 years I have relied on a Father of Love. He has guided me. And the love of my mate has nourished me.

I can’t take the next steps until I acknowledge this – that my Mother God sustains me and that my mate, Yeshua, completes me.

I feel so nothing without them. And it feels that I must pass through this abyss of knowing that, feeling that nothing, in order to have them with me again.

I have missed them so much that it terrifies me to crack open the cache of my longing, and have all of my loneliness tumble out with it.

Oh God give me strength…

    dare I ask….   show me Love?

This is the narrow way.

It must be through a relationship with God. Until we have this we are not truly on the Path. We are bumbling along, preparing, removing our blocks, until we reach the point where we are ready to open ourselves to the greatest, most life-givng Love there is – until we are ready to enter a love relationship with our Creator.

I am humbled to admit to you this morning that I have been dallying all this time, on the Natural Love Path. Yes, I have felt and released some emotions and I have come to know the Father a little. But I am hit like a freight train by the understanding that my growth has been seriously stunted by my unwillingness to ‘ask in a way that shows I want His Love’.

My friends, we must learn what it means to ask Him.

To ask with our hearts,

our whole hearts,

our broken hearts,

our shameful hearts,

the parts of us that don’t feel whole because in Truth they lack

His Love.

We must unearth the parts of us left in the shadows and corners and forgotten caverns in our souls so that She may shine the light of Love and Truth upon them.

I saw a book advertised the other day. It is called 'Made to Crave' by Lysa Terkeurst. I haven’t read the book but the short blurb I read about it came back to me as I finished writing this post. I think I’ve gleaned her basic premise (apologies to Lysa If I’m wrong) It is this: We are all made to crave God and all of our other addictions with food, (and I would add with television, in relationships, in our work etc, etc), are just distractions and a poor substitute for the Love we crave the most.

If we want to know God, to receive Her Love, we must open up to our craving and know it for what it is. When we do this our addictions will become unsatisfying and meager in comparison to what awaits us. And this craving and desire will inspire us to face our fears, to face our true selves and expose them to the One who Loves the most. When we do, God in all Her Grace, will clean us and teach us Love.

---

[1] Excerpt from a message received by James Padgett from Helen Padgett, November 30^th, 1914

[2] I want to make a clear distinction here between living in or allowing our emotions and living in addictive emotions. The first is healing, the second is damaging and even more damaging when we tell ourselves and others we are doing the first when we are in fact doing the second. I see many living in addictive emotions and crying non-causal feelings. While we live in addiction we cannot connect to our true emotional state.

[3] Excerpt from a message received by James Padgett from Ann Rollins, December 12^th, 1914

[4] Excerpt from a message received by James Padgett from Yeshua, October 10^th, 1915

[5] Excerpt from a message received by James Padgett from Yeshua, March 2^nd, 1916

[6] Excerpt from a message received by James Padgett from Yeshua, January 24^th, 1915

A Poem to God

Could you love me God? Little me?

Could you love me THAT much?

Could I really become clean?

Help me find my true self, my desires,

Help me find the pathway through the dark,

Help me LOVE.

I want to love.

I want others to want your Love,

and to know its power ,

through seeing me change.

I am just a little girl, a little lost,

Bewildered by this BIG world I find myself in.

Help me touch my sorrow.

There is so much sadness

It feels knit into the fibres of my being.

Help me love the colour of my soul,

Just as it is,

Right now.

Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you,

There are no words for you.

I am just a little girl

with words, far too few

Help me find the words, the will,

to share your Glory.

How can I know you well?

I am humbled by You

Your presence makes me want to bow down for you,

How can I face you?

You know me so well and I feel shame,

How could you love me after knowing me?

I am so broken
and oh so little.

Help me have faith that I may heal.

Help me have courage

to stand on your doorstep

and knock on your door

Let me feel worthy enough

to ask….

to ask for your Love and your Wisdom.

I do not feel deserving of such things

I am little

and a lot broken.

Hey everyone, this is my first 'Poem to God'

Last year when I ran the workshops one of the activities was for you all to write a Poem to God and it was always, inevitably my favourite part in every weekend. I loved watching you all shine as you shared your poems with each other. After the workshops some of you sent me your poems and I have them stored in a folder on my computer. Can I say I love them all. I cried as I read every single one of them. Each is as unique as the soul who created them. I find it one of the most precious things in the world to hear a heart call out to God, to want to talk to God.

It was a seed of a dream that one day someone, maybe Joseph (I have asked him yet!), may want to include some of your poetry in a publication. Who knows maybe someday we can do this...