The "Why We Do"

 

Our life consists of the errors and righteousness of the world around us.

You may not feel you suffered as a child, but each moment that created fear, doubt, and distrust affected your innate responses to the world around you—both as a child and, moreso, as an adult.

That brief millisecond that you interpreted your mom or dad or person's action to you seeded and set in place a way of responding to the world around you.

It does not matter if you had the most horrific or most perfect childhood, those imperfections (iniquities) you unintentionally picked up as a child affect every part of your life now.

The same as for all that righteousness (perfect / healthy) ways.

As a child, you were a blank-slate, a sponge, adapting to the world presented to you and interpreted by you.

So, no matter if you were given love or fear, you adapted to it.

And thus, because we were mal-informed and mal-nurtured in childhood, we do not correlate to ourselves or the world around us in the way the Lord intended (designed) for us to be.

So, that lack of trust you experienced from your childhood projects to all your relationships and interactions in your adulthood.

And projects to the Lord.

Since we were MADE in their likeness (Father, Son, Holy Ghost), we are by nature connected to Them. But our experience on earth becomes a vessel of translation to our intended relationship with the Lord (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost).

They know this.

And don't hold you accountable for it.

But they do provide a means for you to be set free from those strongholds (iniquities) that were programmed in you.

For me, the one thing that needed to happen first, was my portrayal of who the Lord was.

Like me, you may project the behaviour of your mom or dad (or lack thereof) onto the Lord.

If you were (or even just felt) abandoned by them—whether they actually did nor not—you may feel abandoned by the Lord.

Same with the discipline. If you received verbal or physical punishment, and you interpreted this as demeaning to your own character and nature—then you project this on the Lord as well.

I remember as a child, feeling like I was being punished for something I did not know or understand. It was as though they did not "get" who I was or what my heart truly was. I felt punished for being innocent and naïve. “What is wrong with them?”

But that is also how I feel today—how can "they" (not specifically my parents) punish me for something that I did not know or understand.

How does that build trust or love?

My life is a wreck because of something not my fault—but something I am held accountable for.

WTF!

Who really does that—and, why do I do it to others.

OUCH!

How judgmental I was as being so often judged—not just by my heart, but by my actions.

Yet, my actions (and everyone else’s) is/was defined by our upbringing.

What messed-up lives we live and pass down from generation-to-generation.

Hence why the Lord sees the iniquities of each generation, not to punish them, but to be alongside them; longing to set them free from them (and themselves).

That millstone that was tied around my neck is also around your neck and around the neck of your child(ren). Whether you like it, want it, approve of it, or not... it is so.

The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy... that is YOU that is the thief to your own wellbeing and that of the people around you—your child(ren) a well.

But, the Lord comes to bring Life and Life more Abundantly.

This means He seeks after correcting the mistakes made to us, and the mistakes we made to others.

Let's go to you personally.

You don’t know the things you do wrong because what is to you is natural and thus the way it is—to your viewpoint, the "right" way. It is in your heart to be this way, so how can it not be "right". No, truly, how can something that feels so heart-driven actually be "wrong"???

How do we actually get along in this world—oh wait, we don't actually... not in the simplest/broadest terms. You look around and see war: nation-to-nation, gender-to-gender, race-to-race, person-to-person, spouse-to-spouse, you-to-God, externally-to-internally, yourself-to-yourself.

Yet, this current world is no different to all the "current worlds" from before... all the way to the wrong choice Adams made.

We think that now is the worst time of all—but so was it then—and so will it always be. Blame TV, technology, news/media, or whichever “modern contraption” you want… the world still sucked and was horrible long before any of that was ever imagined. War, disease, “Mother Nature”, politics, territory, family… they have existed from the time we got kicked out the Garden of Eden.

So, why did life suck then, and life sucks now?

Your life "sucks" because you believe it to be.

What???

That’s right: what your brain thinks,
and your heart acknowledges as truth,

is what you believe.

And if that belief differs from the Lord, it is just un-belief.

Let go of "faith" here... we are talking a separate, different, thing called belief/un-belief.

Faith is simply the manifestation of the Lord through you.

Belief is what you hold true in your core--subconsciously / consciously (whether it aligns with the Lord or not).

What you believe defines your actions, reactions, and behaviours.

They are programmed into you from the womb into each brain cell and heart-felt emotion.

RENEW YOURSELF IN THE SPIRIT OF YOUR MIND.

But I don't want to—I didn’t ask for my mind to be as it is, why am I the one then that is supposed to change what someone else programmed it to be.

Well--90% programmed—your belief from their actions make up the remainder.

But 100% of what I believe and how I "am" is from that combination.

And here we go—I have to fix the mistakes of my past, whether I was a part of them (literally) or not.

Was easy to do when I was a blank slate... my world around me moulding my brain stem, my limbic, and then my cortex. There was no resistance from any of those three—even though I may have "known or felt" it to be wrong as a child.

Stop, I am not talking about Complex/Childhood Trauma here... I am talking about EVERY HUMAN BEING EXPERIENCE AS A CHILD.

For Christ's sake, we are all fucked up! Whether intentional or not. Yes, His sake... for He is the One person that decided to take on ALL our-fucked-up mistakes upon Himself to show us that He truly Loves us and wants us free (with the ability to be free) from all that which fucked us up.

"Hey, I thought this was a 'Christian' blog—what’s with the swear words?"

Hypocrite!

No, not me... you, for thinking that... what do you do that isn't "Christian"?

See, how a simple example can demonstrate how messed up we are inside us!

No, you aren't perfect... neither am I. So why are you calling out what I do when you just do something different.

Oh, how I wish I learned that simple lesson from my childhood. But no, I became that judgmental "Christian"... and then, when I was free of being a "judgmental Christian" I was just a judgmental person.

Interesting how I got free from the "religiosity" that I was in, only to reveal in me that it had nothing to do with religion, but what I was trained to do.

I was judged by my actions growing up, this that became my way of interpreting the world around me.

"If you didn’t produce what I expected of you, you didn’t live up to expectation—not the Lords (that was what 'religion' deceived me it), it was actually the other person not living up to MY expectations of what was the right way to do/act/react/behave"

I set my own "righteousness" in lieu of the Lord's.

And then, it becomes the Lord to "avenge" wrongs—in that He doesn't punish others, but builds them up out from it—both the person who wrongs, and the person wronged.

So, back to you (me)... how does He avenge my "wrongs"...? He seeks to set you (me) free from that which causes wrong.

How does this happen... and how long does this take?

Well, for me... here is what He said to me:

"Oh, how I want to give that to you now. But that's not my timing, I have patience for you to fully understand what it means to be free. You can’t understand what this freedom is like until you’ve fully seen those strongholds you are under. Compare them, and you will truly appreciate for others what that longing is I have for you (and all My Children). That will drive you—that is MY LOVE that will drive you. MY LOVE IS JUST THAT—FOR YOU AND ALL MY CHILDREN TO BE FREE."

There is so much to digest there... but the one thing that troubled me was that "He wants to give me that freedom now... but that is not His timing".

Wait... what does that mean?

He said He WANTS to give that to me NOW! Hooray... but then He says that "NOW" is not His timing.

Who's timing is it then?

MINE!

But “God’s Will always happens” right?!

No.

For God cannot violate my Free Will to accept or deny His timing.

Give me a Biblical example to back that up! Ok...

The Lord got Israel out of Egypt and said... "go NOW into the Promised Land I WILL give you". Did they go right then?

No.

The Lord's timing was for them to take NOW, immediately from Egypt what was there's. But they chose not to.

So, did the Lord not know they would choose not to? No... He knows everything. But His sovereignty mandates that He gives us choice, not to make (force) us obey.

We read in Hebrews that it was their "hardness of heart" (un-belief) that kept them from saying YES to the Lord right then.

But was it their fault for why they made that choice. No (and yes).

The problem was that Egypt was so part of their core nature, they could not understand, accept, believe, nor trust in anything else. They grew up in Egypt to behave as Egypt did—even though that inner being of them knew it was wrong—they called out to the Lord to rescue them… and He did.

But what was trained in them (mal-intently trained in them), was how they responded to the Lord. They could not break through their own way of doing, thinking, and believing to actually believe the Lord instead.

So, around the mountain for 40 years they went, until Egypt was out of Israel.

It took the next generation of peoples to undo what was programmed in them. No longer did they have the ability to rely on what they did before in Egypt, they lost all they had to only be able to rely on the Lord.

They even lost all the riches of gold they were gifted by the Egyptians.

They lost their Promised Land for that Generation too.

But did that mean the Lord abandoned them?

No.

Just as He will NEVER abandon you in your personal decisions of life—even when they are not aligned with the Lord's.

He cannot abandon you—instead, He takes your choices and forms new abilities of choice to lead you out from your own chaos. Bringing Good from anything (given the time to bring that Good).

You chose, even when you didn't want not to choose the way the Lord desires.

Yet, because He already knows the choice you will make with the choices given, He plans around them to still try and bring Life more Abundantly to you.

And, in actuality, to do His Works of bringing as many people into Salvation as possible.

So, He gives you choices that He knows you will make wrong, but uses those given choices to further His Kingdom.

Wait... so am I being manipulated by God???

In our definition of it, yes.

In His definition, no... because He won't give you a choice if He doesn’t also give you the ability to make His Choice.

Ha!

He gives us Free Will, but also gives us His Ability to make choices.

His ability is (as Jesus had), one of Faith. Jesus was given the same choices as we did (that being Jesus as a human being like us). Yet, He only chose what was of the Father.

Jesus had an imperfect childhood like you do... “umm, like where did Joseph go”... did he divorce Mary, abandon Jesus, or did he just die?

We don't know, nor does it matter... because any of those realities mess up a child's life. Like yours. Like mine.

Ever wonder why, as being Himself sinless, Jesus had to get Baptised?

What was Jesus repenting of?

His flesh!

That's right... Jesus had to make a choice between following His flesh (like we do) or the Father (like we do too).

Whatever upbringing Jesus experienced, He had to discard it for the purpose of following His Father (not earthly dad, or generations of family before him... that "family identity").

How often to we put our family that brought us up in higher regard than the Lord. Well, the fact that we repeat the damage our parents did to others shows us that their influence was (had been) greater than the Lord’s. And if we choose to continue falling back into that repetitive generational behaviour, we are essentially continuing to “idolise” our parent (our upbringing) over that which the Lord desires of us.

And when we also let the “bond of family” override the Will of our Father in Heaven, we too make them an idol.

Strong words—but I am just trying to simplify a meaning to the word “idol”. That really being anything that takes the place of the Lord unintentionally. You don’t have to go bow down and worship them purposefully—it is just that we unintentionally hold onto that “bond” because we think the Bible instils in us the importance of family.

Jesus said we have to give up family to follow Him. This giving up can be both walking away from them, or rejecting the iniquities they nurtured in you. And whatever conflict this causes between you and your family, you are promised 100-fold in this lifetime more family than what you had to give up.

The same which Jesus gave up. He had to put God the Father as His family over His mom (Mary). Not hat He had to reject her or abandon her… Jesus just had to do what the Father did over anything that Mary said/did.

This “rejecting of His flesh and upbringing” culminated first in the 40 days of the desert being tempted by Satan—tempted to follow the flesh not the Father. Likewise in the Garden of Gethsemane as He faced the Cross and the sins of all humanity and all people—tens of thousands of angels were watching and waiting for Him to call them to rescue Him from the Cross... but He sweated blood resisting that decision to fulfil the Will of the Father and the Hope that was set before Him.

This same ability to withstand the flesh until you sweat blood is Gifted you because of what Jesus (as a human like you/me) did.

Jesus isn't a demonstration "for us", He is a demonstration "of us" (as human) - quote from Arthur Meintjies.

It just feels as though we are at a disadvantage compared to Jesus... He was sinless, we are not. Yet, because of what He did through the Cross, Resurrection, and sending of the Holy Ghost, we become as Him.

It just doesn't feel like it because of the "baggage" we bring along us in our lives and from our childhood.

The world shaped us in all the different aspects (areas) of our life,
and now we have to undo all of that.

This is what He says we can do, and that He longs to do for us.

Our soul aches to be free.

And it can/will when we choose to want it to.

Which gets back to what the Lord said to me as "not being His timing".

I knew I wanted to be free from the confines of the flesh. I saw it (still see it). I didn’t want it. I knew I could be free from it. I knew the Lord could set me free from it. I sought after Him to be free from it. I prayed into it. I pleaded with Him for it. I strived for it through Him.

But it didn't come.

Is that because He didn’t answer my prayers?

No.

It is because I had a block in receiving it.

Consciously, I knew and believed it.

But, sub-consciously, all the hurt and pain and distrust that had built up in my life kept me from actually opening myself up to receiving it.

My own un-belief.

Not intentional, but because I didn’t know differently; nor saw the hindrance that was my un-belief.

I still don’t fully see it—even after I have gone through a calamity of my flesh and the results of it.

It makes no sense to me how I cannot receive what He so desires to Give me. It really does not. It angers and infuriates me that something IN ME is blocking GOD.

I hate it!!!

Truly, I hate this reality and this life I didn't ask for.

Who the fuck did ask for the life they got???

Yet, because of this decaying world, I have to face the consequences of this rottenness. Oh, I can blame the world, but that doesn't solve my situation. It doesn't automatically change my reality because I "know why" I am the way I am. Yes, I can now have some compassion for my situation, but compassion doesn't fix things. It helps, but it does not time-travel to not make the shit happen to me that happened to me.

Nor make the shit go away that I caused other people.

Maybe, I can now (with this same insight and knowledge) have compassion on my parents for how they were—I can even have compassion on everyone that I interact with in this world (relationships—but it cannot change the fact that I get hurt.

Nor does it change that I hurt others.

So where does that leave us... to just not care about life???

Or does it mean we persevere in our own pains to transform ourselves into better. To use that to help myself and help others. To know the pain will always exist, but that I can live in and with the pain (the emotional and mental pains and anguish so heavy on you or me).

I can question reality and question any confidence in me. I question the Lord too. He knows this, because my criticism of Him comes with me longing to know more underneath the anger and pain that I do throw back at Him.

And then He gets to help me transform my mind into something new.

I really enjoy how science and psychiatry and psychology partner up Biblically with the ways in which we overcome our own obstacles (strongholds).

When we tackle the things in our mind (conscious and sub-conscious) we start transforming the way in which we get hurt (and hurt others) into ways the Lord directs us to be. A way of living that "re-parents" our brain (painfully as it may feel) to bring us Life rather than the continued destructions that seem to come your way.

So be honest with the Lord in how you feel, think, process, question, and pain--He knows them anyway, so you might as well just tell it like it is to Him.

And expect Him to listen and to respond.

You won't always get it, but His Grace will always seek to bring Good from anything that you suffer through.

The reason we read about those "great people of the Bible" is that they never gave up. Let their journeys be a guide to your own patient endurance that may take longer than you want it to.

Even when they made huge personal and relational mistakes, the Lord always brought about something better from it—whether for them and for the good of the many.

So keep pushing into change (healing)—this is what you deserve and what the Lord truly helps in manifesting in your life.

If you need a bit of help, feel free to look at who has been helping me lately on my page: Likeminded. Here I share links to people who have been paramount in understanding the “The Why We Do”.

Lots of Love to you in your Journey—you need it. I need it. We all need it.