Bared - pt.1

Back in October I wrote a post titled, "What if things are worst than we think?" and I'd like to address this subject and give some of my reasons for writing it:

 Over the years one of my biggest prayers has been, "Lord, grant me the light to see the truth about myself and the truth about this world we are living in." I have always had this certainty that we are WAY off kilter these days and that our spiritual perspective is skewed. I've never known what to do with this sense of  the world being off course in a significant way, despite tackling the issue in prayer over and over and over again. "What is going on here, Lord?! Please show me the truth. I cannot live here like this knowing that things are so awry and yet being unable to pinpoint what troubles my spirit so much. Please, Lord! Help me!"

Well, I'm sure you've all heard the saying, "Be careful what you pray for because you just might get it. " I GOT IT alright and there's a teeny part of me that wishes I had never asked. I had no clue that it would cause me more suffering in some ways and that I would have a tough time coming to grips with it. I have spoken a lot about the physical healing I received but less so about the spiritual one. The spiritual healing actually began a month or two before the physical and continued for months afterward. I walked around feeling as if my soul was completely bared to the Lord. Like Eve stripped of her fig leaf. And it was painful. Excruciatingly so. Why? One of the reasons is that I had compromised with the world to a degree. After all, I had to live here. Though I have made tremendous progress over the years and this pleased the Lord, there are areas where I was still compromising the truth. In my defense, I often did this because I hate hurting people. There's so much suffering in the world today that I couldn't stand adding to anyone's pain. Even in my writing I would hold back to a degree for fear of causing anyone hurt. I  found myself "toning down" what the Lord laid on my heart to spare others pain or fear. This is one of the reasons I take time off regularly now, it gives me extra time in prayer and allows the Lord to give me an "adjustment" in my thinking. In posting about the serious times we live in, the key isn't to say "Well, okay, maybe things aren't so bad after all."  The key is to be truthful about this era and remind people that God is yearning to show them a better way. "Dying" to show us a better way is probably more appropriate when you consider that this is exactly what He did. It's about revealing his mercy without soft-soaping the reason why we are so in need of this mercy. The reason we need his mercy is SIN, plain and simple. You can't sugarcoat sin - though we certainly do try.

If the Lord had only revealed my own sinfulness I might have borne it better than I did. After all, this was something I could correct with his grace. What caused me tremendous grief was seeing the sin I was surrounded with in the world at the same time. I cannot force others to correct their own lives. Every person has the free will to choose right or wrong and, unfortunately, much of the world is on the wrong path right now. My consolation is the understanding that God is at work correcting this because He loves us very much.

The sense of being surrounded by sin (while still having to deal with your own) is extremely painful. I can't help but be glad that the Lord lifted this from me when it became too much to bear. But I know it's still there  hidden from my senses. As much grief as this has brought me, I can't disregard what a  tremendous grace this also is as it brings clarity about sin, especially ones that are hard to discern such as false compassion and the little (and big) ways in which we compromise the truth in our world today.  It doesn't take a great deal of discernment to see that this world has gone off path so I'm not absolutely sure why many people are unaware of this fact. Not only are many unaware, but many people EMBRACE the world today and consider the human race "enlightened".

Scary, our ability to deceive ourselves.

God have mercy.