The Spiritual Thought of the Day, by C.S. October 15: “Fears, Doubts, Pains, & Sins” After all these years of believing and obeying and praying and learning the Bible, and spiritual experiences, and worshiping at church, and fellowshiping, and experiencing the love and presence of God, and sinning, and doubting, and being frustrated and prideful and angry and afraid and confused and unforgiving, and also often peaceful and blessed, you might think that I would have this really developed sense of “having arrived” spiritually. But I don’t. Not at all. Not in the least. The presence of Christ is strong in some ways--stronger than ever in my life. But my disappointment with the sins, doubts, pains and fears is extremely intense at times. Maybe it is this false sense of perfectionism. Perfection is only found in Christ our Savior and in Him living in us. But often we are not following the Spirit, and we sin or we live simply a fleshly existence even though He lives within us. As much as I like a lot of what a guy like Charles Stanley says, there seems to be this underlying promise that if only we will believe and obey Stanley’s 30 Life Principles, then we will be living what Stanley calls, “life at it’s best.” (Isn’t that kind of like Joel Osteen’s “Living Your Best Life”?) Life is an often painful struggle that no 30 Life Principles are going to take the pain out of. Certainly, we can be healed by God, as I have been, but also there is so much pain, doubt, uncertainty, negativity, and anxiety and bad and disturbing feelings that go with the struggle of living, health problems, relationship problems, work problems, the troubling news, finances, etc., that—it is all so imperfect. Jesus is perfect, but His people are not. Heaven is perfect, but this earth is not. I think acknowledging these negative facts is a good thing because they are the truth. I think admitting unpleasant or embarrassing truths lowers anxiety. All humans have a tendency and desire to glamorize or perfectionize human life. But real fellowship with God is to believe in Christ and to be loved by Him and to confess our sins and to obey Him and to lovingly fellowship with God and other believers—and not misrepresent the Christian life on earth. It is wonderful at times, and yet, we still sin and have fears, doubts, negativity, pains and sins. How disappointing life is so often. Maybe admittting the truth of this helps, because Jesus says that the truth will set us free.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 08:21:19 +0000
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