Tag: jesus

My dear Soul

I have come to learn the long and hard way that whether we feel defeated or lament our lives as condemned to misery, the truth is that we have the gift and moral obligation to be well, to show up, and to give our best effort at the task of living life as we should: to the full.

It has taken me a long time to accept this reality. My journey to surrender was a raging saga in my soul that went something like this: “One step forward, two steps back. I am stuck in reverse. Every time I try to drag my miserable excuse of a life forward, something pulls me back or down. I am going nowhere, painstakingly slowly. This has been the struggle of my life for many years, and honestly, I feel I have no more fight left. I feel weak, tired, and worn out… Like an eaglet whose wings are clipped, I feel the ache of a call to soar, yet I flop about, incapacitated.”

At thirty-five, I had no accomplishments to justify why I yet breathed. No degree, no followers on Social Media, no prestigious or pretentious career to flaunt, no grand house, no money to blow. I had no willpower or discipline to curate the “high-value person” habits the gurus prescribe. I had no deep friendships where I could really say we did life together, only vacant land where I yearned to established true connection. I considered that I had a husband and casual, seasonal and convenience friendships only because they were transcendent to suffer a miserable wretch. They were the third of three reasons I had not yet kicked a bucket, slit my wrists or leaped off a bridge. The second reason was that I was a gutless coward.

Perhaps there are many mortals like me, plagued with a deep dejection, who live in the agony of always needing to justify or apologize for their existence because to the standards of the day, their net worth is insignificance. My battle about ‘succeeding and getting somewhere in my life’ has felt like an impossible feat despite my very best efforts.

The Wound, The Waiting, and the Time Thief

Jesus answered, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.”

I know how incredible it feels to consider living out this magnificent command when your belly grumbles for a crumb to grind, when the tatters in your garments can no longer be hidden or patched up, when life seems to depend on the movers and shakers of the world who hold the keys to the rooms you long to enter.

Under human authorities, not having money or being of ‘xyz’ clique, status, or temperament have become immovable roadblocks impeding our steps towards attaining successes and even survival in life. As the days of our lives march on while we continue to strain and wear out against these obstacles, we begin a swift decline into quiet or gruff bitter despair and resign to abandoning our pursuit of attaining and enjoying the truly great lives we yearn for. But despite any physical and soulish impediments, the human spirit is vastly resilient, more so when it remembers the Truth.

You already know that we are spiritual beings endowed with the tremendous charge to exist through a physical realm for a while. This duty is profoundly awesome, and we have a moral obligation to live and interact with life as we should: to be fruitful and multiply; to fill the earth and subdue it; and to rule, in relationship with all of life.

“But why are we so burdened?” I’ve often lamented. “We don’t even get to choose whether we want this ‘being alive’ gig.” Indeed, no one chooses the task to live. It is a command we cannot morally change, so it is futile to burden ourselves with questions as to why we must perform it. The daily business of living is magnificent, and the weight of it can and does buckle many a knee.

My knees were among those that often caved in discouragement. Sadly, even those collapses did not exempt me from the requirement to show up and play my part in life. Like a soldier wounded on the front lines, my formative years mangled my soul and spirit until only the shell of a body remained to meander through life. Therefore I have often felt justified that my progress is painfully slow, every detour captioned with reasons.

As with the soldier wounded on the front lines with no one to see his critical state, when we consider the slashes our souls and spirits incur from violent rude handling throughout life, it is infinitely easier to want just to lie down and die. Yet, we remain approved to continue living and engaging in life.

Perhaps for the wounded soldier, physical wounds may never fully heal in this life, but where we have suffered soul and spirit lesions, each day we are approved to continue living becomes an opportunity to attain the fullest embodiment of mental, physiological, and spiritual repair.

But what if you have waded through several winters and still carry the burdensome, oozing sack that is your life, unable to fathom how you may be relieved and made whole? You may have consulted several counselors and healers in vain. When you looked about you, no one perceived your struggle nor really understood your agony. Everywhere you turned, no one could help you.

You may be tempted and feel you have every excuse to just lie down and die.

And you probably do.

But you also deserve to be well.

And you have a very good reason to live the truly great life you want and deserve.

Don’t give in to the extinguishing of your life. Cling to every flicker of hope that whispers, “Though it tarry, wait for it. It will certainly come; it will not delay.”

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

There are various moulds I feel incapacitated or inhibited my right to act in the freedom of one approved, namely: socio economic circumstances, nurture and the Adversary.

When I was a child, I learned that one of the greatest reasons I was denied permission was lack of money. Poor people’s children are not permitted to even look at glassware because they may break expensive things which the parents cannot fathom to replace. Poor people’s children are not permitted to explore and adventure because they may hurt themselves and require expensive medical care, or ruin clothes that will require expending to replace. Poor people’s children are not permitted to explore or pursue niche interests because everything is a risk to an empty pocket. When money is lacking, fear is the dominant decision maker.

With regards to nurture, as a female, I found that I’ve always been waiting on a man, a wonderful prince charming who would first save me from poverty and carry me off on his marvelous steed to a castle where we would live happily ever after. That fantasy gave way for the reality of a civilian man and still, I found myself waiting. I’ve felt myself always waiting for a man to take the lead or grant me permission to shine, even outshine him. I’ve waited for a man to make enough room for me in his heart and life, to validate my interests, to come on board with the programs that lend to the truly great life I wanted to live.

Later when I was ready to get moving with building this sacred space, I was waiting for a pastor who would lay hands on me. Then I was waiting for my family and friends to read my contemplations and gush with praise and encouragement.

When all the waiting was revealed to be a thief robbing me—and you who find encouragement from here musings and proclamations— I was convicted to receive the approval my Maker decreed long before I was conceived, and later stamped on me by orchestrating the incomprehensible miracle that wove me in my mother’s womb, and now still authorizes my every inhale and exhale.

The Word to LIVE and The Mending

When you feel like you must dim your light and hide behind curtains, burying yourself under heavy blankets because you dread your life of enormous toil, suffering, and solitary prospecting, I would urge you to bring to your mind the igniting word of the LORD for every breathing moment and for every space you occupy, which is simply this: LIVE.

I was in the pit of utter desolation when this reviving word came to me. I have since then embarked on unlearning the wrong beliefs and behaviours that conspired to destroy my purpose, and I’m learning to rise up, show up, stand tall, and keep in step with Life and begin to truly live.

I assure you this by the knowledge that though the Tempter has coaxed me once too many times to end my wretched existence, Christ alone is the primary reason I cannot kick a bucket, slit my wrists, or leap off a bridge and the faithful hoped for miracle that made me whole and set my resolve to live.

Remember the man in Bethesda, Jerusalem, who for thirty-eight years lay paralyzed. Jesus came by, and knowing the man had been in that condition a long time, He asked him: “Do you want to be well?” The paralytic proceeded with his dirge, giving all the reasons he couldn’t get in the pool. After hearing him out, Jesus simply commanded him to pick up his mat and walk.

This story, along with the testimonies of two women whom Jesus made whole—one with hemorrhages for twelve years and the other bent over for eighteen years—helped me move toward Christ’s desire and approval for all to live.

Now, accepted by Him and allowed to walk with Him, my troubles are vanishing, and my heart is mending. Where once I was entrenched in the agony of disdain and excruciating self-consciousness about not having or being what is deemed satisfactory by fallible mortals and fickle culture, I am quietening into the blissful contentment of the Truth that I am worth so much more and have even greater incorruptible treasure in me that I have yet to excavate, polish and serve as my offering to the wonderful, glorious cycle of life.

I’d like to say this pilgrimage has happened dramatically or instantaneously, but believing and receiving Christ’s wholehearted approval of a wretch like me has been more like a long overdue admission into surgery after an eternity in the waiting room.

Like the lepers who were healed as they went, I, too, am being restored to wholeness as I go.

Wisdom For The Journey

I know this rumble isn’t even the half of what we can discourse on this matter. And I assure you whatever your dirge, it matters and must be noted, for in this there is healing. But what I would have you know and have you begin to believe is that despite the many dark terrors that you have and will encounter through this valley of shadows, you are approved to live the truly great life you want and deserve. This truly great life comes by grace through faith in Christ alone.

In the depths of every human soul rages a struggle with the agony of severance. A deep knowing of separation that comes from the disgrace of falling short and always failing to measure up to all that our soul remembers we were made to be. Alas, this was the terrible fate where paradise was lost when humanity fell for the Thief’s great Kansas City Shuffle and were banished into this realm, where the Thief is for now prince of this world.

The coming of Christ into the world however, is our Maker’s reinforced and resounding declaration of His approval for life, for whosoever will believe in and accept to be ransomed back from the dominion of desolation, death and darkness into life, eternal, with Christ the Lord and Prince forever. Amen.

Having rest in Christ’s complete work to redeem lost causes like me, the honor of growing to know Him, and the scandal of being known, loved, and approved by Him is enough.

If you find yourself stuck, go back to the Source. Stop seeking out permissions and validation because you already have it from the Highest Authority, the LORD God our Maker. Recognize that dallying in suspense, waiting or pining for permission, is a time thief stealing the days of your life where you can be progressing in building the wonderful things you have been sent here to build and contribute to life.

All of you, your perspective, your voice, your knowledge, abilities, experienced wisdom, idiosyncrasies, and mistakes are allowed and necessary parts in the grand and small scheme of all things. So stand up tall, reverent and regal, and freely take up every inch of space that is duly yours in the world, rooms, and relationships you have been entrusted with. Show up in your true identity, in the image of God, your Maker and fulfil the primary mandate in your charge: to be fruitful, multiply, replenish and have dominion in and for the benefit of all life.

To live in the freedom of one approved, you must accept the reality that you were not sent here for mere survival, therefore it is in more than bread, or whatever other perceived havings or lackings that sustain you that you should rely on. You must remain in faith to the Spirit who commissions you to live, breathe and have your being, trusting that He deems your simply having arrived into life, your being here, complete and significant.

To live in the freedom of one approved, you must wholly accept the rights, responsibilities, boundaries, and accountability part and parcel to living the fulfilling abundant life. Accept that you get to chisel out the righteousness, peace, joy and eternity God wrote in your soul in service of the fulfilment of your own and creation’s joy. This is your responsibility, and abdicating this responsibility only means you will reap shrubs and weeds and unspeakable distress.

There are infinite distractions and lures that will entice you with easy, quick and instant potions or fertilizers but know this truth: Cultivating and chiseling out this great life is intensely hard, relentlessly testing and trying, and seemingly nearly impossible to attain. But fortune favours the faithful who day by day expend and devote their focus, energy and resources towards the noble masterpiece in their charge.

Finally, to truly live as one approved, demand of yourself the unflinching truth as to why you have not lived to this moment as one approved, what exactly is holding you back, and what it will require from you to live as one approved. Submit yourself to the healing journey of regular SOHA before the LORD God through ceaseless communion and the washing of His Word, and receive every rebuke, chastisement, correction, teaching, training and comfort without reservation.

And above all else, calibrate your whole heart to let God be true and all other would-be judges be liars. His approval alone is enough. And it is this:

“You are approved to live and partake of life by order of God.”

With this resounding affirmation, I will spur my soul for every day I have breath and every space I find myself. I hope you, too, will proclaim it with your whole heart and thereby lead into the truly great life you are approved to live.

Sincerely,

Nimi

The subject line made me freeze: “$100,000,000 inheritance from your aunt in Canada.”

For a moment, I stopped breathing. My heart leapt. I’d always daydreamed of a miracle like this—a forgotten relative, a sudden fortune, a prince on a white horse. But this was actually happening. I felt my eyes engorge with every word they read. In a matter of minutes, I’d planned out everything I would do once I received my dearly departed aunt’s tremendous bequest.

But, alas, my fantasy of a grand, material inheritance crumbled with each subsequent correspondence to the would be administrator. As you might expect, it turned out to be a scam. And in its place, a more profound belief began to emerge—a belief about my presumed birthright, the one I had been living all along.

It was this: My birthright was to die.

When bullets and grenades rained destruction on the land of my parents and grandparents, my native heritage was laid to waste among the innumerable casualties. I survived, but I was stripped of any material inheritance and any traditions that may have been passed down. For the last thirty-one years, I have lived banished to a new heritage of poverty and suffering—not only material, but also spiritual.

This year, as Heritage Day dawned, I allowed myself to ponder and account the balance of my heritage. I was left contemplating the immense trauma of all that was stolen and lost, which bankrupted my soul of all joy, peace, and right belief, and left me with melancholy, fear, and delusion. Over the years, I sought to replenish my soul with the sweet pleasures and comforts of the flesh, but my soul knew they were merely dregs. I longed for the overflow. Deluded and dejected, I resigned myself to a small life of quiet desperation, cowardice, and disobedience from my Maker’s first command: to live to the full the truly great life He designed for me to live.

You see, the war was never the origin of my fate. Instead, by my human nature, I was an object of wrath with a rebellious heart, exiled from my true country: the Kingdom of Righteousness, Peace, and Joy.

I stumbled about in the wilderness of that exile for several years, and though I reveled in its libations, their satisfaction was always so fleeting. I remained a soul a-miss and empty, overwhelmed by its unfulfilled longing. To be filled, I needed reinstatement. And this required me to willingly submit to a process that was no fun at all. Something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It meant undergoing a lifelong un-learning of all the self-conceit and self-will I’d inherited and trained myself in for years, and continually undergoing a kind of death.

It is through death—first of God’s Beloved Son, then mine, ongoing—that I gain the inheritance preserved for me since the beginning of time. A heritage of Christ’s righteousness, joyful hope, and a peace transcendent.

This glorious inheritance extends to all who wholeheartedly receive God’s indescribable Gift; to all who die to sin, and rise to live for righteousness, with peace and joy in the kingdom of His Beloved Son.

In the end, every earthly heritage decays. I know this fact brings no comfort. Being deprived of wonderful, bountiful, and glittering possessions is excruciating—especially when you see others lavishly abounding. It is no trivial thing to endure, let alone to overcome this wickedly treacherous plight. For a time, we may succumb to the despair that gradually sucks any glimmer of faith, hope, and joy from our miserable existence.

Having lived through and then been lifted from this valley of desolation, I would proclaim that no matter what terrible circumstances that find us stripped of physical valuables, we have the opportunity for restoration into a royal heritage. This new heritage, in the Kingdom of God’s Beloved Son, will know no end. I had no choice about my native heritage, nor had I any choice in its effacement. But thanks be to God and His Beloved Son, from whom I received the tremendous gift to choose to be reborn among a chosen race, of royal, sacred, and dearly beloved co-heirs with His Beloved Son, our Lord, our Master, our soon-coming King.

This is the real birthright: a truly great inner and outward life of righteousness, peace, and joy in abundance!

xoxo

Nimi

Do you often feel less than worthy of goodness, loving-Do you often feel less than worthy of goodness, loving-kindness, mercy, or even life itself? It is a miserable thing to labor through life feeling contemptible. I hope this prayerful contemplation persuades you to the truest truth and, like me, brings your spirit everlasting elation.

Truth: You and I, my friend, have an irrevocable claim to all of God’s love.

Abba, All my life, I was told I didn’t deserve Your love, mercy, and grace. I confess that for as long as I heard that equivocation, I believed it. It kept me far away. And when I pretended to come near, I made sure to stay out of reach and sight, so as not to presume upon Your good graces—especially as one so undeserving.

But lately, I’ve been musing that perhaps it is precisely because I deserve Your love that my soul requires it. How dare I irresistibly crave what I don’t deserve? How dare You let it be the noose from which my very life dangles? Yet, because You have time and again demonstrated that I am worth all of Your love—despite my repeated straying—I am daring to wager my whole heart on this golden thread.

The Chasm of Unworthiness

For a long time, I gazed at the caricatures of You painted by the world. They depicted a merciless, sadistic tyrant, reviled for cruel indifference to miserable wretches who hinged on Your mercy. This became my only knowledge of You. But from time to time, I’ve been struck with awe and wonder at the staggering goodness, mercies, marvels, and beauty in the world You made. I’ve found myself conflicted and convicted.

Perhaps You are not who they say You are. The mouths of men are like graves, ever murmuring decay. Therefore, I am inclined to suppress their slander and examine the evidence I suspect will point me to the truth. What if You are who You say You are, and I am who You say I am?

“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule…’”

There has been a rage within me for as long as I can remember—a hostile dissonance with the misrepresentations of false witnesses who obscured Your character. These deceptions were scrawled with criminal intent, painting sadistic portraits of You. It is no wonder Your children grind their teeth in terror or seek refuge in Sheol rather than run free as dearly beloved offspring may. But I would dare to believe that I am Your beloved, and thereby dance and prance like a dearly loved child knows how.

Your slanderers know that distorted identity is the most devastating crisis a person can suffer. Who we believe we are informs how we act and the ensuing consequences—for good or evil. Therefore, if our Maker is harsh, cruel, and unlovely, so are we. If our Maker is good, gentle, and kind, so are we.

Like many humans, my experience with my earthly makers nearly convinced me that my original Maker was cold and cruel. It was etched in my soul that I was unworthy of positive, life-giving words, help, or praise. Over the years, I sat under many sermons that weekly reinforced my undeserving nature, and my need to grovel for mercies, big and small. My soul raged against these lures until I was sure I would go mad with the conflict and turmoil. “Undeserving.” This word I have hated, and for so long not known why, until You opened my heart to see the chasm it breaches between us.

The Revelation of Worthiness

A friend once told me a bone-chilling ritual his father used to inflict on him and his siblings. Though they were dirt poor and starving, their father would occasionally buy meat, only to feed it to his dogs while his children watched in excruciating horror. Another friend sobbed her heart out as she shared how her mother abandoned her and her siblings to live out her ambitions and, as soon as they became of age, cast them out of her life forever. Cruel and conceited associations with earthly parents deeply confuse our sense of being and belonging, and therefore our worthiness. One of my greatest mental distresses has been reconciling the passion of worthiness I knew in my spirit with the resignation to unworthiness so many destructive words and actions marked on me. For a time, I believed obscurity was my lot in life. It’s taken my conceiving flesh of my flesh, in my own image, to lift the veil that was concealing Your truly wonderfully lovely heart.

From the moment the pregnancy test revealed the arrival of our baby, we felt the weight of devotion and sacrifice that a Maker who has long awaited the completion of what had been confined to dreams and concepts must feel. When I became a mother, the perplexity I’d felt about the doctrine of undeserving evaporated as I considered its absurdity against Christ’s probe: “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

Every day with our daughter revolves around seeking all the ways we can make her experience of this realm as excellent and fruitful as possible. Because she did not ask to be here. Because we decided to be like our Maker by engaging in the sacred act that let her be.

Thus, one afternoon, feeling spent after a hard morning, I fixed a cup of tea. A few sips in, I saw my little creature coming to me at full speed, chanting “milkisy, milkisy,” beaming with the obvious expectation of what is hers by merit: inexhaustible love, affection, and devotion. In this case, demonstrated by cheerfully scooping her up in my arms, dirty clothes and all, and bringing her to my breast for a sweet bonding moment.

As I looked down into her content eyes, my soul, in vehement exoneration, proclaimed emphatically: “Of course, I am deserving! You are my Maker. I am your child. I am deserving of Your steadfast love, affection, and devotion!”

In my mother tongue, the proverb states: ubyay’ikiboze arakirigata. This is a graphic portrait of the wild love an animal that births a rotten thing yet tenderly licks it, exerts. Even I, as wicked, defective, and sullied as I have been, and still get from time to time, You must love me, for I have come from You.

“Besides you, I have no other. Since the beginning, I was tethered to you, inseparable, dependent on you for my every resource. Should I now be severed ruthlessly from you and damned undeserving of that which I can obtain only from You, my Maker?”

The Gift of Deserving

It is not for want of trying that I conclude I can only obtain what I deserve from my Maker. I have sought out other sources, and for a time they seemed to suffice, but in the end they all proved to be putrid and broken cisterns incapable of quenching my great need and thirst.

“You have made me, and by that, I warrant your love, mercy, and grace. They are to my soul as breath to my lungs, which you also abundantly supply. You, my Lord, who gives breath so liberally to all Your creation, should You now withhold the essentials for their souls discriminately?”

In my new trust as mother, I was swiftly convicted to the fact that I tread along the delicate lifelines of love and truth. A love that relinquishes self-conceit to lay down my time, resources, attention, interests, and needs for my treasured trust. A truth that firmly corrects, rebukes, teaches, and trains up in righteousness.

On that glorious afternoon, my soul glimpsed God’s heart and felt a dark cloud lift, freeing my spirit to soar with joy in the most precious knowledge: I am deserving of all of Your love.

Even the one that burns with deadly wrath at the awful horrors of my disobedience and rebellion. And the one that is fiercely jealous when I turn to worthless things and dishonor You, leaving You no choice but to issue the verdict of death. But especially the One whose death in my place propitiates all wrath, covers a multitude of sins, and declares me deserving of eternal life dancing in everlasting arms, where the love lasts forever.

Deciding to forsake all other notions and choosing to live in the only way You’ve prescribed for reconciliation was the key to living in the knowledge of deserving Your love and thereby having my spirit restored from the bondage of striving, condemnation, and isolation to the freedoms of receiving, compassion, and communion.

While believing I was unworthy meant constant groveling and tediously straining to earn favor, praise, and affection, living in this knowledge has relieved me from striving. The knowledge that I am deserving of Perfect Love despite my messiness has also silenced the inner critic, transforming my judgment into empathy for myself and others. I am continually being emboldened to simply receive love and grace as the irrevocable gifts they are, and I’m stepping out of hiding into the light of true intimacy and communion, knowing there is nothing to hide and no need to pretend. Slowly but surely, my soul is reviving in on-and-off baby steps.

This kind of knowing is regenerating the foundation of my soul’s identity from one of shame to that of unwavering worth, making it possible for me to perceive and pursue the truly great life God designed for me to live!

May you also know that you are deserving of all of Abba’s steadfast love.

xoxo Nimi