 I feel like I am in the middle of an uprooting. Just how much of an uprooting I do not yet know, but I am definitely being pulled up and out to something, someone and somewhere new. Over the past month I have had some mind bursting revelations in regards to promptings. It seems that I may have been confusing certain promptings for panic attacks or crazy and unfounded fears.
It all started a few weeks ago. I started having intense panic while driving to church. My muscles would tighten, my breath would shorten and my mind would desperately search for the “why”. Nothing was causing this reaction. There was not any beliefs or bad thoughts or fears. It all just seemed irrational. It got to the point that when I would step back into my car afterwards that my mind would utter “Whew. I got in, I got out and they didn’t get me.” Who is “they”? I wasn’t sure and I did not know why this was happening. This same strange phenomenon was also happening at a mission class I was involved in at this same church and it was beginning to happen at my long-time home AA group. The question as to why remained. I can recall having panic attacks prior to my decent into alcohol absurdity so my natural inclination was to think that I was right back to my starting point and had to figure out how to handle this panic without alcohol. The problem was that I only had this phenomenon in certain situations. So, why these situations? I for one did not have an answer. Here is where it gets interesting. One night God was pulling me to the computer to write. He does this often. It is a particular pulling in my soul and I know exactly what it is when I feel it. The only other time I have felt something similar was that day in the hospital when my soul was set on fire and I knew I had to kick everybody out because it was time for my family to say goodbye to my father. That fire in my soul feeling was not instantly understood. I remember just knowing that it was now, it was urgent, it was time to say goodbye. I did not understand it, but I had to act. I have only experienced this one other time in my life and that also centered on an earthly departing. It was in the recalling of these experiences that a key piece of information hit my brain. All of these promptings centered in that area near the heart that I refer to as my soul-self. Anyone who has experienced these soul promptings knows that you just can’t put these experiences into words. They are not readily explainable, but you somehow know what they heed and in that moment you realize that you really are much more than this existence. That key piece of information was this: These so-called panic attacks center in the soul. The same place I get pulled to sit down in front of the computer and the same place that got lit on fire that day it was time to say goodbye. In this same instance my mind went back to the previous “panic attacks” and I realized that every place I had experienced this phenomenon something very bad ended up happening to me. It was in this moment that I realized these are not panic attacks. These are warnings. God, Himself is sounding the warning alarms in my soul and my body is responding. The tightening of my muscles which make it hard to drive and walk, the shortness of breath, the inexplicable uneasiness in my soul pulling me up and out of the situation – trying to prevent me from even being in the situation. I am not having panic attacks, people. My soul’s alarm is sounding because impending doom is ahead if I continue in these situations! Now I don’t know about you, but that is what I call a mind-bending revelation. All I can do at this point is acknowledge and heed these warnings and see where they lead me. As a result of this new information, I am taking a step back from my current church and from my AA meeting. These two places and the people in them have been my LA home for the past year and a half, but I am heeding the warning and letting go. I know you have to be willing to let go of what does not completely serve you in order to receive what does, but that does not make the letting go any easier. So here’s to seeing where this Wind is blowing as I march into the month known for its changing of the seasons.
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Zeal is defined as an enthusiastic devotion to a cause, ideal, or goal and tireless diligence in its furtherance. On a similar note, love is defined as an intense feeling of deep affection. Given these two definitions one could easily say that if one loves something or someone that one would also have zeal for that something or someone.
Now, according to Matthew 22: 36-40, Yeshua states that the greatest command God ever gave was to love the Lord your God with all of your heart and all of your soul and with all of your strength and the second greatest command God ever gave was to love your neighbor as yourself. He goes even further to say that everything depends on these two commands. What’s interesting is that these two commands are actually not new. The Lord God ADONAI actually gave these commands in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. Since both the Lord God ADONAI and His son, Yeshua, made a point to tell people this don’t you think we should do more than glance over them? So I ask you: are we living out these two commands? Unfortunately, more often than not, the answer is no and so I ask, what’s your zeal? Zeal For the Law If you have zeal for the law, then you tend to do your best to obey the law. You tend to inadvertently ignore the heart and thereby ignore the motives and intentions behind your actions. You probably have a daily relationship with God, but you tend to try and barter for blessings since you keep all of those pesky laws. Your attention is on the Law and what obeying the Law can get you. In short: An outward focus The underlying belief is that the law brings you closer to God Your focus tends to stay on your actions and the actions of others You force obedience on yourself and possibly those around you Zeal for God If you have zeal for God, then you tend to try to do your best for God. You probably have a daily relationship with God and as that relationship grows you find yourself wanting to understand Him more and as you understand Him more you find yourself surprisingly wanting to obey Him all the more. Your attention is on God and what He can do through you. In short: An inward focus The underlying belief is that your relationship with God brings you closer to Him Your focus shifts to the motives and intentions of your own heart and the hearts of others Your relationship with God is what makes you want to obey His commands The Bible states over and over that God is more concerned with the motives and intentions of our hearts than He is with our actual actions. Why? Well, it is the motives and intentions of our hearts that create our actions. An easy and yet still very controversial example is the use of alcohol among Christians. The Bible never explicitly states it is wrong to drink, but it does state it is wrong to get drunk. This might seem contradictory until you look at the intentions behind those actions. For most people in most situations, the action of having a couple of drinks results from the desire to relax or celebrate; whereas, the action of getting wasted results from a wide array of negative desires. The most common being to run away from a problem, to become someone you are not, or to commit a sin. You know the saying if you have to get drunk to do it then you probably shouldn’t be doing it and you are probably going to regret it to boot. The point is, when you look at the probable intentions behind those two actions it is easier to see why God might not be too concerned about the first and doubly concerned about the second. No parent on this earth wants to see their children behaving in potentially dangerous ways because of stress or ill motives and neither does God, our heavenly Father. I guess to put it another way, if the heart is in the right place then the right actions will ultimately follow. So my question for you is simple. If you are going to love God and love others in the same way you love yourself, which those of you who follow the Old Testament or the New Testament have been commanded to do… Do you need to have zeal for the law or do you need to have zeal for God? And please, don’t get me wrong because I am not saying the law is bad, but what I am saying is that in order to really know or love someone you do have to know his or her heart, right? |
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