Christmas from the Inside Out

-

I have been thinking how similarly we veil our true selves throughout the year like we also sometimes find the message Christmas veiled to us. The twinkle of the lights and bows of Christmas can distract us from the unwrapping and unbinding of our hearts that God would have for us at this time of year. 

You may have heard one of my favorite descriptions God gives us for our inner world, our true self. He uses the most lavish language he has access to in our English language. I will include a verse before because I love how it speaks of God’s promises:
Isaiah 54
10 “For the mountains may be removed and the hills may shake,
But My loving kindness will not be removed from you,
And My covenant of peace will not be shaken,”
Says the LORD who has compassion on you. 
 11 “O afflicted one (fill your name here), storm-tossed, and not comforted,
Behold, I will set your stones in antimony,
And your foundations I will lay in sapphires. 

12 “Moreover, I will make your battlements of rubies,
And your gates of crystal,
And your entire wall of precious stones. 

Informed and influenced by Teresa Avila’s “Interior Castle”, in my mind’s eye I see the structure of our inner worlds like the walls and floors and surroundings of an inner room. How grateful I am for the Lords steadfast estimation of me: In His eyes, dripping with lavish beauty. Even when I am messy as can be on the outside, my attention drawn to lesser things. 

Hoping you feel unseen abundance this holiday season, and an authentic sense that Christ has come to restore, reclaim, and re-establish you in true goodness.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Psychological Approach or Spiritual Approach?

-
Resting in the blend of  spirit, mind, emotions, and body that I dwell in, I come into contact with the edges of this question all the time.  It is easy to lean more fully on one or the other.  Most of us have a comfortable automatic bend toward finding solutions in spirit or material ways.  Robert Mulholland, a respected spiritual formation writer and trusted Christian theologian, expands an answer to this wondering that satisfies my soul.  I hope it illuminates for you as well: "We need to realize that not only is psychology not a substitute for spirituality, but spirituality is not a substitute for psychology. While most Christians would not tend to make the first assertion, many would and do tend to make the second. As we have already noted, spiritual formation is often seen as the answer to all problems.  Often, profound, deep-seated psychological problems are met with demands for deeper faith, more rigorous obedience, more vital spirituality. Psychological brokenness
Read more

Boundaries you Cannot See And Cannot Ignore

-
Image
Let me begin by introducing you to one of my personal favorite emotional coping tricks.  Prayer Pictures.   What is a Prayer Picture? A Prayer Picture is a term I coined to mean an image or symbol, representing a bigger, more complex or powerful insight that came to you at some point. One of those…an “oh, that is good!” moments or one line from a podcast or a book that was just for you and you know you are going to need it in the future.   When we are on the fly we are zipping through appointments and classes and shopping and relating and debating and carpooling and deal making and number crunching...whatever fills your hustle.  It is my experience that it is pretty near impossible to pull down a complex psychosocial/psychospiritual clarity or coping mechanism on the go.  Our brains are built to serve us on the fly and put us in a sympathetic chemical (autopilot) brain atmosphere.  When we are there, automatic reaction mostly determines choices, behavior, and outcome.  So, in an effort
Read more

A Tale of Two Disturbing Poems

-
Image
I have that feeling…that as we come out of the hush or bustle of the summer, something is presenting itself.  Something that presents Itself with hopes we will say Yes.  Quite often, the fall season calls for a re-arranging, a new-year-esque lens to see our moments, coming and going, what we are up to, our rhythms of rest and work, through.  Examination.  It’s a soul-giving thing to stop and let it do its work.   This poem recently came across my email via more than one list I am signed up to receive…which means you should listen, right?  It is a poem I think we need to encounter in certain intervals of our process…in order to be “disturbed”  toward what is next, in spite of our self-sabotaging settlement in the too small, too known, too safe.   If it is available, gift yourself a moment of stillness and breath.   Get quite inside and when you find you can receive…slowly roll the lines of this poem over in your mind.  You might even practice a lectio divina-like reading of it, maybe
Read more