trading sensuality FOR sensitivity
When life hands me transition, change, and anything that hurts… you can bet for sure I am going to want some kind of escape. And if I cannot find that, then I want the process, the ins and outs which must only happen if the other side is to be reached, to be as pleasant and wonderful as possible. But there is quite a profound problem with that logic: Life doesn't always work that way.
A few mornings ago, I decided to again make my claim of faith and tell God I trusted him. Life currently looks like a lot of ????? and many of the ones I love are hurting. So instead of filling my prayer to my Father with all of these words asking for an easier path, obviously less filled with pain and difficulty, I simply said I will trust YOU. Well… almost as soon as I was finished and my feet to the floor to embrace the day, one line from a Reliant K song called "Let It All Out" flooded into my head:
"And you said I know that this will hurt, but if I don't break your heart than things will just get worse"
Lyrics are always floating around in my cranium so I didn't think anything of it, until I sat down with a podcast and the Word opened to Ephesians 4:17-24, heres what really caught me:
"They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity… But that is not the way you learned Christ!"
(Ironically in my selfishness) I thought there is no way thats me. I am in Christ and I am new.
It was then that the speaker began to talk about a "callous." The process of forming one always starts with pain, with irritation and friction, but it doesn't last forever. The newly hardened area of skin now doesn't feel the pain it did anymore. YES! That sounds like a good thing to me, right? I don't want to feel pain. However, the problem with the callous is you don't just lose feelings regarding pain, but you lose "sensitivity" to everything.
Can not feeling, especially pain, actually harm me?
If I went to grab a boiling pot of water, all kinds of receptors in my hand will scream at me to let go. And whats the alternative? allowing the boiling water to harm my hand further all because I couldn't feel the initial pain in the first place? I can't explain how many times I had heard this metaphor but this time it was different. My skin is sensitive to pain, but also to pleasure. As I kept reading I came to the line of "they have given themselves up to sensuality" and I realized that in my attempts to escape pain, the callouses that I begged for made me feel good, they dulled out the constant ache, but in the process I lost something far greater, my sensitivity, the capacity in me to feel everything….
Sensual is defined as "relating to or consisting in the gratification of the senses" and is all about what feels good. Its entirely about me. Thats what I wanted… not the pain, not the hurt, not the difficulties, not the trial, not the delicate sensitivity. I stopped asking all the questions I was supposed to:
"God, what pleases you? How am I supposed to live as a woman? A friend? What do you want for me? What is the best choice to make? How do I step into the fullness of your presence?" because the answers weren't easy and certainly were going to ask me to feel every second. I was willing to trade a sensitive heart for one calloused in sensuality.
The rest of the verse "But that is NOT the way you learned Christ"
The callous may be good, but if I am no longer sensitive to those questions, to the voice that cries out in pain all the while being my ONLY saving grace, all I am left with is me and what feels good. But that isn't what happened when I learned Christ, when I learned of his grace. As the passage continues I see that I must "put off your old self" and the life that goes with it. Everything doesn't always feel good and make sense right away, "to be renewed in the spirit of your minds" means I am going to have to feel. The sensitivity, with all of its pains and hurts, is in the process of calling me out of myself, calling me into a "new self."
Seasons of pain, wrought with misunderstanding and difficulty, loneliness and doubt, do not always make sense to me. They hurt and are terrible, and even at times seemingly unfair. But as I press forward it can only be into God, into the truth that all the while I am being saved from something. It is not without purpose because I have been brought into a new life, and I must be renewed.
My heart will be broken, I will be broken.
I will find a new way to walk.
I will find a new way to breathe.
I will find a new way to embrace grace.
A few mornings ago, I decided to again make my claim of faith and tell God I trusted him. Life currently looks like a lot of ????? and many of the ones I love are hurting. So instead of filling my prayer to my Father with all of these words asking for an easier path, obviously less filled with pain and difficulty, I simply said I will trust YOU. Well… almost as soon as I was finished and my feet to the floor to embrace the day, one line from a Reliant K song called "Let It All Out" flooded into my head:"And you said I know that this will hurt, but if I don't break your heart than things will just get worse"
Lyrics are always floating around in my cranium so I didn't think anything of it, until I sat down with a podcast and the Word opened to Ephesians 4:17-24, heres what really caught me:
"They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity… But that is not the way you learned Christ!"
(Ironically in my selfishness) I thought there is no way thats me. I am in Christ and I am new.
It was then that the speaker began to talk about a "callous." The process of forming one always starts with pain, with irritation and friction, but it doesn't last forever. The newly hardened area of skin now doesn't feel the pain it did anymore. YES! That sounds like a good thing to me, right? I don't want to feel pain. However, the problem with the callous is you don't just lose feelings regarding pain, but you lose "sensitivity" to everything.
Can not feeling, especially pain, actually harm me?
If I went to grab a boiling pot of water, all kinds of receptors in my hand will scream at me to let go. And whats the alternative? allowing the boiling water to harm my hand further all because I couldn't feel the initial pain in the first place? I can't explain how many times I had heard this metaphor but this time it was different. My skin is sensitive to pain, but also to pleasure. As I kept reading I came to the line of "they have given themselves up to sensuality" and I realized that in my attempts to escape pain, the callouses that I begged for made me feel good, they dulled out the constant ache, but in the process I lost something far greater, my sensitivity, the capacity in me to feel everything….
Sensual is defined as "relating to or consisting in the gratification of the senses" and is all about what feels good. Its entirely about me. Thats what I wanted… not the pain, not the hurt, not the difficulties, not the trial, not the delicate sensitivity. I stopped asking all the questions I was supposed to:
"God, what pleases you? How am I supposed to live as a woman? A friend? What do you want for me? What is the best choice to make? How do I step into the fullness of your presence?" because the answers weren't easy and certainly were going to ask me to feel every second. I was willing to trade a sensitive heart for one calloused in sensuality.
The rest of the verse "But that is NOT the way you learned Christ"
The callous may be good, but if I am no longer sensitive to those questions, to the voice that cries out in pain all the while being my ONLY saving grace, all I am left with is me and what feels good. But that isn't what happened when I learned Christ, when I learned of his grace. As the passage continues I see that I must "put off your old self" and the life that goes with it. Everything doesn't always feel good and make sense right away, "to be renewed in the spirit of your minds" means I am going to have to feel. The sensitivity, with all of its pains and hurts, is in the process of calling me out of myself, calling me into a "new self."
Seasons of pain, wrought with misunderstanding and difficulty, loneliness and doubt, do not always make sense to me. They hurt and are terrible, and even at times seemingly unfair. But as I press forward it can only be into God, into the truth that all the while I am being saved from something. It is not without purpose because I have been brought into a new life, and I must be renewed.
My heart will be broken, I will be broken.
I will find a new way to walk.
I will find a new way to breathe.
I will find a new way to embrace grace.
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