BEAUTIFICATION

As I find myself catching my breath back after a 3-week session of counseling freshmen guys, I hope to flesh out peculiar thoughts that the Lord has transcended upon my mind. It has been a struggle to even find time to think so I've simply journaled an elaborated and fairly intricate thought that I would be able to reflect on when free time is laid before my plate.

This completely divine wisdom that the Lord has presented before my impaired vision has been sanctified - and through such, clarified. This is also a concept that I present only as insight. It is a very narrow and personal empathy that resonates with a confusing, yet hysterical passage that we find in Romans 7:14-21. While striving in this race, directing our vision at the upward call of heaven, individuals develop passion for foundational biblical truths. We intangibly find ourselves more transformed and conformed to the character of the Lord because of the dynamic ways in which he enamors us and reveals himself to us through experiential scenarios. It is quite clear to us, especially with scripture to support this piece of verity, that we are flawed. We cannot love as greatly as we desire nor can we humble ourselves as lowly as God deserves. We are debilitated to act in righteousness as that which we so yearn. Not only the general version of righteousness though, but it seems ambiguous as to the fact that there is a specific thing in which Paul himself possesses a conviction for, that he conflictingly cannot do. His heart is being torn in two; and here not because there are two good things in which he desires, but two uncontrollable acts in which there is a natural attraction to one and a divine conviction to another. "For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate."(v.15b)

The Lord is continually penetrating in my heart and mind to integrate a contextual insight in which could not be humane. Throughout my journey, he's moved me to fall in love with his truth in drastic ways. And amidst this bulky transcendence, my feet have become planted on the narrow path where particular convictions have been targeted because of my constant exposure to them. This list is intricately formed, and ultimately ties together specific forms of righteousness that points to a common ultimatum. It is implanted within me a deep desire to humble myself more and more completely before the Lord, and a desire for the sensitivity to the Spirit in order that it is not i who speak, but he who speaks through me(Matt.10:20). The colossal amount of evidence makes it both apparent for myself and others that this is a divine instillation. One must be self-inquisitive of certain attributes that prove dynamic about their own person. In this self-inquisition, or in other words, reflection, the faithful Lord will prove revelatory in his dominion. Why is it the case that I have this heightened desire for both myself and others to be sanctified on this very narrow subject? Both internally and practically, we begin to identify our inadequacies that trigger our convictions. It is because we are not good at this very thing. The VERY thing that we want to do, we cannot do. It is this continuum of dry experiential learning that has transitioned us to this condition of passion. It is because we cannot perform a task well, that leads us to striving towards perfection.

If anything is verifiable that the Lord has conformed us to faithful living, it will be this very thing! It is that convictions are developed in the peculiar areas of blatant flaws. Yet again with every insight, there remains a subtle presence of a warning. Where there is conviction, there is a danger of the development of ostentation. As one develop convictions, this development is constantly transformed in a process paralleled to the sanctification process. It comes closer to a more complete knowledge because our curiosity spurs our discovery. As these truisms become solidified in our minds, we are qualified to inspired if there is such a qualification, and we are qualified to teach or inform. The reason for the danger of ostentation is that the very knowledge we know much of also hides the very inadequacy that is present within us. Our demonstration of conviction may lead to others' perception of our near conquering of certain immoralities. Of course there will be no conquering until the day of Christ. Let not this ostentation be developed, a reminder I constantly tell myself. Let us become lowly in moving our fear of our inadequacies and our potential ostentation tremble in fear before the righteousness that the Lord moves in us!

God, would you make us conquerors, we look to the day. Father would you haste that day.
In the name of the father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
Amen

DISCOVERING FLAWS

My experiences thus far in this trip has been very revelatory for me in many of my convictions that I have. It's revealed many ways of life that is need of being calibrated and others that has been reevaluated as I aim as becoming increasingly conscious of how I am practical of my convictions.

One certain thing I've noticed is that I have a very weak desire to produce conversations because I'm fairly lazy and feel like conversing requires an astronomical amount of effort. Maybe an exaggeration, but sometimes maybe not. And because I despise conversations that are unauthentic and ones that are ignited through the compulsion to talk because of our Christian stereotype, I rarely choose to talk if I do not believe the conversation is worthwhile - how foolish my fleshly discernment deceives me in situations like that. When there is no desire, as A.W. Tozer once prayed, [paraphrased] I desire so that I would desire more of you, I thirst that I might become more thirsty. I truly desire to desire, and thirst to thirst, that my acquiring of a very fallen social ability would become transformed into an authentic desire to come into further communion with God's chosen people, God's holy nation.

This brings me into my second thought. I have a strong conviction for communion and unity amongst God's people and for us individually in conformation to the trinity. As I have been living with a Christian community in a semi-isolated area of Wisconsin (to me at least because I'm from Chicago), it seems to me that I do not visually see unity as a beautiful thing. I almost condemn unity internally when I see God's people seeking after him as a quotidian need for his grace and his empowering word. That is when I stopped and soaked in the despicable and deteriorating thoughts within my head. How can I go on discovering this holy structure of communion and unity in my own life when I do not truly see the body uniting together with Christ as a beautiful thing? Can I begin to adore it? I need to want for the people of the Lord, I need to be affectionate in truth. Knowledge without transformation is idolatry. I do not want to be caught up in the act of idolatry. Only the Father can produce change, and I wait and thirst with my life desperately for it.

And then there is this thought of always wanting to be high and exalted in almost everything I do. I hope for a miraculous, yet possible cycle of transformation within me. I desire that Christ would flush out the ugliness of my flesh and move me to become coministers with his people. A humility that never ends in such an intangible cycle that I can not comprehend. That I might be humble that I'm humble that I'm humble that I'm humble...

I'm weak and I'm being sustained by the hands who have made the ancient paths and sustained his those of the ages of old. Father, would you work as I believe, and would I believe as you move me to believe, and would you move me to believe that the grace in which control permits.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
Amen