darkness – Page 16 – Broken Believers

Caving Into the Presence

“Let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.”

Hebrews 10:22

I have never really understood “caving”. Some consider it a sport, but I guess I really don’t see the athleticism of it. People actually seem to derive some satisfaction and thrill from exploring muddy caves in the dark. I guess I can try to grab the basic idea of it, but to me it’s a whole lot like “parachuting”. Why jump out of a perfectly decent airplane, when you can sit in a Starbucks with a vanilla latte? It doesn’t compute.

But there is a sense about caving that resonates with the hunger in a man’s or woman’s heart. Hebrews tell us that we are to enter the presence of God. The keys will be sincerity and trust. In other words, a honesty, and a trust that will open up the passage. Spiritual spelunkers in a quest for His glor OUCC-Cave-Climbing y.

Sometimes something will block a person. Depression is a barrier for us. Essentially it effects our passion and strength. Our pursuit of God is nullified by the corrosive facets of depression and melancholy. There is no longer any zip or zeal for His presence. The fire of zeal we once had just fizzles out. But to reach our goal, we need to squeeze beyond the blockage. There is a spiritual resistance. Our infernal enemy is working against any progress.

So much involves patience and humility. A person must continue to probe ahead but slowly and patiently, taking their time and monitoring their progress. Humility is necessary. An awareness of self and our dimensions in tight spots. “Am I small enough to squeeze through that hole?”

Our scripture tells us that we have a key to the throne room of God. Our guiltiness and our defiled conscience have both been cleansed or sanitized from anything that would corrupt us. We haven’t done a thing. And we are exhorted to be very bold. Jesus has made us pure. We are clean.

Peanut Butter, Hot Lunch and Dreams

Warning: Rambling post, very tedious. Don’t operate heavy equipment for two hours after reading this post.

I grew up in a big, brick house in Northern Wisconsin. Our beautiful home hid our desperate poverty, and it was quite difficult. My father and mother scraped by enough each week to feed and clothe us. But just barely. Mom would take some elbow macaroni, and mix it with stewed tomatoes (from a dwindling supply she tried to manage.)

I was oblivious to our precarious situation. I carried a plain peanut butter sandwich to school for years, but I had a simple dream of getting “hot lunch.” I was tired of peanut butter, as I watched all the other kids eat pizza, hamburgers and (my fav. mashed potatoes with a pat of butter.) I ate PB for several years. You could stucco a house with what I ate.

I wasn’t really settled in my heart or thinking. I developed into a bipolar childhood that had quite a bit of depression, and a load of impulsivity. I was an impossible child, and I was out-of-control. I was either terribly manic or profoundly depressed. My Mom and Dad simply didn’t know or grasp my mental illness and how it was effecting me.

A repeated nightmare worked its claws into my thinking. I would wake up sobbing, almost inconsolable. I had this dream several times in my teens, and can still 40 years later taste the panic. In this dream, I would be lifted up and laid on a slow conveyor belt. I would be on my back, and I would see over my feet a giant roller. This roller had big nobs on it and it was rolling over what the conveyor belt brought to it. In this dream I was paralyzed, unable to escape this giant crushing roller. I kept fighting, and trying to escape. But, I was completely frozen.

I would waken just as my feet met the roller. The fear I had was as intense as any I ever had. (Except when I had to go down to the basement, but that was more reasonable.) I would repeat this dream several times, and it was always the same. I haven’t had this dream for 30 years or more, but it still has a potency and fear to make me edgy.

Over the many years I have thought about this. I certainly don’t want to mysticize it, or try to force an interpretation out of it. But it has struck me as a metaphor of my life to some degree. In this dream I was moving toward an inevitable crushing. The paralyzing panic was a fair description of where I was at spiritually.

This explanation may sound childish and simplistic. But it is so workable, and brings a certain comprehension to these terrible moments of fear. And our dreams, well, they are funny things. All of us, somehow, and in some strange fashion are treated to a surrealistic and fantastical mini-story as we sleep. But what does it mean?

Much of the time, upon awakening, we try to piece together both the chronology and the meaning of what we had just dreamed. It’s hard to do, most of the time it justs slips away. Yet, our inner heart always wonders if that particular dream was “good, bad or ugly.” There are rare times when we can grab on a sequence of events, and relay it to a close friend.

Some things will never be revealed in this lifetime. But I believe there are certain things in our dreams that the Holy Spirit chooses to bring to light. We are never sanctioned to seek the meaning of our dreams, but only the Lord Himself. We should never lean on our understanding, but on our Father and His Word.

P.S. I realize in writing this, I don’t like peanut butter at all.

What I Must Have

Our lives can get quite complicated. This goes for our Christian walk as well. It seems what is simple is what is lacking, and we entertain a bedlam of confused priorities and misguided principles. It seems a wonder that we are still walking with Jesus at all. The clear wisdom of the first commandment is as true as it was when it was spoken:

“You must not have any other god but me.”

Exodus 20:3, NLT

Things go quickly awry when we violate this. We get lost in anxiety, worry, ego, and envy when we seek other things before we seek the Lord. The Church in Ephesus was a blessed church. Paul seems to set them apart in his dealings and pastoral care. The letter to the Ephesians is ‘the crown jewel’ of the entire New Testament. Revelation 2 are Jesus’ words to his special ones:

“I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. I know you don’t tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not. You have discovered they are liars. ³You have patiently suffered for me without quitting.”

⁴“But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! ⁵Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches.”

Revelations 2:2-5

There were two sisters. Martha and Mary. Martha was the busy one, she busied herself with making a special dinner for Jesus. Mary, on the other hand, sat at Jesus’ feet and hung on every word. It so exasperated Martha that she brought her complaint to Jesus. (You can read this in Luke 10).

^”But the Lord said to her, “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! ⁴²There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Luke 10:41

We do well if we keep this in our minds and our hearts.

The Melancholy of Edvard Munch

December 2, 1863 – January 23, 1944, he was a Norwegian painter. He is regarded as a Symbolist and a forerunner of expressionism. He focused on themes of fear, anxiety, melancholy, and death. He did not believe in heaven, or other Christian themes or doctrines, as far as I know.

My intention is to reintroduce you to an artist that I highly esteem. The challenge I suppose is to understand the issues that Munch discovers in his work. He clearly taps into the ‘angst’ of the modern man, and what he does perpetuates a mindset for our generation.

Obviously these paintings are just an introduction, and I understand that they are selective. I have refrained from any kind of interpretation, other than laying down a general principle– to Munch, color is everything.

Munch was probably not a cheery person. He essentially was driven by anxiety through his whole life. It seems that he could be very ambitious. His classic work was “The Scream” which he made several versions to sell. He used different mediums to do this– tempera, lithograph and pastel. Interestingly, “The Scream” is a favorite target for art thefts. It captures the minds of every modern thinker.

Within our culture, “The Scream” is iconic. Warhol, Gary Larson, Dr. Who and even “The Simpsons” have cashed in on a parody of it.

Quotes

“I painted the picture, and in the colors the rhythm of the music quivers. I painted the colors I saw.”

“Painting picture by picture, I followed the impressions my eye took in at heightened moments. I painted only memories, adding nothing, no details that I did not see. Hence the simplicity of the paintings, their emptiness.”

“For as long as I can remember I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety which I have tried to express in my art.”

“Disease, insanity, and death were the angels that attended my cradle, and since then have followed me throughout my life.”