Heart Disease

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things,
and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?”

Jeremiah 17:9, NLT

We are the wounded. What exactly has caused it isn’t always known. A death, divorce, depression and disability are great triggers. Some of us are chronically ill, others are mentally ill. We struggle to hold a job, and to go to church. There are some who are reading this who are controlled by addictions. And a few of us consider suicide on pretty much a regular basis.

We’ve been hospitalized and stigmatized, and sometimes even institutionalized. And at times we endure massive attacks of fear and anxiety. We are not easily understood, and we hear the whispers. Our paranoia can often saturate what what we are thinking, (I think its more like a “marinade.” Our brains just soak it up.) Most of us are ‘walking wounded.’ We limp physically, and figuratively with equal pain.

“For thus says the LORD: Your hurt is incurable,
and your wound is grievous.”

Jeremiah 30:12, ESV

If we are honest (and God insists on a rigorous honesty) we realize that we are a mess! The prophet Jeremiah had a tremendous understanding of the human condition, and was never beguiled by the lie of pride, arrogance and selfishness. He declares that we are diseased down to the core, like a rotten apple.

At times we continue in our favorite style of darkness. And havoc sporadically rips through us and we become “disaster areas.” How very sad, and profoundly tragic.

But you must understand this powerful fact. Jesus Christ has been sent by the Father to save and cleanse all who come to Him.

“At that time a fountain will be open for David’s descendants and for the people of Jerusalem to cleanse them of their sin and uncleanness.”

Zechariah 13:1, NCV

“Children, it’s time for a bath,” and what God has done provides us the only way to “get better.” Some of us have carried staggering burdens for decades. But I must be truthful. Our afflictions may continue to disturb us. If you are bipolar or depressed, it just could be you’ll remain so. But I know first-hand that our Father will give us an extra ration of grace.

In the Old Testament, family patriarchs could give an additional portion to a son he especially loved. All were blessed, but some more so. That peculiar proclivity of our Father is why some of us with deep wounds can follow closer than others who are healthy.

“For I am the LORD, your healer.” Ex. 15:26

“The treatment a wound gets decides whether time will bring healing or bondage.”

ybic, Bryan

kyrie elesion. (Lord, have mercy on each reader)

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A Retrograde Faith (brokenbelievers.com)
Pain Franchise (isiahanderson.wordpress.com)
The Holy Spirit – Our Helper (sundayschoolbiblestudy.wordpress.com)
First Day of Jeremiah Ponderings…. (rhoda1982.wordpress.com)

Paranoia and Delusions, Oh My!

Didn’t really sleep last night but an interesting day. Hope it continues to develop in that direction. I really need a good day to come along right now.

Been thinking about paranoia. It comes loaded up with delusions. They are separate words, but when they make that toxic combination it gets strange. Are people out to get me? Probably not. People are by far and away more apt to dismiss me then to plot against me.

Paranoia is the belief in a hidden order behind the visible.

Delusions are a strong belief in something despite superior evidence to the contrary.

I don’t know why this is such a hard concept to hold on. Paranoia is intensely self-absorbed and egocentric. Everything is conspiring to destroy me is a very foolish way to live. In a culture already overheated by egomania, to offend me becomes a declaration of war. My paranoia makes you a mortal enemy. But to act from that destroys me. I only take it deeper and make it easier to slide into the next time.

Paranoia is not rational. You can not reason with it. (You certainly have my permission.) For me, I win the battle over paranoia and delusions by “displacement”, pushing it out by adding in the presence of Jesus. The Holy Spirit fills us and flushes out the bad. At least that is what it feels like.

When I recognize Him to be the good shepherd, He watches over my thoughts like sheep. He protects me from paranoia’s snares and thorns. I experience peace when He is present. I find Jesus actively helps me in this.

There are times I hear the voices, and “see” the monstrous faces leering out of the wallpaper. But more often I concoct delusions about people who I feel have slighted me. Paranoia provides plenty of grist for me to grind. I’m learning how to recognize the lies, and the liar who speaks them to me.

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control.”

2 Timothy 1:7, AMP

Often I hear what seems like a telegraph, a varying ‘dot-dash-dot.’ It is very loud and obtrusive, but I know now it’s not real. I read a cool quote, that made me laugh, “I was walking home one night and a guy hammering on a roof called me a paranoid little weirdo. In morse code.” -Emo Phillips

I hope your day goes good.

Discernment for Dummies

^“But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”

Hebrews 5:14, NASB

“The first point of wisdom is to discern that which is false; the second, to know that which is true.”

Lucius Caelius Lactantius

Defined, discernment is the ability to perceive reality as it really is. It is a difficult quality for mentally ill people to have. We tumble through this world with wrong perceptions. We deal with issues like delusions and paranoia. Some of us are tangled up with derealization/depersonalization. We question the “realness” of our reality.

Discernment is being in a right relationship with truth.

One of my prayers has been, “Lord, let it be the real me who encounters the real you.” I’m belly-full of pretense and posturing. I know I have this strange tendency to deceive myself. I don’t know when I’m getting screwy.

“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”

John 16:13, NIV

The Holy Spirit leads me into what is true and valid. I can trust Him to interface and interpret for me what is real and what is authentic. That is His ministry. That is what He does, I can trust Jesus’ referral.

There are many ways that God gives to help me discern. These are the things the Spirit uses:

the Bible
personal desires, hopes, and inclinations
circumstances
solid counsel from the mature
common sense
past results and experiences
“gut” impression
supernatural leadings (dreams, visions, audibly)

True discernment comes in the objective reality of the Bible. This book wants to direct and guide me like no other. It stands as the trustworthy director in a world of competing voices. It directs me through all of the din. I must read God’s Word to walk in His truth.

Discerning the realness of reality once was the easy attribute of Adam. After the Fall, we (human beings) lost this ability. We currently struggle with the inability to see truth. We’re regaining this through the Spirit. Thank God we’re being transformed and renewed with this new ability. Faith is the adventure we now get to operate in.

“Faith is the divine evidence whereby the spiritual man discerneth God, and the things of God.”

John Wesley

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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.”