"Heart Knowledge"

We use a lot of buzzwords around the church, especially at TACF. It's not a bad thing, it's just funny how many there are. One of the phrases we use is "knowing something in your heart." This is different from knowing something in your head. Here's how:

You can know something in your head, but not live a life that shows that you believe that is true. You can know it in your head, but have no real depth of understanding in it. You can know it in your head, but have no feeling of certainty in your heart. Does this make sense? Do you get me here? (most of you probably will, as you've probably heard it before.)

Recently, a lot of things that used to be heart knowledge seemed to have been shaken in their place and are now sitting in the "head knowledge" realm. It's been really unsettling. I went through a few weeks where I was progressively struggling more and more with simple beliefs and feelings and truths that gave me much strength and comfort. This started to cause a lot of trouble in my relationship with God. I don't know if these things were being shaken so that they can be resettled with more conviction, more truth, more revelation. I'm not sure. I'm still kind of trying to get them back there. Truth be told, even though things are starting to feel better, I'm still not quite sure of these things that have been losing hold. I'm not quite sure I even remember the process of translating knowledge from head to heart. I've forgotten how that twelve-ish inch journey is made. I think, for things having to do with God, it requires the Holy Spirit. Maybe I need more of Holy Spirit?

It's scary when all of the sudden God's love is just a piece of knowledge and not a place in your heart. It's scary when your identity in him is suddenly a matter of fact and not a matter of confidence. It's really hard when his goodness is an idea and not a comfort. When you feel abandoned and lonely and separated from his presence, his voice, his heart, his love, what do you do? It's even harder when you feel like you don't have people to turn to. And at this point, even the people you do have to turn to seem far away, and your views of God and yourself and your friends are all skewed by the turmoil of your heart.

What's one to do? I guess you just have to truck through. I don't know how to give up on God. I know how it feels to want to, but I don't know how to actually do it. To abandon him completely doesn't seem like something I can wrap my heard around.

I'm still waiting for a lot of this to settle again, it all still seems in transit somewhere. Lost, fragmented, and hurt. But even if in my heart I don't feel it, something in me, even if it's just head knowledge, knows he's good and he loves me. Let's see how God uses that to build my heart.

How about you? Do you know how this feels? Has God been shaking your heart knowledge? Or maybe your head knowledge? Or maybe even everything you know?

Mosquito Bites

I was at a cottage this weekend past relaxing with family and just chilling and got a few mosquito bites. And you know, I realized something...

God put Mosquitoes on Earth to teach us about temptation and sin. I'm just sure of it.

Here's why...

Let's say that the mosquito is like the devil. Him trying to bite you, or biting you, is temptation, and that scratching that itchy bug bite is sin.

Let's work backwards.

You know how when you get a mosquito bite, you feel it and you see it and then you feel that itch? What then happens? You scratch it. Why? Because it feels... good! YES! It feels so good!

But what happens when you start scratching that pesky mosquito puncture? You want to scratch it more! And so you do. You keep scratching until it's this big red blotch on you and it's driving you crazy. The only reason you stop scratching is it because you remind yourself that if you continue scratching, you'll eventually scratch the skin off.

I think this is kind of like temptation and sin. You're tempted to scratch that little mosquito bite because something in your flesh is like "oooh, it's bugging me (no pun intended) and it will feel sooooo good! I'll just scratch it a little bit." Then, this little, mostly hidden mosquito bite you started scratching just a little bit, is this giant welt of a thing that's the size of a toonie. You suddenly have this giant red spot on you that drives you crazy. You can't stop thinking about how irritated and itchy it is, and if you don't put something on it (I recommend Aloe Vera lotion or Afterbite), you will scratch so long and so hard that you'll make yourself bleed.

Sin does this. You start by just doing it a little, "it won't hurt anyone," you say, and you just like "try it out" or something. Then, you realize how good sin feels to your flesh, and you keep going. You "just can't help it."

And then you get to the point when you look down (on your hand or your foot, let's say. STUPID foot bites!) and you see the mess you've created for yourself. All the sudden you have this giant, throbbing, red sore mass on you that people can see and tell that you've been scratching. All the sudden, what was a hidden guilty pleasure is this ugly, obvious spot on you that drives you crazy. How many times have we seen this happen in people's lives? If only if I'd put something on it and stopped myself from scratching it, it would've gone away in hurry! (the mosquito bite, that is) If only I'd been more diligent to protect myself from getting bitten by that mosquito in the first place!

You see, it all makes sense, doesn't it? Mosquitoes are here on earth to teach us to be careful about giving into temptation and falling into sin. It's not the temptation that's the sin. You can't always help being tempted (you can do things to put yourself in tempting situations though, and do things to help you not be tempted), but you can ask God for strength and help to fight off that temptation and keep away from falling into the trap of continually scratching and scratching and being stuck in that habit.

Think about it...