Ok guys, let me try this again. This is the first time I've blogged here, so I'm still trying to figure out the technicalities. Anywho, I've written about 4 prefaces now, but they pretty much just say this: I'm an all or nothing kind of gal. I don't write regularly, but when I do, I spill my guts. So that's your warning!

I’ve been reading a book called GET OUT OF THAT PIT. Sounds like a cliché self-help book, I know. But I don’t care. It IS a self-help book. But if no one actually read them (whether they buy them at the local B&N or they quietly purchase them on ebay or Amazon or half.com), well, they wouldn’t be selling, and quite frankly, there wouldn’t be so many self-help book authors out there. Anyways, it’s really a life-changer, this book. It comes at the perfect time in my life maybe, although, seeing how it’s practically the story of my life, it would probably be perfect timing if I just read it again and again throughout my entire life.

GET OUT OF THAT PIT. That’s one thing I’m learning: About how you find yourself in the pit, whether you’ve been thrown in by someone else, or you slipped in, or if you jumped in head first all by yourself. What the pit is, what it entails, what it does to your mind and your body and your spirit. Why are you there, ‘why did God allow you to be there (Mama Beth pointed out to me Job 33—He does try to turn us away from it, but like she said, We want what we want, whether we like it or not.), and why should you not make a home out of it? ‘Cause that’s easy, you know, just making yourself comfortable after being there for a while, or even if you do get out, and you just find yourself there over and over, spending more time there than you do on higher ground. Yeah, I know, sounds like I know what I’m talking about, huh?

You know, several years back, I remember staring into a little crocheted picture in my best friend’s dorm room. It said “Let Go, Let God.” Yeah yeah, I thought, what a nice gift that adorned her big ugly dorm window. Little did I know at the time, that brief little cliché verse would practically become the theme of God’s lesson for my life.

Somewhere between a pit and higher ground exists a place called LETTING GO. Another word for it is FORGIVENESS. I’m learning that the first step to getting out of a pit and forgiving…myself and others involved. Beth says “when we won’t forgive, the people we often want to be around least because they’ve hurt us so badly are the very people we take with us emotionally everywhere we go.” It’s true. How can I let go if I’m dragging around with me that kind of emotional baggage? As an emotional person, I also have to remind myself this: Forgiveness is not about feeling. It’s about willing. Beth says “first you will it and soon you’ll feel it.”

A couple of years ago, I ran across this song Jeremy Camp sings, called LETTING GO. It goes like this:

Linking arms so tight
The security I have inside
Knowing what is right Holding onto my cry
Letting Go Of the things I hold so dear
Letting Go Of all my pain and all my fears
Letting Go Of the Things I hold so dear
Letting Go Of all my pain and all my fears

I have been brought to a place
Where I want to give up everything
Where all I can do is seek your face
The brokenness I will bring

Chorus

Holding onto the things I deem so strong
Holding on even though I know ive held on too long

Chorus

I’m Letting Go!

Sometimes I wonder why this song has remained one of my favorites for so long now. Why does it not get old? Why don’t I think it’s cheesy like so many other songs that I quickly fall in love with and then fall right back out? And God is like…DUHHHH. HELLOOO! And I remember why. I don’t even feel like I owe an explanation on paper, though.

There are three people who I think about at some point nearly every single day of my life. I don’t speak to or see any of them anymore, really, and quite frankly, maybe it’s relatively not that long ago, but in my mind, I often ask myself, How could I still be thinking about her/him? Why can’t I just LET GO??? It’s for the best, really. It’s a ‘healthy decision.’ I guess that’s the short explanation of the song. There. Because I just can’t let go of people for some reason. Maybe I don’t want to, maybe I do and I just don’t make the decisions to allow for it. I don’t know…I’m working on that. My God, I say, sometimes aloud, please just let me let go!

Aside from letting go, and back to getting out of the pit, there’s another thing I’ve learned… I can’t say it as well in my own words, so I’ll just quote Beth:
Throughout your ascent out of that pit, never lose sight of the fact that God will forever be more interested in you knowing your Healer than experiencing His healing, and knowing your Deliverer than knowing your deliverance [emphasis mine].

I mean sure, it’s pretty clear, but do I really look at it that way? I honestly and truly believe that out of all the times I seek God, about 90% of the time, I am seeking His healing and His deliverance—NOT HIM. Why do we as humans seek to know God, anyways? For many of us, maybe it’s because we know that He can do things that people can’t. Otherwise, we’d probably just seek other people. But we almost challenge Him—Can He heal? Can He deliver us? Prove it! A lot of us don’t spend much time at all trying to KNOW HIM as THE HEALER, THE DELIVERER. What does that mean, anyways? What does KNOWING HIM the way He wants us to know Him entail?

Another thing I learned about getting out of a pit is that once we have made it out, God NEITHER makes us stand on His firm rock NOR forces us to stay on the rock if we get there. That is a little punch to the gut for me. Honestly, I want God to rescue me, set me on top of a rock, and keep me there (hold my feet down if you have to). I don’t want to fight any more fights. I’m tired from all the fights so far. I don’t want the opportunity to be thrown back in, slip back in, or heaven forbid, to jump back in. I’d like to be done after the first pit dwelling. But He doesn’t make it happen that way. That’s the craziness to me about the freedom God gives us: He wants us to want Him and follow Him, but He doesn’t make us do it, and consequently, it allows for the opportunity for us to be severely hurt. Over and over again. Wow. What a frustration. How can a loving God watch us hurt ourselves again and again? Right—because it only proves to us the reason we should have followed Him all along.

Just a little more to go. What it’s like to be out of the pit. How to avoid pits in your future. Well, I’m not sure exactly what it’s like to be out of a pit for longer than I’ve been in one. I can see the light at the top, but I am still climbing up the mud wall from the bottom of a very deep pit. And how to avoid doing it again, boy am I interested in that advice!

Delighting in Obedience

I've never been much of a blogger, but I'll give it a try. I'll start with the question I have been tossing around in recent weeks: What about tithing?

Personally, I haven't been giving to Logos faithfully or even regularly for a very long time now. Why not? Well, I've allowed myself remain in a rut of complacency that has permeated all aspects of my life. My giving habits are only a symptom of the deeper problem - namely the attitude of my heart.

As I allow the Lord to help me up out of that nasty rut, a desire to give back to the Lord financially is growing in my heart. I have already sent in the first of several offerings that will catch me up on my tithe for the income I've earned at my current job, which brings me to another question I would like to discuss: Is tithing 10% of my income a New Testament (NT) mandate or just a good idea?

My response to that question is "I don't care whether or not it is a NT mandate. That is the minimum I want to give to the Lord!" Here's my take on (OT) Law as it applies to NT believers: It shows us that we are sinful and incapable of living up to God's standard, and it reveals God's heart for His people. You see, I think God commanded the Israelites to rest on the Sabbath because He created man with a need for rest...so I take a day each week that I have no to-do list. I don't live under the Law, but God says it's important to rest a day each week, so I do just that. (By the way, this implies 6 days of work rather than the American standard of 5. I am also exploring the implications of that on my work schedule and recreational activities. What do you think about that, Danny?)

Getting back to tithing - I haven't taken time to figure out whether or not the 10% rule applies to NT believers because I am not interested in doing the minimum required of me. I'd rather live by the wisdom Paul expresses as he writes to the Corinthian believers regarding the generous gift they promised to him and the brethren. "Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver" 2 Corinthians 9:6-7. Chapters 8 & 9 provide some though-provoking reading about how our giving habits flow from the heart.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this lengthy dissertation. I'll close with a challenge. What are your convictions about tithing? Have you been living according to those convictions? If not, how are you doing in other aspects of your walk with Christ? Have you simply been neglectful with your giving, or is it part of a larger spiritual problem? If you have been faithful with your first-fruits and have noticed ways in which the Lord has blessed you for your obedience, the rest of us would love to hear about it.

In Him - Brian