371/444 Healing from Infidelity: Grief Eventually Means Trusting God
2012.09.11
…leave an ego-centered world and enter a God centered world…leave a world of problems, enter a world of mystery.’ The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris
TrueFaced is a video and book series that I've used for groups to help the individuals in the group learn to identify and removed their masks. John Lynch lays it out in two roads. One road is pleasing God. We have to do our part, keep it together, try harder, get it right. The other road is trusting God. Kinda hard to define that one in actions.
Most of us spend way more time trying to please God, trying to earn his love, than believing he likes us and wants good for us. It's the difference between 'striving to be all God wants me to be' vs. 'living out of who God says I am'. In our striving we end up broken down as we blow out somewhere along the way.
The first road begins with effort whereas trusting God begins with humility. Moving from effort to humility takes a profound act of giving up control. And as Neo says in The Matrix, "I don't like the idea that I'm not in control." Giving up control is going to mean admitting you don't have it all together. In fact, you're a mess. That's ok because grieving is messy.
Giving yourself permission to be a mess is a huge part of grieving. Don't apologize for it. Just fling yourself into God's arms with your sin, your loss, your pain. Bring your whole self to God. It isn't all pretty, but He's not surprised. And He is bigger than our pain. That brings me great comfort.