To my regular readers out there, you will be familiar with the fact that my topics of interest usually revolve around the psychology of dealing with the heart of the matter and analyzing why people do things instead of just reacting to it. Though this method of thinking has served me extremely well (and continues to do so) this week my eyes have been opened to the other side of the coin - which is about taking action.
I have been trying to get over a very painful situation that happened to me recently and no matter how hard I tried, how deeply I searched my own heart and how much I confessed and analyzed my own emotions and behavior I just simply couldn't get free of it. God had told me previously that I needed to get over myself so my immediate assumption was that I had to deal with my own heart and once I had finished dealing with my own heart, the trial would be over. However, it seemed that as time went on, the trial just kept on getting worse and no matter how much darkness I pushed through within myself, it wasn't going away - in fact the torment was getting heavier and harder to deal with.
Last week I just thought to myself out of the blue - perhaps the time for analysis of the heart is over and I'm just meant to step out and do something about this and speak directly and honestly to the people involved. The second I decided to do this - this huge weight just lifted off me and I began to feel God's peace again for the first time in a long time. I stopped sitting and suffering under the trial and stood up and took charge and said to myself and one of the people involved that I'm not going to put up with this anymore and that I was severing all ties with them and that I had to do this to be able to move on. Once I did this - the bonds that were holding me back broke and I moved forward feeling refreshed. I even found myself singing in church this Sunday which hasn't happened for a long time.
This whole experience has taught me something. When God was telling me to get over myself I thought He meant that I was just to sit around and be passive and suffer and that once my heart was perfectly clean then the trial would be gone because even though the circumstantial suffering was still present, because my heart was clean and perfect it wouldn't matter anymore, and that's what I was striving towards. But I realized that this wasn't the case and that the more I aimed for that, the more frustrated and unhappy I became. I was just going in circles. Until I finally realized that God meant something else altogether when He was telling me to get over myself. He was really saying - "Get over your passiveness, stand up and be a man, make people face the consequences of their actions, take charge for once in your life. It's not wrong and it's not ungodly manipulation. I'm training you to be a leader, and leaders have to learn that if they don't do something, nothing is going to change and that's what I've been trying to teach you all along."
As Christians, we are God's "hands and feet" in the world. The Holy Spirit can do a lot through us - but there are times when we need to step out and take charge of things and stand up for what we believe is right and what we believe we need to do - regardless of what others think. The fear I have experienced that has held me back is that people are going to deny me the ability to speak out and that people are going to come against me and turn on me when I attempt to get over them and do what I feel I need to do regardless of who turns against me. My belief has been that I plain and simply would not be able to survive and endure this. However this is my wrong belief system and is what has been holding me back from becoming the man and the leader that God wants me to be.
Of course, we still need to rely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead us in the right direction and to give us the right words to say and the right actions to take. Just lashing out in red-blooded rage (as I have been known to do in the past at times) can be very destructive and though the message in the rage I have been trying to portray has been correct, the message has been lost due to the explosiveness of how it was delivered which more often than not has come from other emotions from other unresolved issues feeding into the way I try to communicate the message I need to get across to people. I am convinced that the events of the past week have happened at the right time. If it was any sooner I may not have been able to see clearly enough to portray my message accurately due to having unresolved emotions in my own heart still holding me back. If it was any later, I would have gone insane. So there is a right time for everything and the concept of searching your own heart still applies.
I guess what I am trying to express more than anything is the need for balance. As Josh Harris once so eloquently put it - it's like we are driving a car on the road with a big ditch on each side. We drive into one ditch and then drive back out - only to drive into the ditch on the other side of the road! I am aware that I have been out of balance in terms of looking too deep into things and trying to find the answers inside myself to pain and suffering when there have been times when I simply needed to just step out and do something about it - but because I didn't believe I was capable of doing that or that it was the right thing to do, I'd just bury myself back in my own heart and try to find the answers to get me out of what I was feeling when the answers were there all along - to go out and change things circumstantially. I'd just overlooked them because I didn't think they were right and thus condemned myself to endless frustration until I finally woke up and smelt the coffee and realized what I had to do.
In conclusion, friends, don't hesitate to deal with your own heart when you feel you need to, but don't become so utterly engrossed in this when you actually need to "be the change you want to see" by stepping out and actively doing something about it.
Take care.
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