Turning Around in the Cul de Sac

[HKHaugan]

When we took that trip into cul de sacs in the last posting it seemed right to return and look at what we have done with the specifics of the image of God in us, turning the mind into a device to invent individual concepts to explain and excuse or hide their condition. These were the strongholds of belief we built outside of God’s will and Word, fueled by fear and pride, acted out with strategies we devised to guess our way through the minefield of a world without God. They were the attitudes burned into our hearts by the pains of the trial and error experiences that we allowed to define us, the ‘isms’ of our discontent, the harvest that became ‘me.’

As images of a Trinity God we have a mind, heart and spirit to experience Him and one another. Through belief we connect with the mind and will of the Father. Through trust we embrace the heart and love of the Son. Through faith we receive the filling and guidance of the Holy Spirit to act in every next moment
.
When these are in balance we function as God intended.

The problem is that all three are out of balance because of our tendency to bury ourselves in ourselves. That direction is called sin. Sin separates us within and without. Everyone born since Adam has inherited separation from God and needs recovery and rebalancing. Strongholds have replaced love with fear, honesty with self-deception and freedom in the Spirit with idolatry. If we look at the mind there have to be thousands if not millions of self-induced paths that meander through the valleys of self-protecting decisions. Some are ingenious systems of thought that spiral into a structured self-awareness by believing in non-belief as a self-realization technique which is actually processing away one’s awareness of self. Others are methodical religious systems with busy liturgical practices and heady theological doctrines that can obscure the interpersonal dimension that is God’s design for us. Then of course, we have the secular systems of psychological thought and therapy that place the burden on emotional evaluation. Add to these the avoidance or outright denial of spiritual reality found in atheism and agnosticism and we complete the circle of man’s ingenuity apart from God.

As we have previously stated the imbalance is in the unequal emphasis we may give to either the heart or the mind or the spirit. When imbalance in them occurs it usually results in persecution, rejection, isolation, social disintegration and international conflict. God has designed them to work in harmony and support for each other. That’s what we see perfectly balanced in Jesus and how faith in Him brings balance in every area of life.

When you survey the overall scene it is amazing humanity exists in any form. This speaks to God’s grace, His willingness to allow us to continue, His love that works in spite of our rebellious activity and His faith that through the life, death and Resurrection of His Son we are recoverable. It also speaks to the fact that He believes we are worthy enough to Him to go to all this trouble. Taking up the Cross as a human being and subjecting Himself to death. What more does God have to do to prove Himself worthy of our belief, our trust and our faith?

There are a myriad of religious expressions that appeal to every aspect of our being. Denominational and independent organizations in every ‘ism’ lay claim to the mind, heart and spirit in each of us. We ask which one is right? Which one do we choose to follow? Which one gives me that sense of balance, peace and security that brings out the best in mind, heart and spirit? No institutional form can meet that demand.

Meaning and purpose don’t and can’t come from within.

All we can say is that the answers found across the centuries by disciples of Jesus is that because of His Resurrection He is the balance, the peace and the security that has weathered the fear, the evil, the anxiety of human aloneness and their final death sentence. He is bigger than all the ‘isms.’ He comes from without to enter within our mind, heart and spirit. When He enters rebalance begins.

Jesus is the ultimate example. Instead of living a life of self-searching thought about who and what He was, He looked outside Himself and chose the path of leaving self behind and obeying His Father’s will for His mind, heart and Spirit. He cared more about pleasing His Father than Himself. In the process He cared more for the people He encountered than worrying about how He looked, felt and was received by others. He lived for His Father and for all those He met. His life on earth was taking His moments and giving each to His Father and everyone with whom He came in contact. This is how His humanity grew in stature and wisdom with His Father and with others. That way He lived and what He taught was the model, the example, the picture by which we take our mind, heart and spirit and mature. The proof of His life was the Cross He was willing to endure and the Resurrection that justified Him.

The world is full of cul de sacs. You can find them at the end of the paths of intellectual attainment, down the heart paths of emotional satisfaction and security, down the spiritual paths of ‘religionisms’, down the path of compromised values, down the path of self-reliance, trophies and success. At the end of each Jesus stands ready to rescue us from ourselves, our sin and the exploiting devil who lured us there. In Jesus and Him alone can we turn around and take His path discovering the ultimate reality that He is the way, the truth and the life.

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life (Gal.6:7-8).”