That book again... one more time...

5 March 2010

Funny, book made me very angry, especially the first half… but I am beginning to see that perhaps I have been feeling “defensive” … having some of my own preconceptions torn away rather painfully… perceptions I though only “others” have, or at least that I – in my “vast” reading and study perhaps, oh dear – had gotten beyond… but maybe only in my head (which tends to get rather arrogant… )… and therefore maybe they have still been pretty attached in my heart, too…

And You are trying to dislodge some of those preconceptions, pull them out, including their very long, long, deep roots … and boy, does it hurt! (But of course, once really pulled out, like root canals I have experienced, the abscesses can be drained, and the “antibiotic” of Your LOVE poured in… and real healing can proceed and occur!

(Okay, mind you/You, I’m still a bit skeptical of some of the writer’s claims… Oh Father, please show me, please shine the Light of Your Truth into the deepest recesses of my heart, so that my mind will indeed “take on the Mind of Christ.”). (Oh! I fear that I have pretty much thought, up to this point, that “changing my mind” by my efforts – study, prayer, my own will power, practical outward behavioral changes, even, oh dear, “psyching myself” into supposedly changed attitudes and beliefs… - will lead to changing my heart… But I see now that it really is only heart change that can lead to true mind change, isn’t it? The change of mind that “I” can accomplish is only surface change… only Your Heart changing my heart can truly change my mind, too, so that I truly do “have the mind of Christ.”)

Boy oh boy, it sure is a long, slow journey… although every now and again a sudden “AHA! moment” – an epiphany – from You! – (which You have no doubt been working on in my heart for a very long time) – just floods Your Light on both my heart and my mind… and on my body, and emotions… all of me! Wow!

Please help me to patiently and kindly love others the way You have patiently and kindly loved me… please…

Thank You!!