spiritually, i have no feeling from the neck down

.::::first, the title is not meant to demean or lighten anyone's suffering. if so, i apologize.

but really,

spiritually, sometimes, i have no feeling from the neck down. i just feel that my heart isn't always in it, that as a man of God, the connection, the feeling that i should have in this eternal relationship with God, there are some moments where i feel that it is really something that is lacking. lacking in depth, lacking in emotion, lacking in touch, lacking in commitment shown through action, lacking in the kind of radical devotion that i feel that an everlasting relationship with God should require. and there are times when i don't feel that... in fact, i feel.... paralyzed.

ever stuck your hand in a big bucket of ice, or iced a broken or swollen limb before? you know that feeling of disconnectedness that you feel with that particular limb for those seconds (or minutes) it takes for the blood to come rushing back into those iced veins? that's a perfect analogy for how i would describe my walk with God at times. drenched into a bucket of ice, limp and numb, separated from the rest of the body, separated from any connection with Him. the reason i say i feel that i have no feeling from the neck down is because for many of us men, especially myself, the problem is not necessarily what is going on in our heads... because we know what is right, we know the law, we know the scripture, we know that God is present and God is righteous and God is just..... but rather what is going on in the rest of our body, in our hearts, in our hands, in our legs and feet.

i mean, just sitting in the church sometimes and being in the company of many of the fellas in my congregation there are times when i wonder if we only love God in our minds... or if our love for God is something that not only flows from our heads when we sing the songs of praise, when we read scripture, when thinking about complex theological concepts, when we say "amen" and nod our heads in an approving fashion to the convicting or powerful things that the pastor has said, but rather that a love for God flows into our hearts, where we actually feel a change, a call to act, where we feel conviction that surpasses our own mind's ability to conceive it, or to our hands, where that love of God is shown unequivocally through outreach (pun intended), where as men of God we actually go out and use our hands to help those brothers and sisters around us who are struggling, where we go out and build relationships, where we go out and build families, churches, houses, communities... i wonder if our love for God is not just in our heads but in our legs and feet, forcing us to walk that extra mile in serving our community through leadership, if our legs are so filled with a love of God that we stand strong on our convictions, on our promises, on our expectations of ourselves and of others, and most importantly, we stand on the truth that is the word of God, we stand on Him as our foundation...

or if we are paralyzed, numb, only thinking these things... only saying them with our mouths, only paying God lip service, without paying him real service.

men of God are called to serve their families, their communities, their churches... and that is something that cannot happen when we allow our hands, our hearts, our feet to grow disconnected from God, to grow disconnected from the love of God that we know we should have, a love of God that we may even think we have... We should not be like the poor servant in the parable of the talents, given such an unbelievable amount of wealth by his master, only to squander it by refusing to act, by refusing to take deliberate action to bear fruit, to multiply what had been so graciously given to him... we, similar to that servant, have been given talents.. true talents, skills, spiritual gifts, and the best gift of all, love that God has intended for us to use in order to serve Him, and we should go with our hands, hearts, and feet to put them to use... if not, as Jesus said, "whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him" (:matt 25.29:).

i am talking about being wasteful men, i am talking about being paralyzed people, i am talking about how us as believers should not aspire to be individuals who scream as those in luke 6.46, who say "Lord, Lord", but then choose to disobey Him through inaction. look at the statement in full, luke 6.46-49 NIV:

.:why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what i say? i will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. he is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. when a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. but the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. the moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete:.

.:::::i think that Jesus is speaking directly to us men who are disconnected at the head. us men who are paralyzed in our relationship with Him, in our actions, in our convictions, us men who experience that disconnect from what we know as believers to what we do as men of God. Jesus is talking about us. i mean its clear as to what the benefits are for us when we put our hearts and hands to use, building up our faith and our love of Christ by putting his words into action, into practice in our lives.. its clear that when we stand strong on the right foundation, and our legs are firmly grounded in Him that whatever our hearts and hands build, whether it is a house, or a family, or a church, or a community, or a relationship - it is destined to stand up in those times when the rain and the difficulties of life come pouring down upon us. this is a call to us as men to not just be there.. it is not enough just to stand in the churches, it is not enough just to sing the songs, just to be present, counted attendance in the pews, or to be seen on sunday just so that we can go back to our daily routines during the week - no, we must as men stay actively engaged in putting the words of Christ into action..

but i guess before we can talk about what we can do, there is need to talk about what paralyzes us, what disconnects us from our belief and our love of God in action in the first place..

...: it all comes down to worry:....
i once heard a statement that said "worrying is like a rocking chair, it takes you back and forth, but you don't ever go anywhere." i think that statement alone can describe really what worrying does to us... it paralyzes us. it makes us think about things to the point where those thoughts are not followed by a conviction to act, but rather a conviction towards inaction..
example.
i used to be the biggest nerd in high school when it came to the opposite sex. completely and absolutely afraid of girls. but, like most guys in high school, every so often i would meet someone or i would grow to have interest in a particular girl that i would meet. however, instead of ever asking the girl out or approaching her to tell her of my interest, i would think about and worry about all the possibilities and all the various permutations that could possibly arise in the situation that could cause it to go terribly bad. what if she didn't like me? what if she thought i was ugly? the mere possibility of rejection, of public humiliation caused me to worry and worry and worry without ever doing anything about it. now, i know some people would laugh and say "hey look on the bright side, at least you didnt get rejected," but instead the constant worrying about the situation(s) caused enough mental and physical damage on its own, without ever experiencing any kind of joy or payoff.

the reason i use this example (for a better idea of what i am talking about, read matthew 6.25-34) is because as men nowadays many of us approach doing things for God with our hearts, hands, and feet in the same way. instead of being men of great risk, daringly and courageously going out doing the will of God, we shrink to being shells of the men that God has intended for us to be, so afraid and worried that if we risk it all for God, if we throw all our efforts, concentration, resources, and reputations on serving God in a radical and devoted fashion that somehow we will end up receiving the short end of the stick, open to failure, open to public ridicule, open to being singled out amongst those around us. that worry, that fear is not a call to action and perseverance in many of us, as we would rather then turn our backs on God's call to enjoy some comfort in the safety valve of our own worries. we would rather be disconnected, paralyzed in our state of misplaced devotions and half-hearted praise, content with being agents of ineffective efforts, instead of being God's agents of miraculous change and vibrant ministry. that is why men today would rather use their hands to play xbox than to build relationships, to build communities, would rather be promiscuous and self-serving than to stand on character and God's favor by being faithful and abstinent, would rather lie, manipulate, and ridicule instead of speaking God's love through encouragement from an overflow of their hearts, and would rather stay silent in the face of others' mistakes, instead of offering a truthful rebuke standing on the authority of God's word.

worry is the plague that has stricken many men's hearts, as we worry about our standing amongst others instead of our standing with God.. and it has us hurt, disconnected, standing in the pews on sundays singing the songs but not feeling the conviction, hearing the words but not being called to act, reading the truth but not being strong enough to stand on it... so how is it changed, how can the bloodlines from our heads to our hearts, hands, and feet be renewed and opened up again? how can we take our bodies out of a debilitating icebath of worry so that we can be filled with an active, fiery passion for God?

well, you gotta know who ya are, and who ya serve, trusting God at His word fellas.

understanding and embracing our identity in Christ is the first step that we as men of God can begin to combat the enemy's tactics of using the world and worry to lull us and pressure us into being inactive reservists in the battle against the enemy.

....:::but our citizenship is in heaven. and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ:::.. phil 3.20

you hear that? we are citizens of heaven, men! we are princes of the Most High, sons of the God of the universe, heirs to an inheritance that is beyond our own imagination (romans 8.16-17)! i mean really, as much as i like my US passport, and my NC drivers license, i'm waiting to get that Heaven ID card. haha but really, we are children of God, loved above any and all other creation. we as men must understand that and embrace that view of ourselves if we are to ever rise up in Him to defeat the worry that we are bombarded with. why? because worrying attacks our identity. worrying is a reflection of us not knowing who we are, not understanding that we are children of God. we do not take those things that we know and push them to things that we do because we are not fully undertaking and understanding what it means and what comes from being a child of God, an heir to what He has given us to inherit. we lack the eternal, Godly perspective to eagerly wait for Him, and for what He has to give us, and instead we fall into concerns and a fixation on things of this world, things that as it says in 2 peter, "will be laid bare," rendered meaningless. so fellas, its time to stand up, to rise up, and remember that God is our Father, and that God is a God capable of all things, who has promised us that He would be with us, and nothing through Him is impossible, empowering us to overcome all obstacles through Christ. knowing that should be more of an incentive, an encouragement to go out and put our hearts, hands, and feet to work.

i say all these things also understanding that through all of it must come a determination and a realization that much supplication and dependence on God is required ultimately (and i say ultimately meaning more than anything else) to open up the lines in order to give us the feeling from the neck down that we so deeply desire... but, and i say this not to decrease the importance of prayer, because it is very important, we as men while being prayer-filled, must also be willing to act as well

i hope that we all may stop to remember who we are in Christ, and that we will hold onto that in order to put the things that God has so graciously given us to good use in a way that glorifies Him most.

til next time

marc