Wisdom from Ablog!
These quotes come from two recent posts by Rev. Beisel over at One Lutheran… Ablog!. These posts are quite good, and amazingly well-related (I’m not sure if Pr. Beisel intended the linkage, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did, ’cause he’s good…).
I think that the second quote is a source reason for the first. More simply put, Satan attempts to drive us from the foot of the cross by convincing us that our problems are not a matter of our sinfulness, and, thus, confession & absolution aren’t needed; rather, we need to turn the focus inward onto what we can do to heal ourselves.
That’s not to say that many problems (say, mental illness) aren’t physical/medical, mind you — to do that would be foolishly ignorant. It’s more accurate to state, however, that we are constantly tempted to deflect the source of the problem away from ourselves at the same time that we try to usurp the authority to fix the problem.
C&A works. It’s God’s gift to us, because He loves us. Satan cannot abide that, and must try to subvert it by keeping us from it. Unfortunately, he’s been all too successful, as proven by the dearth of individual C&A in our congregations, and the number of worship services that have jettisoned even the corporate C&A.
-ghp
Despair
Despair is a horrible thing — I think we can all agree on that.
I’ve been in a particularly wretched mood today. The kind of a day & mood when every little thing is a struggle, even (especially?) when you know that it’s something that needs to be done. Going to church was a struggle, where only my obligation to “elder” was enough to get me there (though it wasn’t enough for me to properly execute my vocation as head-of-household, but like I said, it wasn’t the best of days…). The LORD more than made it worthwhile, graciously serving me with His gracious gifts via a faithful undershepherd’s execution of TLH p.15. There was also a reminder of how God gives us opportunities to serve our neighbors. Despite all that good stuff, I still felt Satan nipping at my heels…
Even as I was stuck in the wretched mood of, let’s be honest, despair, I still had a certain sense of detachment in which I was able to analyze it. To be honest, I wasn’t all that happy about the detachment, as it fed somewhat back into the loop, adding some feelings of guilt. It’s just how I am. But I digress…
My analysis was this: Perhaps the worst part of despair is that it is so selfish. At its worst, despair can drive someone to think/believe that others would be better off without them - we’ve heard/read examples of this time & time again. It’s almost always not true. In point of fact, however, that is merely selfish window dressing - it’s sin in the form of trying to rationalize a way to stop one’s own pain. Acting out of despair inevitably causes more pain that could ever be imagined. It ends up destroying not only the individual, but also those around the individual. That’s gotta be why it’s such a favorite tool of Satan.
Goodness knows that I eagerly anticipate God calling me home, for I am secure in the hope that Christ won for me on the cross. There are days where I struggle with what faces me in this life. And I don’t even have that difficult of a life… I’ve been incredibly blessed, but sin has a way of insinuating itself into the very fabric of our being, such that we willingly lose sight of that which God has so graciously given us.
The Psalms are a wonderful source of strength & solace during times of despair. They contain such powerful descriptions of joy & despair that it’s impossible not to find comfort in them. The Psalmist obviously felt the same type of almost manic highs & lows as I/we do. During moods like today’s, I can almost feel the old & new Adams in me battle in hand-to-hand combat. In the same thought, I can go from heart-bursting joy in God’s love for me (“Christ died that I might live” , shouts the new Adam) to soul-crushing guilt from being such a weak & cravenly selfish creature (“How dare I be so ungrateful in the face of God’s gracious Will - I’ll never be worthy!” retorts the old Adam).
I’m about done with trying to reasonably articulate all this right now. I’ll close by saying that I think one way out of funks like that which hit me today is to try to, in whatever small way possible, focus on helping someone else. One of Satan’s greatest tactics is getting us to turn ever more inward. God put us here to serve our neighbors.
Isolation is never a truly good thing. May God bless me by helping me to always understand that.
-ghp
(who, at the moment, is feeling better…)
Blogging vs. blahgging
I don’t feel like blogging today — that would be too purposeful and/or constructive.
I think that a better word for the self-indulgent blather that I’m spewing forth at the moment is: blahgging
Blahgging is more about cheap therapy for the blahgger than it is actual value for the reader. Sad but true.
You’ve been warned…
Now, as I’ve stated in the past, I can be moody even on the best of days. I’ve joked that the gene pool from which I sprang could’ve used a bit more chlorine (right big sis?). In a great many ways, I don’t come from, shall we say, the most emotionally and/or psychologically stable stock. I come from a long line of people who’ve been known to fall into “deep blue funks”/melancholia/depression/insert-your-favorite-term-here. It’s not all bad, mind you, as there’s some really good stuff that’s also in the mix, and God knows that we (big sis & I) didn’t get the worst of the genetic cocktails out of all our cousins (did we sis?). Because, at the very least, God saw fit to give us parents who were the respective best “products” of their families. The same is true wrt our grandparents (which is pretty scary when you consider one of the four, isn’t it sis? :shock:). So, I try not to complain or feel too sorry for myself. I don’t always succeed, but I try nonetheless…
That said, I’ve been in a bit of a trough the past few days. More specifically, I’ve been struggling with my recurring feelings of “impending doom” — where I don’t have any specific fear(s), and I logically/objectively know that there’s nothing bad about to happen to me, but I still have the vague worries & fear of that “impending doom”. Hopefully, writing about it will help pull me out of it sooner…
So, that’s a major reason why I haven’t been blogging, even though in my head there are a lot of things that I want to write about. I just need to work through this strange, psycho-emotional, writer’s block.
Another factor is that, for no good objective reason, I’m feeling the need to investigate options other than Wordpress for powering my blog. As good as WP is, it will not be able to easily/elegantly/or-even-possibly serve as the engine for a project that I have in mind. I think I want to develop something that enable me to host several blogs in a more coherent & easy to administer fashion, along with things like having a document storage & download area — sort of like a confessional lutheran blog & reading room. The thing is, that means that I have to evaluate & settle on a CMS-type application option that strikes the balance between all the functionality I want and all the ease of administration that I (to be quite honest) need.
I promise to try and be more constructive in the very near future, such that I cease blahgging & return to blogging…
-ghp
Melancholia
FatherDMJ had a posting recently, wherein he discussed his melancholy of late.
Now, I’m prone to bouts of melancholy myself, and while I’m not a brother of FatherDMJ’s in the OHM, I am a brother in Christ. It is in that context that I daresay that I feel his pain. I’ve observed many of the same trends (particularly a certain fascination with EO in some Lutheran circles) that he notes, and I find them equally as distressing. He is most certainly in my prayers (as are all the faithful pastors who are suffering under the onslaught of heterodoxy in today’s “Ablaze!” LCMS!), as we need more faithful undershepherds like him around, not fewer. Please include them all in your prayers as well, that God’s good will be done, as that is what will benefit us all the most.
The robust comment threads are also quite interesting, and make a visit to FatherDMJ’s even better than a Martha Stewart-esque “Good Thing.” 
-ghp�
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