Sometimes...Seeking the Face of G-d
- AkalAish
- captain of 100
- Posts: 104
- Location: Alaska
Sometimes...Seeking the Face of G-d
Sometimes life takes you by the hand and shows you ugly things.
Sometimes you find yourself unable to face them. The pressure is too great, the depth of pain monumental.
Sometimes all you can do is lie flat on your face, empty before G-d...torn open and raw, bleeding and crying.
Always...
...He is there.
Waiting.
Loving.
Listening.
Blessing.
Healing.
Restoring.
Comforting in a way no mortal can.
Sometimes you find yourself unable to face them. The pressure is too great, the depth of pain monumental.
Sometimes all you can do is lie flat on your face, empty before G-d...torn open and raw, bleeding and crying.
Always...
...He is there.
Waiting.
Loving.
Listening.
Blessing.
Healing.
Restoring.
Comforting in a way no mortal can.
Last edited by AkalAish on September 30th, 2022, 9:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
- AkalAish
- captain of 100
- Posts: 104
- Location: Alaska
Re: Sometimes...Seeking the Face of G-d
Ann Voskamp once said...
“Humbly let go. Let go of trying to do, let go of trying to control, let go of my own way, let go of my own fears. Let G-d blow His wind, His trials, oxygen for joy's fire. Leave the hand open and be. Be at peace. Bend the knee and be small and let G-d give what G-d chooses to give because He only gives love and whisper a surprised thanks. This is the fuel for joy's flame. Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will. And I can empty. I can empty because counting His graces has awakened me to how He cherishes me, holds me, passionately values me. I can empty because I am full of His love. I can trust.”
“Humbly let go. Let go of trying to do, let go of trying to control, let go of my own way, let go of my own fears. Let G-d blow His wind, His trials, oxygen for joy's fire. Leave the hand open and be. Be at peace. Bend the knee and be small and let G-d give what G-d chooses to give because He only gives love and whisper a surprised thanks. This is the fuel for joy's flame. Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will. And I can empty. I can empty because counting His graces has awakened me to how He cherishes me, holds me, passionately values me. I can empty because I am full of His love. I can trust.”
- Silver Pie
- seeker after Christ
- Posts: 9103
- Location: In the state that doesn't exist
Re: Sometimes...Seeking the Face of G-d
Thank you for sharing this.
AkalAish wrote: ↑September 30th, 2022, 9:37 am Sometimes life takes you by the hand and shows you ugly things.
Sometimes you find yourself unable to face them. The pressure is too great, the depth of pain monumental.
Sometimes all you can do is lie flat on your face, empty before G-d...torn open and raw, bleeding and crying.
Always...
...He is there.
Waiting.
Loving.
Listening.
Blessing.
Healing.
Restoring.
Comforting in a way no mortal can.
- AkalAish
- captain of 100
- Posts: 104
- Location: Alaska
Re: Sometimes...Seeking the Face of G-d
I feel as though it is difficult, sometimes, for us to be authentic about suffering. We need, it seems to me, a bit of radical honesty when it comes to how we perceive, internalize, and express pain, betrayal, and suffering experienced on this mortal journey.Silver Pie wrote: ↑September 30th, 2022, 4:35 pm Thank you for sharing this.
AkalAish wrote: ↑September 30th, 2022, 9:37 am Sometimes life takes you by the hand and shows you ugly things.
Sometimes you find yourself unable to face them. The pressure is too great, the depth of pain monumental.
Sometimes all you can do is lie flat on your face, empty before G-d...torn open and raw, bleeding and crying.
Always...
...He is there.
Waiting.
Loving.
Listening.
Blessing.
Healing.
Restoring.
Comforting in a way no mortal can.
Martin Bertman put it in this way:
How do we approach the Almighty when we are cracked, bruised, bleeding and empty? Do we emulate Abraham's silence and bear our calling without an utterance? Are we to bear without complaint all the befalls us?The Hebrew attitude towards the apparent existence of evil in the world has generally been to adopt the principle that the individual ought not to deny his own experience.
Or...
...is a healthy dose of outrage, sadness, and undeniable anguish not only acceptable to the L-rd, but given as a righteous example in His word?
Is the path to "vigorous prayer" open to us?
Take the 88th psalm as an example. It is a psalm of lament. How many of us, when we are found in bondage (to anguish at the death of a loved one, to drugs or alcohol and the seemingly endless cycle of trying to escape, to the loss of work that results in our inability to obtain even the basic necessities for our family, to haunted memories of sexual abuse, to mental illness...) feel that life is so compromised by inexplicable suffering that we are dead inside?
How many of us find ourselves asking, along with the psalmist, O L-rd, why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me?
What if the Holy One gives us permission to articulate pain and even question His very goodness?
Thoughts?
- Silver Pie
- seeker after Christ
- Posts: 9103
- Location: In the state that doesn't exist
Re: Sometimes...Seeking the Face of G-d
I believe that honesty is the only way to go, even if we believe God has betrayed us. I have learned that God does not punish me for expressing my honest thoughts or feelings. In surety, God is good.
- AkalAish
- captain of 100
- Posts: 104
- Location: Alaska
Re: Sometimes...Seeking the Face of G-d
Curious...Silver Pie wrote: ↑September 30th, 2022, 6:51 pm I believe that honesty is the only way to go, even if we believe God has betrayed us. I have learned that God does not punish me for expressing my honest thoughts or feelings. In surety, God is good.
...do you believe that one can go too far in questioning G-d or expressing honesty before Him?
- Silver Pie
- seeker after Christ
- Posts: 9103
- Location: In the state that doesn't exist
Re: Sometimes...Seeking the Face of G-d
Not in my experience with him.
My first labor was so hellish that I thought God got a charge out of watching women suffer, and told him so more than once. He never punished me for it and, a few decades later, I sensed him standing in the room and felt the message, "Do I look like the kind of person who would do that/feel that way?" (my words-it was a sense, a "feeling", not actual words). I had to admit that he was not.
My experience is that our Savior and his Father are incredibly good, incredibly patient, and incredibly loving.
Now, to someone who hates God, who is wifully rebellious, or who persists in serving devils, I am sure there is a time where Deity says, "Have at it," and walks away, leaving them to their own destruction.
My first labor was so hellish that I thought God got a charge out of watching women suffer, and told him so more than once. He never punished me for it and, a few decades later, I sensed him standing in the room and felt the message, "Do I look like the kind of person who would do that/feel that way?" (my words-it was a sense, a "feeling", not actual words). I had to admit that he was not.
My experience is that our Savior and his Father are incredibly good, incredibly patient, and incredibly loving.
Now, to someone who hates God, who is wifully rebellious, or who persists in serving devils, I am sure there is a time where Deity says, "Have at it," and walks away, leaving them to their own destruction.
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- captain of 100
- Posts: 204
- Location: North of Cedar City
Re: Sometimes...Seeking the Face of G-d
If you want to see the Face of G_d, read, the New Testament, Book of Mormon, the Apocryphal New Testament. A good way to come to know him is to learn all about him first. And when you sacrifice the time to learn about him, you draw yourself closer to him. Thinning the veil to know that he's always listening to our thoughts.
G_d does appreciate the prayer of thanks for everything, even your hardships, for what life has taught you.
He stays in one place, we're the ones who move either closer (thankful) or away (complaints) from him.
G_d does appreciate the prayer of thanks for everything, even your hardships, for what life has taught you.
He stays in one place, we're the ones who move either closer (thankful) or away (complaints) from him.
- Silver Pie
- seeker after Christ
- Posts: 9103
- Location: In the state that doesn't exist
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- captain of 100
- Posts: 204
- Location: North of Cedar City
Re: Sometimes...Seeking the Face of G-d
For those who disapprove of God, or are angry with God and for those who don't understand God, I would recommend "The Shack". It is a fictional story with principles of truth in it. I read it when there were 6 million copies sold, 20 million copies later and a movie was made from it. Of course the book will always be better than the movie, but it still teaches what God wants us to know...from his perspective.