Release and Rest

 

I am learning to release, to free myself from imposed obligations that transform into crosses to carry and burdens to bear.   If I remember correctly (and I could be off a bit), all my life my record seems stuck in a groove akin to: "Hear ye! Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Listen up, everybody! Whatever you feel you can't handle---whatever---"stuff" life seems constantly to throw at you, that drags you down, bring it to me! I can handle it.  I will handle it!"  The pure idiocy becomes apparent when someone, anyone, asks, "Whatever made you take this on?" Would you accept, "I don't remember.  People just started asking me to "take care of this and that." And at first, I did.  No problemo.

Really, I don't think I distorted the invitation of Jesus who assured, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28, NKJV}.  I'm not delusional now and I wasn't then.  Not even a little bit. I remember learning the verse in Sunday school/Junior Church when we studied the Good News of the Gospel. But wait! Perhaps, I inadvertently got it twisted.  Maybe the verse found its way into Sunday worship sermons and maybe somehow in my quest to "be more like Jesus," it transformed into a distorted rendering of "service." 

Pastor Joelle reminds us during Sunday services that each of us hears her message differently.  True, that! We hear the Holy Spirit speak because He knows the lesson(s) each of us needs, she enlightens.    He tailors His message just so I hear just as precisely and clearly as  I am ready and able to accept His wisdom.   Hmm. He addresses the person seated on either side of me (properly masked and socially distanced in a pandemic world), as well as the ones in front and back.  The old Deacons in my childhood Church would say, "Eat the meat and spit out the bones!" "Tailor-made" as it is to fit.  But not always comfortably, since He knows what's best for me.  In truth, "comfort" isn't always what the nirvana it masquerades as.

I can confess without shame the changes Holy Spirit has brought into my life.  The world used to be "too much with me," when I wasted time confusing the imaginary with the real.   It is deceptively easy.  The way I twisted the lesson Jesus taught in Matthew with my need to be needed serves as cautionary.   It becomes much too easy to hear what I want to hear in order to justify doing what I choose to do.  Then it becomes easier to blame someone else and keep my pristine reputation squeaky clean.  What living hypocrisy of my own design life can become!

"Oh! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive," captures the root of duplicity, whether in self or others.  Self-deception spawned more devastation than unrequited love.  Of course, I could have avoided unnecessary trauma, pangs, and angst if I'd face a situation without rose-colored glasses or other mechanisms of deception. 

"My power flurries through the air into the ground
My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around
And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast
I'm never going back, the past is the past
Let it go, let it go..."

Truth,  set me free!