Wow! I just found this group.
Thoughts: I am serving the Lord. I love the Lord. But I seem to have drifted from being “Christ-like” to a Jonahian, well, a Biblical Jonah-like imitator. Yes, I see more of the “fruits of the” Jonah in me rather than the Spirit’s fruits. No condemnation, however. But a pruning of this vine might be at hand during this season.
Currently, my anxiety is released in overt energy: when alone; and absolute anger when surrounded on the congested streets where I now live while walking out my calling. I do have CPTSD and PTSD. But this season is possibly designed to bring healing in various ways to my lamenting soul.
Many times I dialogue with the Lord about this anger issue. Internally I ask myself, “Do I dislike the people I have been called to serve?” No. Truly I don’t. Yet when I am traveling through the congested city streets something in me is repulsed by many I encounter on the streets. Well, actually, those who live on the streets. The homeless. I am repulsed by the homeless when I’m walking the streets, but happy ‘to share’ how I have served “them” when working and serving at a homeless facility. So, during this season of a medical leave, my prayer to change merely stems from an internal judgment I have placed on myself: in as much as you have done to the least, you have done it unto Me.
But is THAT a Christ-like way to motivate SERVING others?
That form of “service” seems to stem from a selfish desire. I am striving to make it to heaven as being one of the best sheep in the pasture, in my opinion. Therefore, maybe Christ HAS led me to this lasting mental wilderness where I can speak to the voice of prominence that lurks on my mountain peaks seeking to entice me into thinking “I AM the I AM” and THAT is my likeness to the very Christ! Ah….No. All this means is I AM striving to be better than others, sadly. And this has absolutely NO reflection of Christ in its actions. Sorry.
So, maybe the open-ended Biblical story of Jonah, who I have realized I resemble oh so well, is a purposed wildness, in my life, used as a means of helping me change the embedded pride and arrogance I have hide below my Christ-like version of Christ. If I recount the words in red, to be like-Christ, I surrender not only my will but my life: attitudes, selfishness, judgments, and competitive nature included. My self-care today is releasing my version of Christianity for the Christ Himself.
#Christian #Anxiety #Selfcare #Surrender