A New Freedom : Ronans 8 (April 20, 2008)
Romans 8 M4 April 20, 2008
Text: Romans 8:5-13
Title: A New Freedom
Big Idea: We can experience transformation by establish new habits.
Someone recently told me, "This church truly inspires me to be more than I am, and I know that with the help of God I can achieve anything." This person is in a process of making a commitment to Christ and is experiencing change.
A friend of mine told me recently that at her work, when the subject of church comes up, she says, "I go to church every Sunday and, if you want, you are welcome to come with me." She told me that the angle she uses to encourage people to consider coming to church is that coming here makes her, and anyone, a better human being.
In a city like Vancouver, people are not coming to church because it is the expected thing to do, or because they want to be "seen" in church because they think it might give them some kind of social advantage at work. People in Vancouver become part of a worshipping community because they want to experience some kind of transformation.
We at Tenth Avenue Church, to quote Gandhi, want to become the change that we would like to see in our world.
Experts on change like Alan Deustchman, the author of Change or Die, points out that 90% of the time people cannot, or will not, change. I believe that we here at Tenth Avenue Church an exception to that rule. We are a community of people who want to and who are experiencing the life-changing work of Christ in our lives.
We have been in a series here at Tenth on Romans 8. It is a very important passage in Scripture. It deals with how the Holy Spirit brings transformation in our lives. The Book of Romans describes human beings as natural-born sinners. We are descendants of our ancient forbears, Adam and Eve, who sinned in the Garden of Eden, and, as their offspring, we are born in the world as carriers of the sin virus. We are therefore under the "power of sin" (Romans 3:9). Being under the "power of sin" doesn’t necessary mean that we all sin in flamboyant ways, but it does mean that we are born with an inclination to organize our lives around something, or someone, other than God. It might be achievement in work, school, ministry, pleasure, recreational experiences, a relationship, family. What the Bible reaches us in Romans is that we are born into the family of Adam and Eve, so to speak, under the power of sin, but that we can be reborn with the help of Jesus Christ into the family of God.
When that happens (to review), Paul tells us in Romans 8 that we are set free from the power of sin. When Jesus Christ died on the cross in a mysterious way that we will never fully understand, our sin nature, our shadow side was crucified with him. Like a boxer who has been punched hard on the jaw, our sin nature through Christ’s work on the cross has been dealt a crushing blow. Our sin nature is not as dominant as it once was. When we give our lives to Christ, Christ’s work on the cross of crucifying our sin nature is made effective for us. When we give our lives to Christ, we receive the greatest of all gifts, the gift of the Holy Spirit.
In Ezekiel 36 God says of this new work of His in us:
24 " 'For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
We can be made new as we are cleansed from our sins and our idols, given a new heart, and a new Spirit—God’s Spirit.
Paul calls us to respond to this new reality that we find ourselves in. In Romans 6:13-14, Paul says, "Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as instruments of wickedness; rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life."
In Romans 8, Paul says that if we are in Christ, we are not controlled by our sin nature, but by the Holy Spirit, who lives within us.
In Romans 8:12-13, Paul says:
12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live…
While we cannot experience deep transformation, unless we experience the mercy of God intervening in our life, we nonetheless have a role, in that we are able to respond to that mercy, to that grace, by establishing new habits…new practices…that are consistent with the way that the Holy Spirit is transforming us.
Paul says in 1 Timothy 4:7, that we are "train ourselves to be godly". In Philippians 2, Paul says that we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling—meaning that we are to work at it, knowing that God is at work within us to will and to do according to his good pleasure. So we are to respond to the Spirit’s work in use by putting into practice the kinds of habits which are consistent with the kind of person that God is transforming us into.
In the Book of Galatians, Paul talks about sowing to the Spirit, rather than sowing to the sin nature. As we sow certain habits, we establish certain neural pathways in our brain that make it easier to act than in the way we have been acting: whether in good or bad way.
When I was in Grade 3, I began taking judo lessons. My mom was concerned that having moved to Canada, which though is general safe country is till relatively speaking more dangerous than Japan (the country where I was born). So my mom thought we would need to know how to defend ourselves. So she enrolled all of the 5 Shigematsu kids in judo, and later in karate. I remember doing drills week after week on how to fall properly (demonstrate?), how to roll properly (demonstrate?). Though that was many years ago, I find that, because I practiced those moves so many times as a kid, those neural networks were apparently established in my brain. So now, if I fall, whether it is on a ski hill or on some ice on the sidewalk, I always tuck my head like this (demonstrate). That neural network has been established.
So it is with us. When we practice certain habits, neural networks are formed and our brain is literally changed. If you are a musician and have trained for years, your brain has changed because of it. Those changes will show up on a brain scan.
As argued is the best selling book, The Brain That Changes Itself. Our brains can be rewired. Only a few decades ago scientists considered the brain to be fixed, or hard-wired. But neural scientists like Oliver Sacks, and others, have demonstrated that, through establishing certain kinds of practices or habits, the brain can actually rewire itself, like a muscle our brain can develop new capacities through training.
Do you know the Delancey Street Foundation in San Francisco? It is a remarkable residence where criminals live and work together as way to prepare to re-enter society after their sentences are complete. Most of them have been labeled psychopaths. They typically enter Delaney, after being involved in crime and violence for years, and with serious addictions to alcohol and drugs. They are usually the third generation of families who have known only poverty, crime and drug addiction. They have never led lawful lives. After staying at Delancey for 4 years, most of the residents "graduate" and live on their own in society. Nearly 60% of the people who enter the program and make it through sustain productive lives on the outside. Compare that to the fact that typically 7 out of 10 of their peers who didn’t go through Delancey, but through the regular prison system, return to a life of crime.
Part of the way they foster change is through relationships, and part of the way ____ change is by getting the inmates to work in businesses owned by Delancey and by volunteer work. Delancey also stresses dressing a certain way, walking a certain way, speaking in a certain way, and through those practices people become new from the "outside in."
Of course, the Bible emphasizes change from the inside out, but, as Paul also points out, we are to offer the parts of our body to God rather than to sin…that we are to sow to the Holy Spirit. We are to do certain things so that we are transformed from the outside in, as well.
Richard Rohr emphasizing this says, "We don’t think ourselves into new ways of living—we live ourselves into new ways of thinking."
There is a couple who were part of our community for quite some time—Daniel and Tanya Komori—their lives have demonstrated the power of establishing new habits with the help of God as a means to experience transformation.
I am asking them to come and share now.
Daniel
I grew up in Calgary as the youngest of 4 children.
If I can pinpoint one experience that has shaped and defined much of my life, I would say it was an event that occurred when I was 12 years old.
During the summer of ’91, my oldest brother who was 17 at the time drowned in a river. He had just graduated high school and was the person I had looked up to most in my life.
When he died, my world really lost a lot of its color and joy.
I didn’t know how to handle this trauma, and there was nobody around me at the time to bring me any comfort.
My family never grieved together and I never saw my own father cry about the death.
And so I responded the same way.
I completely detached from my heart and emotions and they got buried in some deep cavern inside.
With nowhere to go I buried my heart.
As a result, I became a shell of a person, not knowing how to feel, and not knowing how to care about others or to let myself be cared for.
From that point on in my life, I turned to one addiction after another.
My addictions began first with drowning myself through the use of media and entertainment.
I would play video games endlessly, watch movies, and always be listening to the radio and having earphones in my ears.
But soon after, I also developed other addictions.
I was introduced to pornography, which became a hidden place of fantasy and shame for many years.
I also became quite heavily dependent on alcohol and drugs, so much so that I used substances on a daily basis and didn’t know how to feel alive in any other way.
I lived for years this way, and developed longstanding patterns of turning to my addictions in times of loneliness, disappointment, stress, and often simply to escape the dullness of life.
To be honest, as I look back on it now, I just found reality too difficult.
I had grown up in the church and I kept going to church the entire time.
But I never heard God’s voice growing up and I didn’t see how following God would be to my benefit.
But God broke through in my life began a process of rescuing and transforming me from that life for around 11 years now, and it’s still a process for me.
He’s done some amazing things in my life, but I want to highlight some of the ways that I have had to cooperate with God in what he wants to do.
I’m still very prone to addictive behaviors, and I have a tendency of escaping reality, and so certain practices have been vital in sustaining the new life which God calls me to.
Time in Reflection daily with God
My watch alarm would be set for 10:00pm and no matter what I was doing, I would stop and go to an extra room we had set aside for prayer.
For 20-30 minutes, I would go over my past day with God and to especially recall my emotional responses to things. I would recall before God the events of pain and joy.
Example: To recall feelings of rejection or aloneness, and to allow myself to feel those things in God’s presence.
To recall feelings of gratitude I had for interactions that day. Ways people had blessed me and spoken life giving words to me. And to let my heart feel FULL because of that.
This regular practice helped me to really connect with God with my heart as I began to know God’s love and presence with me so that I could face reality more.
In doing this regularly for a season of my life (I still do it but not as often) I live with a warm heart towards others and I don’t sink back in fear behind a posture of detachment and isolation.
The gradual practicing of God’s presence with me lessens my need to feel I want to escape from pain and difficulty as I discover God’s care for me in the everyday things.
That he truly cares for my emotions and my heart.
God’s essential love for me gives me a safe grounding out of which I have the freedom to live.
+-
Accountability
Because of my habits of turning to fantasy and sensuality in my times of need, I have built in the habit of meeting with someone for accountability.
I don’t have enough integrity in and of myself, and so I need someone to keep me grounded in truth and in being honest.
Accountability for me is the practice of being known in my struggles and to not stay hidden in shame about my weaknesses.
It provides a regular structure of confessing my sin to and to keep little failures and deviations from becoming big ones.
Nipping the sin in the bud so to speak.
The practice of having to admit my areas of weakness and failure on a regular basis is humbling, as I have to acknowledge who I really am and my actual powerlessness over my sin. But it keeps me from the illusion of my self-sufficiency and of seeing myself as more powerful than I really am.
I need have needed and continue to need these practices to keep me in the process of transformation.
Tanya
I grew up in a Christian home. When I was growing up, I quickly discovered the world of boys and I found that I was happy and felt fulfilled when I was around them. I wasn’t able to see it then, but as I look back, I can see how these relationships were motivated by my need for affirmation and love. These needs of affirmation and love are good and valid, but I chose to fill them by seeking it from men instead of God.
I went from relationship to relationship and was really blinded by my deep needs, so much so that it led me to stay in unhealthy relationships. It was in one of these relationships, that I was sexually abused. Despite the abuse, I continued to stay in the relationship because my need outweighed what I knew to be right. I eventually became pregnant and right when I found out, even though I was against abortion, I knew I had to have an abortion. It was like I was in a trap and the only way out was to cut off my leg.
Growing up, our family was really big on appearances and doing things that would make everyone believe we were the perfect family. And if you knew me then, I was the poster child for good Christian girl. I did everything that I was supposed to do and said everything I was supposed to say. And so, I was afraid of shame for not only on myself, but more so on my family. I couldn’t bear how my dad would look at me if he were to have found out, so I planned for the abortion in secret and said that I would take this to my grave. I shut down my emotions of knowing I was ending a life and that it was wrong. Shortly after, instead of finding time for myself to process what had happened, I chose again to be in another relationship where I found affirmation and love because it was easy. It was easier to numb my pain with someone than to actually face reality.
I remember my mom saying to me once that God doesn’t let go…and so even though I continued to keep up the appearance of going to church, inside of me, I had let go of God and tried to forget Him.
It was during this next relationship that I began to attend a women’s small group where I began to hear God’s voice again and He proved my mom right. He didn’t let go, and he wouldn’t. After attending the small group for a while and finding good and healthy relationships there, I chose to listen and obey God to end the relationship because I finally decided to choose God, to say yes to Him, even though doing so meant doing things that would cause me hurt and pain in the short run. This time in my life was very hard because all the emotions I had shut down from the time of my abortion came to the surface again, but although it was very hard I knew that God was with me. There were stretches of time spent grieving and grieving, but also during this time I became very aware of choices that I had made in my life to get to that point and I started to make some choices to be consistent and obedient.
In particular, I began to spend time in silence everyday to actually hear myself and to know what was going on in my heart. The reason this was so important is that I have the tendency to surround myself with people and busyness which blocks out any pain or hurts that I may have. So being silent for a time every day helped me to not only hear myself, but to hear God again and again and to give him space to speak to me.
Also, I learned the habit of sitting and meditating on a passage of scripture for a period of time. This practice was very important to me as I have the tendency to read something and quickly jump to what I think God may be saying, but really miss the mark. So learning to allow myself to slow down and listen while reading scripture has helped me really hear God.
Even though life has changed a lot since that particular time which was around 8 years ago (as now I’m married and have a baby), and silence and solitude has been harder to find, I still need these regular practices even more to stay rooted in who God says I am.
Close in prayer
(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio)
Text: Romans 8:5-13
Title: A New Freedom
Big Idea: We can experience transformation by establish new habits.
Someone recently told me, "This church truly inspires me to be more than I am, and I know that with the help of God I can achieve anything." This person is in a process of making a commitment to Christ and is experiencing change.
A friend of mine told me recently that at her work, when the subject of church comes up, she says, "I go to church every Sunday and, if you want, you are welcome to come with me." She told me that the angle she uses to encourage people to consider coming to church is that coming here makes her, and anyone, a better human being.
In a city like Vancouver, people are not coming to church because it is the expected thing to do, or because they want to be "seen" in church because they think it might give them some kind of social advantage at work. People in Vancouver become part of a worshipping community because they want to experience some kind of transformation.
We at Tenth Avenue Church, to quote Gandhi, want to become the change that we would like to see in our world.
Experts on change like Alan Deustchman, the author of Change or Die, points out that 90% of the time people cannot, or will not, change. I believe that we here at Tenth Avenue Church an exception to that rule. We are a community of people who want to and who are experiencing the life-changing work of Christ in our lives.
We have been in a series here at Tenth on Romans 8. It is a very important passage in Scripture. It deals with how the Holy Spirit brings transformation in our lives. The Book of Romans describes human beings as natural-born sinners. We are descendants of our ancient forbears, Adam and Eve, who sinned in the Garden of Eden, and, as their offspring, we are born in the world as carriers of the sin virus. We are therefore under the "power of sin" (Romans 3:9). Being under the "power of sin" doesn’t necessary mean that we all sin in flamboyant ways, but it does mean that we are born with an inclination to organize our lives around something, or someone, other than God. It might be achievement in work, school, ministry, pleasure, recreational experiences, a relationship, family. What the Bible reaches us in Romans is that we are born into the family of Adam and Eve, so to speak, under the power of sin, but that we can be reborn with the help of Jesus Christ into the family of God.
When that happens (to review), Paul tells us in Romans 8 that we are set free from the power of sin. When Jesus Christ died on the cross in a mysterious way that we will never fully understand, our sin nature, our shadow side was crucified with him. Like a boxer who has been punched hard on the jaw, our sin nature through Christ’s work on the cross has been dealt a crushing blow. Our sin nature is not as dominant as it once was. When we give our lives to Christ, Christ’s work on the cross of crucifying our sin nature is made effective for us. When we give our lives to Christ, we receive the greatest of all gifts, the gift of the Holy Spirit.
In Ezekiel 36 God says of this new work of His in us:
24 " 'For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
We can be made new as we are cleansed from our sins and our idols, given a new heart, and a new Spirit—God’s Spirit.
Paul calls us to respond to this new reality that we find ourselves in. In Romans 6:13-14, Paul says, "Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as instruments of wickedness; rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life."
In Romans 8, Paul says that if we are in Christ, we are not controlled by our sin nature, but by the Holy Spirit, who lives within us.
In Romans 8:12-13, Paul says:
12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live…
While we cannot experience deep transformation, unless we experience the mercy of God intervening in our life, we nonetheless have a role, in that we are able to respond to that mercy, to that grace, by establishing new habits…new practices…that are consistent with the way that the Holy Spirit is transforming us.
Paul says in 1 Timothy 4:7, that we are "train ourselves to be godly". In Philippians 2, Paul says that we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling—meaning that we are to work at it, knowing that God is at work within us to will and to do according to his good pleasure. So we are to respond to the Spirit’s work in use by putting into practice the kinds of habits which are consistent with the kind of person that God is transforming us into.
In the Book of Galatians, Paul talks about sowing to the Spirit, rather than sowing to the sin nature. As we sow certain habits, we establish certain neural pathways in our brain that make it easier to act than in the way we have been acting: whether in good or bad way.
When I was in Grade 3, I began taking judo lessons. My mom was concerned that having moved to Canada, which though is general safe country is till relatively speaking more dangerous than Japan (the country where I was born). So my mom thought we would need to know how to defend ourselves. So she enrolled all of the 5 Shigematsu kids in judo, and later in karate. I remember doing drills week after week on how to fall properly (demonstrate?), how to roll properly (demonstrate?). Though that was many years ago, I find that, because I practiced those moves so many times as a kid, those neural networks were apparently established in my brain. So now, if I fall, whether it is on a ski hill or on some ice on the sidewalk, I always tuck my head like this (demonstrate). That neural network has been established.
So it is with us. When we practice certain habits, neural networks are formed and our brain is literally changed. If you are a musician and have trained for years, your brain has changed because of it. Those changes will show up on a brain scan.
As argued is the best selling book, The Brain That Changes Itself. Our brains can be rewired. Only a few decades ago scientists considered the brain to be fixed, or hard-wired. But neural scientists like Oliver Sacks, and others, have demonstrated that, through establishing certain kinds of practices or habits, the brain can actually rewire itself, like a muscle our brain can develop new capacities through training.
Do you know the Delancey Street Foundation in San Francisco? It is a remarkable residence where criminals live and work together as way to prepare to re-enter society after their sentences are complete. Most of them have been labeled psychopaths. They typically enter Delaney, after being involved in crime and violence for years, and with serious addictions to alcohol and drugs. They are usually the third generation of families who have known only poverty, crime and drug addiction. They have never led lawful lives. After staying at Delancey for 4 years, most of the residents "graduate" and live on their own in society. Nearly 60% of the people who enter the program and make it through sustain productive lives on the outside. Compare that to the fact that typically 7 out of 10 of their peers who didn’t go through Delancey, but through the regular prison system, return to a life of crime.
Part of the way they foster change is through relationships, and part of the way ____ change is by getting the inmates to work in businesses owned by Delancey and by volunteer work. Delancey also stresses dressing a certain way, walking a certain way, speaking in a certain way, and through those practices people become new from the "outside in."
Of course, the Bible emphasizes change from the inside out, but, as Paul also points out, we are to offer the parts of our body to God rather than to sin…that we are to sow to the Holy Spirit. We are to do certain things so that we are transformed from the outside in, as well.
Richard Rohr emphasizing this says, "We don’t think ourselves into new ways of living—we live ourselves into new ways of thinking."
There is a couple who were part of our community for quite some time—Daniel and Tanya Komori—their lives have demonstrated the power of establishing new habits with the help of God as a means to experience transformation.
I am asking them to come and share now.
Daniel
I grew up in Calgary as the youngest of 4 children.
If I can pinpoint one experience that has shaped and defined much of my life, I would say it was an event that occurred when I was 12 years old.
During the summer of ’91, my oldest brother who was 17 at the time drowned in a river. He had just graduated high school and was the person I had looked up to most in my life.
When he died, my world really lost a lot of its color and joy.
I didn’t know how to handle this trauma, and there was nobody around me at the time to bring me any comfort.
My family never grieved together and I never saw my own father cry about the death.
And so I responded the same way.
I completely detached from my heart and emotions and they got buried in some deep cavern inside.
With nowhere to go I buried my heart.
As a result, I became a shell of a person, not knowing how to feel, and not knowing how to care about others or to let myself be cared for.
From that point on in my life, I turned to one addiction after another.
My addictions began first with drowning myself through the use of media and entertainment.
I would play video games endlessly, watch movies, and always be listening to the radio and having earphones in my ears.
But soon after, I also developed other addictions.
I was introduced to pornography, which became a hidden place of fantasy and shame for many years.
I also became quite heavily dependent on alcohol and drugs, so much so that I used substances on a daily basis and didn’t know how to feel alive in any other way.
I lived for years this way, and developed longstanding patterns of turning to my addictions in times of loneliness, disappointment, stress, and often simply to escape the dullness of life.
To be honest, as I look back on it now, I just found reality too difficult.
I had grown up in the church and I kept going to church the entire time.
But I never heard God’s voice growing up and I didn’t see how following God would be to my benefit.
But God broke through in my life began a process of rescuing and transforming me from that life for around 11 years now, and it’s still a process for me.
He’s done some amazing things in my life, but I want to highlight some of the ways that I have had to cooperate with God in what he wants to do.
I’m still very prone to addictive behaviors, and I have a tendency of escaping reality, and so certain practices have been vital in sustaining the new life which God calls me to.
Time in Reflection daily with God
My watch alarm would be set for 10:00pm and no matter what I was doing, I would stop and go to an extra room we had set aside for prayer.
For 20-30 minutes, I would go over my past day with God and to especially recall my emotional responses to things. I would recall before God the events of pain and joy.
Example: To recall feelings of rejection or aloneness, and to allow myself to feel those things in God’s presence.
To recall feelings of gratitude I had for interactions that day. Ways people had blessed me and spoken life giving words to me. And to let my heart feel FULL because of that.
This regular practice helped me to really connect with God with my heart as I began to know God’s love and presence with me so that I could face reality more.
In doing this regularly for a season of my life (I still do it but not as often) I live with a warm heart towards others and I don’t sink back in fear behind a posture of detachment and isolation.
The gradual practicing of God’s presence with me lessens my need to feel I want to escape from pain and difficulty as I discover God’s care for me in the everyday things.
That he truly cares for my emotions and my heart.
God’s essential love for me gives me a safe grounding out of which I have the freedom to live.
+-
Accountability
Because of my habits of turning to fantasy and sensuality in my times of need, I have built in the habit of meeting with someone for accountability.
I don’t have enough integrity in and of myself, and so I need someone to keep me grounded in truth and in being honest.
Accountability for me is the practice of being known in my struggles and to not stay hidden in shame about my weaknesses.
It provides a regular structure of confessing my sin to and to keep little failures and deviations from becoming big ones.
Nipping the sin in the bud so to speak.
The practice of having to admit my areas of weakness and failure on a regular basis is humbling, as I have to acknowledge who I really am and my actual powerlessness over my sin. But it keeps me from the illusion of my self-sufficiency and of seeing myself as more powerful than I really am.
I need have needed and continue to need these practices to keep me in the process of transformation.
Tanya
I grew up in a Christian home. When I was growing up, I quickly discovered the world of boys and I found that I was happy and felt fulfilled when I was around them. I wasn’t able to see it then, but as I look back, I can see how these relationships were motivated by my need for affirmation and love. These needs of affirmation and love are good and valid, but I chose to fill them by seeking it from men instead of God.
I went from relationship to relationship and was really blinded by my deep needs, so much so that it led me to stay in unhealthy relationships. It was in one of these relationships, that I was sexually abused. Despite the abuse, I continued to stay in the relationship because my need outweighed what I knew to be right. I eventually became pregnant and right when I found out, even though I was against abortion, I knew I had to have an abortion. It was like I was in a trap and the only way out was to cut off my leg.
Growing up, our family was really big on appearances and doing things that would make everyone believe we were the perfect family. And if you knew me then, I was the poster child for good Christian girl. I did everything that I was supposed to do and said everything I was supposed to say. And so, I was afraid of shame for not only on myself, but more so on my family. I couldn’t bear how my dad would look at me if he were to have found out, so I planned for the abortion in secret and said that I would take this to my grave. I shut down my emotions of knowing I was ending a life and that it was wrong. Shortly after, instead of finding time for myself to process what had happened, I chose again to be in another relationship where I found affirmation and love because it was easy. It was easier to numb my pain with someone than to actually face reality.
I remember my mom saying to me once that God doesn’t let go…and so even though I continued to keep up the appearance of going to church, inside of me, I had let go of God and tried to forget Him.
It was during this next relationship that I began to attend a women’s small group where I began to hear God’s voice again and He proved my mom right. He didn’t let go, and he wouldn’t. After attending the small group for a while and finding good and healthy relationships there, I chose to listen and obey God to end the relationship because I finally decided to choose God, to say yes to Him, even though doing so meant doing things that would cause me hurt and pain in the short run. This time in my life was very hard because all the emotions I had shut down from the time of my abortion came to the surface again, but although it was very hard I knew that God was with me. There were stretches of time spent grieving and grieving, but also during this time I became very aware of choices that I had made in my life to get to that point and I started to make some choices to be consistent and obedient.
In particular, I began to spend time in silence everyday to actually hear myself and to know what was going on in my heart. The reason this was so important is that I have the tendency to surround myself with people and busyness which blocks out any pain or hurts that I may have. So being silent for a time every day helped me to not only hear myself, but to hear God again and again and to give him space to speak to me.
Also, I learned the habit of sitting and meditating on a passage of scripture for a period of time. This practice was very important to me as I have the tendency to read something and quickly jump to what I think God may be saying, but really miss the mark. So learning to allow myself to slow down and listen while reading scripture has helped me really hear God.
Even though life has changed a lot since that particular time which was around 8 years ago (as now I’m married and have a baby), and silence and solitude has been harder to find, I still need these regular practices even more to stay rooted in who God says I am.
Close in prayer
(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio)
posted by Shigematsu at 7:43 PM
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