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Pull Up A Stone #4 The Chasm – Part Two: ”Why Am I Here?” M. B. Fields, Jr. Copyright © 2007 by Grand Organ Productions, LLC All Rights Reserved Genesis 1:1-2(a) Isaiah 29:13 Jeremiah 1:5 Matthew 15:8 Mark 7:6 Sometimes, no matter where you are or what you are doing, or even how many people you are with, you just feel like you are all alone. You can be alone in the midst of your family. You can feel completely alone in a crowd of your friends. You can work in a company employing thousands and still feel detached from them all. One of the most difficult things to accept when you are feeling so alone is that (believe it or not) everyone with a belly button has times like this in their lives. Confusion and chaos reign in your brain. More importantly, these feelings can also take over your heart. In fact, this truth tends to make each of us, at one time or another feel hopeless. It happens, and it happens to every one of us. I cannot say if it has happened to you—yet, but it will. I know it has happened for me. If this idea interests you at all, why not pull up a stone, and let’s talk about it. One of the first things I want you to realize is that, on the Genesis 1:1 side of The Chasm, you are alone. Those feelings that you have are not entirely hallucinogenic in origin. As much as you feel alone, there really is a good reason for it. You are alone. Regardless of where your feet are, there is no one with you here. But, the most important thing to know is that this is, potentially at least, a very temporary condition. First, however, you must understand and realize that you are so alone, that those feelings you have of being alone include a reality that, in this place, God isn’t. That is just how very alone you are. In my life, there have been times when I knew just how alone this measure meant. It is quite true. God does not exist in any life languishing on the Genesis 1:1 side of The Chasm. That is a place reserved only for the created. The Creator does not go to this place. Why not? And, what exactly are you doing there, anyway? And, what is this whole Chasm thing about? The place that God (Dad) created isn’t here. It is on the opposite side of The Chasm, so far away that you cannot even see it. When you are on the 1:1 side of The Chasm, you sense the truth of this almost immediately. You are so utterly alone, that it seems and feels as if no one can reach you, or touch you. Or save you. Once you know this truth, and the terror subsides just a little, your brain kicks in. You get a little time to consider things. The things you consider are not all warm and fuzzy things, either. They are usually those moments that you have hidden from the world, things you have hidden from yourself, and (as many falsely like to believe) things you have hidden from God. If you have ever been here, to this place, you know that what I am telling you is the truth. If you have not been here yet, when you arrive, you will recognize the truth of what I am telling you. As I have tried to illustrate, this is not much of a happy place. The feelings that we feel here are not happy feelings. At first, they are sharp pains, and can be recognized as agonizing moments in our lives. As we stand on the 1:1 side, the agony rules our existence to such a degree that, in time, we just want it to end. Hopelessness overtakes our thinking. Lack of purpose invades our hearts, and we just feel too tired to care. This is the reality of life on this side of The Chasm. You can put the definition to it best. I know what it was like for me, but no one else has ever had MY 1:1 experience. Each belly button gets their own. Why? Because, we are each of us completely different. And, the luggage we bring with us belongs only to us, and no one else. Yes, the luggage. Did I forget to mention the luggage? Well, not really. Remember those things I talked about earlier? The things we hide? Well, that’s the luggage. And, that is why we are here. We are compelled to come here, and that luggage goes with us no matter where we travel, now doesn’t it? But, they are only thoughts; remnants of a reality that no longer has physical form. Feelings of pain, hurt, bitterness, anger, and loss are the bulk of the luggage. We like to believe that our fondest memories come with us too, but they seem to have been left at home. We cannot find them, or see them, or feel them on the Genesis 1:1 side of The Chasm. Why? Why are we here, and why are these the only things that have come with us? Remember that I said earlier that God created the heavens and the earth for one reason: relationship. It is on this side of the Chasm that Dad calls us to Himself. But, when He calls us to the 1:1 side of the Chasm, we find ourselves completely separated from Him. He cannot exist here, because this is a place filled with sin. The sin we bring is our luggage. God abhors sin. Sin is anything which separates us from God. I do not need to tell you the sins of your life. You know them better than I or anyone else—save one. God knows them each and every one. The reason you are here is to decide what you want to do with them, and how you want to handle them. Dad has brought you here, because it is ALWAYS Dad to initiates the relationship with His kids. He has done this purposely, with intent. But, what is His intent? For what purpose has Dad called you to this place? For several reasons, actually. But, the first of all of them is because Dad is crazy stupid nuts in love with you. He desires to have the relationship with you in your life that He planned before the worlds were made. It was that relationship that so moved Him, that He created the heavens and the earth in the first place. We often get it wrong, I think. We seem to feel comfortable with the belief that first came the heavens and the earth, then came Dad’s intent for relationship with us. Now that we are here, He is somehow compelled to relate to us? Oh, goodness NO! It was His first desire, to have a wonderful and wondrous relationship with His kids from the very beginning. That’s what the beginning was all about! But, you see, before He can be Dad, He must first be God. And, on the 1:1 side of The Chasm, He is ONLY God, the Creator, the Supreme Being of the Eternal. It is not a distinction we give Him. It belongs to Him, regardless of what we happen to choose to believe about it. Much like gravity, God has no regard for what we think of Him. He is, and does, what God is and does, anyway. Just like the apple always falls to the Earth, God is always God. He does not change. He has always been, and will always be, God. He is not particularly concerned with how we feel about that, and especially not over here on the 1:1 side of The Chasm. The Holy Bible is not the entirety of the History of God, or of mankind. It is a personally written love story, which contains the complete history of God’s relationship with—you. But, over here on the 1:1 side of The Chasm, the entirety of the Holy Bible contains only one verse. There are no verses which follow. Nothing after Genesis 1:1 exists. There is no relationship. There is no flood, or Garden, or Holy City. There is no Gethsemane, no Cross, and no Easter Morning. There is no eternal peace and joy. There is nothing. When God calls us to this side of The Chasm, it is solely for the purpose of writing. But, you are the Author. On this side of The Chasm, there is only one thing you must consider. IS the one single verse that is available to you, in fact the truth? ”In the Beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Nothing happens on this side of the Chasm, save the consideration of that one verse. After all, no other verse exists. We have no need to discuss, debate, argue, or disagree about any other single verse (present or absent) from the Holy Bible unless and until that one verse matters more to us than the breath of life itself. And, when you find yourself on the 1:1 side of The Chasm that is the only thing you are to consider. If you cannot, or will not come to understand not only the nature of the verse, but the truth of the verse in your life today, the remainder of your life on earth will (like it or not) be on the 1:1 side of The Chasm. Believe me when I tell you that I have met people who have been living on the 1:1 side of The Chasm their entire lives. From young to old, rich to poor, successful to complete failure, people populate this side of The Chasm in great numbers. Some are here seeking. Others are here because they refuse to look at the question, much less give an answer to it. But, the really scary part of life over here, on the 1:1 side of The Chasm is that this place is where nothing is hidden. Every thought is visible. Every feeling can be observed—and is. We see the one thing that God sees. We see our heart. That is why we are here. In the end of the 1:1 side experience (and, yes it does end), the one truth which we will never be able to deny is that we know the heart that God sees. It is, at first, painful and embarrassing. Many tears are shed by new arrivals here. After a time, which is different for each person, we understand that there is NO time here. Our pain doesn’t dampen, and the first pain we felt as the deed occurred, or the thought was created in our heart is always freshly felt here. Yes, thoughts are created in the heart. They are merely transmitted by the brain. That is why God looks at our hearts. And, when we see the heart that God sees, it does affect us. But, that is why we are here. Divorce is a nasty business, and has a terrible cost--and outcome for all concerned. I believe that if we truly understood the nature and consequences of divorce completely, we would eliminate it entirely from our lives forever. But, as I stated at the beginning of these talks, divorce is a relational term. Our lives, lived by the daily divorcing of ourselves from the relationship that God desires to experience with us, are the compilations of every single act of divorce which we commit. There comes a time when God calls us to determine the truth of our intent. When that happens, we will find ourselves on the Genesis 1:1 side of The Chasm. When sufficient experience with each and every moment of our sin has been given to us, we almost immediately realize who it is that we have created ourselves to be. We see “us” in a way that perhaps we never have before. Like it, or don’t. The “Me” we see over here on the 1:1 side of The Chasm is the handiwork of our own creation. This is not a visit that only bad people or sinful people have. This is not a trip that Saints get to pass by. Every one who has a belly button takes this trip at one point or another in life. Well, anyone with a conscience does, any way. I do not believe that anyone who has not achieved the age of accountability takes this trip. But we are told that every one of us must make this journey at least once in our lives, when we come to the point where we make our own choices and/or decisions. Welcome to The Chasm. It becomes tiring and wearisome here after a time. We dance around the firelight of The Chasm. We do the “Hokey Pokey” of justification and rationalization, explaining our pre-planned defense for our own evil actions, thoughts, and words. We “Mamba” our way around the meanness done to others. Who can deny the “Limbo” of our disregard for our fellow man? It is quite the “Conga” line of deceit that takes us along the edge of The Chasm, you see. Even our disbelief causes us to “Break Dance” our way around the property. All that energy, consumed in our daily living one sin at a time suddenly comes pouring forth from us here. After a while, we feel the tiredness, the futility, and the hopelessness of it all. But, we cannot deny that we have seen the truth of our hearts here. Then, we come to the point of sadness, as the reality of our truth sinks in upon us in a measure that cannot be proportioned rightly. The weight of it, carried for days, or months, or years, or decades slows our dancing to a creeping gait. The truth speaks directly to us, reminding us that we are the ones who brought these things with us in the first place. This is not the way we planned it. This is not how it was supposed to be. We aren’t even, usually, very secure in our thoughts of how it was supposed to be, but we know this isn’t it. Then we usually rest a bit. We find a quiet corner, away from the dance floor of our denial, and we just are so very tired that we lie down and cover ourselves--with our sin. After all, sin has become the comfortable blanket of our lives, hasn’t it? Lying there, we again notice the speeding, sparkling meteors coming from behind us, flying low overhead, and careening into the Chasm. We wonder, what are these things? Why do they fly headlong into such a stinking pit? As we concentrate, it is as if these sparks take on shape, and color, and texture. We can begin to make them out, and we do not like what we see. So tired, we suddenly are wide awake, on our backs, watching the darkness light up as each streaking line of light breaks through the darkness, flying silently into The Chasm. Every false word is a meteor. Every evil thought has a shape in this darkness. Every single mean act done has a color, and they all are flinging themselves into The Chasm. Every wrong done to another, every good word withheld, and every blessing refused is a meteor, with only one destination. We suddenly understand that, at some point in our past, someone lying perhaps just where we are was watching as our mouths formed the cursing of God that took shape, and form, and flew into The Chasm. The sad reality we have re-lived here in thought did, at one point, have form as an act. How were we to know that a meteor shower of Sin would be produced? How many of those supersonic moments have we created, now flung hopelessly into The Chasm? How many of these transported realities have my name upon them? Every one of them. You see, I believe that The Chasm really IS a very personal place. What we see here belongs to us. That’s why we come to the moment where we recognize them for what they are. That is also why we are called here. These are things that must be dealt with. God requires it. Remember that The Chasm is where the pieces and parts are. But, they are not only the pieces and parts that God ordained in The Beginning. They are also the pieces and parts of our lives, as well, that we have created. The only difference is in the makeup of the pieces and parts. Some of the things we have brought flying into The Chasm were Blessings from a Dad who just loved us so much that He wanted us to be happy. Yet, because of our lives, or our thinking, or our “intellect” we rejected them. We turned them into flying meteors, headed directly for The Chasm. We did it well, too. It really worked, every single time. When we realize this truth is usually when the fatigue turns to heart-break. The overwhelming sadness that envelops us into a smothering stranglehold. Why would God be so mean, and cruel? Why would anyone have the first thing to do with a God this abusive? Some people never make it past this point. I have known many such people as this. I have even known more than a few who, at this point of this particular journey, have given up. Rather than deal with the reality of the very lives they themselves have created, they just—end it. The guilt, the remorse, and the sadness of the reality they face, sitting, standing, or lying here on the 1:1 side of The Chasm is just more than a human heart, unattended, can bear. This is where suicide happens, I believe. This is the place where people’s hearts just die, no matter how long it takes for the rest of their bodies to realize it. This is the place, I believe, where people stop living. I have seen it personally, within my own family. I have seen it countless times in Counseling, and within the lives of congregants of my Churches. I have seen it on television. I have read about it in the newsprint and magazine media. I hear about it each and every day. I know this place personally, because I, too, have been here. And, the only reflection we see here is that one, lonely verse. Sometimes, there is something, deep within our very being which suddenly cries out to the empty darkness. It begins as a quiet thought, or a gentle stirring deep within us. It usually feels quite foreign to us, or perhaps it registers as a long-forgotten reality that we have not experienced for a very long time. Sometimes, it is a truth that, not so long ago, we had our lives centered upon, and it comes rushing back to our reality in a flood. But, regardless, it is there. Take a moment with me, please. Look at another verse in The Holy Bible: “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee;” Jeremiah 1:5 That’s what Dad tells us—about us. The idea was about relationship, remember? But, we have, for one reason or another never accepted the relationship. When we find ourselves on the Genesis 1:1 side of The Chasm, it is because the God who created us in the first place is calling each one of us to that relationship. We bring what we have created, not what God created. But, we do bring that part that God created in us. We just have to have the time to get through all that we have created, and to “drill down” until we can again feel that part of us that God created—the basic pieces and parts of the relationship He wanted with us in the first place. And, this is the place where that relationship can (but not necessarily will) begin. The Chasm is too wide, too deep, and too long for us to get around, get over, get under, or get across. The distance between us and God is just too great for us to manage. That’s the simple truth of it, friend. Who can travel with all that luggage? Why would you choose to keep it? Is it simply because it is known to you, and you have somehow become comfortable with it? Is it because, in your mind, you have come to accept the reality that what you have is better, or safer, or smarter, or more acceptable to you than that which you do not know, or do not feel, or do not realize, or do not have? Welcome to The Chasm. Interesting choice, friend. On this side of The Chasm, every single time we have said “No!” to God shows up, in living techni-color. That happens for a reason. We get to see, and hear, and feel the very same things that God saw, and heard, and felt when the act took place. Our lingering memories once again live out, across the dark sky. “In the Beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Is it true, or isn’t it? Is there a God? Is He the Supreme Creator of the heavens and the earth? Or, not? I do not require your answer to these questions. God, however, DOES require it. It doesn’t matter to Him that you do not believe this to be truth. It does not change Him at all, not one whit. But, He does require your answer. God does not require relationship with us, friend. He merely desires it. He desires it so very much, that he flung the stars into space for it. He created a boiling cauldron of possibilities, made of all the pieces and parts that could be the very one thing that, of all the things God created, He cannot create alone. He made relationship with His kids possible. We must make it real. And, before we can make it real, we must understand the roles. He is God. We are not. He is the Creator. We are the Created. He is the potter, we are the pots. Unless, and until we each come to know that within our beings—at the cellular level, nothing else matters. It has been truly said many times, by many others, that there is no such thing as a true Atheist. I know this to be true. An Atheist has seen the reality of God, and refused it. An atheist does not say that God is not God. An atheist says that there is no God. Even the most evil presence ever created says that there is a God. Satan just happens to believe that the wrong guy got the job. What do you say? That is why you are here, on the 1:1 side of the Chasm. You know when you are here, that this is where you are. You cannot deny it. I do not care in the least what you say to anyone else about it, and neither does God, quite frankly. But, it is very important to understand that, like it or not, God has just jerked you up by the nape of the neck, and brought you to this place. As you did not arrive here on your own ability, neither will you ever leave here under your own power either. Believe me; you have all the time you need to consider the question. Forever is a very long time. When God brings you to this place, it is for only one reason. God initiates the action--every time! His response is completely determined by your answer to the question. You have precisely two options. You will eventually choose one of them. The outcome of your decision determines what God’s next action will be. You didn’t ask, it is quite true, to be brought to this place. Nor can you demand to leave it. Understand this, friend. God does not require your answer to be “Yes”. If that is what you believe, then you have been deceived. In the same way, God does not require your answer to be “No!” God simply requires that you answer. And, of course, there is one condition that God places upon you. God requires that you answer honestly. The reason that, no matter where in your life you are at the time this moment comes to you, you wind up on the Genesis 1:1 side of The Chasm friend, is because that is the moment God requires the question to be answered. For each of us, it comes in its own time. Sometimes, we beg God to help us answer this one question, and this is the place He brings us. Sometimes, we are too busy in our lives, and in our sin, and God sees something just around the corner that we cannot. He knows that, if we round the corner without this one question being answered, relationship with us will just not be possible. In that moment, God will snatch us up, and bring us to The Chasm. “Do You Love Me?” Who is asking the question, anyway? The Chasm is a great place to hear the question asked, believe it or not. You may ask this question out loud. God may ask it of you. Regardless of how the conversation begins, trust me when I tell you, friend. The conversation WILL begin. We can only be honest there. Honesty, even before God, can be a freeing reality. Once our luggage has been opened, and all within it has been given an airing, there is room for a little honesty, don’t you think? Is He, or isn’t He? If not, nothing else matters. You can pack up your luggage, and God will return you to the life you have created. You have chosen the picture you painted of your perfect life, and you have handed back to God the picture he painted of your life, even before the beginning. How do we say “I Don’t Love You!” to God? We do it in as many ways as there are belly buttons. But, we do it. Sometimes, we get in the habit of doing it so well, and so, so often that we don’t even think twice about saying it. God will bring us to The Chasm, just so we can say it to His face. But, we only say it if it is really true. What we spout out of our mouths to impress our friends, or to uphold our “Rebel” reputation with our peers, our authority, our parents, or our community has no meaning here. Only the truth of our hearts can speak in this place. It is possible to answer both questions honestly. In fact, it is mandatory. There are, within these two questions, four possible outcomes. 1.Yes, He is God. Yes, I love Him. 2. Yes, He is God. No, I don’t love Him. 3. No, He is not God. Yes, I love Him. 4. No, He is not God. No, I don’t love Him. When you find yourself over at the Genesis 1:1 side of The Chasm, these are the only options available to you. They each have implications that one thousand forevers will take to complete. Which one, honestly, is the truth for you, friend? I do truly hope that you will spend some time, over here on the 1:1 side of The Chasm, and just consider your answer. God doesn’t care. I don’t care. It’s even entirely possible that you don’t care, either. But, just for the sake of the moment, I hope you will entertain the ramblings of an old man, and consider which of these the most honest answer is for you, in the life you have at this moment. The next time we get to chat, if you want one that is, we can chat about the possible answers. We’ll talk about what they mean, and what they mean to you—and what they mean to God. We’ll find out about the truth of The Chasm, and how to get to the Genesis 1:3 side of it. Yes, it is possible. It’s actually a pretty amazing place—especially once you are standing over there. The only thing I would ask of you, friend, is to answer the question honestly. Do not answer as you think I, or anyone else—or even God, would desire. Just answer honestly. You really have nothing to lose. But, you might have a lot to lose, as you see it. You have a lot to gain, even if you cannot see it at the moment. But, that really doesn’t matter. Just answer the question honestly, for yourself. I’ll be by again, soon. Perhaps we can pull up a stone, and chat some more. I really enjoyed this time with you, and I hope you did, too. Until the next time, may you be richly blessed, indeed! In His Care, Budroe
© Copyright 2007 Budroe is Blessed! (UN: kybudman at Writing.Com).
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