Author: Benjamin

“Abbe Faria: Here is your final lesson – do not commit the crime for which you now serve the sentence. God said, Vengeance is mine.
Edmond Dantes: I don’t believe in God.
Abbe Faria: It doesn’t matter. He believes in you. ”

~ The Count of Monte Cristo

This one thing stands out in my mind more than anything else these days: God chose me because He believed in what I would become. My own doubts and fears mean nothing when compared with what Almighty God believes about me. I need to find my identity there, and not in anything else. This is a process. God help us all to fully engage Him in this way; that we see the road before us as He would have us see it.

The bottom line of absolutely everything that has ever been is simple: conscious, deliberate communion with God is literally the most important thing in the world. Jesus used to head out for time alone with Father all the freaking time. This is the actual Jesus we’re talking about. What makes me think my life should look any different?

 

How do I do this? How do I take this much pain, this much disappointment, this much hopelessness, and filter it through the whole absolute love thing? To be without malice or vindictive intent in absolutely all. To respond out of benevolent compassion, in complete totality, always and everywhere. My habits and patterns are so far from this place. The only way I know to change this is to soak in Your living presence, Jesus. As I do this, You speak to me, you breathe through me, and Your love crystallizes all up in my soul’s most injured places. Then comes peace. Beyond anything I could ever possibly hope to understand in this life…that’s what it’s like.

Then I’m right back out in open battle again, though, and I’m getting all kinds of pain stuff happening, and it’s super confusing. Super frustrating.

To do the best that I can, though, to trust in You, to lean into you, and to keep making a habit out of resting in Your presence when I have opportunity…slow and steady wins the race. Answering the trials with a tempered response of fully love-flavored consistency. You’ve got me. This much, I know. And as I watch it unfold before me, it’s almost like I really do know.

There’s always that lingering doubt. There’s always those fears which dance on the edges of my mind. Sometimes they jump right into the middle of things again, and I have to really take a step back. I have to remove myself from the battle and seek shelter in the secret place. I have to take time to re-center. Time to abide.

I choose to continue. I choose to keep trusting. I rely on You for even the strength and the will to keep making this choice, because all of this only happens through You. When I try to take over, it just starts to hurt, and to die, and I’m reminded pretty quickly why it’s not smart for me to do that. Then I shake myself off, get back up, and head back into the secret place with you, and that is where we can breathe together. That is where I can remember that we are one. That is the place where the magic happens. That’s where it all goes down.

This only works as I die, though. Which is…I mean, it’s all good. I was gonna die anyways.

 

“ Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;  That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

~  Jesus

Am I capable of this? Am I capable of really, truly loving those who have hurt me the most? Am I able to really, sincerely forgive those who have done me wrong in the worst possible way? I can see from the thoughts that pass through my mind that it does not come readily, or naturally, this love. It is something entirely foreign to the way I’m used to acting.  I have to choose to break the normal pattern of the way I do things, and to respond in the specific way that Christ in my (the hope of glory) would choose to respond.

What does the Christ in me want to do in response to this pain?

How does the Christ in me wish for me to treat this person, who has done these things to me?

It’s not something that I need to study the Bible or ask a minister in order to figure out. It’s just as built-in now as the old, habitual brokenness is…it’s just built into my spirit. I am used to thinking and acting based on flesh, and based on my soul (she is such a selfish, broken girl, this soul of mine…I must choose to soak in the presence of God, and to let her heal.)

But yes, this love is built-in, now. It’s a part of me. It’s the deepest truth about the man I was made to be, and I have the power to be that man now. I need to choose what is right, and what is good, and I need to let those bad things go. It’s so hard sometimes. Jesus, please help me.

Nothing throws me off like switching gears back to works mode, and trying to get into a room that I’m already in. It can spin me out for weeks, if I let it. There is something about relying on our own sufficiency that seems to be very alluring to us, as humans, even though it is an utterly hopeless place to be in.

“I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.” ~ Galatians 2:21

There is literally nothing that any of us can do, or that we ever could have done — ever, under any circumstances whatsoever — to make us right with God. The natural rift created by sin was something that human beings simply did not have the power to undo. I use past tense here, because those days are over. Because of what Jesus Christ did for you and me, we all have free access to the throne of God, to ask for help whenever we need it.

Because of this, spending time with God is something that we can do immediately, and it can happen whenever we want. The sense that our prayers are not heard, that we must struggle to convince Him to listen, is based on a faulty consciousness of a situation that is simply not based in reality anymore. All separation was completely done away with by what Jesus has already done. Nothing more could ever be added to the atoning work of Calvary, and nothing can ever be taken away from it. Not really.

We can become convinced that this is not true, though…and the faith of a human being is a powerful thing, whether it’s in the right thing or not. This is the devil’s only real power: to convince us that God is against us. If he can do that, then he’s got you. Ugh. He’s such a jerk. Don’t let him do it! Do not put more faith in your sin than you do in God’s grace. Remember that you came to Jesus by grace alone, and only grace can keep you. If there is ever to be any hope of full deliverance from everything that does not line up with the Word of God, then it is only in His grace. Know that.

 

Today I choose to walk by faith, and not by sight. I will continue to abide, to be like the tree planted by the rivers of water…I turn my attention to the rivers of water that are flowing out of my very own being, and I choose to be aware of these things to the exclusion of external circumstances which would appear to tell a different story.

Pain and confusion will pass away. They are the harvest of the seeds sown in the ignorance of yesteryear, but today (while it is called today) I will sow new seeds. I speak the Word of God over every situation, and I will choose to cease from all other striving, and to be still, and to know with every fiber of my being that He is God, and that I am not. I am His temple. I am the earthen vessel into which He has poured the treasure of His Spirit, and I will have respect to these articles of truth. I refuse the lies of the enemy, always too far to one side or the other, either that I am worthless and cannot expect help from God, or that I basically am God, and that God will side with me in unrighteousness if I so choose — all of this is a part of the strong delusion that is coming upon those who would not receive a love of the truth…

…But I reject every bit of it. I reject all lies. I cast aside that invitation I was given to the great falling away party, and instead I take up the eternal, all-encompassing invitation of Jesus to trust in Him, and to abide in Him, and to come away with Him into the secret place, where there is no time, and there is only this Love that has captured my heart, this Agape which God describes as being so united with who He is that it is synonymous with His identity itself…He is Love, and that is forever true.

To all of this I hold on for dear life, though the storms threaten to tear me down and make me into nothing…I say here and now that they will wash away only the sand that I foolishly built my house on (for the house itself has long been destroyed) and strip my land of the rocks and thorns which ruin the soil, and everything which is not found in Him, until all that is left after their merciless ravages is the pure and simple Rock of Ages, the spiritual Rock that is Christ, the only true foundation of my new identity, the person God made me to be…and upon this Rock I will begin to build again. And this new house, when the storms of this world come, though it be battered and assailed from every side by the fury of the elements, will not be shaken, and will not be destroyed.

I shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water again, and this time the entire work will be one hundred percent tried and tested, measured and found to be in accordance with all of the very best that Love has to offer. The day is arriving, the night is long spent, and I arise now into my true self to see and behold that the best is truly yet to come.

I am driven further and further into this rest by the wind and the waves. The storms of this life, meant to destroy me, only serve to accelerate my pursuit of the One who saves from destruction. This is what I choose. I resist the accuser. I defy him through the strength of the One who lives in me (who is greater, and in whose authority I exist.)

The sand of personal delusion, the unstable sediment upon which my house was formerly built, has been washed away now by the force of these storms. All that remains is the Rock, the solid foundation and basis of it all, and upon this I have now begun to rebuild anew. I am thankful for the opportunity to do so! Those storms could have carried me off to death, but they were not allowed to do so. My life was not suffered to be affected. Only everything else. So the pain has been immense, but I am alive.

I ran from God. I was ashamed of Him. I denied Him many times. But still he remained. He never left me. He never forsook me. He stayed with me.

How many times, back when things were so rough, back when I was out there blowing around in the wind…how many times did I hear Him calling to me to return? I hardened my heart a little more every time. I could have died out there.

God, why have You continued to bring me into this place of blessing, despite the gigantic amount of stubborn dumbness and arrogance I’ve demonstrated time and again? You never let me go. He never let go.

Bring me more and more into your plan. Mold my life. Change everything. Change it all. I only ask that You keep me in Your perfect peace. Give me the grace to keep my mind stayed on Thee. Also, teach me how to access this grace. Train me in its use, and do so in ways which comfort and help me. Do not suffer me to be moved. Only then will I be able to really live this life You’re calling me to.

I don’t need to worry about the things I can’t control.

I need to confine my attention to the here and now, and I need to not let my heart be troubled or afraid.

Why is focusing on Jesus so difficult? Why do the cares and concerns of this world so easily encroach upon my peace of mind?

I hear God calling to me, “Come away with me. Come and rest in my presence.”

All of the little things that distract and consume…all of these things must be managed properly. First things must come first.

Today as I start my day I thank you, God, for never leaving me or forsaking me, despite my best efforts to return to the false safety of what I once believed would bring me comfort. You tend to my every need. You breathe pure peace into my soul. I know, in the deepest possible sense, that only in You is there comfort which is true and lasting.

Thank You for this.

Keep my mind stayed on you today. Keep me in that perfect peace. I cannot do this, God; my most valiant efforts will result in ruin and despair unless you fuel them with your perfect Self, the very substance which permeates the everything of this world. It is even in You that we live and move and have our being. Help me to see this and know this as clearly as I may during the time of this present darkness.

Focusing on the emotional realm, and on my circumstances, has led me into a corner again. It’s locked me in a room. It’s buried me alive.

Praise the Lord, oh my soul! When I cannot see a way out anymore, when the darkness seems like it’s too much for me…I will return to the place of praising You, God, because…like…at the very core of everything that is…is the pure and simple fact of how awesome You are.

Darkness and evil in the world are the progressive results of sentient moral agency choosing differently from what you had planned. We’ve taken the universe and gone all the way against the manufacturer’s instructions, and in this particular case the damage is so great that there is so way for us to un-wreck it. That is why You did what You did in sending Jesus to do what He did, and while I can’t even begin to understand the full scope of this whole situation on an intellectual level, my spirit understands enough about it to know that You have un-wrecked that which concerneth me, and that you will continue to perfect it as time goes on, and as I focus on You.

Do not forsake the works of Your hands!

I make this plea out of my unperfected self, out of the parts of me which still operate in fear, having not been made perfect through saturation in Your love.

When I forget how good You are, I cry out in pain…and I know that you want me to be free of this pain. Show me the way, and give me the strength to follow through. Give me the wisdom to follow You perfectly. Give me the peace that you promised would overtake me as I refuse to be anxious and to worry, and choose to instead bring my troubles to You.

I cast them on You because you command me to do so, and I choose to believe that You care for me in the deepest possible sense.

I worship You. I lay aside all of the other things that I normally worship, whether knowingly or out of pure instinct…

I lay aside my obsession with being loved and accepted by other people…

I lay aside my infatuation with material things…

I lay down the restless pieces of myself that gravitate toward entertainment in all of its forms…

I renounce all impure sexual motivations and ideas, and I fully repent for having played God with something so sacred, something which I’ve never even fully understood properly…

You love that I have these desires, and You understand that they are yet to be fully formed in my soul. You understand where I am at in the journey, and You have compassion on me. You only desire my health and my benefit, and none of your thoughts toward me are for evil.

You lead me on the path that You have chosen in Your awesome wisdom, and You fill me with peace and contentment as I choose to trust, even though it feels super scary sometimes.

You are the best, God. Help me to always remember that You are the best.

“Be still and know that I am God.” ~ Psalm 46:10

“When your heart gets restless, turn to worship. When the interior atmosphere settles, return to listening.” ~ Graham Cooke

“Blog” has become a household word in recent decades. It was originally an abbreviation for web log, which is more or less what a blog really is; a log that has been published on the Internet.

Not the Ren and Stimpy kind of log, mind you, but the kind of log that Captain Picard would record his voice notes in. So, basically a diary, except it doesn’t sound very masculine for the captain of a Federation starship to say “Dear diary” so he says “Captain’s log” instead, which makes it a log, and not anything else. (Certainly not a diary.)

Breathing Jesus is intended to be a log of what it looks like for a person to deliberately engage in life on Earth as a human being who has chosen to embark upon the adventure of becoming friends with the God who made them.

It is unavoidably necessary that we must spend a lot of time with someone if we desire to know them well. It is no different with God. This was made very difficult for me by the fact that God is an invisible deity Whose very existence my propensity for analytical thought has led me often to question, and whose primary mode of indelible communicative effort is represented in a collection of ancient writings (the Bible) put together by human beings — a comcept with which this selfsame propensity has caused me severe internal wrestling.

These difficulties have been intensified in that I have also struggled all my life with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. It is a condition that is perhaps over-diagnosed, and trivialized in popular culture, but I can assure you it is a real problem. It’s like scouring a book with a highlighting marker, intending to mark only the important bits, but somehow being made (by some terribly annoying force) to involuntarily highlighting the whole entire thing. The best description of ADHD I ever read likened the condition to existing perpetually “in a soft rain of Post-It notes,” trying to decide which things are important, and which things should have more attention paid to them, but being unable to do so because of the fact that everything seems to have been already marked as important.

For me, writing things down has become the tool that I use to focus my prayers when my thoughts are too scattered (which is basically always, it seems.) I’ve been keeping prayer journals on paper, in Microsoft Word, and on Google Docs for some time now, and I wanted to create a blog that I could use to do this publicly from time to time, because…well, because I felt like it would be cool.

Now, as I write this, I bring these problems to You, Jesus, as they are simply way too much for me to be able to overcome on my own. These are facets of my own self, which is all that I have every really known…but you know my self better than even I do, Jesus. You are the one who thought me up.

I am thankful and happy that You made me to be intelligent, and to instinctively seek answers and explanations, and I desire that greater faith and deeper trust in You would operate firmly and effectively alongside these traits, and not in spite of them.

I choose to praise You here and now, because You are good.

I feel like the concept that God is good has become so ingrained in our speech patterns that it loses its actual meaning, almost. Like when you say a word over and over so many times that your brain loses track of its actual meaning, and starts hearing only the sounds themselves.

You are good, though, and you are so good. Like, in the way when someone pauses and says, “Wow…man, that’s good.” (Except, like, times a billion. Basically.)

You are good even when there are problems. You are good even when these problems cause me pain. Your goodness remains a constant factor in the equation, no matter what forces happen to be working overtime to bring ruin and decay. Help me to have the right perspective about this stuff. Help me to not give voice to the enemy and the accuser, but to instead give voice to Your Spirit, the artistic medium through which all of this goodness has been expressed throughout time. Help me to — as much as possible — see things as they truly are, and not through the lens of my prejudices…

And so on.