In my previous post I wrote that the means for our coming to
healing and wholeness is to confront the reservoir of our past pain, and
especially our Father Wound; and then choose to forgive those who have wounded
us. This releases us to embrace the reality of our True Self. We are enabled to
do this only to the extent that we have experienced the unconditional love of
our Father for us. We can only love to the degree that we have received the
love of our True Father. We freely pass on what we have freely received. In
effect the love of God is being recycled- nothing of it should be lost.
In a previous post it
was mentioned that we have naïve access to our True Self in early childhood before
we develop consciousness. In a sense it is like being in the garden in a
similar way in which Adam and Eve were. However, at this time we find ourselves
in a social situation that we did not choose to be born into. We are forced to
deal with the reality we find ourselves in. That experience can vary from being
good or bad; or a combination of both. Through the course of our life we have
to confront the wounds that we experience during this time and those that
follow on afterwards. The key point is that at this time we had no real choice,
other than our response to the situation we found ourselves in. As has been
shown, when we develop consciousness we leave that garden experience and become
gradually alienated from our True Self.
Our True Father loves us into being when we are born and wants
us to return the love he has for us. We have been created for relationship with
God and our Father wants us to freely choose to love him back. Because at that
stage in early childhood we do not as yet have consciousness our True Self lacks
the ability to consciously choose to return our Father’s love for us. Our
ultimate end when we access our True Self in the second half of life is to
consciously choose to return our Father’s love in an unconditional way; in the
same way that his love for us is unconditional. As we move into this space in a
sense we return to the garden reality that we have been created to experience. In
this process we reclaim the reality of Eden. We come full circle; and the
effects of the fall from grace are reversed. It is a movement into consciously choosing
to live in union with both God and our True Self. As we do this we reclaim our
mandate and God-given purpose of manifesting the image of God that we are in a
tangible way. This is a graced state of being in the world.
As has been mentioned this state of being is characterized
by ‘descent’. It necessitates letting go of our previous autonomy, self-determination, power and control. It requires surrendering to the power and control of the
indwelling Holy Spirit. There is a movement towards embracing and being
comfortable with powerlessness. At the same time there is identification with
the Apostle Paul when he said: “When I am weak, then I am strong!” Spiritual
reality is always about mystery and paradox. To the degree we surrender our
power and control to the Lord, it enables the Holy Spirit to empower and direct
us. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is then able to work in and
through us in ways that we can never even conceive of.
Our call is to live as a co-worker with Jesus. He told his
disciples before he ascended to his Father that they must continue the work
that he began; and that he modelled for them. He said that after he left them
he would send the Holy Spirit to enable them to do this. He said that they
would do the same works that he did and even greater works. I believe that in
his incarnated body he was bound by time and space. His many followers would
have a multiplying effect of exponentially increasing his ministry. They were
to be co-workers with him- and be his hands, feet and heart in the world. We
too are called to carry on his ministry today as co-workers with him. This
becomes more likely and possible as we let go of our False self and embrace our
True Self. As we do this we let go of our own agendas; and stop trying to make
ourselves look good. It is ultimately not about us. We need to surrender our small
agenda to the ‘Big Agenda’. A significant part of embracing our True Self is
moving towards discovering our unique individual purpose, and how it fits in
with the ‘Big Purpose’.
I believe that our True Self is the place from where our
true giftedness flows. Our enemy knows this and that is why he uses our earthly
father to wound us here. He wants to prevent us from exercising our true
giftedness. We can never express the fullness of our giftedness as long as we
are trapped in the reality of our False Self. The gifts that we hold onto in
the first half of life; and believe express who we are; are not our true gifts.
They are a pale shadow of that which is hidden deep within us. The death of our
False Self is excruciating; but it leads to the resurrection reality of
revealing the wonder of our hidden giftedness. This is our true glory. This is
an experience of what Jesus came to reveal to us- fullness of life. As we
reveal our true glory we reveal the glory of God. One of my all-time favourite
quotes came from Irenaeus, writing at the end of the 2nd C:
“The glory of
God is people fully alive!”
Questions for reflection:
*Have you experienced the reality of reclaiming Eden?
* Have you discovered and embraced your true giftedness?
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