Struggling with Inner Barriers

Mark Dohle

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Struggling with Inner Barriers
A few years ago, my good friend Gail, as she was walking in the woods near where our green cemetery is, found a stone in the form of a heart. It was large covering much of the palm of my hand when held. She wanted me to have it. I have it on my prayer altar in my room. I found it intriguing because it for me, represents my own inner journey to overcome the stoniness of my own heart.

I have found that there are barriers that have been set up in my soul that I can’t climb over. So over the years, as these barriers become ever more apparent, so does the inner pain of seeing how imprisoned I still am by inner forces that still have a grip on me. While I do have some insight into this inner dilemma, it is not some sort of key that can unlock this issue.

Many people live from their hearts. They experience deep warmth when they pray to God, and it shows in how they relate to others. That is not the case for me. In spite of my desires, there seems to be an inner war within my soul that I have to endure, offer up, and just be patient with.

For me, as I age, there is a wound that has slowly healed over the years, yet it still lingers. Sometimes it seems to be a weight that I can feel, at others a ‘sort’ of pain that will sometimes become less when I pray. This lack of ability to love God does not frustrate me anymore as it did when I was young, but I long for the freedom that will one day be mine. Perhaps only at death will God be able to accomplish the final healing for me. I have been waiting for almost 73 years, so what is the few years I have left are not that long of a wait.

The Lord during my life has touched me more than once, in such a way that I did actually experience a deep sense of peace and love, and yes warmth, that has kept me on the path. It was a grace, a foretaste, and I have to wait, pray, and just be in the Lord's presence until that state becomes permanent.

I believe that each of us is ‘everyman’. By that, I mean that we all have more or less the same spiritual struggles, but experienced in different ways according to the wounds we have experienced when very young. This inner longing for union with God is universal, though it may manifest in ways that work against actually achieving this often unconscious desire. Yet grace is always at work, and in this is my hope.

I am not sure what or where I live from anymore, but my trust in God’s love for me is growing, and that is enough for me. Struggle, pain, frustration are part of life, just as much as joy, love, and communion are as well. Though I am getting weary, well having a 73-year-old body can do that I guess. The ’70s are turning out to be very interesting. Never a dull moment. The learning to let go seems to be more and more important for me, what else can I do? I still do not regret getting older, even if everything hurts on some days, and when I kneel down, not sure I will be able to get up. So far so good. Though I do not kneel that much anymore.|

I am happy, content, even with the above frustrations because my hope is in God’s love for me, not so much my love for God. We are all carried by the Lord, we are children before God’s eyes, after all, even if I can be very immature, grace is at work.-Br.MD
 

com7fy8

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Your title says "Inner Barriers" > and the first thing I think of is where our Apostle Paul says >

"You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections." (2 Corinthians 6:12)

Let me see what the Greek manuscript might say, for "affections". Possibly, the Bible Greek word means "intestines" > possibly, meaning my character which can effect what my affections are.

My own character, I have learned, has a lot to do with if I am able to stay submissive to how God guides my attention, for one thing.

And can I be submissive to how our Father guides us in His peace? >

"And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful." (Colossians 3:15)

I now understand that submission to God in this peace is not only an action of my free will which is human. But we need how God makes our character submissive so we can obey how He personally rules us in this peace.

So, I need character correction, then. And only God can do this.
 
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aiki

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Struggling with Inner Barriers
A few years ago, my good friend Gail, as she was walking in the woods near where our green cemetery is, found a stone in the form of a heart. It was large covering much of the palm of my hand when held. She wanted me to have it. I have it on my prayer altar in my room. I found it intriguing because it for me, represents my own inner journey to overcome the stoniness of my own heart.

I have found that there are barriers that have been set up in my soul that I can’t climb over. So over the years, as these barriers become ever more apparent, so does the inner pain of seeing how imprisoned I still am by inner forces that still have a grip on me. While I do have some insight into this inner dilemma, it is not some sort of key that can unlock this issue.

Many people live from their hearts. They experience deep warmth when they pray to God, and it shows in how they relate to others. That is not the case for me. In spite of my desires, there seems to be an inner war within my soul that I have to endure, offer up, and just be patient with.

For me, as I age, there is a wound that has slowly healed over the years, yet it still lingers. Sometimes it seems to be a weight that I can feel, at others a ‘sort’ of pain that will sometimes become less when I pray. This lack of ability to love God does not frustrate me anymore as it did when I was young, but I long for the freedom that will one day be mine. Perhaps only at death will God be able to accomplish the final healing for me. I have been waiting for almost 73 years, so what is the few years I have left are not that long of a wait.

The Lord during my life has touched me more than once, in such a way that I did actually experience a deep sense of peace and love, and yes warmth, that has kept me on the path. It was a grace, a foretaste, and I have to wait, pray, and just be in the Lord's presence until that state becomes permanent.

I believe that each of us is ‘everyman’. By that, I mean that we all have more or less the same spiritual struggles, but experienced in different ways according to the wounds we have experienced when very young. This inner longing for union with God is universal, though it may manifest in ways that work against actually achieving this often unconscious desire. Yet grace is always at work, and in this is my hope.

I am not sure what or where I live from anymore, but my trust in God’s love for me is growing, and that is enough for me. Struggle, pain, frustration are part of life, just as much as joy, love, and communion are as well. Though I am getting weary, well having a 73-year-old body can do that I guess. The ’70s are turning out to be very interesting. Never a dull moment. The learning to let go seems to be more and more important for me, what else can I do? I still do not regret getting older, even if everything hurts on some days, and when I kneel down, not sure I will be able to get up. So far so good. Though I do not kneel that much anymore.|

I am happy, content, even with the above frustrations because my hope is in God’s love for me, not so much my love for God. We are all carried by the Lord, we are children before God’s eyes, after all, even if I can be very immature, grace is at work.-Br.MD

What you wrote here reminds me of an experience I had some time ago now with a young Christian lady who was convinced that if one was not emotionally caught up during a Sunday morning worship service, weeping, ecstatic, swaying, hands raised in praise, well, then it followed that one did not really know God, had not truly experienced Him, and might not even be a born-again child of His. I don't know if she realized how disdainful her attitude toward the less emotional believers was, but it bothered me quite a bit and prompted me to contemplation of what love for God looks like. I pondered the things in my life I claimed to love and the following stood out very sharply:

For just shy of thirty years (until my body broke), I was a martial arts instructor. Over those thirty years I trained almost daily (Sunday excepted - mostly), two or three hours a day (more on Saturday or holidays), forsaking birthday parties, anniversary events, invitations to barbecues, weekend fishing trips, and so on in order to train. Throughout my years of training, I dislocated joints, broke teeth, suffered countless bruises, sprains, and bloody noses. I was hit over and over again with staffs, wooden swords, fists, feet, knees and elbows. I sweated and strained, working as hard as I could to achieve the goals I'd set for myself in training. It cost me much time, energy and money to do so.

Here's the thing, though: I endured all this stuff because I loved the training - more particularly, the skills I obtained from that training. But, you know, I never once shed a tear of emotion about being a martial artist. I never wept for joy at the great pleasure I took in training. Truth be told, sometimes, I could barely drag myself to the dojo - especially in the dead of winter or the heat of summer, knowing I would be the only one who showed up. Instead, I demonstrated my love for martial training, for the skills I had developed in that training, by showing up for training, and doing so day after day, year after year, paying the price over and over again to train.

Now, if someone said to you, "I love you," what would convince you more that this was true?: A few moments each week of tears and some emotionally-overwrought words proclaiming a love for you? Or a day-in, day-out commitment of time, energy and money, given to you often in the midst of pain, great exertion and sacrifice, but without any weeping or emotional proclamations of love? Sometimes, it isn't one or the other, but both; usually, however, the "empty barrel makes the most noise." Those hyper-emotional folk on a Sunday, whipped up into tears, swaying in an "ecstasy of worship" are, in my experience, the same folk whose lives are almost entirely devoid of any indication of a love for God the rest of the week.

Anyway, I think this is the case, in part, because the term "love" has, for many Christians, grown very murky. In the case of the weepy Sunday morning hysteric, "love" means "high emotion," an intense feeling of affection; in the case of the moralistic legalist, "love" means "strict obedience"; in the case of the religious mystic, "love" is beyond comprehension, an unattainable mystery; but in the case of the Psalmist, love is described as "desire":

Psalm 42:1-2
1 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?


Psalm 63:1-3
1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.
3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.


Psalm 84:2
2 My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.


The apostle Paul also indicated that powerful desire motivated his pursuit of Christ:

Philippians 3:7-11
7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.


When I look at my own life, desire is also the core of what I mean by "love." But, this desire is not an emotion, like joy, or fear, or sadness. Desire - in my life, anyway - is a longing for something, a yearning, or hunger, or thirsting for something, that drives - very powerfully, often - a single-minded, persistent pursuit of that thing. Just ask my wife.

Such desire takes me where mere emotion, constantly vacillating as it does, never could; it fuels a long-term commitment and sacrifice that strong emotion simply cannot. This doesn't mean that such desire doesn't ever touch my emotions; it does. At times, very powerfully. But I understand that these emotions are just the by-product of love, of desire, not love itself.

I say all this to encourage you not to feel like you have missed the boat when it comes to loving God. Do you desire God? Does your heart long for Him? Does your soul thirst for Him? If so, whatever emotions you may or may not have, you do love God.
 
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