There is this insane idea that if you are remaining in Christ you won't be sad, depressed, or frustrated. Here's the thing, when you are remaining in Christ, there are times when you may share in His emotions. There are times when He gets angry. There are times when He gets frustrated. There are times when He gets sad.
A good case in point is the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus began to sweat blood. This is a condition known as Hematidrosis which occurs under extreme stress. Know what causes extreme stress? Fear. Did this mean that Jesus wasn't trusting the Father? No. He still went to the cross. But His perfectly human fear response was working just as it was intended, and it was a perfectly reasonable thing to be extremely afraid of going through. He did it anyway because of His surrender to the Father working through Him.
Surrendering to Him doesn't mean the biological responses stop working, or that you won't ever have those fight/flight/feeding/sexual responses ever again. It doesn't mean that you will be floating on a cloud of rapturous joy 24hrs a day either. Look at Mother Theresa and the letters she wrote to her confessor about how there were times she felt as if God had abandoned her, and yet she said that she did what she did because she saw Christ in those she was moved to help.
It's not about how you feel about it. It's never been about how you feel about it,or even being happy all the time. Most of those Saints we remember suffered immensely. Is it realistic to think that they never got depressed, or went to some very dark places? If Jesus could get so stressed out that He sweat blood because He was afraid of what was coming, if He could cry out on the cross, "My God, My God, why have you abandoned Me?" Should we who are joined to Jesus Christ expect any less?
If we are sharing His life with Him, if we are surrendering ourselves to Him, then we too will go through this. It's not abnormal, it's not a lack of faith otherwise Jesus Himself could be accused of having a lack of faith, and it's not an aberration. It's perfectly normal. Feeling the fear is normal. Feeling like you've been thrown into a lightless pit is normal.
Where the rubber meets the road is when you feel the fear, when you sweat blood over it, but you still surrender to Him and get up and move in the direction He's taking you, even if it means your further torture and death. Your biology won't want to go there and will start reacting. It's okay. It's normal. Don't feel guilty about it. Just surrender to Him and keep going, ask Him to do it through you just like He did before. It doesn't mean you're going to feel it any less, but it does mean you're legs will start moving and you'll keep going in the right direction.
A good case in point is the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus began to sweat blood. This is a condition known as Hematidrosis which occurs under extreme stress. Know what causes extreme stress? Fear. Did this mean that Jesus wasn't trusting the Father? No. He still went to the cross. But His perfectly human fear response was working just as it was intended, and it was a perfectly reasonable thing to be extremely afraid of going through. He did it anyway because of His surrender to the Father working through Him.
Surrendering to Him doesn't mean the biological responses stop working, or that you won't ever have those fight/flight/feeding/sexual responses ever again. It doesn't mean that you will be floating on a cloud of rapturous joy 24hrs a day either. Look at Mother Theresa and the letters she wrote to her confessor about how there were times she felt as if God had abandoned her, and yet she said that she did what she did because she saw Christ in those she was moved to help.
It's not about how you feel about it. It's never been about how you feel about it,or even being happy all the time. Most of those Saints we remember suffered immensely. Is it realistic to think that they never got depressed, or went to some very dark places? If Jesus could get so stressed out that He sweat blood because He was afraid of what was coming, if He could cry out on the cross, "My God, My God, why have you abandoned Me?" Should we who are joined to Jesus Christ expect any less?
If we are sharing His life with Him, if we are surrendering ourselves to Him, then we too will go through this. It's not abnormal, it's not a lack of faith otherwise Jesus Himself could be accused of having a lack of faith, and it's not an aberration. It's perfectly normal. Feeling the fear is normal. Feeling like you've been thrown into a lightless pit is normal.
Where the rubber meets the road is when you feel the fear, when you sweat blood over it, but you still surrender to Him and get up and move in the direction He's taking you, even if it means your further torture and death. Your biology won't want to go there and will start reacting. It's okay. It's normal. Don't feel guilty about it. Just surrender to Him and keep going, ask Him to do it through you just like He did before. It doesn't mean you're going to feel it any less, but it does mean you're legs will start moving and you'll keep going in the right direction.
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