IamChar

As can be seen, I am very new to forums and have inadvertantly posted Pastor Ralph's welcome as my reply. My name is Charlyne and I am looking forward to doing my first on-line bible study, ever. I am married to a wonderful guy and have three grown children and four grandchildren. I became a Christian at age twenty-five in 1976 and was fervently seeking God and thirsty for any new knowledge of Him for about one year. My faith 'mellowed'(I was a backslider) after that until approx. 2000 when I desperately sought His face and praise His Holy Name as He answered me abundantly - my desire since than has been to serve Him, to grow in Him and to be obedient to what He asks of me. I live in Canada and we are now waking to frost-covered landscapes every morning - soon to snow-covered. I am also really looking forward to this study. God bless you all! Charlyne

I think the problem is love - one of our most basic and yet most difficult and seemingly illusive needs is to be loved and accepted. The need for love is evident in the pressures placed on us in the marketplace as advertisers have long known that if they can convince us that we will be loved, admired and/or respected 'if we buy their product' they will have a successful campaign; people will throng to the stores to buy xyz in the hopes of finding acceptance and love from their peers, etc. It doesn't work, as we all know and the void remains along with the emptyness and the fear of truly being known - so, we continually reshape ourselves according to the expectations of the world assuming that if we do it 'right', we will finally be able to relax and enjoy the life we have always wanted?! It is an illusion and as we continue down this path our shell becomes thicker, our ability to sidestep or cover serious issues to protect self becomes easier and our false self more evident. How do you share your heart with a group of loving Christians or your best friend when you have spent your life building a false self to protect the 'unworthy you'. We continue to use self-talk, such as 'if people really knew me, they would not like me or reject me or worst scenario, they would tell their friends what a loser I truly am..... the problem here is that we are focussing on self and sadly, a false sense of self - a self that we have formed throughout our life from the finite, secular, often-times hurtful world around us. Even more fundamental is the need to feel safe. If you share something personal about yourself and/or your struggles you risk judgement or rejection and for someone who desires to be loved and feel safe 'in the world', that is unthinkable. What if we decided we were going to be transparent, totally real with our small group or with a friend - how do we take the steps towards that transparency? What are we willing to share or feel safe sharing and still maintain 'face'? Why do we need to maintain an illusion of what we think people want to see? It is because we don't feel safe - we don't believe in our heart that people will still love us if we take off our masks and reveal the struggles we have in life. I think the only way to truly be transparent and fellowship at a deep level is by laying down our life at the alter of our Lord and allowing Him to fill us with His perfect love. We have to be willing to let go of self - willing to take self off the throne and be vulnurable. Prayerfully asking the Lord to release us from our fears, focussing on Him and asking Him to replace our fears with His love, allowing Him to make us transparent through the confessing of sins one to another. He also has a way of reshaping 'self' which is often called the refining fire and it is a path which can take us to intimate places with Him. It can also be very painful and so we truly need to trust the Lord and hold tightly to His hand, knowing that He has plans for our good (Jer:29) Even if we know that transparency is necessary to share deeper fellowship (and we do know that to be true)it is still not an easy, quick process. I think it is a journey and one which some are more comfortable taking than others (depending on how wounded you are and how willing you are to trust Jesus) but what we can know is - it is the journey the Lord desires for us. If we choose to be obedient to Him, transparency and deeper fellowship are key. Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts and thank you, Dr. Wilson for this forum. I am new (this morning) to the forum so I hope I have not abused the forum etiquette by rambling on.