Perhaps some of the saddest cases of living in unreality are those associated with Mental Illness.
Psychosis often has people living in a world of paranoia, voices, feelings, all of which are %100 true and real to them, but a sign of unwellness to others.The depressive is lost in a world of darkness needing a reality of light and hope. The Obsessive Compulsive tries to make their world as safe as possible through control.
Then there is a whole other reality that is unseen to we mere mortals. God's reality.
Jesus was full of truth and light. Jesus being fully man and fully divine had the perfect grip on reality.
Jesus embraced the whole picture. Seen and unseen, known and unknown. (Like to Tweet that?)
God's reality is for the most part unseen to us, yet it is part of what we experience unknowingly. The Bible is full of stories of people being awakened to a reality vastly different to their own.
- Job being a pawn on God's chessboard.
- Peter walking on water.
- Saul's meeting with God on the Damascus road.
The Bible records this from Jesus.
The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat. “Be careful,” Jesus warned them. “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.”What do we learn from Jesus?
They discussed this with one another and said, “It is because we have no bread.”
Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”
“Twelve,” they replied.
“And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”
They answered, “Seven.”
He said to them, “Do you still not understand?” Mark 8:14 -21
- Explore the influence of others. Jesus points his followers to two world views dominating their lives. The religious law bound Pharisees, and the powerful and politically driven Herod. He likens their influence to yeast, spreading its impact subtly throughout them. Yeast was often used as symbol of sin. How has the sinful thinking of others slowly permeated your thinking?
- Have a soft heart, open and not closed. Hardened hearts are stubborn, immovable and resistant to the works of God. They will dismiss the miracle because it is just too difficult to accept something outside of the box. Their safe little world cannot be rocked or shook up. A child sits on the lap of a King because a child like heart is open to love. Is your heart open like a child's?
- Remember the times of God's reality breaking through in ways that confound. Jesus points his disciples back to the stories of the miraculous. He sends them to the evidence of another radical reality. Remember, remember remember. It may not have made sense in logical man made fashion but it did happen. What stories are you reminded of?
When our reality gets shaken and all shook up it creates inner tensions, Cognitive Dissonance and struggle. A churning in the brain and a stretching of the heart.
You will be transformed in just the same way that Job, Peter and Paul were.
You will be transformed in just the same way that Job, Peter and Paul were.
Maybe this struggle will last years before it finally becomes inner experience. So to say you believe it, and yet avoid its often inherent unreasonability, contradictions, dilemmas, and tensions, is to not really understand its purpose and message at all. It will have no transformative effect on you. Richard RohrWant to be transformed?
Embrace the contradictions, dilemmas, and tensions. Explore them with a soft heart.
What do you do with the contradictions, dilemmas, and tensions? Leave a comment below?
Barry Pearman
Photo Credit: Horia Varlan via Compfight cc
