Perishable Goods

What's goodie peoples?

About a year or so  ago I started a looong decline from the higher parts of the mountain down to the low valley. A strenuous hike it has been! It has gotten more and more intense as the minutes turned into hours, the hours into days, the days to weeks, the weeks to months and now the months to a year. ( Hopefully the year won't turn into years! lol)

But during this time, I have lost A LOT of what I thought I had, a lot of my passion, desire and zealousness (at least how I understood it). I've lost companions, I've lost doctrinal stances/dogmas, I've lost a lot of things but I've also gained some things......

I've gotten past all the religious masks etc down to me... just me... and a lot of the stuff I see is... well, lets just say nasty.

It's safe to say I've been stripped down bare, butt naked..... To the point where ALL I have and ALL I cling to is Jesus and HIS atonement... Nothing more, nothing less.... Faith in Jesus is it!!

Now, one may say this is a GREAT thing! And I believe that to be true, ALTHOUGH it doesn't FEEL so great. It has constantly felt like I have been perishing through this period, like I have been rotting away, being eaten alive from the inside out.

I don't know if any of you have ever felt that way, it's not a good feeling! Lol. I felt as if I was holding on with all I had but one by one my fingers kept loosing grip, and I feared that one day I would just all together lose grip and fall away, until...........

Mark 4:
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side." ³⁶And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. ³⁷And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. ³⁸But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" ³⁹And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. ⁴⁰He said to them, "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" ⁴¹And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"


I always knew Jesus was with me through this, I saw HIS hands all over but HIS presence wasn't as close as it has been before.... I identify with the disciples, I felt (and still do A lot of times) that HE was (is) sleeping, while I was perishing............ But Jesus comforted and encouraged me one day by showing me how he just got up when they woke him and rebuked the winds and great peace came..


HE asked them why were they so afraid.... HE wasn't worried about it, neither should they have been... And that gave me GREAT comfort and hope!! Jesus was carrying me, HE was right there with me, protecting me and with HIM I have nothing to worry about... At any given moment HE can demand all the storms to stop and at the drop of a dime they will!!


Now, HE hasn't done that in my life at this moment, I'm still faced with tons of storms, I still feel a lot of times like I'm perishing, but no longer like I'm loosing grip.... I know that I'm with Christ and HE is carrying me and holding me...


God is Dope!!
Dooch


P.S.
Maybe the perishing is just the pruning that John 15 speaks about....... Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, I guess I may know in hindsight. Until then, I'm clinging to Christ!