Can I Vent

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on April 14, 2013 at 7:34pm

I have been here long enough to know that when I ventured to speak in discussions that touch on delicate issues, comments will be misunderstood; people will be hurt at times, for what they perceive is being said etc... Yet I am ok with all of that, I am never ok with hurting people, but with the fact that comments will be misunderstood and taken out of context. 

 

I would like to conclude my participation in this discussion with the following:

 

Be encouraged family, be of Good cheer beloved. With God all things are possible. ALL our reactions and responses can change in Christ, to reactions and responses that bring him Glory.

 

It is not how I handle a situation or you handle the situation that is important here, or my focus of discussion. Is not how you interpret a verse or I interpret a verse? It’s about, what is that verse saying according to the authors’ intend? In turn, how should the people of God respond in the midst of trials and tribulations according to scripture?  How should we deal with grief, pain and hurt? No different than the world or a lot different? That is my focus here. That is what I am calling attentions to here? We should all move on to maturity, in all matters of our lives.

 

Let us enter the rest. No, don’t hide the pain, don't mask it, don't ignore it, deal with it, not according to David or anyones elses' ways, ACCORDING TO THE LIVING AND HOLY WORD OF GOD.  

 

We can shine in a world with a humongous need of mature Christians, Christians who are not easily broken. Who can take a punch or two and respond with a blessing, by turning the cheek. All things are possible in Christ; those are not fairy tales we are reading. God’s people around the world, from all back grounds and from every emotional makeup, once in Christ are able to align their responses to loss, pain, violence, criticism, success etc… to the word.  

 

It is through our weaknesses that God is strong in us and through us.

 

There is victory in Jesus.

 

And now the weak say I have strength
By the spirit of power that raised Christ from the dead
And now the poor stand and confess
That my portion is you and I'm more than blessed

Let now our hearts burn with a flame
A fire consuming all for your Son's holy name
And with the heavens we declare
You are our king

Chorus
We love you Lord, we worship you
You are our God, you alone are good

You asked your Son to carry this
The heavy cross our weight of sin

I love you Lord, I worship you
Hope which was lost, now stands renewed
I give my life to honor this
The love of Christ, the savior king

Verse 2
Let now your church shine as the bride
That you soar in your heart as you 

 

 

 

I love the fact that God changes us, He changes everything. No area of our lives is left untouch by our holy and beautiful Lord.

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Permalink Reply by Amanda on April 15, 2013 at 7:28am

David,

Can we at least agree that God is glorified through both weeping and through rejoicing?

10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with cymbals, took their places to praise the Lord, as prescribed by David king of Israel. 11 With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord:
“He is good;
his love toward Israel endures forever.”
And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. 12 But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. 13 No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away. (Ezra 3, NIV)

And can we agree that weeping can turn into rejoicing and God is glorified?

9 Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and teacher of the Law, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, “This day is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.
10 Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8, NIV)

And can we agree that Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, not just on the day He died?

Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53, NIV)

And can we agree that sometimes there is only weeping and no rejoicing?

"A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more." (Matthew 2:18, NIV)

Was God not glorified by the fulfillment of that prophecy?

This is what the LORD says: "A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."
(Jeremiah 31:15, NIV)

All through the Scriptures I see people responding to God personally and individually, not just corporately. They respond from their hearts. Does that not glorify God?

“In his distress he sought the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors. 13And when he prayed to him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God.” (2 Chronicles 33, NIV).

In another comment I said everyone asks everyone else to go against their natural inclinations and try to change their personality so that all will experience losses the same way. You responded that “We have the capacity in Christ to change our natural inclinations to align to Godly responses not just in how we experience loss, but in all things.” But by natural inclinations I wasn’t referring to the sin nature in us. The sin nature in us is unnatural -- we were born with it but God didn’t create man and woman with it. God created them innocent and they fell. The fall has interfered with our natural inclinations and yet the image of God is still within us although greatly marred. In Romans 1 we read how natural inclinations can be changed. It says, “Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

Grief is a natural response to loss. If we don’t follow the natural inclination to grieve, we will suffer a penalty from that as well, such as, “Inability to trust others, Emotional numbness or detachment from others, A sense that life is now meaningless, Belief that the future won't be fulfilling, Agitation or jumpiness, Social withdrawal.” http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/complicated-grief/DS01023/DSECTION...

Any loss brings sorrow to us. God has created us with many emotions. We label them as negative and positive but it’s probably wrong to do so. Feelings are just feelings and we feel them. They aren’t right or wrong but our actions indeed are either right or wrong. People often do allow their feelings to control their actions and that’s where we err. I agree 100% with this. But mourning is a godly action and a right response to grief.

The message we always hear is that we’re supposed to quickly pick up our lives and move on and when some of us find that we can’t do that, we feel inadequate and wrong and guilty and ashamed and even crazy. The message is that it’s wrong to feel grief and wrong to show grief. We show grief through mourning and that consists of talking about what happened, crying, expressing feelings, accepting help, asking for help, finding ways of coping, and other things. If we don’t do these things when we first experience a loss, then you get into a place where I am and I wonder if I will ever come back from it.

So, I hope you will understand where I’m coming from and why I don’t want to see others making the same mistakes. Am I where I'm at through my own fault and because I have sinned. I don't know if not allowing myself to grieve in my life is sin. I know it almost killed me and I still feel like life is futile most days.

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Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on April 15, 2013 at 10:26am

Amanda,

 

>>Can we at least agree that God is glorified through both weeping and through rejoicing?

 

We are in agreement. :)

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Permalink Reply by Tammy on April 15, 2013 at 9:23am

Brother David, maybe I misunderstood all of your comments. The last thing I want to say - and I wasn't going to say anything else here - is, I'm not trying to tell you how you should react in certain situations. Everyone is different. But please, never go so far as to call someone immature or not as mature as yourself because they do react differently. Love u

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Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on April 15, 2013 at 10:25am

Tammy,

 

One of the most amazing things about our Lord is His power to create diversity among his creation. We as part of that creation enjoy among our fellow humans a great diversity in all aspects of our humanity.

 

We should all strive to react to the trials and tribulations of this life in a manner pleasing to our Lord, according to his word.

Love you too

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Permalink Reply by Tammy on April 15, 2013 at 10:33am

Yes we should & follow the example of our Savior.

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Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on April 14, 2013 at 10:33pm

These songs expresses well what my heart longs to convey:

 

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Permalink Reply by ribbon on April 14, 2013 at 10:39pm

youre saying no matter  what life hits you with.... you will STILL give God honor and praise? That's a good ting dv..... Others will most likely agree that they do too. I remember there was a time I praised god with the love yall have. I don't know how anymore. What am I doing wrong?

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Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on April 15, 2013 at 12:22am

Janie,

 

I will start with general list of things that help us with the "how" in your question. This is just a general list, I am not saying that you personally have issues with some of the things I listed here. We must give everything over to God.

 

We must die to ourselves and to this life.

 

Our life no longer is about material things, nothing wrong with having material things, but they should not have us, they should not have our love and they should not be our goal.

 

Having a life without problems, trials and tribulation should not be our goal, but to be able to bring God glory through the trials and tribulations should be our goal.

 

Our life is no longer to gratify the flesh, we die to it, and we long to walk in and by the Spirit. We make it our goal to learn what it is to walk by faith and not sight. To walk in the Spirit. What is it to walk in the Spirit?

 

Our family is not ours, it's the Lord's, we understand that we are to edify them and God is free to do with their souls whatever He wishes and we will be fine with whatever time He blesses us to have with them.

 

We die to this life and death looses its sting.

 

We live believing the word of God. We believe it by applying it to our life.

 

Our jobs/careers are not primary in our lives. The Glory of God is primary, because we die to this world.

 

We must immerse our lives in God.

 

Relationship, romantic ones or family ones are not our Goal; bringing him glory through whatever is happening in those relationships is our goal.

 

We know that the trials of this age are not worthy to be compared with what is to come. What is to come start on the day we are born again, we can enjoy heavenly benefits now, here while on this earth.

 

We must fellowship with the saints, we must grow through all the trials that fellowshipping with imperfect people bring and we must rejoice through all the blessings that come through fellowship.

 

We must surround our lives with Godly programs, music, friends, everything that we think about must be lovely and God honoring. We must meditate in the word.

 

The time we spend in front of our TV’s watching the world must be something we diminish drastically as we spend more time renewing our minds through all the avenues God has provided.

 

We must eat the bread of life or we run on fumes, on empty tanks - with no fuel. No fire to warm anyone with.  

 

We must enjoy corporate and individual worship.

 

We must ask God to give us the desire and the actual doing of dying to self and this world.

 

We must surround ourselves with God and surrender all the areas of our life to his LORDSHIP.  

 

It is also very helpful to listen to mature teachers of the word of God. Not the name it and claim it type. But the ones that understand that God can heal any sickness, but sometimes the cure that He gives us is not the healing of the sickness, but the healing of a soul, heart and mind that no longer complain, but   rejoices even in the sicknesses for is an oportunity to bring God Glory.

 

Ask God to teach you to love him all-over- again.

 

God, my Lord, restore in Janie the joy of your salvation. Give her hunger for your word, whether it be the written word, visual or audio, help her take advantage of all those avenues to get your word in her heart once again. By your Spirit help her pray not for our will, but for your will to be done.  Teach her what your will for her is, through the eating of your living bread. This I pray, in your Son’s name.

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Permalink Reply by Mary O on April 15, 2013 at 12:35pm

How are you feeling?

Not every one knows how to minister to people who are sick or injured. A Christian friend and I went to the hospital to minister to a sick person. While we were at the hospital, my friend began to sob. The person we prayed for was unconscious and had lines attached to her, and it was awful. I wanted to cry too. I had to pray for the sick person and for my friend. 

As unwelcome as it was, your friend was trying to help you feel better. And maybe she didn't handle herself very well. That can happen. Sometimes we don't know what to say exactly to let others know we care. She did the best that she could.

Maybe you could think about how you wished you had been treated. God may ask you to pray and help someone and you'll know what to do. 

Love,

Mary

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Permalink Reply by Tammy on April 15, 2013 at 3:27pm

Thanks Mary. It was just a moment of frustration & didn't last long. I don't know the person that I was talking to & I guess u could call them an acquaintance. I appreciate everyone's feed back.

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Permalink Reply by Mary O on April 16, 2013 at 6:58am

Hi God bless you!

I had this really bad moment once. I helped watch children at church. The parents were taking turns watching kids. I had three icky diapers in a row and then barfed in a trash can. I was so embarrassed. It's kind of personal when you get sick in public. You feel vulnerable. 

Love, Mary

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