February 1, 2011 at 8:21 am, by Carl

2010 was such a hard year.  Was it for you?  I don’t mean the economic stuff, though that didn’t help.  Perhaps it was just my life and my choices about some things, but by the time the fall came, I was barely holding on.  It was very tough, but I made it.


Now, sitting in early 2011, I am looking back in reflection.  The hard stuff of my life has actually just been a current state of being, though I know 2010 was the hardest year to date.  Perhaps God is just getting me ready, much like a trainer keeps adding weights to the reps to better prepare the athlete for the contest to come.  In any case, I was taken back to 2008 and a time with one of my best mentors, Sandy.


At the time, I was dealing with some very deep thoughts and issues.  As we talked, I poured out my heart and my sense of frustration with how my life was unfolding.


As he listened, he leaned forward to speak truth to me.  He said, “I can tell you are disillusioned.  Good.”


Good?  Really?  You think?  That idea really caught be off-guard.  I wanted some sympathy, maybe some ideas for fixing what I thought was wrong, not a comment that basically implied I was in a good spot.


He went on though to really shed some light.  As he spoke, Sandy took the word to its root idea—to come to the end of illusions.  Sandy’s thoughts on the matter were piercing.  He said that to be dispossessed from our illusions of what life should be like was to finally be in a place where real life could happen.


As a Christian, he reminded me, we trust in following God deeply, wherever He may lead.  If we hold onto illusions of what that path may be or where it is “supposed” to go, we are constantly then at war with God about the definitions.  To be, finally, disillusioned would be to move to a place where God could openly define life for me.


Or for you.


I know that many of you are not Christians (and I may have lost readers by being so open about my faith),  so you may wonder why this all matters.  I mean, aren’t we often told that we need to follow our dreams?  Don’t I write about that idea too?


Yes.  And there is a tension in life about that.  We are to have dreams.  We are to work to follow them.  Yet, we should learn to hold onto to them lightly with the realization that life may take us on twists and turns.  In my world, those challenges to our dreams come from God operating to move His plan for us.


The Apostle Paul speaks to this in his letter, his e-mail if you will, to the church in Ephesus.  At the end of the first half of the letter, before he moves on to more functional aspects of how the church is supposed to live and operate, he prays for the people.


Eph 3:14-21   For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.


Did you catch that last part?  Kind of moves past quickly, but note what Paul states—“ Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.”  WOW!!  I don’t know about you, but I can imagine a lot.  But note, its not saying “whatever you can imagine, I’ll give you that 100x more.”  No, it’s saying that God has plans for you BEYOND what we can even ask for, beyond what we can imagine.


At times when it feels so dark, that you can’t really move forward, that things have turned sour in a way that depresses you, remember the truth of Sandy’s words to me.


“I can tell you are disillusioned.  Good.”


Now you find yourself at the point where you can really find truth and love in the reality that He provides.  Or, as the mystic leader (Nick Nolte’s character in the movie Peaceful Warrior) states, “A warrior does not give up what he loves; he finds the love in what he does.”


Welcome the pain and disillusionment.  Now look for, and live in, the reality that He provides