by Jeremiah Dirt "I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back." -Matthew 25:25 I fear I am the unprofitable servant. I fear I am that one who receiveth a talent from the Good Lord and buried it! I fear that I yield no gain to the Master. I look to the other servants, the two who have increased our Lord’s goods by double in their wise investing, and desire to do the very same! I am kindled by the prospect of the Good Lord returning from His journey and saying unto me, “Well done Good and faithful servant!” I would share in His joy and I would be given more responsibility in His kingdom.
But all I know how to do is secretly fear the master. And all I’ve ever done is bury things as if they were dead, killing them in the very act. I fear, not openly, that the Master is a dictator, a fraud, insane, pretended or simply nonexistent. More on the forefront, far more unquieting, I fear that the Master is most reliably authentic, but if I make a mistake with what He has entrusted me, I would disappoint Him. These are the ideas that waiver my faith and if any of them, or a combination of any, were true I would be devastated. I would be shattered indeed! I want God to be so real, so badly, that I harbor extreme fear concerning the possibility that He is not at all, or worse, that He is existing in fact but I bring Him no pleasure. And so I seek command over all things as a subordinate, secondary, Plan B to counter my anxiety. I am obsessed by these concerns and compulsed to act out with self-asserted control. And so the life that God gives me, and says Multiply, I fearfully hide away for myself. Therefore I lie in public but inwardly believe in hoarding, accumulating and amassing things unto myself. I say I believe in freedom but I encapsulate all things. In this way I feel I can subjugate the aspects of my life by controlling the subjects in my life. This makes me feel safe in that I am deluded to think I am secure and free from harm if I become the master of myself, and no one else. And so I magnetize all possession and people to myself in a vain attempt to assure my security by my own vulnerable strength. Control is an illusion and I am the master of nothing. I am the master of nothing but my own reactions (which is a limiting concept, after all, in that God, who is Lord of Lords, decreed my free will in the first place). I am rotten by these fears and there is no good or no faith in me! There can be no good or faithful thing to come by them. I know this but still I act out fearfully, running afoul my faith and contravening any real freedom. Oh what a conundrum, my fear and my faith. A diabolical dichotomy to which there is no middle ground. Fear always kills faith and faith always kills fear. They cannot be left alone in a room with the expectation that they will reconcile, one to the other. They are very much as light is unto dark in that they simply cannot exist coequal. They are murderers of the other all the time, they never agree. They are on one, forever lasting, vehement discord; fear and faith, and you must choose only one or be subjected to a mixture of the two which can only formulate a tormenting fear or a terrorizing faith. And no one likes neither of these or at least no one can prosper with either. Just ask me, the man who was given one talent and buried it. I must decide on only one to dictate my life; confined by fear or freed by faith. No, the choice is already made. I desire liberation by faith! I think it to be a pinnacle of love. And I desire love. I’ve read much about it, I’ve seen it acted out in the lives of others and I am completely provoked by the fact that I am possibly capable of being loved and loving. I am tired of just knowing that faith is a binding of mind and emotion to a course of action or a dogma or a person. I wish to experience the process, the belief the individual, in this case Christ. I’m tired of cognitive, noetic perception, tired of talking about, with intellect mostly, the truth in my heart. I’ve been told that God transforms lives for the better. I’ve been told that there is healing in the faith of Messiah; of mind, of emotions and even of body, and I want to participate with that. On the tail end of destroying my family with fear, I want to empty myself of untrust and be placed under the spigot where true faith comes out, to be filled, overflowing. Kenosis! Kenosis! Give me another talent, Good Lord. Let me Practice again.
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My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer.
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