This comes from a forum post I wrote that reflects different points of life’s ongoing journey, the lessons we learn, and quite a few of the aspects we will face. Sometimes I wax philosophical in my writings, and this was one such writing. It doesn’t cover everything, but it covers most things. Enjoy the read! 🙂
The tearing down is the hard part. Then you can pick the parts you want to include in the rebuild.
You’re absolutely right. All during this time, we are all torn down, and then God helps us build ourselves back up. We have to deconstruct into as many emotional pieces as many as necessary in order to reconstruct those pieces we choose to keep into a new Self, while discarding the pieces we know won’t work for our individual future.
In this same rebuilding, lies emotional maturity. However, to become mature, one has to first be willing to face themselves, and also to be honest with Self. To be dishonest, is to hurt yourself–not other people. It’s not going to “hurt” them if you don’t walk your journey in full; it’s only going to hurt you, because you would not be able to reach your true authentic Self, not be able learn to live life on your own terms, and peace within would always be elusive. It’s not that we won’t still have stress, and strife–what this journey does is helps us learn to how deal with trouble in a more mature way.
We learn that it’s not always good to answer snarky and hateful people, for example. Most of the time, they’re after attention–and like a midlife spouse, positive or negative attention doesn’t matter as long as it’s gotten. It doesn’t even matter if an answer is given to something that makes it clear they lack knowledge in various areas, and are speaking out of ignorance–applicable to the midlife spouse, too.
What matters is if you’re choosing to address, or not address what is clearly bad behavior. You do have to ask yourself if this is going to matter ten years down the road. If so, by all means address it–if no, don’t bother entangling yourself. Bad behavior has consequences of its own, and the truly mature person chooses their battles with care, because not everything is worth answering, or even speaking to, or about.
Remember that all emotions are felt and shared, or spewed outward are CHOICES that are made, as we do choose our responses/reactions. If you cannot let some things go that won’t matter, check yourself, because something in you has taken what was said, what was done, and made it all about yourself, when other people’s behavior is never about you. You only get to choose how you will respond or react. You learn to leave other people’s decisions on them. Learn not to take it on yourself, and set boundaries on what you know isn’t right for you, because you can’t do anything about it anyway…it’s not in your hands.
This is part of separating yourself from other people–learning where you end, they begin, and learning to exist in spite of people who are clearly out to start something, just because they think they can. Let them think whatever they want, but don’t take the bait they offer.
It’s not ever worth the extra stress you will take on, if you think to try to “fix” them by engaging in arguments that won’t do anything but go in circles, cause more trouble, and in the end, both people will most likely have kept their own opinions, and changed nothing. Sadly enough, they’ve wasted all that energy they could have used on something constructive, like looking within themselves to see what it was in them that took what was said so personally. 🙂
Honesty of Self is the hardest to face–because we do find we are not as “good” as we’d like to think we are, neither are we as “perfect” as we’d like to think we are.
God knows us inside and out, and He knows that if we’re not honest with ourselves, the deceitful way we’re dealing with ourselves will actually destroy us in time…and we’ll have to suffer being torn down anyway–so, you might as well get it right that first time, get it all, and complete everything, so you can go into the next leg of your journey with more tools, more confidence, more maturity, and be able to build on the prior aspects of what you’ve learned…and aspects beget more aspects, and this leads you into a never-ending journey that’s positive, joyful, and you do find that you’ll contain more peace than you had before.
Before we are forced on our journey, we were like that man in James where the scriptures speaks of being “double-minded”. Emotional immaturity actually causes constant emotional cycling, because we’re so busy worrying about what Tom, Dick, Jane, Spot, and Henry thinks and feels, that we forget what WE are suppose to think and feel.
Never lose yourself in the opinions of other people, never base your progress on what someone else is doing/not doing. You are you, and they are them. We’re not in a marathon that comes out with one winner, and the rest, losers. We are in a kind of race that actually calls upon us to help one another, hold up one another, and last, but not least, love one another as Christ loves us. 🙂
We are more than conquerors in Christ, and we do reflect Him, or we should, in everything we do and say. Even Jesus needed rest sometimes, a break, and He took it, when He needed it. The point here is–take your breaks as you need to. You’ll burn out if you don’t. 🙂
For the whole of His life, Jesus embraced His humanity, worked with it, sometimes worked in spite of it (temptation), but He came, He saw, He overcame, and when His work was finished, He returned to His Father in Heaven. He, too, walked a Journey, but for Him, that meant teaching others to be more like Him, and this journey led into His eventual death, that led to a transformation of how mankind would relate to God in the future. ((HUGS))
The point being here is that every life involves a Journey, every Journey has a purpose, and every Journey leads into more than one type of death that causes a defining type of change in the person who is willing to embrace that change, and see it as a positive thing– every death always leads into a new beginning, a new season, a new perspective, and a new journey that leads into greater, and better things. 🙂
It all comes down to us, circles back to us, and encourages us to embrace each experience. The beginning of any journey, willing or unwilling, begins within US, and we will find our way, blaze our own trail, look to the Lord to guide us into the ways He would have us to walk.
Everybody is going to have their opinion of what this journey is supposed to look like–but within this particular aspect, the goal of full emotional maturity remains the same. The difference lies between what every person is set to learn for themselves. My lessons that I have left to learn on my own journey are not going to be the same as the lessons you have left to learn. The main lessons are the same for everybody, but some people come into it with some, some with with a few, and some with none at all.
However, the actual beginning remains the same–it is NOT found in outside “get a life” activities, although they do help to develop people on the outside. No, the beginning of your journey begins within, because every answer you need, lies there, within yourself. You may have to seek a little here, dig a little there, but you won’t find anything outside of yourself, nor outside of God, who has all of your answers, plus a few that will help you along the way, to make your journey a little smoother. 🙂
Targeting yourself within the areas that need improvement within your Self, takes love, patience, time, and the willingness to dig deep, tear down, do a thorough self-examination, and not get caught up in semantics. As change, growth and becoming begins within, you will find that these will influence your relationships with people, as everything will work from inside to outside.
Begin within, and change will show in an outward way…it always does. Your thoughts affect your journey–and what you think in your heart, so you will be, too. We show changing reflections of ourselves, as we move forward in our journey. As we transform, immature people who don’t understand, are going to criticize what they don’t understand–but you can’t let that stop you from doing what you know is best for yourself. ((HUGS))
Though we may have times of “Being Still”, we are still doing something, even when it seems we are doing nothing, because when we’re “still” we’re inwardly processing what we’re learning, and somewhere in that process lies consistent and constant transformation into what God would have us to become in Him.
God never meant for anyone to become stagnant, inside or outside. However, you do have people who avoid the inside “being still” by claiming it means doing nothing, but that’s a literal meaning that indicates those who haven’t yet learned what “Being Still” actually means according to God’s Word.
If you don’t understand something, ask God about it. He will always clear up any misunderstanding you might have, because again, He knows this journey inside, outside, and upside down.
God knows the Way–take up your cross and follow Him…He won’t let you get lost. I know He never let me get lost; He was always there to lead the way, and make sure I came through with everything I needed to recognize this journey, teach this journey, and help people come through, by pointing right back to God as the only Guide we will ever need. ((HUGS))
As a gentle reminder–Remember that we all walk alone, except for God who walks with us–and this is where we should always learn to connect first with our intuition, before we ever think to ask for human advice. God is always there in ways a human being cannot be–so it would behoove us to put Him first, trust Him first, and follow Him first.
Food for thought from one who knows, and has truly been there.
