Spiritual Vertigo 070113

This is going to be a weird one.  Today as I was listening to my Prayer Playlist (I have to have music when I pray or my mind races all over the place) I was struck by my problem with vertigo.  It's not bad bad - ladders are OK and single story roofs are Ok but anything higher and my toes curl right up to my chin, I get dizzy, faint and want to throw-up.  Yeah - no window seats for me on planes.  I become a babbling mess.

But I was considering the many trials we face and how some seem to lead us right to the edge of a great precipice.  Been there - done that - doing it daily.  But it came to me that I've never really been led to the edge by Him.  It's the fear of getting to the edge that really gets me.  All the anxiety of anticipation is the problem.

Our minds all too often race ahead of our circumstances.  Of course some of that is good.  It's wise to anticipate and plan (prayerfully) about our futures.  Though they are utterly in His hands He does engage us in the process which is a real kindness for fate would never be so good.

But, it's when we only anticipate the worsening of our circumstances that we will find ourselves in real trouble.  It's a very easy place to get to and an easy place to get stuck in.  It's like walking onto a smearing of super glue.  You don;t have to stand there long before you're going nowhere.

But the trouble with looking forward positively is (at least for me) is I start getting real specific - actually telling God how to work it out.  I start praying for this and that in great detail.  Giving God a program to follow.

Now there isn;t anything wrong with praying secifically - it's a good thing.  BUT when those requests harden into expectations - even demands - we're back in the superglue again.  We often miss any little answers to rpayer that build into a whole complete answers.  Or we begin to murmur becasue we don;t see our plan unfolding.

I've found that I do best to not anticipate the edge.  It's there and He may well lead me so I hang 10 over the edge but I can;t remember a time He ever did that.  It's my imagination that gets me there - my poor, weak, corrupt and fallen imagination.  It's that fear of vertigo -

But, I'm learning that vertigo and stepping off the edge are not the same thing.  My "spiritual" vertigo is all about me and my weak and stumbling faith - the "unbelief" I need Him to help me with.  So what if I get to the edge and become a whimpering mass of me.  So what if I get to the point where I break and crumble.  So what.

Who did I ever think I was anyway?  I think of Jesus on the pinnacle of the temple - no indication of vertigo there.  Why?  Because in that trial and the temptation attached to it He knew two things.  First He could say "No." to the temptation and second if was just a trial.  He knew that even on the edge God was still in charge.

That's what I take away for myself.  If God does ever lead me to the edge I pray I will say "NO" to whatever temptation is there and I will remind myself that I cannot be alone on that edge.