heaven's tree book club

September 14, 2012
Dungeons and Dragons
It is Friday, and I often think about Acacia on Fridays. It has been over two years since I have been to Davis. It is not so much that I do not like my dad's Cantonese group, but the average of the group is about 75 with no one except for me under 63. I seriously need people my age to communicate with and share life. These days it is very difficult to go outside. My dad's group meets up every other week and sometimes once every three weeks. The infrequency makes it easier to attend, but at the same time it makes it very hard to connect with anyone. Right now, perhaps more than ever, I really need Christians to connect and pray with. Fellowship is so important because other Christians shape us into who God wants us to be. This chapter is about dealing with the prison of our own bad tendencies.

"OUR past can become a prison that perpetuates the bondage of those who raised us. Somehow we unintentionally reproduce that same destructive culture in ourselves and in those around us.There are a few common ways that this happens in us. One of the ways we tether ourselves to the past is by reacting to those who abused us and spending our lives trying not to be like them.
I have counseled a lot of people over the years and have observed a common pattern among many of them: People typically become like the person they most despise. Alcoholics, for instance, are commonly raised by alcoholic parents. I personally have never met a child molester who wasn't a victim of molestation. At some point in the counseling session, there's nearly always a statement like,'! swore I would never be like the person who abused me, but I have become just like them." I know this struggle well myself. In spite of struggling not to be like my stepfathers through most of my early life, I started becoming an angry man just like them."
I mention previously about my brother in the previous post. I did not respect him growing up and really did not want to be like him. However, I have not put others down with my words. The problem is that I will often put myself down. I often look for ways to validate my own worthlessness and when I'm looking for evidence, I find a lot. I've internalized a lot of the hurtful things said to me over the years. We need to show grace not only to others, but also to ourselves. The author then goes and describes a Biblical example of how God works in our bad tendencies.
"I was becoming the very person I despised. One day I was reading the Old Testament and began to receive insight about my struggle through the story of Jacob and his father-in-law. Jacob was a trickster by nature. His name actually means "deceiver." He even deceived his own father out of his brother's birthright.A few chapters later, Jacob married into a family that gave him some of his own medicine. He worked for his father-in-law, Laban, for seven years so he could marry Laban's daughter Rachel. When he woke up on the honeymoon morning, Leah was in his bed. Laban had neglected to tell him that their family tradition dictated that the oldest daughter marry first. He finagled another seven years of work out of Jacob with this trick because Jacob still wanted Rachel.Thankfully he got her on credit! He received her a week later and then paid for her in small monthly installments over the next seven years."
Jacob's very name means trickster. He tricked his own brother out of the birthright. We would see instances of him tricking Laban but Laban would give Jacob a taste of his own medicine. Later on, as we read, Jacob's sons trick Jacob about Joseph's death. It is an interesting read about how our sins., when not dealt with come back in many different forms.
"As I pondered this unusual passage, it dawned on me that this was not a lesson in agriculture! God was demonstrating how we, His sheep, reproduce.The watering hole is a place of reflection, which means both gazing at something and meditating on it. Meditation involves our imagination. If we feed our imagination with thoughts of what we don't want to become and drink from the well of regret, we reproduce that very thing in ourselves. It doesn't matter what we want to reproduce. It's only important what we imagine while we are thinking and drinking at the watering hole of our imagination.
This principle is also illustrated in the creation of man. The Bible says we were created in God's image. In other words, what God imagined, we became. Proverbs says, "For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he" (Prov. 23:7). Our imagination is a very powerful part of our being. Everything that has ever been built, made, painted, or developed began in someone's imagination. We tend to reproduce what we feast our thoughts upon.
What I am realizing about many of us is that we spend much of our lives reacting to what we don't want to be instead of responding to the call of God on our lives. We waste a lot of energy trying not to be something. In order to not be something, I have to keep it in front of me so I can avoid it. The crazy thing is that I reproduce what I imagine. If I see what 1 don't want to be, just envisioning it causes me to reproduce it."

"We break out of this prison by responding to the call of God on our lives and meditating on His vision for us.The word meditation is related to the word medicine. In a positive sense, meditation means to "think in such a way as to make oneself healthy"We become the person He has called us to be when we meditate on the things of God and dream His dreams. The Psalmist wrote, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart" (Ps. 37:4). Bill Johnson has a creative definition of desire. He breaks it down into two parts:"de" meaning "of," and "sire" meaning "to father."When we delight ourselves in God, instead of hanging out in our past, He becomes the father, the sire, of our dreams.
Mary illustrates this principle in her life. The Bible says, "But Man- treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart" (Luke 2:19)- She pondered the word of God in her heart and gave birth to the Savior of the world. What she imagined became flesh and dwelt among us through immaculate conception. When we dream with God, we become the masterpieces of His imagination."

"We must leave the prison behind to come into the palace. People of royally focus on who they are called to be. They have forgiven those who have hurt them, they have rejected the lies of the enemy, and they have embraced the truth. They don't live in the bondage of prison but in the wholeness of the palace. Let our journey as royalty begin!"
Prayer:
Father, I don't feel like royalty. I feel like trash that is discarded and forgotten. Help me to embrace the truth that I am made in Your image, that I have value because You have placed value on human life. I feel so defeated and discouraged throughout the day. Help me not to meditate on the things that destroy my faith and identity in Christ, but to focus on Your truth and those things that build up. I want to dream Your dreams and to become all that You intend. I want to leave the prison of discouragement, worthlessness, and invisibility for Your palace.