opposite of integration
Now that we have talked about goodness in context, I would also describe what goodness out of context does. This is the initiator of all disintegration.
First I would have to confess my own idolatry, the source of my blindness. Control & knowledge, beauty and pleasure. I think we make idolatry out to be a much more complicated thing than it is in order to do as we please; I know I did. To sense a need is not idolatry. It's the vulnerability embedded in every being in order that we seek our Source.
Because every Good Thing is an acknowledged gift, it's a lot harder for me now to abuse them for my own pleasure. Why would you care that much about indulging pleasure?
Every unholy appetite that is FED becomes an idol which overpowers me
It is the reason we were made with appetites for the body, mind and spirit. The body's fundamental need is food. The mind's fundamental need is wisdom. The spirit's fundamental need is intimacy.
In Eden, God established Himself as the Integral Source of these needs. What the serpent did was insert a very subtle separation. Check out what Eve's desires looked like.
I had thought it was cruel for God to even put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden. If he was so set on perfection, why would he put temptation in the middle of it? Because without a choice, there is no real relationship. They had an option to receive full goodness, without inhibition, shame, fear...but idolatry stole this. How? The same embedded desires that would have drawn Eve to God Himself were subtly separated from their intent, undermined by a simple question of fullness.
To take what is good, or what one needs or desires, separate from a gift from the Source--is idolatry. You will begin to notice this trademark of separation in everything Satan does. What is separate from life is dead.
Any gift God has offered has undergone this same disintegration from its intent as a gift from God: sex, wealth, food, connection. It's easy to tell the difference between the act of sitting in a person's living room to talk and scrolling their instagram feed. The difference is integral. One engages life, one is separate from it.
But humans, when we sense need and are disintegrated from our Source, we get under one of two yokes.
Religion
and
Indulgence.
One is not preferable to the other. They are both slavedrivers.
The idol of control and knowledge lead to the slavery of religion
The idol of pleasure leads to the slavery of indulgence
Fear and shame come from both.
Eve's disintegration initially came from a desire to have [for herself] Good Things.
Think about the knowledge aspect of that fruit. A desire to have for ourselves knowledge about food and disease has created more problems than it has solved. What if we put our bodies in context as His creation so that all the wisdom we receive about food and the body is direct from manufacturer?
God put Adam and Eve in a garden full of fruit trees. Yet listen to us: "You shouldn't have more than 24 grams of sugar a day, limit your fruit intake, don't eat grains....."
Do not be wise in your own eyes.
All I thought I knew about food wasn't completely false but it was completely out of context.
There are really only two choices, in food, in relationships, in parenting. Life or death. What is separated from itself is dead. What has been given life by God is a Good Thing. In order to steward the Good Thing that is my body, it makes perfect sense to receive Good Things that He has offered for that purpose. I think we all know when we are being mastered, and that's a characteristic of something that's disintegrated. It usually becomes an unmanageable desire.
This is why the body matters. Desires are carried out in the body. Appetites are fed in the body. Sin is agreed to in the mind and accomplished by the body.
So they say now that fat is good. Without going deep into the law, it is interesting to me that God directed the fat to be offered to Him. Why was this such a test of their faithfulness? Because our disintegration shows up in the appetite to take [for ourselves] what is good.
I noticed every evening as I would wait for my husband to come, how my tension created an appetite for pleasure. Without really thinking, I would {take for myself} a piece of butter.
What happens when an attitude, an unholy attitude is fed fuel? It then gains strength over the ability to reject the sin it will produce, resulting in death--separation from God. Every slice of butter I took in while feeling out of control (rather than humbly receiving it as training) provided actual fuel for the impatience, the anxiety, the anger to control me. Eating butter can result in further disintegration. Disintegration. Whatever is separated from itself is dead. "The mind dominated by the flesh (physical being) is death, the mind under the authority of the Spirit is life and peace"
You know how it is when your kids think they know what's best. This is why it's such a gift to be a parent...you get a chance to see how silly we must seem as we declare how well we know our own bodies, how sickness works, how the miracle of birth works...
Our knowledge has created our fear, and the only answer to the depth of our disintegration is integral faith.
Now that we have talked about goodness in context, I would also describe what goodness out of context does. This is the initiator of all disintegration.
First I would have to confess my own idolatry, the source of my blindness. Control & knowledge, beauty and pleasure. I think we make idolatry out to be a much more complicated thing than it is in order to do as we please; I know I did. To sense a need is not idolatry. It's the vulnerability embedded in every being in order that we seek our Source.
Because every Good Thing is an acknowledged gift, it's a lot harder for me now to abuse them for my own pleasure. Why would you care that much about indulging pleasure?
Every unholy appetite that is FED becomes an idol which overpowers me
It is the reason we were made with appetites for the body, mind and spirit. The body's fundamental need is food. The mind's fundamental need is wisdom. The spirit's fundamental need is intimacy.
In Eden, God established Himself as the Integral Source of these needs. What the serpent did was insert a very subtle separation. Check out what Eve's desires looked like.
I had thought it was cruel for God to even put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden. If he was so set on perfection, why would he put temptation in the middle of it? Because without a choice, there is no real relationship. They had an option to receive full goodness, without inhibition, shame, fear...but idolatry stole this. How? The same embedded desires that would have drawn Eve to God Himself were subtly separated from their intent, undermined by a simple question of fullness.
To take what is good, or what one needs or desires, separate from a gift from the Source--is idolatry. You will begin to notice this trademark of separation in everything Satan does. What is separate from life is dead.
Any gift God has offered has undergone this same disintegration from its intent as a gift from God: sex, wealth, food, connection. It's easy to tell the difference between the act of sitting in a person's living room to talk and scrolling their instagram feed. The difference is integral. One engages life, one is separate from it.
But humans, when we sense need and are disintegrated from our Source, we get under one of two yokes.
Religion
and
Indulgence.
One is not preferable to the other. They are both slavedrivers.
The idol of control and knowledge lead to the slavery of religion
The idol of pleasure leads to the slavery of indulgence
Fear and shame come from both.
Eve's disintegration initially came from a desire to have [for herself] Good Things.
Think about the knowledge aspect of that fruit. A desire to have for ourselves knowledge about food and disease has created more problems than it has solved. What if we put our bodies in context as His creation so that all the wisdom we receive about food and the body is direct from manufacturer?
God put Adam and Eve in a garden full of fruit trees. Yet listen to us: "You shouldn't have more than 24 grams of sugar a day, limit your fruit intake, don't eat grains....."
Do not be wise in your own eyes.
All I thought I knew about food wasn't completely false but it was completely out of context.
There are really only two choices, in food, in relationships, in parenting. Life or death. What is separated from itself is dead. What has been given life by God is a Good Thing. In order to steward the Good Thing that is my body, it makes perfect sense to receive Good Things that He has offered for that purpose. I think we all know when we are being mastered, and that's a characteristic of something that's disintegrated. It usually becomes an unmanageable desire.
This is why the body matters. Desires are carried out in the body. Appetites are fed in the body. Sin is agreed to in the mind and accomplished by the body.
So they say now that fat is good. Without going deep into the law, it is interesting to me that God directed the fat to be offered to Him. Why was this such a test of their faithfulness? Because our disintegration shows up in the appetite to take [for ourselves] what is good.
I noticed every evening as I would wait for my husband to come, how my tension created an appetite for pleasure. Without really thinking, I would {take for myself} a piece of butter.
What happens when an attitude, an unholy attitude is fed fuel? It then gains strength over the ability to reject the sin it will produce, resulting in death--separation from God. Every slice of butter I took in while feeling out of control (rather than humbly receiving it as training) provided actual fuel for the impatience, the anxiety, the anger to control me. Eating butter can result in further disintegration. Disintegration. Whatever is separated from itself is dead. "The mind dominated by the flesh (physical being) is death, the mind under the authority of the Spirit is life and peace"
You know how it is when your kids think they know what's best. This is why it's such a gift to be a parent...you get a chance to see how silly we must seem as we declare how well we know our own bodies, how sickness works, how the miracle of birth works...
Our knowledge has created our fear, and the only answer to the depth of our disintegration is integral faith.
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