When It Doesn’t Work Out

How does the heart handle disappointment?

The problem is our minds and limited understanding, not the heart. As we progress from a worldly viewpoint to a heart-led life, we drag with us a lot of mental baggage. It’s not all evil, so nobody here is telling you to pretend you can empty your consciousness and start from scratch. That’s a myth that comes in the package with certain Eastern religions and it’s bullshit. God doesn’t work that way and we aren’t designed for it. The baggage is part of the journey, but it requires repacking and changing the contents.

You most certainly can step outside your customary fleshly consciousness. That’s challenging enough, but when you manage it, and to the degree you manage it, changing what’s packed in that baggage is much easier. It’s more like an attempt to step into a private room and disrobe. Get rid of the stuff that doesn’t actually fit and put on something that does. (And there’s nothing wrong with someone else picking up your cast-offs.)

But as your life progresses on the path of redemption, yesterday’s togs may not work for tomorrow. So an idea, plan or commitment that was good and righteous in one context won’t work in the next. The problem most of us run into is thinking. Our intellect does its best to interpret the message from the heart, and the mind needs as much work as the rest of this fleshly shell. So we might imagine that we understand the nature of our calling and even announce the plans according to that passing grasp. But somewhere down the road it becomes apparent our best understanding was still flawed.

God help us if we ever come to imagine that there’s something wrong or embarrassing about changing like that. We should learn to celebrate with each other that something unfit to go the distance has been discarded. Some of us will change more frequently and more loudly than others. That was a part of what made people tease Peter about his name, and what made the declaration by Jesus more surprising that Peter was a rock. Peter changed his mind every few minutes, if you asked his friends.

Yes, there probably comes a point when that stuff settles down, but that has more to do with with how we express ourselves and stop making major declarations about minor changes. It’s the chatter that’s silly, not the changes. We can look past the silly chatter and see that it’s just a difference in personality. God help us if we ever start to think someone who takes God seriously is a goofball just because they don’t work through their fallen nature the same way we do. How about not taking yourself so seriously as the divine model for humanity?

I can’t turn off the turmoil in your soul any more than I can turn off my own. But when something that seems so divine fades into mere mist, this is no time to wallow in condemnation. The same can be said if you find yourself forced to rain on someone else’s parade. See the incident as another step on the path, another corner somebody has to turn to dodge something they didn’t see before. Learn to see it as normal. Learn to see it as God taking you down a convoluted path because there’s a lot of crap in your life that doesn’t belong and it’s no simple matter to drop it. Those things have roots and you cannot rip it all out wholesale without destroying something valuable (see The Parable of the Tares).

It’s the journey, not the sights and campgrounds along the way.