Posted on by Abe Austin

Joy is Internal

We can make it our life goal to make things pleasant for ourselves, getting things more stable, more fun, and more luxurious, but all the while not feeling any joy. Or we can be obsessed with our troubles, constantly focused on all that is wrong and unfair, convinced that we will never feel peaceful so long as we are so burdened. But joy is a metric of an internal state, not an external one. It has nothing to do with either our comforts or our discomforts. Rather, it is directly proportional to our alignment with what is right and true.

When I am guilty of wrong, when I am hiding the gifts God gave me, when I am giving less than I know I could, then I will never feel joy, no matter the life that surrounds me.

On the other hand, when I have a clean conscience, when I am shining the light God gave me to shine, when I know that I gave it my genuine best, then I will always feel joy, no matter the life that surround me.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Two Ways to Live Falsely

There are two ways to live falsely. The first is to take a false principle and insist that it is actually the truth. No amount of stubbornly insisting that our way is right will ever make it so, and we will grind our souls against the wheel of truth until we relent, or until it breaks us.

The second way to live a falsehood is to believe the actual, genuine truth, but to be insincere in our following of it. This might be due to being well-taught in our youth, but never gaining the fire and conviction of true conversion. We act in the manner of truth, but it comes out forced and unnatural.

Both sorts of false living require true conversion. Each person in these ways must become aligned to the truth at their core. At that point they will flow with the power of life instead of trudging upstream against it or floundering broadside to it.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Victims of Our Own Lies

Our own self is the primary victim when we lie. First, we do something against our conscience, then we lie about what we did, which gives the message that our fake, external image is of greater value than the true self. This wounds us. We cannot be so dismissive of a part of ourselves without that part hitting us back later on. A war begins within.

Heavy waves of guilt come from one side, telling us that we must tell the truth and stop denying who we truly are, but from the other side comes stifling and suffocation, applying greater and greater pressure on the conscience to deny the truth and accept the fiction. And with all the guilt and the suffocating, we are only hurting our own self in between.

We cannot have peace if we are at war, we cannot have wholeness if we are broken in two. If we are ever to stop beating ourselves the war must end, which means that one side or the other must surrender. And when we come to realize this fact, then we must come to realize another: the conscience cannot surrender. The true, authentic voice will never be killed because it is simply our natural, resting state. It exists because we did what we did, and made of ourselves what we made of ourselves, and there is no way to undo those facts. To live a lie without frustrating and twisting ourselves is fundamentally impossible, because part of ourselves is inseparably tied to unchangeable reality. The only surrender that we really can make is to surrender the lie. Surrender the phony public image. Surrender to the truth.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Answers Take Preparation

God often has to prepare the answers to our prayers. Outside of our view people are being moved, opportunities are being orchestrated, hearts are being readied, and all of this takes time and effort. We only recognize the work when God presents the gift to us, finished and whole.

Just because you haven’t received your desire yet does not mean that you have been forgotten, or that God has answered with a “no.” Like the Israelites in Egypt, God might very well be working out your deliverance over time.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Thought for the Day: Inevitable Disappointment

An argument that is made for giving in to our hedonistic desires is that it is cruel to perpetually deny and disappoint ourselves. But really, disappointment is a given. For on the one hand we want one thing, but on the other hand we want its opposite.

We want to get away with telling lies, but we also want to be understood as we truly are. We want to lust, but we also want to have mastery over self. We want to treat ourselves as the center of the universe, but we also want to be part of something that bigger than ourselves. We want to be lazy, but we also want to be there when others need us.

Disappointment, frustration, self-denial…one way or another all of these are inevitable. And so long as one side of us has to be disappointed, why not make it be the carnal, selfish, and dishonest side?

Posted on by Abe Austin

True Wisdom

True strength is being able to fight for what is right

True humility is being able to patiently endure wrongs

True wisdom is being able to know which it is time for

Posted on by Abe Austin

Thought for the Day- God’s Good Day

We do not have the power to make God’s good day bad. We can tarnish ourselves, but not all the beautiful creation that surrounds us.

And for this reason, whatever else is going on, whatever the depth of our personal unworthiness, we can still take a step back and bask in God’s goodness.

For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good
Matthew 5:45