Originally published at road2wholeness.com on 9/14/16
Welcome Back! Thanks for taking the read today and another stroll with The Road2Wholeness Blog. If you didn’t get to check out the first blog in this series, I encourage you to begin at the beginning.
Today the subject is Inside-Out.
Ultimately, God calls us to live an Inside-Out life; pulling strength from His Holiness through His Spirit that lives within us. However, the demands of the outside life and world sometimes overshadows and overruns our spiritual life or the inside life. As I mentioned in the first blog, I will use my life and my road to wholeness as a backdrop for each blog in this series.
I want to pick up where I left off by saying once again that when I first arrived at my fork in the road where I chose to begin making radical changes in my life; I didn’t have much of the spiritual understanding that I do now. I didn’t even relate to the word “spirit” and honestly, I wanted nothing to do with the word. For the most part, I associated it to a subject outside of reality that was too scary to explore. I think it’s fair to say that often times we fear what we don’t understand and we sometimes go as far as to curse the things we fear. I say this all to say… walk with me.
As I launched my operation to STOP THE MADNESS in my life, the main factors at the time were reuniting with my hopes and dreams, bringing an end to the abnormal use of my body, and redefining relationships. Because I had no spiritual life, was severely mentally unprepared for adult life, and was intensely broken; my life would at times progress along this journey and stand still at the very same time. Today I want to discuss the idea of living and building our lives from the inside-out which is probably the ultimate take away of my road to wholeness.
You see being progressive and being healed is not nearly the same thing. If we settle for just getting things to appear in order; arranging and rearranging things on the surface; moving the furniture of life around; making things look good; but never move into the healing process; the unpacking process; the discarding process; we continue to live from our shell and we never touch the Spirit within.
This is the reason why I said my life progressed and yet stood still. It’s because I didn’t have a full grasp on exactly what I was attempting to fight and I wasn’t even connected to the realm where I could effectively contend with it and so I also didn’t have the proper tools or armor to fight with. Without even knowing it, I did however begin to make some spiritual progress as I began closing the door to casual sex. I knew it was a hindrance to my pursuit of wholeness because of where it would take me in the aftermath and I wanted off that battlefield. I wanted to feel something other than broken but there were so many layers to my brokenness; so many chips, cracks, missing pieces, dysfunctions, misinformation, holes, dents, deficiencies, and the list could go on, that it would still take years to begin to see some light. Not to mention, it took me a handful of years to get my heart, mind, and even my body to fully commit to celibacy. After all, I wasn’t after celibacy because I didn’t enjoy sex. But I needed to stabilize my emotional life and I knew how broken I always felt in the end; trying to understand why sex did not/ could not secure me what I had offered it in hopes of securing.
In the five years it took me to arrive at a full commitment to celibacy, I realized something. I knew a shift was taking place because the offers and opportunities for sex came slower. As what I desired changed, what I was receiving/seeing/experiencing was also changing. Notice my internal desire changed and then my external environment changed. My internal dialogue began bringing about a life of its own. I didn’t have to say to men, “I’m not interested”; they saw, they understood, and they felt the disinterest. You see we don’t only have the ability to attract what we want, but we can distract what we don’t want. And it is a great power when we realize how to control our atmosphere from within.
Now I want to use my current spiritual awareness to present an understanding of why I felt such an enormous amount of conflict connected to casual sex and the reason why I am in this context referring to sex as an abnormal use (misuse) of the body. For this I must implore scripture but stick with me because it goes beyond sex; it is in essence a matter of identity.
Scripture says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
I’ve heard this scripture many times and usually the focus is the Word and its relation to God. Recently, however it was deposited in my spirit to see this in a broader view. If you believe like I do that your life was called into being for a Divine purpose then you can catch this.
Now recall the scripture from a few lines above, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Therefore when God speaks us (calls us) into being He accompanies His Word; not as man but as Spirit. Therefore when we come into the earth realm we are of God and remain in spiritual connection with God. Whether we know, understand, or accept this or not does nothing to change it. Therefore, we are man (human) but are also spirit. And scripture also says, “Greater is He (spirit) who is in me, than He (man) who is in the world.” This is saying that my Spirit being is greater than my flesh being.
Scripture also tells me: “I am in the world, but not of the world.” This doesn’t simply refer to how I live my life or interact with the world. This speaks of IDENTITY!! This is trying to relate to me WHO I AM! Therefore, I am made to understand that I am given a body to be able to function in the world and I am clothed in flesh so that I can relate to the world but I am not of the world; I am of God; and God is not man but Spirit. Jesus is the model for this pattern. This is important because I believe our wholeness comes with true identity.
This is why we must live with an inside-out focus; because what is within us is greater than what we have on the outside (physical strength and sense consciousness; life perceived by using the five senses).
Now, given the fact that God is Holy and also abides within me or has accompanied me (His Word called into being) as I spoke of earlier; when I abuse my vessel (the body) where His Holiness resides with me in spirit, I grieve His Holy Spirit. When God grieves, I in turn feel the grief. This is why I felt such conflict and pain as I ate of the things of the world.
And there’s another component to this I would like to unpack but let’s stop here for today.
Let’s breathe. Yes, it’s heavy. That was a heavy box to lower and it was a lot to unpack. Sit with all of it. Go through it. Better yet, let it walk around on the inside of you. Let it sit and lounge where it may. Let it recline and just rest among all else you believe. See where it projects light. Feel what just got mended. Don’t try to respond to it. Just feel! Just stop and feel! Yes, be still and know that He is God!
Remember to go within, that you may never go without. The God within you awaits you. Until our paths collide again, I wish you… Peace, Love, Life, and Harmony.
NaTisha Renee Williams
The “Emotional Life” Coach
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