BP 258
[Post # 258 represents the last weekly post in the Designer Therapy for Life blog that began in August of 2020 and has now run for around 250 straight weeks. The DTFL blog was initially launched as a platform for the Jack Sutherington fiction series, so if you have followed the blog but have not read the books yet, please do so! Future posts may appear occasionally on the blog site, but most of my writing efforts will be refocused on a second book series. Thanks to all of you who have read the DTFL posts! I offer special heartfelt gratitude to those who have journeyed with me from the inception in 2020.]
It is only appropriate that I conclude the weekly installments of this blog by visiting the early foundations of DTFL, by highlighting what has driven it for almost five years. With that in mind, let’s go back to the first blog post entitled, How to Build the Skyscraper of Your Heart. In this first post, I wrote about how everyone who builds a skyscraper like the massive Jeddah tower in the Middle East must pay close attention to the foundation . . .
The designers of these mega-towers must dig deep into the ground to ideally find bedrock since a firm foundation is required for their monstrous building. In the case of some skyscrapers, workers dig down 250 feet or more—almost the length of a football field—and construct a massive, Y-shaped, triangular footprint in order to create stability for the structure that will rest on top of it.
A sure foundation is everything. Nothing else matters if the foundation is compromised or untrue.
Designer Therapy for Life, like a skyscraper, is built on an unyielding foundation. On the most solid bedrock in the universe. On a Y-shaped footprint of incalculable size: The Triune God Himself.
DTFL is here to invite you to build the precious tower of your life on something trustworthy– nothing less stable and true than the Creator of the universe who designed you.
Built on this foundation, the tempests of life and the major earthquakes that rumble beneath you (even death itself) will not destroy your life. Plus, you will have God’s Universal Positioning System (GUPS) at your disposal to direct your steps in a true direction as you navigate a confusing world that feels like it has no mooring.
Without a source of truth beyond yourself, you are left to make up your own version of truth or listen to the loudest voice in the culture that is currently shouting in your ear. You will follow paths that may (subjectively) feel right to you, but you will never know if they are objectively true paths that lead to life.
A divine Designer is necessary to provide you with such truth paths that will take you beyond human guessing and philosophical relativism. . .
This current post will not expound on evidence for the existence of the Designer. If you wish, we can devote time in the future to study how you can know that God exists and how to recognize his fingerprints (or footprints) in the universe as well as on the human heart.
The primary objective of this post is simply to remind you that you’re not alone as you sail on the calm seas of life on a sunny day or on the violent waters of a hurricane.
DTFL will never rest on human intellect alone–thankfully. It will always acknowledge its reliance on the Designer of human life.
True to this inaugural post, I have attempted to build every DTFL post on the firm foundation of the Triune God, The Designer (the ‘D’ in DTFL). The two other ingredients I incorporated into the blog were therapy (the ‘T’ in DTFL) and life (the ‘L’ in DTFL). See my first few blogs for a discussion of these other ingredients.
In this final weekly post, I want to end where I began, namely, with the phrase I cited above: The primary objective of this post is simply to remind you that you’re not alone as you sail on the calm seas of life on a sunny day or on the violent waters of a hurricane.
The curse (at least one of the curses) of being a human is being alone. Since The Fall in that glorious garden called Eden, we have been separated from our loving Creator. We rebelled against Him, turned our backs on Him, and decided to blaze our own path through the darkness. Accordingly, one of the primary themes in DTFL has been the truth that human life was created for God but ended up being against God, detached from Him.
Paradise was lost, yes. More tragically, Presence was lost. We were divorced from our heavenly spouse, detached from our divine parent. The result was separation, aloneness, loneliness. God’s character did not change at The Fall. He was still Immanuel—God with us. But we did not experience Immanuel because we choose other gods over His Presence. Separation from God led to disturbances in our spirits, our bodies, our minds, our relationships, and our psycho-emotional selves. A number of these disturbances have been the primary focus of DTFL over the years.
Ephesians sums it up well: “Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” ~ 2:12. Ephesians 2 also says that after The Fall from God’s Presence you were “far off”, you were “strangers and aliens”, and “you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” ~ vv. 1-3.
Yes, we had become separated from God’s beautiful Presence, the most glorious Presence in that had been in existence forever.
Undoubtedly, the ultimate theme in DTFL has been how we humans are in a battle to regain God’s Presence relationally (interpersonally) and psychologically (intrapersonally). We have repeatedly considered how we are separated from God due to our own hiding, the consequences of our relational sin (all sin is relational in that it is against a person, namely, God–and sometimes others), our flawed coping skills, and due to being sinned against by others.
DTFL has often mentioned that humans settle for something when they were made for someone. Things never fill us. DTFL has reiterated that all psychological disorders from depression to schizophrenia are due to separation from God, other people, and our own selves. Mental illness is ultimately not about something but about someone.
In other words, Presence (someone) is the goal of life. We were created to be with God, to know Him, to serve Him just as He Himself came to serve, and to love Him and others. Life is nothing if relationships are not central (God being the hub of it all). Financially you may be the wealthiest individual in the world but if you don’t know Jesus, you are destitute and will die poor, devoid of your purpose from the beginning.
Yes, remember that Presence is ultimately the goal of all life. If you only have God’s Presence (and usually then the Presence of others) and nothing else, you have everything. But then also remember a second truth: Presence is always opposed—by our rebellious selves, by Satan who strives to separate you from your loving Father, the love of others, and from your own soul, and by others around us who are broken and sinful.
Remember that even nature exists to exult in the Presence of God and His people:
“For you shall go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands” ~ Isaiah 55:12
As DTFL has addressed rather recently, both this life and eternal life are all about knowing a person. Christianity is not about trying to be moral but all about knowing a person. Peace is a person. Righteousness is a person. Love is a person. Joy is a person. Holiness is a person.
Jesus is that person. He is the One you must know. He is the Cornerstone. He is the Lynchpin. He is The Love who teaches you how to love yourself and others as per the second Great Commandment. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Sin alienates and leads to separation. Jesus says, “Come.”
Satan is the thief who steals, kills, and destroys. Jesus says, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
Death kills you. Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25,26).
At the foundation of it all, being alive on this planet is about being in relationship with the God who made us and the people around us.
So, how does psychology impact the pursuit of Presence? As DTFL has often said, mental illness is certainly a terrible problem, but it is not the problem. Depression, anxiety, EDs, personality disorders like OCPD, BPD, Narcissism, Dependent, and Schizoid all point to something deeper. These mental illnesses are speaking through symptoms, and we must interpret what they are saying. At their core, they all point to relational issues pertaining to one’s relationship with God, others, and one’s own self. Read the posts relevant to this issue if needed.
In conclusion, then, remember first that life is about being in relationship with God, self, and others. Nothing else really matters comparatively speaking. You can’t take anything else with you when you die except relationships. Nothing else is eternal except God, your neighbor and you. So major on the majors and minor on the minors while you are here in this world for a fleeting breath. If your relationships are not strong and close, you are missing the whole endgame of life. You are to be pitied.
But secondly, know that your baseline position is separation from relationship. You must be aware of this lack of Presence and know that how things are in this world are not as they should be. You can “small talk” your way to the threshold of hell itself. You can be around a crowd and never be known or know others. You can pursue and busy yourself with something and never realize that your quest in this world is to discover how to be with someone.
So lastly, then, you must fight against what comes naturally for you, namely, divorce, separation, aloneness, hiding, sin, rebellion, your passion for something as opposed to someone. Don’t settle for the awareness that you are far from God, others, and your own self. You must move toward all relationships instead of moving away from or against them.
I have often quoted 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 that comments on our battle against separation: “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ . . .”
Don’t make life about building your own kingdom that may very well take you even further from God. Don’t make your life about experiencing pleasure whatever the object may be like sex, food or beverages you ingest, or nature, or travel, or even a good book that takes you away from your immediate aloneness. Don’t settle for something. Make the pursuit of someone including the primary Someone the burning priority of your life.
You are born separated. Don’t remain there. Don’t fill that empty separateness with every counterfeit you can get your hands on.
Jesus says, “Come.” Run to Him and the Father and the Spirit. Read His word that takes you intimately into His heart. Worship His name, an activity that makes the things of this world seem so trivial as you enter His Presence. Sit in His Presence and listen for the Spirit of God to speak to you. Meet with other believers “for where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” ~ Matthew 18:20.
So, make your life about practicing Presence.
Seek. Love. Forgive. Release hatred and bitterness. Stop hiding and move toward. Don’t hunger for that which will satisfy for hours or days but pursue Him who will satisfy your soul forever. Know that you are in a war. Darkness wants you to look down at the world. Jesus wants you to look up and run to His Presence and know that He will save you when you cannot save yourself.
If you need to heal before you can ever trust God and others, then begin your journey. Repair your “truster” inside of you. Don’t protect yourself so well that you keep even love out. Don’t blame. Listen not to the voice of shame that tells you to run and hide because you are unlovable and unforgivable. Rather, listen to His voice that says, “You are my darling child” ~ Jeremiah 31:20. Instead of choosing suicide, choose life in the One who says,
“You are my servant,
I have chosen you and not cast you off”;
10 fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” ~ Isaiah 41:9,10
Practicing Presence and removing every obstacle that opposes the attainment of Presence have been the whole five-year aim of DTFL as per the truth of 2 Corinthians 10 quoted above.
My prayer for you is that you will fight for Presence with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Know that Presence exists. Seek whoever you need to help remove every obstacle to intimacy and love and “withness”.
My hope and prayer are that I will live in the Presence of Jesus and with all of you forever.
I love you all–because He loved me first.
“But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
Because you are precious in my eyes,
and honored, and I love you,
I give men in return for you,
peoples in exchange for your life.
Fear not, for I am with you . . .”
Isaiah 43:1,4-5b
