Читать книгу White Stars With Glimmers of Blue: Treasuring the Greatness of Jesus By Fighting the Hidden Insecurity - Reyshawn Boone's Bobo - Страница 4

“Why do all these stars look the same?” I asked myself. In Bozeman Montana, 2008, I was sitting at home; my roommates had gone out for the night. I decided to not be a slouch, so I put on my warm gear and walked outside of the double-wide trailer home I lived in. Down the steps I walked, heading toward my car. I remember it was cold enough to see my breath for at least two feet in front of my face. Hopping on the trunk of my car, I put my back to the window and gazed up at the moonlit sky. My mind became fixed on the billions of stars.

Have you ever pondered the luminous characteristics of the stars? I ask because it has much do with how we treasure Jesus in our hearts. I am sure that you may have thought about the luminous characteristics of the stars. Who wouldn’t? There are literally billions and billions of stars in our galaxy alone, not to mention all the other galaxies we can’t see. There is something about when our minds and hearts perceive the loveliness and details of creation that should put our hearts in a posture of awe.

The first verse many churchgoers think of, as it relates to us and the stars, is Psalms 147: 3–4, “He heals the broken hearted… He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name.” I love this verse. This text, in theory, is supposed to remind us of our distinctiveness and preciousness to God.

I have sung Chris Tomlin’s song, “Indiscernible,” at so many retreats and different functions around the world, that I can belt out the name of the song when a guitarist only strums the first few notes. The part of the song that puts my heart in a state of awe goes something like this: “Indescribable, uncontainable, You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name, you are amazing God. All powerful, untamable, awestruck, we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim, You are amazing God.”

The stars are not just thought of and described as beautiful by Christians. You can be a non-Christian and still have professed that the stars are beautiful, it is just that we Christians attribute it to God. I have met plenty of travelers, outdoorsmen, and deep thinkers who are not Christians, but enjoy the chance to sit under the stars. Mark Twain in, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written in 1884, wrote this in his book:

“We had the sky, up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made, or only just happened—Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so many.”

The stars have been a universal enjoyment for centuries. In our childhood aspirations, we quietly dreamt of the day we could be an astronaut who would fly out into outer space just so we could touch the stars with our “pointing finger.” In our coloring books, we innocently scribbled a stick figure representation of our family in the sky among all the stars. There is something about the stars that, when our eyes gaze upon the loveliness and details of them, it puts our hearts in a state of awe and wonder. It does not matter if you are a Christian or a non-Christian. You do not have to be an astrophysicist to see the stars as lovely.

But the question that I want to ask is this: Have you ever had distaste in your mouth, or a disgusted feeling in your gut when you gazed upon the stars? The answer is probably “no,” right? But I did. I have come to understand that the number-one reason that question is extremely relevant to you, also, is because it has something to do with how profoundly you have understood the person of Jesus. I will explain what happened to me.

“Why do all the stars look the same?” I asked myself. From my vantage point, on the top of my car, they were just plain old white stars. They were little white dots sprayed onto the moonlit sky, by what looked like paint splatters from a newborn baby with no supervision. I guess I never noticed it before, like I did that night in Bozeman. That night was so frustrating. I concluded that it did not matter how far I look to my left or to my right, the stars will still be the same everywhere. They looked weak and pointless, these stars.

Instead of being in awe, seemingly like the rest of the world and like Christians who have believed Psalms 147, my conclusion rendered all the stars useless, unenjoyable, andnot awe-worthy. I knew I was viewing these stars in the wrong way, but I could not put my finger on why. Seeing the stars as useless made my heart gloomy, and my emotions got to the point where I regretted that I gazed upon the stars that night.

Would you call me crazy for thinking like this about the stars? I hope you would agree that it was not a normal or healthy response. I was not enthralled with the splendor of God’s creation that night, or any other night or for that matter. I seldom looked at the stars with a sense of awe and amazement. But during that moment in Bozeman, when I actually realized the stars were unenjoyable to me, my mind was overtaken by perplexities. My confusion was: Why would God make something that is so enjoyable to the rest of the world look so unenjoyable to me? Why don’t we just get rid of them? “Unawe-worthy” was one of the words that came into my mind. Who says that about God’s creation? Unawe-worthy? Who did I think I was to say such a thing to a holy God? It even sounds a little crazier to think about it now, as I write this sentence to myself and to you.

Three years later (2011), while in Seattle, the pieces of insecurities in my life, and how I viewed these “white stars,” began to mesh. I remember the day like I remember the one snowy day in California. It was the point of the day where the sun was nearest to the morning waters. The busy sound of the city was so obsolete in my three-hundred-square-foot studio apartment. In these moments, the experience was filled with much revelation. I felt that I was heading toward some monumental discovery in my life. I experienced a sensation in my thoughts like a carpenter would when he is ready to place the last piece of wood to a finish project.

“It is I who felt as though I needed to be greatest star in order to be loved and appreciated!” I emphatically proclaimed. “Ah yes, that is exactly what is!”

I now realize that what I had imagined was this: if I were a star, I would feel completely useless, because there was nothing that indicated that I was in any way awesome. I was just one little white dot among many other white dots. I had imagined, back then in Bozeman, that, because the stars were not awe-worthy to me, I was for sure not awe-worthy to God or people. And yet, maybe that was the problem; I wanted to be awe-worthy. The insecurity was that I felt I had to be the greatest in order to be lovely.

After all that I had experienced with the stars that one night, and as I continue on in my Christian faith, I came to an overarching conclusion: The greatest insecurity of mankind is the insecurity that we feel we have to be the greatest in order to be loved, appreciated, significant, or just acknowledged as a human being.

To this day, I am amazed at how God pieced my story and the stars together. It was not intuitive to bridge the profound concepts together. But for the sake of the glory of God to more fully treasure the person of Jesus, it has come together in this book. For this reason and many others, you must keep reading.

WHY YOU MUST KEEP READING

This next sentence will probably be the most important sentence in this book, so please do not flip the page just yet. You must keep reading because God does not like this insecurity at all. God has very astonishing words for people with this insecurity, and it is unlike the self-encouraging words we normally get from therapy sessions. His words are more ones of shock and amazement, much like seeing the devastating effects of an earthquake or a nuclear explosion. Therefore we will need to see from the Bible where such insecurities exist, and why God is angry as a result.

You must continue reading if you have ever said or thought the following: “I never feel like I am good enough for this person.”

“I do not know what he/she sees in me.”

“How could God love me?”

“How could others love me?”

“Why does this person even like me?”

“I am bound to mess up again, I just know it.”

“I need to be like him/her so that I would be noticed.”

“If this is what it takes for them to like me then I will do it.”

“I feel/think I have to be the greatest (mom/dad, husband/wife, student, employee, teacher, boyfriend/girlfriend, evangelist/preacher/teacher) for God and people to really accept me.”

Another reason you must continue reading is because it is imperative that you learn what the heart and mind of a person with this insecurity is. My hope in talking about this insecurity is so much more than to be a deep person who identifies internal issues. My hope for you includes a little bit of that, especially if moving past the surface and getting to the heart level is connected to being a deep person. But more that, I want you to proactively engage your heart and mind so that you can more clearly see which areas of your life where Jesus is going untreasured.

Matthew 22:37 tells us the unique purpose of the heart and mind. “And he (Jesus) said to them, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” I am convinced that if your eyes have ever grazed across the pages of the Bible, or if your heart has ever tasted the beauty of Christ Jesus, you then long for these two aspects of your life to be at the pinnacle of all you experience.

Growing more in how you treasure the person, work, and greatness of Christ will take a combination of the Holy Spirit speaking to you and you sitting down and asking yourself hard questions. The first half of this we can’t control specifically because the scriptures remind us, “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) The Spirit does whatever it wants whenever it wants. But the latter, we can do something about.

We can never trust nor fully understand the heart as it is mentioned in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” But we can certainly be intentional in what we put in there. “I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” (Psalms 119:11) “Apply your heart to instruction and your ear to words of knowledge.” (Proverbs 23:12) For this reason, in this book we will attempt to store up wisdom in our hearts and lean our ears on words of knowledge.

Lastly, you must keep reading because you will not want to miss the solution. I can estimate that all the puzzle solvers reading this will attempt to take a stab at this riddle of what the meaning will be. If you think you know already, write it down on a piece of paper, fold it up and go along for the ride to see if you are right. Halfway through the writing of this book I really began to see what God was trying to surface in me. I am eager for the solution to bring Jesus to the front of your heart and, in the process, allow God to move this insecurity out of hiding from you. I can’t wait!

To close this chapter, I want to be very honest with you. It is extremely terrifying to write a book. And not just any book, a book on insecurities at that. Insecurities are not what you would call, the topic everyone wants to read about. I have never written a book before, and I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. In the process, I constantly battled against the inclination to exclude important things that might make me appear foolish.

When I clicked the top of the pen to write in my red spiral notebook, or when I pushed the buttons on my laptop, God was teaching me. God was teaching me that people have some of my same insecurities, if not most of them. I include portions of my story in this book, not for anyone to acclaim my humility—I do so for the glory of Jesus, and for your joy in Him.

By the grace and power of God, I’ve had the joy of winning many battles, some of them against no minor adversaries. I have experienced dramatic victories over sexual sin, addictions, and other equal foes. However, I have not met a foe as fierce as this one. It is terrifying to go to war against such an enemy, but God is rich in His grace and has been the greatest in me, every step of the way.

This is your life. I am simply walking beside you, to help coach you through the process of thinking deeply and differently about your fight of insecurities. You can expect me to straight talk you, and not try to manipulate your emotions. If God is so pressing you to continue the journey with me through the pages of this book, I am glad in my heart, and I encourage you to continue in this life-changing discovery.