Finding Treasure

The other day I was praying and telling the Lord about the things on my mind.  Issues I am having at work, with my children, in my relationship.  God has been so faithful to answer me and give me guidance and comfort and validation that it should not have surprised me with what He taught me.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field.  And a man found the treasure, and he hid it, and was so happy that he went home and sold everything he had so he could buy the field and keep the treasure”

I sat there thinking about this for a minute trying to understand the meaning.  How was this a message to me?  What was He telling me?  What did He want me to see?  How does this apply to the turmoil in my life?  

And then the epiphany.  (I LOVE EPIPHANIES!!)

A relationship sent to you from God is like a treasure that was hidden.  And when a person finds the treasure, they recognize what God has given them, and they protect it so nobody steals it away. They go home and get rid of everything in their life that interferes with their new found treasure.  What do I mean by that?  It means that we get rid of the past.  We get rid of the connections we have been keeping to prior relationships.  We clear out the space in our heart that we were giving to other people from our past to make room for the new person God has sent.  We throw away old love letters because they should have no place in our lives now.  We delete the old pictures, throw away cards, remove them from facebook, remove them from messengers, from skype, from snapchat, from whatever we used to keep our connection to them alive.  

Kinda harsh don’t you think?  No, I don’t.  Who told the story of the man finding the treasure?  Jesus did.  Jesus did not say the man sold just enough of his possessions to get enough to buy the field and add it to what he already owned.  He did not get a loan against the properties he owned and bought the new field.  He didn’t find a way to keep the old, and acquire the new.  He got rid of everything else in life that would get in the way of his new treasure.  He made a decision.  He didn’t try to find a way to have both.  He KNEW in his heart what he wanted, and he wasted no time cleaning out his past so he could have his future.  

If you are not willing to get rid of your past, then you have not found your treasure.  If you need to find a way to keep some parts of the past around, then again I say you have not found your treasure.  It is just that simple.  You might have something of value.  But it is not the treasure your heart has searched for.

It is funny how we say that the scriptures have answers to everything in life.  Because it is true.  We just need to take the lesson and look at it with new eyes. 

Riddle Me This

Every man needs a hobby I am told.  I have several.  One of them is being a reserve deputy sheriff for the county I live in.  I patrol a very rough section of a very rough city.  I do it because I believe it is my way of giving back to the helpless, scared, weak, defenseless, innocent people who can't fight for themselves.  I have seen some terrifying moments.  I have seen some unimaginable heart-breaking moments.  And I have seen more than my share of things that simply leave me scratching my head.

Last night is one of those times when all three were true.  I was on patrol last night and I was sent to a local high school to search for a cheerleader that was caught slicing her legs with a razor.  Last seen running west from the high school through the desert.  We get the girls address and show up at her home and find her there.  She looks perfectly normal.  She is not in her cheerleader outfit.  She is in a long-sleeve shirt and yoga pants.  She looks perfectly normal.  Healthy.  Smiling.

Unsure why we are all there (Paramedics, Deputies, etc.) She tells us that she is fine and there is not emergency. She is then asked to raise her sleeves and show her arms.  Her mother breaks down.  Her dad puts his hand on my shoulder to steady himself.  He asks me "What did she do?"  She is then asked again to show her arms.  She starts to cry.  She tries to run but is caught by the other deputies and they let the paramedics check her.  Razor cuts from head to toe.  She is screaming like a girl possessed.  Her dad looks at me with confusion and fear and anger and his eyes are soaked and I choke back my own tears and block him from the struggle his daughter is in with the emergency team.  I told him "I'm a dad too.  I know what I would be feeling if it were my child" He nodded and thanked me.  I asked him why she does this to herself.  He had no idea.  I asked mom.  She was at a loss.

After an intense physical struggle, screaming, cursing, thrashing, she was placed in handcuffs and put in my car. She was going to see the doctor so we could get answers.  She would not speak to anyone except to yell, scream, cuss, and threaten.

Alone in my car she began her verbal assault on me.  I turned and looked at her through the cage and I said "Wow, you are such a pretty girl that it kinda bothers me to hear you speak to me like this.  It is not ok to be mean to yourself, or to me."  She went dead silent.  Blinked.  And told me she was not mean to me or herself.  I  asked how she could say that with the way she spoke to me.  She said I was one of "them" meaning the group that cuffed her and put her in my car.  I said it was not my fault she was there, she did this to herself and I was there to help and I did not deserve her speaking to me like this.  From that moment on her tone with me was calm, cool, collected.  She apologized.  I asked her WHY are you doing this?  She is beautiful, smart (4.0 GPA and a junior in calculus so obviously smart), she is popular, drives a new car (16 yrs old with a new car), braces, cool clothes, a beautiful home, everything you could want.  So what is missing? 

She told me she never took stock of her life before.  She never realized that her life was so good. She was so busy feeling alone, empty, unhappy, ugly, etc that she never considered how great her life actually was.  I asked again, why are you so destructive to yourself?  She said knew she was not happy, but she did not know why.  She could not explain it.  Cutting herself shifted focus from the pain in her heart, to the pain in her wounds.  It was a distraction she needed to go another day. 

WOW.  A stunning moment of confession and clarity.  An epiphany moment compliments of a lost 16 yr old girl. 

How is this germane to our discussion?  

Her parents obviously were trying to spoil her.  She was a solid student, honor roll, varsity cheer, all around good kid.  What parent isn’t proud of that and want to see your child spoiled just a bit?

But how does someone who seems to have everything they could possibly hope for engage in such destructive behavior? How can we be in a relationship where our partner is obviously giving 100% of his/her effort to make the relationship a happy, healthy, successful, loving reality, and yet we choose to engage in destructive behavior. WHY? What is missing that compels someone to make such bad decisions?  Whatever those decisions may be.  WHY?  IF your partner is willfully neglectful, or unintentionally lazy, then why not give them a serious dose of reality and share with them the things you need from them?  Do you need more hugs?  Tell them.  More I love you’s?  Tell them.  More help with chores?  Tell them.  And if they are clearly giving you their very best and it is not enough, tell them. They deserve to hear the truth so they can have a fair chance of fixing things before unless you are not interested in giving them that chance.  If that is the case they deserve to be set free. I know that her home was not perfect.  None are.  But it appears her parents were trying.  

Relationships are not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination.  And those that look like they have everything in order and are "perfect" have their fair share of flaws, let-downs, pitfalls, and mishaps.  Being in a relationship is different than dating.  Once there has been a transition from dating to a relationship we have new obligations to each other.  We owe them our very best.  They deserve our very best.  And we deserve theirs.  Everyone deserves no less than they are giving.  If they are giving us their all, then we owe them our all.  Nothing less.  And if we can't give that them then we have an obligation to tell them why before we decide to do something harmful.  If for some unfortunate reason it's too late to, then we owe it to them to explain ourselves.

She said "I don’t know" to the medics.  I told her she had no reason to lie to me. That she could trust me with the truth.  And the truth came out.  And when I walked away from her at the hospital she smiled at me.  And she waved. 

Some hobby...

Bury the Past Part I

Most of the emails I have received the past few days have asked a couple general questions:  Is it ok for my ex to be on my Facebook if we have kids together?  Shouldn’t my partner trust me and know I am just talking to my ex, not messing around with them.

Let’s start with Facebook.  My answer is an absolute NO.  There is absolutely NO good reason for an ex of any kind to be on your Facebook or any other media that you can deny them membership to.  That means if you can remove them as followers of twitter, Instagram, linkedin, flickr, whatever, then you should.  “But they will want to see pics of the kids…etc” I heard that in every single email sent.  Here is my response to that.  Let them take their own pictures and create their own memories with their children.  If the children have their own accounts they can friend/follow them.  They do NOT need a front row seat in your life.  Period.

“What about issues regarding the children.  After all we are co-parents” I agree with that 100% and I say it is fine to phone, text, email any/all issues you need to discuss without hesitation.  You should be on the same page with all needed information (school, Medical, etc) But if Johnny hit a homerun and wants to tell the other parent let Johnny call.  You should not make that call.  Johnny should. 

What if Johnny is being mean to the dog?  OK yes.  Call your ex and talk about what may be wrong.  Seek to find the source and work out a solution.  The difference between your children’s well-being and their social life with you are two very different things.  I hope you can take these very basic examples and extrapolate them into other real-life scenarios you will face. 

What about “trust?”  Should my partner know where they stand and just trust me? I got this from every single person that did not mention children (and a large number that did). So I considered this a “theme” concept that I wanted to discuss.

Let’s take a very different look at this idea.  Let’s say for this discussion that I am a lost soul.  I know I am empty inside.  Lost.  Yearning to reconcile with the One who created my soul.  The problem is I am not sure what that means.  So I begin a quest.  I spend some time in the Hindu religion praying to Parabrahman.  I enjoy this relationship yet I know it is not fulfilling me so I move on.  I try Buddhism next.  Buddha is good for me.  I find relaxation and comfort yet I know I am still unsatisfied in my soul.  So I move on and try religion X.  Still no satisfaction.  Finally I hear the good news of the Gospel and I ask Jesus into my heart.  I get saved.  Everything I have been searching for has been found.  My soul is satisfied and I feel reconciled to my maker.  

What do I do about my prior religious experiments?  Can I keep the symbols from Hinduism I have collected?  Can I keep my Buddha statue and the pictures of him in my phone?  I know he didn’t send them but I have them nonetheless. They are just pictures right? Can I still pray to Buddha?  He really helped me through some very difficult times.  And since Jesus lives in my heart now and He knows my heart belongs to Him, He will be OK with me praying to gods I enjoyed prior me becoming a Christian…right?  Because He knows my heart.  Right?

I think I will let you draw your own conclusions to what I think about this issue.  If you think it is ok to do those things then email me and I will send you the scripture that tells us otherwise.  If you have connected the dots on the parable then good for you.  Well done.

I think that will do it for this installment.  I have a lot more to say about both questions and I might depending on the feedback I get from this post.  You tell me where we should take the discussion.

Thank you again for all your feedback. 

Explanations

I have never responded to any emails using the blog.  I have always responded individually unless the sender was anonymous.  I am going to respond today because I feel compelled to due to the number of messages I received after my last post (Dashed Hopes) Thank you all for caring and reaching out.  It was great to see so many miss my posts and would like me to restart the blog and post on a regular basis.  I just might do that.  I have learned so much in the past few years and I think it would be a big help to us all to share that information.

I got emails from all over the US, Canada, Denmark, Russia, Australia, Chile, and the UK asking me a ton of questions and telling me reasons the agree or disagree with me.  I am always shocked to see how many read my humble thoughts, and from so far away.  So here goes…

Giving up.  Why?  Well I am not surrendering entirely to the idea of finding a lasting committed love.  I think maybe I need to step back and evaluate what exactly I want and more importantly what exactly I deserve.  Without doubt I believe everything I have written about and I always will.  I know that it is possible to have a Notebook love regardless of what the world wants to tell you.  (I mean the soulmate love they had…I can do without all the fighting they did…goodness!)  Sometimes your heart just needs time to reflect and reason.  Why did things end up where they did?  What did I do wrong?  What did I not do right?  Where could I have made more impact and done more to secure my position in the relationship? 

Control.  OK This is a sensitive issue for many because nobody wants to be told what to do as though they are a child.  I agree 100%.  But when you are in a relationship, a committed long-term marriage minded relationship, you have a right to expect certain behaviors from your partner.  You have a right to say something is not ok and must stop.  Can you tell your partner that viewing porn is out of bounds and must stop? I think yes.  Can you tell your partner that smoking marijuana is not acceptable and must stop?  I think yes.  Can you tell your partner that listening to filthy songs is not ok and must stop?  Yes.  What about going out with the boys after work on a regular basis to an unknown drinking location with an unknown group and coming home drunk?  Not good at all.  So why is it not ok to say you can’t have pictures of old lovers in your phone?  Why is it not ok to say that calling/texting old lovers is not allowed?  Because we want to pick and choose what we want to agree with as being bad for a relationship?  That is crap and I call CRAP.  The societal norm for relationship behavior is that it is NOT ok to do things that violate your partner’s security, personal comfort, and worth in a relationship.  Remember that your past relationships have created “soul ties”.  Your soul is bound to that other person for as long as you keep the connection alive.  You do not have 100% to give to your partner as a result of it.  You have 100 minus the share you continue to let your soul ties take from your partner.  Ending soul ties restores your partners share to 100% and it is not only a societal norm to expect this from your partner, it is biblical.  So when your partner tells you that you don’t have a right to tell them they can’t call their old lover, you can agree and say you don’t.  But God does.  He has the right.  And He says it is not OK.  God has the right and the authority to say end your soul ties.  Get rid of them before too much damage is done to the relationship you have.  Will you trade your future for memories of your past?  We all deserve 100%.  99% is not enough for me.  

Remember also that God has placed the man over the woman.  Not to control her.  But to protect her.  To love her.  Would we as fathers allow our daughters to chat on the internet with a guy we know is clearly bad for her?  I would hope not.  What about adult daughters?  Does the age change our desire to protect them?  I hope not.  My pastor made it clear not too long ago that he requires the passwords for all accounts and phones and checks them to make sure nothing bad is happening.  Is that controlling?  No.  It is love.  It is protection.  Protecting the ones we love from predators who want nothing more from them than to use them for their own satisfaction.  Would you send your adult daughter out the door on that date knowing she is nothing more than a sexual conquest for the guy she will be with tonight? 

Same Page.  Sometimes being on the same page is just not possible.  Not the same page.  Not even the same book.  What do you do when you realize that is the case?  As you know I would advocate finding a solution that is fair and honest and works for both parties.  But when you are far apart on the core issues you must step back and decide where things should go.  If you are married then counseling is a must.  I would vote to do everything in your power to salvage the marriage.  God is good and He is gracious and will heal and reconcile and repair if you allow Him to do so.  If you are dating then it might be time to exit the relationship and find someone more like-minded.  If you disagree on deal-breaking issues now, it will only get worse.  

Trust and Honesty.  Once violated they are so very hard to re-establish.  That is why it is so important to be honest, transparent, trust-worthy at all times.  More-so when faced with a tough situation that makes being so very difficult.  Would I worry about telling someone you like their casserole when you really didn’t?  No not really.  I don’t think it is a relationship issue and I myself would probably laugh if they told me so.  It might hurt someone else’s feelings so I would not confess myself.  I would be gracious and eat.  Would I lie and say I was at the office all day if I took off to play golf with a friend?  No.  Why?  Because that lies goes to integrity and credibility.  If you lie about playing an innocent game of golf what else will you lie about?  It creates fear and doubt.  Can the bonds of trust be rebuilt?  Absolutely.  God forgave us when we didn’t deserve it and died for us on the cross right?  We can also forgive for things done to us as a result.  In fact, we must according to Jesus.  But that involves honesty and repair for past moments of us being less than truthful.  Not easy.  Could be very ugly.  But I have found that more often than not they already know the truth.  Or they hope to know it so it can be forgiven and forgotten.  

I think that about covers most of the emails.  If you think I missed something you commented on please feel free to point it out to me and I will address it publicly, or in a private response like normal.  

I started the blog because of the deep dissatisfaction I had with an unwilling partner.  I can see how good it was for me to put my thoughts to pen (or blog) and share them.  I made friends around the world and I do miss that.  I will start writing again.  I continue to welcome your ideas and suggestions.