Dearest readers, I hope you can read the title as if you are asking for this inner strength, particularly if you have a history of abuse of any kind.
Inner Being (or inner man) is a crucial link to your true image, ie the image of God you were made in, and is neither male nor female, but fully human dependent on God. But just as your body needs food in order to grow, so does your inner being need the food of the Holy Spirit in order to be strengthened. This is not strictly speaking about developing our will, because the ego is good at desiring things we want and that give us pleasure. But it is about getting to know Christ and His love. The prayer of St Paul says it all:
I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19)
When I first had this prayer read to me, I thought that God just ‘did’ this – and somehow it would happen. To a certain extent that’s true through a confession of faith in Christ as the Son of God, and even more so through baptism and ongoing prayer. But there is a constant need for choice for that inner strengthening. As I journey and find stumbling blocks on which I fall (See Stumbling Block or Stepping Stones? blog.) I realise more and more I need to live for the Holy Spirit, in what I choose to think about, what I choose to do, and how I do anything.
I need to pray in my inner being, listen within, and link all my life to my connectedness to God and to others. The problem we have if we have suffered trauma, and more conscious abuse, is that these experiences have caused division, and tempt us to continued division, from ourselves, God, and others. And while we yearn for connectedness and love and kindness from others, we are still living with a dis-connectedness in ourselves. We have the experience of Christ-crucified within our inner being in our heart, and we don’t want the pain. While we run away from this very real pain, we are neither loving ourselves, nor honouring God with trust in His power to see us through.
Our minds are one of the major problems. Because of our pain and loss, we have focussed on self-protection, and the outer things of the world. There is nothing intrinsically bad about these things, except they cut us off from the vulnerability of prayer, and knowledge of our Inner Being. This limits our knowledge of God and love for others.
So once we have decided to pray for this strengthening, we need to take our attention into the deep heart of the inner being. Prayer by prayer, listening and speaking, we find Christ’s love in our hearts, and His Presence turning worldly things upside down. We find that praise, no matter how we are ‘feeling’, lifts us to new hope, understanding and a perspective on our situation which changes everything.
Being specific, if we find we are given time and grace, and listen deep in the darkness, prayer and poetry emerges giving words to the pain and loss suffered. This is where we find grace to express our anger and frustration to God, but also light emerges and gives love and tenderness within to heal the broken heart and the wounds of isolation. If we keep the anger at a worldly level, feeding it with rational thoughts in our heads about what shouldn’t have happened etc, we allow it to control our reactions in any difficult situation. There is no resolution of it because we are keeping it at a human level and only that which we accept and submit to God can the Holy Spirit change and redeem.
Waiting In the night The barrenness Of my heart Lay exposed. Empty of love Of grace- Devoid of Truth Except in death. But waking I ask You to come and heal.
But the Lord’s response to this was not what I expected or had looked for. But it gave me a significant understanding of the degree to which the life of the abused and broken heart, IS aligned with Christ.
My daughter you are ashamed of My nothingness/My humility Ashamed of My succumbing to death. Their lies are nothing in My Kingdom - But your desire for purity of heart and love, is My delight. You will overcome all half-heartedness through grace and truth.
This makes it clear that when we are seeking His ways, and are listening in the depths of our pain and loss, we meet with Christ on the cross, and thus have confidence in the RISEN LORD. But always we are called to forgiveness….
Holy Soul, have mercy on those who have crucified you - give them thanks for this divine honour you have been given. (29/12/12)
This position of not only forgiving those who inflicted pain on us, but thanking God for them that we have been allowed to suffer with Christ, changes all anguish of the heart and mind. Our compassion and prayers for others from the love of Christ within, are lifted beyond our understanding and truly our lives, including all the suffering are hidden in Christ, in God.
Glory to God the Father for this eternal provision. Thank God for the gift of prayer and the legacy of the prayers of those who have gone before and who lead us into mysteries we cannot fathom for ourselves.
‘Lord we believe, help Thou our unbelief’. Strengthen us Lord in our inner being by the power go Your Holy Spirit, that we may know and live Your love for the world’. Amen