Some friends have said (not in my presence, of course), “Yes, she’s highly educated and obviously intelligent, but somehow she’s still been deluded into believing a fairy tale all these years. If it makes her happy, ok...but how can so many seemingly intelligent people believe such foolishness?” Like Paul, I would say “For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty."* . Once you’ve become an ‘eyewitness’ to the very Presence of God, all intellectual arguments disappear in the Reality of the I AM.
Some friends I’ve known have walked away from an encounter with Him and convinced themselves that in their earlier years they were simply caught up in an ‘emotional experience' which met a need at that time. Supernatural encounters with God can be a flash in the pan and in retrospect seem unreal to us, if they aren't implanted in the greater ground of the Word and His Body, the fellowship of believers. God’s presence is so Super Natural that it sometimes seems like a dream. However, when we stay close to Him and other believers, we experience that ‘dream’ on a regular basis and our lives are transformed in the process.
Most certainly, an 'emotional experience' would not have sustained me during the last 40 years. Only continual fellowship with the One who first made Himself known to me, along with the support of those who have also met Him in a very personal way, have grounded and rooted me in Him. We
cannot assume that because people have a powerful encounter with their Creator, they will go on to grow and rejoice through an ongoing walk with Him. People need nurturing, mentoring, discipleship, encouragement, via regular communication. Otherwise, they are often robbed of their awareness of His reality and presence. It is often relegated to a time of psychological delusion during a period of insecurity.
Unless someone is truly mentally ill, a lifetime of living out a delusion is unlikely to happen. Certainly people have been sucked into various cults over a lifetime; however their fruit, or lack thereof, will serve as a ‘tell’. The problem is, those who haven't experienced His unarguable reality must find another explanation for what they witness in sold-out, sincere Christians who bear abundant fruit. They certainly find explanations for the superficial ones. Television and movies depict most Christians at best as hypocritical or greedy and at worst as sick, demented abusers of their fellow man.
May we exude such Light, accompanied by such tender mercy, that no other explanation is possible but the reality of the One from Whom it streams...
*2 Peter 1:16
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Casting or dropping?
I have always loved Peter’s admonition regarding worries, anxieties, and cares: “casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully.” [1Peter 5:7, Amplified]
I don’t know why I never noticed before, however, that this Scripture is a continuation of verse 6, with a comma at the end: “Therefore, humble yourselves [demote, lower yourselves in your own estimation] under the Mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you,”. I knew this Scripture by heart, too. I just never connected them as one sentence.
So, in essence, in order to truly ‘cast your care,’ as Dave Meyer is found of quoting, you must be in a position of true humility, knowing you are incapable of solving or fixing even the least of your concerns on your own. Or using another analogy, if we think God is our copilot to help us in those times of crisis for assistance or support, and that we can handle things as pilot the rest of the time, we must change seats, as the expression goes. Our humility must stem from a daily, root awareness of how much we need Him and how ready He is to be involved in all aspects of our lives..
We truck about on our own, get ourselves into a pickle (or find ourselves in one due to outside circumstances) and then realize we need His assistance. What if you had an acquaintance whom you called a friend, yet you never talked to her except in emergencies? What kind of friendship would that be? Rather than a friend, she’d be more like a ‘roadside assistance’ plan.
The invitation to ‘cast our cares’ is intricately woven into our daily relationship with a loving Father
whom we recognize as not only strong in our weakness but also desirous of ongoing daily dialogue with us. He’s merciful enough to not turn His back on our roadside calls for help, but this is not how
He wants our relationship with Him to be. And, truly, the latter will never bring transformation and
sanctification in our lives. We’ll just keep hopping from emergency to emergency with no real change in who we are or how we live. We also have to heed Yeshua's warning in Matthew 7, "I never knew you."
This is not news to many of my readers. However, like the Drifting Out of Lane post, even devoted followers of ADONAI may find themselves slipping out of intimate relationship and into this danger zone, too busy doing God's work to spend significant time with the One for Whom they're working. Many a minister (whether ordained or lay) has self-combusted in this way.
Ask the Father to do as David asked in his 139th psalm: "Search me, O God, and know my heart..try me and know my thoughts...." Ask Him for the results of your lab report in humility, purity, tenderheartedness, faith, trust; and, most of all, in the transformation that comes from daily disappearing into All He Is: the Great I AM. Cares tend to become impotent in that encounter. Meditate for a moment on the word ‘carefree.’ Or ‘care-free.’ If we are to be truly free from worry and anxiety, we must ‘cast’ our cares onto His strong shoulders. He has invited and encouraged us to do so. We musn’t just drop them on the ground for the moment to rest as we have a short chat with Him, later picking them up and slinging them over our own shoulders once again, or even leaving them by the roadside. Flinging them to Him with every bit of strength we have is an act of our will and our ongoing deep trust and faith in Him. It shouts, “I know Whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him...! ” “I am my Beloved’s and He is mine...”!**
****************
*2 Timothy 1:12
**Song of Solomon 6:3
“The one who is caught by [love] is bound by the strongest of bonds—and yet it is a pleasant burden....Nothinng makes you so much God’s, nor God so much yours, as this sweet bond. The one who has found this way will seek no other.” —A.W. Tozer
I don’t know why I never noticed before, however, that this Scripture is a continuation of verse 6, with a comma at the end: “Therefore, humble yourselves [demote, lower yourselves in your own estimation] under the Mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you,”. I knew this Scripture by heart, too. I just never connected them as one sentence.
So, in essence, in order to truly ‘cast your care,’ as Dave Meyer is found of quoting, you must be in a position of true humility, knowing you are incapable of solving or fixing even the least of your concerns on your own. Or using another analogy, if we think God is our copilot to help us in those times of crisis for assistance or support, and that we can handle things as pilot the rest of the time, we must change seats, as the expression goes. Our humility must stem from a daily, root awareness of how much we need Him and how ready He is to be involved in all aspects of our lives..
We truck about on our own, get ourselves into a pickle (or find ourselves in one due to outside circumstances) and then realize we need His assistance. What if you had an acquaintance whom you called a friend, yet you never talked to her except in emergencies? What kind of friendship would that be? Rather than a friend, she’d be more like a ‘roadside assistance’ plan.
The invitation to ‘cast our cares’ is intricately woven into our daily relationship with a loving Father
whom we recognize as not only strong in our weakness but also desirous of ongoing daily dialogue with us. He’s merciful enough to not turn His back on our roadside calls for help, but this is not how
He wants our relationship with Him to be. And, truly, the latter will never bring transformation and
sanctification in our lives. We’ll just keep hopping from emergency to emergency with no real change in who we are or how we live. We also have to heed Yeshua's warning in Matthew 7, "I never knew you."
This is not news to many of my readers. However, like the Drifting Out of Lane post, even devoted followers of ADONAI may find themselves slipping out of intimate relationship and into this danger zone, too busy doing God's work to spend significant time with the One for Whom they're working. Many a minister (whether ordained or lay) has self-combusted in this way.
Ask the Father to do as David asked in his 139th psalm: "Search me, O God, and know my heart..try me and know my thoughts...." Ask Him for the results of your lab report in humility, purity, tenderheartedness, faith, trust; and, most of all, in the transformation that comes from daily disappearing into All He Is: the Great I AM. Cares tend to become impotent in that encounter. Meditate for a moment on the word ‘carefree.’ Or ‘care-free.’ If we are to be truly free from worry and anxiety, we must ‘cast’ our cares onto His strong shoulders. He has invited and encouraged us to do so. We musn’t just drop them on the ground for the moment to rest as we have a short chat with Him, later picking them up and slinging them over our own shoulders once again, or even leaving them by the roadside. Flinging them to Him with every bit of strength we have is an act of our will and our ongoing deep trust and faith in Him. It shouts, “I know Whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him...! ” “I am my Beloved’s and He is mine...”!**
****************
*2 Timothy 1:12
**Song of Solomon 6:3
“The one who is caught by [love] is bound by the strongest of bonds—and yet it is a pleasant burden....Nothinng makes you so much God’s, nor God so much yours, as this sweet bond. The one who has found this way will seek no other.” —A.W. Tozer
Saturday, May 19, 2018
A Whisper of His Presence
One day you're just looking at the light playing on the grass or the leaves of the trees fluttering in the breeze, and you hear God whisper His Presence to you. When I was young (elementary school age) I remember drawing my finger through the dusting of snow on a low wall by the school, as I walked to early church. There wasn't another soul about. I loved the early service in the little chapel beneath the main sanctuary, its altar area hewn from stone which, when cut, had revealed fingers of iridescent color within it. There was a peace and a sense of holiness there...and the palpable presence of God. At that time, I hadn't what I would now call a personal relationship with Him; yet, I was very aware of His reality and believed in His goodness. I truly did sense His goodness, not just an impersonal force.
I felt Him there, arms wide open to me. Later, however, I wandered from those arms into the intellectual snobbery and arrogance of the college culture. Obtaining the success and relationship which I had been sure would satisfy, I remember feeling a great emptiness and crying out for something more. As it turned out, it wasn’t something, it was Some One. The One Who had whispered to me from the very beginning.
Now, after over 40 years in His tender care, I’ve never looked back, never even wanted to. It would be like choosing to go back into a dark closet after being in an open field with the sunlight streaming over me and a gentle breeze caressing my face. Like going back into a dark cloud cloaked in the appearance of light.
I’ll never stop being grateful to Him, not only for opening the door and freeing me from my own lost self, but also for showing me the illusory nature of satisfaction in my own self-enthronement.
His peace is deep in my bones, His Person and ministry both that of father and mother to me, His Shepherd nature a balm to my soul.
I felt Him there, arms wide open to me. Later, however, I wandered from those arms into the intellectual snobbery and arrogance of the college culture. Obtaining the success and relationship which I had been sure would satisfy, I remember feeling a great emptiness and crying out for something more. As it turned out, it wasn’t something, it was Some One. The One Who had whispered to me from the very beginning.
Now, after over 40 years in His tender care, I’ve never looked back, never even wanted to. It would be like choosing to go back into a dark closet after being in an open field with the sunlight streaming over me and a gentle breeze caressing my face. Like going back into a dark cloud cloaked in the appearance of light.
I’ll never stop being grateful to Him, not only for opening the door and freeing me from my own lost self, but also for showing me the illusory nature of satisfaction in my own self-enthronement.
His peace is deep in my bones, His Person and ministry both that of father and mother to me, His Shepherd nature a balm to my soul.
Friday, May 18, 2018
Squirrel!
I am currently listening to my favorite contemporary series (Jan Karon’s Mitford) on Audible as I drive. In A New Song, Barnabus (the dog) runs away after a squirrel, whipping the leash from Father Tim’s hand, and scuttles under an iron gate into a forbidden, wild garden. Despite his master’s insistent calls and commands to return, Barnabas heedlessly pursues his prey.
This morning I was feeling a lot like Barnabus, who finally came slinking back, eyes and head downcast, to sit at his master’s feet. He knew he had done wrong (again), despite his love and devotion toward Fr. Tim, and had caused him grief and pain. (You can read what happened in the garden as Tim found it necessary to pursue him, uninvited and unwelcome, into that place.)
Sometimes we pursue our squirrels of gossip, retribution, judgment, rebellion, and even passive aggressiveness, into forbidden territory, heedless of our master’s warning, “Come back! Do NOT go there! Heel! (Stay by My side!). Consumed by our emotions of the moment, we allow our flesh to reign supreme, despite the insistent call of the Spirit. We put our hands over our ears like children, bobbing our heads from side to side saying, “I can’t HEAR you...I can’t hear you...”
Then it’s morning prayer time, and our sorrow at our behavior catches up with us in the quiet of His Presence. He doesn’t have to say anything...like our human parents who sometimes sat us down and didn’t at first speak, yet the sadness in their eyes communicated more than a reprimand. Thankfully, if we were blessed with loving parents, we knew their love was greater than any act of disobedience, and they only wanted us to become the people God planned and created us to be. Even without the gift of loving and wise human parents, our Father is all that and more.
If we return to His side, repentant, He will say, “I forgive you. I love you. Let’s try this again” ...even if You had the same conversation with Him the day before...and the day before that. Keep coming back, sincerely desirous of changing. Embarrassed, maybe, but continually committed to heeling all your days. You will not only find yourself changing, but you will also find that heeling brings healing, as well.
This morning I was feeling a lot like Barnabus, who finally came slinking back, eyes and head downcast, to sit at his master’s feet. He knew he had done wrong (again), despite his love and devotion toward Fr. Tim, and had caused him grief and pain. (You can read what happened in the garden as Tim found it necessary to pursue him, uninvited and unwelcome, into that place.)
Sometimes we pursue our squirrels of gossip, retribution, judgment, rebellion, and even passive aggressiveness, into forbidden territory, heedless of our master’s warning, “Come back! Do NOT go there! Heel! (Stay by My side!). Consumed by our emotions of the moment, we allow our flesh to reign supreme, despite the insistent call of the Spirit. We put our hands over our ears like children, bobbing our heads from side to side saying, “I can’t HEAR you...I can’t hear you...”
Then it’s morning prayer time, and our sorrow at our behavior catches up with us in the quiet of His Presence. He doesn’t have to say anything...like our human parents who sometimes sat us down and didn’t at first speak, yet the sadness in their eyes communicated more than a reprimand. Thankfully, if we were blessed with loving parents, we knew their love was greater than any act of disobedience, and they only wanted us to become the people God planned and created us to be. Even without the gift of loving and wise human parents, our Father is all that and more.
If we return to His side, repentant, He will say, “I forgive you. I love you. Let’s try this again” ...even if You had the same conversation with Him the day before...and the day before that. Keep coming back, sincerely desirous of changing. Embarrassed, maybe, but continually committed to heeling all your days. You will not only find yourself changing, but you will also find that heeling brings healing, as well.
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Concatenation
Life in union with God, I’ve discovered, is a continual process of laying down. Not just lying down (since these words are often confused), but of releasing what we clutch within our heart and placing it at His feet for Him to decide whether or not to raise it up. He promises us ‘beauty for ashes.’ Clutched tenaciously in our hand, things turn to dust, or even worse, to poison. Sometimes we lay them down but hover near, ready to take them back up should He appear to be leaving them there on the ground. Things like hurt, fear, woundedness, rejection, ill-treatment, and the resulting sense of unfairness and injustice, bitterness, resentment....and overall, our own will.
Jesus modeled both this laying down and the corresponding ‘lying down’ before the Father’s will, when he wrestled in the garden...to the extent that it almost killed Him right there. (Matt. 26:38). We have no real comprehension of the extent of the battle that He fought there. However, we get the tiniest taste of it in our own lives when it seems to take everything we have to lay down our own unforgiveness, rebellion, or willfulness after deep hurt and betrayal, most especially when it's perpetrated by those close to us.
When you meet someone who seems to exude beauty and grace wherever he or she goes, you can be sure she has gone through the fire. You may be tempted to think she has had an easy life, because she appears to glow with joy. Think again. God creates beauty in those who love and trust Him enough to do as He wills with their lives, despite, and even through, deep suffering. He tells us He’ll give us “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that we might be trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified” [Isaiah 61:3]. * His promises are fulfilled when we are willing to let Him make a concatenation of every trial and circumstance.
He never stands above us with His arms folded, waiting to see if we’ll pass the test. He stoops down, wipes the tears from our eyes with His thumb, and cradles us in our sorrow, saying, “Let me make something beautiful out of this for you...and for others. I know your every pain, grief, and struggle, as you sit there in the ashes of your hopes and expectations. Give it all to me, even your right to be angry and hurt, and see what I will do.”
But even if He doesn’t choose to act in the way we hope and expect He will, nevertheless we remain at His feet. Nevertheless, we choose His will over ours. Nevertheless, we stay devoted to Him and thankful for His truly amazing grace. This is nitty gritty Worship.
As Job once said, “Even if He kills me, yet I will trust Him” (Job 13:15). Or as Paul stated, “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.” (2 Timothy 1:12). Or as Habakkuk affirmed, 17 Though the fig tree does not blossom and there is no fruit on the vines, [though] the product of the olive fails and the fields yield no food, though the flock is cut off from the fold and there are no cattle in the stalls, 18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the [victorious] God of my salvation! 19 The Lord God is my Strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and will make me to walk [not to stand still in terror, but to walk] and make [spiritual] progress upon my high places [of trouble, suffering, or responsibility]! (Habakkuk 3:17-19}
Or as Jesus, dripping blood from the burst blood vessels in His forehead, spoke in a struggling whisper of affirmation: “Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done” [Luke 22:42]. And, oh, what beauty He wrought for all of us. May we receive His strength to declare the same in every circumstance we face.
*concatenation: "a series of interconnected or interdependent things or events."
Jesus modeled both this laying down and the corresponding ‘lying down’ before the Father’s will, when he wrestled in the garden...to the extent that it almost killed Him right there. (Matt. 26:38). We have no real comprehension of the extent of the battle that He fought there. However, we get the tiniest taste of it in our own lives when it seems to take everything we have to lay down our own unforgiveness, rebellion, or willfulness after deep hurt and betrayal, most especially when it's perpetrated by those close to us.
When you meet someone who seems to exude beauty and grace wherever he or she goes, you can be sure she has gone through the fire. You may be tempted to think she has had an easy life, because she appears to glow with joy. Think again. God creates beauty in those who love and trust Him enough to do as He wills with their lives, despite, and even through, deep suffering. He tells us He’ll give us “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that we might be trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified” [Isaiah 61:3]. * His promises are fulfilled when we are willing to let Him make a concatenation of every trial and circumstance.
He never stands above us with His arms folded, waiting to see if we’ll pass the test. He stoops down, wipes the tears from our eyes with His thumb, and cradles us in our sorrow, saying, “Let me make something beautiful out of this for you...and for others. I know your every pain, grief, and struggle, as you sit there in the ashes of your hopes and expectations. Give it all to me, even your right to be angry and hurt, and see what I will do.”
But even if He doesn’t choose to act in the way we hope and expect He will, nevertheless we remain at His feet. Nevertheless, we choose His will over ours. Nevertheless, we stay devoted to Him and thankful for His truly amazing grace. This is nitty gritty Worship.
As Job once said, “Even if He kills me, yet I will trust Him” (Job 13:15). Or as Paul stated, “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.” (2 Timothy 1:12). Or as Habakkuk affirmed, 17 Though the fig tree does not blossom and there is no fruit on the vines, [though] the product of the olive fails and the fields yield no food, though the flock is cut off from the fold and there are no cattle in the stalls, 18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the [victorious] God of my salvation! 19 The Lord God is my Strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and will make me to walk [not to stand still in terror, but to walk] and make [spiritual] progress upon my high places [of trouble, suffering, or responsibility]! (Habakkuk 3:17-19}
Or as Jesus, dripping blood from the burst blood vessels in His forehead, spoke in a struggling whisper of affirmation: “Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done” [Luke 22:42]. And, oh, what beauty He wrought for all of us. May we receive His strength to declare the same in every circumstance we face.
*concatenation: "a series of interconnected or interdependent things or events."
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