"I am the vine, you are the branches. The one who abides in me while I abide in him produces much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5 ISV)
I've rejoined the Men's group that I had originally quit to answer the need in the Awana's program (children's ministry at The River). They are studying the book by Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King called "Experiencing God: Knowing and doing the Will of God." This study was previously done by the women's group that my friend Cherie attended and in which I saw steady, definable growth by her in her walk. She asked me what I hoped to discover taking such a 'basic' course, a compliment to my spiritual knowledge I guess. I told her, this is the only way to establish relationships that will enable me to create my own bible study group, at least by church philosophy. I finally received the study book and started on it to 'catch up' to the group.
We equate spiritual strength and vitality with wisdom. The wisdom that is reflected in a 'spiritual' walk...i.e. church attendance, social repentance and the shadowy land of 'good fruit'. If you struggle, well it must be because you're not repentant, not being spiritual or -horror of all horrors, unsaved. God is good, and promises the world for us...prosperity, victory and happiness. Therefore, you're not taking ahold of God's promises if you're none of those things. The poor of this world must not be following God, the defeated of the world must not know God's grace and those who aren't happy must not be realizing the joy of the LORD. If we pray for God's will in our lives, and are met with silence…then we must either not be willing to listen or praying the 'right' prayer. We must have a 12-step, an action plan or the vision of a grand campus in which all the ministries we are enticed by can be gathered into one location….or we must not be in God's will for our lives. As I've been told in my quest to answer the call God's placed upon me…one that I thought was simply to function as a 'mouthpiece' for Him….but is so much more (and nothing like I would believe it would/should be); God will provide, if you are indeed anointed to His calling.
Blackaby/King's book is an opportunity for me to slack the sails and let the ship slow down a bit…so that God, walking with me in the midst of this journey, can get a few paces ahead so that I can see the fullness of what He has given me of Himself so far. The authors hit you right in the eyes in the first few pages: "What is God's will for my life? -- is not the right question. I think the right question is, What is God's will?" Dr. Gaines S. Dobbins, a seminary professor the author learned under, is quoted. "If you ask the wrong question, you are going to get the wrong answer." If we want to know God's will, we cannot conform it to the narrow view of our life but must look at God's will and bring ourselves into conformance with it so we can experience God.
Most Christians want instant solutions to the problems they present to their congregational friends, pastor and fellow believers. A child's death should be experienced in the context of the unknown, rather than sitting in the sorrow and grief. A financial burden, well…financial stewardship must be implemented or else assistance won't be forthcoming. The recurrence of sin; you must not be accountable enough or must not be truly repentant. Few stand reflective of the example set by Jesus and what one of my mentors, Scott Engelman, calls a "wise elder". A Christian with passionate convictions about God, His people and this life that come from biblical revelation who moves in wise, powerful and sensitive ways into other people's lives with a godly vision of spiritual maturity with implications of possible continuing struggles with the problems experienced in those lives. The focus is always on God, not our lives or the life problems of others, but what God is doing and how experiences, circumstances and spiritual maturity will look are being used for God's purpose and plan. "What is God doing?" Scott would say. As Blackaby/King ask, are we as the body of Christ, ready to go forward without a clear idea of what God's will ultimately will look like? Or do we require a step-by-step description of what going forward in God's will ultimately will look like? One way relies on God's eyesight, the other our own.
God calls us to an intimate and personal relationship with Him, not for our own gratification or prosperity, but solely for the purposes to which we were created, purposed and are designed for by His own hand. Through the experience of being in the Word, living a life absent of agenda (i.e. this is what I need to be comfortable now) and pursuing God, we find ourselves confronted with our selfishness and protective old nature..coaxed into demanding recognition by the enemy who's only avenue left for our disillusionment is to demand God give us His promises in the context of our own reality. The children never die, finances are always on track and God sends us only where we want to go with a itinerary of what is going to be accomplished.
We want to live our lives under God's protection in the ways we can look without effort for His hand in it. We subject our will to His, as long as it is convenient and we know what He will do with it.
Leonardo da Vinci, who is known as an excellent painter, sculptor, poet, architect, engineer, city planner, scientist, inventor, anatomist, military genius, and philosopher said:
"Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer, since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose power of judgment…Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller, and more of it can be taken in at a glance, and lack of harmony or proportion more readily seen."
Sometimes in that pursuit of knowing God, we have to stop and take stock of what we've learned….in essence, allow God to get a bit ahead of us (not out of sight, but where we can see the fullness of what He's shown us so far). The corrupted old nature still sways and pulls us, redeemed sinners, into paths and degrees of error that can only be realized when we stop and check for a course correction. Granted, if we only kept our eyes on the compass….i.e. God….we wouldn't have to fear such deviations….but we don't, even the 'most' spiritual of us and only a few degrees of error, over time, can lead to disastrous course variations in our journey towards home and the pursuit of God.
It is when we are still in the water, the sails limp upon the masthead and the waves rocking the deck beneath our feet (whether gently or violently) is when we approach our understanding of God, and that intimate relationship, the closest. And we realize that some of the tasks, the assignments and even directions that God beckoned us to join Him in don't seem logical or even worthwhile when He first spoke but in the fullness of the journey, we can see the wisdom of His plan. Too many times, though, we refuse to go without a logical explanation detailing the design and wisdom of God. We speak our dogma with such requirement, we seek out our teachers who can espouse it in our language and 'correct' our scriptural understanding to fit God's word into our demandedness.
Abraham, having the fulfilled promise God made him in Isaac, was told by God to take him to "a mountain" in the Moriah region so he could be a burnt offering. God didn't even tell Abraham which mountain, only that it would be 'one….I will tell you about." (Genesis 22:2) Abraham didn't have the guarantee that things would end the way they did….God didn't provide such information to him. Obedience without cost is easy and empty, for there is no faith engaged in such obedience that doesn't require us to believe in the illogical. So much of the 'basics' are easily understood, but when we get into the depth and width of God….the logic is hidden from us, just over the horizon.
It is when God calls us to join Him in the impossible, the incalculable and the unknowable that obedience becomes a walk of faith….a willingness to walk into the furnace that kills even the tenders….to journey the desert for forty years following a cloud by day and pillar of fire by night…or even to journey into the darkness and sorrow of our past to give witness and voice to that which we would deny and are certain means death. Obedience born of faith that seems illogical, that carries impossibly heavy cost (even the cost of a promise God has given) or is so beyond what we consider to be our 'calling' is were God walks closest to us because we live through that faith….a faith that believes God can kill all our dreams, remove all our promises and blessings but that He also has the power to resurrect them, restore them and fulfill them.
We have to face that which is our most deepest fear, journey back into the timeless pain of a chaotic and troubling childhood to face those giants that stand in the way of God's victorious mercy. Why doesn't God just heal us without that accounting? Without reliance upon God to face those giants, we will equip ourselves with the armor of our choosing and find ourselves ill-fitted to journey alongside our brethren in their struggles. We become counterproductive to the cause of the Kingdom and ineffective in the Potter's hands.
Paul tells us that we should 'rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us." (Romans 5:3-5) In the times to come, whether facing the giants of our past, dealing with the human tendency of self in our dealings inside and outside the family of God or even growing closer to God in the intimate relationship of His will and our lives; we will need faith tested that has persevered to the point of unshakeable and undeniable hope. For in the end of all things, hope is all we have left.
God calls us to bring our garbage to Him for disposal. To be burned in the righteousness of His forgiveness, cleansed by His grace and redeemed by His mercy. Not so that we can live a life prosperous by the standards of the world; wealth, health and glory but so that we can more clearly see a God who defies all understanding and is more powerful that the most complex of our problems. So that we can reflect to a darkened world a light that is unworldly, simplistic and clear by living a life that is illogical in the face of our wounds, our situations and our circumstances.
In a kingdom long ago, there was a murder committed in the light of day. A King killed his beloved son, the literal image-bearer of his face to whom he found displeasure for the apparent handicaps of his wisdom, knowledge and vitality. No justification could or has been given for this murdering, no accounting has been given for its commission. One of the perpetrators of this dastardly deed has walked into the ultimate judgment and another still wanders the worldly hallways of dark freedom….yet the crime must be attributed and assignment of guilt given. God mourns the loss of that beloved son and wants to bring resurrection, restoration and purposed joy to the corpse of that son that still wanders the world….
An illogical trip into the darkness of my childhood is where God whispers to me to go; to journey into the void created and to find that beloved son, without a promise of victory and a proclamation of healing…..but I have faith that God can take me into that place and that He can resurrect that lost child for the promotion of His glory.
Thursday, May 28
Saturday, May 23
Refreshed for the journey....
"[Elijah] then walked another whole day into the desert. Finally, he came to a large bush and sat down in its shade. He begged the LORD, "I've had enough. Just let me die! I'm no better off than my ancestors." Then he lay down in the shade and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel woke him up and said, "Get up and eat." Elijah looked around, and by his head was a jar of water and some baked bread. He sat up, ate and drank, then lay down and went back to sleep. Soon the LORD's angel woke him again and said, "Get up and eat, or else you'll get too tired to travel." So Elijah sat up and ate and drank. The food and water made him strong enough to walk forty more days. At last, he reached Mount Sinai, the mountain of God, and he spent the night there in a cave. While Elijah was on Mount Sinai, the LORD asked, "Elijah, why are you here?" He answered, "LORD God All-Powerful, I've always done my best to obey you. But your people have broken their solemn promise to you. They have torn down your altars and killed all your prophets, except me. And now they are even trying to kill me!" "Go out and stand on the mountain," the LORD replied. "I want you to see me when I pass by." All at once, a strong wind shook the mountain and shattered the rocks. But the LORD was not in the wind. Next, there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. Then there was a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. Finally, there was a gentle breeze, and when Elijah heard it, he covered his face with his coat. He went out and stood at the entrance to the cave. The LORD asked, "Elijah, why are you here?" Elijah answered, "LORD God All-Powerful, I've always done my best to obey you. But your people have broken their solemn promise to you. They have torn down your altars and killed all your prophets, except me. And now they are even trying to kill me!" The LORD said: Elijah, you can go back to the desert near Damascus. And when you get there, appoint Hazael to be king of Syria. Then appoint Jehu son of Nimshi to be king of Israel, and Elisha son of Shaphat to take your place as my prophet. Hazael will start killing the people who worship Baal. Jehu will kill those who escape from Hazael, and Elisha will kill those who escape from Jehu. But seven thousand Israelites have refused to worship Baal, and they will live." (1 Kings 19:4-18 CEV)
Elijah, one of the great prophets of Israel's history, who followed in the footsteps of one seemingly even mightier than he was, was finished.....the road of following God's purpose defeating him and bringing his own humanity into death's grip. So he ran.....as far and as fast as he could until exhaustion seemed to overtake him and he fell asleep under the shade of a tree, his mind shutting down from the stress of what he was running from. God, nothing more than the confrontation that God was bringing by Elijah's prophecying. God is a pretty mighty foe to run from. He had reached the 'breaking point' of his humanity and wanted it finished, over with. Elijah and I are soul brothers in this feeling.
The nails are removed from the boards that I had sealed the door to that childhood home I once 'lived' in human terms but where my spirit, in Christ's terms (or Eldridge's terms), died at the hand of the despot ruler of the kingdom contained within the walls of the Wormer home......that is where the atrocities of the King happened....the apartment in Ferndale on the street off of Woodward where he served as a landlord tenant still stands but there is only one of the happy memories of my mother...that short fiery woman of Polish descent....stirring a big shiny pot on the stove in the tiny kitchen and an innocent little boy asking shyly what she was cooking and her response that was made in jest but had frightened that little one so bad he didn't want to eat it....."My witch's brew". The shock and guilt that flashed across her face when she realized the fear that it caused was one of the many faces that her love showed in the years that I was blessed to have her in my life.
The giants pound on the walls of that house on Wormer, in the shadow of St. Paul's monastary, as if they can smell the very blood that flows in my veins and remember the delicious taste of my young soul....wanting it more, since they haven't been fed in years and years since I've nailed the door shut and tried my best to make the vision of the King's prophecies come true. I shake with a fear that comes from the core of my being....sweat from the incredible heat that seems to consume even the sweet air of the Lord's gifting of the Counselor making my body try and regulate my body's overheating condition. The knob in my hand, to the front door on that little porch that was in front of the house, seems to turn against my will...my hand is actually straining to keep it closed..."Oh, tried it," I'd say, "but it was locked up tight. So sorry Lord." It opens, the creaking reaching down into my soul with naily barbs to run fresh wounding jagged lines into the depth of my soul. I can imagine the depth of Christ's cry when His Heavenly Father had to turn His back on Him....the despair that formed the words, "My God, My God! Why have you forsaken Me!"
The darkness is total, though the sun is high in the sky...nothing prenetrates the soul of this house. Nothing good, at least. What is God doing in this place, why must I travel the roads that are best forgotten and erased? To face my father is to face myself, to find accountability for his actions and inactions to hold myself to account for those actions, for I share too much of him to disassociate myself even if I could try. The door is open.....and I am of Elijah's "Kill me, I''ve had enough!"
I don't want to go in; to face the reaction of the man who hated so much the curse of having a son who looked like him but was so much 'weaker' than he would ever be or ever was. A boy who was prone to 'daydreaming' because there could be no illness in his family...from his seed. Even when the epliepsy was diagnosed, after I fell off the kitchen table and bit off my tongue (or at least bit it badly)....it was unacceptable for him. It would set the tone for our relationship all of my life, until the week before he died of a massive heart explosion (doctor's words). I told him that I had given up on trying to please him and be like him, and of hating him for seeing his face in the mirror each morning.....I had come to bury the hatchet. He seemed surprised that I would ever think that he would be disappointed in me. Apparently the life I led was as much a mystery to him as it was to me in that childhood; a father divorced from his family for the sake of work....classic Lewis. But, an accounting was never given and so resolution and redemption never obtained. A week later, my sister called with the news.
"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." John 16:33
I fear to face those giants contained within these walls; the images haunting my sleep and my waking hours, yet Christ overcame the world and therefore I have within me, as kinsmen, the same ability.
But God knows me so well and knows this journey home is impossible without Him and even then, it will have to stretch my faith and my relationship with Him to new depths. He knows the journey ahead into the darkened depths of this house will cost me in strength, pain and anguish...so He gives me the grace to refresh at each turn, each discovery, to come to a place where an accounting is given, responsibility assigned and then healing through the forgiveness of a absent father who created a ghost son can be more real and encompassing that it was before. He promises me, and so I refresh before I enter.
"When we choose to believe the promises of God, we will have the strength to endure all the broken promises of the world." Teresa Ortiz tells us in her blog, "If we set our hearts and minds on heavenly things – Knowing and loving God by studying His word, and loving people, He promises to walk with us through our trials – or carry us when we can no longer stand."
God has shown me, in the end of this journey, what prizes He has for me to give; the ability to walk into the darkness of another's soul and sit within with them speaking God's love, provision, and strength until they too obtain that which God has brought them to get and freedom from sin, from humanly assigned purposes and from the past are realized under the flowing water of Christ's sacrifice. This is the taste of heaven we can have on earth.
This is the song He has begun to teach me in the gathering darkness of the past, as a journey into its depths is begun and the end of it comes into sight....to sing, to praise and to worship the I AM in the blessings of His friendship, His love and His promises. For when I walk into the purpose to which He calls me, these things I will need to know in the depth of my heart so that I can give it to others in their need, in their journeys.........
"You have turned my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, To the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever." Psalm 30:11-12
For the few who will be saved through the telling of my story, through the encompassing of my smaller story in the greater context of God's bigger story......through the trials, tribulations and destruction of a dead and dying world as man walks further and further from God's hand...
Oh Lord, let me speak that they hear You, let me live that they see You and let me die that they might see that You live........not in the storm, earthquake or tempest but in the gentle wind that comes before it....speaking the promises of Your love into the souls in need of refreshment...
AMEN
Elijah, one of the great prophets of Israel's history, who followed in the footsteps of one seemingly even mightier than he was, was finished.....the road of following God's purpose defeating him and bringing his own humanity into death's grip. So he ran.....as far and as fast as he could until exhaustion seemed to overtake him and he fell asleep under the shade of a tree, his mind shutting down from the stress of what he was running from. God, nothing more than the confrontation that God was bringing by Elijah's prophecying. God is a pretty mighty foe to run from. He had reached the 'breaking point' of his humanity and wanted it finished, over with. Elijah and I are soul brothers in this feeling.
The nails are removed from the boards that I had sealed the door to that childhood home I once 'lived' in human terms but where my spirit, in Christ's terms (or Eldridge's terms), died at the hand of the despot ruler of the kingdom contained within the walls of the Wormer home......that is where the atrocities of the King happened....the apartment in Ferndale on the street off of Woodward where he served as a landlord tenant still stands but there is only one of the happy memories of my mother...that short fiery woman of Polish descent....stirring a big shiny pot on the stove in the tiny kitchen and an innocent little boy asking shyly what she was cooking and her response that was made in jest but had frightened that little one so bad he didn't want to eat it....."My witch's brew". The shock and guilt that flashed across her face when she realized the fear that it caused was one of the many faces that her love showed in the years that I was blessed to have her in my life.
The giants pound on the walls of that house on Wormer, in the shadow of St. Paul's monastary, as if they can smell the very blood that flows in my veins and remember the delicious taste of my young soul....wanting it more, since they haven't been fed in years and years since I've nailed the door shut and tried my best to make the vision of the King's prophecies come true. I shake with a fear that comes from the core of my being....sweat from the incredible heat that seems to consume even the sweet air of the Lord's gifting of the Counselor making my body try and regulate my body's overheating condition. The knob in my hand, to the front door on that little porch that was in front of the house, seems to turn against my will...my hand is actually straining to keep it closed..."Oh, tried it," I'd say, "but it was locked up tight. So sorry Lord." It opens, the creaking reaching down into my soul with naily barbs to run fresh wounding jagged lines into the depth of my soul. I can imagine the depth of Christ's cry when His Heavenly Father had to turn His back on Him....the despair that formed the words, "My God, My God! Why have you forsaken Me!"
The darkness is total, though the sun is high in the sky...nothing prenetrates the soul of this house. Nothing good, at least. What is God doing in this place, why must I travel the roads that are best forgotten and erased? To face my father is to face myself, to find accountability for his actions and inactions to hold myself to account for those actions, for I share too much of him to disassociate myself even if I could try. The door is open.....and I am of Elijah's "Kill me, I''ve had enough!"
I don't want to go in; to face the reaction of the man who hated so much the curse of having a son who looked like him but was so much 'weaker' than he would ever be or ever was. A boy who was prone to 'daydreaming' because there could be no illness in his family...from his seed. Even when the epliepsy was diagnosed, after I fell off the kitchen table and bit off my tongue (or at least bit it badly)....it was unacceptable for him. It would set the tone for our relationship all of my life, until the week before he died of a massive heart explosion (doctor's words). I told him that I had given up on trying to please him and be like him, and of hating him for seeing his face in the mirror each morning.....I had come to bury the hatchet. He seemed surprised that I would ever think that he would be disappointed in me. Apparently the life I led was as much a mystery to him as it was to me in that childhood; a father divorced from his family for the sake of work....classic Lewis. But, an accounting was never given and so resolution and redemption never obtained. A week later, my sister called with the news.
"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." John 16:33
I fear to face those giants contained within these walls; the images haunting my sleep and my waking hours, yet Christ overcame the world and therefore I have within me, as kinsmen, the same ability.
But God knows me so well and knows this journey home is impossible without Him and even then, it will have to stretch my faith and my relationship with Him to new depths. He knows the journey ahead into the darkened depths of this house will cost me in strength, pain and anguish...so He gives me the grace to refresh at each turn, each discovery, to come to a place where an accounting is given, responsibility assigned and then healing through the forgiveness of a absent father who created a ghost son can be more real and encompassing that it was before. He promises me, and so I refresh before I enter.
"When we choose to believe the promises of God, we will have the strength to endure all the broken promises of the world." Teresa Ortiz tells us in her blog, "If we set our hearts and minds on heavenly things – Knowing and loving God by studying His word, and loving people, He promises to walk with us through our trials – or carry us when we can no longer stand."
God has shown me, in the end of this journey, what prizes He has for me to give; the ability to walk into the darkness of another's soul and sit within with them speaking God's love, provision, and strength until they too obtain that which God has brought them to get and freedom from sin, from humanly assigned purposes and from the past are realized under the flowing water of Christ's sacrifice. This is the taste of heaven we can have on earth.
This is the song He has begun to teach me in the gathering darkness of the past, as a journey into its depths is begun and the end of it comes into sight....to sing, to praise and to worship the I AM in the blessings of His friendship, His love and His promises. For when I walk into the purpose to which He calls me, these things I will need to know in the depth of my heart so that I can give it to others in their need, in their journeys.........
"You have turned my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, To the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever." Psalm 30:11-12
For the few who will be saved through the telling of my story, through the encompassing of my smaller story in the greater context of God's bigger story......through the trials, tribulations and destruction of a dead and dying world as man walks further and further from God's hand...
Oh Lord, let me speak that they hear You, let me live that they see You and let me die that they might see that You live........not in the storm, earthquake or tempest but in the gentle wind that comes before it....speaking the promises of Your love into the souls in need of refreshment...
AMEN
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