You get hammered in life, but you get hammered into interesting shapes.
Like most, I'd prefer my blessings to come without disguises! And then Life happened.......
A son discovering the reality of God as his Father.
Words that do not become flesh in us remain "just words." They have no power to affect our lives. If someone says, "I love you," without any deep emotion, the words do more harm than good. But if these same words are spoken from the heart, they can create new life.
It is important that we keep in touch with the source of our words. Our great temptation is to become "pleasers," people who say the right words to please others but whose words have no roots in their interior lives. We have to keep making sure our words are rooted in our hearts. The best way to do that is in prayerful silence.
The Cross of Christ was a triumph for the Son of Man. It was not only a sign that our Lord had triumphed, but that He had triumphed to save the human race. Because of what the Son of Man went through, every human being has been provided with a way of access into the very presence of God.
'Until the crisis-dis-illusionments come into our lives, the greater-higher purposes of the Father remain hidden.' (totally obscure to us)
No assembly, no church, no movement, no testimony, no fellowship, is justified in its existence from God's standpoint except insofar as Christ is expressed by it.
We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.
In being born into a fallen world and if that reality has been hidden from us which it has, is it any wonder we dumbly resist any so called alternate certainty that speaks contrary to its veracity?
The following quotes are from the movie The Matrix, which beautifully express what I am trying to illustrate.
“If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.” “I see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, that's not far from the truth.” “I know *exactly* what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but its there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?” “The Matrix.” “Do you want to know what it is?” “The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. What truth? That you are a slave, Neo, like everyone else you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch a prison for your mind.”
“For the god of this world has blinded the unbelievers' minds [that they should not discern the truth], preventing them from seeing the illuminating light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, Who is the Image and Likeness of God.”
God has called us out from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, but this illumination will not circumvent or usurp our ability to freely and fully choose to trust Him to solidify in us an substance and evidence not founded upon so called outer evidence. If there is one constant I am learning it is this, nothing is as what it appears to be!
I want to share some thoughts (from Bill Landon’s book, The Devil You Don’t Know) I feel enhance our choosing to go on with the Father in spite of all that would try to keep us safe and lifeless.
“There are times in every Christian’s life when we are offered the opportunity by the Father to go on with Him. These times represent an offer from the father to grow both in our understanding of Him in our relationship with Him. The growth in understanding and the growth in depth of relationship are linked. We cannot increase the depth of our relationship with the father (or with anyone else for that matter) without an increased understanding and vice versa. Ironically, this growth begins with a sort of ignorance. At those times when we choose to accept the Father’s offer for a greater level of understanding we do so without a firm idea of where the journey will lead us. This is not a bad thing and it is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. The Father never gives us the entire story at the beginning of any period of growth because such a revelation would rob us of the opportunity to walk by faith. The operation of faith is both a blessing and an essential element of our spiritual growth. On a darker note, we are not given the whole story at the outset of any opportunity to grow with God because if we knew some of the places we would have to pass through we might well opt not to take the journey.
What I mean by the opportunity to go on with God is this: we are given some revelational insight and are asked by God if we would like to go deeper in that understanding. When we answer “yes” to this offer it is almost always an answer given without having any understanding of where the journey will take us. I use the phrase “almost always” instead of “always” only to shy away from using absolutes. Nevertheless, you should know that I believe that the Father never gives us a complete revelation at the start of any journey. Our ignorance in these instances is not a subject for judgment or of shame. We cannot possibly know beyond what we are shown. In these cases we are sharing in the experience of Abraham: “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” (Hebrews 11:8) It is incumbent to a life that is to be lived primarily by faith that we be able to say yes to God’s proposals without knowing all (or, possibly, any) of the details. This is why I call this kind of lack of information a divine ignorance. As I mentioned before, if we knew some of the places we would have to go through to take the journey we might very likely stay at home. I know that is true for me as I am not by nature a great risk taker.”
The best that religion can offer us is but a concocted custom designed filled with leaven (corruption), “placebo.” This word (placebo) jumped out like Jumping Jack Flash into my mind as my precious daughter and I were sharing and listened to and later discussing what Father was trying to get through to me/us in the following interview with Alanis Morissette, talking about her newest production, “Flavors of Entanglement.”
The kicker is that I am not someone who listens to this artist or many for that matter, this was truly an adventure of His making-doing for my further being Fathered and being lead into a depth of His heart for me that as of yet, I Know Nothing of!
I would encourage you to first read-listen to my previous thoughts on my other blog that delve into a rich overflow of Father’s heart to mine.
Father out of my bareness, brokenness, and as you have been laboring within me, you alone are bringing me into You. Out of my mourning the joy of your living presence breathes deep into me newness, a freshness of Who’s I am.
The unobtrusive and unbreakable connection that is happening through out the earth is one of the heart, and the designer and choreographer is no less than God the Father. Scripture talks about, “A three fold cord is not easily broken.” I see that three fold cord being Father, Son and Holy Spirit, (faith, hope-love) intertwined with me and with so many others that I am slowly meeting this side of heaven, wow, talk about God having a very big house. I was out this morning walking my dog Atticus (a Bearded Collie) communing with Father, basking in the unseasonable warmth for the 2nd of November, but also savouring the warm and deep affection of his heart for me. Aren’t you glad that He is the one that defines what it means and how it looks to have a spirit-soul and body connection with Him? The kicker is that each and every day it could look just a tad different if in fact a relating, connecting with Him in a way/s that you’ve not yet experienced.
As I continued with my walk it was still resonating within my heart something I read the other day while waiting for Margi to come back from her shopping. I am slowly but surely becoming more and more a ruined and broken man as Father continues to invade my soul. Here a few of the things that lovingly wrecked my day.
“The following year, Dominique, a lean, muscular six-foot, two inches, always wearing a navy blue beret, learned at fifty-four that he was dying of inoperable cancer. With the community’s permission he moved to a poor neighbourhood in Paris and took a job as night watchman at a factory. Returning home every morning at 8:00 A.M. he would go directly to a little park were the marginal people, drifters, winos, “has-beens,” dirty old men who ogled the girls passing by.
Dominique never criticized, scolded, or reprimanded them. He laughed, told stories, shared his candy, accepted them just as they were. From living so long out of the inner sanctuary, he gave off a peace, a serene sense of self-possession and hospitality of heart that caused cynical young men and defeated old men to gravitate toward him like bacon toward eggs. His simple witness lay in accepting others as they were without questions and allowing them to make themselves at home in his heart. Dominique was the most non-judgemental person I have ever known. He loved with the heart of Jesus Christ. One day, when the ragtag group of rejects asked him to talk about himself, Dominique gave them a thumbnail description of his life. Then he told them with quiet conviction that God loved them tenderly and stubbornly, that Jesus had come for rejects and outcasts just like themselves. His witness was credible because the Word was enfleshed on his bones. Later one old-timer said, “The dirty jokes, vulgar language, and leering at girls just stopped.”
One morning Dominique failed to appear on his park bench. The men grew concerned. A few hours later, he was found dead on the floor of his cold-water flat. He died in the obscurity of a Parisian slum. Dominique Voillaume never tried to impress anybody, never wondered if his life was useful or his witness meaningful. He never felt he had to do something great for God. He did keep a journal. It was found shortly after his death in a drawer of the nightstand by his bed. His last entry read: “All that is not the love of God has no meaning for me. I can truthfully say that I have no interest in anything but the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. If God wants it to, my life will be useful through my word and witness. If he wants it to, my life will bear fruit through my prayers and sacrifices. But the usefulness of my life is his concern, not mine. It would be indecent of me to worry about that.”
In Dominique Voillaume I saw the reality of a life lived entirely for God and for others. After an all-night prayer vigil by his friends, he was buried in an unadorned pine box in the backyard of the Little Brother’s house in Saint-Remy. A simple wooden cross over his grave with the inscription “Dominique Voillaume, a witness to Jesus Christ” said it all. More than seven thousand people gathered from all over Europe to attend his funeral.
Any spirituality that does not lead from a self-centered to an other-centered mode of existence is bankrupt. For many of us the journey out of preoccupation with self begins with self-acceptance. In order to live for others I must be able to live with myself. Years ago the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung asked: What if I should discover that the least of the brothers Jesus, the one crying out most desperately for reconciliation , forgiveness, and acceptance, is myself? That I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved, what then? Will I do for myself what I do for others?
Posts
