Following God

What does 'following God' really mean?  We could probably find a thousand answers, if we want to look.  But, the only one that seems to sustain us is the answer in any moment of our lives that is pretty concrete and pretty personal.  I like the abstract ones, particularly the ones I can relate to.  But I find that, like many other things, I've forgotten more of those than I will ever remember.  The one that is alive, that feels real at any given time, is the one that expresses something quite personal, something tangible, some real example of what it looks like right now.

For example, I have had to make a difficult decision of late, one that I wish I didn't have to make.  After sorting through all the debris surrounding the 'issues' involved, I really end up at one place; what is God asking me to do?  When I make the decision, I have to in some personal way satisfy the question of following God in it.

So I think the real question is somewhat closer to something like, what does it mean for me to 'follow' God right now?  In what I am facing?

...from there I decide whether or not to continue developing the habit of turning to God with what I am facing or turning to other things, other explanations, other theories, even other people.  For me, at this point in my life, 'following God' means asking Him about the situation I am facing and being willing to wait for an answer...as I continue with what is front me to do today.  When everything else has been exhausted, it gets back down to me and God, our conversation, our wrestling, my openness (even as He opens me), my not choosing diversions...a submission, if you will, to a long-term answer to this questions in spite of what I want in the moment.

Enslavements in Life

One of Hebrew literature’s nouns for salvation (“yeshuwah,” related to the name “Jesus”) comes from a verb root that accents wideness or openness. God’s liberation gives us plenty of room—breathing space, deliverance from our tight anguishes and confining bondages. Moreover, God is continually doing this for us now, not only in a far distant future. Do we recognize his gracious snatching as he rescues us and delivers us from our various enslavements in life?

-- Kent Denlinger

Do we trust Him to do this? This Physician analogy seems a propos, especially from a distance (from a painful thing in our lives).  Do we trust Him?  ...or, are we more interested in making our own medications.

End and Means

In the end we’ve got to say that if God thinks the glory-filled end justifies the grief-laden means, then the choice is clear: We can trust God and justify him as we make our pilgrimage through this wilderness life, or we can tell him we aren’t prepared to accept his redemptive schemes and rage against him at every turn.

-- Jim McGuiggan

Well if you put it...that way.... While there are times I doubt the process of the former option, I must admit I would rather choose it than the latter. And, actually, knowing what I know now about this, I would gladly choose it!

Shame

Do you remember how on earth there were things too hot to touch but you could drink them alright?   Shame is like that. If you drink the cup, drink it to the bottom and you will find it nourishing.  Try to do anything else with it and it will scald.

-- C.S. Lewis

Regarding Strength

Borrowing a bit on yesterday's post, why is it that those pretending to be strong cast down the weak?  While the truly strong don't do so....

It would seem that strength is not often what it appears to be.  These beautiful ladies (Help) were very strong in their dignity, in their service, in their respect towards those who didn't deserve it.  From the lens of history it would seem that what was going on in the south was really a kind of sanctioned, society-level bullying in the grossest of degrees.  I wasn't a part of it, but I am still ashamed of it.

...and it does make me wonder what I am a part of today, that I am blind to.

the Help

I would highly recommend this movie -- for history, education, and humanity.  Some of it made me sick, some of it made me mad, some of it made me laugh, some of it made me cry.

Bearing in the mind the risks of sweeping generalizations, the following seems true:

Wherever there are weak men, there are ugly women.

...and, I'm not referring to anything physical.

See if this isn't found in this one, too. To me, this is a 'must see' movie.

More on blindness...and sin

After my thought the other day on the relationship between blindness and sin.  Another one crossed my mind regarding sin and the blindness it creates in us.  How does it do this? 

One of the ways is that sin seems to create a kind of self-consciousness within us.  When we are free from it (self-consiousness), we don't often feel the constraints it piles on us, wondering about what other people think, worrying about my status in a relationship, working for acceptance from those around me.

However, when are not free from it, we do seem to spend a lot energy on these kinds of things.  I wonder if our sinful choices foster a 'need' for these things.  A need that binds us, rather than freeing us to live towards another person.  Self-consciousness turns our eyes towards ourselves and the protections we must seek to survive or prosper in our relationships with others.  In a way, blindness is a from of what we are looking at or not looking at.  When I am only looking at myself, brokering for myself, navigating for my own interests, competing for attention from others, I'm not really able to see much of what is going outside of myself.  I am, in fact, blind to it. 

So I've noticed that, among other things, sinful choices lead me in this direction...towards myself.  It forces itself on me by plunging me towards the questions of 'am I OK?'  'What if I'm not?'  'What do I need to do about it?'  'How can get others to see me the way I want to be seen?'  Because sin is involved, there is a portion of truth to the fact that I am not OK.  I have violated something about myself; I have sinned.  And, here is where sin gets violent with us, it turns our face away from life, away from our true acceptance.  It grabs our chin and as it jerks us, says 'look at you...you are terrible'.  It leads us away from God, inward, turning on ourselves.  It creates demand from others to make us feel better about ourselves.  Our need becomes greater than anyone else's.

The path back is straight and short - confession is remarkably easy.  Forgiveness is bountiful.  So, the only thing sin can do is to try to keep us from turning towards God, from where our true acceptance comes.  In other words, to keep us blind (enslaved) to the truth. 

Self-consciousness is part of how sin blinds us.

Alan! Alan! ...Alan!

She Made It!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amazing! And the stories...ah, the stories of people's lives. What a mess, what a wonder. Click here (or the image above) for more pics.  Here are some that a good friend, Cliff Staton, took (here, too).

The Demands of Sanctification

There is always a battle royal before sanctification, always something that tugs with resentment against the demands of Jesus Christ...."If any man come to Me and hate not his own life, he cannot be My disciple."

The Spirit of God in the process of sanctification will strip me until I am nothing but "myself," that is the place of death.  Am I willing to be "myself," and nothing more--no friends, no father, no brother, no self-interest--simply ready for death?  That is the condition of sanctification.  No wonder Jesus said:  "I came not to send peace, but a sword."  This is where the battle comes, and where so many of us faint.  We refuse to be identified with the death of Jesus on this point.  "But it is so stern," we say;  "He cannot wish me to do that."  Our Lord is stern; and He does wish us to do that.

Am I willing to reduce myself simply to "me," determinedly to strip myself of all my friends think of me, of all I think of myself, and to hand that simple naked self over to God?.....He will sanctify me wholly, and my life will be free from earnestness in connection with everything but God.

-- Oswald Chambers

We balk at such things don't we?  I think Chambers is probably right and I recognize within myself some disappointment, even as I admit the truth of it.  But, what would Jesus have otherwise meant if he didn't describe things as taking up our cross and following Him?

The Sunset Limited

What a powerful story of some of the largest dialectics of life.  I highly recommend this one.  Thanks, Blake, for inviting me to watch it.

Part of what is good about the movie, is that it is provoking.  I'm still rolling it around in my mind.  I think it has affected me personally, in some of the ways that it did for Jackson's character.  It makes you ask questions...about your point-of-view in life and why you have reached the conclusions you have.

Here are some of my reactions, as I wrestle through what I believe:

If God is not personal, then He is largely just an idea…just another explanation of things, and there are many of those.  All you can do then, is pick one...or try not to.  But, even that is usually picking one.

But, when we get personal with God or when He gets personal with us, God just as an idea evaporates.  He becomes very real…because He becomes very personal.  And, this 'personalization' often happens through the pain of this world.  Not an abstract pain, but a personal one.

Both characters obviously knew some of the pains of life.  But, that was about it; from there, they took really different paths.

This is what struck me about ‘the professor’:  We never really got the (personal) details of his experience.  We were only confronted with his conclusions in theory form, not in personal form.  And, we weren’t drawn to him because of the lack of personal nature of his conclusions (though they were obviously personal to him).  He kept those things hidden (even when invited over and over to reveal them), perhaps as much from himself as from us.  This is also what was drawing about Jackson’s character.  …we could see the personal part of his story.  It was clear to him and to us; where he ended up, what he needed, why he turned to what he did...and in sharp contrast to Jones’ character.

I've said before, and it seems true again:

God isn't personal, until He's personal.

Until that happens, He is largely an idea...capable of indifference and rejection, just like every other 'idea'.

I'm Proud of Her

I am really proud of my wife for doing this.  Today she starts a 60-mile walk with a few thousand others in Chicago.  Thank you all for making this possible with your generous contributions.

She's been walking for months getting ready.  Bless her.

Forgiveness

Is the greatest lever in my forgiving someone else, the specific knowing of how I have been forgiven?

...I suspect a low awareness of where I have needed forgiveness leaves me generally unable to offer much of it to someone else.

Strength of Faith

Over the years (millenia?) there has been much debate (discussion) about the strength of our personal faith.  Like, do we have enough of it?  As my own journey of faith continues, one thing that appears to be increasingly clear is this:

The only thing precarious about the strength of our faith is our perception of that strength.  And, whatever is lacking there, both publicly and privately,  is more than covered for by God.  ...He is way ahead of us as He guides to our final destination with Him.

Seeing

In darkness there is no choice. It is light that enables us to see the differences between things; and it is Christ who gives us light.

-- Mrs. C.T. Whitemell