Category Archives: Christian Life

The Schizo Christian Life

Leave a reply

Yesterday (Wednesday) I spent some time sulking in the morning as I was trying to get to work on Sky. I did a nonstop, whining to God that the reason I didn’t want to work was because with my writing career “sliding into the toilet” what’s the use? Enclave doesn’t seem to be doing very well from my perspective, The Shadow Within and Return of the Guardian King have gone out of print so what’s the point?  Once again I was feeling sorry for myself, feeling like I’d gotten the short end of the stick from God. “All those years of work,” I moaned to Him in the nonstop, “and what was the use? I feel betrayed. I poured out my life for You for decades, and where did it get me?”

Ahem. A still small voice asked me if I was really “pouring my life out” for all those decades writing without publication just for Him, or was it more my desire for approbation (recognition, notice, approval, success) that had driven me?

God always does that. Always knocks the legs of my argument right out from under me.

Yes, He was absolutely right. I was willing to wait and work and wait and work mostly because of the shining goal at the end of the road that would have been glorious success. I was trusting Him to come through, but only as He fulfilled my plan, not His. And my plan was more about having self exalted than Him.

Gross.

But hey, I’ve got a sick head and a deceitful heart and it ain’t goin’ away until I’m dead. Or raptured. Yesterday I liked the analogy of swimming in the cesspool of my sin nature and its human viewpoint. It seemed especially apt for the grossness of my complaints and the greater grossness of the desires of my flesh that sometimes get the best of me. Pastor would probably say “welcome to the human race.” We all want to elevate ourselves in some way when it comes to the flesh. The best looking, the best writer, the best runner, the best mom, the best home schooler, the best children, the best church, the best, the best, the best. Our society is drunk on best-ness. Numbers. Top Ten. Top Five. Number One. Number two is never good enough. There always has to be improvement…. Rah rah. They make that thinking sound like a good thing.

But it’s Satanic all the way. And full of lies. For one thing, I have had success. The Lord did some wonderful things with Arena, and with the  Guardian King books. He gave me four Christy Awards. And was there any doubt that He was the one who had promoted them ALL to publication in the first place? No. But then weirdly, once He’d clearly done it, I took hold of things and began to think I had to do something to maintain it all, even while realizing on some level that I couldn’t. And with that, the fear machine in my flesh chugged and rumbled to life.

Fear of loss meant the approbation I did receive was never enough. There had to be enough sales so the books would not go out of print. But I also know that even if I’d gotten a level of sales that would have prevented the OP problem, it still wouldn’t have been enough. For my flesh anyway. I know that because the Bible says so, and also because I’ve now experienced it. I used to think if only I could get published that would be enough. I wouldn’t even care how many books sold. But it wasn’t long after I had been placed in the status of published author that, as I said, I did begin to care. I checked Amazon rankings daily. I monitored my fan letters. I agonized if there weren’t enough of them on any given day (though how I arrived at an acceptable number is a mystery) and on and on.

It wasn’t happiness. It wasn’t contentment.

Nassim Taleb, in The Black Swan noted that lack of contentment is one of the pitfalls of working in a field governed by extremistan. Where your payoff comes in large, unexpected chunks. He said that our hormonal system does better with a steady stream of small successes. So a stock trader who receives a little bit every day, feels better and more successful than one who receives a huge hunk ever five years, even if the latter gets ten times as much as the former. “It’s better to not to have won anything,” he said, “than to win ten million and lose nine.”

We are such weird creatures. Because I know that statement is true. Left to ourselves we focus on the lost nine instead of the fact that a million is certainly better than nothing.

Another thing Taleb said is that as bad as we are at predicting stock prices, economic futures, and political/national events (and forget predicting the weather!), we are even worse at predicting how much happiness the acquisition of some goal is going to bring us. We lust for a new car, get it and within six months or less, it’s just a car. How long before the new furniture is just furniture? The new job is not as wonderful as you thought it would be? The undying love in a marriage sours? How long before that old phone is no longer anything and now you need the new Apple I-tablet!

Our culture and economy is based on the fact that we’re never satisfied. We’ll always want more, or better or different or newer… Never content with what we have.

True contentment is independent of circumstances. It springs from one’s values and thoughts. It’s something that, according to the Bible (Phil 4:11), has to be learned, and the word for learned there is manthano, which means “to learn by instruction, to be taught” (there’s submitting oneself to one’s pastor teacher to learn bible doctrine), “to learn from experience, often with the implication of reflection – ‘to learn, to come to realize’” (there’s the attempts at application) “and to come to understand as the result of a process of learning” (the final result after many iterations of the cycle).

In other words, contentment is a result of the tranformation of the mind through daily exposure to the teaching of the Word of God. The Word does the transforming and as one’s values and norms and standards change, one’s desires change. Fleshly values and thoughts can only experience the pseudo-contentment of being in good circumstances and even then it won’t satisfy for long as boredom sets in. And should those good circumstances turn bad, the fleshly, pseudo-contentment flies right out the window.

True contentment is something that can’t be shaken. Something that God does, not that we do. I don’t believe we can make ourselves content. All we do is keep exposing ourselves to His thinking and gradually, tiny step by tiny step, His thinking becomes ours and we are changed. I’m not there yet, but way better than I used to be. There was a time I couldn’t even consider the possibility of not being published. Then when I got to the point of truly not caring, God opened those doors. Now, for the most part, I really don’t care what the career does. It’s only when I fall into that cesspool that I start caring again. Get my eyes off the right things and onto the wrong things and I’m miserable. And I do it all to myself.

Fortunately there’s rebound. And daily Bible class, which reinforces the entire process and gets my eyes trained back on the right things.

Comfort in the Scalable

Leave a reply

From time to time our Pastor challenges us with the question of “How many people have you witnessed to today? How many people have you brought to Bible Class?” Because I’m usually at home, and have not had opportunity to go out into the world and witness to anyone, my answer is usually… no one. Plus I’m just not a naturally garrulous person so I tend not to speak to grocery store checkers, sales clerks, other exercisers at the Y, etc. Not surprisingly then, the challenge usually provokes a certain amount of guilt in me.

However, I’ve come to see, again, or perhaps with more clarity (or more belief that it’s true?) that talking to grocery store checkers is really not my calling. And surprisingly there were some principles in The Black Swan that helped solidify that.

At several points throughout the book author  Nassim Taleb mentioned the importance of having a lot of uninterrupted solitude, the kind “a nontransactional life” provides, in order to think. Thinking takes a lot of time and energy (as I’ve discovered for myself  recently after days filled with wall-to-wall activity left me devoid of energy and words). In any event, if you’re alone thinking, you aren’t out witnessing to people.

And that’s where learning the difference between the non-scalable work characteristic of Mediocristan vs the scalable work in Extremistan has changed my perspective. Though I may not be out there talking to a lot of folks personally (Mediocristan), my books (and even this blog) have the potential to reach far more people than I could physically interact with on a day-to-day basis.

I don’t keep track of lifetime copies sold, but at one point not long after Arena had been published I figured it had probably been read by a minimum of 30,000 people. Even if I was garrulous, outgoing and extroverted… and tirelessly active, I don’t think I could personally reach 30,000 people in a year. Certainly I couldn’t speak to those in China and Thailand, where readers have reported that my books have shown up.

Thanks to Taleb’s clarifications on this matter, I realize I no longer have cause to beat myself up over my not so social lifestyle and the not so many people I am able to witness to in person on a daily basis. Friends who have known me for some time might remember that I’ve come to this conclusion on a previous occasion and wonder why it seems more significant now. I don’t know, it just does. Maybe all I really needed was the reminder, and that coming from an unexpected source.

Of course, given that there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, I had no cause to beat myself up in the first place, but sometimes these doctrinal concepts need a little twist of perspective to make them real. Or at least, more so. (Our world is not at all hospitable to the notion that as believers in Christ we are already perfect and whole and blameless in His sight and can’t do one thing to make ourselves better than He’s already made us. But that’s a post for another day.)

Living in Who I Am

Leave a reply

I really should try to get my blog posts done in the morning. I had several ideas — and the words — before lunch time, but other things to do. The afternoon was spent at the oral surgeon’s (my mother’s surgery/extraction is set for Wednesday morning), helping my mother with her rehab exercises and then walking Quigley. Then there was dinner and coming up with an estimate of next year’s medical expenditures (and here I’ve been writing about the fallacy of trying to predict things; admittedly just estimating the costs of the same things I’ll use next year that I used this year isn’t really “predicting”) and now I feel mentally incapable of doing much more than setting down this list of activities.

One thing I have been doing though, is contemplating the central point of recent lessons, ie, who I am in Christ. What He’s made me to be. Righteous. Royal. An Ambassador. In union with the creator of the universe.  Perhaps I’ve already blogged about this, but can it be repeated too often? Part of that contemplation extends to my tendency to live my list of things to do.  I know I’ve mentioned that before — where my thinking becomes consumed with the list of activities I have to do, and no matter what I’m doing, I’m thinking about how I have to hurry and get done so I can do the next thing. All the while intimidating myself with warnings of the — usually unspecified — disasters that will befall me should I fail to get everything done.

Well, that’s all guilt and fear and bondage, when that’s not at all why Jesus died for me. Not to live like that, but to live in freedom. I’m already perfect in His sight. Nothing I do will change that. It won’t make me better, it won’t make me worse. So… what difference does it make what I get done today? Really. What difference? If I do absolutely nothing He’ll still conform me to the image of His son.

So I’ve been stopping myself from the list thing, and turning my focus onto who I am, as I said. Instead of the dreaded list, my tasks have changed into activities the Lord has selected for me to do for His glory and also for my benefit. And often for my pleasure, if I’ll just slow down and realize it.

As I’ve said before, the important thing isn’t to get things done, it’s to live for my Lord and Savior. To stay in fellowship, to live in the peace that Christ died for me to have. Everything the Lord leads me to do has purpose. And all the worries about the things that didn’t get done, can be laid right back on Him. And He has promised to provide everything I need.

“Sing praises to our God on the lyre, who covers the heavens with clouds, who provides rain for the earth, who makes grass to grow on the mountains. He gives the beast his food… He does not delight in the strength of the horse; He does not take pleasure in the legs of man (running about doing stuff). The Lord favors those who respect Him, those who wait for his lovingkindness (grace) ”  ~Psalm 147:7-11

Phone Book Exercise

Leave a reply

Last week as part of our rehab exercises, my mother was supposed to stand upright while holding on to her walker, lift her foot and place it on a phone book. This was an exercise that was supposed to strengthen her leg and help her bend her knee more. Unfortunately, she kept lifting her hip with her leg straight in her attempt to put her foot on the book, and I had to keep reminding her to bend her knee. “The point of this exercise isn’t so you can just put your foot on a book, it’s to practice bending your knee,” I told her.

As I did, it occurred to me how often God does that same sort of thing in our lives. He brings in problems that, taking the superficial view, have an obvious external, temporal purpose and goal: straighten out the medication mix up, nurse the person back to health, complete the book, get the school project done, get the car fixed after it’s broken down… But just like with my mother’s phone book exercise, none of those are the real goal.

The real goal is eternal — God conforming us to the image of His son, bringing us to a point where we can share in his sufferings and experience a bit of His resurrection life in time. And the problems and screwball events in our lives are often just exercises that bring us along toward that eternal goal. As Pastor Joe said in Bible class tonight, God is in the details of our lives. If He numbers the very hairs on our heads, He knows all about the other small things of our lives, and uses them to accomplish His purposes for us.

How Serious are You?

Leave a reply

Continuing with thoughts generated from the book, Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell…

The SEAL training at this point was intense and about to get a bit more so, as described in this bit on his first day in BUD/s First phase, the first day of the first of four weeks that would culminate in Hell Week.

So there they are, class 226, assembled outside the barracks two hours before dawn on Coronado island, the temp about 50 degrees (which is COLD for an Arizonan!). Their class leader presents them to the instructor and without so much as a good morning, he orders them to hit the surf…After that it’s pretty much continual exercise…

By 0600 I had counted out more than 450 push-ups. And there were more, I just couldn’t count any more. I’d also done more than fifty sit-ups. We were ordered from one exercise to another. Guys who were judged to be slacking were ordered to throw in a set of flutter kicks.

“The result of this was pure chaos. Some guys couldn’t keep up, others were doing push-ups when they’d been ordered to do sit-ups, men were falling, hitting the ground facedown. In the end, half of us didn’t know where the hell we were or what we were supposed to be doing. I just kept going, doing my absolute best, through the roars of abuse and the flying spray of the power hoses: push-ups, sit-ups, screwups. It was now all the same to me. Every muscle in my body ached…”

When they finally finished, he was so exhausted he could hardly eat breakfast.

It was, of course, all by design. This was not some kind of crazed Chinese fire drill arranged by the instructors. This was a deadly serious assessment of their charges, a method used to find out, in the hardest possible way, who really wanted to do this, who really cared enough to go through with it, who could face the next four weeks before Hell Week, when things got seriously tough.

“It was designed to compel us to reassess our commitment. Could we really take this punishment? Ninety-eight of us had formed up on the grinder two hours earlier. Only sixty-six of us made it through breakfast…”

The parallels to the Christian life here are uncanny. Just like Jesus, we learn obedience through the things that we suffer, but we also have the opportunity to determine just how important God and His word really are to us. Is it all lip service? Will be serve Him, be loyal to Him only for what we can get out of it? Only so long as things go well for us? And when they stop going well, will we throw in the towel. Or, in SEAL training parlance, “ring the bell?”

God knows, of course, but we don’t. When periods of intense adversity and confusion come, will we be like those seedlings in the parable of the sower that were choked out by the worries and cares of the world? Or will we be like the tree planted by streams of water, whose roots go deep so that it will not fear when the drought comes. Will we be like those trainees who made it through SEAL training, recalling why they were there, determined to give it their all, adamant about not quitting.

That’s just some human, transient activity. Noble for time, perhaps but ultimately temporal. How much more should we, enlisted as trainees in the Lord’s army, keep recalling why we are here, determined to give our Saviour our all, resolutely plugging forward one step at a time, no matter what? SEAL training is something of and in the world. Our training and service is for time and for eternity. Besides, to whom would we go? Who else has the words of truth?

It helps me to look at times of adversity and affliction as training rather than some random misfortune. My life may seem to have devolved into some kind of “crazed Chinese fire drill,” but I can know it has purpose in it, because my Instructor is the one who knows all, who delights in righteousness and justice and grace. SEAL instructors keep close tabs on their trainees, they know exactly what can be withstood without permanent injury and guide the instruction down to the very last increment of pressure that can be tolerated. Confusion, chaos, exhaustion, discomfort, even agony… they know where the line is, even if the recruits do not. Just as God knows our line, though we do not.

A Leak Under the Sink

Leave a reply

Kitchen lemonsToday was yet another where I ran around from one thing to another. Laundry, reschedule appointments, car emissions test, grocery shopping, credit union, watering,  several hours at the hospital, etc. It was a relief to get home and sit down to rest… Until I discovered about 1/4 inch of standing water under the kitchen sink. It’s a corner sink so there is a lot of space under it, and a concrete floor on which I’ve stored various cleaners and other chemicals, cleaning tubs and buckets, etc. All that had to come out and is now on my kitchen counter. My husband fixed the leak when he came home from work not too long after. We put some newspaper under it, then went out for dinner.

When we returned, the paper was dry, so Stu sprayed the floor for bugs. Just now  I went to put the stuff back, but the floor is wet again. He thinks it’s the bug spray which for some reason did not dry near the open cabinet doors, but did at the back of the space. So the stuff is still on the counter. It may stay there til morning. When I once again must get up early and drive somewhere, this time across town for yet another doctor’s appointment.  This is one where if you’re late they’ll cancel the appointment and force you to reschedule.

Our lessons of late have been about thought testing. About how the spiritual life really occurs in the thinking. Will we think human viewpoint and earthly-thoughts, or will we think in line with the Word of God? Will we capture every wicked thought that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, or let them have run of the place? Will we deal with pressure situations with divine viewpoint, or fall back on the pseudo-solutions of human viewpoint and defense mechanisms like denial or anger or sublimation…?  My thoughts have been challenged repeatedly seemingly from all directions… the business with the waiting room yesterday, the fatigue, the dog being a pill (it’s pathetic when one surrenders control of one’s soul to a dog) (fortunately there’s rebound), the leak, even a ridiculous email from some guy who’s started a review blog of Christian fiction and wanted to know if I had “plans for 2010”. 

Wondering what that was about, I followed the enclosed link to his site and discovered he’d done reviews of Arena and The Enclave and thought both of them were lame. In fact, he began his review of The Enclave by saying that having read a few of my books he was not looking forward to reading it at all, especially when he read what it was about. He did anyway and his expectations were not disappointed… So my question is… why in the world was he writing to ask what I was doing next??? Given everything else that was going on (I found it right after the leak) I do not believe it was an accident. One of those attacks of the mosquito that can be more devastating to your spiritual state than an all out disaster.

Fortunately, tonight’s lesson also talked about how Jesus did not entrust Himself to men. He just gave His message and moved on, whether people received Him or rejected Him.   So I’m going to do that, too.

Finally, an update on my mother: thanks for all the prayers out there. She’s doing very well — was up twice today, using the walker and the bathroom, but she had a lot of pain when she moved her leg — particularly bending it at the knee to get her foot under her so she could stand up. Standing up was no picnic either. Still, she pushed through it. She also sat upright in a chair for several hours with no discomfort. And they are getting the food issues settled and the dispensing of the drug she brought from home has worked out fine as well.  So all in all, that part was good. Actually, it was all good. Cool to get the doctrine in class and then have events hit you where you can apply the stuff you’ve just learned. It makes God’s presence very real.

Colonel Thieme – Face to Face With the Lord

Leave a reply

RBTBIOPH3

My first pastor, the one through whom I was introduced to doctrine, and under whom I studied for something like 23 years, and one of the two men I credited in the acknowledgements of Arena and the Guardian King series went home to be with the Lord last Sunday. Here is the press release:

Robert B. Thieme, Jr., pastor of Berachah Church from 1950-2003 and president of R. B. Thieme, Jr., Bible Ministries, passed through death into eternity Sunday, 16 August 2009 at 8:45 PM and is now “absent from the body and face to face with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8b). He was the beloved husband of Betty Beal Thieme and devoted father of Robert B. Thieme III. He is also survived by his sister, Ann T. Wallis, and his cousins, Fredericka Botts and Nancy N. Harder.

Bob was born on 1 April 1918. His father, Robert B. Thieme, and mother, Anna Cloakey Thieme, of Ft. Wayne, Indiana moved to Beverly Hills, California in 1926. Bob graduated from Beverly Hills High School in the summer of 1936, having lettered in football, track, and gymnastics. He was a member of the Beverly High Alumni Association.

Bob enrolled at the University of Arizona in Tucson in the fall of 1936 where he majored in classical Greek and joined the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. After a distinguished college career, he graduated on 29 May 1940 magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He was also commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Army Reserve.

With the goal of becoming a pastor, Bob was licensed to preach by the First Baptist Church of Tucson, Arizona on 5 June 1940. To further his ministerial preparation, he enrolled in Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas in 1940. After one semester, his seminary studies were interrupted by the impending entry of the United States into World War II.

On 3 April 1941 Lieutenant Thieme began active duty service in the Army Air Corps. Because of the nature of his assigned duties he received rapid promotion and by the end of the war had attained the rank of lieutenant colonel. LTC Thieme was the Director of Military Training for Flying Training Command. In this position he was charged with initiating, prescribing, and standardizing military training for all categories of personnel in the Aviation Cadet programs. His duties included coordinating training at 120 Army Air Corps installations throughout the United States and authoring publications that standardized this training. By 1943, he had written The Military Triad, Strategy and Tactics for The Aviation Cadet, and Get Smart, Mister. His final assignment was to supervise and direct the gunnery training at Harlingen Field, Texas. Bob returned to Dallas Seminary in 1946 to resume preparation for the ministry. The academic training he received in Greek, Hebrew, theology, history, and textual criticism became the foundation for a rigorous professional life of studying and teaching the Word of God. As a student, he became the interim pastor of Reinhardt Bible Church in Dallas, Texas. Upon graduating summa cum laude with a Master of Theology in May 1949, he continued to pastor at Reinhardt until April 1950.

For fifty-three years Robert B. Thieme, Jr., was the pastor of Berachah Church in Houston, Texas. As pastor he developed an innovative system of vocabulary, illustrations, and biblical categories designed to communicate the truths of God’s Word. His scholarly, expository approach to teaching the Word of God and the worldwide distribution of his publications and biblical teachings without charge or obligation have made Pastor Robert B. Thieme, Jr., a major voice in Christianity today.

A memorial service will be held at Berachah Church at 10:00 AM Sunday, 23 August 2009.

**

As I read this I realized for the first time that Col Thieme had already started preparing for the ministry when he was called into military service. But despite the press release’s implication that this service was an “interruption” I suddenly saw that it was anything but. It was not only God’s preparation for what was to be his life’s work but a wonderful metaphor for what Col Thieme would do as a pastor: train the army of God. I knew he had been involved in the Army’s training program, but it didn’t register until now just how extensive that work had been. First he developed a program for training the country’s soldiers. Then he developed a program for training the soldiers of our Lord’s heavenly kingdom. And that is just… awesome.

I also had completely forgotten that he had started out as interim pastor at Reinhardt Bible Church. Yes, I know I heard him mention it on occasion, but I did not recall it until now — certainly not when I came up with Cam Reinhardt’s name. Too funny.

I don’t think I can even get my mind around how greatly this man influenced my life. I am so grateful for his diligence in studying and teaching and protecting his sheep, in the face often of tremendous opposition and persecution. What he gave to me is a something I shall literally cherish forever.

But I’ll save that musing for another day.

The R. B. Thieme, Jr, Bible Ministries website has a wealth of his materials available for ordering free of charge. As with Grace Bible Church, the financial policy is one of grace, whereby anyone interested in receiving doctrinal information is free to do so and contributions are made solely on a voluntary basis. There are audio tapes, MP3 CD’s, DVDs and numerous booklets. I own and have read nearly all the latter, and still go back to refer to them from time to time.

Form of Godliness

Leave a reply

Tuesday I began a bit of musing on the problem of human good and today, I’m going to continue that. I started with the statement, “If the unbeliever can do it, it’s not the Christian way of life” and used morality as an example.

Another example is that of religion and ritual. An unbelieving Jew could bring an animal for sacrifice, fulfill tenets of the Law, tithe, give and persecute those who were not Jews. Likewise today an unbeliever can attend church regularly, eat a wafer, drink some juice, pray, sing, weep, give money, etc. Many of these actions are things Christians are commanded to do in the New Testament, but if the Unbeliever can do it, it’s not the Christian way of life. So while we are to do those things, they’re still not the Christian life.

An unbeliever can study the Bible. Many Old Testament scholars, particuarly in regard to languages, were unbelievers. Many of the men who translated the Bible into the King James English were unbelievers.

Saul of Tarsus, that Hebrew of Hebrews, knew the Old Testament backwards and forwards and had it all memorized. He studied daily and strove to fulfill the Law. He persecuted Christians with great zeal, believing he was serving the Lord. But he was an unbeliever.

So studying and reading the Bible, quoting it and memorizing scriptures, being a Bible scholar, is not in itself the Christian way of life either, though studying it and knowing it is vital to living the Christian way of life.

What’s interesting about unbelievers or even non-Spirit filled believers studying the Bible is that they aren’t going to be able to understand it.  The naturally minded man cannot understand the things of God.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 1Co 2:12-14

This explains to some degree the passage in 2 Timothy that speaks of those who have a form of the Christian life, and who are “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 2Ti 3:7

According to Vine’s Expository Dictonary, the word for form  is morphosis, which is a form or an outline, an image or impress, an outward semblance — but one which is  more than just an outward facade, which would have been schema. Such people have an inward form of the Christian life as well, which I take to mean that they are not just putting on an act. They actually believe that they’re doing the right thing.  They believe they are in the light, thus always seeking to learn… but never coming to truth because they’re doing it in their souls, without the power of the Spirit.

Storms and Pressure Cookers

Leave a reply

I was in the process of replying to Gayle’s comment on my last post Flestered, when I realized not only was I going on a bit too long in a comment, but that what I was saying would make a good regular post. So I decided to put it here.

Gayle had made mention of God’s plan not being for us to be diving into a pressure cooker of our own making. At least I think that’s what she meant.  If not, oh well, at the least my misunderstanding has prompted a new post…

I am well aware of the phenomenon of creating pressure cookers for ourselves and then diving into them… Martha, all worried and bothered about so many things comes to mind. And I’ve certainly dived into my share of pressure cookers of my own making.

However, I don’t feel like I’ve done that this time, but rather the pressure cooker has just come up around me. Rather like that storm that came up around the disciples in John 6 in our Basics Class lesson Tuesday night. I LOVED that lesson. It was so perfect for where I am.

I’m just looking at it all whirling about, all these things, all these people and animals and voices telling me to do this and that, asking for this and that… demanding I make up scenarios regarding the future, which I am not able to see, lacking omniscience, and then, having made them, put everything into place to deal with them, only to have others come in and change it all, or demand somethiing different…

The storm imagery from John 6: 15-21 was fantastic, and I loved that Jesus knew exactly what He was sending the disciples into when He told them to get into the boats without Him and cross to the other side, that He knew exactly how much they could handle and that He came to them at just the right time. I loved that they were struggling with the oars, rowing and rowing and not really getting anywhere and as soon as they welcomed Him into the boat… poof. The boat was at their destination.

They’d just heard the great dissertation on how He was God in chapter 5, just seen Him feed the five thousand in the beginning of Ch 6, probably still had those twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish… It was all a test and even though it was dark and cold and scary and probably VERY uncomfortable, they had only to look into those baskets and recall what they knew… Who He was, what He could do and the fact that He’d sent them out there Himself. The storm was no accident and nothing of their making…

So, this lesson has just affirmed more and more what God seems to be showing me lately and that’s that my situation is exactly the way He wants it to be and that He will guide me on a moment by moment basis through it. He will show me, at the moment needed, which, if any, of the many activities facing me is the one I’m to do next. If the other things don’t get done. Oh well. It may not be time yet. It may be I won’t have to do them at all.

Because there’s always time to do the Will of God, but it’s not always the will of God to do all the things we have opportunity or pressure to do!