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Going to Egypt

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Yesterday I started out relating the story of how I’d received an email from a friend who is facing a crisis, and was laying the background of how for weeks I’d not had words to reply to earlier communications from her. And it was okay, because other friends had words of comfort and encouragement to offer. But Sunday  night, I suddenly had words and wrote them down. She replied Monday and again I had words, and after getting the go ahead from the Spirit I wrote them down and sent them. They turned out to be just the thing. Then, as I went about my business yesterday I kept getting the thought that what I’d been given to say would be of interest or encouragement to my blog readers, so I set out to write a post. Which immediately led me off in a different direction than I’d intended.

That’s okay. That’s how it works. And since, once I’d finished I still had the sense that the words to my friend could be helpful to others, I’ve come back to set them down — with a bit of editing, of course. For one, I’m leaving out the details of the situation to protect her privacy, and because I don’t think they’re needed. The doctrine is always what’s needed, because that we can apply to our own details…  Thus, here’s more or less what I said:

You do have to balance the idea that God will not violate free will with the concept of His overruling will, in which He doesn’t allow people to go in the direction they wish to. I don’t know that I would go with the statement on that tape declaring that suicide is ALWAYS the exception to God’s overruling will, because I’m sure you’ve read of the suicide attempts where the person jumped off the bridge and just broke their legs, or shot themselves in the head and the bullet ran around the skull under the skin, or passed cleanly between the brain’s hemispheres, leaving them alive and relatively undamaged.

The operating truth here is, your child is going nowhere until God takes her. Period. He’s the one who ultimately decides — not you, not her. If He takes her by allowing her volition to function, it’s for her blessing and yours. But really, how do you know what’s truly going on in her soul and with her volition right now? She may not even know herself.

Second thought: it is not you who is going to make or break this situation. You are not superwoman to the rescue. Whatever decision you make, it’s not going to matter in the end. Do you really think God is up there wringing His hands, just waiting to see if you make the “right” decision and if you don’t, hell descends?

 We get way too fixated on making the “proper” application, thinking that it all depends on us, when we should be fixated on the fact that it doesn’t depend on us at all. It’s no accident your child is out of your reach right now. But God knows EXACTLY what is happening with her, EXACTLY what she needs and He knew it in eternity past. He provided a solution in eternity past, too. Thus the solution is already in place. The plan is His, not ours, for His glory, not ours. And we have no idea what that plan looks like for any given day.

Here are a couple of verses that are coming to me, ones God used with me awhile back when he finally made it clear to me that I was to rely on Him and not the world with regard to my writing “career”…

Jer 17:5  Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes people his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord…

Is 30:1  Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the Lord, “Who execute a plan, but not Mine, And make an alliance, but not of my Spirit… who proceed down to Egypt without consulting me, to take refuge in the safety of Pharaoh.

vs 6 -7  They carry their riches on the backs of young donkeys and their treasures on camels’ humps to a people who cannot profit them, even Egypt, whose help is vain and empty…

vs 15  For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel has said, “In repentance and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength.”

 If you have the very Trinity dwelling in you, why in the world would you go to a person to solve this problem? If you’ve asked the creator of the universe for help, one who is your loving Father, why would you go ask a man? Because your Father isn’t coming through in your timing? Because there’s a wrong here you think He’s unaware of and cannot handle? Pastor was just talking about that yesterday. Our God is the creator, the maintainer and the judge of the universe. He knows what’s going on. He’s not sleeping and He’s not off taking a potty break. He KNOWs.

 And one final thought. Do you really think that if you just give it over to Him, let Him handle it, rest in Him and trust Him as your loving father, knowing that whatever the outcome, it will be good and perfect because He is perfect. If you really trust Him completely with this, do you think He’s going to say, “Oh no.  That’s it! You made the mistake of trusting me and now you’re going to pay for that. I really wanted you to work and get your hand into the mess because I was counting on you to make the right decisions to fix it, but you blew it. I am really displeased with you because you trusted wholly in me.” Do you really think  He’ll say that? I don’t.

Okay, that wasn’t the final thought. This one is, I think. Other doctrinal Christians can give you advice, but you have to do what you think God is leading you to do. Maybe He’ll use a person in authority to resolve this situation, but I don’t think He’d do that as a result of you deciding you need to go to a man for help. Now, if after you’ve slammed the whole thing on God and the guy suddenly shows up at your door, or calls you on the phone, with no imput from you, that could be God — or another rabbit trail. But one thing I think is certain — you can NOT go wrong trusting the Lord and standing by until He makes it very clear what you’re to do.

When I get in these situations where my thoughts are skittering back and forth like mice and I don’t know what to do and the emotions just twist tighter and tighter, I give it up. I don’t have the power or the information to decide. I have no idea what to do. So I just give it over to Him and tell Him to handle it. Whatever I’m to do, I ask Him to lead me into it, because there’s no way I can decide just now. And lately I ask Him for help in calming my mind and taking my thoughts away from the subject if I’m not able to do it myself.

Then later, somehow and I never quite know how, I find He’s led me… It’s a relationship between you and Him. Trust Him. Trust what He says to you and not what people say. Even doctrinal believers. Job’s three friends were doctrinal, but what they said to Job did not apply. They didn’t have all the facts…

Energy Conservation

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Yesterday I wrote to a friend regarding a crisis she was going through. For days — weeks, actually — I’ve been virtually wordless when it comes to responding to emails, writing blogs, and especially writing Sky. I have managed to put a few words into my journal, but nothing for others’ consumption. It’s been too jumbled. For awhile I could do little more than try to list what I’d done in a day and wonder why I felt that would somehow validate me. In fact, two weeks ago this same friend had written at length regarding the crisis, not just to me personally, but to a circle of friends. I read of her trials, which are great, and felt for her, and prayed for her, but I had absolutely no words of response. I sat there, staring at the screen, and nothing happened.

It wasn’t my time to answer.

I spent last week following the advice in the  books on introverts I’d recently acquired (finished one, almost finished with the other) about conserving personal energy — staying out of contact, resting, reading, napping, puttering, talking to the Lord. Resources are something He provides, even energy, and what I learned from reading was that sometimes He doesn’t allow you the time and solitude to recharge. Or maybe He does, but I just didn’t see it.

One thing for sure, I didn’t realize how important it was. We’re all given a certain amount of resources… time and energy being among them. I already knew that as a writer I need to guard my time, though that’s not always as easy as the Advisors of the World make it sound. Sometimes I can’t just give one thing primary importance in my life (well except for my relationship with God and the daily intake of doctrine), because I have many things that are important. They all “need” to be done as far as I can tell. And when I’m doing one of them, I find the energy to do the rest is being drained away. So if I decide to do the housework first and write second, too often the housework gets done, but not the writing. If I reverse the order, then the writing gets done but not the housework. I’ve done it both ways.

This whole issue of energy is what I hadn’t really considered. Or rather, while I’d noticed it, and gotten frustrated over my inability to manage it, I hadn’t really thought about managing it. I hadn’t thought — didn’t know — that there were ways to gain more energy apart from just going to sleep at night and waking up in the morning. The funny thing is, many of those ways were things I ended up doing anyway, then castigating myself because I was so “distractible” or so “lacking in self-discipline.”

But even as I’m writing this, I see that I’m making it more clear-cut, more “me in control” than it actually is. I’ve been told all my life that a routine is important, that self-discipline is important. I’ve been told a lot of things. I don’t disagree that establishing a routine is a very useful practice. But sometimes God doesn’t allow that. I’m coming to think that sometimes God brings us to a place where He wants all our attention. This morning I was reflecting on the fact that, so far as we can tell, Jesus didn’t really have a routine. Moreover, when people came to Him with a problem or a crisis (Jairus comes to mind) instead of dropping everything and rushing to the dying girl, the verb indicates he meandered. He stopped to heal a woman.  He took His time. Or perhaps I should say, He followed the Holy Spirit’s timing.

Pastor Bob has taught in recent years that he no longer believes that all of the “miracles” that Jesus performed were based on His deity… for example, the fish with the coin in its mouth that He sent Peter to get to pay the tax. I guess I’d always thought that He made the coin right then and put it in the fish’s mouth for Peter to find. Pastor suggested that He was simply so in tune with the Spirit’s leading, that He knew a fish that had picked up a coin in the sea would “happen” to be there at the same time as Peter was. I like that. It makes sense and it fits more with God’s ways as I know them than just to create a coin and stick it in the fish’s mouth out of the blue. If He was going to do that, why didn’t He simply draw the coin of out thin air? And how many times does God lead us into the exact right place at the exact right time?

We’re to be imitators of Christ and being in tune with the leading of the Holy Spirit on a daily basis is one of the ways we do that.

Which, it seems, is how I wrote this post. I had intended to write about some of what I finally had words to express to my friend yesterday and somehow… never quite got to that. So I’ll have to save that for tomorrow.

Avoiding Manholes and Other Musings

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This morning as I lay in bed, reflecting and praying, thinking of all the thoughts I should be avoiding, an amusing analogy came to me. Some of you may recall the story of the girl who was walking down the street texting when she fell into an open manhole. Well, as I considered my situation today, it seemed that I was walking down the street of life and needed to be alert and observant so as not to fall into any of the open manholes that unquestionably lay before me, holes of thought that would drop me suddenly into the sewer of my flesh, unpleasant, painful, and often difficult to find my way out of. I have to grope along in the dark for a while, it seems, until I find a not very obvious ladder to freedom.

I think it’s a matter of volition on some level. I can know the doctrine I need to confront the thoughts, recall it and even believe it so much as I’m able…and yet not seem to be able to turn off the negative thinking. Sometimes I think I only want to believe the doctrines, but am not yet totally convinced they are true. Oh, I’m convinced the Bible teaches them, but when I’m down there in the dark and the stink, they don’t seem so real and compelling as they do when I’m topside. [hmm. Could that be because when I’m in the sewer I’m not filled with the Spirit and the flesh is NEVER going to believe the truths of the word of God? Have to think on that… ]

Anyway, I do have to say that applying the concepts of being dead to the sin nature has helped a lot. So has recognizing a lot of the sins that start driving me. It’s only been recently that I’ve become aware of the subtle  self-righteousness that lurks in being “right”. For the sake of argument here, assume I am right in a situation and the other person is wrong. Part of why some things/thoughts are so hard to let go is because “I’m right!” Thus I feel justified in the thoughts that I’m having. When really, I’m not. I’ve fallen into self-righteousness. It’s not up to me to make an issue of who’s right or wrong, only to make sure I remain in fellowship with my Lord.

More and more I’m seeing that for us as Christians it’s hands off. Hands off the details of life and hands off other peoples’ lives. Prior to the trip to San Diego, there were many, many uncertainties as to logistics, timing, how we were going to do some of the things we were being called upon to do. Just thinking of it would make my brain cramp, so I just put it all in God’s hands. He’d handle all the details, as He assured me through many different avenues last week. Of course on the trip everything continued to shift and change and I never really knew what was going to happen until it did. Trust Him to handle the details doesn’t mean handle them so that things work out the way I think they should. Trust Him to handle the details means He’ll handle them so that things work out as He’s decreed (which means all works out “perfectly”) and I’m not to obsess and fret about them. It’s a lesson I have to continually repeat.

But there are other ways we’re to be hands off as well, and that’s with regard to others’ lives. As I’ve grown more and more aware of this concept and the breadth of it, I’ve found in myself a certain resistance. It is so against the ways of the world. And the ways of man, I think… Many of us seem to be natural busybodies, looking at what others are doing and pronouncing a form of judgment on them. Our news does this, the entertainment industry, the sports world, politics… it’s everywhere. Being right seems very important, and making sure that we point out others’ wrongs is almost a duty. There are whole websites devoted to pointing out the errors of various pastors and teachings. We can tolerate maybe toning some of that down, not gossiping about others, trying not to be too critical or critical at all… but still, the idea of completely ignoring someone’s wrongdoing?  That can’t be right, can it? Shouldn’t we go and help them? Point out their error?

Mostly I think not. Yeah, there’s the verse about the brother caught in a trespass and all that, but there are also the verses about “Who are you to judge another man’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls and stand he will for God is able to make him stand.” And, “But you there, why do you judge your brother? And you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God…so then each one of us shall give an account of himself to God.”

As believers we’re all royal priests, we all represent ourselves before God and need no one  to stand between us. Not only that, even God Himself doesn’t judge us, having passed all judgment to His son. And the Son didn’t come to judge the world but to save it and will leave the judging to His Word. So it’s really the Word that does the judging. And even if there weren’t all those verses telling us to beware stepping into the role of judging another person’s life, it’s still pretty arrogant to think we really know what’s going on with a person or in a person’s life, seeing as how we don’t have all the facts.  But it’s so easy to think we do. From just a few facts, we construct a narrative and voila: an explanation. Usually not a very complementary one to the victim.

I wrote about it, even constructed a scenario using this propensity in Return of the Guardian King. And still I want to think I really know. When more and more I think we all know very, very little about anything. Including ourselves…

Kevin in the Parking Lot

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Anyone out there watch 24? My husband and I have been fans since the first season and pretty much haven’t missed an episode. This season is the first time I’ve gotten a really cool visual image for a spiritual reality, however: Kevin, the creepy boyfriend? partner in crime? stalker? from computer analyst Dana Walsh’s past.

If you aren’t a 24 watcher, here are the salient details. Dana Walsh is a computer analyst with CTU about to marry one of the star security operatives (Freddie Prinze, Jr). As he is sent out to deal with the crisis of the hour, she gets a call from this creepy dude, Kevin, demanding she come out and meet him. Little by little details are revealed. Seems Dana Walsh is not her real name, but her new one. That in her past she was involved with this Kevin loser in some sort of crime. Both went to jail. She got out early for good behavior and because she was a juvenile. She changed her name, her identity, left her past behind and now has a new, respectable, successful life.

Perhaps, given some of what I’ve written about lately, you see where this is going…

Kevin threatens to reveal all unless she does what he says. It will surely destroy her new life. At first she hangs up on him. But he keeps calling, and finally reveals he is out in the CTU parking lot and wants her to meet him there. She resists, he presses, and eventually out the door she goes to the parking lot to meet with Kevin. Next he convinces her to let him stay in her apartment, for the night, promising to leave the next day. Instead he calls her later and demands she come over… and on it goes.

Kevin is the perfect metaphor for the old man. He calls you up. “Hey, come and meet me in the parking lot.” He cajoles, he presses, he threatens, he won’t quit… You know it’s stupid, you know you can’t trust him, you know that this is only going to bring disaster, but … like Dana, you do it anyway.

My husband thought she was an idiot to have anything to do with the guy. I was wildly uncomfortable with it, too, but I have been made very aware of the power of fear and the resultant irrationality it produces and our capacity to deceive ourselves. Kevin is played by an actor who looks somewhat like Leonardo DiCaprio, and just looks very evil. I can’t stand him. I can’t stand that she’s doing what he wants, thinking he’s really going to go away. Finally he persuades her to help him get past security into a police storage unit where some impounded drug money — cash — has been stowed. He can take it and no one will ever know because it’s a cold case.

We all know that’s not going to be enough, but she believes him when he says it’s only this once.

So much like our old man. It cajoles, it threatens, it manipulates, it promises. We give into it, even when we know better. For me, the battles are almost all thoughts. I am astonished at how often I have to fight against it, and lately, with the teaching we’ve been having, I’ve become even more aware of all the ways it tries to slip in and take control. I’ve started thinking of Kevin, when it does. “He’s calling you from the parking lot,” I tell myself, “and you’re answering the phone. You’re going out to meet with him. Where do you think this is going to end?” Nowhere good.

It’s perfect. The visual image and the emotional revulsion I feel for what Dana lets him do, has lately been strong enough to break me out of the pattern. And after last week, when the whole carefully orchestrated plot was turned into a total mess far beyond what I even dreamed might happen, the metaphor got even better.

Wordless

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I have been largely wordless this past week. I think it’s because I’ve been grappling with these new things God is teaching me — in Bible class, in old notes suddenly discovered, in the remarks of friends and even through my own reflections, like the post about the fruit ripening.

Our lessons continue to be about living in the peace and rest of God. The peace and rest of knowing that we have been reconciled to the living God, to the creator and controller of the universe… Let me rephrase that: knowing that I have been reconciled to the living God. That there really is no more condemnation. That it really is about resting in Him. Letting Him do it. 

Letting Him write the book, arrange the time to write it, move me to write it when I do. Letting Him produce the self-control in me, rather than me striving to do that.

Back at the AZ conference I spoke to Pastor Joe briefly about that. How I get these glimpses of the peace that I could have and I back away. I see it, and then think, No, that can’t possibly be right. He referenced that conversation shortly afterward in his teaching, but his take was not that it couldn’t be right, but that it was scary. I thought at the time that it wasn’t scary, just didn’t seem possible.

That conversation has been brought to my attention numerous times since. Pastor Joe has mentioned it himself, but I’ve also thought about it. And finally today in class, when I heard it yet again, something clicked. It is scary. Because it’s so not like what the world says, what man says, what I am comfortable with. The old ways.

We’re studying about the new things that have come and the old things that have passed away (2 Co 5:17). And it’s a big subject with lots of complexities, the latter, I think, mainly produced by my own faulty thinking, which has come from the world. But if man’s thoughts are not God’s thoughts, and his ways aren’t God’s and if, as Pastor Bob says, everything is opposite in God’s way… then it makes a kind of sense that the way to acquire self-control is to stop trying to acquire it. Stop trying to control myself (if only I were more disciplined!  If only I could effectively use the time I’ve been given…)  (And even those if onlies have been refuted in the past month. They are unrealistic expectations, the result of the flesh thinking it can fix itself with some self improvement effort. When it’s impossible to improve a dead man…

But I digress. The only way to acquire self-control, which is a fruit of the Spirit and not of me, is to stop trying to acquire it. Stop trying to love people, stop trying to live for others… and live for Him. Make it your goal to acquire not self-control, or love or selflessness, but to acquire His mind. When you acquire His mind, you think like Him, you want what He wants and the other stuff just follows.

And the first thing that comes out of thinking as He thinks is the awareness that I am reconciled to Him forever. There is not one thing I can ever do wrong that will un-reconcile me. It’s done. He sees me as He has made me: perfectly righteous, because I have His own righteousness. And the work of righteousness shall be peace. And the effect of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever. (Is 32:17)

But only if you consider it. Only if you turn your mind in this direction. The only thing we are to fear is failing to enter His rest. (Heb 4:1) He wants us to be at rest.

And the only way we fail is by not believing. Not believing that the work is finished and there is literally NOTHING we can add. Not believing His promises that if we seek Him first, HE will add all things to us. Not believing His word that He will provide all we need, that He will always be there, never leave or forsake us…

Can it really be that easy? Yes, I believe it can be. And I now think that yes, part of my aversion to simply letting go of it all was indeed fear. Fear that I’d just sit about like a wastrel and do nothing. It’s interesting to contemplate that thought now, because I see the flesh protesting in it. I see that from the flesh’s viewpoint, there is no power but its own. If it does nothing, then nothing will happen. But that is wrong. When the flesh does nothing, the Spirit of God is freed to work. He waits until we step back and let Him.

The problem is, we really have to step back and then we have to wait. We have to rest in utter confidence. We have to be convinced — absolutely convinced that what the Bible says is true — and then we rest. I can still plan my day, or make a list of some things that can be done… but not with the attitude that I’m going to do it. That I’m going to take responsibility for seeing it all done. That’s not what my life’s about.

My life is about following my Lord. Staying in fellowship with Him. Being alert to His leading. Not trying to take control and get my human power in there, with my plans and attempts to control things. My ideas of who I should be and what I should be doing, crappy ideas that I have picked up over the years that do nothing but provoke me to self-condemnation. They need to be rejected.  Ideas like If you don’t write every day, you’re not a writer. If you don’t have a special time to do your work, you’re not a professional. These people are depending on you. You have an obligation.

Oh really? I have an obligation to people? I think not. My only obligation is to my Master. I’ve been bought with a price, and I am obligated to serve the one who bought me and no one else. (though of course in serving Him I do serve them, but not out of guilt, sense of “responsibility”, obligation, etc. Freeing thoughts. Challenging thoughts. Scary thoughts. Way out of the mainstream kind of thoughts…

But I like them. And I think they are right.

 And with that, I guess I wasn’t so wordless after all.

Fruit Ripening

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He is the Vine. I am the branch. A branch doesn’t do anything. It just sits there, attached to the vine, a conduit for nutrients and moisture, a support for the leaves and the fruit.

The fruit of the spiritual life is not the fruit of the branch but of the Vine, of the Spirit. Not of me. Considering our lemon tree and how the lemons grow is instructive. Water and nutrients come up the trunk along the branch and at certain points, cell by cell a stem begins to develop. At some point, known only to the stem, the cells begin to change and now it’s no longer a stem but a fruit. First no more than a swelling, then a small green nubbin, then larger and, ever so slowly, larger still. Gradually it takes on its distinctive lemon shape though it is still as green as the leaves around it and hard to spot when you just glance at the tree. As the months pass, it grows larger still, and during all that time if you were to pick it, it would be no good. It would be hard and dry and more bitter than sour, I think.

Finally, though, again with no visible sign or trigger, the ripening process occurs. The fruit goes from green to yellow and suddenly you have the lemon. Compared to the rest of it, the time of ripening is short. And after the fruit has ripened, it is only a month before it begins to fall from the tree and by then if the weather is right, the new blossoms have already come, starting the next batch of fruit.

That’s how it is with writing and I think that’s how it is with the spiritual life, as well. There is a long time of growth when the fruit is barely visible or isn’t ripe yet, isn’t useful. It just sits there on the tree, growing. The brnch just sits there, attached the trunk, delivering the nutrients, keeping the fruit off the ground. Most of all, fruit-bearing isn’t something the branch controls. Nor do we. Our job is to stay connected to the Vine and receiving the nutrients it provides (Filled with the Spirit and taking in doctrine). Those things plus the innate nature of the branch produces the fruit.

Long Day

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Well, I was 5 hours at the cancer center today while my mother got her chemo treatment. I was ready for a long haul and even got a pair of pants mended while we waited. But I came home TIRED. Too tired to marshall enough words for a blog post so how about a few verses the Lord has recently brought to my attention that lately?

The Old Testament scriptures were written for our instruction says, , the Jews representing the soul of the church age believer. All their battles which were external and physical are analogous to the challenges and invisible struggles we face as Church age believers.

From Isaiah chapter 2, where the house of Jacob has been abandoned by the Lord …

…because they are filled with influences from the east…their land has also been filled with idols; They worship the work of their hands, That which their fingers have made…

The Lord of the Armies will have a day of reckoning against everyone who is proud and lofty, and against everyone who is lifted up …

And the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. But the idols will completely vanish. And men will go into caves of rocks, and into holes of the ground before the terror of the Lord, and before the splendor of His majesty, when He arises to make the earth tremble…

Stop regarding man, whose breath of life is in his nostrils; For why should he be esteemed?”

From Isaiah Ch 30

“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the Lord, “Who execute a plan, but not Mine, and make an alliance, but not of My Spirit… Who proceed down to Egypt (a type of the world), without consulting Me, to take refuge in the safety of Pharoah and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt…”

They carry their riches on the backs of young donkeys and their treasures on camels’ humps, to a people who cannot profit them; Even Egypt, whose help is vain and empty…for this is a rebellious people (the Jews), false sons who refuse to listen to the instruction of the Lord. Who say to the seers, “You must not see visions, (OT communication of doctrine);” And to the prophets, “You must not prophesy to us what is right (ie, what the Lord is actually saying), (but) speak to us in pleasant words, prophesy illusions.  Get out of the way, turn aside from the path. Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”

Therefore, thus says the Holy One of Israel, “Since you have rejected this word, and have put your trust in oppression and guile, and have relied on them, therefore this iniquity will be to you like a breach about to fall, a bulge in a high wall whose collapse comes suddenly in an instant. And whose collapse is like the smashing of a potter’s jar; so ruthlessly shattered that a sherd will not be found among its pieces to take fire from a hearth or to scoop water from a cistern.”

For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel has said, “In repentance (change your thinking; return) and rest you shall be delivered, in quietness and trust is your strength.”

But you were not willing. And you said, “No, for we will flee on horses.” (We have our own plans and schemes by which we’ll solve the problem!)

Therefore you shall flee!

“And we will ride on swift horses,”

Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift.  One thousand (of you) shall flee at the threat of one man… until you are left as a flagpole on a mountain top, and as a signal (of your stupidity) on a hill (for all to see).

Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you (if only you’d change your mind and pay attention to His word)

For the Lord is a God of justice; how happy are all those who long for Him.

Happy 2010!

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Hmm.  I wonder how we’re to say that? Is it going to be “Two Thousand Ten” or “Twenty-Ten?”  I vote for “Twenty-Ten.” First time we can actually say Twenty-something and make sense, plus it’s one less syllable.

Well, I’m finally back and ready to do a blog post. Or at least determined to do one, whether I’m ready or not. Truthfully, I have sat around for an hour or so, gone for a walk, sat around some more, read Drudge and Powerline and Victor Davis Hansen, waiting for the Lord to give me something profound and meaningful to say, but instead it seemed He said just go write.

So I am, doing so as I come off one of the most difficult and challenging holiday seasons I’ve ever experienced. There was no one major element that made it difficult, but rather a rash of small hits, insults, losses, obstacles, disappointments, inconveniences and just plain weird sequences of events, the timing of which, the interweaving of which, the seemingly tailored nature of which produced an unrelenting parade of Things That Must be Dealt With. Without sinning.

Well, I dealt, but not without sinning, alas. In the end I was reminded of the fact that it doesn’t matter if I fail. My failure is built into the plan. When I realize I’ve sinned, I have only to rebound (I John 1:9 If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.) And after that, keep taking in the word under the teaching of my Pastor, because that’s how God is going to change me. Not by me trying to do better, but by Him changing my thinking. All I do is expose myself regularly — daily — to the teaching of the word.

Yes, I do mean daily. First because real change occurs slowly, incrementally, over time  — way too much, in my opinion, but nevertheless, that’s how it happens. We focus on the Word, and it changes us. Then we can take no credit.

Secondly, we do it daily because we’re in a war and the other side is constantly assaulting us with an opposing viewpoint. God’s ways aren’t our ways, nor are His thoughts our thoughts.  The devil rules the world for now, and his thoughts abound — in the air, through the radio, TV, other people (most of them, actually) music, news, dramas, billboards… it’s a deluge. And with the sin nature happily sucking up all that worldly viewpoint (since it HATES God’s viewpoint) the only hope we have of holding fast to truth is to get it every day.

Many people think they already have truth. That it doesn’t take that much to find and hold onto it. But God’s word says otherwise. As a matter of fact, learning how to discern the truth, the right way from the wrong way, the difference between good and evil… was exactly the temptation the woman faced in the Garden. She had no clue she was even being tempted, being totally deceived. But what the serpent offered and what she desired was to be like God, knowing good from evil, being able to discern on her own, apart from His word, what was right and what was wrong. She thought, when she ate the fruit that she was doing the right thing. The good thing. The better thing. But she was wrong. Deceived.

Determining what is right and what is wrong, what God wants and what He doesn’t is not nearly as simple as the world would like us to believe. And even after we determine it, living in it is another matter altogether… The battle is all about thought. What thought system will we function under? And God’s is in the minority….

Gee, that was not at all the post I was expecting to write when I sat down here. But I think I’ll keep it, anyway.

Comfort in the Scalable

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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

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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