Faith or experience?

. . . the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me —Galatians 2:20

We should battle through our moods, feelings, and emotions into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus. We must break out of our own little world of experience into abandoned devotion to Him. Think who the New Testament says Jesus Christ is, and then think of the despicable meagerness of the miserable faith we exhibit by saying, “I haven’t had this experience or that experience”! Think what faith in Jesus Christ claims and provides— He can present us faultless before the throne of God, inexpressibly pure, absolutely righteous, and profoundly justified. Stand in absolute adoring faith “in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God— and righteousness and sanctification and redemption . . .” ( 1 Corinthians 1:30  ). How dare we talk of making a sacrifice for the Son of God! We are saved from hell and total destruction, and then we talk about making sacrifices!

We must continually focus and firmly place our faith in Jesus Christ— not a “prayer meeting” Jesus Christ, or a “book” Jesus Christ, but the New Testament Jesus Christ, who is God Incarnate, and who ought to strike us dead at His feet. Our faith must be in the One from whom our salvation springs. Jesus Christ wants our absolute, unrestrained devotion to Himself. We can never experience Jesus Christ, or selfishly bind Him in the confines of our own hearts. Our faith must be built on strong determined confidence in Him.

It is because of our trusting in experience that we see the steadfast impatience of the Holy Spirit against unbelief. All of our fears are sinful, and we create our own fears by refusing to nourish ourselves in our faith. How can anyone who is identified with Jesus Christ suffer from doubt or fear! Our lives should be an absolute hymn of praise resulting from perfect, irrepressible, triumphant belief.

–Oswald Chambers

My Utmost for His Highest 11/10/08

After sanctification, it is difficult to state what your purpose in life is, because God has moved you into His purpose through the Holy Spirit. He is using you now for His purposes throughout the world as He used His Son for the purpose of our salvation. If you seek great things for yourself, thinking, “God has called me for this and for that,” you barricade God from using you. As long as you maintain your own personal interests and ambitions, you cannot be completely aligned or identified with God’s interests. This can only be accomplished by giving up all of your personal plans once and for all, and by allowing God to take you directly into His purpose for the world. Your understanding of your ways must also be surrendered, because they are now the ways of the Lord.

I must learn that the purpose of my life belongs to God, not me. God is using me from His great personal perspective, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him. I should never say, “Lord, this causes me such heartache.” To talk that way makes me a stumbling block. When I stop telling God what I want, He can freely work His will in me without any hindrance. He can crush me, exalt me, or do anything else He chooses. He simply asks me to have absolute faith in Him and His goodness. Self-pity is of the devil, and if I wallow in it I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world. Doing this creates for me my own cozy “world within the world,” and God will not be allowed to move me from it because of my fear of being “frost-bitten.”

–Oswald Chambers

Veteran’s Day

I heard at church this weekend that Veteran’s Day was coming up, and I’m embarassed to say I had no idea.  I mean, I’m sure I would have heard about it before Tuesday, but still….

Tomorrow is Veteran’s day.

I’ve never served in the armed forces, and am veteran of no war.  But there was always something about the armed forces that stirred something in me.  I remember learning the pledge of allegiance back when I was in elementary school, and turning toward the flag.  Sometimes it was hard to make it all the way through, even as a kid.

Now, it’s worse.  Now, when I see the flag somewhere, and think about the men and women serving overseas on my behalf, it’s sometimes almost overwhelming.  There is a war going on, and people are being killed.  Thanks to our military, they are not being killed in America.  This is because we are bringing the fight to the enemy. 

Yes, it is an unpopular war, and we currently have an unpopular commander-in-chief.  It was the same during Viet Nam.  Yet now, as then, people are being freed.  And also now, as then, our troops are often not afforded the respect and gratitude they deserve.

Think what you want about the war, and the decision to send troops overseas.  People talk about the war going on not being a worthwhile one, and that soldiers, airmen, Marines, and sailors are dying in vain.

I’m sure they don’t think so.  Neither do I.

The truth is that we have a volunteer armed forces.  They are not drafted.  They are not conscripts.

They volunteer.

They volunteer to serve, knowing that they could be sent to fight. 

They volunteer to serve, knowing that they could be killed, or maimed, or have to kill other people.

They volunteer to serve, so that I have the right to say they’re fighting an unjust war, and dying in vain

They volunteer to serve, so that I do not have to.

I think it’s fitting that Veteran’s day is so close to Thanksgiving.

Because I’m thankful.

Partakers in His suffering

“November 5, 2008

Partakers of His Suffering

. . . but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings . . . —1 Peter 4:13

If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a number of experiences that are not meant for you personally at all. They are designed to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what takes place in the lives of others. Because of this process, you will never be surprised by what comes your way. You say, “Oh, I can’t deal with that person.” Why can’t you? God gave you sufficient opportunities to learn from Him about that problem; but you turned away, not heeding the lesson, because it seemed foolish to spend your time that way.

The sufferings of Christ were not those of ordinary people. He suffered “according to the will of God” ( 1 Peter 4:19 ), having a different point of view of suffering from ours. It is only through our relationship with Jesus Christ that we can understand what God is after in His dealings with us. When it comes to suffering, it is part of our Christian culture to want to know God’s purpose beforehand. In the history of the Christian church, the tendency has been to avoid being identified with the sufferings of Jesus Christ. People have sought to carry out God’s orders through a shortcut of their own. God’s way is always the way of suffering— the way of the “long road home.”

Are we partakers of Christ’s sufferings?

Are we prepared for God to stamp out our personal ambitions? Are we prepared for God to destroy our individual decisions by supernaturally transforming them? It will mean not knowing why God is taking us that way, because knowing would make us spiritually proud. We never realize at the time what God is putting us through— we go through it more or less without understanding. Then suddenly we come to a place of enlightenment, and realize— “God has strengthened me and I didn’t even know it!”

–Oswald Chambers

Deliver Me

I heard Jenny’s dad practicing this song over the weekend, and I had never heard it before–at least I don’t remember hearing it.  But it resonated in my heart.  Take this one lyric, for instance….

           “all of my life, I’ve been in hiding..”

There’s a Sarah Brightman version out there, but I think this is better:

Grrrrrrrrr…….

I was just thinking about something, and it got me a little ticked off.   Mostly, it’s that I’m tired of all the crap one has to put up with around election time, especially if you’re a conservative.  Which I am, and I will even go one step further and “out” myself as a Republican.  Though I will also say that I want what’s best for my country, and if that person is a Democrat, or Peace and Freedom person, or a Libertarian, then I will vote for that person.

But what I am tired of is the disgustingly liberal-slanted media bias that is so very prevalent right about now.  Not only do you not get a conflicting viewpoint, but if you so happen to find a forum to express one, you are at the least ridiculed, and in some cases nearly burnt in effigy.  People like Bill Maher do this.  And those MacBethian witches on “The View.”

They hate the war, they hate Bush even more. Yes, we know.  They talk about America like it is some third world dicatorship with a mentally-challenged despot at the helm, and our only hope for salvation is a first term senator from Illinois.

All you hear about are all the bad decisions Bush made as President, and all the good ones Obama will make after/if he’s elected.  Do they seriously mean to say that EVERY decision President Bush made was a bad one?  If that were true, how would he have been elected for a second term?  Or for that matter, do they mean to say that every decision Clinton made was a good one?  Or that the same would be true of any Democratic President once he or she is elected?

How would a sitting Democratic President have responded differently when the country was attacked?  We’ll never know.  But sometimes, horrible as it is, war has to happen to change things.  It’s happened in our country before, and it has happened again in the middle east.  It’s even happening here in a sense–though a different kind of war.

What if France had not lent us assistance during the Revolutionary war, when we were trying to win our independence?  What if we had not aided Europe during WWII?  That was not our war, either.  Is it different somehow because it the lives that were involved were prettier in some way, or more like the rest of us?  Because oil was not involved?  Because the person murdering his own countrymen was a little more crazy than the former President of Iraq, or Osama Bin Laden?

But what really gets my panties in a bunch the most is that these very people, the ones that are vilifying President Bush and really almost any other Republican, the ones who cry out for CHANGE, and to bring the troops home at a cost they really have only the most rudimentary of ideas about–these very people are afforded those rights, the right to say whatever the hell they want to by the very people they are in essence giving the finger to.

How many countries in the world can you say whatever you want to about the government without any fear of reprisal?  How many places on earth are you allowed to have an opinion, and tell others about it without having a bayonet or something like it stuck through your throat?

Not that damn many, and the ones that do afford that type of liberty to the people that live there do it because there are men and women out there FIGHTING, KILLING, and DYING on their behalf.  So they can have their opinions, and protests, and the right to burn pictures of their president, or even their own flag.

So when all I hear from the media around election time is that whatever party I happen to support, if it isn’t theirs, is wrong, that makes me angry.

When I am condescended to and more or less told have no right to an opinion, it pisses me off.  Sure, not every liberal lives in doucheville.  Nor is every conservative a saint. 

But I think the country deserves to hear the entire story.  I think the people that live here have the right to know what’s going on, and even a CAVEMAN (sorry, Geico) can see that isn’t happening now.

And what will happen if/when Obama gets elected?  If all the country is ever allowed to hear is a liberally slanted viewpoint?  The former is possible, and maybe even likely, given what I’ve been complaining about the past few paragraphs–and the latter is more and more evident with every passing day.

If all you are offered is pretty sounding rhetoric, and vague promises of change, how will you know the truth when you hear it?

If the media out there today has anything to say about it, you won’t hear the truth.

And that part doesn’t make me angry so much as depress me a little.  I just love my country so much, and I hate the way things have been going, and will likely continue to go, unless people pull the wool from over their eyes and are willing to see what is really going on around them.

Unless they truly want to take part in change, and not just listen to someone else talk about it.

Luke 15: 17-20

17“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ 20So he got up and went to his father.
      “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him…”

I was reading Luke yesterday morning in Yuma, and something about the preceding passage struck me.  Not so much the son’s apparent repentance–to me that smacked of forced contrition, not true remorse.  He’s broke, and hungry, and has nowhere else to go.   He’s just relating what he’s going to do, not baring his heart, or even seeking forgiveness.  He came to his senses, it says, but that’s all.  Could have just been talking about finding a meal at that point.

What impacted me most was the father.

His grace toward the son.

The passage mentions that he sees his son when he was still a long way off, so he had to be outside looking for him.  Scanning the horizon.  Desperate to see his son return.

Looking.

Waiting.

Hoping.

Not seeing.

It does not say how long he looked for his son.  Only that:

 “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him…”

It kind of makes you think about the shepherd looking for his ONE lost sheep, rather than writing it off because he still has 99.  He will pursue the lost one, and he will be filled with Joy when he makes it back home with that one sheep across his shoulders.

That’s the same Joy God feels when we return to the fold.

How he felt when, like the prodigal, I came to my senses. 

He felt joy.  And scripture also tells us that angels rejoice.

But look again at the father’s reaction upon seeing his son.

“his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him…”

He did not stand waiting with his arms crossed, brow furrowed with displeasure.  He did not grudgingly accept a tentative and awkward apology.

He was filled with compassion for his son, and he ran to him.

He ran.

He ran, probably forgoing all semblance of dignity. 

He ran, robes flying, probably with arms extended.  Running across the field to his lost son.

He ran, and he was filled with compassion.

He ran, and when he got to him at last, he threw his arms around him, and kissed him.

No condemnation, no judgement.

Just love.

And he threw him a party, killed the fatted calf. 

Yesterday, I read that passage and I thought about Jesus scanning the horizon for me, desperate to see me.  I thought of him running toward me with his arms outstretched, running across a field to get to me.  He’d been waiting for me all the time I’d been holding out, waiting for me to come to him.  Waiting for me to come burdened, and afraid, and encumbered by the world.

Me, in my dirty robes.

Me, dirty and starving, dripping with sin and unrepentance.

Me, covered in the filth of my journey home.

Me.

And there was rejoicing in heaven.

No servant is greater

The room would do, Cephas thought. Four walls and a roof. What more did you need?

It was mostly just a functional space–a place where people gather for a meal, and then return to their homes afterward. In the middle of the room was a long, low table.  There were few decorations of any sort.  Cephas and his friends reclined around the table on cushions, waiting for Jesus to speak as the meal was served. 

He always spoke.

The smell of meat, fish, and bread filled the air, and Cephas began to feel his stomach growl.  He wondered if the others could hear it.  There were small dishes of dates here and there on the table.  Several small platters of soft cheese.  Cephas felt like grabbing handfuls of everything and foregoing the wooden plate in front of him. 

The Lord sat at the table’s center, and after a brief glance at them, He stood and walked to a large, beaten metal bowl that sat by the door next to a small wooden milking stool. On the chair was a folded linen towel. Next to it was a clay jug full of water. Cephas wondered what He was doing.  But then again, He had been known to go off on his own at times.  Maybe He was leaving.

He didn’t leave. 

Jesus removed his outer garments, and wrapped the towel around his waist.  Cephas noticed once again the effect that decades of working with tools, wood, and with his hands have had on His body.  He was slender, but strong, and his hands were large.  They were callused from his work, but they were gentle as he took the clay jug and poured water into the bowl.  He picked up a ladle from the ground next to the bowl, and without another word, he walked over to the man closest to the door, knelt down, and began to wash his feet.

This was the task of a servant, Cephas thought–a lowly servant at that–and he couldn’t believe the Lord was doing what He was doing. 

It wasn’t right.  He felt his temper begin to flare.

And then the Lord knelt at his feet, setting the bowl and ladle down next to him.

“Lord,” Cephas asked him, “are you going to wash my feet?”

Jesus looked up at Cephas, and his eyes were brown, and kind, and full of love.  “You don’t realize now what I’m doing,” he replied. “But later you will understand.”

Cephas began to feel angry again.  Why was He doing this?  And what won’t he understand now?  He understood that Jesus should not be performing the act of the lowliest of servants–he understood that much.

“No!” he said, and it was almost a shout.  “You will never wash my feet!”

Jesus looked at him for a long moment and then answered in a soft voice, “Unless I wash you, you will have no part with me.”

This made no sense.  “Then, Lord,” Cephas said, “not just my feet, but my hands and my head as well.”

Jesus answered, looking into his eyes all the while “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” 

This last statement makes even less sense. Who was the Lord talking about? 

Before he could ask, Cephas felt the hands of the carpenter on his feet, removing his sandals.  Jesus put them aside, then set the bowl beneath Cephas’s feet. He scooped water up with the wooden ladle and slowly poured it over his ankles, then his feet and toes.  He gently rubbed the dirty feet, and then poured more water over them to rinse. His hands were strong, but gentle, and Cephas could see the dirt and dust slipping away, falling back into the water.  Then he slowly dried his feet with the rough towel, and Cephas felt nearly overwhelmed with emotion.  This act, this simple act of a servant humbled him–nearly crushed him–and suddenly his appetite was gone.

Jesus moved on to the next man.  When he was finished washing all their feet, he once again put on his rough clothes and returned to his place at the center of the table.

“Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.”

He stopped for a moment and looked at them all. Then He looked directly at Cephas.

“I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.”

His voice was soft, but Cephas felt as if he could have heard it from outside the Sheep Gate.  He rose a little from his reclined position and looked at his feet.  He thought about what Jesus had done, and bade him to do.

He wondered if he could do it.

Psalm 139

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.

 1 O LORD, you have searched me                      
       and you know me.

 2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
       you perceive my thoughts from afar.      

 3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
       you are familiar with all my ways.

 4 Before a word is on my tongue
       you know it completely, O LORD.

 5 You hem me in—behind and before;
       you have laid your hand upon me.

 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
       too lofty for me to attain.

 7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
       Where can I flee from your presence?

 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
       if I make my bed in the depths, [a] you are there.

 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
       if I settle on the far side of the sea,

 10 even there your hand will guide me,
       your right hand will hold me fast.

 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
       and the light become night around me,”

 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
       the night will shine like the day,
       for darkness is as light to you.

 13 For you created my inmost being;
       you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
       your works are wonderful,
       I know that full well.

 15 My frame was not hidden from you
       when I was made in the secret place.
       When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

 16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
       All the days ordained for me
       were written in your book
       before one of them came to be.

 17 How precious to [b] me are your thoughts, O God!
       How vast is the sum of them!

 18 Were I to count them,
       they would outnumber the grains of sand.
       When I awake,
       I am still with you.

 19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
       Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

 20 They speak of you with evil intent;
       your adversaries misuse your name.

 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
       and abhor those who rise up against you?

 22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
       I count them my enemies.

 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
       test me and know my anxious thoughts.

 24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
       and lead me in the way everlasting.

I think I read this psalm 4 or 5 times when I was in Yuma this weekend.  I hadn’t read it in a while, but it just called to me both Saturday night and Sunday morning.  I was thinking about family both times it occurred to me to look it up and read it.  I was thinking that while it may be true that my parents did not plan for my arrival, nor probably look on it with happiness, that did not mean I was not meant to be.

This is something I struggled with a great deal when I was younger, and even somewhat as an adult–that the world was a place I was not supposed to be–something I still need assurance from God about what the truth of that is. 

Am I meant to be?

Do I belong here?

My friends would tell me yes. My sisters would, too.  I mean, I know they love me.  And as far as Jenny goes, I know very well what we mean to each other. 

I know those things now.

And I know the truth of whether or not I belong.

But there was a time when I did not feel that way.  There was a time when I felt without purpose, without ties, without much at all to keep me here other than just stubbornness.

I needed to feel parented, and not just by my sisters–though they were nothing less than extraordinary in that regard, and all three of them had lots of their own stuff going on. 

And they still looked to me, and made sure I had what I needed.

They taught me a lot, but it is still not the same.

I needed to know my value as a son, and not just a brother, or friend, or any other way.

I needed to know my value as a son.

I learned much about that over time.  I learned what my true value was, and began to feel something of what it was to be valued a price above rubies.

I learned that I was loved enough that someone would die for me before I even existed. 

I learned that I was known.

And after years of resting in that love, of beginning to realize that I was not walking alone, I found this…collection of blessings.  I think the first time I ever read it was when I heard someone quote from it during a Healing Prayer session a year or two ago. 

It called to me then, too.  It offers so much assurance, so much comfort.  I think if I had to point to a single bit of scripture that offerred me the most solace in life, it would be this. 

 When I feel lost, or apart from God in some way.  When I feel alone:

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
       Where can I flee from your presence?

 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
       if I make my bed in the depths, [a] you are there.

 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
       if I settle on the far side of the sea,

 10 even there your hand will guide me,
       your right hand will hold me fast.

If I allow myself to become lost in the world,  If I run from Heaven toward darkness, and try to hide myself from God’s face, when I begin to feel safe in the shadows:

 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
       and the light become night around me,”

 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
       the night will shine like the day,
       for darkness is as light to you.

And most of all, when I think about what it was like to feel unwanted, or unplanned, or even unloved, I can turn to this, and know the truth.  Last night was my turn to get prayer in my group, and that issue came up, in the context of a particular instance from my childhood.  This was where God took me, and it made sense then that I had been reading this all weekend.  God had been preparing me:

13 For you created my inmost being;
       you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
       your works are wonderful,
       I know that full well.

 15 My frame was not hidden from you
       when I was made in the secret place.
       When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

 16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
       All the days ordained for me
       were written in your book
       before one of them came to be.

I can see why people turn to this scripture when they’re talking about when life begins.  It begins with God.

I feel like that’s when my life really began, and when I think about the moment I felt Jesus for the first time, I can understand something of what it means when people say “born again.”

I had a dream a couple of years ago, after a particularly moving healing prayer session.  I don’t normally remember my dreams, but this one has stayed with me, and I have a feeling it will continue to. 

I was standing on dock, the very one where I had first invited Jesus to speak to me, to take my burdens, and to enter my life.  It was dark, and I could hear music playing.  I could smell meat cooking on a grill.

I could hear laughter.

I was conscious of Jesus standing beside me, even though I could not see Him.  I heard a noise, and when I looked down, I saw the man that had been myself that night kneeling on the rough wood of the dock with his head hanging down.  He was crying, and praying, and crying out to Jesus.

Did I really do this? I asked myself. 

And in the dream, Jesus answered.  “Child, this is when you were born.”

So as much as I’ve tried to hide from God over the years, as much as I’ve attempted to deny the truth of myself, as much as I have questioned my belonging on this earth, even to the extent of wondering if God really hadn’t made some cosmic “whoops” when I came to be, the truth of all those things is this, and I can’t hide from it, or deny it:

All the days ordained for me
       were written in your book
       before one of them came to be.

My life was given me by God, through my parents.  It has meaning.  It has purpose.  It was meant to be.

There is a plan.