No more posts until Nov. 7

I will be "out of the office" until Nov. 7, but will continue pondering the mysteries of the universe until I return:)

The Greatest Distance

Perhaps the greatest distance any of us has to travel is that long trek betwen the head and the heart (Katherine Marshall, The Helper)

Knowing of the love of God from teaching or from Scripture is head knowledge.  Yet, before it warms our hearts and touches our emotions, something else has to happen.  The love of God given to us in Jesus Christ is something that we have to experience--and only the Holy Spirit can give us that experience.

A few days after the Resurrection, Jesus sought out Peter, James, and John as they were fishing at the seashore.  He prepared a meal for them, as they had been fishing all night.  And when they had finished eating, Jesus said to Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?"  "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you," replied Peter.  Three times, Jesus asked, each time saying, "Feed my sheep."

After his Thursday night denial of Jesus before the crucifixion, Peter's feelings must have been those of guilt and inner turmoil----how could he ever again say that he loved Jesus, after what he had done?

But Jesus forced the words out of him, saying "feed my sheep" in response.  I think what Jesus was doing was replacing the negative emotions carved so deeply into Peter's heart with another, even deeper experience.  It has been said that we do not always say what we believe, but we always believe what we say.  If we say it, from that time on, we tend to believe and to defend what we have said.  Peter had said, in effect, that he did not love the Lord---but now he is saying that he does.

And Jesus give him a way to demonstrate his love from that moment forward---feed my sheep.  "As I have fed you, you feed them," if I can paraphrase.  It is easy to say that we love God; it is much harder to demonstrate it.  But Jesus identified himself with the sheep; if we feed them, we feed Him; if we love them, we love Him.

This is something we don't have to over-think, rationalize, theorize about.  The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.  If we love our neighbor, we love God.  If we don't love our neighbor, we don't love God.  End of story.    So we don't really need to examine our philosophy too much if we continue to examine our hearts and our actions toward those around us.

Kindle in us the fire of your love, O Lord!

more on Faith

If faith is simply our give-and-take relationship with God through the action of the Holy Spirit, then seeking faith simply means that we go to Jesus and say, "Lord, speak to me about this situation.  What do you want to tell me about this?  Pull aside the veil of flesh and give me a look into the world of spirit.  Let me see this situation through your eyes.  What is your viewpoint?  I wait for your insight on this."

At this point, according to Katherine Marshall's The Helper, we are not asking for a change in circumstances, just for inward revelation.  Then we wait and listen and watch.

When that insight is given---Jesus' very personal word to me----then faith automatically follows.  And in the wake of that quiet knowing, external events change.

I love, love, love this approach to prayer and faith.  So many of us "try to believe," try to hope, try to trust----but what we are trying to believe, hope, and trust in is our own understanding of the situation, our own pronouncement, or judgment, of the way things should work.  Once the Holy Spirit begins to quietly impress on our minds and hearts the understanding and the will of God, we no longer have to try to believe or trust----having God's judgment of the situation in our hearts brings a quiet peace and trust.

Proverbs 3: 5 says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
                                and lean not on your own understanding;
                                in all your ways, acknowledge Him,
                                and He will direct your paths.

Faith, then, means waiting, listening, trusting, until we receive the Word of the Lord for this situation.  It is based on our on-going conversation with the Most High; it means hearing His voice and trusting that He cannot lead us astray.  Abraham did not walk in his own understanding of where he should be going, but waited daily to hear the direction of God.  His own understanding often led him astray, but in each case, God gently brought him back, not leaving him to his own viewpoint.

It is hard to follow in Abraham's footsteps, as we are impatient to "do" something to remedy the situation---but our doing often makes things worse because we "do" in our own understanding.  Oswald Chambers (My Utmost for His Highest) says this:  Our degree of panic is the degree of our lack of personal spiritual experience.  Put another way, we might say that our degree of panic is the measure of our lack of faith, or listening, for God's understanding of our situation.

The Friends of God

Without faith, it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6).

In reflecting on the story of Abraham, Paul came to the conclusion that Abraham received the promises of God not by works nor by obeying the law, but by faith, and therefore he is the father of those who trust God---our 'father in faith.'  I remember hearing about faith for years and wondering how one "gets' faith, as though it were something to be obtained by some kind of effort on our part.

Looking back now, I begin to realize that faith is simply relationship with God who loves us.  We "get" it in the same way we "get" all of our relationships---simply by spending time with God.  That is why Abraham believed God---he spent a lot of time in the Presence of God.  He walked with God, sat with God, stood with God.  In fact, when God determined to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, He said to Himself,  " Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, now that he is to become a great and populous nation, and all the nations of the earth are to find blessing in him?

In another place in the Bible, God says, "I do nothing without telling my prophets ahead of time."  (I don't recall the reference.)  And in the New Testament, Jesus says, "I no longer call you servants, but friends, because a servant does not know what his master is doing."  We tend to keep up with our friends; if we do not know what they are doing, even though we may not have spoken in awhile, the friendship tends to dissolve.  Obviously, God honors His relationship with us as friends.   He confides in His friends; He continues to walk with His friends and does not leave or abandon them -- and He tells them what He is doing.

So now we know that faith-- or relationship with God--- is the one thing in our lives capable of bridging the chasm between the visible and the invisible worlds.  Faith is the eyes and ears of the spirit, that see and hear what is not accessible to those without faith, or relationship, with God. 

Faith is real; more "real" than the things we actually see around us, because those things are passing away, but God's reality stands forever.  Revelation of what God sees and hears comes through the Spirit of Jesus still present in this world.  He did not go back to heaven to watch from afar---He still walks with us, talks with us, breathes in us, loves in us, and reveals the Father to us:

 

No one comes to the Father but by me (Jn.6:65).

No one has ever seen God, but God, the only Son, who is at the Father's side, has revealed Him (Jn. 1: 18).

For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God; He does not ration his gift of the Spirit (Jn.3:34).

The father who sent me has testified on my behalf.  But you have never heard his voice or seen his form, and you do not have his word remaining in you, because you do not believe in the one whom he has sent (Jn.5:37).

The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life (Jn. 6:63).

So faith is not "trying to believe," but it is simply hearing, seeing, receiving into our hearts the very words of God, given to us in THE WORD of God, Jesus Christ.  Isaiah says, If they do not speak according to this word, what kind of wisdom will they have?  If we do not spend time with God, we will not hear the words of God; we will not "see" what He is doing; we will not have faith, no matter what other words or wisdom we obtain. 

If Jesus had not come in the flesh, we would think it impossible to be friends with God, but since He sat down to eat with His friends, since He slept in their boat, since He healed their mothers, sisters, and uncles, and since He taught them in the flesh, we have to believe that He wanted friendship with the rest of us too.

At Home With God

Is there anywhere where you are not at home with God? 

Let God press through in that particular circumstance until you gain Him,

and life becomes the simple life of a child.

(--Oswald Chambers: My Utmost For His Highest)

Jesus took on our flesh that we might take on His divinity.  He took up our human nature that we could be "naked and unashamed" before God.  If there is anything in us that is not comfortable in the Presence of God, that is the "sticking point" in our relationship with Him.

God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of sound mind (2 Tim. 1:7).

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back again into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry "Abba, Father!" (Romans 8:15).

If we read the writings of all the saints, we find them entirely and confidently "at home" with God.  They speak of Him and to Him with great confidence and no fear, only a holy reverence and awe.  John the Apostle, who was probably about 17 when he met Jesus, always wrote about himself as "the disciple whom Jesus loved"----a kind of awe-some reverence and unbelief that he had been the object of such great love.  Because of his youth, John, of all the Apostles, probably had the least "agenda" and the least life-experience.  He was a sponge, soaking up the words of the Master. 

The other Apostles had great love for the Lord, but had also been somewhat formed by their previous experiences.  Jesus had to teach them to "become as little children" in His Presence, learning, learning, learning.  Peter was a "man," zealous to defend his Lord---little realizing how little strength he really had in his own power. 

We, too, because of our life experiences, tend to fashion our own worlds---but those worlds are not always compatible with the simple life of a child, who receives everything from its parents in perfect trust and confidence.  We want to walk in our own strength---until we discover how little strength we actually do have. 

Everything in us must come to feel at home with God.  If there is any area where we believe we can "go it alone," in our own strength, we need to allow God to penetrate that area until He softens and gentles it.  We need to give Him permission to work out those areas within us that hide from Him and resist His influence.  We need to become simple children---learning, learning, learning from Him always.

fragmentation/de-fragmentation

I understand almost nothing about computers----I just want them to work and get frustrated when they do not.  Nor do I have the vaguest clue as to what I should do when they do not work.

For months, I have been getting a message from someone in cyber-space, telling me that I was using an outdated server that g-mail no longer supports and therefore, that some features of g-mail might not work.  I had successfully ignored the message for some time, and suffered no consequences, except that I was not allowed to comment on the blogs of my friends, nor even respond to comments on my own blog---a small price to pay.

Finally, however, the persistent message began to make me wonder what I was missing by not "updating" my server to the latest technology, the biggest, and the best, that Explorer 8 had to offer, and I ultimately caved in to the offer to bring me into the 21st century.  (In high school, my favorite teacher, Mr. Ryan, used to say, "If you throw enough mud against the side of the barn, some of it is bound to stick."  Now I understand his home-spun wisdom.)

You probably already know the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey used to say:  I pushed all the buttons that would convert my computer to something bigger and better----and as a result, my computer now runs more slowly, balks at my simple commands, and occasionally shuts itself down altogether in the middle of something important.  To my knowledge, I have gained no advantage in exchange for the inconvenience.  There is nothing greater I can do now than what I could do before; it's just more slow and more cumbersome and more frustrating now to complete the same tasks.

I know that now my computer probably needs to be "de-fragmented," whatever that means, and that I will probably have to take it to an expert to have it serviced.  From the term "de-fragmented," I have to assume that whatever just happened "fragmented" my computer, making it less efficient than it was before the "update."

All of which has made me reflect on how sin operates on our spirits---we are moving along with the joy and innocence of childhood, when we begin to receive messages that tempt us to "update," to "become more relevant," to experiment with "something better" than we now have---we can have the whole world of technology, fun, pleasure, power at our fingertips; we can be "in control;" we can be "like gods!"

At first, we are hesitant; we wonder, "What's the cost?"  "Can this harm me?"  "Is it dangerous?"

"Of course not," says the hidden voice from beyond; everyone is doing it---no harm; no problem.  It's just an "upgrade."  And when we eventually yield, against our better judgment, we find ourselves fragmented, less efficient, less able to focus, to perform the usual tasks.  Our energy is going to repair the damage instead of going forward.  We are fragmented.

"Blessed are the pure of heart," said Jesus, "for they shall see God."

But sin fragments us; we are no longer pure of heart; we can no longer see God. 
Our souls need de-fragmenting; we need cleansing from the impurities that have entered with our permission; we need a Technician whose clear vision and understanding can restore proper functioning to our lives.

Blessed be God; it has been given to us in Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

The Promise of Joy

I have told you these things that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete (Jn. 15:11)

St. Dominic Savio, the young boy, said to his friends:  Joy is the unmistakable sign of the presence of God in us.  I used to keep a picture of an old peasant Russian woman whose face was radiant with joy.  The caption on the picture was this:  If you want to steal my joy, come and get it in the hands of God.

Joy is known as one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, because we cannot manufacture it for ourselves; it is the result of the Spirit of God dwelling in us.  Joy is not the circumstance of life flowing smoothly for us; it is the result of Christ's promise:  In this world, you will have trouble, but be of good heart---I have overcome the world.  The Holy Spirit gives us joy in whatever circumstances we have.

The Acts of the Apostles is full of two reports--the multiple problems faced by the early church and the overflowing joy of the early church.  Peter and John were arrested after Peter's second sermon; a group of apostles were jailed and flogged; Stephen was stoned to death; Christians were hunted down and driven from their homes; James was beheaded; Peter was imprisoned by Herod.....

Yet, we find statements such as these:  They partook of their food with gladness; they were constantly praising God; and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

No wonder Jesus had warned them before His ascension into heaven not to leave Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high!  Man's determination can never produce the joy that overcomes persecution.

Jesus said that the reason He came was to destroy the work of Satan, the thief who comes to maim and destroy.  While on earth, he continually released men and women from the bondage of Satan.  The Lord of Life obviously did not delight in pain, sickness, insanity----he went about healing "all those who were in the grip of the devil."  Imagine the joy He left in His wake!

Katherine Marshall's Prayer:  Lord, you and I know that I am facing some difficult circumstances in my life, especially my concern about __________.  As I ask for your perspective and Your thought on this problem, I begin to see that worry and fretting and thinking about all the negatives is not being the realistic pragmatist I had thought.  In fact, You are telling me that when I wallow in "what-ifs" and discouragement and self-pity, I am ignoring You altogether.

As I turn to you, Lord, at this moment and spread this grief-problem out before You, I hear You say, "There's nothing here I can't handle.  Why are you so troubled?"  Your joy shines through these words, Lord.  Let your joy be mine, too.  I open my heart to it.  Amen.

Controlled by the flesh/ Controlled by the Spirit.

Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires;

but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.

The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace (Rom. 8:5).

The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritally discerned (I Cor. 2: 14).

The entire New Testament---after the death and resurrection of Christ----seems to revolve around the concept of the "natural man," the first-born, the one descended from Adam, vs. the "spiritual man," the second-born, the one descended from Jesus.  When Jesus told Nicodemus that it was necessary for a man to be "born again," He was speaking about the birth of the second man:

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.  .... the spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that, the spiritual.  The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man, from heaven.  As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.  And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so let us bear the likeness of the man from heaven.  I declare to you...that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (I Cor. 44-50).

So how are we "born again" of water and the Holy Spirit?   Genesis tells us that God fashioned the first man from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and "man became a living being."  In speaking to Nicodemus, Jesus likens being 'born of the Spirit' to the wind/ the breath of God.  Nicodemus could not comprehend, even though he was a "teacher in Israel." 

Later, John the Baptist's disciples complained to John that "everyone [was] going to [Jesus]" on the other side of the Jordan.  John's answer was this:  the one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth.  The one who comes from heaven is above all.  He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony....the one God has sent speaks the words of God; to him God gives the Spirit without limit (John 3: 31-34).

Jesus took on the natural man, the first-born, the one whose mind was set (from the beginning) on the flesh, on what was hostile to God.  This is the man (Adam) who died on the cross, who died as we do, slowly and painfully, in order that the second man, the spiritual man might rise from the earth. 

In the desert at the outset of His ministry, Jesus died to Himself and to what the flesh craved---food, the easy way out, the ability to control---in order to receive from the Father what the Spirit desired---obedience, trust, helplessness/ reliance on God.  He continued to walk for three years in the Spirit until the final moment of obedience, trust, helplessness.  Descending into the earth, He was able to overcome the last enemy---death itself---and rise with the power of the Spirit.  Now, breathing on the Apostles, He continues to breathe His very own life into us. 

We walk no longer according to what the sinful flesh/mind desires, but by receiving from Him the breath of God, are empowered to live according to what the Spirit desires.  Receiving from God the "Spirit without limit," He is now able to bring to new birth all who come to Him, those who trust Him to deliver us from the desires of the flesh, those of the natural man---the one who blames Eve, the one who kills Able, the one who seeks to make a name for himself (Tower of Babel).

Christ confers on those who come to Him the new birth, the Spirit of God.



Spirit of Truth

Many people have rejected God the Father as the God of the Old Testament---although He came in the Person of Jesus Christ to reveal Who He Is in truth---the One who heals the leper, the outcast; Who lifts up from the dust the adulterous woman; who condemns those who condemned her; the One Who brings back into society the woman married 5 times and now living outside of societal norms; the One Who washes the feet of His friends on a daily basis; the One Who seeks out the sinner, the lame, the downcast, the tax-collecters, the simple.....

Jesus came primarily to embody the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of His Father in heaven.  He was no longer satisfied that men would worship---and create--a God of their imaginations and fantasies.  He wanted an I-thou, a face-to-face, encounter with mankind.  Here I am, He calls out.  You see Me; you touch Me; you do not draw back in fear of Me; you laugh with Me and cry with Me; you ask Me questions and receive true answers.  No longer do you come by "rule upon rule," but with simplicity and truth, just as you are.

"He who sees Me sees the Father," says Jesus.  Dare we believe that?  Jesus is the Spirit and the exact Image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15 & 19, 2:9).

The revelation of the face of God did not stop with the death and resurrection of Jesus, but continues today through the Spirit of Truth.  Jesus promised that if anyone loved Him, He would send to them the Spirit of Truth, who would teach us all things.  The world cannot accept Him, according to Jesus, because it "neither sees him nor knows him," but "you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.....and you will see me, and....I will show myself to [you]" (Jn. 14:15-25).

Wow!  on-going and continuous revelation of the Face of God through the Spirit of Truth.  We may not now know the true God, but who would not want the Spirit of Truth who will reveal Him to us?

Jeremiah, seeing this day in the future, proclaimed it:

This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," says the Lord.

"I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God and they will be my people.

No longer will a man teach his neighbor,

or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,'

because they will all know me,

from the least to the greatest," declares the Lord (31:33).

This is the "New Covenant" that Jesus came to bring----the outpouring of the Spirit of Truth into each man's heart, the knowledge of the Face of God inside, rather than from the outside.  And who will receive the Spirit of Truth?  

In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll,

and out of gloom and darkness,

the eyes of the blind will see (Is. 29:18).

We are all blind and deaf when it comes to knowing God, but we do not have to continue in this state.  Jesus promised the Spirit of Truth to all who would love Him, and He cannot lie or deceive.  Our cry is to Him to send the promised Holy Spirit into our hearts, that we might know the truth and in knowing the truth, be set free from the lies of this world.

Lazarus, Come Forth!

Our inner man is deadened by sin, both our own and those of others who have so wounded us that we have retreated into nothingness.  But the Dynamo, the Energy, of the Universe calls us forth from the tomb, just as He called Lazarus who had been dead 4 days. 

His Divine Voice does not rebuke us for having been buried so long, any more than God rebuked the original chaos of the world----He simply said, "Light, Be!"  And it was so.   He did not rebuke the blind man for his lack of sight, but simply touched his eyes, saying, "See!"  And it was so.

The day we wake up from our sleep and "see" the Lord standing there beside us, we leap forth spiritually, forgetting how long we have been dead.  Our spirits have eyes and ears to hear and see; we are waiting only for the Divine Voice to call us forth.

Jesus said this:  I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.  I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.  For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.

We spend a lot of our days rebuking ourselves for being blind and dead, when all the time we need to be listening for the Voice of Eternal Life to call us forth from the tomb.  Lord, I await your call and I am ready to hear!

How Does God Love Us?

God does not love us because we are good;

God's love makes us good

(unknown source).

C. S. Lewis points out in The Problem of Pain that a dog who has learned to love his master might wish that the master would tolerate the dog "just as he is," with his 'snapping, verminous, polluting' ways of the wild pack.  The person who truly loves his dog will bathe the dog, brush him, feed him, and train him into an acceptable behavior----into someone who could live in the same house with the man, that is, and whose behavior would not repel others in the house.  The dog who willingly submits to his master's wishes is a happy dog.  The one who rebels does not even understand why he is so unhappy.

Like wild dogs, mankind has become adept through sin at hurting one another, either through carelessness or deliberate evil.  God did not invent instruments of torture; man did.  God gave us the freedom to be cruel, but He also told Cain that his brother's blood cried out to God from the ground.  He cannot go on tolerating the cruelty of man.  He must work at making us more loving and lovable.

Sometimes, when we have grown insensitive to others, it is only the experience of pain that will awaken our souls to the suffering of other people.  God must allow us to be wounded in order to heal us, to make us sensitive to others.  Prosperity is not enough to make us a blessing to others--when we have all we want (not including God), we tend to find God an interruption to our busy lives.  We do not have time to listen to Him, to receive from Him. 

Lewis quotes a friend of his who said, "We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it's there for emergencies, but he hopes he'll never have to use it."  But the truth is that, as human beings, we are at our creative best only when the Spirit of God is flowing freely through us to the world.  Just as a dog is at his best when disciplined by man to express man's goodness, so we are at our best when we have been taught by God to express His love and creativity to those around us.  This condition means that we are paying attention, that we are in communion with God so that He can express to us His will.  Sometimes, in the midst of all our distractions, He has to get our attention so that He can give us the gifts He has to offer through us to others.

Integration and Disintegration

According to Ronald Rolheiser, one of my favorite authors and thinkers, everyone has a spirituality, or a spiritual component---either a healthy or a destructive spirit.  The function of a healthy spirit is two-fold:  (1)  it energizes us, and (2) it integrates all the parts of us into a whole.

(1)  Energy:  the word "enthusiasm" comes from the Latin roots "en"/ inside + "theos" (God)----literally God within.  Genesis 2:7 says it this way:  The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.

We live, or have energy, literally by the breath / (Hebrew-ruah) of God within us---and His breath/ ruah is not static, but moving.  Other translations of ruah are "breeze, wind, zepher."  When we are connected to the living God, we have LIFE, energy, breath.  His breath, energy, life in us integrates our bodies, minds, emotions, and spirits so that we do not pull apart from the center, but work as a whole unit, as He designed us to work.

When sin/ disobedience enters the picture, as Genesis 2:17 tells us, when you eat of it, you will surely die, disintegration begins pulling us apart from our center.

The old King James translation "you will surely die" is an attempt to render into English what the Hebrew actually says:  on the day you eat of it, dying, you will die.  Because our translation into English is faulty, people for centuries have been trying to puzzle out what God meant---or if He lied----when He said, "on the day you eat of it, you will....die."  What He said was "dying, you will die."  Now it begins to make some sense.

When we fail to receive within ourselves the breath, energy, spirit of God, we begin to disintegrate and lose our energy---we begin to die by degrees.  Genesis portrays sin as eating---taking some poison into our bodies so that we begin to disintegrate, not all at once, but little by little---passing on our disintegration to the next generation, where it disintegrates even more, and so on to the next generation.  Finally, we get to Genesis 4, where Lamach says to his wives:

I will kill (or have killed) a man for wounding me,

a young man for injuring me.

If Cain is avenged seven times,

then Lamech seventy-seven times.

Genesis pictures sin as pulling apart from the center---lack of communion, harmony, with God, with our fellow man, and with nature.   Lack of harmony in the first generation becomes hatred and murder in the second.  Nature refuses its yield altogether by the time of Cain; he has to build a city because the ground is hardened against him, and "everyone who sees me will want to kill me."

Into this universe of hatred, misunderstanding, lack of harmony, God sends one man---Abraham--who will begin to re-integrate and bless and restore fruitfulness to the earth.  By obedience, Abraham continued to walk with God to restore the earth and to unite all peoples. 

It starts with one person, and then with a family, and then with a tribe, and then with a nation---under God---finally extending to the whole world.  Sin is disintegration within ourselves, within the world.  It takes a man/woman connected to the Spirit of God to re-integrate and unite all things, restoring them to their original harmony with God and with one another.

Friendship With God 3

How is it that we have friendships?  It is not only shared experience, although that is usually the beginning of a friendship.  But we often share common experience with many people that does not grow into friendship.  Growing up in the same household, experiencing the same events, often leads to bitterness and emnity instead of friendship.  When two people enjoy, delight in, the same experience,   friendship grows.

C.S. Lewis says that the basis of friendship is a common interest---two people looking not at each other, but at a third event or object which draws both people with the same interest or passion.  "You, too?" says one.  "I had no idea that you loved......[x].... also!  Isn't it wonderful!  Show me what you love about [x], and I'll share my joy of discovery with you!"  The friendship grows in the mutual joy of exploration in the 3rd interest.

Unlike other kinds of love, friendship welcomes the entrance of a 3rd, 4th, 5th, and even 6th person, for it welcomes and enjoys the enhancement of other perspectives on the object at hand.  When people have a passion for antique cars, they love to "see through" the eyes and minds of others who have the same passion; they love to look together at what they love; they love to share information, history, and stories about the great cars they have known or heard about.  One might say that these people share the same spirit of enthusiasm for antique cars, though their experiences might all be unique.  As they come together to share their experiences, their spirit is renewed and invigorated.

When I talk to another gardener, I love to hear his/ her knowledge and experience with gardening---how she began, what he learned and discovered along the way---and how the garden is now developing.  There is no end to new discoveries and new combinations, new beauties, new joys.

Those who walk with God have the same experience---"You too?  How did you first experience God's love?  What have you learned?  How has He revealed Himself to you?  What fruit has God's Spirit produced in you? "

As a drop of water is enhanced and strengthened by being surrounded by other drops in a vast lake or body of water, so our friendship with God is strengthened, invigorated, and renewed by hearing the experience of others who also know and love God.  Our spirits are renewed and encouraged when we hear stories about how God has acted in the lives of others, how He saved, healed, delivered, developed, and encouraged others who were in the same situation we found ourselves. 

Friendship with God never leaves us alone in a cloister, so to speak,  but always brings us into contact with others who have experienced and loved what we have experienced and loved.  Together we sing, we celebrate, we eat and drink and laugh---when the Lord brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men dreaming.  Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy.  Then it was said among the nations, "The Lord has done great things for them." The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy ( Ps. 126).

The stories of the Old Testament and those of the New give the people of God a common experience of delivery from captivity, of conquest of threats to their survival and existence, of settling in a common land, just as in America, we have a common experience and a common story that binds us together.  Blacks in America have their own experience and story that bind them together also in a way that others cannot enter.  Many of the experiences are painful, but overcoming those experiences together is joyful.  Jews, Muslims, Hispanics, Indians---all have ethnic experiences that bind them to one another in special ways.  Over all that could separate us from one another is the love of God that binds us back together in friendship with Him.  Those who have no love of God in their hearts are condemned to be forever outside the experience of those who do.

Hey, You!

Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a Person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.    (Pope Benedict XVI)

It is not we who seek the Way, but the Way which seeks us.  (Dag Hammarskjold: Markings)

The lovers of God have no religion but God alone.  (Rumi)

We seem to forget that all the major religions of the world today had their origin in one man---Abraham----who had no religion at first but paganism, worship of the sun, stars, and moon.

But He had an encounter with the living God, Who called him out of darkness into His marvelous light, Who accompanied him on a journey to a place Abraham did not know, but where he was willing to discover because of the One Who called him.  Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness (Romans).

God continued to reveal Who He Is/ I Am to Abraham every step of the journey, never leaving or abandoning him along the way, until Abraham's trust was perfect.  Only then could God use Abraham to teach others --- I do not desire child sacrifice, only love and obedience.

Abraham Heschel's most wonderful book on the philosophy of Judiasm is called God in Search of Man.  What a great title---and how accurate!  If we read the Bible, we cannot help but notice the "Hey, You!" factor.  Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah, Peter, the nation of Israel---all nobodies minding their own business---when God said to them, "Hey, you!   Yeah, you!  I have a mission for you.  Come with Me!"     And all of them replied, "Please, Lord, not me!  I can't do this!  Send someone else!"

Religion is only supposed to lead us to the point of that encounter;  it cannot be the end in itself.  It has been said that the reason Moses (representing the Law) could not enter the Promised Land is that the Law / religion can take us only to the threshhold of the Promised Land; it takes Joshua/ Jesus to take us in.  (The name in Hebrew for both Joshua and Jesus is Yeshua.)

The Gospel of John puts it this way:  The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  No one has ever seen God, but God the only Son, who is at the Father's side, has made Him known  (1:17-18).

The Book of Sirach says, "Great peace have they who love your law/ instruction."

Now we know that the Law cannot give peace on its own to its adherents---peace and joy are the fruits of the Spirit of God dwelling within us.  But listening to the law/ instruction is the beginning of listening to the Spirit of God who wants to communicate with us and teach us all things, "hidden from the foundation of the world." 

Sooner or later, those who seek God in religion or in the Law will be found by Him.  And that encounter with the real and living Person behind the Law is always a life-changing surprise, giving us like Abraham a new direction and a new purpose.  Then we will know Him even as we are known by Him!