this am (7.26), having painted for nearly 60 hours, awoke to God's alarmclock. a bright, cheerful tweeting came into the window from one of my feathered friends. i was struck by the fact that i had awoken in like manner many such times before in my life...but rarely in the last seven and a half years. i recall the verse at the end of I john..and we know that we are of God and the whole world lieth in wickedness. i believe the greek is more explicit literally rendering it 'lieth in the wicked one' or satan. the picture seems to be on someone being rocked to sleep. i thot of the many 'happy' (literally 'based upon what is happening') mornings when i was either a. on the straight, easy, broad way, unknowingly, to hell...my fiend rocking me gently with pleasantnesses to be experienced and partaken of along that awful hellish way of b. a total wretch..self-righteous, pharisaical, judgmental, i-thank-Thee-i-am-not-like-other-men type of 'christian'...an open shame to God and an ongoing advertisement against Him...and so my fiend was rocking me gently, wanting me to stay just the way i was. but something happened and i first realized something was up as it dawned on me that God was giving me a thrashing for stealing His $ (tithe) since that time i have experienced a lot of spiritual warfare from when i open the eyes (sometimes before).
lately i have been kicked around a good bit by my fiend and God, He's growing me(!), has left me alone to fight him alone with nothing but the rAma. but there was an epiphany! (appearance of Jesus!) God sweetly stole in for a brief embrace and a peck on my cheek on friday...and i am still AWASH in His beauty. i was standing at WAPP (warminster planned parenthood) with the forehead bowed forward against the poster of the ripped up baby i carry to advertise what happens there..praying. i was just crying out for God to forgive me my many sins, to crush and break my heart and give me a mourning over my sin and bless me with a perpetually broken spirit over the monstrosity i am apart from Him...and subtly...He was there. it had been a long time since our last sweet communion but, yes..unmistakably He was there. hear words are useless to describe Him, but He is like no other. we are all surrounded by vanity. those of us who are more unfortunate still trust in the solidity of the emptiness offered us by other people...although He is gone, i long for home..to be 'enwraptured' in His eternal embrace. all my puss-filled sin gone forever..like Him.
had another good experience later friday. it was something like being at nazareth the day when Jesus, the local boy, morphed from pinup child wonder to deadly, hated enemy in the space of an hour. all He did was, using scripture, hold a mirror up to the hometown folk so they could see themselves as they were in reality as opposed to how they liked to view themselves. was at a house painting and came across an old larry norman cd and put it on. first time through i was mildly irritated. was focused on painting and did not clearly hear what he was singing and saying. when i analyzed why it was that i was thus disposed it was because norman was titilating me. he showed flashes that promised ENTERTAINMENT but then repeatedly pulled back. i noticed that the crowd turned from a thunderous enthusiastic welcome to ...well, not to say too much, let's say less than enthusiastic. later that night decided to play it again and listen closely. my eyes were beginning to see. then this am when i had to do a brief paint played it a third and left blessed. he said and did everything to diminish a. his ROCK STAR image b. entertaiment and speak truth to them, and me, about ourselves. oh may God make me willing to suffer like he did, and Jesus did, for telling people what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear.
this am (6.27) was impressed to go to a church to hunt down someone. he wasn't there but serendipidously met a man who had come to the house years ago as a chaplain for my friend doug who lived with me. he is now the associate pastor at this church. i was early, not knowing the opening bell time, and so we had a bit of a chance to talk. he shared that he was to preach this am and that the message was dealing with what had just happened. two weeks earlier the pastor and church secretary were discovered to be involved with each other..so his message was to deal with the fallout.
he preached on how people in the church had had all different kinds of responses to what had happened and that they were starting to get angry at how others were reacting. he went to job 2.11 where jobs three friends made an appointment together to come to sympathize with job and comfort him. coming to him they did not recognize him and raised their voices and wept..tore their robe..threw dust over their heads toward the sky..sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him for they saw that his pain was very great. he then referenced james 1.19..my beloved brethren..everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger. this was a commendable start for job's friends to just be present with and listen to him. but then chapters 4-37 reveal that they started to do what we can all tend to do and start to act as judges and give advice. (4.7,8.4,15.5,22.5) job's response was negative (6.14,12.3). then he turned to job 42.7-8 and noted God's response..twice He said 'you have not spoken of Me what is right'. this i had never 'seen' before. it was interesting to me that the wrong noted was against God. i had thought their sin was in talking the way they did to job. the Lord touched my heart as the pastor encouraged the church to give one another space to wrestle with God..to listen until each listener understands what the wrestler is thinking. he stated that at such a time as this satan would like to divide them and to resist the temptation to anger and gossip.
in a totally different area, i am wondering how to respond to a person who does not fulfill the role they are supposed to play. when you talk to the person and they 'don't see it', what do you do? what do you do when you find you have recurring thots of hatred toward such a person?
i'm also wondering about the difficulty of interacting with a person who from your point of view a. does not please you, b. can do little or nothing for you and c. may place very heavy demands upon you..
God is showing me the vast difference between what is going on in the realm of the spirit and the masks put on for the outside physical/social world. Lord, may You totally rip of my veneer and let me be on the outside what i AM on the inside.
sat down to have time with the Lord yesterday and the word 'devotions' came to mind. this was always used in my youth for a time of reading the Bible and prayer. was moved to look it up in webster. from latin devoveO = de (a prefix ,in this case, which augments) + voveO (set apart or dedicate to). so in a sense these times are a devotion to God. Lord, would You make every second a devotion to You.
thinking of the word 'habit' because it is so important to establish good habits and discourage bad habits in a child (i was allowed to grow as a weed, and not cultivated by my dear parents, in this area.. to incalculable loss for God). latin habitUs from habeO = to have, hold. it is the state of anything implying some continuence or permanence. but what is the true source? well i have to have something to do with it but, especially in the area of good habits, is it just me living out my determinations or is it more. today during the message i came across Jesus' words, 'the words that i say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works'. john 14.10
yesterday i was meditating on psalm 22 and came upon v.20..'deliver my soul from the sword; my darling (only life) from the power of the dog'. 'darling', what could this mean. web says DARLING from the saxon deorling = deor (dear) + ling (primarily denotes likeness). primary sense of deor is scarce, rare or close/narrow (dearth) if something is darling it bears a high price in comparison with the usual price. it is of a great value..high value in estimation. keil says of darling..each of us have only one soul of which there is no second to lose and therefore our soul is the dearest, most precious thing. so psalm 22 being messianic looking prophetically ahead to the life of Jesus some 900-1000 years beforehand seems to be saying that Jesus was really suffering on the cross emotionally due to being completely alone. abused physically and emotionally by those around, abandoned by God the Father as all the accumulated sins of each of us were placed on (?) or in (?) Him, attacked by satan and his demonic horde...completely alone, abandoned, attacked, weakened and utterly vulnerable..for me.
my mind also went to using 'darling' in talking to someone and came away with the idea that this should only be used, in my case, with a God-chosen helpmeet. in genesis 2.18 God said 'it is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a HELPER SUITABLE for him'. the margin reads 'corresponding to' for 'suitable'. the idea is of two pieces which perfectly fit together and are made only for each other. they are absolutely unique (the only one). such a person, God-made for me as a unique person would truly be my darling (deor -precious beyond price + ling- a likeness.
this am i did not get too far from bed before the verse (in the king james) 'OCCUPY'til I come'. i searched it down in luke 19.13 (in the new american standard) 'and he called ten of his slaves and gave them ten minas and said to them, DO BUSINESS with this until i come back. i was nourished by the commentator. the parable of the talents speaks about the gifts God has given to each of us. they differ (5 to some, 3 and 1) for the giftedness each of us has is different. here though the mina is in view. in that world it was of much less value than a talent. and only one is given to each of the servants. this, he says, speaks of the Bible. we can all hold it, read it, study it and use it, or not as we wish, to advance God's kingdom. oh burn into my heart a desire mentioned in II timothy 2.15 to 'BE DILIGENT to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth'.
john calvin born 500 years ago..'luther's starting-point was the..principle of justifying faith; while calvin's..lay in the general cosmological principle of the sovereignty of God..hence lutheranism restricted itself to an exclusively ecclesiastical and theological character, while calvinism put its impress in and outside the Church upon every department of human life...calvin's doctrine of 'vocation' follows from the fact that every person, great and small, lives 'in the divine presence'. God's sovereign purposes govern the simplest occupation. He attends to everyone's work. this yielded the protestant work ethic. huge benefits flow from a cultural shift in which all work is done earnestly and honestly with an eye to God. (kuyper to americans)..in the rise of your university education.. in the decentralized..character of your local governments..in your championship of free speech and in your unlimited regard for freedom of conscience; in all this.. it is demonstrable that you owe this to calvinism and to calvinism alone..calvin's views of marriage generally seem more modern than nedieval. he argued that prospective marriage partners should spend time together to gauge compatibility and that marriages should not be arranged against the wishes of the prospective partners: if they do not love each other, it is a desecration of marriage and actually is no marraiage at all. for the most important bond is that they both want it. nor was it wrong that men in the choice of a wife take into account their beauty..although sex before marriage was wrong, life was complicated and it was foolish for men to insist that women they marry be virginal..believers are simultaneously justified and sinful..calvin saw lots of things go wrong but tried to turn from the ? why? to what for?..
ENDINGS TO BOOKS ..orthodoxy by chesterton..there was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth and i have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.
crime and punishment by dostoevsky..but here beginsa new account, the account of a man's gradual renewal, the account of his gradual regeneration, his gradual transition from one worlld to another, his acquaintance with new, unknown reality.
middlemarch by george elliot..for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs.
the great gatsby by f. scott fitzgerald..gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by tear recedes before us. it eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...and one fine morning - so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
the hobbit by j.r.r.tolkien..you are a very fine person, mr. baggins and i am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all! thank goodness! said bilbo laughing and handed him the tobacco jar.
the adventures of huckleberry finn by mark twain..but i reckon i got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because aunt sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me and i can't stan it. i been there before.
mere christianity by c.s.lewis.. look for yourself and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. but look for Christ and you will fing Him and with Him everything else thrown in.
the rise of the wyrm lord by wayne thomas batson..adventures are funny things. they offer dark, uncertain times, forks in the road and choices between comfort and peril. and in such times, heroes can be made or undone.
peace like a river by leif enger..is there a single person on whom i can press belief? no sir. all i can do is say, here's how it went. here's what i saw. i've been there and am going back. make of it what you will.
mam's bank account by kathryn forbes.. five times i said wonderingly. five times. and ll you went through raising us- it was good, mama said. how can you say that? why, i can remember times, mama- it was good, mama repeated firmly. all of it.
band of brothers by stephen e. ambrose..grandpa, were you a hero in the war? no, i answered, but i served in a company of heroes.
d-day june 6. 1944 by ambrose..to think of the lives that were given for that principle..paying a terrible price on this beach alone, on that one day, 2,0000 casualties. but they did it that the world would be free. it just shows what free men will do rather than be slaves.
darwin's black box by michawl j. vehe..that life was designed by an intelligence is a shock to us in the twentieth century who have gotten used to thinking of life as the result of simple natural laws. but other centuries have had their shocks..we will endure the opening of darwin's black box.
up from liberalism by william f. buckley jr...obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at the voting booth. that is a program of sors, is it not? it is certainly program enough to keep conservatives busy, and liberals at bay. and the nation free.
being the body by charles colson and ellen vaughn..if faith is at war with fear, if catastrophe can turn from death to resurrection, if hope can triumph over despair...if ther was ever a time for the church, it is now. go light your candle!
the gospel and personal evangelism by mark dever..we do not fail in our evangelism if we faithfully tell the gospel to someone who is not subsequently converted; we fail only if we do ont faithfully tell the gospel at all.
God and the astronomers by robert jastrow.. he (the scientist) has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
the next christendom by philip jenkins..and whether we look backward or forward in history, we can see that time and again, christianity demonstrates a breathtaking ability to transform weakness into strength.
amusing ourselves to death by neil postman..for in the end, he (aldous huxley) was trying to tell us that what afflicted the people in brave new world was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.
the God i love by joni eareckson tada..there are more important things in life than walking.
the last battle by c.s.lewis..all their adventures in narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning chapter one of the great story, which no one on earth had read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
judges..in those days ther was no king in israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
job..after this job lived 144 years and saw his children and grandchildren for four generations. so job died, old and full of days.
proverbs..charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. give her the reward whe has earned and let her woks bring her praise at the city gate.
ecclesiastes..let us hear the conclusion of the wole matter: fear God and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. for God whall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.
matthew..go ye therefore and disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. amen.
john..Jesus did many other things as well. if every one of them were written down, i suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
jude..now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling and to present youfaultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. amen.
revelation..He who testifies to these things says, yet I am coming soon. amen. come, Lord Jesus. the grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. amen.
have a good week. love, dad
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