Yeast Infection

I have a bad systemic yeast infection that is impossible to shake off by my own efforts. It is the yeast infection that plagued the Pharisees, the pervasive infection of criticism and fault-finding. Nearly everyone in the church whether local or global is seen in a negative view. The infection has definitely affected my eyes and I desperately need eye salve. It has affected my system so bad I have serious heart trouble and don't even realize it very much. It makes my hands and feet sore so I don't want to be helpful and considerate to those around me. It permeates my reproductive organs to neutralize my ability to produce other disciples who have a passion for God.

I need strong medication, maybe heavy doses of gratitude and extended praise, not only for God but for everyone around me. I need to be extremely wary of intercourse with others who are heavily infected because I am very vulnerable to have a relapse and reinfection. I need strong and supernatural antibiotic and extended treatment program. I don't know how to go about it but I know there is only one Doctor who can heal me.

God, please continue what you started in me for your glory.

Sleeping Pain

I just read about Jesus' closest friends sleeping while Jesus needed them the most to pray for Him in the garden. Undeniably they hurt His feelings far deeper than the rough treatment of the Romans who acted mostly in ignorance. We fault the disciples for sleeping instead of praying and resisting the urge to doze. But I am the same way. And if so, I must have a similar effect on His heart and emotions if He considers me a close friend.

I often feel like dozing off to avoid painful situations or to grapple with difficult spiritual growth. It's easier for most of us to sleep a little longer than to struggle out of bed in response to God's quiet call to seek His face early before the distractions of the day overtake and consume our attention.

The ones closest to Him had the ability to inflict the most pain to His heart with what, on the surface, would appear to be the most non-violent means. He begged them repeatedly to watch and pray. I don't understand very well all the implications of those words but I believe He wants me to. It has something to do with coming into sympathy with His feelings and His perspective. It must be a means by which I can contribute to His joy and enter into a deeper understanding of His heart and emotions. Is this the “sufferings of Christ” that Paul referred to that he was filling up? (Col. 1:24) Is this suffering being misunderstood, abandoned, let down by His most trusted friends?

When I indulge in a critical spirit of others am I sleeping spiritually? Am I sleeping with the enemy? What does “watch” mean? Watch Jesus suffer in my place?

Spirit in Disagreeing

This understanding is still embryonic and not yet clear to me, but is emerging. My critical spirit is couched in a spirit of contention. Whenever I hear people teaching things I disagree with I feel combative and self-righteous. I feel a little proud that I have more “light” than they. If I detect a spirit of spiritual arrogance on their part I feel resentful and condemning. I feel that to not take this stance is to join them in their errors. This sounds way too much like the way my Dad treated people who differed with him. I need a now role model and mentor.

I need to see what it looks like to not agree with another's belief system and theology but still genuinely care for and love that person unconditionally. I know intellectually that God does that for all of us but I need to see it worked out in real-life situations in front of me. I need a new frame of reference.

I have to concede that God is using many, if not all of these people that I have issues with, to further His purposes. However, does that mean I have to join them in their twisted views of God to be used by Him? Does being used by God justify and validate the message delivered by an individual? I don't think so. God uses His opposers to prophecy for Him like Caiphas and many of His faithful spokesmen sometimes gave very wrong representations of Him. Moses was undeniably God's spokesman but made a tragic error in how he represented God to his people when he struck the rock in anger.

My Utmost – today's reading. “He will do with you what He is not doing with other people. Let Him have His way.” If I allow God to cultivate a certain understanding, a message, a perspective that He plans to share through me that differs from what others are presenting, I must not judge their integrity by the immaturity of their message. If I judge and criticize them and indulge in a spirit of dissension and contention I become judge of their private relationship to God and invite the same judgments to be leveled at me. That is a very low blow that cannot be defended against and I do not want to play that cruel game.

God, deliver me and cleanse me from EVERY root of bitterness against others while I allow You to incubate a unique message in me. Deliver me from my inherited and cultivated penchant for criticism and pride. Show me your ways and your face continually – for your reputation is on the line in this thing.

Compass Needle

My heart is like a compass-needle. It does no good to forcibly orient it to the “right” direction and lock it there, because as the compass body moved the needle would no longer be freely pointing toward magnetic north (“truth”) but toward the same spot on the compass perimeter. The needle must be always allowed to be free if it is to eventually find and point toward its true goal.

This is like religious rules and church-oriented religion. Church could be a protected environment where hearts have freedom to bounce around and swing back and forth while they tune in closer and closer to the true mother-lode far outside the church. But to lock down the needle and try to dictate what direction it must point prematurely destroys the needles capacity to adapt to changing circumstances and experiences. Legalism locks hearts. The Son sets us free to seek His face.

Then there's the other problem. If we stay in too close proximity to other magnetic attractions, our needle will be drawn to sway from its right direction and will give false headings for guiding our decisions. They will appear true and will feel fulfilling temporarily, but they are deceptive and will damage our progress and growth. They appear to be stronger that the mother-lode magnet but are actually very weak impostors by direct comparison. Their influence over us is based primarily on their close proximity and not on their correctness of position. They cause our needle to swing wildly about at times and give erratic readings and our only solution is to distance ourselves from them far enough for us to again sense the still, silent but immense, quiet tug of the true lover of our soul.

Men who are as true to duty as the needle to the pose must not be dogmatic and arbitrary. They have to be very sensitive and seek God's face continually. They must maintain a safe distance from distracting magnetic attractions so they can keep their hearts free to love and worship the One True God. They will live in community that can give them context and protection but that will also respect, encourage and maintain the free pivot point from which their heart can seek God in their uniqueness.

Real Motives at Calvary

I believe the reason we misunderstand the events around the cross and almost completely misinterpret the words and actions of Jesus through those events is because we start with the assumption that He was struggling against great fear as we would do naturally or was working very hard to resist retaliation. We view these things through the strong bias of what we would feel in those circumstances and filter everything through our lenses of fear. We therefore inject into the Bible our own issues and thoroughly mix them into the text as assumptions that go unchallenged. By so doing we almost completely miss seeing the true passion, even excitement, that radiates from Jesus' last hours as He arrives at the time for which all the plans of heaven have focused. This focal point of history and eternity is an overwhelming revelation of God's passionate, unquenchable love – a fire that absorbs every attempt by man or demons to extinguish it and only burns more intensely.

This is NOT the story of a God/man struggling to bring Himself to love us enough to force Himself to endure enough pain to appease an offended God on our behalf. Yes, His humanity was intensely tempted to engage in fear of enduring what was impossible for a human to endure. But we have completely missed what His divinity was thinking and feeling and what the Father was doing all through those events of trial, torture and mocking. Circumstances had been carefully arranged and guided by Sovereign God for the worst of human sinfulness and demonic cruelty to all coalesce at this point of time SO THAT He could have the greatest opportunity of demonstrating the real truth about how He really feels about all of His creatures, the children He created to be His intimate companions. The deepest darkness is all the more useful to highlight the real light by contrast.

Jesus was not demonstrating supernatural willpower and restraint to overwhelming urges for retaliation. He was fighting His divinity's overwhelming urges to love these monsters using His own divine nature instead of remaining completely passive to allow the Father to demonstrate His own passion through Jesus. Since joy is always and only with another, to use His own natural divine power instead of depending on God's power would have been to short-circuit joy.

Name-dropping Love

Yesterday we thought we were losing Dad. We sent him to the hospital after something like a seizure took him out of commission. Ever since he came back we feel uneasy and he is less responsive.

My Utmost for today talks about prayer as the greater works that Jesus referred to. It makes me think of another analogy. A man finds a woman who he is attracted to and who is rather famous. She shows great interest in him and they want to got married. The strange thing is, instead of spending quiet, lingering romantic hours together falling deeper in love, he only calls her occasionally to quiz her on information about facts from her life or ask for favors. He then uses this information to impress others that he has an inside track to her life. He visits talk shows and tends to brag about his connections to this famous lady. He name drops at strategic times to use her influence to get him into circles he could not otherwise enter. He uses her reputation and popularity to his own advantage in business deals and feels very proud of his ability to maneuver circumstances for his favor. He feels himself very blessed because of his connection with her and looks forward to a long and lucrative relationship.

However, he is so busy taking advantage of his good fortune that he only has very little time to actually spend with her. Oh, he knows it is very important and he is very careful to carve out well planned visits. However even during the visits he does most of the talking. Most of the little listening he does do is to compile answers to his queries about her history, her connections and her extensive estate. He can't wait till they get married so he will have much more access to her secret files and be able to help manipulate – rather, manage – her vast resources. He is very proud to be publicly viewed in her good graces and is very concerned that no one mars his reputation as her chosen fiance´. (see Matt. 7:23)

Hallmark Love

10-15-05

We have almost finished a week without TV except for a little 3ABN mostly for Dad. I feel a sense of relief, not that the week is over but that my heart-hearing is starting to awaken a little. I sense that huge events may be about to break on the world and I need to have a much closer connection to God to be ready. I was beginning to realize that TV, especially Hallmark fare, was not just a distraction and interference to my ability to stay connected with God, but sometimes it even brought in Satanic influence that would attach itself in my imagination and tie up my mind for days so I could not hear God's thoughts and feelings and messages.

I believe God sent us to this semi-isolated place to give us opportunity to hear His voice more clearly and have time to mature in grace. But in Dad's case isolation was used to cultivate and simmer in a critical spirit until it poisoned not only him but the whole local church and his family as well. I too am battling the same issue. It is becoming more apparent to me that I share his weakness in that area. In fact, the better my picture of God becomes the more disgusting becomes the bigotry and tradition I see all around me. That is good. But how I then react to this revelation of narrow-mindedness and lies about God can either grow me or destroy the effectiveness of the very truths that revealed the problems.

If I understand all mysteries, have all knowledge and can explain all prophecies but have not love I am empty and pointless. (1 Cor. 13) The sword of the Spirit is only as sharp as the love it has and displays. I desperately need that. I want love as my primary motivation, not the Hallmark version but the Heavenly version. I want and crave a full conversion of heart as well as a more perfect and accurate picture of God. The two are inter-related I know, but I want not only my head understanding but my heart to be healed or replaced with a new one, whichever it takes. God be merciful to me a sinner!