Heart Talk and Worship

I just had a discussion with someone that opened my eyes a little bit more as to how much I am still influenced by my old problem of image management – living in such a way as to influence what others think about me. As I thought about it more this morning I also realized that this is one of the greatest inhibitions preventing me from being able to worship God freely as my heart desires to do.

In the culture in which I grew up and am still a part of to a great extent, there are some things about expressive worship that by many people in my culture are considered too far outside the box to be acceptable. Oh, they may or may not say something about it to me, but it is sufficient that inside my own mind the accusations and subtle feelings of condemnation are very present and effective. So generally, I don't feel the freedom to worship as my heart needs to unless I am in a completely different culture – which then presents its own different set of inhibitions – or more likely when I am totally alone.

Actually I am very resentful in a way, of this state of affairs. And I suspect God is not real pleased about it either. For if the worship that is due Him and that connects our hearts to each other is being short-circuited by the false gods of image management and men-pleasing, then in fact I am being controlled and am serving false gods in violation of the second commandment.

I became aware of this sinful condition in my life a couple years ago and wrote extensively about it then. I also think that my awareness of this state of my heart has at least help me to make some progress toward freedom, but I still have a long way to go. And it will not help to simply try to lay a guilt trip on myself in an attempt to shame or frighten me into changing the way I act and think. That is the counterfeit religious practice of my past that I am determined to turn away from. But at the same time I must be willing to accept both the attractions and convictions of the Holy Spirit and also the warnings that alert me to the tragic consequences that are inevitable if I refuse to submit to coming into harmony with the principles of reality as revealed by God.

I, like everyone else, am designed and wired at the deepest level of my psyche to worship. And I, like everyone else, will worship quite frequently even though it is not generally labeled with that term. But the more I understand the truth and substance of what makes up worship, the more I become aware that far too much of my worship is going to the wrong places. I am giving too much authority to false gods in my life, and as a result I have no room to view critically or harshly those in the Old Testament who worshiped idols and think how silly they were. When the light of truth begins to expose my own futile practices of living in fear of what others think of me instead of living in joyful service to my Creator and Savior, then I have joined them in their disloyalty and idol worship and am in need of repentance just as much as they were.

I do not want to keep hiding from this problem. I (at least a part of me) do not want to keep resisting the promptings of the Holy Spirit to be more open and honest in all areas of my life. I realize that I have some very intense areas of blindness in my thinking, but I continue to ask God to open my eyes and show me what I normally cannot see. I believe that this is just one of those blind spots that He is trying to get me to face more directly.

I actually feel very encouraged by this conversation I just had that helped me remember and see better this problem in my life. I feel encouraged in a strange sort of way when I see some of my faults because I know that God is showing them to me because He cares enough to offer me healing and restoration in that area if I am willing to accept and apply His grace to my heart.

During the discussion I was able to actually peek into some of the feelings behind my actions and inhibitions and realize that what I am doing much of the time is trying to avoid shame. Shame and fear are two of the greatest inhibitors in my life and are some of the worst slave-masters that keep me from enjoying the true freedom of the sons of God. Even many of my diversionary temptations are targeted at helping me to avoid facing the shame and fears that still lurk in the background and affect so much of my thinking and my relationships with others. My desires to watch movies are deeply rooted in trying to use pleasure produced vicariously through artificial emotional stimulation as a means of masking my real need to address the much deeper roots of shame and fear that haunt me from the background atmosphere of my soul.

But it is up to me to exercise my power of choice to face these things and to fast from anything that I may be using to avoid facing them. As long as I resort to anything that may help me procrastinate facing the inner pain of my past, the resentment that I carry toward others, the shame that is still so prevalent from my childhood and the fears that haunt me from the residual lies about God in my heart – as long as I allow those diversions to satisfy my hunger for real freedom I will remain in the slavery of bondage to those things even though I may feel like I am free on the surface.

The symptoms of that bondage can be seen in the inhibitions at the gut level that still bind me to the manipulation of what others think of me. I may be ever so independent in many ways and believe that what others think about me has little influence over my choice to live outside the box that others are trapped within. But in deeper ways that is still a mirage in many respects. At the heart level I still crave acceptance and affirmation and to be valued and appreciated by others. I suppose in some ways there is nothing wrong with those desires except when they cause me to subtly seek satisfaction for these needs from others above seeking God's face and believing in how He truly feels about me.

As I was sharing in my conversation, shame is one of the primary emotions that I still don't have very much skill in dealing with effectively yet. When I first became aware of the enormous influence and presence of shame in my life some time ago I was shocked at how much it controlled my thinking and my relationships with others. That is still true today, but it is very difficult to perceive it most of the time because it stays under the surface of my conscious awareness. So because I am not conscious of the presence and strong influence of shame's control over me I too often fail to take action to face it more directly and learn how to deal with it effectively.

During our discussion we both agreed that fear and shame are the primary problems that we both have to deal with and that strongly influence how we relate to others and inhibit our relationship with each other. We also realized that we really desire a mentor in our lives who could show us how to face this problem effectively and learn to live in the freedom and peace that our hearts crave so much. But the problem seems to remain that there are extremely few people around who are mature enough and willing enough to mentor others in the ways of God, and whoever they are they don't seem to be anywhere near our lives right now.

As a result it appears to me like God is going to have to mentor us directly without using any humans to be His agents unless He has someone in mind that we are totally unaware of at this point. Many times in my life when I felt totally alone going through intense struggles and wishing for someone to join me and emotionally guide me through those times, I wondered if maybe God was allowing me to go it alone in order to be trained to help others whom I would encounter later who felt totally alone. I can distinctly remember situations where I nearly felt like screaming out, longing for someone to be with me in my problems and frustrations to overcome problems in my life. But the only answer that seemed to come was that when I learned this lesson I would be better situated to have compassion and sympathy for others in similar circumstances.

I don't know what God has in mind for the process of my healing and I am cautious to try to second-guess how He plans to accomplish that in me. But I do know that what I am learning about Him from the Bible in my own personal encounters with Him each day is full of encouragement and is awakening more hope and love in my own heart. I ultimately have to come back to throwing myself on the promises and words of God that I find written there and trust His heart to guide me through the confusing maze of inner mysteries and outer temptations to the freedom and joy and security that my heart was designed to thrive on in His presence.

The Empty Fuel Tank

I had another dream last night that woke me up some time after 3 AM. But when I woke up another situation immediately took over my thoughts and after awhile I realized that I should just get up and process it with God, for I was unlikely to get any more sleep unless I ignored the invitation and then lost this opportunity.

The details of the dream seemed less important than the use of it to activate certain parts of my emotions that needed to be addressed in the current situation. I am finding myself increasingly in tension with someone I work with and I have been wondering why for the past several days. It is slowly becoming more clear – though not nearly as much as I want – that likely most of the problem is with me. But the complicating factor is that it is hidden almost entirely behind a blind spot in my life.

I think that I have been making jokes at someone else's expense thinking that it is completely in harmless humor. But I am being convicted that this may not be the case at all from the other person's perspective. I, in fact, may be in the process of tearing down the “joy bonds” that God has been working to build up. My study of Romans 14 is being applied to myself in a very personal and practical way here and I want to allow it to have its intended effect on my character and personality.

So then let us pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. Do not tear down the work of God.... (Romans 14:19-20)

As I think back I slowly begin to realize that many of the things I have been saying lately are not up-building or encouraging for him. My intentions may have been innocent enough, at least I think so from my limited or blind spot perspective, but the potential effects of my words have been more along the line of tearing down the work of God in his heart.

As I prayed about this and dialogged with God about it for some time this morning, several things came to my attention. Some of the principles that I have been learning recently began to fit into place with each other quite effectively. Those who have been educated from some of the same sources that I have been exposing myself to over recent years will recognize some of the context from which I am coming.

I am having a great struggle learning how to act like myself because I don't know very well at all what that looks like. My problem lies partly in that my perception of my identity is based far too much on my past behaviors and mistakes instead of on what God reveals about my true identity. I feel like I need to be able to visualize in my mind what it would look like for me to act differently so that I could then actually begin to act it out in reality. But when I find it difficult to even visualize myself acting differently than what I do then I know I have a very serious identity problem.

What does it mean to act like myself? What I am referring to here is based on the presumption that acting like myself is referring to my real self that God designed me to be, not the false, selfish self that has been fabricated by the many false gods that continually hang around and assault me with lies about my identity. This group of false gods has been with me most all of my life and are so familiar that they often convince me that they are really me. But no matter how much my past is reflective of their attitudes and ways of relating and doing things, they will always be false and will never change their minds or their ways. I must find my true identity in the Source which designed me in the first place.

Another aspect of learning to act like myself is that I learned how to do this by imitating my parents or others who mentored me. So if I am to learn how to act like myself and like the “us” that is my true family, I have to have a much clearer perception of what my true Father acts like so that I can imitate it more readily. And this has to happen in the right-brain part of me, the heart level or it will never really be effective in changing and transforming me from the inside out.

Another insight was given to me as I thought about these things. I noticed that even when I did catch glimpses in my imagination of what it might be like me to do to resolve my tension with my fellow worker, that I lacked the motivation to actually want to follow through with acting that way. I realized that just knowing how to act properly or what love might look like, which is difficult enough in itself, was not sufficient to actually get me to go ahead and carry it out. I asked God what I was lacking to motivate me to take action on any insights that He might give me as to how to act like myself.

I then sensed that very important thing that is lacking is passion – the kind of passion that pulses from the very heart of God and is the source for all life and energy throughout the entire universe. If I try to have love without passion then it is like having a wonderful, shiny new sports car without access to any fuel with which to fill it. I can sit in it and image myself screaming around corners and feeling the exhilaration of a thrilling joy ride, but without the fuel of passion I am just living in a dream world.

But I have been carefully trained all of my life to be afraid of passion. Passion was always considered something very dangerous and out of control. It was something that could never be trusted as so must always be suppressed, ignored or locked up in the deep recesses of a prison within. But God did not design us to just sit in a broken vehicle and imagine ourselves getting somewhere. He designed our brains and our souls to actually thrive and grow and mature in vital connection with the resource of His passion. For without passion we have nothing but a cheap imitation of real life.

So much of my problem is that fear is preventing me from living life with the passion that God implanted into me early on. My passion was perverted, mislabeled, condemned and suppressed. It was done so effectively that most of it I can no longer even find inside of me. I feel that much of the life or passion for life has eluded me and I am just doing little more than putting in time. But God is telling me that He has very different plans for me. And that somehow includes a re-infusion of true passion that will empower me to carry out the things He is telling me are necessary for healing and reconciliation with those around me.

Right now I feel like a have a love/fear relationship with passion. It is something I crave deeply and yet fear intently. In my damaged heart passion is inextricably linked with fear, shame and guilt as well as pleasure, satisfaction and desire. At times it almost feels like having the brakes and the accelerator on at the same time. That is a recipe for a lot of internal tension that affects all of my relationships.

So what I need is vision to know what it looks like to act like myself and passion to be empowered to fulfill the vision. I have to leave this in God's hands. I am praying for the right spirit and perspective to act on my need to reconcile and confess my faults to my brother without being prevented by my fears or pride. I want to repair our relationship and live in such a way that I am building him up instead of tearing down the work of God in his life and in mine. Right now I don't know just what that looks like, but I want to seek God's face more intensely so that I can see how to act like myself more consistently.

Positive Pressure

As I walked out of Wal-Mart yesterday I noticed that I couldn't feel the hot air outside until I had cleared the outer set of doors. Knowing how air systems typically are designed in commercial buildings like that I realized that this was because they keep the inside of the building so full of cool air that it has a little bit more pressure than the hot air outside to keep that warmer air from coming in. It is called positive air pressure and works very well to keep both buildings and even coolers from getting too warm in the summer or even too cold in the winter. It means that when you enter the building you immediately feel the temperature of the inside without much mixing of the air going on around the doorways.

But as I thought about this neat little trick that designers use to keep our bodies more comfortable while we spend our money on someone else's products, it occurred to me that my own soul is very much like that building. Depending on the attitudes and choices and self-perception that make up the atmosphere I have in my soul building will determine very much how I relate to other people around me.

I sense that sometimes I feel like maybe I have something more like negative air pressure inside of me emotionally instead of positive pressure. Negative pressure is usually referred to as vacuum. A vacuum acts very much like a dry sponge that tends to soak up moisture that it comes in contact with instead of oozing out liquid as when it is full. A vacuum condition, or negative air pressure inside of a building will draw in the atmosphere from outside whenever the doors or windows are opened and that incoming atmosphere will influence whatever is already inside the building. If it is very cold outside the incoming air will cool off the room or building below what it already is. And of course the opposite is true; if the weather is very hot and humid outside the building will begin to heat up and feel muggy inside causing much more work for the air conditioning systems.

As I continued to think about this for awhile after leaving the building I realized that this helps explain some of my dysfunctional problems with some of the people in my life at various times. When I feel emotionally empty inside in some way, when I feel an emotional craving or need that is not filled or satisfied, the natural tendency is to begin to look to someone or even some activity as a source to satisfy my desires. This is simply part of being human, how our brains are wired to operate. We are designed to have desires that need to be fulfilled and one of the most important tasks of childhood is to prepare us for moving on in maturity by learning about what truly satisfies.

Failure to learn what appropriately satisfies our needs and desires is one of the most common and basic problems in the world. Because we are so often turning to the wrong sources to find satisfaction we never really find what we are looking for but we often find something we think may do. What we usually find is something more along the lines of pleasure or something that inflates our pride (or even other more physical things like our body). Eating is a very typical outlet for cravings that has its obvious unhealthy affects on our lives. Drugs, sex, alcohol, pornography, intellectual prowess, religion in many forms, entertainment, star and model worship, social power – the list is really endless. And while not everything we turn to for satisfaction may be bad in and of itself, they are many times not the appropriate thing that addresses the need we are trying to satisfy and they thus become something of a false god for us, albeit unconsciously.

There is nothing inherently wrong even with having a sense of vacuum inside of our hearts emotionally any more than it is wrong to get physically hungry. Hunger actually is a blessing at times as it helps us become more acutely aware of flavors that we might not notice otherwise and our appreciation of food can be sharpened. But the real problem lies in when we fail to recognize the correct “food” for the specific hunger or craving that we are experiencing and instead try to address it with something else.

Those of us who grew up with a great deal of missing ingredients in our emotional life (which includes all of us to some degree or other) have some very long-term hungers that have never known much satisfaction to the degree that we sense we need. Anyone who did not receive enough unconditional love as a child or who didn't receive affirmation and repeated confirmation of their intrinsic value in the eyes of those who represented God in their young minds will have a deep reservoir of emptiness that cannot be filled with the platitudes of religious cliché's or artificial accolades from achievements or performance. They will likely find themselves struggling all their lives to discover those missing ingredients that will fill that gnawing hunger inside to feel valued and loved and worthwhile. They may try to deny it or avoid it or suppress it or even exploit it in others, but deep inside every person craves to be valued by someone else who is a significant person in their life.

Scientists have recently discovered through the latest technologies of brain science scans and research that the most important thing that every baby needs and craves above anything else is to be the sparkle in someone's eyes, to be cherished and valued by someone who is significant to them. They have even gone so far as to label this experience of being desired and cherished and loved by someone “joy”.

Joy, according to the neurology cravings in the brain, is when someone is genuinely happy to be with you no matter what the circumstances are or what your emotional condition may be. Joy is the most intense need of the human soul and this need is never outgrown. All through our lives we continue to crave and seek for someone who is willing to be glad to be with us, even in our dysfunctional moments, maybe even especially in those times. Because we know deep inside that if someone is really willing and even wants to be with us in our worst times they will certainly also be glad to be with us in our better times.

But when we grow up in a joy-starved environment our heart will continue to grope for anything that seems to address and reduce the deep pain and emptiness that we feel inside. This is the main driving force behind most addictions. This is what drives the whole porn industry and what causes most of the immorality that goes on in our world. We are all looking for someone to satisfy our deep cravings for someone to be glad to be with us and will even settle for people pretending to wanting to be with us if necessary. Sometimes people are even willing to pay people to pretend to be glad to be with them in various ways, but this only deepens our cravings in the end instead of satisfying them.

What is going on here is that we have a vacuum condition in our heart and we are opening doors or windows to various sources that in turn infect us with all sorts of contaminating influences that only aggravate our brokenness and intensify our sense of longing. This can happen in obvious ways like adultery or abuse or it can often happen in very subtle ways that are very socially acceptable. But the eternal principles continue to operate just as gravity is never suspended and we will always have problems as we remain in a vacuum condition at the heart level.

So if all these things we try to fill our hearts with don't satisfy the vacuum we feel inside, how are we supposed to have it filled? How are we to change over from having a vacuum in our heart that sucks in everything it can get hold of to fill its hunger, to a condition of being full to overflowing so that we can become givers of life instead of takers?

I could easily launch off into some great-sounding platitudes right now that I would be as disgusted with as most other people. I am asking these questions very honestly and am looking for realistic answers myself. I am describing to some extent my own condition that I often find myself in and am daily addressing in my pursuit of God and His presence. I want to be a person who really exemplifies the reality of the words of Jesus, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. (John 4:14)

I want to know what it feels like to be so satisfied and full of life that when I am jostled that life will just spill out of me all over others. I want to be a sponge so full of life and joy that when I am squeezed that I will be life-giving instead of complaining or becoming bitter. I realize that too often in my relations with those around me I am grasping for a sense of intimacy, of belonging and desiring affirmation to fill the emptiness that I too often hide inside. Instead of denying my emptiness I want to have it so full of the life of God that I can be the one genuinely glad to be with others who are hungry and hurting and desperate for joy themselves.

Miracles for Launching

Stories of miracles and personally experienced miracles may be only the ground-based apparatus that is designed to launch us into the realm of living a life in joyful flight through the air. The enormous thrill that one can experience in uninhibited, unencumbered flight, soaring and swooping through the air with the new-found ability to see things from a far greater perspective and to rise high above all problems and confusion is the experience that God desires for us to live in as being normal. But fear keeps most of us grounded and satisfied with simply walking around slowly in our extremely limited little world, thinking that this is all there is to life.

The difference between living life limited by our assumptions about the restrictions of gravity stuck on the surface of the land, and living the abundant, thrilling life of soaring flight that enables us to rise above the depressing clouds of doubt and fear into the sunshine of glory and love and true freedom – this difference is analogous to living life trapped in the world's way of thinking and reasoning and heaven's reality of freedom, joy and love.

Too many times I suspect that we believe that our version of Christianity has opened up to us most of the basic insights and experiences that we will ever need to know. Oh, we believe that throughout eternity we will be adding to our database of knowledge, but somehow we often come to think that our understanding of what it means to be a Christian and to live life in righteousness is sometimes pretty much outlined in our thinking now and we become very resistant to anything that challenges our narrow paradigms.

Some of us also tend to hanker toward wanting to see miracles of some kind in our lives, though many times this desire is held in secret. If we are really honest about this I think we would notice that we like to use miracles to justify our insistence that our system of doctrines and standards are the right ones. Of course we then have to rationalize that if other people are experiencing miracles who do not believe like we do that their miracles must likely be counterfeit and are therefore from the enemy. Or we may move toward an attitude of apathy about miracles because of the obvious problems they raise about who's beliefs they are used to justify.

While it is very true that miracles can originate from both God and from His enemy Satan who uses them to deceive many into believing his false ideas, I think we have some other general misconceptions about miracles that tend to confuse and mislead all of us.

It has been observed by many that it seems to be a pattern in the lives of some Christians that early in their experience they sometimes see many more miracles than they do later in their walk with God. This pattern also seems to fit evangelism in certain regions of the world. Whole groups of people sometimes experience many miracles in their midst when missionaries first begin working with them bringing light and truth about God into their darkened cultures. But the more mature and settled they become in living life in the truth it seems that the cutting edge miracles tend to taper off or may be replaced with counterfeit miracles designed to draw them away from the truth. This tends to work most effectively for those who have become addicted to miracles.

Miracles themselves are generally considered to be events, healings and interventions that cannot be explained through natural means and are thus considered supernatural. I certainly believe that miracles are often supernatural, though not always. I also believe that miracles are very much within the bounds of natural laws of nature but laws at are now still beyond our awareness. A thoughtful person will realize that there are still yet many aspects and principles about the physical world that we have yet to know about, and so anything that operates outside of our present understandings but still within the principles we do not yet understand is generally considered a miracle or an unexplained phenomenon.

But what is the purpose of genuine miracles performed by God in our lives? I suppose there may be many answers to that question that could all be correct. But one thing I am sensing is that one of the main reasons for true miracles is to radically challenge our paradigms and stimulate us into viewing God in a totally different light than we have before. In fact, that may be one of the most important reasons for every genuine miracle. That might also help to explain the reasons for counterfeit miraculous events because they will be designed to convey or reinforce false ideas about God to keep us confused and distant from Him.

One way they accomplish this is to feed into our addiction and lust for continuous miraculous signs that we falsely believe will motivate us or others to live righteously. This can be seen in the interaction between Jesus, one of the world's greatest miracle workers, and many in Israel who became more interested in His miracles than in the real message He had come to reveal to them about His Father. Jesus only performed miracles for the purpose of conveying truths about God that had been so buried that people had lost consciousness of them. Their perceptions of God were dark and foreboding and full of fear and intimidation. They saw God as something of a tyrant or as an unconcerned, apathetic onlooker to their suffering and pain Who chose to do nothing to help them. They did not believe God really cared about their hearts, their lives or their problems except maybe to make demands that only seemed to exacerbate their frustrations. Things are not any different today.

Jesus came to smash the world's paradigms about how God feels about us and relates to us. Jesus declared that He was a perfect demonstration of what God was like without any variation. And in that role He entered into a life of reaching out to people's hearts, identifying with their problems and pain and offering a radically different paradigm of God that aroused intense interest. But it also aroused equally intense bitterness, alarm and opposition by everyone who chose to resist His love. He exposed the fallacy of power and control people use as the means of attempting to live in successful relationships with each other. He exposed that most of our thinking and assumptions about life and about God were pretty much completely upside down from what is real. And He used many miracles to effect dramatic changes in the lives of those who chose to believe, even a little bit, in the message He had brought about how God wanted to relate to them.

But fallen human nature is insistent on living life oriented in the externals and so it soon became evident that many were becoming addicted to the emotional rush and excitement of seeing miracles and were desiring that “high” more than they were willing to believe the truth about the God who was performing these miracles. The very things that God was trying to use to launch them into a completely different way of thinking and living – a way of life analogous to flying freely through the air and soaring high above the clouds – these miracles were becoming objects of attention and focus more than the loving Father who was providing these miracles.

God ways are always being subverted by Satan to become means of distorting our picture of God and thus believing lies about Him circulated by the father of lies. Everything that God tries to do or has put into place to reveal the real truth about Him is counterfeited by Satan so subtly as to make these falsehoods look legitimate and to convince us that God is not as good as He claims to be. The counterfeits are designed to appeal to the externalistic focus of our fallen natures and to make false gods out of many of the things God has provided to point us toward Himself. In this way miracles too, can become a kind of false god that we crave and come to worship instead of allowing them to launch us into the air and begin to live a life of trust and faith in the character of God. I believe this may help explain why God tends to use more miracles early in the experience of some Christians and not as many later on.

Consider a glider aircraft that needs to be launched into the air in a very small area too small to accommodate a runway for it to take off on. Suppose that something like a giant rubber band or other such launching apparatus was arranged to aim the glider upward and propel it up away from the earth giving it time and speed to begin to interact with the atmosphere in ways that enabled it to fly.

Now suppose that the glider somehow decides that the launching apparatus is more to be desired than flying freely through the sky. Maybe the glider is afraid of heights or of the clouds that shadow its visibility of the sun. What would happen if the glider decided to stay attached to the launching apparatus and refused to disconnect from it after being launched? Well, it would then look more like inverse bungy-jumping than it would soaring through the air with the greatest of ease. And ultimately the end results would look something very much like death and destruction.

I think we should not be afraid of miracles or be eager to discredit them. At the same time I believe that we need to shift our focus from the immediate pleasure and joy that we experience in either personal miracles experienced or in hearing about the miracles of others and seek to find out the real reason why these miracles were given. Instead of becoming addicted to stories and experiences of the miraculous, we need to learn how to go far past them and live life in the spirit realm with the Spirit of God beneath our wings. We must allow ourselves to be launched into the real truth about the character and feelings of God and enter into the thrill of personal, intimate fellowship with Him in the joy of flying.

So here's a sound-bite for another analogy that might possibly be developed. Are the wings that keep us airborne called faith and hope and is the fuel for our aircraft love?

But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)

Enslaved by Straw

I had an extended dream last night of trying to figure out a way to attach my picture to a driver's license that was older and didn't have a picture on it instead of getting a new driver's license. I wanted to avoid going through all the security hassle that getting a new license would entail, so most of my dream involved trying to glue a new picture onto an expired license. But then I kept realizing that this would be considered forgery of a government document. But the dream kept repeating itself in spite of that.

But then something unusual interrupted the flow of this repetitive dream that caused me to wake up a little bit. It was like a message from heaven, though I also realize that it was linked to something I heard Shane Claiborne say from the recording of a fascinating discussion I recently downloaded from Amercian Public Media. The message was that I should not be so obsessed with wanting a license with my picture on it issued by the government because what it really is in heaven's eyes is the badge of a stolen identity.

Shane was referring to the story when Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees about paying taxes to Caesar. The answer He gave was that Caesar could have his money back that had Caesar's picture stamped on it but that he had no ownership over people because they were created with the image of God imprinted in them. In my dream I sensed that this issue went even deeper but along the same line of reasoning.

Society today is all astir and agitated about identity theft and many people are becoming somewhat paranoid and obsessive about trying to hide or destroy anything that might be used to find out any details about themselves. The media keeps this fear very much alive by pushing stories of people's lives “ruined” because of identity thieves finding their social security number, credit card numbers etc. So people are buying paper shredders and sharing stories of phone cameras taking pictures of their credit cards and generally increasing the level of stress in people's hearts to an even higher level of worry. Sometimes I wonder if the identity that they are trying to hide from everyone else is really all that much worth protecting. But that is partly another but related issue.

Identity theft is really a situation where a person gets enough information about another person to convince a business or public service to extend credit to them or sell them goods based on the numbers and names they provide. It can certainly have a devastating effect on a persons credit history which seems rather difficult to reverse even though it was quite easy to accept false charges in the first place. It seems a little baffling that credit agencies have little trouble adding problems to a person's credit history but seem rather resistant to just as easily believe the truth from the actual person trying to rectify the situation.

Identity theft does certainly create a great deal of frustration and problems for people who are victimized by it and many times the long-term effects are never completely erased. There always seems to be a cloud of doubt left over a person's reputation even though they had nothing to do with the original problem. But what does all this have to do with the identity theft that I am referring to as seen from heaven's eyes?

God is extremely protective about the “currency” called humans that He created with His picture on them. In addition, and quite unlike our currency which is not backed up by anything whatsoever of worth, the currency that God created has infinite value that is very real and tangible. The pledged value of every human being is literally backed by the life of the Son of God and He was willing to put it on the table when the value of His “currency” was called into question. Because of this, God and all of heaven is very keen to protect the identity of the people that bear the stamp of heaven.

But Satan has invented a very complex and massive counterfeit currency system along with a counterfeit of God's government and this can easily be seen in the way earthly governments operate. This is not just some theory or a religious notion that is irrelevant to our life right now. This is very real and presents a problem that most people are completely unaware of but affects their lives pervasively. One of the big issues in Satan's counterfeit system reflects his desire to literally steal the identities that God gave us and to replace them with counterfeit identities that we have come to believe is our real identity.

Think carefully about these words of Jehovah spoken from the flames and smoke and thunder on Mount Sinai thousands of years ago revealing the fundamental truths about God and reality.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: (Exodus 20:4 KJV)

You are not to make an image or picture of anything in heaven or on the earth or in the waters under the earth: (Exodus 20:4 BBE)

I understand that some people have taken this to mean that we should never engage in photography of any kind because this might be breaking the Law of God. I am not going to tackle that issue because I believe that God is far more concerned with issues of the heart. On the other hand, the things we do externally usually reflect the realities that are believed at the heart level and so the things we consider important and give great value to reveal what we actually believe about our own identity.

I am just starting to sense after this dream that quite possibly our society's belief, being intensified lately by increasing pressure from the government, that we have to be obsessed with our external identity and are fully responsible for it in some way. This notion itself is a means of making us participates in the theft of our own true identity. We may actually be discovered to be co-conspirators in the attempt by the world to set up an alternative identity in order to obliterate our awareness of our true and far more valuable identity entrusted to us by our original Creator. And part of this identity theft is the use of an identity card carrying a requisite image of our faces on it as an attempt to give a face to this false identity.

Some have learned that this false identity is well known in higher government circles and the fraud is strongly promoted there but not revealed to the average person. Millions are led to believe that this is just that way we have to cooperate in order to get along in this society. That may be true if we are willing to be a cooperative accomplice in our own identity theft. But I am beginning to see that this may not be viewed with favor from heaven's perspective.

In some circles this false image fabricated to replace us is called our “straw man”. For those of you not yet familiar with this term and still uneducated as to what is going on behind the scenes, your straw man is the composite identity that is created by the government at the time of your birth and introduced by your birth certificate. It's name is usually spelled in all capital letters on government records and increasingly more and more of your personal information is being collected to add to the government database being compiled on you.

But what is often seriously misunderstood is that this straw man identity is not the same person as the “human flesh and blood you” that God created in His image. It is a fictional entity that is also classified as a corporation so that the IRS can then claim that “you” owe them taxes. The IRS has absolutely no jurisdiction over sentient human flesh and blood beings in the various States of the united States of America – no one has ever been able to produce the law requiring humans to pay taxes on the money they earn from their labor. (If you can find it you can collect a $10,000 dollar reward) But the IRS does have the ability to tax corporations. Therefore it is imperative that they deceive everyone into believing that they are the fictional corporate “person” created by the government at their birth so that all their life they will assume that they are required to return taxes.

There are many elements that go into making up this fictional straw man that goes by the same-sounding name as that given to you by your parents. The Social Security number assigned to your fictional person is a key element in tracking and compiling all the information possible to add to the identity and value of this fictional straw man. And now it has been enacted by Congress that every person must procure a high security I.D. card, generally in the form of a driver's license, that will soon become the control point for the government to manipulate all of your behavior and access to most anything a person wants to do to interrelate with others around them.

The false, counterfeit governments of earth are doing everything possible to obliterate our perception of our true identity in order to keep us fixated with our fictional identity and believe that our straw man is our real identity. Very many people have already been quite convinced of this ruse and are even ready to commit suicide against their God-given body and soul whenever their fictional person gets into deep trouble. Tragically, what they do not realize is that the fictional person has very little to do with their real identity and their belief that it does is only a false belief, not a fact. But a falsehood believed has the same effect internally as if it were true if it is not exposed and rejected.

So I am starting to see that the urgency of my mind during my dream to think that I must have a driver's license with an image (idol) of my face on it in order to live a normal life is really in opposition to the second commandment in the Law of God. For me to buy into the belief that my identity is composed of my license, my credit records, my bank statements, my work history etc. is to accept the assertion that the false identity created in my image is in fact the real me. This is, in fact, another revelation of my false belief that my value is determined by my performance and my reputation in contradiction to the opinion of my Maker. It is to confirm what Satan is hoping I will believe and to subject myself to all the manipulations that correspond to being the slave that the straw men was created to be for the use of the state.

A most important verse precedes what we usually think of as the Ten Commandments and if it is overlooked we completely miss the context and power of those Revelations of God. Then God spoke all these words, saying, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me." (Exodus 20:1-3) If I do not believe in my heart that I am not a slave, that my real identity is not tied to a fictional person created by the State; if I do not truly believe in my heart that I have been set free from the godlessness represented by Egypt and am no longer a slave to be manipulated and controlled by those slave-masters, then I will be vulnerable to the stresses and fears, terrors and intimidations promoted and rehearsed by those masters and will remain a slave to be continually abused by them. And I will not be free to obey the perfect Law of Liberty. (James 1:25)

If I accept the assumptions about my identity by the media and the government in their communications to me as fact, then I will believe their assertion that I am still a slave and will continue to act like one. In doing so I will have accepted the replacement of my true, God-imparted identity (which I may have never even known) with the false, stolen identity that has usurped my position in life and robbed God of His purchased property. I will live in fear under the threats and intimidations of these earthly slave-masters and will be controlled by other's false assertions about me instead of living in the freedom purchased for me by Jesus Christ.

Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. (Hebrews 2:14-15)

Jacob's False god

I read Isaiah 43 this morning listening for what God wanted to tell me. But as I read I noted that there was the familiar resistance embedded in my heart to really believing that these words apply to me personally. I want to believe them but I have to be honest and admit that there is yet a lot of unbelief inside of me discounting many things God wants to implant deep into my heart.

God is trying to answer my prayers to know my true identity. But then when He says things to show me my true identity I feel unable to receive them fully. That is what is going on as I read this chapter. It reminds me very much of Jacob (mentioned at the beginning of this chapter) who spent a great deal of his life grasping for a sense of value, desiring to be respected and loved but usually going about it the wrong way and ending up in deep relational troubles.

The poor guy – he started out with this reputation from before he was even born. He was found to be fighting with his brother inside of Rebekah's womb. His mother couldn't understand what all the commotion was about so she went to God and asked Him what was going on inside. God shared with her some insights as to the future relationships between her two sons as well as their future descendants. Unfortunately later on both her and Isaac allowed their personal preferences to aggravate the situation and caused a great deal of grief and pain for their whole family.

When Jacob was born he was still having it out with his brother. The Bible says that as Esau was being born Jacob was hanging on tightly to his ankle. He wouldn't even stop struggling long enough to allow his brother be born normally. The tension continued for the rest of their lives and can even be seen yet today in their descendants.

The name Jacob means supplanter and deceiver. How would I like to have a name like that? Talk about a weight to carry around emotionally all your life. With a name and reputation like that it is real hard to feel a sense of positive identity, of being valued by the family or by God. Jacob seemed to have the odds stacked against him from the very get-go and the story of his life demonstrates his life-long struggle to overcome this disadvantage.

But even though Jacob lived many years under the curse of a negative sense of identity, God had implanted a desire in his heart that he pursued, a desire to overcome this curse and discover something better for himself, his real destiny. To the outside world it appeared that he was messing up repeatedly and simply demonstrating the truth of his negative identity embedded in his name. But if one could see inside his heart, even past what he himself could see most of the time, it would be seen that he was really in pursuit of His parent's God and his Creator. What he craved was to replace this false sense of identity with the real truth about himself as seen from God's view. He wanted to feel respected, loved and valued instead of being a person who had to fight with others all the time to get what he needed.

Every time Jacob came to a crisis of identity he tried to figure it out for himself. Many times he resorted to sheer deception, which really was one of his supposed “natural” attributes ingrained in his flesh. Sometimes he would try religion and ask God to help him be successful. He would strike deals, try harder, get mad and be take advantage of. But all through the story one can sense a longing emanating from deep within for fulfillment and a better identity.

But it always appeared that the deck was somehow stacked against him. While his brother seemed to enjoy a wild sense of freedom and could seemingly do anything he set his mind to with abandon, Jacob's life seemed to be one comic tragedy after another. The harder he tried to make things work out right for him the worse things seemed to get in many ways. And always on the inside he was struggling to understand and make sense out of his distorted picture of God.

Why was it that his father could seemingly have such a straightforward, simple, confident relationship with his God while Jacob seemed to bumble from one crazy experience to the next? And while his brother could hardly care less about God while Jacob had an unusually sensitive heart that attracted the sympathy of his mother, his father Isaac always seemed to favor Esau over Jacob. This only added to the confusion in his heart. Isaac seemed enthralled with the wild spirit and adventurous escapades of his reckless and irreligious brother Esau while Jacob increasingly yearned for the blessing of his father that he so much needed but seemed so far away. And all of this in the face of the prophecy given to his mother before their birth that the older would serve the younger. That only seemed to add fuel to the fire.

Jacob inherently knew that he needed a blessing from his dad like every man needs it. He felt shamed and worthless when compared to the bold and macho accomplishments of his obviously masculine, tough brother. How much worse could a person feel? His brother only aggravated the tension by playing up their differences and basking in the favors of their father. Jacob became jealous, fearful and desperate and his mother shared to much in his perspective. As the years of his youth passed, Jacob felt the pain of rejection and fear and worthlessness deepen. He turned to his growing skills of manipulation, enhanced by the shared feelings of his mother who allowed her sympathy for him to separate her somewhat from her husband. The family became divided and the tensions continued to mount. But inside his heart Jacob yearned ever more intensely for that coveted blessing that would impart to him a valuable identity, and he yearned for it with a passionate hunger as intense as the instinct for life itself.

Jacob spent most of his life striving, working, manipulating, cutting deals in his attempt to find his real identity. But time after time, relationship after relationship, he was met with frustration, shame and deceit. As he tried to manipulate others he found himself manipulated. As he attempted to use deceit to get what he needed he was caught in others deceptions. He made bargains with God and with men only to have them come unraveled or circumvented. And by the time he found himself running away from his uncle with a house full of dysfunctional wives and crying children, facing the wrath of a powerful brother who could not let go of his grudge from Jacob's conniving tricks from their youth, Jacob felt he was at the very end of his rope. He had exhausted all of the tricks he could pull out of his bag. He had tried God, tried psychology, tried every means possible to look out for his interests, but inside his heart he was still an empty little boy yearning for the blessing that would impart a positive destiny and identity to him. He craved a dad's affirmation and approval but could never be good enough to earn it. And even though he had stolen what was supposed to be his father's blessing right out from under the nose of his profligate brother, he still could not feel the effects in his heart of that blessing that he wanted more than anything else.

Now he found himself facing all the results of all his messed-up attempts to establish his identity, all coalescing on him at the same time. His brother was coming to get even and potentially kill him. His uncle who could never be trusted and had tricked him out of one of the greatest desires of his heart, the father of his two wives (which was due to his uncle's trickery against him) was not far away after an ugly confrontation. His family was terrified of the mess Jacob had gotten them into, his children were fighting, whining and crying and Jacob's heart was still screaming out for something he just couldn't secure for himself. How much worse could it get?

Jacob had lived his whole life with a skewed picture of God just like I have. He had assumed like most people that he had to earn God's favor, respect and love. Like every male created by God, his greatest need was to feel respected and honored by others, but that was the least that he had ever accomplished. And like every human being he wanted to know that someone valued him, cared about him and believed in him even when the chips were down. But by this time in his life he had tried everything and absolutely nothing had worked out as he wanted it to. His conscience had tormented him for many years, his mind was exhausted trying to come up with yet another workable solution and his heart was amping up the decibels until he could hardly think of anything else.

Why did he still crave the blessing when supposedly he had gotten what he wanted from his father many years ago? Why was his brother so angry about that fiasco when Esau had ended up with all the material possessions of the family anyway? What did Esau care about the spiritual birthright that was part of the blessing? He didn't even care about God and was bold in flaunting a lifestyle in opposition to God's instructions.

Why was everything collapsing in Jacob's life all at the same time? Where was God right now anyway? Was that ladder that he had seen in his dream years ago now broken and out of commission? Had God failed him too? Was it his time to throw in the towel and give up the fight and surrender to death? A sense of immense hopelessness likely filled his mind as he begin to make preparations for the end.

He mentally prepared a list and made instructions to his family and servants to implement tactics to minimize the damage that was likely about to occur. He split up his family into groups and sent them off in different directions based on his own favoritism and preferences in hopes of avoiding losing all of them. He did the best he could to prepare the externals for the worst and then went off alone in the dark to find out where God might be hiding. It was his last, desperate attempt to reach out to God in hopes that God's faithfulness would be more reliable than his own.

Jacob's image of God in his mind and heart was reflective of the beliefs and choices that he had made throughout his own life. His mind believed that one had to earn the love and blessing of God just like he had been treated by his own father. And since Jacob could never even approximate the abilities and charisma that his brother possessed with their father he could never attract the heart attentions of his dad to fill the deep emptiness that haunted his own heart. And this same tension and distance between himself and his dad seemed to parallel how he was sure God felt about him. Everything he had tried to do to earn God' approbation had come apart and now it looked like there would be no more chances. This was likely the last night he would be alive and the last chance to get whatever it was that his heart could not rest without. He wanted a blessing, he needed a better identity, he craved a sense of belonging and value that he had never felt and he wanted it desperately.

As he stumbled through the dark agonizing in fear, in confusion, in loneliness and regret, in longing for someone to love him and just be with him, he suddenly felt arms wrapping themselves around him something like an embrace. Startled, his mind recoiled in terror and alarm and he instantly whirled around in a stance of defensiveness. All of his senses, muscles and emotions came to full alert and he launched himself into the fight of his life. He had no idea who this person was or what their intentions were but he was not about to let them take him out without a fight. He was surprised that he had even allowed them to sneak up on him like this. Why had he let his emotions become so distracting that he had not watched his back more carefully? Once again he had failed to protect himself and this time he threw everything he had into the battle.

If this “enemy” thought Jacob was a wimp he would find out very differently. Maybe it was Esau coming up with a surprise gorilla attack in the dark to get revenge. He assumed Esau still viewed him as the sniveling, weakling little brother who couldn't stand up for himself and was too chicken to fight like a man. Well, if that was the case then Esau would find out what all the years of hard work had done for Jacob's muscles. Jacob was toned and fit and had become a man's man now. He would show this intruder that he had learned to fight and was not afraid to show his stuff. And so the fight was on.

Being a very dark night Jacob could never get a glimpse of who this attacker was. While his emotions of fear pumped his body full of adrenaline and his mind moved quickly to come up with wrestling moves to outsmart this person, his heart was still screaming out in the background with desperation for the recognition and love that it wanted. But his external danger precluded taking time to pray and feel sorry for himself and he battled on all through the night. This guy was tough though, and Jacob seemed to make no headway in tiring him or out-maneuvering him. While Jacob tried every tactic of fighting known to him this stranger seemed to almost enjoy himself while tangling with Jacob's strong body. Something was very strange about this fight. This stranger was not fighting like anyone Jacob had ever encountered. He seemed to ignore Jacob's missteps and vulnerable moves that would have given a normal aggressor opportunity for advantage. And he seemed to be almost choosing to measure his strength to Jacob's and there was something else happening that was extremely strange.

All through the night as they wrestled, rolling around in the dirt and breathing in gasps and grunts, it seemed to Jacob that his heart was somehow dialogging with someone in a parallel fight to something similar with the external fight going on. He could almost hear internally a voice speaking to the assumptions in his soul and his heart arguing back. The inner fight was just as intense as the outer one and by morning Jacob was covered with sweat, dirt and blood while his inner fight was taking on a perspective of its own. Suddenly the two struggles merged into one as the faint light of dawn threatened to reveal the face of this stranger that intrigued Jacob's curiosity so much. With one simple light touch of His finger the Stranger dislocated Jacob's hip and suddenly Jacob's dislocated heart knew that this was God Himself that he was trying to man-handle.

But what Jacob later came to realize was that the real fight going on that night was Jacob's fight against the false picture of God in his heart and mind. He was rebelling against his perception of God as one who based His love on a person's performance that Jacob could never achieve. It was a fight against a god who refused to bless Jacob until he could get his act together and prove himself to be a real man worthy of God. It was a fight against a god who seemingly held grudges like his brother and threatened punishments for past mistakes. Jacob was fighting against a god that he could not bring himself to believe would forgive him, would bless him, would honor him and value him even though his heart craved all those things.

Jacob didn't realize that night that the real God of his fathers, the God that they had learned to know and appreciate, had come to give Jacob a hug and reveal His love and Jacob's value to him. He hadn't realized that God had not come to attack him but had come to be with him in his fear, his shame and his danger. God had come to him to fill that deep and intense, aching void in his heart that had increased over the years. God had come to personally impart to Jacob the blessing that his father had failed to relay so many years ago. God had come to become Jacob's real father but Jacob had reacted in fear due to his false image of God and so God had allowed him to fight it out all night long to exhaust all his attempts to earn love and respect. When Jacob was completely finished with his attempts to impress God, then God was ready and eager to be Jacob's father and impart the blessing, value and identity that Jacob wanted the most.

When Jacob realized who this was, his heart latched onto his God physically and emotionally with more tenacity than he had fought with throughout the whole night. Even with the pain of a freshly dislocated hip, Jacob knew it would be better to die than to lose this chance to receive the blessing he so deeply craved. As his false picture of God began to evaporate in the light of dawn and the Messenger pleaded to get away, Jacob refused to let Him leave without first giving him The Blessing. This was the chance of a lifetime and Jacob was not going to blow it again. He suddenly saw that the real God was one full of mercy and compassion and love, not a God who demanded performance and self-effort to receive His recognition. In the light of this fresh revelation of God he threw himself on the newly discovered mercy of his God and begged for a new identity. And that is exactly what he received.

Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered. Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome." Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there. (Genesis 32:26-29 NIV)

(rest of story)

Tyranny of the Urgent

I was thinking earlier this morning about how much I am learning a new language. For many years I have wanted to learn a couple more languages and I figured that if I knew Spanish and German that I could likely fit in just about most places in the world except in Asia. I even went so far some years ago as to buy a Spanish teaching CD program for my computer which promptly disappointed me so I didn't take any more time with it after the first try.

As much as I wish I could say that I am making progress now on my dream to learn one of these languages, they are not the language that I am currently learning. What I am painfully and slowly learning is the language of the spirit. I suspect that more healthy individuals might grow up with a more natural adeptness to using this language but not myself. I only became even aware that I had a spirit just a few years ago and ever since then I have been trying to listen more carefully to it and encourage the use of my inner equipment necessary for utilizing this most important and universal language.

Another subject that was rolling around in my head this morning was formulas. I have noticed that most of external-based religion relies heavily on the use of formulas and most arguments about religion or philosophy or many other things for that matter revolve around who has the right formula that should be used for interpreting facts and words. Most of this discussion usually generates far more heat than light and I try to avoid getting entangled into them too deeply.

However, it occurred to me that maybe my disdain for formulas was misplaced. Maybe the real problem is not the use of formulas themselves, although using the wrong formula for a given problem will result in faulty answers. But many of our problems may lie in plugging in the wrong “figures” to fill in the various variables in the formulas and thereby coming up with faulty conclusions even though there may not necessarily be anything wrong with the formula itself. I think this may particularly be true when substituting external factors for use in Biblical formulas for things that should properly come from the spirit side of our beings.

There is another question I have in regard to life formulas. How do you know if you have gotten the right answer unless you have something objective to check it against? If you think you know what the answer is going to look like but you are looking at the answer book through human, external-oriented, behavior-based thinking, then quite possibly the answer you create by using a particular formula may be quite wrong according to heaven even though it matches up nicely with what you expect to see and is even confirmed by those who share your world-view and agree with your logic and findings.

A formula may be the same as that used by the Bible and heaven but the outcome may look different because the inner environment, background and deficiencies of the persons using the formula. It is clear that there are different perceptions of reality from one to the next and it is impossible for anyone to be truly objective. It seems to me that the way to truly know if the outcome of the formula is moving toward the right destiny is to measure the aspects if the conclusions as reflected in the spirit with the descriptions given in the objective word of God about what the fruit looks like that is naturally produced by the true Spirit.

When we try to measure a life more by external appearances than by the condition of the spirit it is all too easy to be deceived and misled. When we pay attention to the voice of the true Spirit and are guided continuously by that Spirit and are growing and maturing in that Spirit, then it will be far easier to recognize the same kind of spirit when we see it in another, even though the outward appearances or circumstances may appear very unfamiliar or even shocking at times.

For instance, if I believe that righteousness is defined by having the right doctrines and performing the right actions according to a checklist somewhere and if one is doing the right religious routines on the right days, then it may be very likely that it will be next to impossible for me to discern between similar-looking spirits because deceptive spirits are extremely good at replicating external results to appear the way we expect them to look. When we have a certain lifestyle that we believe is the right one, we will tend to use that model or image in our mind to measure everyone around us to determine if they are following God or not. This method is extremely convincing but is also extremely dangerous.

A person who gives priority credence to the externals of religion will tend to discount the discrepancies of the spirit that serve as warning signs for those using a different standard, even though they may be utilizing the same formula found in Scripture. Even this measure of looking at the spirit can be utilized by some to incriminate the true children of God as others point out their failings and emotional weaknesses as supposed evidence that they have the wrong spirit. The true measure of a right spirit is not determined by the occasional outburst or meltdown or even a spectacular, publicized fall into temptation, but it is discerned by the direction of the movement of their spirit over time.

As humans we are addicted to judging and condemning others. It is inherent in our selfish nature to measure ourselves against others and somehow think that if we can make them out to be worse than us that we will somehow be better by comparison. It is like sitting in a bus and looking out the window when all you can see is another bus next to you backing up – but you don't know the other bus is moving at all. It gives the distinct sensation that you are moving forward that can be overwhelmingly convincing. But the fact is that you may not be moving at all or you may even be backing up yourself but at a much slower speed. The only way to truly know what is really happening is to look elsewhere for a more reliable point of reference to find out what is really happening.

I am convinced today that there very well may be a demon named Urgent. I came to this conclusion after having my wife point out to me yesterday how much news personal on television news channels tend to almost shout most of the time. They have likely been trained to talk with a tone and volume that projects an ongoing sense of urgency that cannot be ignored so as to keep the largest possible audience riveted to their station for as long as possible. The intended effect of this urgency is to overrule our inner structures and conscience that is designed to point us to what is really more important. The urgent demands for attention are calculated to make noticing them more important than anything else and lingers in our minds and imaginations like a strong magnet to draw us back again and again to be reinforced and justified. We become secretly afraid that we are going to miss something important and so we stay in close touch with the news on a regular basis.

Similar kinds of logic and persuasiveness is used in other formats for those not interested in being addicted to news. Music, fashion, social idols, entertainment all clamor for urgent attention and consume most of our waking hours and our discussions with our friends. This is all calculated to subtly influence our spirit in ways that we are largely unaware of and even deny most of the time. But it is a carefully crafted formula designed to prevent us from spending enough time thinking about what is truly important in life or even robbing us of the capacity and desire to do so. This same spirit is clearly seen in most religion as well.

Urgency is not wrong in and of itself, but it is out of place and is employed to promote distorted perceptions of reality when urgency is used to empower things that are not the most important. We use urgency to give weight to what we want to impose on others for varying reasons, but it is often used for our own selfish desires to control or exploit others instead of being used to empower real warnings of danger. Very often we desire others to be afraid of what we are afraid of. These are called fear-brokers. We want to have influence over those around us by convincing them to value what we want to value or fear what we fear. That not only tends to make us feel more justified in our evaluations and fears but gives us a sense of importance in being able to affect others.

Urgency is like crying wolf – when it is used falsely it diminishes its own effectiveness which is precisely what Satan's intention is. We become so used to the urgent not being truly important that we become conditioned to ignore it and then fail to recognize the truly important when it comes with urgency. We are conditioned to disbelieve and doubt which is exactly where Satan wants us to be so that we will discount and reject the warnings of God to our spirit and mind.

All who are under the training of God need the quiet hour for communion with their own hearts, with nature, and with God. In them is to be revealed a life that is not in harmony with the world, its customs, or its practices; and they need to have a personal experience in obtaining a knowledge of the will of God. We must individually hear Him speaking to the heart. When every other voice is hushed, and in quietness we wait before Him, the silence of the soul makes more distinct the voice of God. He bids us, "Be still, and know that I am God." This is the effectual preparation for all labor for God. Amidst the hurrying throng, and the strain of life's intense activities, he who is thus refreshed, will be surrounded with an atmosphere of light and peace. He will receive a new endowment of both physical and mental strength. His life will breathe out a fragrance, and will reveal a divine power that will reach men's hearts. (MH p. 58)

There are two very different ways to relate to this most fascinating quotation. The way I have typically seen it related to is the external oriented way – to feel under compulsion to conform to the details presented here, things like hour, knowledge, quietness, etc. These are all tangible things that can be imposed on myself (or others) and also hold great potential for producing enormous feelings of guilt and shame if I don't perform to the standard I set for myself or others may have set for me. Usually the way we escape from this pressure of guilt is to avoid reading such things at all so that we can forget about what appears to be the source of our condemnation. But the real problem here is that we are viewing things pertaining to the spirit through the lenses of external religion which will always distort, complicate and confuse us at best about words that were not really designed to be used in such a context.

When a person who is learning to live life in relation to the spirit is trying to find effective ways of connecting with God in meaningful dialog, they will instantly recognize in this quotation something that resonates strongly with encouragement and hope for their heart instead of fear and condemnation. They will see a formula of sorts that offers a reliable pattern which they can use to really make progress in their movement toward connecting with and hearing God in their soul. They will not need to view this as yet another obligation to add to their already overcrowded checklist of things that must be done to be a good Christian. They will instead, see in it an invitation into the intimate place with God where He wants to personally share His heart, His thoughts and His real power with them in ways that no one else will ever be able to comprehend. They will see God's invitation to join Him in His passion to develop an intense, mutual intimacy and deep friendship that is closer than that of two lovers enamored with each other.

This also brings to my attention the alternative ways that I can view my current circumstances of not having work to produce income for my family. I can view my situation as others might be doing as a tragedy or even a shame on myself and feel condemnation for not launching into a frenzy of searching for anything to immediately eliminate this problem. But alternatively I can look at it as possibly a time of intense training, rewiring and priority realignment by the Spirit of God while trusting in His promise of provision for us unconditionally. That is not to say that I should not pursue finding work or should reject realistic opportunities for income. But what I am more interested in and feel is even more important is the condition of my spirit during this time of uncertainty and financial pressure. I can either give in to the debilitating effects of fear in my heart or I can fill my mind with resources and ideas and take advantage of this time to learn to listen more accurately to the voice of God as described in the above quotation. The thought has often occurred to me recently that maybe I am so entrenched in the thinking patterns of the world (externals) that God knows I need a lot of time to get my thinking and perceptions shifted and transitioned into patterns that are more in tune with heaven and the ways of the Spirit.

It is becoming more clear to me that until my own spirit is much more in line with the ways that God relates to people, it will be very difficult for Him to use me very effectively in His service. I may have all sorts of knowledge and insights and even much eagerness to share them with anyone willing to listen (or not). But knowledge tends to puff up according to Paul. What I need a lot more of is a right spirit that is humble, loving, caring and balanced. I need a great deal of character training far more than mental training I suspect. And character training comes primarily through the mentoring and rewiring of the way I think and relate to things of the spirit. This is the area of my life that was most neglected for most of my life and is the area in which I personally need the most remedial training. So maybe God is trying to do that right now.

The danger is that I may allow alternative distractions and false spirits that press themselves onto me as being urgent or promising me temporary pleasure to rob me of the extremely valuable time that God is providing for me to receive His training. It is like sitting in a classroom in front of an extremely valuable expert in a field for which I am training who will only be available for a limited time. And while he is trying to teach me important concepts crucial for my training I become distracted by flirting with the pretty girls in the room or reading funny papers hidden inside my textbook. Those things may for the moment be much more fun and interesting than listening to the teacher, but the results will be tragic when the day of testing comes.

I sense that I may be sitting in that classroom right now and that the truly urgent is not the things that insist that they are urgent. I must deliberately and repeatedly remind myself of what is truly important and take firm actions to engage my attention toward what is important and refuse to be side-tracked by what appears to be more pleasing in the moment. It is only in doing so that I can be prepared to enter into the much greater work that is waiting for me after my limited time for training. When that day comes I will only have available the experience and spirit training that I allowed myself to receive during these days of preparation.

If I perceive my present circumstances as a training time just like sitting in school, then I can also reject the pressure to feel guilty about not working presently. A student is not expected to be working full-time when they are taking a full load of classwork and by the same token I need to recognize when I am supposed to be paying attention in class and when I am supposed to be practicing what I learn in the field without feeling ashamed for not working full time. Some may accuse me of using this idea as a cop-out for not wanting to work, but I must listen to what the Spirit of God is revealing to me about my life more than what others say in judgment of me.

I believe that when it is God's time to place me back into active work to receive worldly income or whatever other kind of work He has in mind, that I will again face a different set of pressures. Then I will have the need to jealously protect my intimate time with Him so that I will not loose my spirit's connection with God's Spirit and thus forget my true identity. During this “downtime” I need to avail myself of all the spirit training that I can get while the gettin's good, as the expression goes. I must reject the false guilt that tries to impose itself on me (with or without the help of others) in order to discourage or distract me. I choose to keep my guard up and ask for God's Spirit to protect me from other powerful distractions that are determined to derail my training and waste my precious time that I need to listen to my real Teacher. And I ask my Teacher for His Spirit that includes the gift of self-control, because I know that I cannot produce that myself.

Forced Righteousness

As I was trying to stir up enough energy to get out of bed an hour after I woke up, I continued to mull over my uneasy feelings left over from last weekend. Somehow it still seems so confusing to my heart. I really am trying to be very careful not to judge this group but at the same time the spirit that I sensed was – well, a mixture that really bothers me at my deepest level. They have more joy in worship than I have ever seen but at the same time I felt the behind-the-scenes spirit of control that I am all too familiar with. I am still struggling and praying to know what to do about this in my own thinking and asking God what I am supposed to learn.

As I pondered this for some time I kept praying to see God's face, to have His light dispel the sense of darkness that I still feel after several days.* What is so strange is that it seems like I should not be feeling darkness after seeing such “success” in worship but I cannot deny that my feelings are also resonating with much of my own past experiences. It has reawakened the spirit of fear so familiar in my heart and in a way I am glad it did, because now it is coming out more in the open where God can deal with it and remove it.

As I continued to ponder and pray, for some reason my mind went to wondering about something that seemed at first completely irrelevant. I pondered why it is still so easy for me to lust after pretty women at certain times. Not that it is an overwhelming urge or something that dominates my feelings, but I have long since decided that simply to suppress this and try to ignore it is totally the wrong approach to becoming completely free. I know it is rooted in some kind of very deep lies about how to receive life embedded in my heart that need to be healed, and lust is only the outward symptom revealing that I have not yet been fully healed. But suddenly a realization struck me like lightening and I knew it was straight from the Holy Spirit.

One of the strongest elements in a person's lust for women is the mistaken notion that they can somehow force the woman to love them in some way, to satisfy their deepest cravings for receiving affection. I know that it may not appear on the surface to be that way, but when we get closer to the core feelings that drive these urges it really has very little to do with sex – that is only the means toward an end – but is has a great deal to do with needing to be cherished, to be valued, to feel wanted, appreciated and to feel honored by someone.

Of course, none of that ever flows from all the sexual perversion that results from lust. But logic is not the strong point of lies, these false gods just promise to provide instant pleasure and they refuse to look past that to any long-term consequences. That is the general nature of sin, it substitutes immediate pleasure for long-term satisfaction. But in doing so it leaves one with the very opposite of what their heart really longs for. But why is it still so strong?

The insight that struck me so forcefully was that inherent in the idea of trying to force someone to love me which is what lust always suggests, I am simply acting out the beliefs about God instilled in me since early childhood. I, like millions of other people, have been immersed in the crazy notions and teachings about God that make Him out to be a two-faced, authoritarian parent who on the one hand demands full attention, obedience and love and on the other hand waits with threats and intimidations and harsh punishments for any who fail to produce these things sufficiently. This belief or shades of it have been at the core of most of the motives behind all of the religious teachings and practices that try to use the “carrot and stick” approach to producing “righteousness”. It lies at the base of most all of the self-supporting institutions that I have been in or observed and is the same formula that I saw this last weekend where it has been refined and honed to a well-refined system producing excellent results of outward goodness.

This diabolical lie about God's character is behind the belief that we must use at least a little force to supplement love if we are to produce Christian character in the lives of those around us or under our authority. But when I believe that God uses threats of arbitrary pain or death to get me to love Him it is really no different than the fanciful imaginings of lust to violate a woman sexually in a mistaken subconscious attempt to force her to make me feel better or to give me the love that my heart craves. This horrible belief about God is why Revelation portrays the woman representing false religion as a whore who forces all nations to drink of the wine of her passion.

Counterfeit religion – which is pretty much all religion that I have seen – mixes a certain percentage of fear, intimidation and force (depending on which one you examine) with positive incentives and love to try to come up with just the right formula that will produce the fruit of righteousness. But this notion of religion is just the same as all the myriads of ways seen in the world today where people are trying to allure or force others into engaging in various forms of illicit relationships or sexual activities to satisfy their longings for affection and fulfillment. We have all at least tasted of this wine in some form or another and are in various degrees intoxicated and confused.

I have been learning and sharing for some time now my growing belief that God never employs force and fear to produce righteousness and create loving relationships. Forced righteousness is really an oxymoron. That truth is explicitly taught by the prophet revered by many in my church who have ignored this truth and instead used her writings to prove and justify the exact opposite spirit and practices in their teachings and control over others. Sadly I know that first hand. But far beyond that, with careful and thoughtful study this same truth about God can be seen throughout the Bible if one is willing to take a fresh look and lay aside the preconceived lies about God that contaminate much of our thinking and beliefs. If one is willing and longing to know the truth, Jesus has promised to reveal it to them. But if we are more interested in justifying our own ideas about God or defend our own practices, then it is quite easy to assemble texts and quotations that apparently provide compelling proof of what we want to believe. But in the end it will be found that we are really attempting to create or reshape God into our own image – a very high-risk proposition I would think.

After realizing the stupendous importance of this connection in my heart this morning I felt frustrated and lost as to what to do about it. Just knowing a fact, no matter how enlightening it may be, still does not set my heart and mind free. It must somehow be embedded deep into the place in my heart where the counterfeit lie resides and replace that lie with the light of truth. That cannot take place only at the intellectual level or it will not become a part of my real character. But it is also true that I cannot do that job by myself. I cannot implant truth into the sacred depths of my heart that is so full of fear, pain and lies about God. Only God can access many of those places that have been sealed off for many years from my awareness.

So I asked Him what I should do about this revelation and I waited to hear the response. What I heard was that this was a seed of truth and I do not need to worry about harvesting the fruit of that seed immediately. If I am willing to accept the seed and allow it to be planted in my heart then it will grow and deepen its roots and I will recognize that growth as it becomes more evident. That brought me a sense of peace and I knew that God is in charge of this process. I asked Him to be sure to water this seed with His Spirit as promised in Ezekiel 36:25-32.

I am starting to see how this lie about God permeates so many other areas of belief in my heart and in many others. The notion that force is a legitimate means to produce love under any circumstance is utterly ludicrous and yet is believed almost across the board as revealed in the way we act and treat each other. What brought this sharply to light was something I read just yesterday about people during World War II.

Samuel and Pearl Oliner decided to find out what it was that enabled certain people to be able to stand up and resist the overwhelming pressure to comply with the German state in their increasing campaign to suppress and dehumanize the Jews. What was it that made people willing to stick their necks out and defy the increasingly powerful Nazi regime? So they launched a study to find out what the common denominator was between these various people who were willing to risk everything they had and even their lives to rescue and assist the Jews.

What they found was very surprising and shocked me when I read it. “The Oliners discovered that those courageous people all had something major in common: their parents had not physically punished them. Instead of spanking, their parents talked things out with them, encouraging them to think for themselves.

“Rescuers' parents 'reasoned rather than threatened,' Eva Fogelman wrote in Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust. Instead of motivating their kids by fear of punishment, they taught them to think things through and to do the right thing because it was the right thing.

“Social psychologist Martin Hoffman has extensively studied what makes people compassionate. Hoffman found that 'parents who explained rules and used inductive reasoning instead of harsh punishment tend to have children who care for and about others. After all, parents who voluntarily relinquish the use of force in favor of reasoning send their children a message about how the powerful should treat the weak.'” (God Space p. 81)

As one of those raised under the illusion that force and fear were necessary elements to turn me into a loving Christian, I became mentally hard-wired in my thinking along these lines. When I read this statement I felt waves of despair. If this is all I have ever known and even practiced on my own children, then what hope do I have of standing out and being different like those studied above when the pressure is on in life? My only hope of transformation is a radical miracle of God to change the deepest beliefs and instincts of my heart to something completely different than what is right now very familiar to me. My only hope is to trust in the grace of God to do what He claims He can do. I need a new heart, and renewed mind and much more joy capacity.

*(someone told me later today that it is usually on the third day that an emotional experience usually comes to a head)

God, again I see that You have a lot of work to do in my life. But I am the one caught by surprise here, not You. You have just been waiting for me to acknowledge and agree with what You have known all along. Please do Your work in me and accomplish Your desires in my life. Reproduce Your character and loveliness in me. Make me an example of the unbelievable and total transformation that only You can produce in a life so messed up and distorted. I think most of the time I don't even know what real love is and yet I know I desperately want it. You are the only Source that can supply and satisfy my hungry heart and I look to You for more. Show me Your face, please. Let me reflect Your totally selfless love in some way today. Use me to be a channel of grace and the truth about You to others. Thank-you for what You are showing me and for growing me. You are wonderful, You are good, and Your kindness leads me to repentance. I love You as much as my puny capacity can. Increase my love for both You and Your children.