Passion and Holiness

Passion is a threat to those who want to be in control of others. It is commonly believed that passion must always be under control, and that is true to a certain extent. But this is often extended to imply that passion must be under the control of those “in charge”. Whenever a person becomes passionate about something, those in charge begin to often feel uneasy and keep a wary eye to see if the passion may become an infection that might spread and threaten their influence and dominance over those they have spent so much time and effort putting under their influence.

Passion is an intensifier, not really an emotion of its own. Passion can intensify sexual desires as nearly everyone is well aware. Passion can intensify hunger when some food or drink that one likes is presented in a very tantalizing way, especially when one is already very hungry or thirsty. Passion can energize a person's imagination and animation when they are sharing an interest or describing an experience to a trusted friend. People have passion for art, for music, for beautiful scenery, for exercise, for sports, and even sometimes for work.

Passion is connected to our need to feel satisfied. Sometimes our passion is very misunderstood or misapplied because we or others don't really know what deeper need is feeding our passion. The surface desires often mask the much deeper needs for fulfillment that cause us to engage in passion, and those deeper needs often are very different in appearance than the surface desires. This is the problem with addictions.

Though passion is often misunderstood and even thought by some to never be legitimate, passion is a very important part of our created nature. Our experience of passion is actually just a very small reflection of the enormous reservoir of passion that animates the very heart of our Creator God. But because we are often so afraid of passion we have tended to discount and even deny that God might be full of passion Himself in spite of many revelations of His passion throughout the Bible and history.

The closer we allow our hearts to come into sympathy with the heart of God the more unavoidable will be our exposure to His passions. And the more familiar and affected we become by exposure to God's passions the more our own hearts will become supercharged with sympathetic passions. We will be like transformers that inductively pick up the atmosphere of power by simply being in proximity to the heart of God and will transmit those feelings through our own lives at reduced levels.

But passion threatens the rigidness and structures carefully constructed by men's religious ideas and so Godly passion will always be viewed with suspicion and fear. Nearly every prophet of God has experienced this problem as they conveyed the various messages of God to His people with His passion, but that always ended up inviting trouble for themselves. God's prophets are seldom popular with God's people for very long because God's passions always upset and challenge our religious paradigms and habits. Exposure to the realities of heaven cause conflict with the counterfeit notions of religion that always grow in the heart of humans and it takes humility and repentance to allow the passion of God to melt away our prejudices, fears and false ideas about Him.

Think about whenever you have been around a person who starts to become passionate as they share about some insight or experience they have had in their personal growth journey with God. If you are synchronized with them to some extent in your own pursuit of God you will find their passion to be hopeful and energizing to your soul. But there are also times when you may feel threatened or uncomfortable and want to tone down the passionate expressions a bit. You may start having thoughts that these people are getting too carried away in their ideas about God and need to get back to more practical reality where the rest of us live. But what I think is really happening many times is that we are afraid of our own mediocrity being exposed and may be unwilling to admit that we ourselves are resisting the influence of the Holy Spirit tugging on our own hearts to become conduits of more passion flowing from God.

It might be true that a person can get carried away with passion while trying to relay their own encounters with God. Or maybe that is simply my cautious opinion at this point in my own journey and it may not really be correct. I don't know for sure. I have seen times when my own enthusiasm has tended to blind me to the fact that I have lost the interest of those listening to me and they are simply being polite but have switched off inwardly. I know I am not very good at picking up social clues as to how to relate to people that I try to engage with about spiritual things. But I also believe that much of what holds me back is fear of what others will think about me and so I limit the passion of God flowing through my life in favor of managing my image so others will approve of me.

I suspect that if the true passion of God's love, the passion of the Holy Spirit for God's glory and reputation, begins to break through our rigid lives, and the light and beauty and the attractions of God begin to leak out of our hearts at more intense levels than what we are used to seeing, there is going to be an outcry of warning from people who are afraid of upsetting the status quo and see their religious influence threatened by this new power. Imitation religion has a very strong grip on many hearts and has spent centuries building up networks of structures and control in an effort to satisfy the hungers of the soul while keeping the lid on passion. So when the real God of our soul begins to break into our tidy plans and organizations with displays of passion and power that are very unfamiliar to us many are going to cry, “fanaticism” and declare that all of this enthusiasm is of Satan.

I am also aware that there are movements that engage in much emotionalism while believing it is the real passion of God. It is often supernatural in origin and because of that is assumed to be of God. But just because there is much energy and excitement and religion involved does not mean that we are encountering the authentic passion of the true God. Jesus referred to this problem when He spoke to the woman at the well saying, “The Father is seeking those who will worship Him in both truth and spirit.”

Isn't it strange that passions that promote evil tendencies are so easily accepted and tolerated and even encouraged by the world, but whenever Godly passion begins to transform lives and animate hearts everyone seems to conclude that passion is an evil thing that must be curbed, managed and come under the control of human authorities. Even Christians have little problem engaging in great passion while watching sports or being mesmerized by popular entertainment but are afraid to become exposed to the passion of God. There is actually a very valid reason for this.

Passion is something like lightening. We stand in awe and fear of powerful bolts of lightening thundering in the elements and sometimes causing massive changes in our environment. We many times wish we could harness this enormous power and channel it into what we believe would be better uses by storing it and distributing it through our man-made electrical networks. But so far most attempts to harness the awesome power of lightening have failed to be very effective. We consider lightening very dangerous, and rightly so. But some people have also learned to enjoy these awesome demonstrations of raw power in a strong electrical storm while respecting its dangers.

I believe that God's passion may be something a little similar to a very powerful electrical storm. It is very clearly out of our control and yet demands our attention and respect. But even more amazing is that God is looking for people who are willing to become something like lightening rods willing to become conduits of awesome amounts of His passion. But instead of simply siphoning off all that power to the ground like typical lightening rods do, God wants these people to become glowing displays of His glory while being exposed to close encounters with His presence within their hearts. He want to make them experiments of the mighty power of His grace as examples to attract others who dare to enter the power zone of glory.

We are faced with a very serious choice when it comes to God's passion. We can continue to live in fear and avoidance of God's passion to give preference to our man-made religious apparatus that puts greater emphasis on intellectual truths and avoids emotions and heart-based transformation. Or we can take the terrifying risk of exposure to the presence of the most powerful, frightening, exhilarating encounter that is ever offered to human beings and become exhibitions of glory and grace completely out of control as far as men are concerned.

Being out of control is considered to be wrong by many religious people. But control is one of the biggest problems we have created with our false ideas about religion. We have misjudged God and the way He runs the universe and relates to all His created beings by believing He is into control. We like to believe in a God who is in control but what we really mean by that is that we want Him to force the will of others and control circumstances to make things work out good for our lives.

But control is anti-freedom and God values freedom far more than even obedience, as strange as that may sound. For if obedience is not offered in perfect freedom then it cannot be filled with love. And love-motivated obedience is the only kind of obedience that is really genuine. Every other motivation for obedience only produces counterfeits, and God is unwilling to accept any imitations.

Love is a far more powerful motivation of the heart than any of us can ever imagine. God is love. It is not something that He just does or something He can switch on and off. Love is the very description of God that is always there, always active and all-pervasive in everything He does, thinks and demonstrates. Passion is like the voltage behind love that empowers it to move throughout the circuit of the whole universe and return to its Source. So to avoid passion is to deny the very power that moves the very essence of God – love. That is not a very good choice in my opinion.

When we ask for the power of God to fill our lives, our churches and our world, I'm afraid most of us have little idea what we are really asking for. What I suspect is that too often our idea of power that we crave is a power to force others to agree with our ideas of truth. We want power to work miracles so that we will have more credibility, so that others will believe we have the right connection with God more than others do. We desire power mostly for very self-centered reasons to justify our claims to have the truth and pressure others to believe our claims. But very few people are passionate about bringing the real truth about God's character into a world where nearly everyone is afraid of Him based on all the lies promoted by religious people and non-religious alike.

I just listened to a very enlightening sermon by Craig Hill reviewing the subject of Holy verses Common that I received last month. He points out the great danger we are living in by not understanding the immense importance of separating what is holy and what is common in our lives before being exposed to the power of God. He rightly states that every time there has been an atmosphere of power among God's people there are also instances where people literally die from improper exposure to that power because they failed to respect the dangers inherent in power.

It is exactly like not respecting high voltage electrical lines either in our homes or elsewhere. Most people understand the “rules” for respecting electricity and so are able to enjoy its benefits without harm. But whenever we begin doing things like poking metal objects into power sockets while being grounded – mixing power (holy) with common – we suffer very drastic and sometimes fatal results. If this continues on a regular basis the only safe thing to do is either turn off the power or reduce it so low that people only get a little buzz whenever they improperly touch the wires.

I have sensed over the past few weeks a growing urgency to become more aware in my own life of how I am allowing the holy and common to intermingle improperly in my life and make me vulnerable to being “grounded”. If God cannot trust me with very much power it is most likely because I am too connected to ground in some areas of my life that would endanger me if I were exposed to the power I ask for. It is the mercy and grace of God that keeps me insulated from His power and passion, not His resistance to sharing Himself and His Spirit through me. I should be thankful that He has not yet sent the power and take it as a warning to listen more carefully and act more intentionally to separate myself from any connections to “ground”.

I do want the power of God to use me and make me an effective transformer for His glory. And I want to be prepared for that encounter by cooperating with the Holy Spirit sent to heal me and repair my wiring in preparation for higher current levels of His glory. I want to become free of all fear of what others think about me when they cannot understand the unusual passion flowing through me that may make many around me, or even myself, uncomfortable. There is sure to be suspicion, false assumptions and reminders of my many faults and mistakes in order to discourage me from getting any “hotter”. But I want to keep my focus on God, the true object of holiness, and become more holy and dedicated to Him.

The word holy has nothing to do with being better or more righteous or pious than others. The word has to do exclusively with being dedicated to a purpose or a person, just like a telephone line might be dedicated to a FAX machine. I highly recommend getting the series on Holy verses Common from Family Foundations Intl. for some real insights on this subject.

I too am afraid of passion many times and feel threatened by it. But when I analyze my motives for those fears I realize that it is usually tied to the issue of control and fear of the unknown. At the same time I yearn for more passion in my own life and am aware that it has been stifled largely by fear of what others might think of me. I am even sometimes jealous of others who have more freedom of expression and long for the day when I can feel free of the fears and inhibitions that enslave my heart. Yes, I want enormous passion in my life and I also want it under the guidance and influence of the Spirit of the ultimate Source of all passion. I sense inherently that experiencing that kind of encounter with the power Source of passion will be the most fulfilling moment of all my existence. And in those moments of total abandonment for the glory of the One worthy of all worship and praise, I will also begin to see the very face of God.

Quick Notes

I am starting to get busier this summer with construction jobs which is very good after long periods without any work. This, however, puts some time pressure on me as far as having time to express my thoughts and feelings and observations in writing. But I want to make sure to keep my priorities corrected and not allow work to become the dictating element of my life. It is a channel through which my real Provider is supplying our needs, it is not the provider itself.

I have spent a lot of time over the past week reviewing, organizing and preparing many verses from the Word to add to my web site about the subject of God's wrath. I felt strongly impressed that these verses need to be made available to others who feel a need to study them for themselves. I have been collecting all the verses I could find over the past few years related to this topic in my complete reading of the Bible. It has taken a long time because my Bible study was more focused on listening to God than to getting the whole Bible finished by some artificial deadline.

But some months ago, maybe a year, I finished a complete cycle of reading while noting each text that related to hell, wrath, fire and related topics. I am certain that there are a number more texts to be added but I think I have found the bulk of them. I inserted them into my web site created specifically for this purpose and am trying to also rewrite some of the postings that I put on there a long time ago.

As my own spirit changes and I see more clearly the “edge” that so many of my discussions and writings have that is abrasive, I have a growing desire to go back and completely rewrite much of what was written in the past. I have a deep desire that the truth about God to be seen clearly, but without undue offensiveness. The facts need to be presented in a spirit reflective of God's spirit of love and kindness more than a spirit of argumentation and divisiveness. This is a growing process that I have a long way to go in, but God is in charge of my remodeling project and I trust Him to finish what He started in me.

Anyway, if you are at all inclined, take a look at the ongoing progress on my other site. And additionally, if you know anyone who would be willing to spend a little time networking with me on it, I have been wishing for a long time someone could help me make it more presentable. I am certain I could use some objective input with it, but so far no one has expressed any interest. The reason I created it to start with is to make available what God has been teaching me for several years and has radically transformed my attitudes and perceptions about God and how He feels about us. I feel a growing passion to share with others the real truth about God's attitudes toward all of us so that others can let go of the lies and fears from bad experiences and misinformation they have suffered in their own life. When the real truth about God becomes clear the lies that keep us from loving and respecting Him simply melt away in the presence of His true beauty and glory and we can spontaneously love Him without fear or intimidation.

Well, I need to get ready for work. Hope you are in peace and listening to the quiet Spirit of love speaking to you today from Your real Daddy. He really loves you far more than you think.

The Witness of Jacob

I want to finish relaying the experience that happened to me yesterday and that continues today that I partially wrote about in Jacob's False god. Some of these experiences take too long to relay in one posting and so I decided to break this up for the sake of attention span.

Over the past few years I have realized that I can identify with Jacob to a great degree. My false pictures of God are much like his and the strained relationship he had with his dad for most of his life strikingly parallels my own story. I just realized that Jacob's reunion with his dad after his reconciliation with Esau could have possibly been much like my own breakthrough with my dad near the end of his life. And my struggle to find identity, value and respect is very similar to Jacob's story.

Yesterday I felt God speaking to me as I meditated on Isaiah 43. I chose to be very honest about my internal emotions, reactions and resistance and so I stopped and confronted God with my dilemma. I had just read the words, Since you are precious in My sight, since you are honored and I love you.... (Isaiah 43:4) Wait a minute! I really want to believe that this is how God feels about me, but my gut level feelings always argue against it. Somehow I struggle to sense that this is really how God thinks about me even though my mind can acknowledge that it is theologically true. I can accept that He thinks that way about others, but not about me.

I decided to face these reservations head-on and confess them as unbelief. I have heard that it is important to confess unbelief if one wants to become free from it and I certainly want to be free. So I presented these feelings and beliefs to God and asked Him to remove my unbelief while affirming my desire to believe and trust in His words to me. I want my heart to believe what God wants to say about me, not just my head. I realize that I am still wrestling like Jacob with my false picture of God that still holds me hostage in too many ways.

What I began to sense was the Spirit saying that my resistance to God's blessing and words in my life is not my true identity – that is not who I really am even though that is what is most familiar to me. That identity is coming from my sinful flesh that has masqueraded all my life as being my real identity and has been reinforced by the opinions of others. That is one reason it is so important for me to crucify my flesh, the part inside of my head that always sabotages what the Spirit of God is trying to do and reveal about both myself and about God. Ultimately, either the incarnated Christ living inside of me will be crucified by my doubting, unbelieving flesh or my flesh and its opinions and unbelief will be crucified. They are mortal enemies and cannot live together at all.

This brought to my attention another phrase that has baffled me for many years. When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, "Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." (Mark 8:34 NKJV) I have often wondered what was really meant by this idea of taking up a cross and following Jesus. I have had no shortage of people in my life eager to expostulate on what they thought it meant, but their explanations usually involved reinforcement of performance-based religion and I cannot accept that in light of the real gospel. So I continue to remain open to the real meaning of this phrase.

Someone once explained that the concept here of denying one's self is a direct parallel to the description of Peter denying that he knew Jesus three times during His trial. This would mean that Jesus is asking me to deny that I know myself just like Peter denied that he knew Jesus – vehemently and passionately. In light of the exposure of my counterfeit identity being such a problem in my life, it begins to sound like a really good idea to deny that image as my true identity and discover the real identity that God sees in me even though it may be very unfamiliar to me.

But what about taking up my cross? That is the part that has been even more baffling most of my life. But again, with my increased realization of the problems that my flesh produces in thwarting the progress of God's Spirit in my heart, taking up my cross might just be parallel to Paul's talk of crucifying the flesh and his need to die daily to self. I want to have my flesh and its lies dead so that the resurrected life of the Son of God can be fully manifest in my life and my true identity can thrive and blossom. If that is the real meaning of Jesus' words then they make a lot more sense to me now.

It is only as my flesh is daily crucified that I will be able to have the freedom to follow Jesus in His example of how to live in total abandon to and harmony with God. My heart is a battlefield between my false feelings about God and the truth that the Spirit is always trying to impress on me. To receive truth I must be willing to deny and crucify my resistance to that truth and label it correctly as not coming from the true heart that God has implanted in me. That is not my identity no matter what I feel or what anyone else claims against me. My true identity and value is what the One who created me says about me and I have to choose to accept it on the reliability of His integrity alone.

As I read on further in the chapter I was suddenly confronted with the revelation that God saw my struggle with this false identity. The description from verses eight and nine are of those who view God through their own perceptions and confused ideas instead of believing what He says about His feelings toward them.

Bring out the people who are blind, even though they have eyes, and the deaf, even though they have ears. All the nations have gathered together so that the peoples may be assembled. Who among them can declare this and proclaim to us the former things? Let them present their witnesses that they may be justified, or let them hear and say, "It is true." (Isaiah 43:8-9)

What I heard in my spirit was that this is a description of those who attempt to justify their opinions about God instead of listening to and believing the true witnesses of God as noted in the last phrase. These are those who insist that their distorted views of God are the right ones, but God sees these people as blind even though they have eyes and deaf even though they have functional ears. It doesn't even matter if the whole world believes these things about God; that does not make them any more true. The only reliable truth about God is what He declares. Why should we try to argue that our opinions about how God feels about us are more accurate than what He says about Himself? Do I really think I know God's feelings and attitudes better than He does?

God turns it around in this passage and puts the focus back on me. Let them hear and say, "It is true." "You are My witnesses," declares the LORD, "and My servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me. I, even I, am the LORD, and there is no savior besides Me. It is I who have declared and saved and proclaimed, and there was no strange god among you; so you are My witnesses," declares the LORD, "and I am God. Even from eternity I am He, and there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?" (Isaiah 43:9-13)

As I looked over this chapter more carefully I began to realize that this passage is God's declarations about the correct perception of identities, both His and ours. All through this chapter and the surrounding passages God is revealing His passionate heart for His children. What is interesting is the reference in the very first verse to both Jacob and Israel – both names for the very same person. When God looks at me He sees me through heaven's eyes no matter how I perceive myself. But what He deeply desires is that I will accept the truth about Him so that I can more fully accept the truth about myself as declared by Him. The biggest problem I have in accepting my true identity is my confusion about the true identity of God. But the more I learn in my heart the truth about God and all His wonderful attributes, the easier it becomes for my heart to believe what He says about me.

But what does it say? "THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, in your mouth and in your heart" – that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:8-9)

God told me that what I am to believe in my heart is the true identities of both Him and myself as revealed in the example and victory of Jesus. Because Jesus has accepted the invitation to live inside of me, then my real identity is going to look strikingly like His.

So what about all the dysfunction that I still find in my life? How can that be denied as being a part of my identity?

God reminded me that the condition of my spirit is something completely separate from my identity and the value of my heart in heaven's eyes. God is not playing a game of amnesia with my faults and sins when I am hidden in Christ. He is actually working from the inside to dissolve all of those problems by transforming me into His image His way. When transformation takes place from the inside instead of focusing on the externals, the results are far more permanent and lasting – eternally lasting in fact.

So when I see the same problems that others see in me, I do not have to go into denial and pretend they don't exist in my life. But I do need to firmly reject all attempts to associate those problems and faults with my identity, value and real self. I cannot control what others think, but I am very responsible for what I allow myself to believe about my heart. Those are all parts of the counterfeit identity straining to assert itself and project itself as the real me while discounting the other self being formed from the image of Christ within. It is a very real and intense battle but I need to keep close to the Spirit and the Word to keep the growth alive and thriving.

Like Jacob, I crave a personal encounter with the God who wants to give me a deep embrace and impart the blessing I crave so intensely. I'm afraid that, like Jacob I may end up fighting Him for awhile because of my past false opinions about Him, but I am so thankful that God did not allow Jacob to lose the fight. God actually declares that Jacob was the winner of a wrestling match with the Almighty. But he did receive a new name out of the ordeal and that is the badge of his real identity. That is absolutely incredulous. And I believe He is eager to do the same with everyone willing to have an encounter with Him in desperation and honesty.

The nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will bestow. (Isaiah 62:2 NIV)

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it. (Revelation 2:17 NIV)

Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name. (Revelation 3:12 NIV)

God, whether I end up fighting You or not, please come and bless me. Impart to me my new name that You have promised to reveal. My concept of what it means to be an overcomer in light of Jacob's encounter with You is so encouraging. My heart craves to know my real identity and to feel honored and loved by You. I ask you to increase my faith and give me a believing heart to allow Your feelings about me to be internalized, experienced and lived out as a true witness for You. Let me hear the testimony of the True Witness and then say, “It is true!”

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)

The Great Awakening and Growing Past Writing

I woke up a little after 4 A.M. this morning and was quietly meditating when a few minutes later the bed began to shake and the house started creaking. I was certain that the cat was jumping on the rocking chair at the end of the bed and was bumping it against the bed posts, but it seemed like a rather heavy cat to make that much movement. My wife woke up and asked what was going on. I told her that it was likely the cat but she said the cat was sleeping beside her so it couldn't be a cat. I then concluded that it must have been an earthquake – the first that I have ever personally experienced.

About six hours later I was sitting here in my chair writing the following thoughts when again the house began to creak and shake and the grandfather clock began to bump the chimes as all the cats looked around to see what was happening. I found it rather exciting to again experience an earthquake firsthand since it was not serious enough to do any damage. I have not yet checked the news to see what happened but this evidently is a very earth-shaking day in my life. I don't know what is coming since it has just started but I trust God to guide me through whatever happens.

Occasionally I have questioned why I feel so compelled to write so much of the time. It is not something I have done for most of my life for it has only been in the past few years that it has increasingly become almost an obsession with me. Because of that I sometimes feel concerned that it might be becoming maybe something of an unhealthy addiction for me that I should be more aware of.

I do not believe that it is yet to that level, at least most of the time. I do think that it has the potential for becoming an escape avenue for me at times and I need to beware of using it improperly in this way. As with many addictions, especially acceptable-looking ones like workaholism or religious busyness, there may not be so much inherently wrong with the activity itself as in the way it is used in the life. Whenever something or someone is used to escape responsibility, acknowledge problems or to face reality, then it can quickly begin to function as an addiction.

But that last point becomes a strong issue of contention and disagreement depending on an observer's beliefs about what constitutes reality. Reality is perceived quite differently by different people, societies and even how old you are. But one thing I have come to believe very strongly is that the only true reality is that which is revealed to us by the Spirit of God. Every other belief about what is real, about what is going on in our relationships with everyone else on earth, is simply a very strongly biased opinion in our own minds from our extremely limited, handicapped perspective. No matter how many people may share our beliefs of what is real or how forceful they may insist on others adopting their beliefs it has no effect whatsoever on what is truly real. Only God is positioned strategically accurate enough to be qualified to explain reality.

So what does that have to do at all with my ponderings about why I write? Well, it may have a lot to do with it. A number of years ago when I first began to practice inductive Bible study in my personal quiet time I discovered to my amazement that very often I found I could hear the Spirit of God dialogging with me much more distinctly whenever I began to write down the impressions and questions that arose whenever I studied. I now try to be very careful to maintain a mind as open as possible during these times of conversation with God so as not to discolor His messages with my prejudices and pre-conceived ideas. I cannot say that I am completely free of those problems for I know they still pop up many times, but the reason they become exposed as much as they do is because I strive to be willing to have them challenged by the Spirit during these times of meditation.

What I think I am saying right now is that the very process of writing has become for me a very powerful tool of conversation with God unlike nearly anything else I can think of. As such, I more and more find myself wanting to write at even the strangest times whenever I sense new thoughts coming to my mind or new insights energizing my heart. And another one of the reasons I desire to write is because of my weakness of memory. For some time now I have known that if I don't capture almost immediately in a more permanent form than simply a mental note, some idea or insight or even something I want to do, that it very soon evaporates to possibly never be seen again. It is almost like catching a fleeting glimpse of an overwhelmingly beautiful person and the memory of the lost opportunity to engage with that person more permanently haunts one for many years to come.

But what has emerged from repeated lost insights is maybe a growing fear that is based on yet another lie that has been a foundational belief inherent in human religion. That lie is the deep-seated, gut-level belief that one can be saved by knowledge. This belief sums up very much the basic concept of much of the religion that I have lived in for most of my life. Of course it was never stated in those words for then it would obviously lose its deceptive cover. But it has become increasingly clear to me that false ideas about religion depend heavily on this idea of knowledge somehow being our savior.

The knowledge itself may not be false at all. Most people including myself whenever they subconsciously depend on knowledge to secure them a place in paradise are very diligent to make sure to the best of their ability that the knowledge they possess is as accurate and defendable as possible. In fact, many spend their whole life working very hard to amass all the backup arguments, research, schooling and logic possible to secure their opinions about what is right, what is true and what will get a person saved. Unfortunately they are unwittingly following in the footsteps of millions before them that they usually disdain while they unwittingly imitate their example. The Pharisees were a good illustration of clinging to truth more than to the Originator of truth. Because we know the outcome of their story and Jesus' comments about them we have a very difficult time seeing ourselves in them, but if we are honest before God we will be convicted that we are far more like them than we ever care to admit. It is the Spirit's work to convict us of our true condition and the similarities we have with those who have lived before us.

I sense that some of this spirit is always present to influence and sidetrack my thinking processes and my heart in my own pursuit of finding truth. Because it is so familiar to me and so much a part of my culture and background it is impossible to be free of the tendency to begin reverting to an attitude of depending on knowledge and “truth” in place of deepening an intimate, totally dependent relationship with my Savior, Creator, Redeemer and Lover. While I am learning many wonderful truths along this line and am experiencing them to a greater degree at the heart level, I am still entangled far too much in the trap of subtly depending on what I know more than Who I know. I am in transition from one view of religion to something completely new and different and it takes a long time to transform the deeper levels of the heart to function in this new mode of belief. The head may embrace that this is the right way to live before God but the real beliefs deep in the heart take much, much longer to assimilate this radically different way of living.

So I suspect that these factors may be part of what is disturbing me at times whenever I question my compulsive desires to write. I want to be careful not to be sucked back into the false security of depending on knowledge in place of complete dependence on God's love, God's wisdom and God's presence. While knowledge is very essential and important, when knowledge about God becomes subtly more important to me than the condition of my spirit then I have once again slipped into the most common deception of religion and I must return to proper dependence on His Spirit to lead me instead of my own knowledge and wisdom.

Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good repute In the sight of God and man. Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:3-6)

As I look up some of the original Hebrew behind the key words in this passage I want to excitedly share the deeper insights that are hiding in these verses. But right now I want to finish the original line of thought that I started with. Even in this writing I am listening to whatever is coming into my spirit and staying open to influence and thoughts from the Holy Spirit as to what He wants me to know about myself and about this issue. I always try to let Him influence the direction of the conversation.

I want to be open to conviction as well as to exciting insights, I want to have an open time of conversation with God and the act of writing is for me a way to capture both sides of the conversation as it is happening. It appears when reading it after the fact that all of the ideas came from my own mind but that is very seldom the case. In fact, whenever I feel that most of my writing is my own ideas I start to feel quite alarmed that my left brain has taken over once again and has hijacked the process and I am leaning on my own understanding.

One thing that came to me earlier this morning about this issue is my need to deal with this fear of losing something important. Anytime I find fear at work I have red flags shooting up warning me that something is amiss and needs to be corrected. Fear never originates with God for God has not given us a spirit of fear. So when I find fear in my heart about anything then I know that there is an area that needs more grace, more truth and especially more of the presence of God in that place in my heart. These are very common revelations for me now and so they come as no surprise but more as assignments for me to pay attention to. They are convictions by God's Spirit pointing out areas of unsettledness in my heart that need to be re-formed, areas that likely contain secret beliefs that are still sabotaging my heart from being more alive and free and able to receive and share love.

I don't yet have a settled answer for some of these questions that I am raising here. But I am not so afraid of unanswered questions as I once was because I am far less dependent on knowledge to be my savior. I used to be very frightened if I did not possess the “right” answer for important religious questions and I was taught that fear as a motivation to more studiously learn the doctrines and traditions of my church. The culture of having the right truth was usually taught with the background atmosphere of fear and the unspoken implication was that if I did not have enough truth (meaning primarily intellectual knowledge) that I was in great danger of being deceived and then being lost. This style of thinking is very prevalent not only in my church even today but in many religions throughout the world. It reflects the penchant to live in reference to the externals and the intellectual arena more than listening to the Spirit in reference to the synchronization of my spirit with that of heaven.

What I do seem to be sensing a little more lately is – if I perceive it correctly – an invitation to grow into a more efficient way of living from the heart than that which I have been practicing for several years. Maybe it is something akin to being invited to move up from the relative security of riding a tricycle to learning to ride a bicycle (with training wheels at first of course). Never mind graduating to riding a unicycle! (Although in the physical world I enjoy doing that on occasion – I have two in my garage.) What I wonder is, if God is asking me to begin learning to listen more in real time for His wisdom instead of depending so much on my comfortable times of meditating on His Word and writing out the dialog we have together. I am not saying that these times should cease or are in some way unnecessary, but I also realize that limiting my speed of growth the the very cumbersome act of writing and trying to capture heart insights in words may be preventing me from experiencing the next level of joy and service that He has planned for me.

Something I heard in a dream this morning has stuck in my mind. It was a comment that I made to someone else that I realized I needed to apply to myself and possibly may have sparked this whole conversation. I cannot remember the exact words but it was something along the line of words not being able to express things of the heart very well. Language was never designed to effectively convey the much deeper and broader things of the heart even though we spend much of our life struggling to do just that. The heart was created for eternity and to embrace the far greater dimensions of God, and attempting to use human language to be an outlet for the heart is simply an exercise in frustration.

Maybe that is the frustration that is driving this dialog right now. I find it both very helpful to explore together these things as I listen to the Spirit while at the same time I feel also very restricted because it takes so many words to express such seemingly simple feelings I sense at the heart level. And the words never really do justice anyway to what the heart wants to express and so language becomes something of a prison of sorts that confines the heart behind the bars of the words. It is sort of like trying to see a beautiful scene through a barrier with pinholes punched in it. One has to keep moving back and forth to piece together the various glimpses of light coming through the holes to try to reconstruct in the imagination what might be on the other side. What we really desire is for the barrier to be torn down and our eyes to be allowed to see the full flood of beauty without the obstructions and filters that restrict our view.

What I am starting to desire and that I am feeling invited to move toward is what might be termed “real-time wisdom”. It makes me think of the passage in Romans 8 that describes being led by the Spirit of God and what that kind of life can look like. I sense that God wants to move me beyond my current, clumsy way of thinking to a more Spirit-led, Spirit-filled, Spirit-inspired, real-time way of living that is open and connected with the heart and feelings and wisdom of my Father in heaven. I have always liked the analogy of an umbilical cord connecting me to the life of God through which I can receive all the nourishment and life that I need to thrive and grow and mature. I don't think we will be able to live the fuller life without this umbilical cord until we are free from this dark womb of sinful earth and our sinful flesh.

What I am now desiring is that my umbilical cord will become more of an ongoing, minute-by-minute connection instead of just a period of feeding time when I intentionally spend time in God's presence. I am not saying at all that I will outgrow my need for intentional quiet time with God on a daily basis. Being led by the Spirit does not mean that I no longer need times of intense mentoring and instruction and conviction from the Holy Spirit. But in addition to those times I need to be willing to allow God to share wisdom with me much more effectively on an as-needed basis, what people in industry call JOS, and not feel that everything must be recorded in words to be a significant part of my training.

I need to be more free of the fear of forgetting something important that God is showing me. I do think that it is helpful and even deepens the effectiveness of the things I am learning to process it through the act of writing. But most of the time I cannot even recall most of what I wrote yesterday and am realizing that just because I write something down doesn't mean that I have really internalized it or can even recall it. What it does do is help me deepen its effect on me during the moment that I am learning it. This is more important than trusting that I will remember it because it is written down some place.

The relationship of trust that I must learn to live in with God is that the same God who shared insights with me in the past can re-share them with me whenever I need them. If writing them down helps to deepen their hold on my mind and open my heart to absorb them more completely while I am receiving them, then writing will be a useful means for receiving some of the blessings and wisdom God chooses to share with me. But much more importantly I want to learn to live in a constant dynamic communication of my heart and my spirit with the heart and Spirit of God so that I will be ready and in a right frame of mind to receive and hear clearly whatever God is waiting to relay to me or to remind me. As God communicates with all of the listening children on earth the Spirit will be able to coordinate God's plans for this planet and will not only accomplish His desires in our lives but will bond us closer to each other in the love and unity that is the trademark of the children of God.

"By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:35)