Natural Obedience

(see My Utmost for His Highest for today's reading) Natural obedience as contrasted with legalistic formula-based obedience, is like being able to drive a car or ride a bicycle without having to concentrate on it. When something unusual happens our attention becomes much more focused, but we still have the subconscious skills largely in control.

When we are learning to drive, the skills mostly begin as external rule-based exercises that often feel very complicated and even awkward. But as our subconscious mind assimilates and coordinates more and more of the necessary movements, data, facts and limitations, then the skill is largely internalized and the conscious mind is freed up to think and dwell on more interesting things.

If some of those skills are learned incorrectly or maybe ignored in favor of some other stronger desires, like the craving for speed or the body-pressing sensation of acceleration and power, external forces may be employed to remind us of the parameters imposed on drivers. Or, if our subconscious mind is impaired by drugs or sleep-deprivation, we may find our natural ability to drive largely missing, endangering ourselves and those around us.

When I tried to drive home one time while under the strong influence of pain medications I found out the stark difference between driving naturally and driving with only the conscious part of the brain. It was terrifying as well as very exhausting.

So too is external obedience. It may look right and be technically correct according to code, but if it does not flow naturally from a heart fed and nourished by love it consumes most of our attention and energy and leaves us more and more exhausted and frustrated. In God's economy it is not really obedience, but just performance of self-promotion.

“Beware of making a fetish of consistency to your convictions instead of being devoted to God. 'I shall never do that' – in all probability you will have to, if you are a saint. There never was a more inconsistent Being on this earth than Our Lord, but He was never inconsistent to His Father. The one consistency of the saint is not to a principle, but to the Divine life. It is the Divine life which continually makes more and more discoveries about the Divine mind. It is easier to be a fanatic than a faithful soul, because there is something amazingly humbling, particularly to our religious conceit, in being loyal to God.” (My Utmost for His Highest 11-14)

The Results of Prophecying

God's clear word to me this morning was in both devotionals and climaxed with Eze. 37:9 reminding me of the promise of God twice given to me in the past in 1 Sam. 10:6,7.

What is my testimony? How are others influenced to believe about God when they read my blog or hear my words? It cannot be a matter of faking a good front – that is dishonesty. But what am I dwelling on?What is my underlying perception of reality that I paint? Am I only going part way by being hones about my feelings and struggles with my attempts at more self-disclosure?

Maybe that's it. I am trying to be honest in self-disclosure but I am not giving Jesus enough air time. When my testimony takes on the attributes of being clear and strong for God, others will be refreshed. I will speak of His love without hesitation. I have to admit, I am not doing that now.

When darkness and unbelief is in my heart it is manifested in my testimony. The answer is NOT in changing my testimony to sound more appropriate and in line with the rule; the answer is to have more light and faith and joy in my heart.

“Do not gratify the enemy by dwelling upon the dark side of your experience, but trust Jesus for help to resist temptation. If we thought and talked more of Jesus and less of ourselves, we should have much more of His presence.”

“When we make our Christian experience appear to unbelievers, or to one another, as one that is joyless, filled with trial, doubt, and perplexity, we dishonor God; we do not correctly represent Jesus or the Christian faith. We have a friend in Jesus, who has given us the most marked evidence of His love, and who is able and willing to give life and salvation to all who come unto Him....

“It is not necessary for us to be ever stumbling and repenting and mourning and writing bitter things against ourselves. It is our privilege to believe the promises of the Word of God, and accept the blessings that Jesus lives to bestow, that our joy may be full.” (RH 7-20-1886)

“We have to battle through our moods into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus, to get out of” our narrow, self-focused, depressed view “of our own experience into abandoned devotion to Him.... Think of the meanness of the miserable faith we have” in contrast to what Jesus can do for us. “He can present us faultless before the throne of God, unutterably pure, absolutely rectified and profoundly justified. Stand in implicit adoring faith in Him.

“Jesus Christ wants our absolute abandon of devotion to Himself.... Our Faith must be built in strong emphatic confidence in Him.

“It is along this line that we see the rugged impatience of the Holy Ghost against unbelief. All our fears are wicked, and we fear because we will not nourish ourselves in our faith.” (My Utmost for His Highest 11-13)

The Spirit impressed me with these important messages of conviction and then led me to Eze. 37. This chapter is closely linked with 36 and is wonderful good news for all of us struggling these issues, with darkness in our hearts and a shell of external faith that is internally infected with subtle unbelief.

I, and most of the people around me, are very much like dry bones. We are devoid of very much spiritual vitality, we are in many ways disconnected with those around us and often confused inside. We are the whole house of Israel in verse 11 that feel like “our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.”

The wonderful message is, since we fit the description and we are also the ones who have profaned God's reputation with our sorry, weak testimony (chap. 36), then we qualify perfectly to have God do to us everything promised and described in both these chapters.

But one thing sharply caught my attention in 37:9. It is what I see as the “rugged impatience of the Holy Ghost” I had just read about in My Utmost. God is urgent when He says, “Prophecy to the breath, prophecy, son of man...” The Lord was speaking directly to me, urging me and reminding me that the words of my testfying become self-fulfilling prophecies to a great extent. This is why it is important to dwell largely on the goodness and beauty and power of God, not just my struggles and confusion.

I must be willing to be honest and open about myself, yes. But I must go beyond that and prophecy to the breath as well as to the bones. As shown in the first prophecy in this story, prophesying to the bones may result in wonderful reconnections, reconstruction and getting things back to their original functions. But their was still no life there in all these reassembled bodies. The prophecier must turn his attention beyond the reconstruction of our messed up lives to the Source of life itself.

And then I remembered the prophecy about me received twice over the last year or two and impressed deeply upon my heart each time. God's plan for me is along these very lines and described in 1 Sam. 10:6,7. “The Spirit of the Lord will come on you with power, and you will be acting like a prophet with them and will be changed into another man. And when these signs come to you, see that you take the chance which is offered you: for God is with you.”

For God is with me. That is the ultimate definition of joy, and the joy of the Lord is strength.

The Whale Song

I had a series of dreams last night that, as usual, I can't recall most of them. But the last one woke me up with strong emotions. In it one of my old classmates, Rick Westermeyer, was doing a video presentation that illustrated a new song. The music and words were emerging from various other sources that seem too foggy and strange for my logical awake mind to reassemble, but the resulting single little ditty I quickly put back together soon after I woke up from the dream at a very early hour.

The music as best I can reassemble it went something like this: (pardon my crude way of notation)

E-D-C- -C

FFFEED- - -

G-F-E-EFD

C-B-C- - -

The video clip was of a supernatural whale that I began to realize represented Jesus, swimming in the vast ocean opening up his mouth to swallow up the surrounding filth and poison that was contaminating the surrounding water. I could see at first hundreds of gallons of water falling into the cavernous open mouth just below the surface of the water as the whale slowly surfaced head-first. Then the whale would turn, dive and return to the surface for another huge gulp. Since not all of the pollution had been eliminated, the ratio of the scene dramatically increased so that the size of the whale relative to the surroundings increased exponentially. It was like the first gulp was relative to one person's filth floating around in the water and the next gulp was a whole countries contamination. Then the pollution from the whole world was taken in and finally the ocean represented the whole cosmos as the whale continued to swallow into himself all the floating debris that threatened the purity of the waters.

The words of the song were equally very simple, like a little child would make up. It was just these:

Love, love, love

Can swallow up anything.

Love, God's love can swallow up

Anything at all.

The reality of the truth behind this little song that absolutely nothing, no amount of sin no matter how disgusting, evasive or widespread that can be found anywhere in the universe is outside the ability of Jesus to ingest into Himself and overcome its negative effects on the surroundings – the reality suddenly hit me in that dream and my amazement and gratitude and relief overwhelmed me with sudden, intense emotion and I woke up almost crying. The song kept running over and over in my mind for the next several hours of the early morning as I wonder why it is here.

For awhile I wondered why the emotion faded so quickly but the song remained. I craved a longer period of intensity and started to ask God to bring back the original emotion and let me feel it again. But I was reminded that my life must not be rooted and grounded on emotions but on the facts of redemption. Emotions are not wrong – they can be very helpful sometimes in clarifying our attention and focusing us on something. But they can easily become addictive if I want to always live from emotion more than the reality of God Himself. Emotions can just as easily be produced by lies as by truth. They are not bad or good of themselves, but they make for very unreliable footing material to build a solid structure over.

My pride god was embarrassed by the simplicity of this song. It is afraid of what people will think of me if I share this story with them. Another part of me wonders if someone will hear this and receive wonderful confirmation of something they received from God themselves. I don't know if that thought is from God's Spirit in me or a more devious face of my pride or may some of both.At any rate, I will simply accept what I have been given and see what happens after this.

I also wonder how much this “revelation” was influenced by the movie I watched last night about the Tucker automobile story. The spirit that Mr. Tucker demonstrated was so radically different and uncommon that it definitely stirred my curiosity and disrupted the status quo box I am often stuck in.

O.K. It happens again! The devotional I read after writing the above strongly reinforces what was given and written before I knew what I was going to read. To Be Like Jesus exposes the reality and a glimpse of the immensity of our very closely connected family in heaven with us here on earth. The angel choirs literally take up our thanksgiving and praise and incorporate it into their own songs immediately. This means that instead of being a stupid little ditty that my pride is ashamed of, I may have been entrusted with a solo part of one of heaven's current hit anthems. The music may be a theme line that the angels embellish and amplify and fill all the arches of heaven with when I am willing to accept my place and sing my little part from my heart. This is more than awesome!

Ezekiel 36 again.

Well, I've spent considerable time wondering what caused me to fail so spectacularly the other day at the airport. I'm not too interested in deep answers right now, I want to know the real reason. I know it is part of God's plan to allow the worst in me to be exposed to create opportunity for me to deal with it. This betrayed some of my deepest root weaknesses, but what to do is still a mystery.

This morning I finally felt like I could hear God again. Yesterday I could hear some warnings but felt very unsettled all day no matter how I prayed. The devotional To Be Like Jesus said I should not separate Christ from my life and family, and close the doors against Him by un-Christlike words and actions. That description certainly fit me very well. But this morning I felt like the Children of Israel after the defeat at Ai.

It was such a small trigger with such a large reaction that, even while it was happening, I was aware this was tapping into something else much deeper. Evidently rebellion and pride are still holding large tracts of real estate in my soul. I feel like I have been wounded by a traitor in my midst. The false gods revealed their true character by betraying my integrity for various valuables cherished and hidden by them. It may be interesting and useful to know what they are hiding, but the real problem is not just the monetary mis-value beliefs I have but the deeper attitudes of the false Achan-like gods that infect my mind and rob me of God's presence when I need it most.

I think the setup started when I got sucked into watching the movie The Family Stone with my kids the night before. That created all kinds of moral lies and scenarios in our minds and laid the infrastructure for the enemy to access me much easier. Then the intense emotions during my discussion with my sister on the way to the airport elevated my emotional state so I was much closer to danger than I usually am.

Analyzing what could have been different may be helpful or may be a decoy to detract from the real issue. In My Utmost this morning it seemed to finger the core issue quite plainly. Self-pity takes me out of trusting God and creates an atmosphere of fear in my life that will always result in failure, either in small ways or with spectacular public fireworks.

Ezekiel 36 again!

So..........!!!! I'm angry!!! I just went through security at Detroit airport and they STOLE my body wash and expensive toothpaste that I just bought in their ruthless terror-promoting frenzy of inane rules designed to crush the spirit of every person in this country. My adrenaline is still so high it is hard to write legibly.

So, why am I mad – really? Because I am a victim of injustice, robbery and insult. Because I value the bitterness from monetary loss more than my peace or the spirit I project to those around me. My independence has been assaulted by the use of force and intimidation. My pride is wounded a little and my imagination is eager to indulge in scenarios of what I could have attempted to do to return the insults – like pouring the soap all over the conveyor belt or squirting it all over the security guys. Now that would really generate kind feelings, wouldn't it?

Of course, the only responses they have waiting for disturbers of their grinding bureaucratic forces are harassment at best or more likely arrest and much more harrasment and even more economic expense. That's all a very slippery slope to deep disaster just to vent my feelings for a few seconds. And in the process I drop into a very deep hole socially and maybe even spiritually that would certainly create lots of fuel for tongues to way.