Abandonment

On the heels of a long phone discussion yesterday with a friend trying to grapple with a deep division between he and his wife, I found today's reading in My Utmost for His Highest

extremely relevant, not only for his situation but for myself as well. The whole passage is really a definition for the concept and importance of “abandonment”.

The main crux of today's reading is the theme throughout the whole book, that is, that abandonment must be for Jesus Himself and not for what we get out of it. “Beware of an abandonment which has the commercial spirit in it – 'I am going to give myself to God because I want to be delivered from sin, because I want to be made holy.' All that is the result of being right with God, but the spirit is not of the essential nature of Christianity. Abandonment is not for anything at all. We have got so commercialized that we only go to God for something from Him, and not for Himself. It is like saying, “No, Lord, I don't want Thee, I want myself; but I want myself clean and filled with the Holy Ghost; I want to be put in Thy showroom and be able to say – “This is what God has done for me.”' If we only give up something to God because we want more back, there is nothing of the Holy Spirit in our abandonment; it is miserable commercial self-interest. That we gain heaven, that we are delivered from sin, that we are made useful to God – these things never enter as considerations into real abandonment, which is a personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ Himself.”

As I read through the complete reading I realized that this abandonment that he is talking about is closely linked to the correct understanding and experience of a covenant relationship. It involves an unrestrained, unlimited commitment to another person without any provision for retraction or withdrawal from the relationship. And since marriage is a miniature model of the relationship that God intensely desires to have with each one of us personally, then this kind of abandonment is also needed in the marriage relation for it to become really stable and fulfilling.

I will be the first to admit I am far from experiencing this either in my own relationship with God or in my marriage. But the first step is being aware of it and cultivating a desire to live this way and then I need to orient my choices and plans in line with the spirit of abandonment. It requires dying to my selfishness on a continual basis which is a real challenge but is so necessary if I want to experience the fullness of life only found in total abandonment.

Even saying that seems to be looking more to what I can get out of the experience than focusing on the other person, doesn't it. It seems that even my attempts to express and grapple with these ideas can become almost double-talk because I am starting from a base of natural selfishness to begin with. Again, I have to simply through myself on the amazing mercy and grace of God to create this experience and desire in my life because He says He can do it and He wants to. And then I realize that I have really come back to the core issue that I started with, for in throwing myself on His mercy I am choosing to abandon myself to Him which is what I was originally designed for.

True Relgion

If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:26-27 NAS95)

It occurred to me a few moments ago that this passage is a perfect description of the contrast between external oriented, left-brain based religion that is so prevalent and heart oriented, right-brain community bonding spirituality that is the true design of God for His family.

The first verse refers to a system that cheapens the meaning of words. This can be noted because one of the symptoms of meaninglessness is a growing proliferation of words because they are continually losing their power. People who indulge in using words cheaply find that they have to use more and more words to achieve the same results as their credibility wanes. God reveals here that this causes one to deceive his own heart as they are trying to deceive and manipulate others. They continue to really believe that they are religious but because of the lose of meaning in their words they are left with a facade of religion that may sound right but has no substance – is worthless.

In contrast to this deceived condition is presented the evidences of true spirituality. I use the term spirituality in contrast to religion because in my own mind and experience there is a significant difference. Most people who view themselves as religious fit quite nicely into the description above, though most would vehemently deny it.

Spirituality on the other hand, has to do with being aware of your own spirit, being attentive to the things of the spirit, both your own, that of those around you as well as the Spirit of God. Surprisingly for some, this kind of spirituality can be found in many who do not even claim to be Christians but have a much better spirit than most Christians. I believe that many times this is due to the terrible distortions of God that they have been exposed to that has caused them to recoil appropriately in disgust from the lies that purported Christians have presented to them both in treatment and in words. I believe many of these people will be found to be among the saved when the final accounting takes place instead of the professed Christians who looked down on them in disdain.

The description in this verse of what constitutes true or undefiled religion has actually puzzled me most of my life. It seemed so “works” oriented and I could never feel completely comfortable with this text. But the thought suddenly burst into my mind this morning that this visiting referred to in this text is really describing what constitutes the activity needed to create true community which is very close to the foundation of real Christianity. As I spent time yesterday visiting my 90-year old friend we discussed the idea of community and she expressed her frustration that she felt she was not doing her part in this area. I explained that it is true that the church today is not functioning as an interactive community anywhere near the level that God desires and almost nothing like the New Testament church enjoyed. That is why almost no one is willing to facilitate including her in active participation in true community and benefit from her valuable position as a true elder with wisdom to share. In my opinion this lady is a wealth of real heart resources practically going to waste while many people who could be greatly enriched by spending a little time with her are too busy and too consumed spinning empty words to exert the little effort it would take to visit with her. James declares that real spirituality would be found in the person who takes the time to receive and give in bonds of love with this elderly widow. Now it is starting to make much more sense to me.

There are other important elements described here in true spirituality. It reminds us that widows, orphans and other similar situations naturally are accompanied by stress (dis-stress) that could be greatly reduced if believers would act like a healthy community. The other important emphasis for true spirituality pointed out here is the keeping of yourself uncontaminated by the world.

This opens up a very large area of insights which I do not have time right now to explore in writing. I'm sure my mind will be examining this off and on while I am doing other things today. But for now I will simply express that I believe this is indicating the great importance of not being sucked into the world-based style of thinking, relationships and valuing that the world uses to determine what is important. I think this is perfectly described in Romans 12:2 and I love the Phillips translation of this verse (which I don't have access to at the moment) that says, “Don't let the world squeeze you into it's mold.”

Sabbath Memoir

In my posting for January 13 I talked about the wonderful blessing I received during the worship and praise time when I attended PMC. Today I again attended the same worship and this time I sat much closer to the front. I was not disappointed. Once again I was deeply moved and richly blessed during the well-planned music portion of the service. I have not seen this level of quality in all the years I have attended this congregation. I would highly recommend visiting this church for the 11:20 service if you are within 50 miles of it. The young men who plan and prepare this part of the service are putting the kind of effort and thoughtful orchestration into it that honors God and blesses all who participate.

And speaking of orchestration, that is exactly one of the things that makes it so effective. I have been told that they actually write out scores for the songs and prepare the music for the strings and other instruments each week. I know this is what happens in some of the popular mega-churches around the world but I have not seen this done in hardly any of our own churches. It has the effect of making the worship experience so much richer and majestic and real.

Am I saying that worship is dependent on the quality of the musicians and orchestration? Not necessarily. Worship is a condition of the heart. But in corporate worship it is very easy to allow various things to interfere and become distractions to that state of the heart. I have been in far too many (most to be exact) services where it was next to impossible to enter into a passionate and unrestricted expression of love for God because of the dull and lifeless atmosphere around me. Or on the other hand I have attended a number of services where the atmosphere has been loud and even boisterous in an attempt to drum up emotion in the name of worship but still leaves me feeling empty and shallow because it was mostly show and emotion but very little skill and planning and attention to a genuine worship experience. I realize that most will believe this is due mostly to my bias and preferences. Maybe so, but I have enjoyed deep and meaningful worship experiences in both lively churches and in more traditional churches when enough attention was given to creating an atmosphere conducive to awakening the heart instead of just titillating either the head or the emotions.

After thoroughly enjoying the worship time (except for the still-in-place unspoken taboo on hand-raising) I also enjoyed another excellent sermon from Dwight Nelson in his series title Mercy Came A-runnin'. (you can hear it on www.pmc.tv) He spoke on one of my favorite parables, the story of the debtor in Matthew 18. I was eager to see if he had discovered the real punch-line at the end of the story. His insights were very good and his illustration very effective, but though he came very close he missed the most important point of the whole story. I'm not surprised however. I only heard it myself just a few years ago and it is mostly unheard of by almost all teachers and preachers everywhere.

I was sitting next to his wife on the pew and I contemplated asking her after the service if I could share with him later that day, but I decided that would likely be a dead-end idea. After the dismissal prayer I sat and watched what people were doing as they left and observed that Dwight was staying around the front and occasionally talking with people. I decided to go up and see if he would let me share my thoughts with him. The worst he could say was no and I really had nothing to lose. So I approached him and asked if I could share a different punch-line with him from the story than the one he had used.

He was a bit skeptical at first but agreed to let me share with him. So I had him turn to the passage and showed him the words near the end of the story that unveil the amazing surprise ending that I have been sharing with others. At first he couldn't believe that it was not really there but when I showed him how it was supported in the context and that even his own illustration story that he used at the end of his sermon reinforced the very point I was making he saw what I was saying and said he could except that. He said he would try to remember that next time he presented this teaching.

I only say this to share what happened today, not as a means of name-dropping or making myself look important. On my way home from church I decided to stop by the house of a 90-year old lady that I did some work for several years ago and who is very sharp and intelligent but gets very few visitors. I ended up sharing with her for most of the afternoon and had a wonderful time discussing various topics I have been learning about over the past few years. Her mind is very alert and she asks very good questions. She is very perceptive and can quickly read a person's character in just a few minutes after she meets them. She also remembers people far better than most people I know, especially myself. She can remember pretty much everyone I have brought to her house over the last five years and asks about them on occasion.

Due to the death in my son-in-law's family it looks like I will be doing the early morning paper route for another week yet. Continue to pray for them as they go to be with his grandparents for a few days and continues the grieving process and attends the funeral sometime this week. I pray that God may find an opportunity in this situation to draw my children closer to Him and cherish His presence more in their lives.

Quantum Spirituality

As I considered my thoughts and feelings this morning something occurred to me. One part was an analogy from quantum physics and the other is a truth I have heard before that fits so well.

As I have spent time over the past few months sharing myself on this blog there has developed naturally an assumed expectation that I have had to deal with; that is that I am expected to regularly contribute to it or people will become impatient with me and I will feel bad about myself. This may sound infantile, and probably is, but since I am becoming more aware of my own feelings and more frequently stopping to check them for validity, this is what I have found.

I have then wondered what to do with this feeling; how should I relate to it? Of course, there is always the possibility that it can develop stronger into a compulsion, even a false god, that constrains me to “perform” to “look good” to others. While that is certainly a temptation I want to guard against it strenuously for I have far to many false gods already that need to be expelled and I certainly don't need another one to deal with. But to take the opposite approach in response to this insight by simply refusing to write to spite this compulsion is also counterproductive and immature. I have dealt with other compulsions that way and with very dissatisfying results. The main reason, as I have related elsewhere on this site, that I am doing this at all is to place myself in a position of more openness and transparency where I will learn to be willing to be more vulnerable and honest. Of course, being vulnerable just for its own sake might be silly, even dangerous. It most certainly opens me up to immense potential pain which I'm rather certain may come sooner or later. But as I am learning even more clearly in this book I am reading right now about words, being completely honest with all my words and actions is crucial to being able to relate to God effectively as well as to anyone around me on a very meaningful basis. It really is the only way I can develop healthy bonds at a heart level with anyone – and heaven knows I need a lot more of that.

But as I began to ponder this this morning I was reminded of a strange phenomena that scientists have observed in quantum physics. They discovered that certain particles behave very differently when they are being “watched” than when they are not. This is almost mind-blowing and raises a lot of questions, even of how the scientists figured out that this was happening in the first place. But it is certainly a very curious fact that I think may apply to other areas of our life as well. After all, God has place within all of nature revelations about Himself waiting to be discovered and applied by those who are willing to accept His wisdom.

I feel like this same phenomena seems to be true in my spiritual life at times. I have noticed that in my growing awareness and my relationship with God that if I try too hard to observe it, quantify it, capture it in words or writing that it seems to become more unstable or even elusive. It feels like the relationship itself almost resents being condensed into predictable patterns of expectations. This makes sense to me when I think about human relationships and how we feel when others develop expectations of what we are or how we will respond to given stimuli. It cramps our freedom to change, to surprise, to love in unexpected ways. It really reflects the counterfeit system that the whole world operates under and that God is trying to save us out of into His family of love.

This brought me to the second idea closely related to the first. Typical religious thought has largely placed God in a box, and our tendency is to expect God to relate to us in predefined ways either of our making or from things we read in the Bible. While it is true that God declares that He does not change (Mal. 3:6), this does not imply that He will be predictable and always relate to given situations the same way. In fact, to many careful observers, it has been seen that He seldom, if ever, responds to similar situations in exactly the same way. But this is really wonderful good news. This is really one of the most important ingredients of a healthy, dynamic relationship. When our friends become predictable they also start to become boring. We were created for limitless growth and ever-increasing joy and intimacy for all eternity. God never intended us to rest satisfied with boredom and accept it as the norm. He built into all of us a craving for something better, something deeper, someone to share love with at an ever-deeper level and even ever-increasing numbers of people to enter into relationships with. So why do we think we can predict what God will do in response to our desires, our prayers, our deepest longings?

I think it goes back to our penchant for trying to form God into our own image and the natural bent to selfishness inherent in our sinful natures. We are afraid of relationships where we can't be in control of what the other thinks of us. That goes back to my sudden awareness of my image management problem I wrote about last September. I not only want to manage what others think about me but I tend to want God to do things the way I think they should be done instead of trusting in His heart for me without knowing in the slightest how He will relate to me in this situation. Sinful thinking demands to see evidence and proof before trusting in His ways; it refuses to believe He really cares for me consistently and that His words in Jer. 29:11 really are true and always apply to me personally. This deep-rooted doubt always seeks to sabotage the truth about God and will never be satisfied or change its opinion. It is the essence of the fallen “flesh” that lives inside me and constantly seeks to push me to independence, pride and self-protection.

When I really think about it, I really like the fact that God is in many respects very unpredictable – that is, in regards to how He will express His constant love, compassion and protection for me. Sometimes it will at first appear to be the opposite of His character and I will be tempted to doubt His character again. But that is also the very nature of wonderful surprises even in our relationships with each other. The very essence of surprise is that it is unexpected, unpredictable. But surprises from those who love us deeply will consistently in the end reveal more deeply their love and the bonds between us and the memories we cherish.

And so it is with God. The Bible is full of stories of God's surprises in all sorts of situations and circumstances. If anything, the stories of the Bible remind us that God has limitless options of how to intervene in our emergencies and supply our needs and desires. I believe that understanding this is a step toward freeing our minds, for enabling us to break open the box that we have attempted to confine God in and allow Him to bless us and discipline us according to the nature of His true character of love. It is part of the unclogging of us as channels that God desires to use to pour His blessings through to others. As someone has so aptly said, “Let God be God”.

The above principle of quantum physics applies just as well to God. I believe that when we try to predict what He will do for us in any give circumstance that He may well sometimes do it differently just to prevent us from putting Him deeper into our box. As I read recently in My Utmost, one of our greatest problems as Christians is that we do not really believe in God as being Almighty. For if we did, our problems would not terrify us like they do presently.

So what does God mean when He says He never changes? It is His character, His love, His loving-kindness that is everlasting. The part that we can absolutely count on even if the universe were to disappear is His heart's passion for us to be with Him and be close to Him. And the more we indulge ourselves in this kind of thinking the more we can experience the reality of it in our lives and even in our relationships with others.

Empty Words

What is really going on in our corporations, churches and other organizations in all of the motivational training, management consultants and marketing fads? We hire the latest gurus with the latest lingo and fine-sounding verbiage that they have uncovered as publicly recognized symptoms of integrity. Then they teach us to memorize and parrot the new company slogans and clichè's and insist that we conform our communications to the latest pretension for success.

However, this is all done primarily as an external exercise to create the appearances of integrity and hopefully convince the customers, onlookers, potential converts etc. that we are the real thing, that we have it all figured out, that we have the best system in the world. Great emphasis is put on conformity and cooperation and appearances, but very little attention is paid to inward character, accurate disclosure and transparent honesty. In fact a great deal of effort is put into PR – image management to carefully camouflage all our imperfections, mistakes and downright deceptions. We are building a wonderful looking facade on unstable foundations of sand.

When I starts to become apparent and widespread that our words and catch phrases are in fact meaningless and shallow, the pundits are ready with another fresh round of programs, slogans and clichè's to merchandise to us. This is really part of the great and long-running campaign of Satan to render all words meaningless and all people mindless. It is in concert with his fundamental strategy of control through deception.

This tactic emphasizes the supremacy of external appearances above all else and at all costs. And the cost soon becomes apparent – it is our souls and our integrity and even our value for truth itself. It deceives us into believing that we can expect others to believe our words which in fact are calculated to deceive. But we eventually start losing sight of the fact that we are being deceitful and begin wondering why others have less and less confidence in us. It becomes more difficult to accurately communicate with others as our words slowly lose all their power and effectiveness.

About this time we then resort to a different tactic to get our way, to control others and look out for ourselves. We turn to threats and intimidation and then try to use force to back up our new vocabulary. But while these words may be true to a greater extent than our empty promises, we have long since abandoned integrity itself and have come very close to losing our souls completely to the disease of Meaninglessness.