"Lusts of Their Hearts"

Well, I never would have dreamed I would get excited about all the discoveries waiting to be found in Romans 1 and 2, but the more time I take to linger and look for more possibilities the more fascinating insights keep rising to the surface. What makes it so interesting is that there are so many positive truths about God camouflaged under the cover of the apparently negative “tirades” of Paul, as some people view these passages.

Today I again decided to stay in the same area and resist the urge to move on. I have become confident that the Holy Spirit likes to open more things to the minds of those willing to be taught and patient enough to spend time in active interaction with Him. I have been enjoying this “style” of study for several years now ever since I learned about inductive Bible study and began utilizing it for my own growth.

This time my eyes were attracted to the phrases “lusts of their hearts” and “bodies would be dishonored”. I try to always be alert and listening for connections and patterns that belie profound truths woven throughout a passage. If you tug on them carefully and follow them with patience you can trace another thread of beauty from one place to another as it emerges in different settings but contains the same essence of truth. One way of doing this is noticing the same or similar words used several times throughout a passage or even with links to other passages if that linkage is not stretched too thin.

It has also greatly helped to apply updated definitions to words that are too often taken for granted perpetuating centuries-old false views of God. When more accurate meanings are used to understand the passage it quite often dramatically changes the whole picture being painted by the author and thrilling new truths suddenly come to life that have been laying dormant under the veil of false assumptions. That is what I am starting to see in these chapters more and more as I spend more time allowing God to reveal Himself in this unexpected location.

As I read, I also have learned to ask more questions of the Spirit while I am reading. If I don't understand something or if it seems to conflict with other things I have been learning I do not shy away from it anymore or try to rationalize it away as so many religious people are prone to do to avoid apparent discrepancies. I am willing to ask the hard questions, not in a spirit of antagonism but in a spirit of dialog and ignorance. After all, God obviously knows more than I do here, so who better to ask what it means than the original Author Himself.

That is not to imply that everything I discover is assumed to be the final immutable word of God on the subject or passage. On the other hand, to be constantly discounting the validity or accurateness of the personal revelations uncovered during my own times with God may not be so much of a sign of humility but of fear of what others may think about me. If I am constantly discounting the credibility of what I believe God is teaching me personally, it soon becomes evident that I am more concerned about people's opinions about me than I am about God's. That reminds me of the verse about bragging that tends to not fit our typical religious mold.

Thus says the LORD, "Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things," declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:23-24 NAS95)

Even though it still seems uncomfortable to declare that there is a proper place for boasting given the abuse of boasting by far too many religious zealots and self-focused leaders, God Himself declares that there really is a reason and context for human boasting after carefully warning us of all the wrong alternatives. He reminds me of this occasionally when I tend to start discounting too much the intimate relationship that is growing between us. He is asking me in this text to be honest about our friendship and confess our loyalty to each other more openly. It is not an arrogant kind of boasting but more like a blushing admission to a secret love that is starting to become so strong between two people that it has become impossible to hide from the public anymore.

Again I got side-tracked from what I started out to write. Back to what I am starting to see in Romans 1. When I read the phrase “lusts of their hearts” in verse 24 the first thing I noticed was the word heart. That word used in the Bible has now become like a flashing strobe light to me to look closer to see what God is trying to tell me in this place. Since I have been pursuing a more intentional life of living from my heart recently I am finding that many things in the Bible on this issue are now far more interesting and insightful than I ever realized before. So in describing these people with all the problems listed in this passage, I see that there is something about their hearts that is likely causing them to display all these results of dysfunction and shame.

Another word that was helpfully redefined by Oswald Chambers for me is the word “lust”. Instead of associating it primarily with improper sexual cravings, he defined lust as simply “wanting it right now”, whatever “it” may be of any sort. Generally speaking from this perspective lust is the opposite of patience. That, of course, very often does apply to sexual matters, but it also shows up in many other areas of life not generally associated with the idea of lust.

So to put those two words together in this phrase, these people described are wanting what they want and crave in their hearts immediately in whatever way they can get it for themselves without waiting. Then to look around in the surrounding verses I look for cause and effect relationships to see what might be going on in their hearts and why they are so full of lust.

One of the effects listed in the same verse is a dishonoring of their bodies. This drew my attention back to verse 21 where I saw the word honor and likely has something to do with what is going on in their hearts. This is near the beginning of the description of the downward spiral of sin described in this chapter so it is significant to see how they are connected.

Another key ingredient in this area is the contrast of creature and Creator as well as the element of worship. As I broaden my view of the surrounding verses through this lens I see again the apparent core problem of sin that affects every one of us and easily discovers us in the complicity described in chapter 2 if we are not careful. Those who choose to worship – to look for life from – anything less than their Creator will have the resulting effect of suffering from lust in their heart.

This lust is really a description of the intense dissatisfaction experienced by anyone who is starving to death from lack of life-giving necessities. This lust is not a choice so much as a hunger for life itself. Our hearts crave life, intensely desire intimacy, cannot thrive without love-bonding to other hearts and ultimately cannot live for long without some connection to the heart of God, either directly or indirectly.

Somehow honor is an ingredient of this mix as well. There is something here, some equation in reality that attests to the unequivocal certainty that when we fail to honor our Creator and God – whatever that really means – we will end up dishonoring ourselves, partly because we were created in His image. So it looks like to me that when one dishonors the original then the reflection is dishonored as a result. That makes perfect sense if we are simply mirrors designed to reflect the true glory of God.

There is much, much more here that quickly expands the discussion but I must stop again for lack of time. Your comments and insights are always welcome and appreciated. Some of the most exciting times of the heart comes from group “Bible study” when done in the true spirit of openness and hunger for real truth instead of simply an impartation of pre-determined doctrines and unquestioned beliefs.

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Your Grace Still Amazes Me

Yesterday morning during my meditation time I read the thoughts in My Utmost from the previous day that I had not had time to read due to intense preparation for the afternoon ceremony. As I suspected before I ever read it, God had placed an important message in that days reading for my heart knowing ahead of time what would happen on that day. Here are some excerpts from May 5:

Salvation is the great thought of God, not an experience... Never preach the experience; preach the great thought of God behind. When we preach we are not proclaiming how man can be saved from hell and be made moral and pure; we are conveying good news about God.

...Never sympathize with a soul who finds it difficult to get to God, God is not to blame. It is not for us to find out the reason why it is difficult, but so to present the truth of God that the Spirit of God will show what is wrong....

If Jesus ever gave us a command He could not enable us to fulfill, He would be a liar; and if we make our inability a barrier to obedience, it means we are telling God there is something He has not taken into account. Every element of self-reliance must be slain by the power of God. Complete weakness and dependence will always be the occasion for the Spirit of God to manifest His power.

That last sentence went straight to my heart producing a powerful wave of emotion and confirmation. I had been reminded of that by other people even before we went into this and God confirmed it in this writing on just the day that it applied the most.

I felt terribly inadequate, out of time and emotionally fragile going into the afternoon service. I had not found anyone to coordinate the event and so I was under tremendous pressure to answer lots of questions about material details that I could not deal with. A number of important elements were forgotten in the rush that made me feel extremely sad after it was over. But I keep reminding myself that this was God's opportunity to do something important in spite of all our blunders and forgetfulness and missed cues. I must be very careful not to dwell on all the mistakes but to remain in faith that something unseen but superseding of what was obvious took place that day and the visible results may or may not be seen for a long time. We did as much as we could do with the resources and time that we had and God must glorify His name in His way and time. We simply provided the human ingredients and permission for Him to do His much greater thing whatever that may be.

Another aspect of the aftermath of this event was my own personal life-long confusion as to how to relate to compliments or appreciation. From a very early age something about this got twisted, I suppose at least partly from the over-conservative bias of the religious culture I was immersed in. I remember feeling that to receive any compliments or praise for nearly anything was immediately labeled by my mind as flattery and therefore sinful and wrong. I know that people when they hear this feel the impulse to simply correct me and tell me that it isn't so, but my heart cannot receive those words as truth. Even telling myself those things does not change my automatic reaction. I always feel some degree of guilt associated with accepting compliments without some kind of protest or disclaimer.

This habit (or coping mechanism) of course, has the effect of discouraging everyone from further attempts to affirm me. This in turn tends to make me feel more isolated and introverted and discouraged in my spirit. That in turn makes people feel more distant from me and unappreciated for their attempts to reach out to me and the whole thing remains a vicious spiral that perpetuates itself throughout my life. What I am describing here is not an attempt at self-justifying or solicitation for pity, it is simply a description of what I am observing as a weak spot in my character that has contributed to the starved condition of my heart over most of my lifetime.

Just writing it out makes me feel very frightened at what others will think. Usually they will either try to correct my thinking with obvious logic or they will pull back and leave me to my fate deciding that nothing they do or say will make a difference anyway. I am back to staring at another very vulnerable area of my damaged heart and taking what feels like a terrifying risk of exposing myself in public by even talking about it. It seems like whatever the “solution” might be, it will not be woven into my personality and character through the normal methods that we typically use for correction. This is very much a heart condition and it seems to me that it can only be addressed from other hearts who are equally open and vulnerable but also are deeply caring and persistent. That is also what my heart wants to be when it grows up.

So how do I finish this post from here? I don't know. That's the problem with this medium of communication – it is one-sided in the present sense and makes whatever dialog is initiated very slow and tedious. But this impatience with its limitations is probably God's built-in incentive for me to grow beyond this crutch and become more open to more active means of interaction while remaining open with my heart. I am slowly beginning to learn how to experience intense emotions while still trying to remember who I am and how to act and respond without being controlled by triggers. I will certainly be more happy and satisfied when I become more proficient and capable of those skills.

Here's how this post must be finished. I am so glad that God showed up two days ago as I invited Him to do. As usual it was not necessarily the way I would preferred to have seen it; we are always clamoring for the spectacular and the supernatural external displays of glory. But Elijah was taught an important lesson about this when God ran him through a training session of how to hear God's voice. After missing the real thing in a number of spectacular displays of frightening power, Elijah felt the familiar urges of the quiet voice inside his head that he had been hearing and following for most of his life. God is certainly capable of the spectacular displays, but the long-term heart changes are effected more permanently in the quiet impressions of the insistent love and healing of that sweet Spirit that is molding us back into the image of God for which we were designed.

As the room was being cleaned up and the commotion was beginning to subside, my heart was reaching out for God trying to figure out where to connect with Him. I put on some music that had been missed during the program and walked away from the commotion to listen to the words and music coming out of the speakers and immediately my spirit responded in worship and a sense of peace. This song never fails to deeply stir my heart and I wanted to just be swallowed up in the truth of its words. “Your grace still amazes me – Your love is still a mystery. Each day I fall on my knees, 'cause Your grace still amazes me.” The musical arrangement of this by Phillips, Craig and Dean is one of the most beautiful and powerful messages to the heart that I have ever heard through music. When I sing along with the words while engaging my heart to express them in real time directly to my God, the message becomes very real and my heart feels released to be free and alive for a few moments in the very presence of God. I cannot describe it accurately in this limited medium, but those who have lived from their heart at least on occasion know what I am talking about to some extent.

Throughout the rest of the evening my mind kept feeling an intense desire for something, but it seemed that every line of thought that I looked at was immediately dissatisfying and I would turn to another. I felt very spiritually and increasingly emotionally hungry and I wanted to find what it was that would satisfy it best . What I found was that when I would simply stop my thinking and ignore the external distractions and simply focus consciously on God's presence in quietness, it was only then that I felt like this emptiness was starting to be satisfied and fed. I suppose, looking back on it now, that it was an important part of the peace/joy cycle that our brains and hearts are designed for in order to thrive. I was coming off the peak of the joy part of the cycle, the intense “glad to be together in intense sharing of emotions with another”, and now I equally needed the peace part of the cycle to balance me, the quiet time together just marinating in the presence and love of God without words or dialog. Yes, it is very true for me, “Your grace still amazes me – Your love is still a mystery”.

Cell Phone Substitute

As my family sat around the living room today talking about cell phones a comment was made by one of my daughter's that caught my attention in the light of my last post. She said that cell phones are very useful when you are separated from someone in the mall and you can talk with them on the phone to find each other.

As I visualized the two people finding each other after dialogging back and forth and navigating until they could see each other, I thought how silly it would seem for them to stand there in front of each other but continue to talk into their phones to each other instead of putting their phones away and talking directly face to face. Then it hit me – the phone is something like a crutch for us until we can communicate face to face.

As I thought about this more throughout the day I also decided that maybe the phone analogy is a step beyond the crutches. Crutches are generally dispensed with and not used anymore after the healing has sufficiently taken effect. But phones are not tossed into the basement just because we have met the person we were talking to. We continue to use them appropriately as needed to stay in touch with the important people in our lives and others. However, phones are still not nearly as effective in conveying what we want to communicate with others as personal presence.

This takes the last post about crutches and writing a step up. In this current analogy, phones could be equated with writing in that writing is not dispensed with just because we have met the person we were writing to. It is not as good as face to face sharing, but we cannot always live face to face with everyone we need to communicate with. So we leave notes, emails and some even still write old-fashioned letters and put those funny little sticky's on them and entrust them to the postal service.

In my case where I am at right now in my experience, I find that if I want to more effectively express to someone what I want to say in a way that will more likely avoid misunderstandings, if I write it down thoughtfully ahead of time and use that while I am talking to them it makes me feel much safer. Of course it has all the draw-backs that I noted previously, but it has it's advantages as well.

The exercise of honest writing has been helping the other areas of expression in my life become a little bit more real and open. I have been noticing that I feel a little bit more capable during a conversation to remember who I am, dialog in real time about the conversation with God and try to listen openly and actively to the other person with a view of trying to see past the words into what their heart is trying to say. Even though I am still very much a novice at this it has been more and more rewarding as I feel I am making progress in connection more to people's hearts a bit. I believe this is the direction that I must continue to move if I am to experience and participate in the family that God is gluing together with the bonds of love.

My Crutch

I always harbored a little bit of judgment, to be honest, against Moses for not trusting God to use him alone when God sent him back to Egypt at the burning bush. Moses had become so humble in the wilderness that he seemed to have crossed over to doubt in God as well to be able to use him. Moses was so insistent on coming up with more excuses to resist what God was asking him to do that finally God accommodated him by giving him a crutch in the form of his brother Aaron. Many people claim that because of this “mistake” on the part of Moses that he should share the blame for the problems that showed up later during the exodus when weak-willed Aaron assisted the people into open sin and rebellion.

In my mind I often wondered what might have been different if Moses had been willing to trust in God's power completely instead of making excuses to the point where God had to go to plan B. This secret “accusation”, you might call it, probably arises out of the subtle pride of my own unregenerate heart smugly believing that I would not be so simpering and empty of faith. I know that sounds very arrogant when actually exposed in words, but when it is just a quiet opinion hiding in a dark corner of your mind it can lurk there for years without exposure or challenge. I suppose I am not the only person who might share this secret feeling.

Anyway, that is all just background for what came to my mind this morning. As I was listening to what God was sharing with me interactively, and it was unusually very active this morning, maybe I suppose because my own heart is so much more open than “normal” because of yesterday's happenings, my mind as usual was antsy to begin organizing what was happening in my heart into another writing session. That penchant sometimes is annoying as it gets in the way of my heart being able to dialog without interference as my left brain keeps interrogating it like a pesky, obnoxious paparazzi reporter. Sometimes I have to nearly threaten it with ban on writing if it refuses to leave me alone to interact with God without all the clamor and note-taking.

Then it was like God mentioned to me that this “reporter” interfering in our quiet interaction was actually my “crutch” just like Aaron was to Moses. How embarrassing! Now I'm exposed and my little secret accusation of Moses gets turned back on me. But its true, I have to admit. I have been very vocal about my crutch, insisting that I have a very hard time expressing myself verbally but find it much easier to be honest and open about what is going on inside when I write it instead (like I am doing right now).

Of course, immediately I began justifying my crutch by reminding the Lord that crutches are a good thing while one is in the healing process, even necessary things to prevent worse injury from occurring until enough healing has taken place for us to walk and run without their use. God agreed with me on that point, but reminded me that if one clings to their crutches for too long they can become addicted to them like pain-killer drugs that have outlasted their proper use. In this case, as with any crutch, there needs to come a transition time when one has to start facing and pushing into the pain of walking without the aid of the crutch occasionally if they are ever to complete the healing process. For me that might mean the frightening prospect of learning to express myself, my true self from deep inside of me, and in real time through the more active and vulnerable channels of body functions like speaking, smiling, crying, gestures etc. that are trained to both be honest, accurate and yet held under control from extremes or unduly influenced by outside intimidation.

That is a terribly frightening proposition for my mind to even imagine that I should be asked to go there. I guess I now have a great deal more sympathy for how Moses must have felt when God suddenly insisted he leave his comfort zone with sheep that he had finally learned to handle and confront the most arrogant, powerful and threatening nation on the earth with just his connection to God and no flashy props. I don't think I can harbor my secret criticism of Moses anymore – I have my own fears to face.

So do I think it is time for me to drop my “crutch” and start running marathons? Hardly! I am still a very long way from being able to move efficiently (read, express my heart) without my crutches. Up to this point I have pretty much only been able to express myself relatively openly through the means of writing. Whenever it is required of me to present myself verbally, whenever possible I always take the time to write out my thoughts and feelings carefully and then am forced to read them.

While this has been very helpful in the accuracy of what I say, it creates some very big problems and limitations of expression. As most people know, it is very difficult to read in a way that sounds the same or is as convincing as live, spontaneous expression. It also prevents, or at least interferes with continuous eye contact which is crucial to communication of deep feelings. In addition it is very clumsy to hold a paper in one hand to read or be restricted to staring at a podium or one's lap to constantly refer to the paper or computer to see what you are supposed to be saying when your heart wants to employ all of your body, mind, heart and soul in conveying accurately and expressively and fully what you want to share with another person's heart. This became painfully clear to me yesterday during the Bat Barakah for two of my daughters. My heart was feeling very open and intensely desirous of communicating my emotions and thoughts to them even in spite of my fear of being in front of quite a number of "spectators". But the required papers to communicate what I had to say were a nuisance and greatly restricted my expressions in all the ways described above.

Unlike walking crutches, however, I suppose the crutch of writing has a very useful place even after its use as a crutch is outgrown. It does provide an entering wedge to awaken interest and establish initial connections between people as had happened even through the use of this and other people's blogs. The Bible is also in writing and is a point of contact in the use of communication between God and humanity. But if we end up getting stuck by putting more importance on the message and the tool instead of using it as a springboard to launch us into a much deeper level of communication using much more efficient means of sharing, we end up becoming stunted and crippled in our maturity, our healing, and we settle for far less intimacy than what our hearts are designed for.

I felt that yesterday was a point of exposure for my crutch and it began to create in me a deeper desire to move beyond it soon; a reminder that I should be dissatisfied and even impatient with the limitations imposed by crutches in my heart's passion for something much better and more fulfilling. People are generally drawn to those who at least appear to communicate freely without limiting themselves to just one or two channels of expression. But it takes time and readiness for people like me to grow into “skills” that were were underdeveloped earlier in life. And it also helps to have the safety and encouragement of friends who can protect and mentor such skills.

God is really the one in charge of that process so I won't attempt to figure out what that will look like for me – it never happens the way I imagine anyway. Yesterday was a step in that direction, and though there were a number of disappointments in the externals I believe that a number of us experienced more heart communication than some of us have had for many years, if ever. I know for myself that spending the past week and more attempting to listen to my heart and the voice of God more intensely, and then spending the last day in very intensive writing and heart-searching for nearly ten hours straight had a noticeable effect on my disposition and spirit following this event. I am almost afraid to talk about it for fear that it may evaporate too quickly in the cacophony of talk and analysis.

God's Character by Contrast

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; (Romans 1:28-31)

This is a list of opposites of God's characteristics. By analyzing the real meaning of each of these descriptions and then looking for the opposite, a picture of God emerges that is quite accurate. As well as describing the life of Jesus and His true followers, it also helps unmask the growing obscurity of some words.

Unrighteousness	Righteous
Wickedness	Holiness
Greed	Generosity
Evil	Good
Envy	Thrilled to see others succeed
Murder	Life-giving
Strife	Peace and harmony
Deceit	Truthful
Malice	Only good motives
Gossips	Love covers a multitude of sins
Slanderers	Blessing – speaking well of
Haters of God	Lover of sinners
Insolent	Polite, respectful
Arrogant	Humble
Boastful	Entrusts His witnesses (us) to vindicate Him
Inventors of evil	Good plans
Disobedient to parents	Submissive to parents
Without understanding	Full of understanding
Untrustworthy	Completely trustworthy
Unloving	Abounding in love
Unmerciful	Merciful

If you have some suggestions for better definitions of opposites in this list I would like to hear them.

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