Tagged! You're It

I have been tagged as “it” in the world of blog. This seems to be a very interesting game being enjoyed by various bloggers who are expected, when tagged, to publish 8 random facts about themselves on their blog page and then tag 8 more people who in turn become “it”.

Of course one would never even know they have been tagged if they do not keep up with the other person's blog who tags them. And while I sort of keep up with maybe up to 8 other blogs I certainly am not know to that many of them as one who could tag them. I don't know of eight other bloggers who keep up with my blog to know that they were tagged. But then, I suppose that's not my problem anyway. If I list 8 bloggers as tagged even though they never read my blog I have fulfilled the “obligation of the law”, right? Interesting how I can nearly ruin even a game by analyzing it nearly to death.

Well, since I have been tagged by Colin on his site Darkening Glasses, I will not miss this opportunity to highly recommend everyone to put his site on their favorite bookmark list and visit it regularly. I never fail to be inspired by his words of wisdom and insight. He has been one of the surprising blessings in my life I never expected to find when I started out this experiment in blogging months ago. Right now he is running a series of thoughtful comments about the S.O.T.M. – the Sermon on the Mount by Jesus. Don't miss any of it and take time to go back and read some of his previous posts. You will be glad you did.

So, is that a long enough preamble to get you to forget what I am supposed to be doing here?

1. I wear shaded prescription glasses that makes many people suspicious of me because they can't see what my eyes are doing. Contrary to their suspicions, however, the reason I wear them is because my eyes are very sensitive to light and right now I can't afford to buy another pair of clear ones to wear indoors to appease my friends.

2. I wear steel-toed shoes for all the shoes I wear, both work and dress shoes. When I was a teenager and younger I tried to wear other shoes but always ran into the problem of losing them quickly due to holes emerging out the top of the toes long before the rest of the shoe was ready to quit. This is not due to failure to keep my nails trimmed but to the strange shape and design of my big toes that bores holes out the top even when they are trimmed regularly. I used to joke that if they managed to bore a hole through my steel-toed shoes I would put my toes in a museum. M-mmm, maybe after I'm dead and pickled that is.

3. I love participating in quartet music though I have seldom done so. I was part of a quartet around 10 or 15 years ago for a period of about 2 years which I enjoyed very much. I even requested and received handwritten copies of music arrangements from Haven of Rest Quartet which we used for many of their songs. But some of my favorites were from a book one of the members gave me of gospel music written barber-shop style which we thoroughly enjoyed singing together.

4. Along those lines, have you ever heard of the “5^th voice”? I learned about it years ago when I first visited a barber-shop practice session in Chattanooga, TN. During a break in practicing small clusters of men would stand around just striking a chord and intently listening for something. Finally another man explained to me that they were listening for the 5^th, a phenomena where 4 voices blended just right and with the right acoustics will literally create a 5^th voice from the harmonics of the original voices blending together. I never heard them that day but many years later in our own quartet we occasionally heard it. I will never forget one day when we were practicing in the lobby of our church and all the way through a particular song I heard the 5^th voice so loud and distinct that I kept looking around at each of the other 3 guys in amazement trying to figure out if one of them was the one singing that extra high, distinctly clear note. It was so beautiful it sent chills down my spine.

5. OK, like Colin I am getting bogged down trying to come up with more things. Maybe I need to give someone else a call to get me jump-started. I am the 6^th and last child in my family, one of which died 2 days after birth not long before I was born. Since I am not a spring chicken anymore that make the rest of them – well – whatever you want to call it.

6. Back to the music genre again, I spent 2 years about 5-6 years ago singing with a worship team in 2 different churches in Michigan where I lived at the time. One was a large university church and the other was the other fairly large church in town where I attempted to be a worship leader for about a year. I tried to introduce some new ideas in thoughtful programming changes and worship concepts but finally realized that the church simply was not ready for any changes. However, I learned a great deal about worship personally during that time and expanded my thinking a great deal which I will appreciate for years to come. I miss those special times and often wish I could participate again in something similar.

7. About 20 years ago I learned to play the Saxophone with a friend tutoring me who was an excellent player and absolutely loved to play with anyone no matter how bad they sounded. He certainly needed that attitude for a few months to keep coming back as I never learned to read music and sounded more like a bleating goat for awhile than an instrument of music. The first day he came to my house to teach me and play with me he burst out laughing when he saw me playing happily along with the mouthpiece on my instrument upside down.

8. Wow! I actually got to number 8. Well, since music seems to be the easiest thing to talk about (even though I have almost nothing at all to do with it now) I am a keyboard player who loves to play “by ear” and can hardly read music at all except when singing. All of my teacher's since I was 5 years old gave up trying to force me to read notes as I would simply memorize the music and then pretend I was looking at it while playing it for them. However, I wish I had had a teacher who would have picked up on my love for music and my ability to play by ear and tried to develop it much more instead of just staying with the normal teaching methods which did not fit me at all. Oh well, I still enjoy sitting down occasionally at a fine piano and expressing my soul and feelings and even more so if someone who really appreciates it is receiving it from my heart. I love to accompany singers who sing deeply from their heart because then we can feed off each other and really connect in a way that I seldom have the chance to do with others.

Well, there I did it. If you managed to wade through all that and are still reading you might find yourself on the hit list of friends privileged to be “it” and spill your guts share your specialness on your own web page for all the world to see. (I have learned a little bit reading other people's blogs.)

I hereby bequeath the honor of being tagged to the following eloquent writers and bloggers:

• Mountain Laurel at Dusty Angels – check out her book for some very personal and interesting reading.

• Maiden, Bringer of Peace

• Notes from Inside My Head not that I think she may ever see this, but she has a great blog.

• rachman-unprecedented

• meow – Surprise

• formerly a student.... Another blog I like to keep up with but may not notice they are now “it”.

• Seana Waters Welcome I may have to jog her to look at this, but she already has some very interesting info about herself on her web page.

• SUICIDE BICYCLE RIDE OK, so I reaching and I'm sure this guy will never see this tag. But he has an interesting page and I have run out of ideas.

For those who want to continue the game and are tagged here, you are supposed to post 8 fascinating, compelling, startling secrets things about yourself on your own blog and then tag 8 more people to pass it on. Got that? You're it!

By the way, if you are reading this and have an interesting blog that I don't know about, leave me a comment and let me check it out. Or if you are one of my friends that never blogs but just stares at mine once in awhile (I know some of you do), think about starting up your own blog and posting now and then. It's extremely easy to do and actually does connect you with others in surprising ways. If you want any help setting one up I and many others will be eager to assist you. Someone else set mine up completely to coax me into getting started. Let me hear from you.

Salvation a Bit Deeper

I sense my mind and heart bumping up against maybe the biggest fundamental lies in my soul that undergird all of my frustrating confusions about God and religion and living life. But when I start to put them in writing they begin to sink back into the fog. They are like high, thick walls of stone that still surround my heart and prevent it from coming fully into expression. They also protect the imps of fear and shame and guilt from being fully vulnerable to exposure to the greater powers of truth and love and peace. These false gods have been pounding me for days trying to suppress the truths that God has been placing in my heart with complex lies about my identity.

These fundamental lies are the deepest lies of my life that were formed and instilled from birth and throughout all of my life through faulty assumptions and mixed ideas about God, about salvation, grace and forgiveness. They are the same lies that are the foundation of Satan's government and plague every sinner on earth, but just the same I have to deal with them primarily in my own heart. That is the only place that I have authority to really make a difference by allowing God access to expose and replace these lies with glorious truth at the heart level of my being as well as the intellect.

Yesterday while I was working I listened to some sermons by Herb Montgomery from Light Bearers Ministry that brought fresh light into my mind and heart. I have heard the words before but the right brain cannot understand words so it was really the spirit of Herb along with God's Spirit that was really opening up the truth about salvation to me in ways that went beyond what I have experienced before. I have concluded that Herb, at least so far for me, is the most effective minister of the true gospel that I have ever heard in my life. (If you are interested in hearing him you can download his material and talks from their website for free – that's where I got these.)

Still, it seems that these revelations only sink into my heart in micro-increments which still frustrates me, but I will cherish them and long for more. To repeat them here will of course not have the same impact, but I do so mainly to capture what is happening for my left brain's sake so I won't lose so much of what I have received. But thinking back over what I am learning and reviewing how God is leading me does deepen the roots of these seeds so I think this may be useful.

This morning as I got out of the shower I had one of those epiphanies that others would wonder at, thinking I must be incredibly dense. They are right. That's why I feel like I am bumping up against a giant wall that is trying to prevent me from breaking into the light of God's real glory. That wall is my denseness due to all my life experiences designed to reinforce Satan's lies about God and Redemption and the Atonement. Those have been just abstract religious teachings for me most of my life but now they are starting to sink into the emotional and heart area of my soul a little more.

What came to me this morning were deeper connections in my thinking about the real meaning of forgiveness. My idea of forgiveness most of my life, which I suspect is not much different than many people's, was something along the order of trying to forget, ignore, suppress or accept excuses for wrongs done to me or vice versa. A few years ago while watching John Regier's videos for the first time I learned that forgiveness is radically different than that, that it really involves taking full responsibility personally for all the pain and anguish that another has caused me and not holding it against them. It means completely releasing all desires for retaliation or revenge of any kind. That does not mean that I feel responsibility for causing them to hurt me, but I take full ownership of the pain and suffering that their offense has caused me because it is completely impossible for them to ever pay for it themselves. If I do not forgive the only alternative is bitterness which will eventually eat my soul alive.

I now know these things in my head and somewhat in my heart, I have even seen and experienced their powerful transformational potential in the life of my own Dad a couple years before he died. I also somewhat understood that somehow this was what Jesus did for us on the cross, but that still seems so theoretical and mostly impersonal in relation to my own heart. But this morning, even though I cannot say I received an overwhelming deeper, life-changing conversion on this point, it clicked in my mind another notch deeper that this description is exactly what Jesus did for me when He died for my sins.

Now I know that every theologically-minded person will likely roll their eyes at my ignorance when they hear this, but more pieces of the puzzle shifted a little bit this morning at the heart level and came closer together to make my picture of God more clear. I suppose it is the residual effect of the spirit I felt yesterday. In addition, the reading in My Utmost this morning (planned well ahead by God's design as is so often the case in my life) simply reinforced it and deepened its impact.

“The plaintive, self-centered, morbid kind of prayer, a dead-set that I want to be right, is never found in the New Testament. The fact that I am trying to be right with God is a sign that I am rebelling against the Atonement. 'Lord, I will purify my heart if You will answer my prayer; I will walk rightly if You will help me.' I cannot make myself right with God, I cannot make my life perfect; I can only be right with God if I accept the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift. Am I humble enough to accept it? I have to resign every kind of claim and cease from every effort, and leave myself entirely alone in His hands, and then begin to pour out in the priestly work of intercession. There is much prayer that arises from real disbelief in the Atonement. Jesus is not beginning to save us, He has saved us, the thing is done, and it is an insult to ask Him to do it.

If you are not getting the hundredfold more, not getting insight into God's word, then start praying for your friends, enter into the ministry of the interior. 'The Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends.' The real business of your life as a saved soul is intercessory prayer. Wherever God puts you in circumstances, pray immediately, pray that His Atonement may be realized in other lives as it has been in yours. Pray for your friends now; pray for those with whom you come in contact now.” (MUHH 6/20)

This message was directly linked to the message that I received yesterday through Herb. And it is a direct assault on the wall in my mind around my heart that has prevented me from going much deeper into a relationship with God. It is really unbelief in the reality of God's love and the Atonement, not from stubbornness so much as ignorance and fear at the heart level. I was not taught much about true grace when I was young, I was raised on rules and on a subtle but unarticulated belief that we must do certain things or work up enough faith to get ourselves into a right position so God will forgive us. So despite all the correct theology that I have been learning since then about God's unconditional love and sending His Son to die on the cross for my sins, these facts primarily have gotten stuck at the mind level as good explanations but seldom soak through to the heart where the springs of my life originate. That is not to say they never have affected me. There have been many times when the Spirit of God has impressed my heart and softened it and introduced light. I am sure there is very much more of that ahead as well; I certainly hope so or I will be hopelessly stuck.

Yesterday as this truth about what Jesus really did for me was fresh in my mind in an unusual way I had to jot down a few notes of what was swirling through my mind before I forgot them. Here is what I wrote down.

I think I may have discovered a big clue to the question I have had for many years. Towhom did Jesus pay the price for our sins? Was it God or Satan, or somebody else?

I am starting to realize that a problem is the assumptions behind the question. As soon as we say the words “pay” or “price” or “ransom” we immediately frame it in the context of contract mentality where there are two parties involved and exchanges are made between the parties for due consideration and equal value. Coming with this Western mindset thinking we run head-on into confusion when trying to understand Redemption, especially when it is in the spiritual arena.

I now think it is safe to believe that the substance, or the currency utilized in the paying of the price for our sins was pain. This is not just pain in one area of human consciousness, but pain in probably every arena of existence that pain can be experienced. But to experience pain is not necessarily to implicate that a transaction has or has not taken place. It is receiving something, but is it giving something back of equal value as is assumed in a contractual relationship?

Forgiveness really means accepting the pain and the responsibility or ownership of the pain incurred from an offense or violation without holding it against the person who caused us that pain. Is that a transaction/contract? A contract is usually an agreement entered into by two or more parties. But if we reject someone's forgiveness then the contract model does not fit well because from God's side we are still unconditionally forgiven. If we were not we could not be drawn by grace and the kindness of God to repentance.

If anyone has received payment of the price for redemption, it appears that it would be the redeemed ones themselves. They are given the offer of receiving the righteousness and life of Christ in exchange for Him taking on the suffering and natural consequences of their sins. But that is not an exchange of equal value so it does not fit the contract model either. This is where covenant thinking makes much more sense but is very unfamiliar to most of us. But even that falls short of explaining redemption because forgiveness is provided for everyone whether or not they believe it or accept it.

This is the very spot where many people in typical religion, including me, get side-tracked. Since most of us believe it is God who makes the determination of our being saved or lost and how much we are to be punished, we cannot accept the seemingly absurd idea that everyone has been forgiven for all their sins both past, present and future. We insist that forgiveness only exists when we accept it and believe in Jesus as our Saviour and Lord. Otherwise, we reason, everyone would be saved and we would end up with a bunch of unconverted sinners in heaven, a huge disaster, and things would be no different than they are now if not much worse.

But this reasoning puts the emphasis on our believing as the key ingredient for our salvation in such a way that our faith supposedly impresses God enough to decide to take us to heaven. It is rooted back in the idea that there is something I have to do to get God to love me or save me. This belief is so deeply rooted in my psyche that I flinch to even write these words expecting the usual explosion of rebuttals from offended relatives and teachers. This is the concept and teaching that has confused me all of my life and still challenges me yet today. It is caused by a confusion about the real meaning of many of the religious terms involved as well as my inability to comprehend and accept the truth about God's unconditional love for me. (My Dad told me many years ago very explicitly that this notion of unconditional love was a heresy in the church.)

Paul says that our “Promissory Note of Debt” has been taken out of the way and nailed to the cross (Col. 2:14). This debt is the loan papers on life itself loaned to us by the only Source of life to keep us alive when sin entered our race creating a liability of death. If anything we have only increased our interest on the debt the more we sin and reject the Author of life. So is it really God that the payment is owed to and we are the borrowers hopelessly in debt?

This now begins makes perfect sense to me when seen in the parable of the debtor (Matt. 18:23-35) who owed an astronomical sum of money to the king and thought he could pay it back instead of accepting the forgiveness put in place by the king. In that parable the forgiveness given to the first debtor was never revoked, but the punishment he received was self-induced by the debtor himself and would last as long as he refused to forgive the one who owed him. By not forgiving he refused to experience forgiveness and stored up wrath for himself while keeping himself in prison.

This story has been largely misunderstood and misinterpreted because of our assumptions about the nature of forgiveness and about how God relates to us. When we believe forgiveness is some trick or legal maneuver whereby offenses are excused, ignored or simply suppressed in the mind, then we not only believe that the King in the parable reinstated the debt when his forgiveness was ignored, but we also believe that God holds our sins against us until we ask for forgiveness. Hackles are really raised when the idea is put forward that even our future sins are already forgiven. That sounds like outrageous heresy and an outcry is heard that we have cheapened grace and are despising the blood of Jesus. I know because I listened to many of those outcries over the years myself.

But in fact, the very opposite is true. If we really believe the truth about what constitutes true forgiveness – a taking on of responsibility for and experiencing all of the pain that our sins create – then when we try to say that forgiveness only happens when we ask for it and accept it, we are really trying to say that Jesus has not really already suffered the pain that our sins produced. That is the greater insult to the gift of God in the blood of Jesus, that is the real blasphemy. The cross makes the bold statement that no one can ever sin enough or create more guilt and pain than Jesus has already taken upon Himself and experienced in our behalf so that we would not have to experience it. It makes no difference whether the sins are past or future for us, Jesus has already experienced the pain. It makes no difference whether we accept His offer of life or reject it, Jesus has already experienced our pain and paid the price. This is a truth I have never really known before or embraced fully.

In view of this I can see that God's gift in Jesus really is wastefully extravagant, lavish and much more. I am learning this with my head, but I want my heart to come into this realization as well and even surpass what my intellect believes.

God, forgive me for asking You repeatedly to do what You have already done for me. Forgive me for trying to get myself right with You when Jesus has already done that. Remind me to pray, not only for my friends but for those who despitefully use me and speak ill of me. Fill me with Your Spirit of love and intercession and teach me the ministry of reconciliation by Your Spirit. Make me a Minister of the Interior in Your government with Your disposition reflecting out of me. Do this for Your name's sake as You promised me in Eze. 36.

And please God, increase my capacity and willingness to embrace the truth about Your love and Your Atonement for me. Cause me to walk in Your ways by reveling in Your goodness instead of dwelling on my fears and mistakes. Ravish me with Your extravagant love and grace. Make me Your grand experiment. Melt away the walls of ignorance, doubt and lies that keep my heart from plunging with abandon into Your ocean of love. Move into my heart, no, flood into my heart and live there for eternity. I give you full permission to do anything You want with me and in me today. I praise You and thank You and worship You as my Redeemer, my God and my Lover.

Reflections from the Abyss

“Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows. Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven. Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:31-34 NAS95)

This text came to my mind this morning in the context of the experience that I am currently going through. My motives and character and my relationship with Jesus are being presented publicly by certain individuals as being diabolical and calculatingly evil. This, of course, reflects on the reputation of God whose name I have taken and profess to be connected to.

Some people believe that I am afraid to speak the “truth” as they believe it to be, and insist that until I “confess” my “wicked motives” that they have convinced themselves are “the facts” that I am living in a delusion and represent a dangerous threat to society. The problem I face right now is not only the rupture of some very dear relationships in my life but the subtle twists on the true definitions of these words and the open character assassination launched on my reputation. For me to attempt to defend myself against the carefully assembled “evidence” would only serve to appear to vindicate their false conclusions about my motives. I have not denied that I made serious errors in judgment and have made mistakes that have deeply hurt other people. But to supposedly confess that my motives at the time were evil, calculating attempts to exploit them would require that I engage in lies about what I was actually feeling, believing and trying to do at the time. Basically I am being demanded to become the very person I am accused of being in the eyes of my accusers.

I have not wanted to write about this because I do not want to enter into public debate that will only end in much more pain and alienation. God's reputation has already been maligned and familiar accusations of His inability to do in my life what He has promised He can do are flying fast. I have found that my main effective source of life and strength during this excruciating time of my life is what God says about me and His perspective found in the Bible free of distortions of the real enemy. For I realize also that the real enemy is not the people who are presently accusing me but the original “accuser of the brethren” who uses every chance he can to malign God's character through failures in the lives of those in whom He is working to restore His image.

I have made every attempt I know how to do, short of engaging in lying, to confess my faults, ask for forgiveness of wounded parties and seek reconciliation. At this point there appears to be no interest for any reconciliation from the other parties which has created pain in my heart that currently has no healing. It is not primarily my own loss of reputation and misrepresented motives that I grieve but the intense attachment pain that is very much like the death of a close loved one or a divorce.

During this time I have been struggling to know how to relate to this situation and how to think. I have been bombarded with intense suggestions from the enemy to react in all sorts of wrong ways, to indulge in retaliation, bitterness or counter-attack. There is intense temptation to sink into self-pity and despondency or solicit sympathy from others who are not yet swayed by this slander. It is easy to see that the arguments used against me may be reflective of the spirit of the ones employing them. But if I engage in launching a defense for myself I will find myself indulging in the same spirit as my accusers and will fall into the very trap that I am alleged to already be in.

I realize that this is a steep learning and growing experience for me though it is extremely painful. I have chosen to be very open about my mistakes and be vulnerable and honest with those who have confronted me after hearing of this matter. To do anything else would only create further complications that would undermine my already questionable reputation. Many of the things that I have been learning and writing about over the past year are suddenly being challenged to be practiced under extreme pressure. Temptation to indulge in “image management” has been very intense. I had been collecting thoughts in a writing about self-justification for a week or two before this started and suddenly all those things were required to be considered under high pressure. Receiving strength from the Word and remembering my true identity that God is forming within my heart became the focal point of the intense battle swirling around me. The need for true friends who not only know the truth about me but would be willing to challenge, encourage and remind me of not only who I really am but of what God has said about me, became very evident and obviously lacking. The dangers of isolation in a time like this also became more stark as the pain and emotions became overwhelming at times with no one around that I felt safe with to share them. I am being given opportunity to learn many lessons that, if successfully learned, will certainly be called into further use in the future. I was reminded of the text in James that invites me to “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds (complex ones), because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. (James 1:2-5 NIV)

Yesterday and today the readings from My Utmost were very instructive and relevant for me in this crisis. Especially yesterday's thoughts on Peter's experience walking on the water in the middle of a wild storm applied to my situation perfectly. I have come to realize the crucial importance of getting my focus off of problems and accusations and onto Jesus Himself and what He has to think and say.

“The wind was actually boisterous, the waves were actually high, but Peter did not see them at first. He did not reckon with them, he simply recognized his Lord and stepped out in recognition of Him, and walked on the water. Then he began to reckon with the actual things, and down he went instantly.

...If you are recognizing your Lord, you have no business with where He engineers your circumstances. The actual things are, but immediately you look at them you are overwhelmed, you cannot recognize Jesus, and the rebuke comes: 'Wherefore did you doubt?' Let actual circumstances be what they may, keep recognizing Jesus, maintain complete reliance on Him.

If you debate for a second when God has spoken, it is all up. Never begin to say – 'Well, I wonder if He did speak?' Be reckless immediately, fling it all out on Him. You do not know when His voice will come, but whenever the realization of God comes in the faintest way imaginable, recklessly abandon. It is only by abandon that you recognize Him. You will only realize His voice more clearly by recklessness.” (MUHH 6/18)

Today's reading (6/19) reminded me sharply that discipleship is not adherence to a belief or creed but is based on devotion to Jesus Christ. “There is no argument and no compulsion, but simply – 'If you would be My disciple, you must be devoted to Me.' ...If I am devoted to the cause of humanity only, I will soon be exhausted and come to the place where my love will falter; but if I love Jesus Christ personally and passionately, I can serve humanity though men treat me as a doormat. The secret of a disciple's life is devotion to Jesus Christ, and the characteristic of the life is its unobtrusiveness.”

The greatest pressure that I have felt over the past week is to deny my relationship and dependence on Jesus and to abandon my attempts to live from my heart. Because of the subtle nature of the charges leveled against me it has been made to appear that my relationship with God is only a cover for a “depraved cravings seeking to exploit others for personal gratification.” There is no effective defense against such accusations but to leave it in God's hands who is the only one capable of revealing the true motives and intents of the heart.

The text brought to me this morning about confessing Jesus is this very application. To "confess" means to agree with someone. The main focus of this controversy is whether I can be pressured into agreeing with those who are certain they can read my motives and my heart better than either I can or God can, or whether I will agree with what I already know to be true both from my own experience and from what God says about me in His Word and through His Spirit. I have been very surprised at how intense the internal pressure has been from the cacophony of internal suggestions from false gods to compromise away what God has been growing inside of me over the past few years. Basically I am being pressured to discount everything I have been learning and receiving and internalizing from God in exchange for a temporary appeasement which would not even lead to any reconciliation or healing. It doesn't make any sense but the pressure is still there nonetheless.

I want to be very careful not to paint my accusers in a bad light by attacking their reputations and give cause for them to become discouraged when they realize later what they have really done. I love them dearly even though they do not believe that right now and I want them to experience God's love for themselves as I have been learning it slowly over the past few years. I cannot communicate with them at the present because they have cut off all ties with me, but I want to do everything possible to keep the road unblocked for reconciliation whenever God softens the hearts of everyone involved. While I still suffer intense pain at the loss of our close friendship and pray for God to open all of our hearts to the real truth and for us to see things through the eyes and with the Spirit of heaven, I have to leave them in God's hands to work out His plans in His time and with His methods. I know of nothing else I can do that will contribute toward this end and have to trust in the goodness and kindness and faithfulness of God to win our hearts in the end.

While this has been very devastating to my family emotionally, I also believe in the ability of God, “that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28 NIV) God has called all of us for His purpose and He has the wonderful ability to take the most filthy messes and produce the most spectacular outcomes if we are willing to let Him be trusted with control. I choose to trust Him with this problem and receive from Him whatever He wants to do in my life and in my family.

“For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 'who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth;' and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.” (1 Peter 2:21-25 NAS95)

During this past week I have been collecting different texts that come to my mind as reminders of God's thoughts or as warnings, precautions or assurances. As I stopped to listen this morning for another word from God I opened my Bible at random and received this new assurance.

O Lord, be gracious to us; we have waited for You. Be our strength every morning, Our salvation also in the time of distress.

The Lord is exalted, for He dwells on high; He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness. And He will be the stability of your times, A wealth of salvation, wisdom and knowledge; The fear of the Lord is his treasure. (Isaiah 33:2, 5-6 NAS95)

Contrasting Trios in Romans 2

Comparing the opposite trios in Rom. 2:7,8.

Seek for glory, honor and immortality.

Obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation.

Glory – doxa from the base of 1380 (dokeo); glory (as very apparent), in a wide application (literal or figurative, objective or subjective):--dignity, glory(-ious), honour, praise, worship. dokeo, to think; by implication, to seem (truthfully or uncertainly):--be accounted, (of own) please(-ure), be of reputation, seem (good), suppose, think, trow.	Unrighteousness – adikia from 94 (adikos); (legal) injustice (properly, the quality, by implication, the act); morally, wrongfulness (of character, life or act):--iniquity, unjust, unrighteousness, wrong. adikos, unjust; by extension wicked; by implication, treacherous; specially, heathen:--unjust, unrighteous.
Honor – time, tee-may' from 5099 (tino); a value, i.e. money paid, or (concretely and collectively) valuables; by analogy, esteem (especially of the highest degree), or the dignity itself:--honour, precious, price, some. tino, to pay a price, i.e. as a penalty:--be punished with.	Wrath, Indignation – thumos from 2380 (thuo); passion (as if breathing hard):--fierceness, indignation, wrath. thuo, a primary verb; properly, to rush (breathe hard, blow, smoke), i.e. (by implication) to sacrifice (properly, by fire, but genitive case); by extension to immolate (slaughter for any purpose):--kill, (do) sacrifice, slay.
Immortality – aphtharsia from 862 (aphthartos); incorruptibility; genitive, unending existence; (figuratively) genuineness:--immortality, incorruption, sincerity. aphthartos, undecaying (in essence or continuance):--not (in-, un-)corruptible, immortal.	Indignation, Wrath – orge from 3713 (oregomai); properly, desire (as a reaching forth or excitement of the mind), i.e. (by analogy), violent passion (ire, or (justifiable) abhorrence); by implication punishment:--anger, indignation, vengeance, wrath. oregomai, to stretch oneself, i.e. reach out after (long for):--covet after, desire.

These two sets of words stand across from each other in contrast. They are the driving motives of two opposite kinds of people described in this chapter. As I analyzed them in the Greek and followed them deeper to their roots I found some very interesting underlying motives emerging. Look at the highlighted words in the chart realizing that not every word has to contain every nuance of its meaning in every occurrence but these meanings seem to fit well into this context.

(next in series)

Shaped Words

Words and thoughts and feelings can be illustrated by the toys made for babies that are shaped like balls and have various shapes in the surface to put matching shapes inside the ball.

In my imagination of this illustration, the ball is very large and represents the inside of our soul, what we feel, perceive, believe, experience etc. The pieces that fit into the holes are words that we utilize to transfer what is inside of our ball to another person's ball. The holes are the outlets through which we squeeze our thoughts and ideas into a certain form that hopefully will be recognizable and relevant to the other person so that when they take it in through a similarly shaped hole and expand it and reassemble the sequence of words inside their own ball, they will have an approximation of the original thought or feeling we are trying to convey to them.

Our actions are likewise condensed representations of our intents and desires, but for this time I want to focus primarily on words.

In addition to a multitude of shapes, the communication pieces are also coded by color that is supposed to match the shapes. For instance, let's say that blue is supposed to always be associated with circle, green with square and yellow with triangle. This added dimension allows us to have deeper meaning, more definition and usefulness for words so that they will more closely match the meaning and accuracy of the sender. Our language and culture, our upbringing and our experiences largely determine the encoding process that teaches our brain the complex library of definitions and associations necessary for truthful communication.

However, this complex system is nowhere sufficient for really conveying the immense size and complexity of the original thought or feeling to be reproduced accurately as the same thought or feeling in another mind. There is always a certain amount of error in the transfer process and very often much more than we suspect. To further complicate this, the attitudes, disposition, biases and emotions of the receiver add their own strong flavor to the reassembly of the words inside the mind and sometimes seriously undermine the integrity of the message intended by the sender. Considering all the pitfalls and hazards and risks involved that are much more than here touched on, it is really amazing that we can communicate as effectively as we do.

What happens, though, when there is deliberate tampering with the code itself? What about improper or abusive distortion that created a rearranged and confused library that consistently interprets certain messages in a way vastly different than what was sent? We all tend to believe that our own library is more accurate than others because it is all we know. But what happens when we refuse to update our library and our pride demands that our spin on the words coming in is the only correct interpretation? What too, about differing levels of maturity that have an affect on our ability to comprehend concepts or our ability to have a large enough context to not jump to false assumptions?

You can begin to see potential for catastrophic problems when the shapes on one ball are colored with a very different color than on the other ball. The code is mixed up and the message gets hopelessly twisted either in the sender or the receiver. This is a very common occurrence and lies beneath much of our interpersonal conflict and pain. One person sends out a yellow square and the other person takes it in through a green square hole. Who is right? The first person is using improper coding but believes they are right because they have always used yellow for squares – their parents and upbringing conditioned them to do so. They may get very upset when the receiver is confused or seems to misinterpret the intended message and is charged with being devious when in actuality it was the senders faulty coding that created the conflict. Very many of us, if not all of us, need a lot of repainting and refining of our outlets and inlets to better synchronize and bond with each other.

I see the inside of our ball – our mind and heart and soul – as filled with all kinds of material, maybe raw material or partially assembled material of all sorts. These are ideas, many times only partially finished. They are emotions, sometimes like intense gases, that are always impossible to accurately squeeze through the tiny holes of words but containing very great pressure that forces them to seek outlet anyway. They are beliefs that are more substantive and defined but not necessarily as strong as we think they are until a crisis comes to reveal what they are really made of. There are theories and propositions laying around waiting to be assembled, scrapped or rearranged to make more sense before being ready to export.

All of these things are moving around like in a biosphere sometimes very active like storms or sometimes very peaceful like a quiet river. When we want to connect with others and share what is inside, these things head for the inside surface of the ball to find a way out through the means of shaped and colored words to be delivered to the other person. A great deal of condensing has to take place on the way out because words are so small compared to the size of the originals. That is one reason we have to use many words in our attempt to parse our ideas into deliverable format in hopes that the other person will know how to reassemble them all somewhat accurately and maybe have enough of the right context to grasp a little bit of the flavor of what we want them to understand about us.

Because the words are such small parts of the original and have to squeeze through the little coded holes both leaving us and entering the other person, there is always great loss from the original content. In addition, the words are somewhat dehydrated versions that have had much of the “liquid” extracted from them before delivery and the receiver has to “reconstitute” our words, along with all the other communications they are receiving, with their own “liquid” to rehydrate the message to make sense of it. This adds another dimension for confusion and misunderstanding but can also create a lot of variety and flavor for life.

Now add to that the problem so pervasive today of meaningless words. The more a person abuses their words and fails to be transparently truthful, the smaller in value the words become. That means that one necessarily has to use even more words to convey the same message than they could otherwise and so their words continue to have to be multiplied as they become weaker and weaker.

Some of us find ourselves compelled to use more and more expletives in our attempt to express ourselves with less and less satisfaction that we are being heard. Expletives, cursing and vulgarity become an addiction in our attempt to be heard and understood but leave us more and more dissatisfied and frustrated. Similarly, we may become loud or boisterous, angry or whiny or any number of other means to try to get out what is building up so much pressure inside. But the more we abuse our words the smaller and more useless they become to us starving us from the very interaction that we need to bond and thrive and feel satisfaction. These problems are a disease that is like cancer eating away at all of our relationships.

When words are full of meaning and mean exactly what they say and nothing more or less, they are like the toy objects that fit perfectly into the holes on the balls. When they slide through the hole with almost no room to spare there is a certain sense of satisfaction and synchronization that takes place in our minds. However, when the objects shrink smaller and smaller, that sense of satisfaction is lost because the words no longer fit nicely; they just fall through the holes and the whole point of playing the game is lost.

As our ability to communicate is limited by these problems all of the material inside our heads becomes very difficult to share. As a result there is an increase in isolation and loneliness. This is the opposite of joy which is a free-flowing interaction between two minds and hearts that share many common feelings and stimulate each other to more creativity and satisfaction.

Another major problem with words used without meaning is that not only do others come to doubt what we say but we ourselves come to disbelieve at our heart level what we hear ourselves say. As a result, our promises to ourselves and our resolutions to do something or change something become weaker and weaker and we find ourselves slaves to whatever feelings or impulses that may come along. In addition we will find that God does not believe our words either no matter how good they sound or how well they are delivered. We may have the most inspiring praise and worship times together with other people and say the most wonderful and pious-sounding insights, but if in our daily life we use words loosely, carelessly and without integrity then God will not accept anything we offer Him. (see Malachi 2:13-17)

What can we do if we find ourselves slipping into this trap? First we need to recognize what we are doing and have some sense of what it is costing us in strained relationships and pain that we are causing others. Then we need to ask God for a spirit of repentance and turn away from our habits of loose and careless words. As I have become aware of these issues I have begun to analyze some of the things I say and check myself more often to be aware of when I use words with diminished meaning. Since using words at full force means that one can use far less of them, I pick up clues as to where I am in this area when I catch myself having to use far too many words to convey something very simple. If I find that people often don't believe me I wonder what lies behind that problem. Of course, it sometimes is not because I am not telling the truth but is because the other person is not using words carefully and so they also discount much of what everyone else is saying.

What is very interesting is that God never has this problem. When He uses words He fully means what He says and whatever He says is always true. The reason we have such a difficult time believing God is not because He cannot be trusted but because we cannot be trusted and we project that onto other's words.

For two minds to bond in love they have to come to some level of accurate and reliable level of using words with each other or the relationship is undermined. If one person is telling the truth but the other is living in fear and fails to be open and honest then the relationship is fatally flawed. Often the honest person is the one blamed for the resulting problems even though the fearful one originated the cause. Fear and deceit are like termites that eat away at our lives and leave us crumbling while we point the finger at those around us and blame them for all of our pain.

To have healthy, growing relationships that help us mature and thrive we need to practice honesty in our speech and think much more carefully about our own relationship with our words. I believe everyone has some failures in this area but today it is reaching epidemic proportions. God is drawing us back to live in community with other believers in simplicity of speech and openness of heart. This is the only safe environment in which we can thrive and grow.