Ask - Beg!

I don't know exactly how many years I have been reading Oswald's devotional book but this morning I think I got one of his points for the first time. Somehow before it slipped past me. Maybe the context of my life and the experience of people around me caused me to perceive it today.

Ask if you have not Received. There is nothing more difficult than to ask. We will long and desire and crave and suffer, but not until we are at the extreme limit will we ask. A sense of unreality makes us ask. Have you ever asked out of the depths of moral poverty? “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God...,” but be sure that you do lack wisdom. You cannot bring yourself up against Reality when you like. The next best thing to do if you are not spiritually real, is to ask God for the Holy Spirit on the word of Jesus Christ (see Luke 11:13). The Holy Spirit is the One Who makes real in you all that Jesus did for you.

This reminds me of several things that have become high in my attention over the past few years. “A sense of unreality” is something that haunts me on a regular basis and makes me more intense to discover and experience true reality. I have come to realize that nearly all of the atmosphere around me mentally and spiritually is geared to deceiving me and creating a false reality that is then enforced by the arbitrary forms of control and government that we are so familiar with. This is true in society, in church and in families. But the reality in heaven and that the rest of the universe lives in is so much different. That is the real reality that Jesus came to reveal and attract us to when He crashed into our realm of false “reality” to shatter our paradigms and challenge our assumptions.

But because this reality is out of our natural reach, the point is well made that we cannot bring ourselves up against Reality when we like. We cannot repent just whenever we get around to it. It is a gift from God induced by His kindness and we have to act on it, respond to it while we are in its presence and our hearts are conscious of it. It is the function of the Holy Spirit to draw our minds and hearts into this realm of true reality.

“For every one that asketh receiveth.” This does not mean you will not get if you do not ask (cf. Matt. 5:45), but until you get to the point of asking you won't receive from God. To receive means you have come into the relationship of a child of God, and now you perceive with intelligent and moral appreciation and spiritual understanding that these things come from God.

This is the part that I have missed every time before. It suddenly hit me forcefully this time the difference between getting what I ask for in prayer and receiving it. That may seem obvious after it is noted, but I now see there is a world of difference between getting something and receiving it, with lots of implications in all kinds of other areas of my life. I can get lots of things and answers to prayer and problems solved and..., but to receive is much more a spirit, an attitude, a distinct shift in thinking and relationship. To receive is to make a deliberate choice to enter into a submissive, appreciative and bonding relationship with the one I receive from. It puts more of my focus on my attitude toward the giver instead of my focusing on what I am getting. It implies that receiving something draws my attention to the nature and character and the reasons of the one that has a desire for this relationship with me, whereas just getting something from someone often means that I am focused on what I want, what I crave – a selfish orientation of thinking and way of life.

Until I come to the place where I intentionally enter into a spirit of deliberate receiving of what God has for me I will be more interested in asking for what I am focused on, what I think I need, rather than trusting Him to reveal to me and provide for me what would really satisfy and that I may likely know nothing about yet.

This shift in focus I believe is the transition in my relationship with God from an external-oriented, self-focused one to engaging my heart and becoming vulnerable with Him. It is entering more into the life of faith which is a heart-response to One who is worthy of being trusted because of His nature and character, not so much because of my perception of circumstances attributed to or blamed on Him.

“If any of you lack wisdom....” If you realize you are lacking, it is because you have come in contact with spiritual reality; do not put your reasonable blinkers on again. “Ask” means beg. Some people are poor enough to be interested in their poverty, and some of us are like that spiritually. We will never receive if we ask with an end in view; if we ask, not out of our poverty but out of our lust. A pauper does not ask from any other reason than the abject panging condition of his poverty; he is not ashamed to beg. –– Blessed are the paupers in spirit. (MUHH 6/9)

I really like the emphasis he put on “beg”. It is an indication of an intense desire that involves my passion to a level I have never gone before. Passion can be extracted from our hearts in times of extreme desperation. I believe that is why God allows us to get into circumstances that put great pressure on us, not to hurt us though it feels very painful, but to get us in touch with our real heart and to awaken the passion that He implanted in there originally. Passion is heart-stuff and I believe God is primarily heart-oriented. This is often very foreign and frightening to us because we relate religion mostly to head knowledge and external performance. But until I allow my heart to awaken and become aflame with a passion to know God intimately and live in His presence, I will continue to feel dissatisfied and hungry and all the other symptoms of a starving heart.

When I come into the awareness of my desperate need and poverty of spirit, and give up on my own resources and solutions and fixes; when I find myself in the condition of the people described in Jesus' Blessings on the Mount in Matthew 5. Then I can enter into reality, I can beg unashamedly and I can enter into the attitude of a receiver which is really the attitude of a lover.

I like the warning that Chambers gives here, ”do not put your reasonable blinkers on again.” I am so in the habit of my old mindset that I must be cautious about falling back into old patterns of relating. When my passion for God makes me squirm with embarrassment about what people will think about me, or my failures cause me to doubt the reality or effectiveness of God's work in me, I must remember to ask God who I really am, to receive His answer in my soul and then live in that context. I cannot trust in my old rules of reason that set off flashing blinkers of warning against my new ways of thinking or lifestyle. I have to keep my mind and heart free of the lies that sabotage what God is doing in me and trust Him to protect and guide me through the confusion and imbalance that I feel during this time of transition.

God, teach me more how to live from my heart and to live in the attitude of a real receiver. This is a real weak area of my character, but you are faithful and will finish what you have started in my life. Thank-you so much for your kindness, your tolerance and your patience with me. Show me today how to live and seek glory, honor and genuine reality in your presence.

Stubbornness

Rom. 2:5. What lies at the root of this stubbornness and unrepentance? I see some clues in the context as well as its counterpart described in verse 7. It is important for me to find out because this chapter too aptly describes my condition. So if I want to get out of this position I need to understand what it is I am trying to escape and what the true and healthy condition looks like. I am looking at the surrounding verses to see what is being resisted, which is really what stubbornness is composed of.

I see resistance in thinking lightly of “the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience.”

I see a real problem in “not knowing the kindness of God.” Not knowing this – really knowing and believing it – prevents me from laying down my resistance to Him and enjoying repentance.

I may be stubborn in resisting what Paul has pointed out about having the same problems that I condemn or criticize others for. Or if I grudgingly admit them, I may think that God will overlook it in me while wanting Him to “judge” them (v. 1-3).

I may be stubborn in ways that are similar to the root causes of the problems described in chapter 1 but with different visible fruit than what is described there. I certainly often discover selfish ambition that creeps into much of what I do. I am embarrassed to detect it, even sometimes in my desire to share my thoughts and feelings in this format. It may not be my dominant motive, but my motives for so many things are so often mixed with at least a little bit of selfishness. And to refuse to acknowledge that, at least to myself and to God, is to remain in stubbornness.

Stubbornness may show up if I insist on believing lies about God after I have seen His beauty and the truth about Him. This shows up in verse 8 where “wrath and indignation” are often characteristics attributed to God and by extension exhibited in me. But this produces instability in my life according to James 1:8. I cannot believe opposite things about God at the same time and expect to live a life of faith.

A spirit of stubbornness is revealed when sometimes I do not listen to my conscience even though I claim to be a Christ-follower. I am then exposed as a fraud by “unbelievers” who are more conscientious than I am and display a better spirit, but I remain stubborn in self-defensiveness and pride.

I can entertain stubbornness by not living from my heart while relying on my outward performance, my knowledge of religion and boasting in my connection to God and His people (v.17). My confidence in my ability to be a guide to others, a light to the darkened, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature and in having a knowledge of the truth can be tainted with stubbornness (v. 19,20). Those things are not necessarily bad – they are in fact very important. But they do not preclude the liability of hidden pride and stubbornness preventing me from entering into the intimacy and joy of a resistance-free, open-hearted relationship with God.

What is stubbornness a counterfeit of? I believe it may be found in verse 7 – perseverance. Perseverance for the right things is a very essential ingredient for any healthy relationship. Perseverance pushes past resistance, fear, misunderstandings and even pain. Perseverance is one of the driving forces of true love. (Maybe stubbornness is perseverance stripped of real love for others and replaced with selfishness.)

Verse 7 reveals what needs to be pursued with perseverance: glory, honor and immortality. Verse 10 shows the results of this pursuit; they will experience glory, honor and peace. I want that in my experience.

God, replace my stubbornness with joyful perseverance today. Make these thoughts not just nice-sounding words of advice but cause my heart to absorb them, experience them and reflect them in my attitudes and responses today. I do not want to store up wrath for myself by my stubbornness, but I choose to pursue real glory, real honor and seek You – the only One who is immortal. Fill me with Your presence and Your peace today and make my life a blessing to others and an honor for Your reputation. Continue Your experiment of grace in my life today.

(next in series)

Practice Time

Well I certainly don't plan these kinds of experiences but I'm not surprised that God sends them along when they happen. After spending the time thinking through the issues about will power, confessing the truth about our real identity and the effects and uses of negative thinking over the past couple days, I found myself right in the middle of a practice session facing the choice of whether or not I was willing to actually put into practice what I have been putting in print. It is always much easier to profess things and talk about them than it is to actualize them while in a bad mood.

And a bad mood was what I was in for sure. It came on gradually over about an hour or so as I struggled to get a lawn mower to work among other frustrations and irritations. Then as I began to mow my daughter's lawn my mind went to the situation last time it got mowed and I plunged into an avalanche of negative emotions mixed with bitterness, rebellion and anger. It was all very familiar and this time I sort of observed myself objectively while the emotions and thoughts swirled around in my mind. I even thought about how I would document it once it was over but that seemed pretty crass at the time. I knew I had much more important issues to deal with at the heart level and I didn't need my mind busy taking notes for another post.

As I pushed the mower around the yard I began to indulge in accelerating scenarios of revenge that were fast spiraling into pretty nasty scenes in my mind. As I realized that I was just as responsible for these imaginings as if I had really carried them out and my sense of conviction began to equal my sense of injustice and anger and I had to decide if I was going to continue to indulge my lower passions or whether I would ask God to lift me out of this familiar cycle of self-pity and rebellion. Being reminded of the things I had written only very shortly before and remembering the warm intimacy that I had felt with God earlier that morning, I decided to respond to the kindness of God and choose repentance, whatever that would involve.

My feelings were not in any mood for that however, and I had to make some strong choices one by one to step away from them and deliberately ask God to take me to the next step. I remembered writing about confessing the truth about my true identity when in this kind of situation and tried to imagine what that meant in the current moment. I decided to give it a try. If it doesn't work for me then it is totally hypocritical to write about it for others to read and try.

Now I suppose I should put in a parenthetical note for someone wondering what in the world would get me so upset about just mowing a lawn. Well, mowing the lawn was not the upsetting part at all for me. It was doing it under threat and duress that was irritating me so much, and that was not coming from my daughter but from the city who had imposed their sovereign will on this property a couple weeks ago and sent someone to mow the yard without our knowledge or permission. Of course they charged us for the “service” and then slapped a large fine on top of that. Anyone who knows me personally will know that that kind of treatment is one of the most effective ways to trip my triggers that can be done. I will not go into much background on this but just leave it there for a little context.

Anyway, as my emotions had quickly elevated to a pretty intense state I realized that I was again at a moment of opportunity or crisis – that depending on what I made of it. If I sidestepped the opportunity to grow I would be back groveling in my old habits and regrets and have to come back to meet this again. If I faced it I would be entering into new territory and I didn't know where that would take me or what it would look like. I just had to take one little step at a time and ask God to carry me to the next step.

So I am supposed to declare my true identity. What does that mean, really? I am to say the opposite of what I am feeling and thinking right now even though it doesn't sound or feel true at all. But I can enlist my heart to embrace it anyway, so I give it a try. “I am a forgiving person, a child of God full of love and kindness.”

That didn't feel very genuine but I stuck with it and kept pressing on, asking for more of God's Spirit to keep me at it and push back against all of my anger and evil desires toward the “authorities” who had gotten me so riled up before. I began to realize that I was not just feeling hatred toward them but according to Jesus' words I had murder in my heart. I had to take ownership of this truth and admit it to God and to myself before I could be free of it. I then remembered what I had learned and shared about starting out our prayers in the negative to engage the heart before I could move into the positive. “So that's it, Lord! You are giving me a practice session to see if I am willing to be serious about what I have been writing lately, aren't you? Well I don't like it very much, but I am sure I need it anyway.”

I confessed my negative emotions and feelings to God and continued to intentionally focus on what God wanted me to say about myself and about Him. As I began to thank Him for His positive characteristics and claim them for myself through His grace something began to stir inside of me that was very unfamiliar. I began to feel a little momentum that quickly increased in speed and intensity as I continued to inwardly proclaim the truth about the heart Jesus had given me.

The more I asserted these truths the more they came alive and my anger and bitterness began to melt away like cold frost before a hot wind. The passion of God began to fill my soul and I found myself almost in tears with repentance and joy and wonder at what was taking place. It was not me doing it so much as following the lead of the Spirit and reaping the results in my spirit. I continued to choose to thank God and put away my resentment and more and more my mind began to clear and my spirit began to soften. It was nothing short of a miracle – it was new ground for me and almost felt like walking on water. I had to keep my focus on God or I felt I would easily sink back into my old thoughts and viewpoint.

Halfway through the yard I began wondering when the gas would run out. It only had at best a half a tank when I started and I was sure it would run out before I was finished. I did not have any more gas and would have to go find a can and buy some gas if it ran out. Then I began to wonder if God was stretching the gas just to surprise me and bless me. As the mower continued to run and run I then began to wonder if it would run out just as I finished. I had an ongoing dialog with God as I moved from one part of the lawn to another. It dawned on me that this was much better than the bitter recriminations and unsatisfying scenarios that I had started out with. In fact, I was experiencing for myself the process I had recently wrote about by starting out with negative dialog with God and ending up in praise and gratitude for what He was doing inside of me.

As I finished the yard I couldn't help but look inside the tank to see how much was left. The thought came to my mind that the reason I had not run out even when I was finished was because God not only provides for my needs but is a generous God as well. It is just like Him to do things like that especially when I respond to His promptings and allow Him fuller access into my “space”.

I will give praise to the Lord for his righteousness; I will make a song to the name of the Lord Most High. (Psalms 7:17 BBE)

Almighty Will

Today's reading in My Utmost gave me some more insight into something that has stymied me for a long time. In trying to encourage loved ones who are struggling to exercise faith but often only feel doubt and anger toward God, I have wondered what this seemingly insurmountable obstacle was that prevented them from letting go and allowing God to love them more fully. Of course I struggle with the same thing sometimes myself. I knew that it had something to do with the “will”, but sometimes we seem almost incapable of using our will effectively because we cannot figure out what to use it for.

Oswald Chambers makes the bold and startling statement that “the will always agrees with God.” He states that the internal part that renders you powerless is “in your flesh”. But when you look to Jesus you “will find that your will and your conscience are in agreement with Him every time. The thing in you which makes you say 'I shan't' is something less profound than your will; it is perversity, or obstinacy, and they are never in agreement with God. The profound thing in man is his will, not sin. Will is the essential element in God's creation of man: sin is a perverse disposition which entered into man.”

What I began to see here reminds me of what I have been learning about false gods and their hijacking of my identity. When I hear myself saying either internally or externally that “I can't” believe or I can't have faith or anything like that, it is not my real identity, my real heart that is saying that but it is the false gods inside of me masquerading as me and my will. But if what Chambers is saying is correct, then if I am a Christ-follower my will and conscience are both in agreement with Him and will not be going around saying “I can't believe what God says”, because Christ would never say that. Therefore I must conclude like Paul, that it is not really me thinking and feeling those things but “sin that dwells in me” (Romans 7:17).

What I am starting to sense more clearly is that much of our problem is that we are not recognizing and separating our true identity from the false identities that live inside of us and that we have thought all of our lives were really us. They are so much a part of our thinking, feeling and decision-making that we are convinced that they (the false gods) are really who we are and we are helpless to change. What we are actually trying to do, however, is to convince the voices inside of us to change which is an absolute impossibility! But the gospel emphatically proclaims that we are in reality not who we think we are much of the time, but are a new creation with lofty motives and filled with the righteousness of God. Both our will and our conscience are on God's side and deep within our heart we want to be, and attempt to be like God.

So why is our will so powerless? Chambers goes on to give us some excellent insights.

“In a regenerated man the source of will is almighty. 'For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.' You have to work out with concentration and care what God works in; not work your own salvation, but work it out, while you base resolutely in unshaken faith on the complete and perfect Redemption of the Lord. As you do this, you do not bring an opposed will to God's will, God's will is your will, and the life is as natural as breathing. God is the source of your will, therefore you are able to work out His will. Obstinacy is an unintelligent 'wadge' that refuses to be enlightened; the only thing is for it to be blown up with dynamite, and the dynamite is obedience to the Holy Spirit.

“Do I believe that Almighty God is the source of my will? God not only expects me to do His will, but He is in me to do it.” (MUHH 6/6)

So what is the difference between a powerless will and an Almighty will? It seems to be where we focus our attention. When we dwell on our powerlessness we are parroting what the inner lying spirits are telling us about ourselves and stay enchained in their prison of lies about who we really are. But when we challenge their claims to be us vicariously and choose to obey the Holy Spirit by claiming our real identity in spite of any or all of our feelings, our will suddenly becomes empowered to burst out of the prison of doubting castle and the incarnated Christ can come alive and express Himself from within our souls. We can then realize and experience a new “self” that may be, up to this point, completely unfamiliar to us.

Some feel at this point that this is an act of hypocrisy. “How can I claim to be something I am not?” they say. In a way it is hypocrisy – but not for the real you. It is hypocrisy for the false gods inside of you pretending to be you. Remember, Chambers said that “perversity, or obstinacy... are never in agreement with God” and “refuses to be enlightened.” If we wait until we feel like we are saved and sanctified before we believe it, it will never happen because our feelings have been hijacked and are manipulated by false gods who will never change their minds about who we are. To obey the Holy Spirit means to choose to believe what God says about us and continue to choose as well as to speak it out, declare it, confess it and continually remind ourself of it until and including after we begin to see the results of it externally. We cannot relax from this vigilance until we are safe in heaven and the false gods have been eradicated from our souls.

I say these things, not because I want others to believe them, though I certainly do, but because I need very much to internalize them and practice them myself most of all. In saying them publicly I also open myself up to the accountability of others reminding me of these things when I forget.

Thank-you God for bringing this profound truth to my attention today. Keep me under conviction of my need to confess the truth about myself, my real self that You have created me to be. Yes, I must also acknowledge my real condition and the sin that dwells in me causing me to doubt and believe lies about You and what You have done in me. But remind me that these lies do not originate from the heart you have given me but from the enemy of my soul attempting to abort your work in me. Help me to speak faith, to act in faith and to believe in Your faithfulness. I trust in Your never-ending lovingkindness and Your intense feelings of tenderness when You think of me. Show me Your face and especially Your eyes, for it is there that I find grace and strength and see my true identity.

Good Negative Prayers?

I am thinking that we often begin our prayers to God by expressing the negative feelings of our heart, not so much because they are the best prayers or that God needs to answer them (whatever that might mean) but because it is our way of transitioning from our head to our heart. Effective prayers must come from our heart. Intellectualized prayers are not of much use to man or God, though our churches and lives are filled with them. But what God is most interested in and responds to are prayers that come from deep within our soul. The deeper we are into our heart, the more in touch we are with our real selves when we pray, the easier it is for us to really connect to God and for Him to respond to us.

I was thinking today about what I wrote in my last post about negativity and this idea of negative praying came to my mind. I jotted down the thought some time ago that when we pray our fears we may be worshiping them by reinforcing them instead of God's words about us. But many of the Psalms are quite negative and sometimes even violently so. Was David wrong in penning all this negativity? Or is there something more I need to look at here?

As I thought more about it I realized the importance of praying from the heart and how that often may need to start by learning to be transparently honest about what we are feeling. That very often means telling God how bad we feel or how angry we are or how unfair our situation seems right now. This is very much like many of David's psalms and is our way of getting into our heart instead of just our head initially.

The problem comes, I believe, when we get in the habit of staying there in our negative thoughts and not moving past that to get into God's perspective. While it is very important for us to go into our heart for more effective praying, it is equally important to pay attention to the messages we are giving our heart while still in that “state of mind”. When we fail to move on into the arena of faith and accept the offer of the Spirit to see things from God's perspective, we may then find ourselves reinforcing our negative thought patterns and then planting seeds of darkness that will take root and bear like fruit again. Instead, after expressing our perspective and going into our heart by honest expressions of our emotions, we should then listen and also express God's thoughts and feelings about the situation. When we do that we may find ourselves, like David, more often ending up our prayers as praise sessions and celebrations of God's goodness, faithfulness and lovingkindness instead of limping "help me" prayers.

Maybe that is one reason why reading the Psalms is so effective for overcoming depression and discouragement, because they force us not only to express our anger and frustrations openly but to also take into account God's point of view and begin speaking words of hope and confidence to our heart while it is still wide open before God.

So I believe there is a place for expressing our negative feelings, particularly when talking directly to God in private, personal communion with Him. It is an effective way to allow our heart to be heard and feel safe to be more open and vulnerable as we realize that God is interested and willing to listen to our side of the story. This is true in our relationships and conversations with each other. When we take the time to really listen to someone and acknowledge their feelings or frustrations they are then often much more willing to listen to us as we share our thoughts and suggestions with them. But from the other side, it is important to not short-circuit the relationship by cutting off the discussion before giving the other person a chance to respond after unloading on them when we need to vent.

The same is true when we talk with God. He is certainly big enough and not threatened in the least by any of our venting or outbursts. But we need to equally give Him a chance to bring in His healing and give us the change of vision and heart that will bring us the peace that we so desperately need. This kind of two-directional praying will allow our hearts to grow and thrive and increase our rate of maturing.

This is not to say that all of our prayers need to start out negatively. The key I believe is more about being honest about what is in our heart at the moment than what it is we say. It is just as true that when we are feeling joyful, excited, filled with awe or any other number of human emotions that we should express these spontaneously to God as well. God wants intimacy with us and that means sharing everything with Him in full honesty and transparency. Getting there is the process of Christian growth that we are all going through and the goal is to move up the levels of maturity so that we can not only be closer to God but can be used by Him to nurture and care for the hearts of others who are less able to sense His presence or even trust Him yet.

Am I just trying to justify hanging on to excuses for negative thinking? Or is this something that God accepts or even encourages as part of our growing process? What do you think?