Understanding God

Yes.  I know that there is no way that anyone can fully understand God.  

That being said, I believe that we can progressively understand Him, what He's all about, how He thinks (albeit in a very limited way since we are finite and He is infinite), what is important to Him, and how He feels.  

We do that by spending time with Him.  Traditionally that happens through prayer and through reading and studying the Bible, and meditating on its truths throughout the day.  

Easy to say.  Not so easy to do sometimes.  It kind of goes with the territory because - after all - God is "inscrutable."  That means that He can't be "figured out."  He's too vast for that: eternal, unchangeable, unattainable. Yet He invites us - through the Way Jesus opened for us on the cross and by His resurrection - to "know" Him.  So what does prayer, Bible-reading, and meditation look like?  Everyone has his or her own slant on things; there is no one "right" way because God has made each of us different, and is Himself a God of endless variety.  I can only speak to what I have experienced. 

I like to think of prayer, not as a formal exercise or a preset, prescribed formula of certain words said in a certain order in a certain place, but as more of an organic function.  For me, prayer is much like breathing.  In with the good air, out with the bad.  Breathe in, breathe out.  Repeat continuously.  The presence of God is everywhere - Jesus promised that He is with us always - and therefore we can inhale His presence (so to speak) and exhale the impurities that accumulate in our lives just by virtue of being human. We can't just do this once and mark it off our spiritual checklist; it's something that has to be regular, cyclical, alive.  There is no way we can survive without air and there is no way we can survive spiritually without a regular, conscious infilling of the goodness, the love, and the purity of God - which will gradually rid us of selfishness, bitterness, resentment, and hypocrisy.   Prayer is a way to bring our needs and desires, our loves and concerns for others, and most importantly our appreciation for Him and for His love, to touch the divine heartbeat and transform us from the inside out.  

The more we realize how deeply God loves us, the more we'll want to know what is important to Him so that we can do what pleases Him.  Most folks do that by reading the Bible.  Many people read the Bible as an intellectual exercise.  They learn things and amass knowledge.  I did that for many years as a believer.  There is nothing wrong with knowing more ABOUT God, ABOUT the history of His people, ABOUT the Bible.  Such things will come back to us when we need them.  But doing it to impress Him or get credits or ammunition to use in prayer is missing the point.  And sometimes, let's face it, the Bible is hard (if not impossible) to understand.  The mysteries are always unfolding.

What a nice photo, from this site

I've used many tools in studying the Word of God.  Among them have been Strong's Concordance (which gives the Hebrew and Greek meanings for words, enhancing and enriching my appreciation of the truths I discover), Harry A. Ironside's commentaries, and various translations of the Bible (such as the Greek New Testament, or Young's Literal Translation, or the New Living Translation) to shed more light on a particular passage. These are great tools, but I don't rely solely on them.  By far the very best tool I've found has been a simple, direct request, before I read, for God to illuminate His Word to me, to teach me what I need to know FOR THAT MOMENT, and to bring it to my mind again and again.  I can't count the times that I've been surprised by what He shows me, things that speak to my heart instead of just stimulating my intelligence. Things that hit me where I live, principles that I can use in my every day living.  And stories or poems that speak His love into me, show me that He understands me and that He remembers that I'm just human, that He loves me just as I am.  I need that.  SO much!

It's these things that come back to me as I meditate.  The Hebrew word translated "meditate" comes from the same word as the word "ruminate."  It's what a cow or a sheep does after it has eaten its fill.  It lies down and chews the cud... which is food the animal has already taken in but which needs further digestion.  It requires (1) quiet and (2) nourishment having already been ingested. The animal "brings it up" again and allows it to be better absorbed into the body.  Applying that to meditation, this means that I need to set aside time to be quiet before God and to think about what He is teaching me.  I compare it to "thinking God's thoughts" with Him.  If my own thoughts are mixed in there - if they intrude - I pay attention to them and bring them to Him... breathe spiritually: pray.  Eventually, my heart falls into step with His thoughts (as they apply to my life) and the unnecessary concerns and cares seem to slip away from me, not seem quite as important, or at the very least, they are put into a larger perspective.  

I don't always make the time to pray, read the Word and meditate.  I just don't.  I can always find excuses for not doing it, for not spending time connecting with God. Usually though, it's because there's a part of me that I want to hide from Him (or from myself).  Or I'm "coasting" - resting on my laurels: a dangerous occupation because they are so flimsy!  All I know is that when I DO make the time to spend with Him, whether I'm looking for it or for whatever reason, He finds a way to show me in ways that would only matter to me, that He is delighted with my company, and that He cares about the little things as well as the big things.  And I experience more "God-moments" - and am more aware of His presence with me.

I know I'll never fully understand God.  I'll never fully "know" Him. He's unfathomable.  I like how the French put it, though.  They have two verbs for "to know" - one is savoir - which means to know something completely (like a fact, or how to do something).  And the other one is the verb connaître - literally (from the root Latin) it means to 'be born alongside' and they use it to talk about getting to know a person - progressively becoming familiar with him or her.  In the French mind-set, one can never fully know another person; there is always some hidden part, some unknown thing or aspect of that person that can never be discovered by another human being.  So when they talk about "knowing God," they use connaître. Getting to know Him. 


That's what I'm talking about!  And we have the wonderful promise, "You will seek Me, and you will find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart." (Jer. 29:13)

Denial isn't just a river in Egypt

As much as I talk about being real and genuine, I am continually amazed at how quickly I can slip into a mind-set that minimizes situations and cleverly hides them or disguises them so that I won't recognize them for what they are.

It's called denial.  

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Like this last week.  I had a scratchy throat last Saturday and thought, "Oh, it's nothing.  I'll get over it."  Sunday morning - I still hadn't gotten over it.  Six hours of singing later, I was worse - the throat was SORE.  "It was all that singing," I told myself.  Still I struggled with it for two more days before finally giving in and taking a sick day from work... looking after myself helped, but the cough was getting worse and let's not talk about the phlegm.  Very annoying.  Still, I chalked it up to irritation and having to talk a lot on Monday after singing so much on Sunday.  I just didn't want it to be viral.  Or an infection. My wishing that it wasn't viral didn't make it not viral.  Duh.

It wasn't until my husband woke up this morning with the same symptoms I had several days ago that I finally admitted it.  I had gotten a case of the common cold.  Oh drat.  I hate being sick.  And that was precisely why I was running from the idea.  It didn't make me any less sick - and I probably spread my germs to more people: friends, co-workers ... as a result.  And now HE's sick.  Which is a bummer because when he gets sick, he gets SICK.  No whiney "man-cold" (you know, oh honey I'm sick, could you get me this or that) for him; he likes being totally alone when he's ill, suffers in silence and bears watching as a result. After all, he's a pneumonia survivor, so when he gets a cold, I go into that eagle-eye surveillance mode in case the congestion gets into the bronchia. If it does, then it's off to the doctor for a heavy dosing of antibiotic.  

But I digress.  Denial of what's really happening can be dangerous not only in the physical realm but also in the emotional one.  I've actually seen angry people try to tell me they're not angry while they're shouting at me.  (I've also tried that trick a time or a hundred, with others, with myself, and even with God!)  It doesn't work; it just gets pushed down underground and re-surfaces in another way - either against another person who has done nothing wrong, or perhaps the body attacks itself and the person becomes sick.  Modern researchers tell us that emotions are not bad in themselves but if they are suppressed - shoved down and not allowed to be acknowledged or expressed - they can cause anything from high blood pressure to stomach ulcers to cancer. 

Unpleasant emotions aren't bad. They just ARE.  They are designed to alert us to what is going on inside, where we think and relate to ourselves, to God, and to others.  So being honest and admitting the anger (or whatever the unpleasant emotion is) goes a long way toward helping us deal with it.  Once admitted, the next question becomes, "Why?"  

Why is a great question, contrary to what some folks think. Curiosity is to be commended, not squashed!  Another way I ask myself the 'why question' is this: "Where is this coming from?" and I refuse to give myself a pat answer like, "the devil." (Oh please. he gets a lot of blame for stuff that is the result of our own choices...) I have to sit with it and really look at it - remember when I've felt this way before and try to make a connection.  There usually is one for me - a deeper connection that stems from how I relate to God, to myself, or to others. 

Exploring that connection can lead me to a better understanding of my place in the world and in relationship with the people in it, including myself.  Instead of living in denial, I can live in reality, in truth, and in happiness.

Sing anyway

Last Sunday I was scheduled to sing on worship team for both the morning and evening services.

I love singing; music (and especially worship music) is indistinguishable from who I am in many respects.  I love to sing; I live to sing.  It is a vehicle I can use to worship freely.  

But last Sunday I had a scratchy throat. I'd been fighting it for a couple of days, nothing serious, it was just there.  I wondered - briefly - whether I should go and sing on the worship team.  That was quickly shoved aside by my desire to blend in harmony with my team members as we lifted our voices to God.  Few things in this life give me any more pleasure than that.  

Out of the nine hours that we spent in church that day, we were singing (including practices and the services) for six hours.  Along about hour five, my throat was getting more and more raspy, more hoarse.  I wondered whether to hold back.  

"Sing anyway."  The direction came from deep within, not so much a voice as a nudge.  

I closed my eyes, dug deep, and sang. The pastor invited people to the altar.  They came, they prayed, they were prayed for.  God's presence was just gently...there. The discomfort was forgotten in the beauty of the moment.

Afterward, my throat was sore - but I considered the discomfort to be worth it.  

It has taken a few days for me to recover from that marathon session, and I'm still not able to talk for very long without coughing, but I still think it was worth it.  

There's a song the Carpenters sang in the 1970s called "Sing" - and the lyrics are running through my mind today.  They are so simple and so profound:

Sing, sing a song, 
Sing out loud, sing out strong.
Sing of good things, not bad; 
Sing of happy, not sad.
Sing.  Sing a song.
Make it simple 
    to last your whole life long.
Don't worry that it's not good enough 
    for anyone else to hear.
Just sing.  Sing a song.

Sing. Sing a song.  
Let the world sing along!
Sing of love there could be; 
Sing for you and for me.
Sing; sing a song, 
Make it simple 
    to last your whole life long.
Don't worry that it's not good enough 
   for anyone else to hear.
Just sing.  Sing a song.   
Just sing.  Sing a song. 

Whatever else is happening in my life, if I can just sing anyway, even if the song IS sad at first - I know He will touch it, redeem it, and remind me that He is always there.  Always.  

So I sing.  I sing anyway.  Join me.

Squirm

Ever been "called" on something?  You know, when you've clearly done something wrong or at the very least, inappropriate or disrespectful? 

I was - today - by someone whose opinion I value.  OUCH.  I found myself trying to get this person to see my side, but the error was clear.  Eventually I had to agree that I had goofed royally.

This happens to me with annoying regularity.  I hate it when it does.  But I need to face the consequences of my actions.  Every time.

Whether we mean to do something or not, being called on something is never an easy experience.  What causes the most distress is that we don't like to admit that we were wrong, that what we did caused someone else embarrassment or pain.  We try to justify ourselves.

We squirm.

Site where you can find this pic

That's what Christians call "the flesh."  It's that part of us that goes all the way back to Adam.  Hiding in the bushes.  When caught, divert, blame, ... writhe in discomfort when the truth comes out.  Sometimes I wonder if we'd be in the mess we're in if Adam had just owned up to his rebellion - if Eve had just accepted responsibility for her part in the fiasco in the garden. 

Squirming has been hard-wired into our psyches ever since.  "Yeah but you see" comes out long before "Yeah I get it."   "Yeah but you see" comes with eyes averted, excuses, self-delusion.  "Yeah, I get it" allows us to accept responsibility, reduces stress, and lets us look the one we've injured - or our accuser - in the eye.

Admitting we were in the wrong is so much harder than we ever anticipated. But it is the only way to restoration.  

It opens the door to learning, to growth.  Hiding the truth from others, from ourselves, keeps us from learning from our mistakes because we balk at admitting we have made any.  Owning up to our faults, embracing our part in a hurtful situation, these things help us to develop and do better the next time. 

And there will be a next time.  That much I do know. 

As little children

Lately the kids in our church have been really shining.  They have surpassed the adults in their passion, their power, their prayer life, their preaching and their potential.  Still, some folk tend to condescend to them, patronize them and diminish their contribution because they are children.  

Yet children are our best teachers of life lessons, of our spiritual relationship with God.  Let me show you.

A small child gets hurt.  Perhaps not physically, but emotionally.  Someone is mean to him or her.  Feelings are extremely breakable - and the child has all the normal reactions of wanting to lash out, wanting to retaliate.  When the parent arrives on the scene, the one who was most deeply hurt inside may hold up his or her arms to the parent, and say, "Uppie."  Talk about melting someone's heart!  But the child understands something the parent might not.  This little one understands that the presence of the parent is enough to salve the tattered, bruised self inside and repair the confidence and trust that has been stolen from him or her. 

And the presence of God does that for us as well.  Perhaps we'd get a little further if we just held up our hands to our Father and said, "Uppie." No requests, no agenda, just being "with." Because "with" heals. 

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A small girl tries very hard to do something and the more she tries, the more frustrating it gets. Let's say it's tying her shoes. Wanting to be grown up and being grown up are two very different things.  Finally, she takes the shoes to the father and says simply, "Daddy do."  She submits to him putting them on the RIGHT feet ... and lets him do what she has asked.  Deftly, he ties the shoes and double-knots them so they won't come undone.  The little girl runs off to play wearing a big thank-you smile.  

If we'd just let God do what is impossible for us (no matter how hard or how many times we've tried we still fail because we don't have the power in ourselves to live that abundant life) - take it all to Him and trust Him to do what's best  (in essence, saying to Him - "Daddy do...") how much better our Christian life would be!  

The above stories are typical ones that could happen to anyone.  Here's one that actually happened one day several years ago.  A mom was driving her little girl from playschool back home.  Almost every night for the previous two weeks, the bedtime story time had included a short story about the life of Jesus and His death and resurrection.  

Suddenly the mom heard her daughter say over and over again a line from the story, "One day Jesus died, and His friends were very sad."  As she listened, she realized that her little girl was actually meditating on the death of Jesus...feeling the sadness the disciples felt.  Meditating simply means to mull over, to fully appreciate, to chew on and digest.  She'd read about it, had even taught others this was what it meant.  This kid was really doing it!

How often had the mom done it? how grateful had she been for the sacrifice Jesus made that history-changing day?? not very!! That little girl taught her to never forget the terrible price that was paid so she could be free. To think about it often.  To remember how deeply she was loved.

Before we condescend, before we minimize what our children are saying, perhaps we'd better sit at their feet and let them teach us.  After all, Jesus Himself took a small child, and sat him in the midst of the crowd and said, "...the kingdom of heaven belongs to people like this." 

How to really love your neighbor

"Love thy neighbor," quips the old T-shirt, "but don't get caught."

We may find this amusing - or scandalous - but the kernel of truth in this is that a lot of people think that expressions of love are this great taboo.

I've heard so many sermons on love, how God is love, what the attributes of love are, the fact that we are called to love, that we should love everyone and pay special attention to loving our brothers and sisters in Christ (more about that in another post).  But nowhere have I heard any sermon on HOW to love. You know, the kind of love where the person you love KNOWS you love him or her.  And I don't mean romantic love or erotic love - I mean a fellowship of spirits, where each can be him or her self and feel safe in the other's presence.

There was a Christian doctor who wrote a book called How To Really Love Your Child - followed by the sequel, How To Really Love Your Teenager (Dr. Ross Campbell, ©1977 and ©1981) and I remember reading those books and thinking how the techniques he talked about could apply not just to children and teens but everyone we claim to love unconditionally - and that only a heaping dose of God's presence could ever give us the power to do it.

Because let's face it - as much as we want to love unconditionally, we just can't do that in a sustained manner in our own strength.  We are human, after all.  But God can give us that love for people, because He loved us first.  Because He IS love. 

It's not an original idea, but I keep telling anyone who will listen that we absolutely CANNOT give away what we don't have.  Trying to love someone will never work, no matter how much we think (or are told that) we "should."  Unconditional love, explains Dr. Campbell, works on a 'tank' principle, much like a gasoline tank in your car, except with emotions.  If a person's emotional tank is full, he or she is able to act in an appropriate and responsible way toward other people.  But if it's running on empty, that's when mistakes are made, and problems can start and can get out of hand. 

I would add that God IS unconditional love; it has its source in Him.  Paying attention to deepening our relationship with God is the first step in the process of loving others: it starts with letting Him love us, and trusting that love. I only say that because I've heard so many people skip over that crucial part and then wonder why "it" doesn't work for them. When our own tanks are full from God's inexhaustible reservoir, we have something to give to others, without becoming depleted ourselves. Filling someone else's tank out of a place of abundance is one of the most remarkable experiences there is.  I've used that one principle of "filling the tank" time and time again with my children, with amazing results.  It works - and it's awesome. 

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Sometimes, though, there's a disconnect between actually loving someone from that fulness, and being able to express that love in a way that the other person can understand and access.  In essence, there's lots of love in the tank but the gas line is plugged. This is where the rubber meets the road - where we get to participate in God's plan.

Dr. Campbell also talked about that at length in his books and suggested a three-pronged approach to communicating love (in a nutshell: eye contact, physical contact, and positive focused attention).  This idea is very similar to a book that Dr. Gary Chapman wrote some thirty years ago, describing five love languages.  Learning what primary love-language the other person speaks can go a long way to knowing how to communicate the love that we have for that person in a way that he or she will understand.  The five love-languages (or the five ways people understand that someone loves them) are: 
(1) Words of Affirmation, 
(2) Quality Time, 
(3) Receiving Gifts, 
(4) Acts of Service, and 
(5) Physical Touch.  

I'm primarily a Words of Affirmation person.  My husband, on the other hand, is an Acts of Service type.  He had to learn to affirm me with words (which he used to feel were not necessary, just "fluff") so that I could appreciate his expression of love for me in other areas (in his own love-language, like when he does the housework, the yard work, and so forth.)  And - though it has taken me many years to "get" this, and I still have to work at it because I'm basically um, you know, lazy - he believes the affirming words I say to him much more when I make the effort to get up off my duff and do the dishes with him, or help him put together a BBQ or a piece of furniture. 

The bottom line is that expressing love to someone takes an investment that a lot of us don't think that we have: time.  Time to get to know the person, time to discover what makes him or her tick, and time to spend with him or her.  

And we never need to despair.  We have help.

Never sorry

Did you know that God was sorry once? and that it was a big deal?  

It's in the Bible - right in Genesis.  "The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart."  (6:5,6) 

Wow.  That was the reason for the Great Flood.  God was sorry!

But even in His grief over how evil man had become, He showed mercy to Noah and his wife, his three sons and their wives.  And He showed Noah how they could escape the destruction of the world and of all life on land, by giving him blueprints to build a boat.  The boat was unlike anything that had ever been built.  It was 450 feet long and 75 feet wide and 45 feet tall (three stories plus the roof!) - the hull of it resembled that of an aircraft carrier in its shape:  very stable in rough seas.  And there would BE rough seas.  The Bible says that "the fountains of the deep" were ruptured (that is, there were underground earthquakes) - and the firmament (which is King James-ese for the canopy of moist air very much like a Bermuda high pressure system and which kept the earth at a tropical temperature from the north pole all the way to the south pole) released its moisture upon the planet.  In other words, for forty days and forty nights - it was MONSOON time.  I can't begin to imagine the fury of that storm.

Yes, this is Noah's Ark.  Check out this site

But the fact that God was sorry - that boggles the mind. God's never wrong.  He's never made a mistake.  Yet He was sorry.  It made Him unutterably sad that people had turned their backs on Him to such a great degree.  Only Noah "found grace" with Him.  And so He set about rescuing Noah and his loved ones. The "Ark of Safety" - as it came to be known in scripture - is a symbol, a type, of Christ.  He is our only protection from "the wrath to come." I want to point out something that might seem a little obvious, but once Noah and his family were in that ark, and GOD closed the door (talk about security!) He never changed His mind or made them walk the plank.  They stayed inside that vessel until it was safe to come out.  

Period.     

Fast forward several thousand years from Noah's day.  We are now living in the Age of Grace, where God again is putting up with the growing evil of mankind - growing in leaps and bounds, exponentially, even as it was in Noah's day.  

And we who are in Christ (that is, who have entered into Christ in an intimate commitment to Him by grace alone through faith alone) are on that Ark of Safety.  

Now, tucked into the writings of Paul - after knowing what happened to the world in Noah's day - there is a little verse that is often overlooked.  It is Romans 11:29.  "For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance." (KJV). This is the same word (repentance) that comes from the word "sorry" (in the KJV, "...it repenteth Me that I have made man...") back in Genesis 6.  in other more modern translations, "without repentance" is translated "irrevocable." Whoa.  Pretty strong words! 


Wow.  This means that when God gives someone something (like, oh I dunno, salvation for example?) or calls someone to a specific ministry or a calling, He is NEVER SORRY He did. NOT ONCE.  He will see what He started through to completion - no matter how  many detours there are.  No matter how things seem.  No matter how we feel. No matter how slim the odds are.  No matter how heavy the baggage is.  He's got it covered.  

Once and for all.

Rad-ical.