Ground

Do we really need to select an analogy for that on which we place our feet?
It is not a playground.
It is not a battleground.
It is simply ground.

The ground is never the same if you don’t stay in the same place. It can be luxurious like a grassy meadow with maybe even a rainbow. It can be steep and rocky like a mountain side with maybe even some conflict to make you slide. It can be hard and fast like a concrete highway, moving so fast it is hard to focus.

We were not built for a specific type of ground. We were built to move, to progress, to transition, to grow but never to hide. We do not do well when we dwell too long on one type of surface. We cannot sustain the battles of the rocky ground indefinitely. We cease to function if we refuse to leave an oasis’ respite once recovered.

We do not do well when we cling to a type of ground because we have ceased traveling. If we don’t move, we cannot claim to be living. Living is loving the destination, the experience of something new in which to sink our toes, the longing for what is over the next ridge, around the next corner, the knowing that we are not home.

We need not worry about the ground we are on. We are not here to build a residence. We are passing through time. Nothing of the ground will last. We need not worry about the ground we are on, whether urge to flee from an uncomfortable occurrence or linger in the comfort of security. Look up from the ground, this is not your home. Look all around, this is not your town. You are a nomad, flowing through time. You have a residence but it is not on this ground. Be curious about the future, hold fast to the hope that will last. Trust that the ground under your feet will transition into something new, but above all stay on the move and enjoy the journey of true living.

Promiscuous Mind

This is the time of year that Spotify provides the summary of your listening habits for the year.  I have started to see these posts from friends and family Instagram.  Therefore, the timing was perfect to run across this quote by Epictetus.    

I look at the hours devoted to specific podcasts and muscians and I wonder if we haven’t just handed over our minds. I have not gotten my Spotify summary yet, so I am not judging or confessing. I am making a plan. I know what I will be looking for when my summary comes in.

Have I had a promiscuous mind?

I am not against intellectual inquire, but let’s be honest, that is not what Spotify is primarily about. It is mostly about entertaining, amusing, distracting, and simply filling the time. Consider who you have handed your mind over to? Consider who has become your primary influencer? Before we ever offer the parts of our body to sin, we offer up our minds.

Lost Meaning – Isaiah 1

What is this noise in my sanctuary?
This prattle sung in rythmic repetition.
Why these whispers during solemn prayer?
Hushed gossip of trivialities.
Where is My Word in this Sunday TedTalk?
Bells muting divine meaning and knowledge.

Stop bringing all this meaningless worship!

Light-shows manipulate emotions impure.

Your media productions are detestable to me.

Your striving for personal gain, purpose, and self-improvement, I cannot bear.

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”

Isaiah 1:18

Where has the meaning in your worship gone?
Come now, return the meaning to your praise and worship.
Let you worship flow from true reality, from sins that have been washed clean.
Let your Sunday morn be a time of meaning in all sincerity;
Worship with meaning is pleasing to Me.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a prophet. I am not claiming to have a word from God. I am always hesitant in writing narrative for God or implying that what I have written is in fact from the mouth of God. The above is my application of the Word of God through an actual prophet, Isaiah. This follows along with the thoughts of DID ANYONE NOTICE.

HIS WAYS

There is a degree of confidence that comes with knowledge.  Assurance rises through the fullfillment of an agreeable plan.  We rest comfortably while our lives unfold in accordance to the foreseeable circumstances of normal.

We rarely have difficulty when our thoughts are aligned with His and His ways correspond to ours.  The course of life is comfortable while the heavens seem in line with the earth and God does not demand anything beyond our normal aspirations.

What happens when our ways diverge from His;
when His ways cause pain and His thoughts seem cruel?

The worlds of the created can fall apart in the of a span of a day.  Within a week, I received the news that my Sister-in-Law and my cousin have limited time on this earth.  It appears that God’s ways are truly not my ways.  His thoughts assuredly are not my thoughts.  The diagnosis of terminal shocks one out of the delusion of normal and into the confusion of a denied reality.

People die before the time that I had prescribed for them.
Families grieve losses cloaked in the darkness of the unknowable.
Minds are clouded in the defeat of impending death.

This world sucks.

The delusion of normal is a dangerous mindset.  The delusion of the world as wonderful and a place of paradise cannot abide with the reality of suffering.  We were never promised a world of delights.  We were never promised a world unbroken. We were never promised a world without pain.

That is why this world had to be overcome.

We were told that this world contains suffering even as we thrash beneath its hand.  We were told that evil rules even as we look away from the evidence.  We were told that there are mysteries beyond our understanding even as we try to deduce them.

This is why our home is not here.  This world had to be overcome in order for us to escape and enter into true rest.  A terminal diagnosis is yet another reminder that we need a redeemer, a rescuer, who will take us to our rest.  I do not love this world.  I want to go home.

I am thankful that His ways are better than mine.
I am thankful that His thoughts are beyond mine.
I am thanful that He is good.
I am thankful that He has overcome this world.
I am thankful that His love flows.

When normal crumbles, faith must remain.  When knowledge fades, hope must shine.  When defeat abounds, love must abide.

 

 

 

Righteous Deciders

 
It seems easier to comprehend a God of the grand and monumental but what of the random and trivial?

Can I make a decision that He does not know?

Can the wind change the course of His intentions?

Can my decision alter His plan?

Can circumstances accumulate beyond His control?

My day will be filled with thousands of decisions, some are recognizable as consequencial but most are not even acknowledged as a decision.

Every decision is a dalliance with the future.  We speculate against the opaqueness of uncertainty.

How silly it is to play a blind prophet when we have One who controls it all? He knows how our individual minds work.  He knows the clouds that impede our thoughts and reasoning.  He has given us wisdom, knowledge, and reasoning.  He has given us prayer. 

Why do we become undone when decisions come?  Could it be that fear has shackled out minds at one of life’s respites because we cannot peer beyond the bend?

Good decision making does not remove uncertainty. It merely enables our minds to live with it. However, we usually live with uncertainty in the most unrighteous of ways.  We glorify the decisive decision makers.  We heap prestige upon the visionaries who appear prophetic of future’s prospects.

Yet, we ignore the One who  holds uncertainty’s tolls.

Believers should display our belief in the most practical of ways, by how we decide.  I suggest that righteousness displayed in decisiveness shows glorious godliness.  

This is my suggestion on how a Christian should decide:

1. Pray
2. Use your mind; use your knowledge and wisdom. They are gifts of God for this purpose.
3. Pray some more.
4. Ensure you are on solid Biblical ground and walking in the Spirit.
5. Pray some more.
6. Ask for wise counsel.  The body of Christ is our gift for this purpose.
7. Pray some more.
8. Weigh the cost. Weigh the benefits.
9. Pray some more.
10. Make the decision and then trust.  

Our decision making should not display anxiety and apprehension.  Our decision making should not be indecisive.  A righteous decider should display belief.  Belief that nothing is beyond God’s power.  Belief that God is a good Father.  Belief that God knows me down to the dwindling hairs on my head. Belief that the Spirit of God has been participating in this decision that I am making.

Belief that in Christ, I cannot make a bad decision.

I can make a righteous decision that may not turn out as I had hoped or planned, but that doesn’t mean it was incorrect to God.

I can make a righteous decision that may result in all sorts of unfortunate, unintended consequences, but that doesn’t mean it’s a mess that God has to clean up.

I can make a decision that displays my faith and confidently live in all the consequences because God holds the past, present, and future.

So, let’s start glorifying God in how we decide.

https://soundfaith.com/logos-media-share/498255

Oreo Cookie of Life

 

Most of the time we over-complicate our relation to the absolute (God).  Now, over-complicate does not mean that we are making our relationship harder than it needs to be.  

Dying to self is a difficult task requiring endurance and perseverance. Over-complicate usually means misalignment; doing things for the wrong reasons.

I have recently engaged in an enlighting task for myself.  I applied a tool of my profession, a logic diagram, to the analysis of my spiritual life.  I want my “what” to correspond correctly to the appropriate “why”.

A logic diagram flows purpose (why) into actions (how).  A well constructed logic diagram readily reveals the reason for every contemplated activity and allows for each activity to be crafted to achieve the true purpose.

My logic diagram resembles an Oreo cookie.

One wafer is to glorify God & enjoy Him / Love God; my purpose.  The other wafer is faith; my how.  Everything between those cookie wafers is my life.

Not very complicated.

It is very easy to allow our relationship with the world around us to dictate out relationship with God or have no relationship with God.  That means we have replaced our wafers and if you’ve got wrong wafers them you’ve got inappropriate relationships.

That is the sweet work of a faithful follower of Christ; getting the sweet filling of life appropriately positioned between the absolutes of God and faith.

https://soundfaith.com/logos-media-share/497549

Socially Distant

We are told to distance ourselves.

Separation has become a prescription.

Conveyance prevention, a priority.

Efficacy measured by normality.

We separate, fearing the unseen.

Celebrating the fruitlessness of disease never known.

But what of maladies needing proximity?

I have heard it said, “I’m taking a break from God.”

Distancing for a time from the Divine.

Is separation the prescription for spiritual affliction?

What conveyance is this break preventing?

Do we need less Spirit; peace, love, joy?

To isolate alone, isn’t that a symptom of the malady?

Distancing oneself to ruin, it seems.

All the while, the prescription resides in drawing near.

We should pull close when unfelt feelings arise.

When God seems not to hear.

When the old man wants to flee,

We bind him in our need.

Abiding in the Spirit, there is the key.

Side by side or I’ll think, “A break is all I need”.

Assurance will come, when ruin is foregone,

Through the healing breath of the Unseen.

Celebrated in the fruitfulness of the Known.

https://soundfaith.com/logos-media-share/495489

Testing For Fear – Psalm 56:3

I am a bit anxious this morning, I will not lie.

All the self-confidence belies the insecurities of a day full of significance.  Today, I lead a team readied for a presentation instrumental in winning a five year, $15 million contract.

It is a big deal for a small company.  We have been waiting for eight years. 

I am embarrassed by my own anxiety.  No lives hang in the balance.  My employment is not dependent upon the perfect pitch.  All today can hold is a hope for a bulwark against tomorrow’s uncertainty,  so that I won’t have to worry about where tomorrow’s prosperity will reside.

Oh, foolish man that I am.

In essence, my anxiety reveals an inherent resistance to trusting the One who truly controls the conditions of my future.

God knows what I need and when I need it. He has provided my daily bread my entire life and I know He will provide tomorrow’s.

My anxiety is just a fear;  a revelation of an unholy alliance with control.

Are you fearful, like me?  Our response to uncertainty is the most revealing test one’s faith can undergo. Testing for fear is not a scare opportunity.  

The nature response to uncertainty is fear, whether we recognize it as fear or not.  Fear changes us.  It effects our behavior.  It modifies our attitude.  It steals our joy.

Fear is a foe.

So, I repented this morning.  I have changed my anxiety to trust.  I have done all the work to be prepared for today but God has done more.  It has been Him who has sheltered me to this point and it will be Him who shelters me through tomorrow. 

Therefore, I can enjoy the opportunity of today.  There are not many people who get to do what I have the privilege to do.  I will trust, which enables me to enjoy.
https://soundfaith.com/logos-media-share/491949

Spiritual Competition

If you are still sheltering in place as I am, here is the video for a sermon I gave on spiritual competition and the analogy to physical competition.  Maybe, it will make it feel more like a Sunday.

Bestial Stupor

I have been reading through Soren Kierkegaard’s exploration of Abraham’s faith in  “The Kierkegaard Collection”.

His description:

“People commonly travel around the world to see rivers and mountains, new stars, birds of rare plumage, queerly deformed fishes, ridiculous breeds of men — they abandon themselves to the bestial stupor which gapes at existence, and they think they have seen something.” ~ Soren Kierkegaard

I have never thought of the myriads of social media accounts chronicling something “astonishing” as feeding my bestial stupor.

That might be a little harsh.  However, I am reminded of my own bestial nature of gaping at the creation without ever considering that which is truly amazing…faith.

“But if I knew where there was such a knight of faith, I would make a pilgrimage to him on foot, for this prodigy interests me absolutely. I would not let go of him for an instant, every moment I would watch to see how he managed to make the movements, I would regard myself as secured for life, and would divide my time between looking at him and practicing the exercises myself, and thus would spend all my time admiring him.” ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Photo by Maria Pop on Pexels.com

There are “knights of faith” living amongst, which are testimony of what is more miraculous than any of God’s other creation.  That is worthy of a pilgrimage to see; a pilgrimage to gape into the infinite.  However, you have to know what you are looking for because a true knight is easy to overlook.

“He lives as carefree as a ne’er-do-well and yet he buys up the acceptable time at the dearest price, for he does not do the least thing except by virtue of the absurd. And yet, and yet I could become furious over it — for envy, if for no other reason — because the man has made and every instant is making the movements of infinity. With infinite resignation he has drained the cup of life’s profound sadness, he knows the bliss of the infinite, he senses the pain of renouncing everything, the dearest things he possesses in the world, and yet finiteness tastes to him just as good as to one who never knew anything higher, for his continuance in the finite did not bear a trace of the cowed and fearful spirit produced by the process of training; and yet he has this sense of security in enjoying it, as though the finite life were the surest thing of all.” ~ Soren Kierkegaard

We once called a pilgrimage to observe and learn from a Knight of Faith, discipleship.  Unfortunately, we don’t hear that term very often and even rarely take that sort of pilgrimage.  We have social media after all.

We have allowed a bestial stupor to blind us to the truly remarkable; exchanged the creator for the creation.

Let’s open our eyes to what makes angels rejoice.  Look around, there might just be a Knight sitting beside you worthy of amazement… worthy of imitation.

“The Kierkegaard Collection” is free: http://a.co/6alGyrH