In Not Of

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. – Galatians 5:25-26

My wife had to go in for a minor outpatient surgical procedure yesterday.  Everything went well.  They’ll do a biopsy, but there doesn’t appear to be any malignancy.  She got through it OK despite having to have general anesthesia.  We went in about 8:00AM and were finally home about 3:00PM.  I hate waiting rooms. 

Thus my schedule and routine are all messed up this week.  I am such a creature of habit.  I get up, make coffee, feed the critters, let my phone alarm go off, hook it to the charger, start my computer, read a few verses, then read the news feed and the Bleat.  If I get that done, the rest of the day can take whatever course it likes, and I’ve at least got my anchor set.

Paul’s accusation against the Galatians was that, though they had acknowledged Christ as their Savior through the Cross, they were trying to walk or operate on a daily basis from the dictates of the ceremonial law.  They were trying to substitute ordinances for genuine life in the Spirit.  Those who are more disciplined and more obsessive about details are better at establishing and maintaining habitual activities than some of the rest of us, which tends to feed their pride and our guilt and condemnation.

The people who could leave bacon alone might have felt superior to the Christians who succumbed to the temptation of fried side.  Those who observed the ritual washings of ceremony might have considered themselves purer and cleaner than those who came in from the barn, rinsed the worst off, said a brief blessing over the food, and laid into it.    

That’s one side of it.  The other side is that we are never going to successfully walk in the Spirit and bear the fruit of the Spirit without some degree of discipline.  We need prayer and meditation. 

I’ll be perfectly honest as regards myself:  I have no particular ambition to be a spiritual giant or to be named among the revered saints.  If I get through this life without thoroughly screwing up worse than I already have or causing more pain and suffering to others than I already have, I will be quite content.  I want the people around me to be as happy as possible until I’m gone.  I was never cut out or called to be in any kind of fulltime or “professional” ministry.  I only did what I had to do, and I have been rewarded for it many times over. 

Still, I do want to walk close to God.  As much as I enjoy making and seeing my family happy, at peace, and content, I also want to make my Father happy.  To do that begins with meditating upon the Person of Jesus, on His character, His words, His virtue.  It behooves me to think not on the earthly, the common, the profane, and the vulgar more than I must.  My hands are going to get dirty because I do have to walk in the world.  Meditating on .. whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable … is the way to become clean again, because I do not want to be of the world. 

Better Resolution

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. – Psalm 1:1-2

My late brother-in-law was a troubled soul who could find very little peace.  Wherever he went, though, he seemed to draw forth sympathy.  He was, if anything, too open and generous.  To a waitress for whom he would leave a tip of twenty or even fifty dollars after a ten-dollar meal, he could come off as creepy, but he meant no real harm.  His main problem was that his mind ran too fast, and any idea seemed like a good idea.  We would take him to church with us on occasion, and the best advice I ever heard him given came from Herb, a deacon rare in the depth of his kindness and breadth of wisdom, who told him to memorize Psalm 1.  “That,” Herb drawled, “is a powerful Scripture.  It’s a powerful Scripture.”

As I may have mentioned before, my tendency to tell stories is honestly derived from my father who was a great storyteller.  He even told them to himself.  I have seen him many times at a distance, carrying a bale of hay to the horses or a bucket of feed to the dogs, talking all the while with not even one of those creatures close enough to hear what was said.  The truth is that I do the same thing myself, and, like Dad, I’m usually not talking out when my lips are moving.  I’m mumbling “under my breath” whatever scenario I am going over.  We would say that we are chewing on it.  I suspect we are not entirely alone in this practice, as “self-talk” is known even among non-hillbillies.   

I can’t help myself.  I don’t even realize I’m doing it most of the time.  Since I am going to do it anyway, I might as well talk about something worthwhile rather than what I’d like to tell the President, the Supreme Court, and a joint session of Congress.  Far better to ponder God’s Word by talking it to myself, for that is what the psalmist meant when he told us to meditate upon the law.  We ought to whisper Scripture to ourselves -- chew it like a cow with a cud, gum it, engage it. 

There is a beautiful phrase in Ephesians 5:26 describing how men ought to love their wives as Christ loves His Bride and gave Himself up for her …  that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. 

When we meditate upon Scripture, we are washing our thoughts in light, disinfecting our tainted minds.  That which cannot survive exposure to the blaze of truth will shrivel away.  Worldly thinking is very much a kind of brainwashing, immersion in a solution of fear, need, anxiety, and arrogance.  It leaves our minds weighed down, clogged and gunky.  After a day in the grime and grit, we often come out of the shower feeling like new persons.  That same ease and relief on a spiritual level awaits the one who will meditate upon and wash his or her mind in the cleansing, sanctifying word of the Living God.  Clearing the detritus of the world from the eyes of our heart will enable us to see with far better resolution. 

 

Still

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD. -- Amos 8:11

It is not that the Lord ever ceases to speak but that people can no longer hear.  The world never listens, never hears God.  With directionless lives, they skitter about as if they were on a mission only to skitter back to where they started.  They hear nothing and assume that God is no longer speaking, or that He cannot speak, does not exist. 

Even when we want to hear, our ears may be dulled by the circus calliope, the cacophony of clowns clambering at the foot of the mountain.  Be still and know that I am God, we are told.  Those of us who seek this knowledge may withdraw to the mountaintop, to the deserts, to remote and lonely places seeking that stillness and silence.  This can be good – at least on occasion and for a time.  Some are called to it as a lifestyle, and any of us may  be called aside now and then.  God, though, does not require physical stillness or silence, but a stillness of heart, a space of spirit.  Your body is the temple and in that most holy place there is quiet.  In here, His voice may be heard over the rage and thunder of battle and storm, so long as the storms and battles remain outside.  Go in, as Jesus advised, to that “closet”, that secret, hidden place and close the door. 

For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.  It sounds so simple.  Go in and sit at the feet of Jesus.  Yet the verse ends with heart-breaking words:  But you were unwilling.  Let that not be true of us. 

Why would anyone refuse the rest and peace, strength and guidance the Lord offers?  We are willing enough to sprawl in front of a television, to rest physically.  What many of us seem reluctant to do is turn our minds and hearts to the reality of the indwelling Christ, to rest upon Him, His Person and the finished work of the Cross. 

The typical evangelical “worship” service is hardly a place for meditation, reflection, or rest.  There is noise and commotion and high tech displays designed to appeal to the audience’s increasing short attention span.  Many larger churches these days have separate services oriented to divergent demographics.  Older people like me go to one service while the younger crowd goes to a (typically) later service with more flashing lights and newer music played faster and louder, followed by sound-bite sermons from speakers in distressed denim. 

It’s appropriate.  I’m pretty distressed if I happen to walk into one of those by mistake.  My other personal gripe has to do with auditorium lights turned down so low that I can’t see my Bible, let alone read the words.  I’m always tempted to pull out one of my tactical flashlights to follow along – though, of course, the verse is up on the wall anyway.   Real worship is possible in such a place but only because of the inner stillness, the trappings are mostly distractions. 

We seem inclined, like the Romans to whom Paul wrote, to try to ascend up to heaven to bring Christ down or descend into the abyss to bring Him up from the dead with all of our rituals and noisy celebrations.  But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.  There is no need to suffer famine or drought.  The word is in our hearts.  Out of our innermost being will flow rivers of living water.

God still speaks to the still.

The Lights of Home

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.  Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge – Psalm 19:1-2

At night, the brightest light around is my own security light.  I had a switch installed on the pole when the Co-op put it up so I could turn it out because sometimes there is something I need more than security.  Sometimes it is important to study in the dark.  Sometimes I get my shaky, goofy little telescope out and peer at red Mars or the moons of Jupiter that Galileo saw or the rings of Saturn so far away.  So far away.

But last night I just looked up standing in the deep shadow of a pear tree to see the luminous spill of the Milky Way, countless burning atomic furnaces unified in an ethereal body to my dull vision.  The many dimensions flooded my consciousness in a flash as I transcended the flat sky illusion.  The nearby wanderers are there with the transfixed blinking beacons that have not moved perceptibly in a thousand lifetimes.  In ten thousand years a man may stand on that same worn spot and see the Plough and find true north. 

Who knows?  By then there may be no men.  There may be only whispering ghosts and ruins.  There may be spaceports and ringed, ringing satellites and levitating, talking dogs and wormholes to Arcturus and Buicks bound for Eden. 

Or there may be a white-haired man walking back to his cottage after a long day in the vineyard, his basket laden with clusters to be crushed, broken, and bottled who pauses in sight of his homely light and gazes upward at mirroring planets and misty fixed fires, who loses in a moment the illusion of a flat sky, whose consciousness is flooded with many dimensions, who hears a luminous and holy ghost spilling stillness and whispering of the Way who still loves the deep shade and studies in the dark.    

What Matters

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. —- Joshua 1:8 (ESV)

This is an accidental blog. Initially, I created a blogger ID to more easily comment on One Cosmos. I subsequently created the blog in order to avoid off-topic issues and rants that I might have otherwise posted on OC; it is a relief valve of sorts. My father was dying at the time that I started it, and, even at my well-past-the-middle chronological age, I knew that his departure would require me to make changes. It provided a convenient place to shake, rattle, and roll out some of my thoughts and see if they come up snake-eyes or natural, or if I have to roll eight the hard way as is sometimes the case.

The reason that I have continued is that it gives me a good excuse to meditate on Scripture, on the Divine Nature, revelation, and life in general. I consider a post successful not so much because it generates comments from my numerically small albeit intellectually vast audience — though I always enjoy hearing what others think, but rather because I have in some way expressed God's perspective. I certainly make no claim to do that on a consistent basis. I have never been completely successful in doing so and don't expect to be. I will keep trying. Yoda was wrong. For the truly meaningful challenge, there are many tries for every do. In a sense, each try is a not-do, but not-try is the ultimate not-do.

I stand at the apex and watch the next grain of sand fall into place. Each moment of time is a new, unique part in the pattern of our lives. No matter what anyone looking in from the outside may say, we know that no two of those crystal structures are exactly alike. Each is destined to differ in shape and color, in time and place and purpose. Each will find its resting place as it forms the rising pyramid of past and present, mountainous in majesty, possessed of a peace both terrible and beautiful. Each grain will raise us higher, closer to the Source until we are able to pass through that strait, that narrow way into the upper chamber which is no chamber at all but the infinite, ever-expanding Presence.

Why We Pray

What are our thoughts but silent prayers? What are our good works but pleas for blessings and forgivenness? What are our labors but prayers for success and prosperity? What are good habits but a petition for good health?

I am reading a book by Donald Spoto, In Silence: Why We Pray. I find much of it helpful and affirming. One of the things Spoto attacks (though attack is a strong word for a writer so obviously broad and tolerant in his approach) is prayer as magic. Magic involves bargaining and manipulation. We are probably all tempted to do this at times as we approach God and bring our concerns to Him. We want an often-miraculous solution to a problem. In fact, this is such a common misunderstanding of prayer that it is used by people like Dawkins as evidence that God does not exist — or doesn't matter. Dawkins claims, if I remember correctly, that people who are in touch with God should be able to consistently win the lottery — either by praying that their numbers would come up or that God, who sees the future, would tell them what the numbers will be for the next draw.

We'll put aside for the moment the utter ridiculousness of this argument for anyone who actually knows anything about Christianity. It is essentially the same as asking why all Christians can't fly or walk on water. The materialist mistakes prayer and communion with God for magic. The devil, whom I have reason to suspect is quite real and a person in the broad sense of the word, may work magically on a very limited scale to lure in some of his adherents. God does not.

Spoto does a good job of clarifying the purpose and intent of genuine prayer, and he illustrates the difference between the legitimate Christian prayer of petition and magic as he goes line by line through Matthew's version of the Lord's Prayer. He also discusses the will of God in relation to the will of man — his point being that God does not have a will in the same constrained sense man does. We can speak of God's will only by analogy to our own — a valid understanding I think. After all, God, as Spoto points out earlier, differs from us in that He is not a "Being among beings" — He is not an Individual among individuals. He is a Person in relation to us, as possessing some of the attributes of a human personality. Though it is probably better to say that we are like God in possessing some of His personality attributes in our small way, since we are made in His image rather than the reverse.

While I generally agree with Spoto's analysis and reflections, I struggled with some of his language:

It is always tempting to regard prayer as the solution to a problem — or, worse, to all problems. But prayer is not a means of escape from the ordinary lot of physical and emotional life, which necessarily involves experiences of diminishment, darkness and dying. In fact, prayer is rarely the solution to any problem at all.

The issue here is the use of the words "problem" and "solution". Spoto is using them in a sort of technical sense, but he does not bother to tell us that up front. We have figure it out from the context. See how he concludes that paragraph:

We do not pray for utilitarian or functional or financial reasons, nor because prayer can produce beneficial results. We pray to know more deeply Whose we are; from that awareness derives everything we genuinely need in life.

So, contrary to what the author seems to be saying about prayer not solving problems, he proclaims prayer as the solution to all problems. Prayer does without question produce "beneficial results" if it results in us knowing "more deeply Whose we are". What it does not necessarily result in are UPS deliveries of free red bikes on Christmas Eve. I think knowing why I am here and being in communion with the One who sent me here, is pretty "utilitarian" and "functional". I think we will have a lot fewer financial problems if we understand our purpose and destiny, which, as Spoto agrees, is revealed through prayer.

Paul's words to the Athenians are recorded in Acts, Chapter 17. In that passage, he says: ...so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also His offspring' (Acts 17:27-28). Spoto uses these words as a springboard to consider the intimate nature of prayer. It is not a long-distance communication with a distant, withdrawn Deity who must be appeased by sacrifice and approached with formality. (Formality and reverence are not equivalent.)

Prayer is much like breathing. We do it, Spoto believes, whether we realize it or not. When Paul urges the Thessalonians to "pray without ceasing", this is what he must have in mind. Our lives are prayers. Our thoughts are prayers. Our words and our works are prayers. We are doing all we do in Him for our being is given to us by Him and it continues only because of His presence. How could it be otherwise in light of the truth that God is so near to us, that our lives are inextricably bound up in His, that He, as the Ultimate Reality, is the Father of us and of our reality. If we reject that light, we have nothing but darkness: ... If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness. Apart from prayer, there is no life. There is only emptiness and bleak, meaningless existence — hell.

The Wave Is Always There -- Tune the Radio

After all this, when Josiah had set the temple in order, Neco king of Egypt came up to make war at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah went out to engage him. But Neco sent messengers to him, saying, "What have we to do with each other, O King of Judah? I am not coming against you today but against the house with which I am at war, and God has ordered me to hurry. Stop for your own sake from interfering with God who is with me, so that He will not destroy you."

However, Josiah would not turn away from him, but disguised himself in order to make war with him; nor did he listen to the words of Neco from the mouth of God, but came to make war on the plain of Megiddo. The archers shot King Josiah, and the king said to his servants, "Take me away, for I am badly wounded."

So his servants took him out of the chariot and carried him in the second chariot which he had, and brought him to Jerusalem where he died and was buried in the tombs of his fathers. All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. Then Jeremiah chanted a lament for Josiah. And all the male and female singers speak about Josiah in their lamentations to this day. And they made them an ordinance in Israel; behold, they are also written in the Lamentations.

Now the rest of the acts of Josiah and his deeds of devotion as written in the law of the LORD, and his acts, first to last, behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah. – 2 Chronicles 35:20-27

If ever there was a man under divine guidance, it was Josiah. According to 1 Kings 13:2, a prophet went up to the altar of idolatry and told Jeroboam that a king named Josiah would come along and destroy that altar. Long before Josiah was born, his destiny, as far as the reforms he carried out, were established. He was a righteous man, loved by his people. Yet he fell in a foolish, unnecessary battle.

Now imagine you are Josiah, king of Judah, reigning in Jerusalem. You had accomplished much. Your efforts had been successful. You are in the will of God, and you know it. Word comes that the king of Egypt is crossing or crossing near your territory. Perhaps it was a diplomatic faux pas. Perhaps Josiah perceived it as a threat to his sovereignty. Perhaps it would cause him problems in negotiations with the threatening power of Babylon. Josiah felt he had to challenge Neco – whatever the cause may have been.

He may have sent an ambassador at first to try and warn off Egypt, and it may have been to the ambassador that Neco gave his message. On the face of it, the statement is fairly diplomatic and inoffensive. Most of us read it and think immediately that Josiah should heed this warning to avoid a tragic outcome. The King of Judah may have seen it differently. He may well have said, “Who is this Egyptian to tell me the will of God? After all, I’ve been walking in God’s will all my life – why, even before. Am I not the prophesied one who would bring restoration and revival to the kingdom? This king thinks he can avoid a battle with such a transparent ploy? What a fool.”

On the other hand, I possibly don’t give Josiah enough credit since he did choose to go into battle with Neco wearing a disguise. He may have thought the Egyptians would target him specifically if they saw him in royal robes. He seems to have been cautious at least in his approach. It’s possible that, given the state of his alliances, he felt he had no choice but to try and stop Neco, even a the risk of his life. Instead of offended arrogance, Josiah may have died on behalf of honor and courage. Given the pattern of his life up to that point, it’s more than likely.

It’s really a rather difficult position. There are many people who use the name of the Lord as a means of manipulating or intimidating others. This is truly taking the name of the Lord in vain. When the Assyrians were about to lay siege to Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah and Isaiah (see Isaiah chapters 36 and 37), they sought to dishearten the defenders by telling them that it was the LORD who had sent the Assyrian army to destroy the city (Isaiah 36:10). In that case it was not true. The text indicates that the Assyrian messenger, Rabshekah, spoke to the defenders in their Hebrew language and used the covenant name of God.

An enemy may be coming with deceit and deception to destroy us. Conversely, someone we perceive as an enemy may be speaking to us as an oracle of God. How do we know the difference? How can we have faith in any outcome if we don’t know going in what the will of God is?

For one thing, we have to stay tuned to the voice of the Spirit. One means of doing this is to listen to the godly and the sage. Wise people around us are giving us insight all the time if we will only give heed to what’s being said. Not long ago I was watching an episode of “Arrested Development” from the first season, I think. The imprisoned family patriarch keeps repeating to the son that “there’s always money in the banana stand.” He says it sort of nonchalantly as he’s eating ice cream or whatever. The teenage grandson has been put in charge of the banana stand and has been losing money. To cover up the loss, he comes up with a plan to torch the stand. His father learns of the plot, but, in an effort to encourage him as his father never did, he helps him burn it to the ground. The patriarch loses his cool when he learns of this, grabbing his son, and saying, “There was a quarter million dollars in the walls of the banana stand!”

The son replies, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Another way to stay tuned is to study the Bible. The Word of God, as Hebrews 4:12 tells us, is an instrument of discernment. It opens, analyzes and exposes our motives and intentions. It doesn’t necessarily happen overnight, nor can we simply flip a Bible open blindly and be guaranteed to get a special revelation. That works sometimes, but it’s not something to count on in every crisis. The Word works best when it is attended to and absorbed on a regular basis. It seeps and sinks into our hearts and our being and serves to guide us even below the level of awareness. Meditating on the Word goes well with prayer and will help to give us the insight we need to discern our Father’s will in any situation.

And don’t summarily dismiss what the enemy says. Satan is a tool. We can hear the voice of the Lord in the oddest places and circumstances, if we are listening for God. As Balaam learned, even the most unlikely ass can speak prophetically.

The truth is that Josiah may have been as destined by God to die in battle as he was to destroy the high places and pagan altars. That’s beyond the understanding of man. Physical death is not the worst thing that can happen to us. Sometimes a life’s work is simply finished, and the person is set free of the cares and toils of this world. Those left behind lamented his passing but Josiah was with the LORD – “where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest”.