Seeing clearly

(NIV) 2 Peter 1:5-9
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; [6] and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; [7] and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. [8] For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. [9] But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.

(NIV) Psalm 119:18
Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.

Open eyes are required to see beauty beneath the weight of a hard to face reality. Nearsighted blindness is a chosen judgement of anothers reality without acknowledgement of equal need of deserved judgment. You have to shut your eyes to prevent seeing your reflection in anothers eyes. Open eyes lead to humble tongues, restorative love, and an invitation to repentance through not having to do so alone.
Ineffective and unproductive is having a blind man give you LASIK surgery. Careful you aren't wielding a scalpel with a blindfold on. Be even more careful if your holding a scalpel if you've never been cut in the same manner.

(NIV) Luke 6:41-42
"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? [42] How can you say to your brother, `Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

God never invites you into His doing something in someone He first doesn't do in you. That's why that huge list of things to add to in 2 Peter 1 is about reception not self generated addition.

(NIV) John 9:32-33

[32] Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. [33] If this man were not from God, he could do nothing."




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Weather Man

(NIV) Ecclesiastes 11:4
Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.

There is never a "good" time to do what the lord is calling you to do. Circumstances always tend to dictate our movment, when often times, what we have the ability to actually see, not unlike wind and clouds, we cannot control nor predict the outcome.

(NIV) Ecclesiastes 11:5-6
As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. [6] Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.

The call of obedience is sowing your seed with no guarentee of exactly what you will end up harvesting. For this to happen obedience to our feelings (which often gets or fiercest loyalty) must cease to be our our cornerstone, the functional trust of our hearts and minds. Faith is the active hope that whatever is harvested, it is Gods will for you and therefore good for you, even if it takes the form of suffering. "Sucess" can be redefined and redeamed from "getting what you think you need for your life" to recieving anything with even joyful anticipation that Christ brings into our lives. How?

When what you think you need gets minimized appropriately by who you are actually with.

(NIV) Genesis 15:1
After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward. "

Homebody

(NIV) Isaiah 32:17-19
The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever. [18] My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest. [19] Though hail flattens the forest and the city is leveled completely,

Confidence and peace. Two things everyone I know desires for their lives. Fruit is grown from a source that determines it's nature and substance. Feeding upon that fruit produces desirable effects. Peace is a term conotating satisfaction and fullness. If peace is the fruit, and righteousness is the source (John 15), this then requires us asking what is the source of righteousness?

(NIV) Romans 3:21-22
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. [22] This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

(NIV) Isaiah 30:15
This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.

The effect of feeding upon the fruit of peace, feeding being actively resting in Christ's righteousness rather than something or someone else, is quiet confidence that exists beyond circumstance.

Peacful dwelling places, secure homes, and undesturbed places of rest in a flattened forest and a leveled city?
Must mean your actual home wasn't in the forest or the city.

(NIV) 2 Peter 3:13
But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.

(NIV) Hebrews 11:13-14
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. [14] People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.

Sleeping with the enemy

NIV) Psalm 110:1
The Lord says to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your
enemies a footstool for your feet."

When your enemy is you, then resting is the hardest battle to
recognize and fight. It's difficult because sitting with the Lord
looks and feels on the surface like stagnation, when infact it is
active pasivity with a intentional focus.

A doctor performing a surgery never asks the person on the table why
they arent doing more to help.

(NIV) Luke 10:38-42
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village
where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. [39] She had a
sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he
said. [40] But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had
to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my
sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help
me!" [41] "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and
upset about many things, [42] but only one thing is needed. Mary has
chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Courage often has the appearance of doing nothing-George Landolt

more than meets the eye

Isaiah 42:20 - He sees many things, but does not observe them; his ears are open, but he does not hear.

Those who can only “see”, only find what it is they are in search of. Those who grow to “observe”, have learned through humility born of suffering, what was brought to them to understand. Openness is only the first part of a two-part equation, both of which are equally dependant upon grace. The second part, actually “hearing” (understanding) only occurs when you first are brought to the point that you truly have no idea what it is that you are looking for, or actually need.

This is often times the where the crucible of given trial finds us, with us, rarely understanding that through it, the humility and tenderness to the spirit that is required for observation, is cultivated.

Isaiah 42:25- it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand; it burned him up, but he did not take it to heart.

When all my eyes and heart have time for seeing is pleasure and comfort, and this is what we undoubtedly look for most days, (and subconsciously believe is God’s will for our lives), then it is probably safe to say that my “observation and hearing” are self-realized rather than spirit led. This should cause us to take a serious halt and ask to be led by the spirit consider what parts of my life (maybe all of it?), are living under this delusion.

Observing and truly hearing are products of revelation not self-motivation. That means truly hearing starts with asking questions and waiting for answers rather than “hunting” for truth you could no sooner find on your own than you could speed up going through puberty.

Isaiah 42:16 -And I will lead the blind
, in a way that they do not know, 
in paths that they have not known
, I will guide them. 
I will turn the darkness before them into light,
 the rough places into level ground.
 These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.

Silence gives way to silence. Absence gives way to presence.

This is a letter that I wrote and old friend. He and I don't see much of one another in this season of our lives. I am aware that the past few years have been quite difficult for him for a variety of reasons. His wife asked myself and a handful of other men to write him a note of encouragement. This is what came out. The Lord ministered to me deeply through listening to him in order to write it. I needed to receive what was wrote as much as my friend. thought I'd pass it along. Below is the letter.

To be honest I have really struggled to know what to put on this page, knowing from a somewhat safe distance that much of the past few years have been a struggle, one which at times has left you quite speechless and directionless. It seems arrogant or insensitive to write you a “note of encouragement” when I truly am so relatively uninvolved in your day-to-day life and journey. That said, I hope this note will come to you not as anything but a letter from a fellow pilgrim, who has journeyed through some long and low seasons at this point, who longs to rally hope in your heart. The handful of times the Lord has given us over the past few years I have always enjoyed and He has impressed upon me in those times the deep weight of the somewhat undefined struggle that marks this season of your life, vocation, and marriage. I remember being on the farm, after being, for all realistic purposes, fired from Christ Pres, knee deep in hog shit cleaning a hog barn, and feeling so lonely and sad that I was unsure of everything in my life. I remember many times falling to my knees in complete isolation screaming at God for answers to my questions, so broken down at that point that even posturing myself reverently before God was a complete impossibility. I was so fucking scared. I wondered if this was the rest of my life. For many days my cries were met with silence. Many days.

Sometime, there wasn’t a particular day, or even event, but something slowly began to give way. I was out of tears and out of words. I was finally silent. Finally quiet. Done talking, thinking, processing, wrestling, arguing, demanding, expecting. God’s silence gave way to my silence and I was finally able to hear Him, maybe for the first time. When I started to hear, it wasn’t big sentences or even answers to any of the questions I had been asking, in fact, all the sudden He was asking the questions. They were deeper questions, ones that penetrated my questions. Questions that left me silent, left me in a posture to receive not the answers, but finally experience He who is behind all questions and answers. This was something I had never before experienced. It was something that slowly and painstakingly over time became life to me in that season. Jesus, for possibly the first time, had broken into my life, slowly, painfully, broken through. In spite of me, my arrogance, my self-sufficiency, my pride, he broke through. He led me through suffering to silence and I finally heard His voice. And the fact that I actually heard all of the sudden was more important than what I heard. Just hearing brought a new sense of joy and peace untied to my need for answers. We started this long walk. Along the way Jesus has addressed some of the things I was pleading about. Many of those things are still uncertain. The difference is his presence in the silence, and the growing experiential reality that his presence was what all my pleading was truly all about. And so we walk.
Praying that God’s silence will give way to yours. That you could rest there. Experiencing Jesus in that silence, and the peace that comes with his presence. You’re not alone. Dave – Psalm 46:10

“ Beneath our clothes, our reputations, our pretensions, beneath our religion or our lack of it, we are all vulnerable both to the storm without and the storm within, and of we are ever to find true shelter, it is with the recognition of our tragic nakedness and need for true shelter that we have to start. Thus it seems to me that this is also where anyone who preaches the gospel has to start too- after the silence that is truth comes the news that is bad before it is good, the word that is tragedy before it is comedy because it strips us bare in order to ultimately clothe us.” -Frederick Buechner

“At our most primitive we are storytellers and dancers.” – Anne Lamont

I had a good friend tell me once that if we could see our best attempts to communicate truths that are eternal, through the eyes of Him who is eternal, the greatest thoughts grasped, would in our feeble attempts to express and convey them, be as a child scribbling with crayons. It’s a humbling thing to come to grips with the profound limitations of our human self, and to realize that although everything within our flesh wants to deny such limits, we are here by grace, getting through this by grace, and therefore must communicate what we have received not “thought”, only from a posture of such grace.

I was exposed to the above quote by another good friend. She is someone who is clearly on the journey of not just cognitively knowing, but experientially understanding, what I stated in the above paragraph. So what exactly is a storyteller and a dancer? Why would I compare that with a child scribbling with crayons? A child only attempts to draw what he or she has seen, and often struggles to recreate on paper what is so clearly in their minds.

I have often times tried to guess what my son has drawn on a piece of paper. Due to the limits of his two-year-old vocabulary and ability to string words together, this can lead to a great deal of frustration for both if us. He becomes quite annoyed when he is trying his best to help me understand what he has drawn and I’m not getting it. It’s easy in the moment to forget that it is not just me, but in fact he, that is having the communication problem. Every part of my adult self is far further developed and capable to that of my toddler son. Consequently, in that moment, seeing him suffer, to help me know what He is trying to communicate, I rarely feel it is my fault, my inability, my lacking, that is causing this misunderstanding.

Yet when I try and communicate with him, the same tension applies. I search for ways and words to communicate what it is I am trying to get him to understand, but often times my most creative efforts simply have no ability to overcome the developmental gap. We are at an impasse of communication, unable to understand one another. Sounds simple and straightforward when looking at this in the picture of a two year old and an adult. But this picture may be far closer to the reality of our situation with communication with the Lord. But in this instance, the communication gap is entirely more one sided. The Lord is trying to communicate with us, and we are the ones with no capabilities; we need outside help, we need the Holy Spirit. He’s the only one who can teach us what “our” stories are really about, and why we are free to dance.

1 Corinthians 2:14 -man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The tension is created when my perspective is that the ability to communicate any truth, or understand that truth, lies within my natural self. Even in saying this must be careful because I believe scripture is clear that it is the “indwelling” of the Holy Spirit that makes truth proclaimed or understood possible (John 14:20). When I am saying “lies within my natural self,” I am saying without need of anything by my own rational, faculties, and capabilities, uninfluenced by Gods grace. We are so desperately dependent upon the Holy Spirit to guide us, and it is our pride-laced unwillingness that manifests itself in frustration that proves it. So what’s the alternative?

To hear (to listen, receive, and understand) the larger redemptive story, and tell our stories to one another in light of the larger story (proof of understanding). And as a result respond to what we have received by dancing (celebration and gratitude).

Dancing is the ultimate expression of being lost in something larger than you. We only dance when we are free and uninhibited, when we have slipped from the center of our focus and realize the truth that our story, is a valued part of the greater redemptive story that God has been writing since the creation of the world. It is when we experientially “brush up” against this truth that we stop being simply peddlers of our own limited tale, and begin to speak as humble co-authors or the great story that is being told to all the earth. When this shift occurs for us, the pressure of the “story is all about me” and all it’s of narcissism-paralyzing-side-effects begins to wane. We dance because we are free from the weight of a self-centered existence. We tell our stories with freedom and humility, soaked with the grace in which they are wrought. And we call others to be storytellers and dancers as well. Dancing is only foolishness if the cross isn’t real.

2 Samuel 6: 16- 22

As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart.

They brought the ark of the LORD and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the LORD. After he had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD Almighty.Then he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates and a cake of raisins to each person in the whole crowd of Israelites, both men and women. And all the people went to their homes.

When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, "How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!"

David said to Michal, "It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD's people Israel—I will celebrate before the LORD. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor."

1 Corinthians 1:18 -the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

I hope you wore comfortable shoes.