Are we too old for dot to dots?

Over the past few days I have had the opportunity to share with people how God leads me to understanding what it is that He is trying to communicate to me.  I have come to call this process “dot to dot”.  Can you remember when you were a kid and your teacher or mom gave you a piece of paper with a bunch of dots on it.  Each dot had a number written next to it.  As you took your pencil or crayon and traced from dot 1, to dot 2, etc…. you could see an image start to appear.  By the time you connected the marking to the final dot the total image had been marked out and the paper that was once nothing but a bunch of dots and numbers now represented a very particular image.

This is my life with God.  Throughout a typical day I have countless thoughts, each thought is a reaction to something.  Sometimes my thoughts are joyous, sometimes they are angry, sometimes they are happy, and sometimes they are sad.  Sometimes my thoughts are full of confidence, and sometimes they are full of anxiety.  As I have these thoughts I contemplate as to why I am having these thoughts, what stimulated them, and why I am reacting in the way I am.  I think about who is at the center of my thoughts and whose well-being I have not considered.

As I progress through the day’s events I make choices, have thoughts, and get involved in countless interactions and activities.  Each of these becomes available for future call back as I remain intimately aware of the fact that God uses all things for good.  The point is I never want to miss out on an opportunity for spiritual growth because I see spiritual growth as the keys to my future joy, peace, and well-being.  I see how this impacts others and my ability to stand testimony to what I believe God’s truths to be and as such see this process as a foundation to being “His”.

What I am about to share is a very quick, simple, and small dot to dot that provided my oldest son with a clear understanding of something that was being made available to him.  It happened to be one more dot in the picture God was painting for me as it gave the image already created more form and definition.  This is only a small part of a much greater image that unto itself is still just a small part of God’s ultimate reality.

I am sharing this with Tyler’s permission.  He has agreed to this transparency as he believes the truths revealed in this image are foundational to any man and woman desiring to have a healthy relationship with the opposite sex.  It is with both of our prayers that we share the following:

Over the past few months God has been working on helping me understand particular truths regarding affirmation within the male/female relationship.  The “dot to dot” which God had been painting with the ups and downs of our lives over the past several months ultimately provided a clear image.  Clear enough to gain a deep understanding of myself, Robyn, and God’s design that is stamped on our being.

Yesterday as I was driving with my oldest son I decided this understanding is one that a responsible father should be comfortable sharing with his 20 year old son.  So I did.  I explained how God had shown me that every aspect of our society sells men and women on turning toward physical affirmation as the source for feeling fully “MAN” or fully “WOMAN”.  The physical affirmation for men is sought in all aspects of life, in the giving of gifts, the providing of income, protection of the family, wisdom, athletics, whatever talent we may have, and of course in our sexual relationships.  The physical affirmation for women is sought in all aspects of life too.

Deep within us is a spiritual man that was designed to be a spiritual cover to our wives.  The reality is that the spiritual woman was designed to respond to a man living in harmony with this aspect of his design.   Spiritually we were designed to build each other up.  Our spiritual cover affirms the woman as being worthy of our sacrifice and their affirming response to our effort builds us up and encourages us.  It is this building up that propels us to continue our spiritual growth as we become more and more capable of being humbled under the voice of our great and awesome God.  This process leads the family toward a greater and greater God likeness which enables us to do His work His way.

It is during our childhood, teens, and young adult years where we build a foundation of expectations of others (what they must do to win our approval) and our approach to gaining affirmation from others and ourselves.

What we embrace becomes the foundation of our relationships.  As we move into marriage the foundation is either strengthened or destroyed through the interactions with our spouses.  For me, God provided a Godly wife who has helped me (with His strength) to crush the foundation built and reinforced through a lifetime of implied rejections.

I say “implied rejections” because I had built my foundation on the physical.  The reality is a foundation based on the physical will never fulfill.  If our foundation is physical our thirst is never satisfied.  Even if we try to quench it by reducing our demands we are faced with an inevitable truth.  In the end we are fighting a futile battle against time.  Our ability to meet the demands we place on ourselves and the perceived demands of others ultimately slips between our aging fingers.  In the end our physical being ultimately returns to dust.  Our roads all end the same……with a total loss of all physical things.

After I finished sharing, Tyler responded by saying that what I shared makes perfect sense but that it is just so hard.  I expressed that I understood.  He then shared how this weekend had been a particularly hard weekend, and that he really felt like giving up; Giving up on finding a young lady who takes God’s ways seriously and embraces them as a pathway to a better life.  He shared that he sees women as so difficult to get along with and so hard to please.  I asked him why he was saying that.  He told me that he had asked Robyn about taking him to church on Sunday at 9:00.  He said that Robyn had responded by saying that she was going to the 11:00 service.  He said he walked away dejected and feeling hurt.  We talked a little longer and he shared that he and Tristan had gone to play pool after church.  He said that right after they got to the pool hall two young ladies walked in wearing short skirts, looking very sexy, and obviously noticing Tristan and he.  He went on to say that ever since the image of them walking across the room has been burned into his memory and no amount of prayer seems to help get the image out of his mind.

With that I asked him if he understood the depth of what God was communicating to the two of us. 

First of all, Robyn actually said “I am going to the 11:00 but would be happy to take you at 9:00 so you can play in the band”.  The only problem is that as soon as Tyler heard “I am going to the 11:00” his mind shut down.

Here are the dots:

Dot 1—God’s revelation to me and my sharing it with Tyler—We are conditioned from a young age to seek physical affirmation from women.  We give up on being spiritual leaders and concentrate on being physical providers.

Dot 2—Tyler views Robyn as cold and thoughtless as the result of his own misunderstanding.

Dot 3—Tyler’s misunderstanding is the result of his feeling like a burden to the family.

Dot 4—This reminded him of his poor life choices over the past few years.

Dot 5—By this point he was feeling really bad about himself and in desperate need of affirmation.

Dot 6—In not being able to accept responsibility for his own actions he turns his misunderstanding with Robyn into a full blow case of seeing her as un-Godly and non-Christ like.

Dot 7—In seeking something to do to make himself feel better he goes to the pool hall to play pool.

Dot 8—At his lowest emotional point, while stewing over the pathetic nature of women, with a lost hope of finding a Godly woman, two sexy young ladies walk across, in short skirts, and catch his eye.

Dot 9—He is frustrated that “prayer won’t even help get rid of the image burnt into his mind”, and

Dot 10—He is fighting the conclusion that he may as well give up on ever having a Godly woman in his life.  His thoughts have been driven to “Why continue to wait since the end result will be the same regardless.  He will end up with a woman who will not affirm him as the spiritual leader because all women really want is physical satisfaction (comfort, protection, luxury, cars, homes, vacations, things done, things provided,….).”

After walking him through the connections he no longer saw the events as individual and isolated dots and numbers on a meaningless piece of paper.  He was amazed at the level of intimacy God works in our lives and saw the picture clearly.  Together we realized that:

The reality is that dots 9 & 10 conflict each other.  If we have built a foundation believing point 10, there isn’t enough prayer in the world that will free us from what we believe.  Every time we pray it God shows up.  He tells us we have to let go of our foundation of physical affirmation and everything we bring into our lives required to support that effort.  He tells us that we need to step up to the plate as spiritual leaders.  He tells us to let go of our foundation and follow Him.  He promises that doing so will bring us all our spirit desires and nothing else will quench the thirst rising up from within us.

Because we believe so deeply in our foundation we cannot do what God has called us to do.  We cannot pick up our cross and we cannot follow Him.  So we remain with those images burnt into our minds not understanding that it is our own faith in a false foundation that keeps us bound to that thirst that cannot be satisfied.  It is our false foundations and the associated thoughts and life choices that keep us from becoming the spiritual leaders our wives need, our families deserve, and our God has called us to be.

God will allow us our free will and has given us the right to choose.  At the same time He has promised us His strength.  Are you connecting the dots in your life?  Have you prayed for His help?  Has He shown you where you have built your house on a sand foundation that will fail you?  Are you going to listen to His advice?  Can you let Him give you the strength and the materials to build a new foundation, one of stone, one that will endure the test of time, one that is of the spirit not the flesh, one that will be there even when your physical presence is gone and has returned to dust?

I pray that this has in some way helped you and will provide for a deeper and more meaningful relationship between you and your spouse.  I pray that it will provide a path for a deeper and more meaningful relationship between you and your God.  I pray that you have a blessed week and that your efforts be fruitful.

Do we have to call it THAT??

Allow yourself to humor me for just a moment.  I have a point to make and I can’t think of a better example.

Picture someone putting two glasses in front of you, one filled with water, and the other with gasoline.  Would you be at all tempted to drink the gasoline?  I believe it is reasonable to assume that if you were thirsty, without hesitation, you would reach for the water.

Wouldn’t it be nice if every choice we made throughout the day would be so simple?  Wouldn’t it be nice if every choice we made throughout the day proved to be so right?  So right for our pallet, so right for our health, so right in our ability to enjoy life to its fullest.

The word “sin” carries such a negative stigmatism that we tend to struggle with accepting that it is an intimate part of our day to day lives.  Don’t get me wrong here.  I know and understand that “sin” is death, it is pain, suffering, and all that destroys.  But humor me again and put that off to the side for a minute.

I am so fortunate that I am blessed with a wonderful mother.  She is a Buddhist nun and she lives here at our home with us.  Over the years we have learned to communicate and discuss spiritual things at an incredible level without offence one to the other.  Together we are seekers of TRUTH.  One of the many things she has taught me is a different way to look at sin.  I use this term when discussing things with her.  It makes it easier to bridge the communication gap.  I believe all people could benefit from seeing “sin” from my mom’s perspective.  Her teachings have led her to seeing sin as “unskillful”.  This almost sounds passé but don’t be too quick to judge.  Remember, my mom and I have both agreed that we are on the journey to discover TRUTH.  Anything that would take us off that journey would be unskillful; anything that provides us with a deeper knowledge of TRUTH would then be considered skillful.  I find it skillful to see it this way because it helps me accept what God is showing me with less defensiveness which brings about a quicker transformation in my life.

The reality is that most of us really truly do desire to have peace in our lives, we desire to progress through this existence loving others and being loved by others.  We have a desire to live stress free lives through which we enjoy the circumstances we find ourselves in and the relationships we have with the people we find ourselves in the midst of.  The reality is that there is a way of life that delivers this, and there is a way of life that does not.  Simply put, TRUTH is the reality of what delivers this existence that we all so deeply desire.

As we progress through life we have choices.  How we respond to the circumstances of life will either lift us up or tear us down.  Skillful responses are those that provide that greater sense of well-being, peace, and love.  Unskillful responses are those that lead to any form of undesirable feeling within our own psyche.  As such, those decisions that bring us closer to TRUTH are those that are skillful, and those that lead us further away from TRUTH are unskillful.  As we live our lives we have an impact on those around us.  It is without question that those things that we do that are skillful are the same things that bring peace and joy into the lives of other.  Likewise, it is those unskillful things that bring death and destruction into the lives of others.

The TRUTH is that we are so offended by the word sin we tend to not allow ourselves to see the reality of our own unskillful responses.  When we don’t let ourselves see the lack of skill we are exhibiting in our living we keep ourselves from growing, we hurt others, and worst of all…….we are not demonstrating a way of life that will allow God to use us as an example to lead others to TRUTH.

God loves us and He wants us all to be free of the responses that lead to anything short of peace, well-being, and love.  This is why He gave us His TRUTH, this is why He gave us His son.  This is why Christ accepted His roll on the cross.  This is the freedom from sin that is promised throughout scripture.  Sure, there is an eternal form of salvation that awaits us.  In this discussion I am not speaking of that salvation.  I am speaking of the salvation offered, promised, and obtainable right here in this life.  It is the salvation that leads others to God’s truth.  It is the salvation that spreads the gospel, it is the salvation that proves His TRUTH to be TRUE.

If we are not letting His TRUTH speak to us and show us where we are living unskillful lives, we tend to allow ourselves to remain in bondage to the things of this world.  If we remain in bondage to the things of this world how will God use us to prove that His TRUTH is true?  How can He use us to prove that His TRUTH is what delivers all that it promises?  Who will have the credibility to stand witness to His TRUTH if we don’t let His TRUTH transform our lives? 

Regardless as to what theology you have been taught, regardless as to what you have been told about sin, this is the hard reality.  God has chosen us, to accept his TRUTH, to live that TRUTH out, to let it save us from the bondage of this world for the purpose of leading others to accepting IT and being set free by IT.  His desire is that we all become so aware of the pain of sin that we reject it like it was a glass of gasoline.  Anything short of that is unskillful and an opportunity for change; change that will bring greater joy into our own lives, the lives of those around us, and make us a better witness to HIS TRUTH.

By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.  The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;  but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected.  

The reality is, what glass we reach for is proof of who’s promises we trust.  If we trust God’s we reach for the water, if we trust Satan’s we reach for the gas.  The proof of our faith is in the choices we make and the ease at which we make those choices.  A life of joy, peace, and love is the evidence of our faith as we allow God to show us what skillful living is all about.

I pray that through this blog you have allowed yourself to see something that is keeping you from allowing God to use you to prove Himself TRUE, that through this you will discover a new life, a new way, and in so doing be blessed with a brighter future.

Thankful to be chosen

I pray that you all have had a blessed weekend and that your upcoming week will be fruitful as you allow God to guide you through your journey.

After ushering in the Sabbath with the lighting of the Sabbath Candles and the customary blessing over the children, the Friday night Kiddush is recited.  This prayer brings to mind Genesis 1:31-2:3 and reminds us that God sanctified the seventh day.  Later in this prayer we give thanks to God for choosing us for sanctification through giving us His commandments.

The key elements are:

Six days God created everything that was not Himself,

The seventh day He created nothing and set that day apart as Holy,

The Sabbath is a memorial to His creation AND freedom from Egyptian slavery,

He chooses His people for the purpose of sanctification through an understanding of truth, and

We thank Him for choosing us for this purpose.

I really want to focus on the last element noted above.  "We thank Him for choosing us for this purpose".  I would like each of us to stop for a minute and really, I mean really, think about that.  Can we honestly, to the depths of our hearts, minds, and souls thank God for choosing us for the purpose of sanctification?  What does that really mean?

Let's take a minute and notice how the Sabbath works and come to understand the incredible significance.  This day is a memorial to all that God created AND the freedom from slavery.  It is a celebration of the day in which God created nothing and is the day considered as sanctified.  In other words, for six days God created all of the things that He would use to "point us to Him".  And then He gave us the seventh day to "spend with Him".  At the same time He is quick to point out how easy it is to worship the created and forget about the creator.  Our focus on the things “He created to lead us to Him” ultimately is the chain of bondage that keep us from spending our time "with Him".  Herein lays the human condition which leads to so much pain, suffering, and discontent.  Simply put, sanctification is the process of letting go of everything of this world and everything created, even to the point of how people view us, the attention we get, the things we have, and even our fleshly existence itself.  With that said, how would you define salvation?

The tough truth is this:  Too many of us spend too much of our time contemplating how many of the ways of this world which we know to be unhealthy can we keep in our lives and still get to heaven.

If this is true, are we really glad that God chose us to be blessed with an understanding of His truth?  If this is true do we really believe that what He promises is even true?  The hard reality is this:  Sanctification = salvation.

Oh boy, I already feel the nasty responses heading my way so let me clarify.  I am not saying that we must be 100% sanctified in order to "earn" our salvation.  What I am saying is this:  Faith is choosing to let God sanctify us as He uses the circumstances of our lives to reveal to us His truth.  I am saying that Faith is allowing God to use the experiences of our life to show us where we are too focused on the created (including other people) and how this is hurting us, our loved ones, our community, and rendering us less useful to Him in bringing His truth to the world.  What I am saying is that if we don't let God break our chains of bondage to His creation, we are not letting Him save us from anything.  

Making this personal I am going to ask you again:  Are you glad that God chose you?  Are you glad that He wants to show you where you are allowing yourself to conform to the ways of this world?  Are you glad that He wants to help you break the chains of bondage that are hurting you and your loved ones?  Are you willing to trust Him in His promise, that His way is the truth and the life?

If you are then be honest with Him, answer His call, look in the mirror He is holding up to you today, and let Him show you a better way.

I pray this has brought you closer to Him and somehow impacted your day in a mighty and powerful way.

Have you ever wondered?

I think most of us have come to know that when we pray, God doesn’t always answer exactly how we were thinking He would.  Saying this in another way, we tend to expect that our prayers will be answered in a way that makes sense to us from a perspective of our current understanding of things, from the narrow view of what we have seen in the past and what our wishes are of the future.  The reality is that this isn't always how things work.

Would we change our prayers if we knew what God knows?  If we could see what God sees?  If we knew what will have to take place for Him to answer the prayers we are sending forth?

If we have been praying for God to open the eyes of our children to seeing Him, and bending their knee to the realization of who He is, are we willing to let God do that, His way?  Do we ever stop to consider exactly what that might look like for them?  Or even for us?

The reality is, God’s understanding of who we are, and what it will take to move us far exceeds our ability to do the same for others.  His ways are not our ways because, in as much as other things, He is not flesh.  As hard as we try to do the right thing, we tend to put our desire for protecting the fleshly experiences of our loved ones ahead of what will be best for their spiritual growth.  On the other hand, we tend to let our fears, frustrations, and personal agendas get in the way of our ability to show grace and kindness.

When Christ was asked, “what is the greatest of the commandments?” His response was:  “you shall love the lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the great and foremost commandment.  The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself”.

I believe one of the greatest transformational aspects of this walk is our ability to simply watch HOW God answers our prayers, how He goes about His interactions in the lives of our loved ones, our community, and our world.  For me and my journey there is an aspect of watching God work on others that is more clear and transparent than when I try to understand His interactions in my own life.  It seems as though some of my defenses are dropped making it a little easier.  Through the process of watching His interactions with others, with governments, and with societies, He speaks to me through my questioning of Him or through my resistance to accept that what He is doing is “good”.  This process of observing the perfect parent, who has the perfect balance between truth and grace, who is doing everything in love, for us, not Himself has taught me so many things.

How much did Christ Love God?  What was Christ willing to accept in His heart, embrace to the depths of His soul, and overcome even to the most remote spots in His mind?  Regardless as to where you are in your relationship with God, or where you are with Christ, or what you believe, what we see in Christ is undeniable.  He demonstrates what it is to love God, and love our neighbor.  From what I see, Christ’s “fully man” side:

                Allowed Himself to see His own pain and suffering as gain to His soul, and

                Necessary for the spiritual gain of “His neighbors” (all the world).

The point is this:  if we truly desire to love our neighbor we must allow ourselves to love God.  Truly Loving God isn’t easy.  We have to accept that He is totally and 100% in charge.  We have to accept that what He is doing is profitable to our soul, regardless as to how much our flesh cries out.  We have to accept that what He has done and will do is for the betterment of mankind, our society, and the world.  We have to accept that the way we would do it if we were Him is not the answer.  Not the answer for our own lives and not the answer for the world.  Loving God isn’t easy.  But it does bring liberty, freedom from our agenda, freedom from questioning what we don’t like.  Freedom to be at peace in spite of what has happened and what the future holds.

I pray that God be with you and that you allow Him to speak to you throughout the day.