In an October blog, The Genuine Article, I made mention of the fact that we in this world tend to think we control the happenings and progress of this country by virtue of democracy and the rule of the people, so that the government is in office by the will of the people, and operates with the people's wellbeing in mind. I questioned that assumption, and offered the possibility that the government in office operates by virtue of the real, underlying ‘powers’ that be, regardless of the ruling party's stripe. Those people control the money, the media, and all that underlies life as we know it in our ‘free’ world.

A friend sent me the following article, written by a financial mind. Please read it. It speaks to this issue, and may open our minds a bit more to this possibility.

Please also make note of the writer’s use of the word 'dominion' in it's various forms ('dominate', etc.).

I am not of the conspiracy-theory mind, and in fact eschew that thinking because I believe that the world's system(s) operate under spiritual rather than this-worldly powers, and that, ultimately, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Eph 6.13).

The link:   http://www.yolohub.com/economy/who-runs-the-world

shalom .. .

Don't let the Son go down in your wrath

Isn’t the fast I choose to break the chains of wickedness, to untie the ropes of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, and to tear off every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the poor and homeless into your house, to clothe the naked when you see him, and not to ignore your own flesh and blood? (Isa 58)

I have this ache … somewhere between the pit of my stomach and my soul.

Recently we put a garbage can outside a local store with a sign asking for help for the needy – donations of winter clothing and blankets. The first few times I saw garbage in there I was a bit upset, but no one had donated stuff. I added “Not a trash can” to the sign. The garbage dumping continued. Then people started donating … and people still threw their garbage in, on top of the clothing. The garbage included coffee and latte drinks, and they stained the clothes. I was fuming. Absolutely livid. How could anyone be so care-less?? Other events followed, and it brings me to this blog.

If our ‘religion’ – our confession, our salvation, our belief system, our doctrine, our praxis – does not include actively lightening the burdens of the oppressed and abused and homeless and hurting, our religion is worthless. Zip. Without value. Useless. Pie-in-the-sky. Bogus. Posturing. Pretense.

I’m angry. One of my beloved friends tried (in vain) to turn me off it. Said I shouldn’t be like that; it gives people the wrong impression. I’m flat-out done with impressions. Done it too long. Impressions are for impressionists, politicians, lawyers … preachers?

I’m angry. I think of the passage about the sun going down on your anger – I’ve not been successful at that.

I’m angry. I think I want to be angry. Maybe it’s my own history, my particular baggage, that gives power to that anger, makes it potent and energizing. I don’t know … But I’m angry. I’m angry at me for wasting so much of my life (and those were the ‘prime’ years too); for focusing on being ‘right’ and hurting so many in the pursuit; for thinking what I ‘know’ was the important thing, the key to success in spiritual things. I was dead wrong on all of that, and I’m angry at me for it.

I’m angry at others too: the theologians and college professors and preachers and teachers. They have misdirected the sheep, and led them down a veritable rabbit trail, chasing coo-coo birds and boogeymen.  They are the very ones that should know (like me …). They have neglected the spirit of the gospel in pursuit of … theology? the ‘salvation’ of souls? numbers? the accolade of the intelligentsia? certainly the fame and fortune available on ‘christian’ tv and ‘christian’ books.

The pursuit of materiality has become the new religion. It has robbed us of our souls and made some rich, many poor. The grand tragedy is that ‘christianity’ has enjoined that race, and been engulfed in the absurdity of our world, instead of being the rebel-culture that points to the kingdom.

We have turned the good news into a strategy instead of living it out in the lives of the very ones Jesus died for. Sad, that. Jesus’ heart is pure love, for he is the perfect expression of God himself, and God is love at the core of his being. That love demands service for the benefit of humanity, at personal cost, for the kingdom’s sake. Period.

We have this thing .. we ascribe harshness, and wrath, and anger to the ‘god’ of the Old (First) Testament, love to the ‘god; of the New, as if they are different gods. But the Isaiah quote above is just that god. Here’s more …

This is what the Lord says: Administer justice and righteousness. Rescue the victim of robbery from the hand of his oppressor. Don’t exploit or brutalize the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. (Jer 22.3)

For the Lord your God is the God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awesome God, showing no partiality and taking no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing. You also must love the foreigner, since you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. (Deut 10.17-19)

“I will come to you in judgment, and I will be ready to witness against sorcerers and adulterers; against those who swear falsely; against those who oppress the widow and the fatherless, and cheat the wage earner; and against those who deny justice to the foreigner. They do not fear Me,” says the Lord of Hosts. (Mal 3.5)

There are many other like-minded passages. This is the god of that Testament. And that is what he says we must do. We halt the posturing – the sacrifices, and fasts, and posturing piety – and we do the heart of God by loving our neighbours, regardless of age, colour, sex, nationality, religion … regardless. We fill up the cup of Jesus’ suffering by laying our lives out for the good of others. Then we have the basis on which to sacrifice, and fast.

As for Jesus… well, visit the Beatitudes. Read them again. Watch him in the Gospels as he describes his mother and children as those standing around him, not his physical family. Observe as he heals, sometimes battling oppressive powers to do so (as with the blind man whom he had to work on more than once, who could only see men in the shape of trees at the first attempt). He feeds hungry people. He drives away demonic forces. He raises the dead. His was a healing ministry, a work of bringing relief and restoration.

Was he teaching anyone in that? Is the so-called ‘great commission’ influenced by that? Were the apostles and disciples to emulate him in that? Is he our example? Or only our saviour? Are we his disciples, or are we not?

I’m angry that I have walked right past this, like the proverbial priest passing the half-dead man on the other side of the road. I have neglected the active element of my faith. And faith apart from works is dead dead dead.

I’m angry. I want to stop being angry at some point. Seems to me the only way to achieve that is to do what I should have been doing all along: find the hurting, pray for God to lead me there, and to help. Only then do I have the right to speak Jesus into their lives.

James says: Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (1.26,27)

He also says, My dearly loved brothers, understand this: Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for man’s anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness. (1.19,20)… .. .

“Lord … I believe. Help my unbelief …”

In connection with the last blog, I recently rediscovered a plaque I had made some years ago which speaks to the same issue of getting alone with yourself in order to better understand yourself and to hear God speak, perhaps more clearly .. it is credited to Anselm, and you may find some encouragement in it ... 

peace

Express Yourself

Trust the Lord with all your heart. Don’t rely on your own understanding of things; instead, submit everything to his authority and he will show you the way (Prov. 3.5,6). I learned these verses as a child. Later in life they have become my guiding principle. The philosophy is so simple, yet so profound, and so endearing – a loving God who desires acknowledgement and relation from those made in his image, who loves his children to come to him for advice and instruction.

We have forgotten (or have never learned) the import of time spent in isolation, in reflection, in quietitude. The reasons are myriad, I suppose, but mainly they stem from a social mindset of busy-ness, ‘work ethic’, chasing success, getting stuff – most of which can be umbrellaed under the term ‘materialism’. We have traded living for getting, maturing for perpetual childhood, knowledge for entertainment, wisdom for imitation … and on and on. Sad, that. This descent into mindless inhumanity is tragic - it speaks to a misunderstanding of what human means. In the final analysis, it reflects an unacknowledged mindset that produces escapism, getting away from ‘me’, pretense, an impression-istic lifestyle to convince people I am ok, in the groove … while all the while I don’t even know who I am.

When we hide from ourselves, we fool ourselves, and make fools of ourselves.  Better to acknowledge who we are and move from there, in this or that direction, with some guiding principles that serve to take us somewhere, hopefully somewhere better.

Although we were not designed to live lives of isolation, we cannot truly live unless we know ourselves, and that requires introspection and consideration of the heart; those things require time spent apart, alone, quiet, tranquilled, blood pressure and pulse leveled, stress-less.

Until I know my heart, I am playing life.

The Psalmists often mention ‘meditation’. They refer not to the mindless practice of emptying the mind and embracing the universal energy, but to the practice of focusing on the Divine. And where better to go, for in the words of the Proverber, ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’. True.

That leads me to this: a good practice to advance that mindset is journaling. Used to be called ‘keeping a diary’. Used to be a woman thing. Some years ago I began writing. As that progressed, there were thoughts I had that I didn’t want to (or couldn’t) share. That led me to private notes, which I soon found out was termed ‘journaling’. And I have never stopped. I have accumulated several journals over the years, all intensely personal and private; all go to the grave with this body.

There are some presuppositions, some ground rules, some things you need to have set in mind in order for you to achieve the benefits of journaling.

One such thing is the understanding that your journal is strictly private. It belongs to you, no one else will ever read it, and what you say there will remain unspoken to everyone else. This is the basic rule, and apart from it you will not be able to express yourself to yourself in utter frankness.

Another rule: say exactly what’s on your mind, in exactly the way you’re thinking it at the time. You’re big enough to take it, and so is God. If you tone it down or dress it up you are defeating the whole purpose of being honest with yourself, and will never really get to know your own heart.

Understand that, as a Christian (and I’m speaking, I suppose, primarily to those who are), you are on a God-radar, and what you think, say, do, feel, etc. are monitored by him. Not that he’s looking to catch you in some wickedness so he can punish you, but because you are his child and he’s intensely aware of you and concerned with you and your wellbeing, your shalom. He watches out for you.

This understanding translates into, ‘what I write here is between me and God’. That’s a significant mindset. 

The danger arises out of telling yourself that since it’s between you and God, there are things you cannot say, cannot express, or maybe cannot say in the way you otherwise would have said, lest he should hear … Think about that. That means you suppose that God doesn’t know what you’re thinking if you don’t write it in your journal, that you have things in your heart God is not aware of. I beg to differ. ‘Man looks on the outside, but God looks on the heart’, friends. Point is you have to bring that admission to your own attention, and not escape from it; only then will you be able to be totally honest when you talk to yourself.

This phenomenal realization brings me to the place where I realize that when I journal, I’m actually praying. I’m communicating with God from the recesses of my heart, the place where the real me lives, and moves and has my being. It is precisely there that God wants to meet me. That is precisely the person God wants to talk with, to hear from, the real me. Journaling helps to achieve this.

Lastly, be sure to have your journal secreted such that no one will ever find it, ever.

From the previous comments you can tell that journaling has been a huge part of my life. It has given me the freedom to admit, to repent, to relish, to remember, to complain, to curse, to vent, to question, to beg, to reminisce, to search, to praise, to worship, to adore … and maybe to die - to be me, in all my unglorious, utterly human, dreadful, insecure, ugly nakedness, unashamed, secure in the knowledge that this is the only me my God wants. And maybe bold enough to believe that he will hear me when I speak, and that he wants to.

That, my good friend, is freedom.

That is the kind of God I serve. He is marvelous beyond human description, loving me in all my ugliness, and wanting to relate to me in all my ugliness so that he can have root to change me into the image of his Son, as a son. That rocks! I’m in. I’m so in!

Please get in. Know yourself so that you can know the God who loves you intensely, and wants to make you into his favourite child.

Journal. You’ll relish every moment.

shalom