Word of God Speak.

I've been challenged over the past month as I've been reading again A.W. Tozer's, The Pursuit of God . I was awakened a bit by the chapter "The Speaking Voice" in which Tozer reminds us that God is speaking. This is a helpful insight as I've been going through the "Seven Realities of Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby. 1)God is at Work. 2)God is interested in a loving relationship with me that is real and personal. 3)God is inviting me to join Him in His work. 4)God will tell me, by the Holy Spirit, through church, scripture, others, and experiences what work he has for me to do. 5)Hearing His word and call will lead to a crisis of belief that will require a step of faith. 6)Following hard after Him in what He's called me to do will require an adjustment to the way I'm currently living - i.e. I am already using up all my resources on other things... time, money, energy, gifts, and creativity. 7)When I obey and engage God will show Himself to me in a way that I will experience His presence.

It seems like Tozer hits me well on the head when he reminds me what I may believe - though I may not articulate it - but my belief system is exposed in my daily behavior, when he writes, "I believe that much of our religious unbelief is due to a wrong conception of and a wrong feeling for the scriptures of Truth. A silent God began to speak in a book and when the book was finished lapsed back into silence again forever. Now we read the book as the record of what God said when He was for a brief time in a speaking mood." Do I believe God is still speaking... not talking about continuing revelation from the sense of Him continuing to inspire scripture... but does He desire an interactive relationship with me that involves hearing and speaking... real communication. If I see the Bible as a book for devotionals, or read a bit here and there to boost me along for the day, then I may not be immersed enough in the word for the Spirit of God to communicate clearly to me. It's not his ability to speak that's the problem, but the set of ears which I've chosen to use in the work of listening.

I wonder how often we open the scripture and say to ourselves if no one else... "Word of God speak for your servant is listening!" Tozer goes on to say, "If you would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to the open Bible expecting it to speak to you. Do not come with the notion that it is a thing which you may push around at your convenience. It is more than a thing, it is a voice, a word, the very Word of the living God." It seems to me that we have been trained to read the Bible a certain way, and perhaps not a very good way. It is to open to "find something" and perhaps in many cases something we're "looking for." That is to say, we've gone looking to find something specific, and I suspect that in many cases we find just that. But in going looking for something specific we cut off from our sight the thing that He might be saying. You've had conversations like that haven't you? I have. The conversation that, while the other person is speaking you've already got in mind what you're going to say next... so you're not really listening as much as waiting for you turn to talk next. No communication really happens... just talking and talking - not talking and listening. Would I like to "find God" that is to say in the context, hear His voice in a real and tangible way? Take a look at another snippet from Tozer, "Why do some persons "find" God in a way that others do not? Why does God manifest His Presence to some and let multitudes of others struggle along in the half-light of imperfect Christian experience? Of course the Will of God is the same for all. He has no favorites within His household. All He has ever done for any of His children He will do for all of His children. The difference lies not with God but with us. He's speaking, wanting us to hear, WANTING us to hear, and we, with the noise and clamor miss His voice. Dallas Willard in his book, Hearing God says, "The primary subjective way that God still speaks to us is in the quiet, still, voice. I/we should pray and then be silent in order for Him to speak.

Lord, teach me to listen. The times in which I live are noisy and my ears are full of the noise and exhausted with the million raucous sounds which continually pound into my head from a thousand different directions. Help me to have the spirit of the boy Samuel when he said to You, "Speak for they servant is listening and hearing." Let me get used to the sound of Your Voice, so that its tones may be familiar when the sounds of earth die away and the only sound will be the beautiful music of Your speaking Voice. AMEN.

I'd love to hear the ways that you sense God is speaking to you... moving you... through word, church, song, others, or circumstances. Just post a comment. JJR

Remember... remember... remember... why we're here.

Ok, it's been a while since I blogged. I have good intentions, but it's seems I just don't make the time. There's never enough time, so it has to be made! In any case, at least as I'm going to Croatia and back... and while I'm there... there will be enough alone time to put down some thoughts.

Got to Spokane early for my flight, I was happy about that, I don't like to be rushed. They asked me if I wanted to go standby on an earlier flight. I said yes, if they were sure I could get on. They said there were 90 free seats... "you're gonna get on!" I got on, had a row to myself... beautiful!!!... then the plane started to fill up. I was hoping for a quiet time to Seattle so I could read. Then... then... then.... a guy moves up from the back and takes a seat in MY ROW... you know what I'm saying... MY ROW! Had to put my feet down. Still had room... then he started talking. The thing is, I'm a friendly guy, but I wanted quiet... rest... peace. He never stopped. He even waited when everyone was disembarking. It wasn't a big problem, I was an hour early, no hurry... it's just that I wanted quiet... peace - you've been there I'm sure.

I was a little annoyed for a bit... then I started to remember that Jesus talked at times about entertaining unique guests. So I settled into listening, nodding my head. Put my book down... ate my pretzels... listened.

Turned out that he and his wife were up in my neighborhood because they were checking out private boarding schools for their son who has gone a fair distance off the path it seems. He got a little choked up at one point... told me that it was expensive, and after all, if his kid had cancer he'd pay whatever he had to in order to help him.

Well, it humbled me, and it was a good reminder to begin this trip. We're here for others... it's called community even when the neighbors are from someplace far away... and my time here isn't my own. It was good to remember why I'm here.

"God is my King from old who works deeds!"

Psalm 74 was a great reminder today of how to walk through trials and difficulties trusting God when we can't see the end of our road. The whole book of Psalms serves to remind us that when God's people were facing difficulties, and were not sure, even of Him, they returned to rehearse the truths about Him, and about His working in their history. The question is, "O God, why have You rejected us forever?" Then there is a pleading... "Remember Your congregation, which You have purchased of old..."

It seems like an eternal dilemma... "Where are You?" "Please don't forget us." What happens in the text, and often does in the Psalms, is the shift from questioning and pleading to remembering the truth about how God has behaved in the past and trusting that, even in the midst... or more - particularly - in the midst of our distress. There is a recitation of God's faithful and mighty works in times gone by.

...You divided the sea by your strength, (they remembered the Red Sea story)
...You gave food to your children in the wilderness, (they remembered the manna)
...You broke open the springs in the desert, (they remembered water from a rock)
...You dried up ever flowing streams, (they remembered crossing the Jordan at flood stage)
...Your is the day and the night, You have prepared the light and the sun, (they remembered his creation of the world)
...You have established the boundaries of the earth, (they remembered the majesty of universe and the magnitude of God's creation).

Each of the points of God's working in history is an unfathomable and miraculous event in which God stepped into time brought about something amazing out of darkness. He gave them a way of escape from the armies of Pharaoh when it appeared that all was lost. He gave them food and water is a desert when it appeared they die of thirst and hunger. He gave them a way across the river and into the promised land after all those years of waiting and wandering. He brought light into darkness and established a magnificent creation from darkness and void.

Paul reminds us in Romans that we have been given an account of God's working throughout history so that we might have HOPE! I wish I could remember, more frequently, when walking a road that is dark and seems to have no hopeful outcome that God has not forgotten - even when it seems to me that He has - and that He will be faithful in the future. My hope cannot be secure if my hope is in getting my desired outcome from a given situation... but my hope can be secure if it is in HIM, because he never changes and I can look back and see how He has moved in the lives of His people in amazing ways they could have never imagined for their good.

Stonehenge - What's the big deal?

So the question that is going through my mind as I look at a National Geographic issue devoted, in part, to Stonehenge is "What's all the fuss about anyway?" The article said, essentially, that people have been thinking about this pile of rocks for more than a thousand years in order to figure out where it came from, who made it, and what it's for.

Stonehenge is, relatively speaking, a grouping of rocks... one might say a pile of rocks. Arguably they're pretty big rocks strewn about in a unique way within a large circle of earth. Oh yeah, there is a graveyard nearby... and some really old houses not too far away also. One interesting point is that they found a guy with a wrecked leg (probably walked with a really bad limp they said) in one of the tombs who was definitely from Germany - and he was rich. They could tell he was rich because he was buried with cool and expensive stuff. Didn't cross their mind I guess that he might have been a thief who stumbled and broke his leg running from the guys he stole from, fell into a hole that was subsequently covered with blowing debris. I mean, that's also a plausible explanation.

Well, I jest, to some degree. To be honest, Stonehenge is incredibly fascinating. I rarely read National Geographic. Not because I find it uninteresting, but rather because of my A.D.D. I just have difficulty staying focused in the long articles. But this one really interested me. My family has visited the replica in the Columbia Gorge. There's just something cool and appealing about it... enough so that someone thought it would be worthwhile to build a replica of it 6000 miles away from the original so that some of us, who haven't made it to England, could have the experience of it in some small way.

So what's the point of taking up space on the blog to think about it a little. It's just this that suddenly struck me as funny. How many of the people who have spent more than a thousand years studying the thing have denied the existence of God, out of hand. That is to say, many people who suggest that God doesn't exist and that all we see happened by chance have spent a good bit of their livers trying to find out WHO erected the stones at Stonehenge, and WHY they erected them. Is there anyone who has ever posited the theory that "Stonehenge was an accident... just happened... though it sure looks designed for a purpose." I'd like to know if anyone knows of one serious archaeologist or philosopher has ever made that case. I'd almost bet there isn't one.

Truth is, intuitively, we look at something as simple as Stonehenge and its surrounding, and know that there was a designer who designed it for some purpose, even if we don't completely see and understand what that purpose was. However, on the order of complexity Stonehenge is less complex than a single strand of DNA - yet there are those running all over the place suggesting that there isn't a designer. Doesn't it make sense that if we routinely, and intuitively apply design, and subsequently a designer, to a pile of cool rocks that something like the human eye might have also had a designer? Just sayin'.

Stonehenge - What'

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The goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!

When it seems like our circumstances are going down the toilet how do we keep our hearts encouraged? It seems to me that one key can be found in Psalm 27:13, 14.

I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD. Psalm 27:13-14 (NASB95)


Two simple bits of wisdom here. First, the Psalmist says that he would have despaired if he hadn't "believed that he would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." He isn't saying that he SAW the goodness of God, but that he WOULD SEE... in the land of the living. I think he's saying, I'm going to see God's goodness in this life. Secondly he says, "Wait for the Lord." The word wait can be translated as hope... and hope is an amazing word. When we say, "I'm hoping for this or that..." in our way of talking it's really wishful thinking. We're going to the park tomorrow so we say, "I hope it doesn't rain." It's wishing for something that you have no idea about. Hope, however, in the biblical language isn't wishful thinking, rather, it's expectant waiting. So if we look at the passage again, a bit differently I think the Psalmist is saying... "I am waiting expectantly to see God's goodness in this life, and if I didn't believe I would see it I'd give up!"

This is not to say, in my view, that he completely expected rescuing from the current set of circumstances, but that God would meet him in the difficult place, in some way. We can't order God around as though somehow he is required to do our bidding. However, he is faithful to work and move in some way... we just have to watch. He still works in amazing ways!

Barak Obama - The speech writer or the makeup man?

It's been said that we live in a time when the "makeup artist is more important than the speech writer." The comment speaks to the fact that we're looking much more for image than policy from politicians - and everyone else I suppose. President Barak Obama certainly communicates a positive image to many Americans at least (the margin of victory for the race wasn't incredible so he doesn't appeal to everyone) but he also appeals to people around the world.

I had an interesting experience in Vienna, on the train from the airport into the city. I got into a very pleasant conversation with a late 20's something guy who is studying philosophy at the University in Vienna. He asked where we were from, and the conversation went on from there. It led in some interesting directions... one of which was his curiosity about President Obama. He wanted to know, "How do Americans feel about Obama?" It's a good question, and he framed it well I think, "How do Americans feel about Obama?" My answer was, "lots of Americans feel good about Obama, but very few people know much about Obama. On many fronts he's a relative unknown in my view. The young man went on to say that Europeans loved Obama. My response to him was, "That's my sense of it... my impression is that Europeans love Obama." I asked what they loved about him. I think it's interesting that he had no answer whatever. Truthfully, he couldn't list one thing he really knew about Obama. Then he said something really interesting... "Maybe we should make Obama the President of the world!" To this of course I inwardly smiled and thought... WOW... if you wanted you could make some prophetic hay with that... but I don't want to... I don't think Barak Obama is the anti-Christ or anything close really... I just thought it was an interesting statement.

As a Christian it's my role to support our leaders and pray for them. I am hopeful for the future and hopeful that President Obama will make good decisions for America. I'm skeptical about some areas certainly. I don't think his economic policy will help our economic situation because I don't think you can borrow your way out of debt. (I do understand that Bush wasn't able to stop this economic situation either). I don't think President Obama will get us out of our conflicts around the world any faster than anyone else would have... and I think if Obama had been President when 9/11 happened we'd still be right where we are today... perhaps without the surge policy in Iraq. I don't think putting government in control of more things is the answer to our woes... including socialized health care... though I see big problems with the affordability of health care and would love to see some solutions. I am deeply concerned about the issue of abortion in our country, and the availability for even late term (partial birth abortions). I cannot personally square that policy with a Christocentric world view. Not because I want to tell other people what to do with their bodies (though we do that all the time in a civilized culture and we always will), I just think that human life begins at conception and I'm not sure there's much evidence to the contrary.

I love it that we have an African American President, and I think, as Juan Williams said on Election night choked with emotion, it speaks volumes about America that so few years after the horrible racial injustices that we've seen that we have a "black President." It appears to me that Barak Obama is thoughtful, and he is clearly intelligent. He seems well-spoken. History will decide whether or not he was a good President... as it will all our Presidents over time. But what do you think after the first 100 days? Any positive steps? Negative steps? I'd love to publish them on my blog and have a bit of dialogue about it. (You need to know that I won't publish ranting and raving - or impolite remarks so don't bother with them - but I would love to hear what you think). I surely believe that, even among Christians, the conversation needs to become civil. I don't sense that too many people are listening these days... it would help us if we did.