If we are in Christ the whole basis of our goings is God, not conceptions of God, not ideas of God, but God Himself. We do not need any more ideas about God, the world is full of ideas about God. They are all worthless, because the ideas of God in anyone’s head are of no more use than our own ideas. What we need is a real God, not more ideas about Him.
-Oswald Chambers
“God, you’re such a safe and powerful place to find refuge!
You’re a proven help in time of trouble—
more than enough and always available whenever I need you.
So we will never fear
even if every structure of support were to crumble away.
We will not fear even when the earth quakes and shakes,
moving mountains and casting them into the sea.
For the raging roar of stormy winds and crashing waves
cannot erode our faith in you. “
(Psalm 46: 1-3 TPT)
Recently while I was on a Zoom call with friends who were checking on each others welfare, one said, “I’ve come to realize that I am responsible for my own flabby faith. I need to exercise it.” I knew she was right.
Faith is taking the risk of trust. When we sow seeds of fear, we reap a harvest of distrust. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a constant barrage of fear-inducing reports like the ones that saturate the atmosphere right now. So many of us raised with the fear of a punishing God are triggered by this negativity. We need to get to know in an experiential way who God really is and take steps toward trust.
I watched a lad sit perfectly still for hours as he reached his hand out to a wounded. I didn’t see any progress so I left to do something I hoped would be more productive. When I came back later in the day, the little creature was settled in the palm of the boy’s hand. God is like that. He has enormous patience. He is also a great trainer and gives us increasingly greater challenges to grow and strengthen our faith.
I sense we are heading into a time when we will need more than flabby faith. When foundations crumble, we need to be familiar with the Holy Spirit’s still small voice and the safety of the hand of our Creator. It starts with one step and grows in strength through exercise until deeper experience of His love conquers all fear.
We got out of the house and went for a drive yesterday. It reminded me of Sunday afternoons when I was a child. With my parents, grandparents and two little brothers squeezed in the Oldsmobile (the youngest on Mom’s lap!) we headed for the countryside with no particular destination in mind. If the snow had melted, we headed west to the mountains. If not, Dad pointed the car south toward ranch country so Grandpa could see the fields and horses.
Yesterday, my husband and I headed toward the Steeples Range. Apparently, a lot of people had the same idea and since we were being careful to maintain a distance in this time of viral threat we took the road less travelled. After turning down Bull River Road we came to the base of Bull Mountain.
The snow is melting in the valley and the blandness of this season without winter whites and blues or summer greens or autumn golds feels like spending time with loved ones in moments when they are not dressed up to their best standards. But the beauty of the heights is still there.
This morning I read this:
The four corners of the earth were put in place by you.
You made the majestic mountains
that are still shouting their praises to your name.
Breathtaking and awesome is your power!
Astounding and unbelievable
is your might and strength when it goes on display!
Your glorious throne rests on a foundation
of righteousness and just verdicts.
Grace and truth are the attendants who go before you.
O Lord, how blessed are the people
who experience the shout of worship,
for they walk in the radiance of your presence.
We can do nothing but leap for joy all day long,
for we know who you are and what you do
(Psalm 89:12-16 TPT)
Today marks exactly seven years since the beginning of seeing a miracle. On this day my husband drove our son-in-love to the hospital with what he thought was the flu and a pulled hamstring. Within a few hours he was in surgery. That night doctors and nurses struggled to raise his blood pressure as he nearly flat-lined three times.
It was the beginning of a miracle, but it didn’t feel like it. It felt like the spirit of death crashed our party wanting to steal, and kill, and destroy. (Real time blogs from that season start here.)
The thing is, if you want to see miracles you will find yourself in situations that call for them, because as much as we honour and appreciate the skills of highly trained medical people, even they acknowledged this disease was beyond their ability to stop.
We can read about God, debate about God, fight over our ideas about God, but we don’t know God until we walk through a storm with him. Not until we find ourselves in a position of being out of control despite our best efforts, can we begin to understand the majesty of God, who is greater than any impossible situation.
Paul, the great intellect and apostle wrote, “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.” (1 Corinthians 2:4 NIV)
Editors advise writers to show, not tell. I can tell you who God is for me, but until you have actually experienced his kindness, goodness grace and no-nonsense justice it’s all a nice story.
Because I’ve seen the goodness of God I can say, “We can do nothing but leap for joy all day long, for we know who you are and what you do.”
If you find yourself in a place where you feel out of control and out of ideas, cry out to God. Let him show you who he is.
O God, how extravagant is your cherishing love!
All mankind can find a hiding place
under the shadow of your wings.
All may drink of the anointing from the abundance of your house.
All may drink their fill from the delightful springs of Eden.
To know you is to experience a flowing fountain,
drinking in your life, springing up to satisfy.
In your light we receive the light of revelation.
Lord, keep pouring out your unfailing love
on those who are near you.
Release more of your blessings to those who are loyal to you.(Psalm 36:7-10 TPT)
God offers extravagant love, not mere grudging tolerance. We can’t use it up. There is more where that came from. It flows.
When I saw this mannequin in a country store she reminded me of someone going incognito. Incognito is Latin for unseen, unknown. The goal of going incognito is the opposite of intimacy, something else I’ve been thinking about lately.
The problem with writing about intimacy with God is that when you use the word intimacy, people think you are talking about sex. Intimacy in current usage is very much about being seen and being known by someone of importance.
We see articles about improving intimate relationships in marriage and advertisements for intimate apparel, which have their place, but there is a greater intimacy with the Creator that goes beyond the physical and the emotional. I’ve been trying to figure out how to describe this kind of intimacy without alluding to sexual intimacy, but as I read the Bible, I notice something. God is proficient in the language of symbolism. He doesn’t avoid talking about sex, so why should I?
Sexual intimacy is a metaphor for something even bigger and better.
When God created man and woman they stood before each other naked and unashamed. The Bible says Adam knew Eve and she conceived. According to Strong’s, yada’, the word often translated knew means:
1. to know, learn to know
2. to perceive
3. to perceive and see, find out and discern
4. to discriminate, distinguish
5. to know by experience
6. to recognise, admit, acknowledge, confess
7. to consider
The first act of seduction and the first act of unfaithfulness was when the serpent, the creator of lies, convinced these two humans that if they ignored God’s instructions and ate from the tree, they would become like gods themselves. They would yada’ good and evil.
The first bit of knowledge they perceived, learned and experienced (yada’ again) after they chose to believe the serpent, was that they were naked – and ashamed. The Hebrew word for ashamed also carries the connotation of disappointment. Sin brought a sense of disappointment in themselves and disappointment in each other as part of the package deal. That profound disappointment is called shame. They needed a layer of protection to try to keep their shame from being seen. They covered up. They hid from God. They tried to go incognito. Unseen. Unknown.
The plan failed. It’s been failing ever since because God came looking for them.
One of the key verses for my life is Philippians 3:10 and 11: “… that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
The problem is that knowing him intimately means confronting the problem of shame that piles up like stinky laundry in front of the door. Can I be honest and tell you that a life-time of sin-awareness has not made me less sinful, but more aware of my shame? I’ve watched an entire industry based on the design, fabrication, and marketing of fashionable religious cover-ups expand in my life. I’ve watched it burgeon in the lives of people around me too.
The thing is about sexual intimacy is that involves us standing naked before someone and exposing our less-than-perfect parts. Am I the only one who has noticed, after many trips to the beach, that I am not the only one with scars and rolls and, um, a disappointing shape? I won’t even mention smells and sounds.
Sexual intimacy requires a lot of trust. One of our greatest fears is taking a risk and later experiencing rejection or betrayal as a result. That’s why Jesus said that when a person claiming to represent God betrays the trust of a vulnerable person, they have committed a heinous crime. If a victim thinks God is on the side of the perpetrator, they are hindered from turning to God for healing. It may take years and many demonstrations of unconditional love before they can regain a sense that God will not also betray them. So many people have believed lies about the nature of God as a result of abuse. I believe God wants to uncover truth about who he really is through his goodness.
Spiritual intimacy also requires trust, perhaps even more than physical intimacy. When we make a spiritual connection we give access to the deepest, most vulnerable part of our being.
Entire literature and film genres cash in on crimes of passion based on fear of rejection and betrayal. It is easier to approach God covered with a thick bullet-proof mantle of religiosity, to speak in tones of formal scripted recitation, and to never let him get between us and the exit than it is to drop defenses.
But God makes a way. He deals with shame by inviting us to consider it dead. He makes us into someone new. He shows up with his goodness and covers us with his own righteousness. Jesus’ humiliating experience of hanging naked on a cross as he bore our shame purchased that righteousness for us.
Intimacy requires the participation of two naked people with nothing hidden, nothing held back. Because God makes the first move by exposing his heart for me, I can drop my own attempts at cover-up. I am free to expose my heart to him. His righteousness becomes mine. In his eyes I am beautiful.
The passage before the verses I’ve claimed as my life theme goes like this:
“…I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith…” (Philippians 3:8 & 9)
As I was thinking about daring to respond to God’s invitation to increased intimacy, a line from an old song came to mind:
“…dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before his throne.”*
Trust involves risk. For so many years, I found it difficult to trust someone I was told wanted to punish me for not loving and obeying him perfectly. It was too risky to trust. That’s because I didn’t know him. Eventually I took the risk. Trusting someone who demonstrated love by giving his life for me is worth the risk. To be known and loved down to the cellular level by the One who created me is priceless.
It’s worth the cost of dropping disguises — that I may know him.
*From My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less by Edward Mote
Charis: Subject to Change 