I had a dream a few weeks ago. I went to an A & W restaurant and ordered food for myself and friends at the counter. The girl said they would bring it to me when it was ready. Instead of tables and chairs, the restaurant had beds (hey, it was a dream). Since I felt tired I lay down and took a nap. It seemed like a long nap, but when my order was ready I got up and went to pay for it with a credit card. That’s when I discovered a $50 bill in my wallet I didn’t realize I had. It easily covered the cost.
An ordinary kind of dream, but I felt like I should pay attention, so I wrote it down in my dream journal. As I did I remembered that when I was a teenager, with a brand new driver’s license, my friends and I would borrow Daddy’s car and go to the drive-in where the car-hops wore brown and orange parkas – the A & W. We jokingly called it “The Ask and Wait,” although the service was probably faster than most other places. I made a note in my journal and promptly forgot about it, until a few days ago.
Right after this dream my dear friend suddenly became critically ill with a perforated ulcer (a hole in her stomach). She said it was the most painful thing she had ever experienced. I rushed back from Alberta to be with her. The first emergency surgery looked like a success, but it wasn’t. Instead of being released from hospital after a few days, she landed in ICU with complications and then found out, when she tried to eat some apple sauce, that the hole was still there. After several unpleasant invasive procedures the plan was to wait. So she waited. We prayed and she waited some more.
The hole was still there. I felt so badly for her laying in bed, unable to eat, hooked up to I.V.s and various uncomfortable tubes, watching room mates arrive, recover and leave. Then I remembered the dream -ask and wait, and you might as well get a good rest while you’re waiting. So her friends and husband and I prayed and asked the Lord for healing, and waited together, and learned to rest in God’s love. (She was better at it than I was, but I wasn’t sedated.)
Finally doctors proposed a more drastic surgery that would remove part of her stomach and intestine and scheduled another surgery. After it was postponed due to other emergencies with priority for the O.R., one of the specialists ordered another test to check on the size of the hole. This time the message was good: no hole found. It had closed “on its own.”
I think finding the $50 in my wallet was about finding unearned provision -God’s grace when we needed it.
Learning to rest in the middle of trouble is not a natural response for me -nor is shouting for joy. My upbringing valued decorum more highly than emotional expression. I’m more likely to fold my program into smaller and smaller squares at an exciting sports event than I am to actually cheer out loud. My friend’s Norwegian reserve is even greater than my Anglo/Germanic decorum (although I have seen her dance in the aisles on occasion) but we celebrated with shouts of joy that would not disturb the patient in the next bed -and gave thanks on American Thanksgiving with a feast of blue jello.
Thank you, Lord!
Permit me some joyful cyber-shouting: GOD IS GOOD!!!!!
One generation commends your works to another;
they tell of your mighty acts.
They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty—
The very quality of your life, whether you love it or hate it, is based upon how thankful you are toward God. It is one’s attitude that determines whether life unfolds into a place of blessedness or wretchedness. Indeed, looking at the same rose bush, some people complain that the roses have thorns while others rejoice that some thorns come with roses. It all depends on your perspective. -Francis Frangipane
Just after I posted my last blog about steeping in God’s reality I looked through other photos I took this week. The significance of this simple photo of a grandfather carrying his grandson on his shoulders suddenly hit me.
Five and a half years ago we had a tough week full of bad news:
-Our daughter learned that damage from the disease that had already given her so much pain was more advanced than the specialist had thought and it was highly unlikely she could conceive a child.
-My husband learned he had a serious degenerative bone disease that affected his spine so severely that the strange malformation was threatening his spinal cord. He had to give up all sports and stressful physical activity immediately.
-A business coming out of a research project he had dedicated years to was pronounced dead, done, and defunct.
I had a vision of babies for my daughter, health for my husband, as well as a satisfying post-retirement business for him. It seemed like an impossible hope at the time, but I felt the Lord was asking us to be patient while he worked things out.
This is a photo of one of the children born to that infertile mother, conceived, like his sisters, without medical intervention.
This is a photo of his grandfather, not only able to walk and have full use of his hands, but able to carry the weight of that child on his back without pain despite missing a vertebra. (It’s been replaced by some sort of vascular tissue growing there now which doesn’t pinch his spinal cord.)
This is a photo of a visit brought about by God-coincidence. As for the business, he has been able to apply his expertise to a new venture -and he and son-in-law sat together working on it this week beside this beautiful lawn.
This is a photo taken by a photographer who was smiling so much that day, her face hurt.
Our son-in-law (miracle # 4 in this story) survived a bout of flesh-eating disease which took him as close to death’s door as his doctors had ever seen someone come and still be restored to full health, with all his limbs, organs and brain intact and fully functional.
“You know it’s a miracle that guy is still alive,” one of them told his colleague.
“What? That guy should be f…. dead!” exclaimed another of the first specialists to treat him, upon hearing reports of “John’s” recovery after he returned from a long trip.
Their generous friend gave our daughter and son-in-love the gift of a week at a time share in Montana to celebrate. Now we have only been to that part of the world two, maybe three times in the past 20 years, but my husband just happened to have an appointment in the same area this very same week so we joined them for a couple of days.
Miracle # 5? The golf course closed for the season just before we arrived, but it was open to guests to stroll around on the green, green grass, beside still waters and brilliant autumn-coloured trees in warm sunshine (60 degrees F in late October is warm to Canadians!) without having to take turns hitting or chasing or losing those silly little balls. In fact our grandchildren made a profit selling 27 found balls to their Daddy.
I’m looking at the photo and steeping in the reality of God’s goodness.
Yesterday I scrambled down a deep ditch and through brambles and thickets and barbed wire looking for a pond I remembered that might still have colourful leaves around it.
“Oh Lord, please let this be worthwhile,” I prayed under my breath as I unsnagged my sweater from another monstrous Russian thistle.
“Secret Place” (click on photo to enlarge)
He answered.
Oh, Lord, you are seriously good. You gave me a gift of more than I imagined. Thank you.
And since he created me to be creative I played with the photos when I got home.
Here’s the thing, my other prayer yesterday was just wanting to know if he loved me. There are those out there who say I am deceived, I have disappointed my Lord and am heading for hell. In a still silent voice he spoke through riotous colour. “Seriously? What do you think? You just posted a scripture today about true believers having the mind of Christ available to them. Think with that mind.”
Right.
Father, out of Your honorable and glorious riches, strengthen Your people. Fill their souls with the power of Your Spirit so that through faith the Anointed One will reside in their hearts. May love be the rich soil where their lives take root. May it be the bedrock where their lives are founded so that together with all of Your people they will have the power to understand that the love of the Anointed is infinitely long, wide, high, and deep, surpassing everything anyone previously experienced. God, may Your fullness flood through their entire beings.
This is a doxology of praise to the One with power that is beyond understanding.
Now to the God who can do so many awe-inspiring things, immeasurable things, things greater than we ever could ask or imagine through the power at work in us, to Him be all glory in the church and in Jesus the Anointed from this generation to the next, forever and ever. (Ephesians 3:16-21 The Voice)
I heard somewhere that if you can worry, you can meditate. The difference between worry and meditation is just the subject matter. To the believer in Christ meditation is not an emptying, but a filling.
When we worry we reflect upon the evidence of things seen. We ponder it, we turn it over in our minds, we obsess about not having a workable solution, about how “It cannot be done.” Worry leads to unbelief.
When we meditate we reflect upon the substance of hope, the evidence of things unseen. When we reflect on the promises of God and bring back to memory the times when He has demonstrated his faithfulness we are filled with faith and hope.
“To say that worship is either about glorifying God or finding personal satisfaction is to put asunder what God has joined together. His glory and your gladness are not separate tracks moving in opposite directions. Rather His glory is in your gladness in Him.” -Sam Storms.
In my life I’ve been part of different denominations within the big C Church. Each of them seemed to emphasize their favourite part of the heart –the lebab– and each were willing to jettison a part another group cherished. Some, admittedly on the extreme edge, said the will is pretty much vetoed by God’s sovereignty, that he is going to do whatever he is going to do with or without our participation or input, thank-you-very-much. Some told me the mind is a source of pride and that serious study is an exercise in distraction. Some taught the emotions are untrustworthy, misleading, and a hindrance to disciplined devotion.
I’ve never managed to successfully ignore any part of my heart for any length of time. When, under pressure, I tried to set aside emotions, for example, in order to please someone else, the conflict without became the conflict within. When a God-given part of our souls is ignored for too long a person experiences, well, some craziness –at least some major stress. At least I sure did. And when it erupted out of me, it was not pretty.
At some point in my past I have been told I am too emotional, I am too intellectual and I try too hard. At some point I have been advised to shed all of these parts of my heart –not all at once of course. The first to go was those old unreliable emotions.
Parallel
I spent many years forging on without the caboose of emotion, wondering why it never caught up. The faith life was a joyless drudge of duty and responsibilities. One day I finally realized that caboose thing was not even on the same track. I think I left it in a switching yard someplace. My soul needed my caboose. Without it I was lacking the discernment that comes from feeling something is off or the joy in the Lord that is my strength.
I see the same thing happening with some folks who have been bullied by academics. They tend to react by praising anti-intellectualism and raise feeling/sensing or engaging the will to a higher level. Some of these folks have told me I think too much. I am too much in my head. But God gave me a brain for a reason, and if I leave it on the hook with my jacket I also give up one of the tools for discernment –and the joy of discovery whilst chasing a rabbit trail through a genealogy.
I’ve also been told I try too hard, that I should “let go and let God” (whatever that means). It would seem that some of those who have lived under the oppression of legalistic attack are tempted jump to the ditch on the other side of the road and use grace as an excuse for not taking responsibility for the fruit that comes from stupid unwise choices. But when I disengage my will my jeans don’t fit anymore, I seldom get around to telling people how good God is –and frankly, I start to feel more like God’s victim than his beloved adopted child with a role to play in the family business.
I am not suggesting any merit in being led by wilfulness, argumentative king-of-the-hill theological debate nor unfettered emotionalism. Apart from the transforming love of Jesus any gift of God is perverted when it serves selfish ego and it all becomes a gong show. Our minds, wills, and emotions need to come together in submission to Christ in spirit and truth .
But that’s why Jesus the good shepherd came –to restore our souls.
This is what integrity means to me – Jesus helping me get my stuff together and having it all head in the same direction at the same time on the same tracks. My prayer is that the Lord unites my heart to fear His name. I choose to study the scripture because it points to Jesus Christ and he just makes me feel good and want to join in on his plans. I want to put everything in happy submission to the Creator who made me and wants me to use and enjoy every gift he gives to his glory –and my gladness.
Abba, with my whole heart I offer You my praise! Thank you for every good gift and for making me the way you made me.
Teach me your way, O Lord,
that I may walk in your truth;
unite my heart to fear your name.
I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,
and I will glorify your name forever. (Psalm 86:11, 12)
I will sing of steadfast love and justice;
to you, O Lord, I will make music.
I will ponder the way that is blameless.
Oh when will you come to me?
I will walk with integrity of heart
within my house. (Psalm 101:1,2)
And as for you, [Solomon] if you will walk before me,
as David your father walked,
with integrity of heart and uprightness,
doing according to all that I have commanded you,
and keeping my statutes and my rules,
then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever…
No one has ever accused me of being overly meticulous when it comes to housework. In fact one day I was telling my adult daughter about how, when I was a kid, we used to sit in the station wagon packed with camping equipment waiting up to two hours for mom to wash her way out of the house (because she couldn’t stand the thought of someone seeing anything but a spotless house should she die suddenly and not return from the trip.)
My daughter said, “Mom, if your house is spotless after you die we’ll know for sure someone was tampering with the evidence.”
Mystery Meat
That’s probably true. But since my house has yet to express gratitude or show any signs of willingness to improve without my constant intervention I do what is necessary and then go get a life.
There are times, however, when lack of attention to detail is definitely a fault. Can I admit fear of the unknown when it comes to plastic storage container caskets of leftover food in the back of the fridge? Sometimes I don’t want to know what’s in there.
“Mom, I think the mystery meat is talking to itself. It seems to be alive,” said my son, “It’s expanding. What is this substance?” he asked gingerly prying off the lid.
My rule is, “If you can’t identify it, don’t eat it.” Seems simple enough.
“Whew!” he exclaimed when the scent of the offensive substance reached his nose. “Sorry, Ma. I’ve gotta throw the whole thing out,” and he tossed the entire container in the garbage can.
I was thinking today (anything to avoid housework) about substance. The Bible says in Hebrews 11:1 that faith is the substance (hypostasis) of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Hmmm… Could it be that unbelief is not merely a lack of faith but also a substance itself, an offensive substance, the evidence of disappointing things seen (or smelled)?
A young man told me about a vision he had driving toward a city on the prairies. He said it was so real he had to ask his wife to grab the wheel. What he described (as nearly as I recall) was something like this: He saw a dull golden coloured metal dome over the city. In the center was a hole with something like incense or smoke or a ray of hazy light rising up through the hole. Then he saw objects, some of them wrapped in lovely paper, some of them with bows, some of them too big for decoration, coming down from the sky and landing on top of the dome but not going through it.
He said he understood the smoke/ray going up to represent prayer and the things coming down to be answers to those prayers but this dome was stopping them from reaching the place where people lived. I asked him if the dome was brass coloured. He said it could have been.
“Have you ever heard people say that when they pray it feels like the heavens are made of brass and God doesn’t answer them?” It clicked with him.
Today I wonder if that brass ceiling is made up of the substance of unbelief. I wonder if unbelief can clog the pipes, block off God’s still small voice, or rust the valves shut against his goodness. I wonder if unbelief is more than a dearth of faith, but almost like an entity that stands in opposition to faith.
One time when Jesus was in Nazareth he apparently did few miracles there “because of their unbelief.”
And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.” And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief. (Matthew 13:57, 58)
“The Leap,” traditional site on outskirts of Nazareth where it is said the people took Jesus to throw him off
I’ve always wondered about that. If Jesus was God could he simply not blast through the unbelief and give the townsfolk an I’ll-show-them? Could it be that it is not a merely lack of faith that hindered what he wanted to do, but this thing unbelief, this substance, this entity, that somehow kept people from receiving what he wanted to give them? What they saw was not the Messiah, but the carpenter’s son from the ‘hood. Could unbelief be the substance of things seen by mere physical eyes –things which caused them to take offense that he would have the audacity to think he was better than them and work miracles?
Modern Nazareth
I was also wondering why giving thanks and worshiping is so strongly connected to prayer.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (Philippians 4:6 for example)
Before this year of challenges the Lord spoke to me a lot about not being hard-hearted as at Meribah (when the children of Israel tested God in the wilderness.) They forgot what he had done for them. They complained and neglected to give thanks for the fact that he miraculously supplied daily bread (manna) and that their clothes and shoes never wore out.
They felt entitled. Then they felt offended.
There is a connection between unbelief and being hard-hearted and unable to receive. Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. (Mark 16:14)
We are just now learning that when our son-in-love was critically ill the people who had the most problem praying for him, and who admit they never phoned or talked to his wife because they “knew” he was bleeding out and was going to die, were some of the medical professionals amongst friends and family. They were too familiar with the evidence seen and had watched this scenario play out too many times before. It must be very hard for them to get up and go to work everyday when they live with so many sad stories of disappointment and loss. It must be difficult for them not to steel themselves against all that pain. But some prayed anyway, telling God, “I believe. Help me with my unbelief.”
And God was good –so good. Our son-in-love is in excellent health, back at work, back playing with his children, and praising the Lord for his infinite mercy. Our daughter continues to teach us why thankfulness is essential in prayer. The evidence of her faith in the unseen is now seen –the glory of God made manifest- in her beloved partner’s restored body and her restored family and restored faith for so many who joined in prayer for him.
(Can I just say another thank You, thank You, thank You, Lord!!! here?)
We are taught in our culture to make choices from a list of evidence-based options, but we tend to forget the evidence of every-day provision of God. Lack of gratitude leads to a sense of entitlement. Thankfulness makes us take our eyes off the lack of water in the desert and reminds us that the God who parted the sea and gives us bread and shoes will surely supply all our needs. He got us this far. It’s obviously not his desire for us to shrivel up and blow away now. When freely and joyfully we give thanks (and sometimes for answers to others people’s prayers before we have seen our own answered) I think it starts to break down that steely hardness of heart. When we are offended a tough layer of unbelief goes back up between us and God’s goodness again.
When we tell God stories (testimonies) and thank God and remind each other how He rescued us from the last cliff-hanger, when we remember his goodness, we remember and recognize blessings – evidence of the unseen. When we praise God we focus on Him and his nature. Could this be the faith that shatters the brass ceiling of unbelief and allows the answers to prayer piling up there to start to drop on our heads? Could this be what helps to unclog the gunk-jammed pipes that keeps His goodness from flowing into our lives?
I wonder if our Western naturalistic worldview, the one that tells us that God doesn’t intervene, that miracles don’t happen (or at least not anymore) and that there must be an explanation for the unexplained somewhere – even when a miracle is dropped in our lap – I wonder if this creates a brass ceiling over our country. I wonder if years of rehearsing the stories of our disappointments and unforgiven injustices allows the substance of unbelief to molder away and grow into a a foul-smelling entity like the mystery meat in the fridge. I wonder if it clogs the pipes that would bring fresh water of revival? I wonder if it’s like rust that keeps the valves shut tight and unable to receive the flow of the Holy Spirit?
I wonder if the massive prayer effort on behalf of one ordinary man in a small city hospital in Canada was a gift to us to demonstrate the type of corporate effort of prayer with thanksgiving it takes to break through large-scale unbelief?
It seems to me the more impossible a situation looks, the more we need to make the effort to give thanks for everything we can think of. I wonder if instead of pooling our unbelief, we put our tiny portions of faith together and pray, giving thanks for everything –I mean absolutely everything- that the Lord has blessed us with…
At the end of the young man’s vision, he saw the dome crack, then break, and all the good things piled up there start to fall on the city. Breakthrough.
I wonder if prayer with thanksgiving might bring down that offensive substance that forms brass ceilings and open the floodgates of heaven.
Charis: Subject to Change 