Living in Belief From Enlightenment Past

There are times when I have lucid moments with my Master.  He shows me something and I get it, I see it, it makes sense, and I get excited (because they’re rare).  What Chambers writes about here is making use of those times to act on that experience on the way down or out of it.  I should not be amazed at how often that I fail exactly at that point.  I am so shocked to be in the moment, it fades before I act and then I don’t act since it passed. 

I have had some very lucid moments, and I have had times of semi-lucidness, and so on.  But the common element to each of them is the sense of truth.  I would have a revelation of something new (to me) about my Master, or about my relationship with Him, or insight about needs of those around me.  While in ministry, it was easy to act on them, since that was expected.  Now it is unusual, and somewhat disruptive, possibly embarrassing or vulnerable.  But those times, since they are from my Master, are also calls to action.  Chambers is exactly right there.  The passage he uses is John 12:36, and this passage follows the resurrection of Lazarus after being dead over three days.  The people around Jerusalem want to see the One who raised Lazarus.  The Elders want to kill Jesus and Lazarus.

While on His way into Jerusalem, the Father speaks audibly in response to Jesus, Greeks seek Him, and He speaks of the sort of death He will suffer.  John makes the comment that though Jesus had performed this sign of raising Lazarus, they still did not believe in Him.  Jesus says to them, “While you have the light believe the light.”  The light, one of several thematic references in John, will be leaving; and with Him, an opportunity, a “kyretic” moment will pass.  The people have an opportunity to respond to Jesus as their Master, but they are to tightly married to their desire for a political king.  They can see only as far as their subservience to Rome, not their slavery to sin.  This is me.

When I get so distracted by my woes at work, am I any different than these souls who witnessed the death of the Creator?  When I lose my cool driving eight miles in traffic, am I better off or clearer of vision than they were?  How about when I get angry with my daughter because she was mean to me instead of using that as a teachable moment to calmly provide guiding consequences?  Or when I am sarcastic or cynical with my wife over some meaningless comment or action, am I still in touch with the amazing revelation of grace of my Master?  Does the reality of the Savior with which I have been provided sink below my conscious into the fiber of my personality?  When I am by myself, no one sees what I do, I feel the tendrils of my old behavior and I wish for it, whether I give in or not, that I wish for it shames me!  Jesus loves me, He has my back, and I am at His service.  Yet when I do these things, I stand over His cross, hammer and spike in hand, ready to add another stroke to his pain.

What do I believe, and what do I do, and do they match?  What light have I been given, and is it fading?  And when it fades, what will I do then?  Will I believe still, will I act as if it’s true, and will I continue to obey?  Or will my actions, thoughts, behaviors, and attitudes look more like those who live as if there is no Savior except themselves?  Even now, thoughts move through my mind, memories of things I have seen, things I have done.  Even as I pray in electronic form, my mind still is not clean.  What light do I have, and will I believe while I have it?  Perhaps the term I need to adopt is becoming a “Son bather” and soak up the light of the Son.  I hope for a fourth degree burn to the bone from light of His face, so He can rebuild me from the core in the form He desires.  Wow, sounds painful; like being crucified (Ephesians 2:20).

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 16th.

Inspired to the Impossible?

Paul refers to some writing familiar to the believers in Ephesus when he quotes, "Awake sleeper, rise from the dead, and the Christ will shine on you."  We don't have that writing.  Chambers uses this passage to point to different types of initiative, the sort inspired by human effort, and the sort inspired by the Spirit of God.  I have to wonder, though, if there really is a part that is mine.

I have had to struggle with seeing myself as powerless over some of my behaviors.  But, at the same time, I have had to take responsibility for them, rather than blame some nameless cause, and simply surrender to these behaviors.  It is a tension with which I sometimes have difficulty.  How can I be both powerless and responsible?  Truly the only reason for the tension is my desire to pass off the blame.  The easy answer is that I, by my own choices and actions, have developed patterns of thinking and behaviors which now have taken over and I am powerless to control.  All that really means is that I must have help changing the behavior and thinking patterns.  I fear dependency, but it is the only way I can be free from these things to which I enslaved myself.

From this I already know my ability to inspire myself is doomed to failure.  So, when is initiative inspired by Jesus, not myself?  When He asks me to do the foolish thing.  The problem is that I have very little problem coming up with my own set of foolish actions, so I have to be careful not to choose something merely because it is foolish, ascribing those things only to Jesus.  Such as, He tells the man with the withered hand to stretch it forth.  The man does and is healed.  On the other hand, Jesus walks by the funeral bier and reaches in to raise the young man from the dead and return him to his mother.  Yet Jesus calls Lazarus forth from the tomb, orders the paralytic to pick up his mat and go on his way, and the blind man to wash in the Pool of Siloam.

The things He asked people to do, if I put myself in the setting, are foolish.  The ones we think of most readily are the ones where Jesus does something; puts mud on the blind man's eyes (twice), touches the dumb man's tongue and puts fingers in his ears, and touches the leper.  There is this mixture of Jesus acting, and Jesus commanding.  So when am I waiting for the command and when am I waiting for the touch?  He commanded lepers to show themselves to the priests and offer the sacrifice Moses commanded, they went and were healed.  Not all lepers were healed the same way.  Which one am I?

When lepers travel to priests they venture to that place where they will suffer the most.  When a blind man has to navigate the narrow and noisy streets of Jerusalem to find a pool, he endangers himself.  When a man has a shameful deformation indicating, as everyone tells him, that he has sinned before God, why would he want to stretch it forth?  Jesus asked them to do the foolish thing.  The rich he told to sell everything, give it to the poor, and follow Him.  Not everyone was willing to do the foolish thing.  How willing will I be?

If I am willing, I will see the impossible happen, and Jesus will get credit.  If I attempt the impossible at the command of my Master, it will be clear that it cannot be me accomplishing it (hence the impossible adjective).  If it can't possibly be me, then it must be Jesus.  But if I attempt the foolish thing without His prompting, then I get the credit, whether I achieve the foolishness or it turns out for my benefit.  So I must listen for the voice of God, again; or rather, still.

So, I have heard, "Wait, worship, and walk before Me."  This puts my family in a difficult situation.  We can't tell people what we plan, and we look foolish.  We can't really prepare or we prepare for things we do not know will happen.  Either way, we appear foolish.  Employers want notice, property managers want signed leases, and we want to have closure.  It seems that I will not get what I want from my Master when I want it, but rather what He decides I need when He decides I need it.  He seems to think I do not need to know right now.  It appears what I need right now is the lesson in waiting, worshipping, and walking; and I am powerless to make Him answer sooner.