Earnestly Desire Spiritual Gifts

Some years ago, my habit was to begin my prayer walks by asking Father what was on His mind. Sometimes I'd get a sense of something, maybe a topic to pray about, maybe something to confess, maybe I needed to pray in tongues for a bit.

So I'd start with that topic first. Since those walks were about an hour long, it was pretty rare that the topic he gave me would take the whole time; at some point, I would feel a release in my spirit, and I knew I could go on to other topics on my mind. We had been working with this model for a couple of years, four or five times a week. It was a good season.

One day, it might have been a Monday, he asked me to pray 1Corinthians 14:1: "Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy." That's an awkward verse for a Presbyterian boy to pray, but that's what I felt him saying. So I spent some time praying through these three points, I felt the release to go on, and I went on to other topics.

The next day, he gave me the same assignment. That hadn't happened before, but let's be honest: "business as usual" is not a normal model with God. I wondered if maybe I'd missed something yesterday, so I was especially detailed in praying through the verse, but I felt the release to go on, so I did.

One Wednesday, he said the same thing. And Thursday. And Friday. He never said any more about the verse, just that I needed to pray the verse.

We didn't have walks together over the weekend, so I kind of wondered if we were done with that verse.

We were not. Every day that week, he asked me to pray that verse. And every day the next week. And the next.

Have you ever been in a situation where you needed to do the same thing every day, and you didn't see any point in it? Did you get tired of it? Did you grow to resent it? I did. Every day, pray the same three things. It went on for months. I got to the point where I'd grumble out, "Yes, I pursue love, and I desire spiritual gifts, especially that I may prophesy. Am I done? Can we go on now?" This went on for months!

And he was always kind and gentle, and I always felt that sense of release, though very often it was tinged with his chuckle, and we'd go on.

I was confused by the same requirement every day, but it never discouraged me from looking forward to my walks with him. And he was never grumpy, and not nearly as legalistic as I was about it. We had good walks together, covering loads of topics, and though I didn't count on it, his presence was often near. Those were really wonderful times, though they started strangely every time. I never told a soul about that strange season, not even my bride.

About that time, the church that had been our family for years shut down, so we went looking for our next assignment. We eventually found excellent fellowship in a community two counties away. After a while, I wanted to get to know the men in that family, so I signed up for the men's retreat with them.

The fellowship was pretty good, and the meetings were interesting. A remarkably gifted teacher spoke for a bit (good stuff!) and then turned the meeting over to a prophet we knew. This was back at the beginning of the prophetic movement, and is sure was more interesting than the Calvinist church I'd grown up with. Rather exciting, really.

One session, when it was the prophet's turn, he announced that some guys would be feeling a physical sensation in their gut, and would those guys please come forward, because God has something for you. I was hungry enough that I started forward before even checking to see if had that sensation, but by the time I reached the front, there was something that I could identify, so I felt like I wasn't cheating.

The guys that he ministered to seemed to affirm the words he was declaring to them (tears are a good thing, right?) so I waited my turn and enjoyed God's presence in the meantime. Eventually it was my turn.

The prophet slaps a hand on me and announces, "God says that you've been asking him for the prophetic." I remind you of my strange prayer times during that whole season! I felt seriously set up!

As my head was spinning, he went on to say that God was answering my prayer, and I think he said some other things. I confess, I was distracted.

So all those months, God was setting me up. I guess my Calvinist & fundamentalist background got in my way (in our way?), so it seemed he needed to go all "Jehovah Sneaky" on me to get me to get over my prejudices and invite him to work in me.

So I forgave him for the sneaky maneuver. And yeah, I've had a small part to play in the prophetic realm (I still have to tell people, no, I'm not "Northwest Prophet!")

I'm just a very much loved son, playing in the shallower half of that pool. And I'm loving my sneaky Daddy.

Beauty Even in Destruction

This photo is in the rotation of images that I use for my computer’s screen saver, so sometimes when I walk into my office this image is on my large computer screen. 

That happened this morning. 

I found myself first-of-all appreciating the beauty in the image, and commenting that my Father even makes destruction into beauty. I so admire him! 

After a second, I observed that part of my mind felt obligated to feel guilty for appreciating the beauty in such a destructive event. At that point, I examined that guilty feeling: some of it is a conditioned response based on my culture. I knew folks whose lives were dramatically changed (or ended) by that event. 

And that led me to this thought: “I describe this as a destructive event because of the humans and human construction and human convenience that were disrupted. But this is just how the mechanical systems of this playground of ours called Earth functions.” 

 There certainly was no malice in the event, no intent to disrupt or cause harm. This is just how the planet functions. 

And I realized how much I tend to define what goes on around me by how it inconveniences me or entertains me or impresses me with beauty. I will continue to admire beauty wherever I find it, but maybe inappropriate to evaluate the world by how it impacts me. 

Do y’all have some suggestions for other standards for defining the world around us? 

God Works Within Our Worldview

I'm sure you're aware that none, not a single one, of God's followers is perfect in everything we say, think and do? Amazingly, that includes you and me.

Did you realize that this didn't actually get in the way of God working with us and through us? Surprisingly, God does not expect absolute perfection from us the day that we first meet him.

It's not that God doesn't care about our shortcomings; he's just not disillusioned by the fact that we have them. He loves us anyway. He works with us anyway.

And while he works with us in our shortcomings, he doesn't leave us with those failures, doomed to eternal imperfection and unwitting brokenness. He relates to us in the broken, imperfect place, and he works through the broken imperfection to refine us, to make us more complete, to make us more like himself.

Take Abraham, for example. Abe grew up in Ur, an ancient Sumerian city-state in southern Mesopotamia (modern-day southern Iraq); he spent his first 75 years there [Genesis 12:4], so he was well and truly a child of the Sumerian polytheistic culture. Sacrifices were regularly performed to honor, appease, or seek favor from the gods, ensuring divine protection, fertility, and prosperity for the city and its people. The system included offerings of food, animals, and sometimes humans.

It was in the midst of that cacophony of deities that God speaks to Abe and tells him to leave the city. The problem is that Abe took 75 years of his history in the city with him when he left. He took the Sumerian culture with him.

So when God tells Abraham to head up the  mountain and sacrifice his son [Genesis 22:2], he didn't hesitate. In his experience, this is what gods did, so he assumed that the God that called him to leave the city demanded the same kind of sacrifice that the other gods demanded. Who was he to expect something different?

His adult son Isaac had not grown up in polytheistic Sumeria, but he'd grown up with polytheistic Abraham, so he didn't hesitate either. This is what gods demanded. Who are we to cross the gods?

And in the midst of both Abe and Zac complying with the call for a human sacrifice, God breaks in and interrupts the process. He provided a ram for the sacrifice and introduces himself as "Jehovah Jireh," The-LORD-Will-Provide (well, technically as "YHWH Yireh"). God was saying, "Abe, this is how you do things, but this is not how I do things. Let me show you how I do things: when I require something of you, I will be the provision for it. This is the God you're working with now."

The principle I take away from this is that God doesn't sweat the details: he works with us in whatever condition we're in, even while he restores our misshapen condition to a healthy place in him.

God and Abe had already been through this once before. In Genesis 15, God cut a covenant with Abe. He told him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old." So Abe the Sumerian does what Sumerians do: he chops the animals in half. God didn't ask for that, but he rolled with Abe's traditions [H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Genesis, The Wartburg Press, 1972, p. 480].

I work with the assumption that none of us is perfect yet. And yet, I observe that God uses us to do his stuff in the Earth. Ergo, God works with imperfect people in our imperfect state, not offended by the imperfection, not even offended by the stupid things we believe about him.

Someone smart once said that "now I know in part, but then I will know fully [when the perfect has come]." Not a one of us "knows fully" yet. So God works with what we've got.

In other words, while we learn God's heart, his values, in the Bible, we would do best if we did not make the things that his people do in the Bible our standard. Not even the heroes (like Abe).

Apparently we do not need to chop animals in half or sacrifice our children in order to receive a promise from God. That's just they way Abe did it, largely because of his polytheistic Sumerian roots.

We probably don't need to seduce our friend's wife (and then put out a hit on our friend) like King David did in order to raise an heir to carry on the work God had given him. We probably don't need to kill church folk with our words like Peter did with Ananias and Sapphira when they lie about their generosity.  We could go on.

But wait, I can hear some folks say, won't that undermine the "Authority of the Word of God" in people's lives? Actually, no, though it probably will undermine the imagined authority of the religious leaders who control people with their Bible teachings. And that's not such a bad thing, is it?

You see, we were never designed to follow a written book as our guide for life, not even some leader's teachings about what the book says. The book was for the purpose of drawing us into relationship with a living God; we follow the living God. We continue to learn things from the Book that was written by earlier followers. And we can continue to learn from leaders whose goal is to serve the people of God rather than control them, assuming that they're following the living God and not just the teachings of other leaders who came before them.

Over the years, I've been teaching that unless we question our beliefs, we can never know if they're our beliefs, or if they're someone else's beliefs living in our head. This article is part of my questioning some of my historic beliefs, only to find that they were my denomination's beliefs, not mine.

It's hard to discover this, but it gives me the opportunity to get rid of my own false beliefs and learn more of what's actually true about my very real and very loving Father, who is not ashamed of my brokenness and ignorance.

Assumptions Kill

OPINION: Assumptions kill relationships.

It's really rude to assume I know what someone else is thinking or feeling, unless they’ve already told me what they’re thinking or feeling.  Or you.

I’d say go so far as to say that it’s disempowering them, and it diminishes their right to be in charge of their own thoughts and feelings.

And “But I know them well” is not actually a good excuse. If I know someone well (for example, I’ve known my bride for many decades), I may have a better guess, a less-ignorant assumption, but I’m still taking away their agency, damaging their responsibility for their own heart. I’ve made that mistake enough times to be gun-shy. (She has paid dearly for my assumptions.)

Assumptions damage and can kill relationships, sometimes slowly and painfully, other times quickly and messily.

I watch folks pretty regularly make an assumption about someone else, then relate to them, or discuss them, as if those uninformed (or misinformed) assumptions were actually true. The assumptions prevent us from learning what is actually true about that person, and in conversation, they prejudice other people’s thoughts and expectations about them.

I was part of a social experiment one time. Six or eight of us were assigned to the task of figuring out the answer to a pretty complex problem. But as we worked on it, the researcher stuck labels (like “prideful” or “wise one” or “hair-brained”) on our foreheads and instructed us to assume that this is who each person really was as we worked on our problem.  

The exercise continued for another 10 or 15 minutes. The curious thing was that at the end of the exercise, we all knew what the label on our foreheads said, and we had all begun to live up to (or down to) those assumptions.

Lesson: in a relationship, my assumptions about you will help to shape who you are and how you relate to me and to others around you.

On the other hand, if I’m making assumptions about a public figure I’ll never have an actual relationship with, for example Taylor Swift or Donald Trump, then there’s no actual relationship to damage. But our assumptions still prevent us from understanding what’s actually true. If I believe that Taylor Swift is this way, then that’s what I’ll see, that’s what I’ll expect from her. More dangerously, that’s also going to shape (to limit) how I pray for her. Same with Donald Trump, or any other person I might pray for. (And I always recommend praying for both thought-leaders and political leaders.)

Personally, I’m working on (and I confess I have a long way to go) replacing assumptions with possibilities. I’m trying to eliminate “They think this” with “I allow for the possibility that they might think this,” and then ask enough questions to find out. Provided I really want to (and deserve to) know what they think. It seems to me that people made in the image of God are deserving of that level of respect.

"You're Killing Her!"

I had an interesting dream (aren't most dreams interesting?) recently.

Do you remember the battle of wits in The Princess Bride? My dream wasn't about that scene, but it referenced one line from it. This is that scene:

Vizzini: So it is down to you, and it is down to me. If you wish her dead, by all means, keep moving forward.
Dread Pirate Roberts: Let me explain...
Vizzini: There's nothing to explain. You're trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen.
Dread Pirate Roberts: Perhaps an arrangement can be reached?
Vizzini: There will be no arrangement, and you're killing her.

That's the line: Vizzini, holding the knife to the princess's throat, declares to the man who loves her, "You're killing her."

"You're killing her!" The villain blames the hero for the villain's own actions. That's a memorable scene in what is arguably the best movie ever made, but that scenario plays itself out over and over in the real world: the person doing good is blamed by the evildoers for the evil that he himself is doing. (I wonder if that ever happens in politics?)

God used that scene in a dream. It seemed that Father was calling out that lying spirit.  I was thankful.

And that's when Father spoke into the dream, and his mighty voice declared two things.

1.  A number of his kids have been falsely accused of what the devil has been doing. The accusations are lies. That's not who you are and you haven't done those things, the enemy has done them. Don't believe the lie.

2.  The enemy has had other lies, other lying spirits, deployed to protect the lie. Those are being disempowered and terminated as well. Some of them were very powerful, some very skilled with weaponry (I think of giants and swordsmen, of course.)

I believe that the lie that "You're killing her" is being exposed as a lie: those who are accusing others, more specifically, those who are accusing you, of doing evil will be exposed as liars, and they themselves will face consequences for that.

It's worth mentioning that if you've actually done the evil thing and it's just being exposed, then you don't qualify for this promise. There's a lot of real evil, even among the church, and much of it is being exposed these days, and God is not offering to keep sin hidden.

In addition, I believe that Father is revealing, and disempowering, other spirits who have been assigned against you to protect the lie that the accuser is making against you. He has made plans that would cover his lie, and if it were found out (as it is now), to cover his escape, but Father has already dealt with those lies as well.

So the exhortation is for us to pay attention. Specifically, we are called to stop paying our attention to the accusations against us, to let go of the fear that they are spewing at us, and to fix our eyes on the One who has already defeated them, who is now marching them off to captivity.

Look to your deliverer. Look to your King.

Principles for Understanding Some of the Ways of God.

1. God doesn’t show you all his cards all the time.

• Consider Job. Hell smacked Job around really hard, and Job complained that God had done it. God takes his time answering Job, but when he does, he never says, “That wasn’t me, that was ol’ stink-butt.” Rather, God took the blame, and basically told his boy that “This requires more understanding than what you have at the moment.”

2. God lets his kids write his story. His kids are people. They don’t always get all the details right.

• Consider David’s impetus for numbering Israel: who was it? Compare these versions of the story:
○ Again the anger of the LORD was aroused against Israel, and He moved David against them to say, "Go, number Israel and Judah." [2 Samuel 24:1]
○ Now Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. [1 Chronicles 21:1]

3. God works within the expectations his kids have. He doesn’t change everything all at once.

• [God] also said to him, "I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it." But Abram said, "Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?" So the LORD said to him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon." Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. [Genesis 15:7-10]

God did not tell Abe to cut the animals in half for the covenant. That was just what Abe was used to. God went along with it, since it didn’t break anything.

• Consider Genesis 22, when God tests Abraham. Abe came from a culture where the gods demanded human sacrifices, so God starts the conversation in those terms [22:2]. But then he interrupts the process in order to show his boy that He doesn’t do things that way. [22:11-13].

4. Everything really does point to Jesus.

• Consider “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” [Luke 24:27]

• “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” [Hebrews 1:1-3]

• “You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!” [John 5:39].

5. The people of God don’t always interpret God right.

• The Pharisees of Jesus’ day should be enough proof of this point all by themselves. [See the gospels.]

• Job’s friends sure don’t get God right either. “After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: "My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” [Job 42:7]

6. The Bible is not a textbook about right and wrong. It’s not how to know God [John 5:39]. The Bible is the story of God’s relationship with his people, and his efforts to build relationship with them.

7. The things that you experience from God are not always about you. Sometimes, they’re lessons for someone else.

• God was teaching the Egyptians a lesson, too during the Exodus: “And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.” [Exodus 14:4]

• Sometimes he’s showing us off to ol’ stink butt, or to the hosts of heaven.

8. Understanding God is ultimately well beyond our capabilities. We know what he shows us, and no more, though we might have theories and guesses that may or may not be distractions.

9. Progressive Revelation is a real thing. As time goes on, God reveals more and more of himself.

Job & Abraham didn’t understand much about God. David had much more revelation. And He has revealed so much more of Himself in Jesus.

Bottom line: We in the New Covenant have a much better understanding of some of the ways of God than did people before us.

Correlation Does Not Imply Causation

I was working my way through the Book of Acts recently, and Philip really caught my attention. Philip is awesome!

Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. And the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed; and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed. And there was great joy in that city. [Acts 8:5-8]

Philip has some of the coolest stories. One day God said, “Go over there,” and he met a senior administration official from Ethiopia, a guy who has come almost 2000 miles to worship God, who had questions about the Messiah from his readings in Isaiah. Phil introduces him to Jesus and the guy wants to get baptized in the first puddle they pass.

When they come up out of the water, God transports Philip to Azotus, a coastal town 30 miles north. That’s just plain cool.

 

As I was enjoying the stories about Philip, my mind recalled, “This is Philip the rookie Deacon, not Philip the apostle.” Besides, these are the actions of a young and enthusiastic revivalist, not a senior church leader.

I considered, “Some of those deacons did some pretty great things!”

And as I was thinking this, it seemed that Father whispered, “Correlation is not causation.”

OK, that caught me off guard. I waited. He didn’t say any more, but I realized I was correlating “Philip is a deacon,” with “Philip has some awesome God stories!”

Both statements are true, but they are not necessarily connected. Just because Phil was a deacon, just because Phil served widows does not explain Phil showing up in the middle of Azotus, dripping wet from the baptism, with no wet footprints behind him. (No wonder people listened to his preaching!)

The principle strikes me as much bigger than Phil’s wet footprints in the desert.

Just because Jesus spit in the dirt and rubbed the resulting mud in a blind guy’s eyes does not mean that spitting in dirt is the way to heal blindness. [See John 9:6]

Just because Jesus was the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” does not mean that God set Adam & Eve up to fail.

I’ll bet you can think of some other correlations that we are tempted to think of as cause-and-effect stories.

On the other hand, this principle does not prohibit deacons from doing amazing things in God, and does not prohibit God from healing blind eyes with mud. God knowing what’s going to happen does not imply that God caused it to happen.

It seems to me that we’ve been too darned lazy in our faith. We see two things together and we’re quick think “Cause and effect!” And if I’m honest, too many Bible teachers are quick to point out such correlations, because they preach well and because digging deeper is kind of a lot of work! And so we just believe them.

So this is going to be another point in my ongoing story of “Believers need to think for themselves, durn it!” We need to think things through with the insight of Holy Spirit more than … well … more than short-cutting the process.