by RobertCummins | Aug 3, 2013 | 31. Quieting
Isaiah 30:15-18
The passage begins with God making a generous proposal to His chosen people;
In repentance and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength.
But they turned it down. Instead they elected flight and even though they used the the swiftest horses their choice was in vain.
The result was a chaotic scene where a paranoid mob of a thousand are fleeing from a single enemy. Obviously this enemy had his bluff in and in response to whatever he has done or said, Judah is overreacting badly. It seems the end result of Israel’s response was being left alone and dangerously exposed.
We no longer use swords and spears and we may not be carried into battle on horseback but still there may be some characteristics of our battles that have not changed which this passage may speak to. When God made his offer to save using repentance, rest, quietness and trust, I am picturing a composed heart – a kind of grace-saturated inner-life that is oriented rightly to Truth. Do we consider our hearts all that important in our battle? Are we even aware we are in a battle? Is it possible that we too have turned God down his offer to save and redeem us on these terms?
We still have a diabolical enemy who would love to destroy us. As far as we know his chief weapon is deception. He is referred to as the prince of the power of the air. When I think of the war he is waging I picture the spiritual equivalent of that atmosphere where radio waves travel unseen through walls carrying their messages of advertising, news and entertainment. I see the prince of this age overseeing these unseen transmissions of carefully blended amounts of truth and lies that pass unseen (and usually unchallenged) through our hearts and minds. I picture a day, a glorious one to be sure, where Satan’s lies have been filtered out of the spiritual atmosphere. On that day I think we will be astounded that this singular master lier, by way of his custom-crafted deceit, had put us to flight and provoked so much bondage, misery, chaos and paranoia for so long. The passage concludes with;
Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him.
It is not easy to wrap up, in the concluding paragraph of a devotional, how to compose our hearts for our war with the father of lies except to remind ourselves that light exterminates darkness. Ours is the Father of Lights and we are children of light. Our spirits were formatted for Truth and Light. The purpose of the Blue Book network was to help us in personally developing the best practices of watching over our hearts. The spirit of the Blue Book is all about the vital strength that can only be discovered in our experience with quietness, rest and trust.
Father, may it not be said of us that we rejected your means of saving and redeeming us. May we establish our secret places of retreat and prayer and fellowship with You. May we become adept in discerning spiritual reality; in distinguishing religion from relationship; in separating Truth from error. May you help us to cultivate longing where there is complacency. We long to see Your justice exercised against Your enemy and ours. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Aug 3, 2013 | 31. Quieting
“..make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands..” 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12
Note; I share my personal experiences for one reason. I believe we share much in common; in how and by whom we are made; how we are fallen; and how His redemption plays out amidst our impure motives and messy lives. This being the case, our stories are valuable to each other. Your story may hold light and encouragement for me and I pray that mine might be that for you as well.
I mentioned on Thursday that this verse was one of two I had claimed for myself as a young Christian. Based on what I thought about myself at the age of 23 (which was not much), I just knew these verses fit my personality and would define my destiny. The other thought was from Psalm 131, “I do not involve myself in great matters, or in things too difficult for me.”
If you read Thursday’s installment you know that my motives for the selection of these verses were not all that God-inspired (at least not in the classic understanding of that idea). I know now that at least a part of my motives (since I was a young teen) has been “flight” – to distance myself from our family’s business and its president (my Dad) which I had come to associate with the intolerable pain of rejection and the undesirable aspect of complexity. (Complex things are not too inviting if you come to believe that your intellect and social skills are substandard.) As convoluted as my heart was, there was still even more to my unhealthy motives and identity issues.
It had to do with the stigma of wealth. As a young kid I started picking up on the attitudes my friends had toward those with money. I didn’t like what I was hearing about “golden” spoons and where they might be placed. I did everything I knew to hide my social status from others but, in my small town, it was a futile effort. What was innocent in grade school and junior high became more malicious in the high school years. It was during those years I learned that some even hated me for my father’s success. Lovely.
After the better part of a decade of mixing alcohol and drugs with (or for) the toxic things going on inside of me, I had exhausted all hope of a future. At 23, I was utterly lost and in a rapid descent into darkness. Enter Jesus. He made nothing less than a dramatic entrance, immediately setting me free from a bunch of nasty stuff and introducing me for the first time to hope, peace and joy. It was awesome! My new became how to sustain this new sense of well being or better yet, “How do I get more of this?” “What do I need to do?”
Some of the believers I threw-in with as a young disciple and many of the authors I began reading seemed to advocate austerity as the narrow path we must follow where we shall come to know Christ. So, with their lead, I began blending “religion” (compliance to external and internal standards as a means of pleasing God) into my already contaminated motivations. I had come to believe monetary success spelled doom for my soul. I had an intuitive sense of my depravity already but much of the preaching I heard only reinforced the notion that I was, at the core of my identity, essentially a sinful creature with prideful motives who would be incapable of managing financial rewards. So, the plan that formed in the dimly lit space of my heart was: flee (flight) from that possibility and temptation; work with my hands; insure a lower middle class wage; work exceedingly hard, (which had been the religion of my father’s family); fear God; and perhaps (if I perform well) I will please Him and consequently, insure my salvation.
I know this may all sound crazy, but I would have crawled on glass for the balance of my days to avoid going back to the waste, the pain and the darkness of my life before Christ. For a person like myself whose primary prayer was Psalm 139: 23 & 24 (search and try my heart and expose wrong motives), mine was fertile ground for God to work in. Note; There is a big difference between fleeing from or being driven by something and being drawn to Someone.
Much of my understanding of who God is has come from how I have perceived Him answering this request of mine that I have continually reminded Him of for 37 years (like He forgot?) Again, the irony is rich; that I would choose verses for the wrong reason, and through His intimate awareness and care for me, would permit me to end up resting in His arms after a frantic search for Him (like I was ever lost?). I am stunned by His kindness.
I think a book could easily be devoted to exploring how wounded, rejection-prone hearts get entangled with “religion” which I think of as the human heart’s endeavor to comply with perceived standards of approved behavior or attitude with the illusion that they are pleasing God with their performance. Much of my story is about getting unentangled from “religion” and finding myself progressively at peace with God, increasingly at rest in His love, satisfied with His grace and secure in my identity as a saint. I really do not know how to improve upon this deal.
Father, Help us to see where we have undermined Your grace through our entanglement with religion. Heal our hearts that we might truly enjoy You. Expose religion for what it is – a demonic ploy to distort our image of You, others, ourselves, and the Life of God that is embedded in our story. You are a good Father. Thank You. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Aug 2, 2013 | 31. Quieting
I’m easily fooled most of the time but nobody’s ever gonna dig too deep – We’re all in a hurry to somewhere else with distractions and too little sleep – Got a list of questions long as my arm and the only second chance I see, to live and die without permanent harm, is if God can outmaneuver me. (Verse 2 from Faithful, a song by Bob Bennett)
Bob Bennett will be in Enid on Friday August 9 where he will be telling his story with guitar and voice at 7:00 pm at 580 Coffee House. Come and be a part.
Psalm 131:1-3
“I do not involve myself in great matters or things too difficult for me“. Psalm 131:1 creates a flashback for me. It was one of three verses I had claimed for myself as a young believer. Another was 1 Thessalonians 4:11; “make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands“. These verses fit me well I thought at age 23. However, looking back (with 37 years of hindsight) I can see there were mixed motives in my choices of life-verses. Yes, I passionately wanted to know and follow this Jesus who had so radically altered my life but why had I also latched onto simplicity and manual labor as conditions to this relationship?
The truth is that at a younger age I had made some vows (without God’s input) in order to avoid, at all costs, ever becoming involved in anything great or complex, especially any greatness or complexity associated with 1) my family and its construction-related businesses, and 2) my family and its contetious relationships. I could not have articulated it as a child but now I know that those vows were made to insulate me from something I perceived as a source of pain and loss.
Neither did I know at 23 that my life-verses were serving toward the same end; to reinforce my heart’s own secret agenda; to live pain free. While my Dad’s vocation as a contractor provided material security it seemed to create (at least for me) relational insecurity. As a very young boy I overheard violent exchanges of words and oaths between my dad and his brothers (who were his business partners). It frightened me. I knew I could not involve myself in anything like that. I vowed that I would not.
The business also consumed my Dad’s time. During my junior and senior high days, my Dad would leave on Monday and return on Thursday or Friday. I did not fair well during those adolescent years. There is no need for details; suffice it to say, I was a troubled kid who was always in trouble. Sadly, I have no memory of a normal conversation with my Dad. I only recall words of correction and punishment always delivered with frustration and disappointment. I was also negatively biased toward the family business because I watched a nasty ulcer (likely fueled by family-business/relational stress) rob him of much sleep and quality of life. No, I could never; would never do the family business thing.
With my vows in the backdrop, exerting themselves both consciously and subconsciously, I had followed a vocational path that had led me to the verge of fulfilling my life verses (and the honoring of my vows – those secret heart motives). I never had to leave my young family like Dad did because my place of work was my home. My garage was a woodworking shop where I worked with my hands each day. My little cottage business was a sole proprietorship so I had no one to be at odds with. (that is, if we exclude God and my wife). It seemed, at least to me, that God had set things up perfectly. Indeed He had; only, not quite as I had expected.
One day I will record the details of the Monarch Millcraft – Heirloom FlagChest venture but I will condense things here to say that on the verge of succeeding in my ambition for a simple lifestyle, God pulled the rug suddenly from beneath me. In the aftermath of this unwelcome and shocking turn of events, the violent oaths being screamed now were not between my Dad and my uncles; they were between my heart and God. The demise of Monarch Millcraft (the most recent installment of heartbreak) was the final straw between Him and me. Note: “final straw” sounds like tough talk but I really did not have any fight left in me. Nor did I have any other place to go or plan to follow. In my heart I knew that ultimately it was with Him whom I had to do.) Stating it in its most simple terms; I was being graciously broken.
In that space in me that was to be full of worship and peace there was a war raging. My soul was not “like a weaned child within me.“ Like Jacob, a serious wrestling match between God and I had ensued. At the end of this match, the only resolve I had left was simply to not, if at all possible, allow this season of chaos and strife (which I strongly suspected He was sponsoring) to pass without discovering just what it was He was trying to say to me. It turns (without my awareness) He was answering my most frequently prayed prayer; “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.” This prayer from Psalm 139:23-24 was the third of my three key life verses.
Note; I will forever by grateful to Paul Billheimer for writing Don’t Waste Your Sorrows and Destined For The Throne. In these books he offered me a redemptive view of suffering, and how it plays into a believer’s destiny, all the while making room for God’s sovereignty and our free-will. Having some modest grasp of this mystery has been an encouragement to persevere at times when I might have otherwise adopted some fatalistic explanation for the way life plays out.
Since the time of these events I believe I have developed some understanding about what God’s point was (and is for that matter). He does not like the hurtful vows we make (consciously or subconsciously) to insulate ourselves from pain because it ultimately cripples us in our capacity to love and be loved. He wants to be our healer and comforter. He does not want us depending on a particular lifestyle (or conditions of any type for that matter) which can potentially insulate us from our encounter with Him, and Him alone, as our full and abundant provision of Life. For those who are serious about following Him, I am convinced that He will shake and tear down the things we construct that are built upon faulty foundations (like hurtful vows). He loves us too much to leave us in our deception and instability.
Again, much condensing and fast-forwarding. You may have guessed (or known) that I did end up joining our family’s business. It has not been particularly simple and I have not worked with my hands much. However in God’s infinite and amazing kindness (and I think humor) He has permitted me to more and more make the same claim as David did in this Psalm; that my soul is at peace and at rest in Him “as a contented child in His mother’s arms“. How amazing is God to permit me to adopt verses for the wrong reasons only to arrange for me to be the beneficiary of His kind intended and generous meanings. I too am dependent on God outmaneuvering me.
Note; In the years before my father passed, much healing took place in our relationship and through the divine orchestration of more events, my Heavenly Father saw to it that my earthly father would come to know Him. I am stunned at God’s patience and generosity toward my family and myself.
Father, help us to see Your loving providence and redemptive possibilities at work in our lives; especially in the places of our vows and deepest hurts. Help us to work out our salvation while leaning into You instead of running away from You (and each other) in our pain. Give us faith and courage to move forward in whatever trial we are facing, realizing that we are staring our greatest kingdom opportunity in the face. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Jul 30, 2013 | 31. Quieting
Mark 1:29-39
I would like to have heard Jesus preach. How do you think His message would be received today? He had no building, no public address system and I sure can’t picture him using notes. Stranger yet; His gospel did not directly contain Himself as one who had been crucified or raised from the dead. What were listeners supposed to do with Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom which did not mention Himself as One who should be invited into the heart? So, what then was the “good” news that Jesus was preaching? Well, at least we know what those privileged to hear Him thought. My NAS translation says, “they were amazed….., for He was teaching them as one having authority…“. The Message translation puts it this way; “Everyone there was incredulous, buzzing with curiosity, What’s going on here? A new teaching that DOES WHAT IT SAYS? He shuts up defiling, demonic spirits and sends them packing!”
The “saying” (or preaching) and the “doing” were perfectly intertwined in Christ’s life and the result was Jesus having the upper hand over demonic powers and illness. If they would have had print media, the headlines of the Galilean Times would have read; “THE WORD HAS BECOME FLESH; Demons Either Silenced or Evicted in Jesus’ Presence“. So,..the sense of amazement was not just a response to His excellent sermons; it was their response to God’s Life as it was lived out before them.
We have great communicators and communication technology today that are assisting in the gains being made in our mission to preach what we have come to understand as the gospel. I have wondered though; if the earth today were exposed to Jesus’ version of “good news” would we be as dependent on media? Maybe, but the results-oriented gospel that Jesus preached was doing pretty well without the power of public relations. The scriptures tell us that, when Jesus ministered; “….immediately the news about Him (who He was in word and deed) went out everywhere into all the surrounding district of Galilee.”
Scripture tells us Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel.” We may not know the exact content of all His messages but we do know, whether He verbalized it or not, (because of His deeds), the kingdom of God was THEN at hand (accessible) and that, in it, there was a “now“-authority over the powers of darkness. I believe this is an element of the good news we have somehow lost. Without the nowness of the kingdom, I fear we are left with only a then–ness. How much of the bad fruit of apathy and indifference might be traced to this root? What a powerful demonic strategy; to get the called-ones to adopt a “then”-is-the-day-of-salvation” attitude.
I know I have read the Bible with a “that was then – this is now” mindset. In a way its convenient. While I may confess with my lips a fuller (more powerful) gospel, I too often live complacently as if the kingdom will be “then” at hand with a “then” authority rather than live responsively and responsibily toward the kingdom as a “now” reality. So today, as I hear Jesus say, “repent and believe in the good news“, I believe He is telling me to repent of my blasé attitudes about His “now” kingdom and His “now” authority and my fatalistic views regarding the inevitable consequences of the trends of evil in society. Yes, the trends are absolutely everywhere; hopelessness is in the air we breath but, scripturally speaking, where there is evil is not grace to abound all the more?
Did Jesus say it was better that the Holy Spirit come and indwell us just so that He could collectively affirm (by our absence of power) a dispensation of Christianity focused on buildings, programs, or on our knowledge of the Bible, or the further refinement of our character? Is the Holy Spirit contentedly residing quietly inside us, as we halfheartedly embrace a Christianity that is lean (or completely barren) of kingdom authority?
I can only explain the relative impotency of my Christianity (and that of my generation in the west) by considering that the demonic spirits have not yet been silenced nor have they been sent packing. They are still present. They may not be causing as many in western culture to writhe in agony and fling their victims into fires but they have (in their current strategy) embedded their defiling lies in our culture, encouraging unbelief within and without the church. I suspect it will be a shock one day to discover how accommodating we have actually been to them.
Father, may the renewing of our minds, that we are to be taking responsibility for, include an upgrade of our perceptions of Your kingdom and its government which we know will continue to increase until You place all your enemies beneath Your feet as a footstool. Amen.
A question. Is it possible that the restlessness that is being documented among churched-ones (which is often interpreted by leaders as mutiny and/or rebellion) may in fact be the life of something beautiful stirring within the cocoon? Note; If you are unaware of restlessness as a trend within Christendom, check out Revolution by George Barna; and on Amazon, check out the books that others bought who purchased Revolution. May I recommend a few authors (from different camps) whose own restlessness (and even scholarship) are driving them to now kingdom thinking and living: When Heaven Invades Earth by Bill Johnson, You Were Born For This by Bruce Wilkinson. I also hear a challenge from NT Wright in How God Became King to rethink what we have assumed is normal Christianity. Note: These authors may not be speaking at the same conferences today but whether they know it or not, they are brothers who have kingdom DNA in common.
by RobertCummins | Jul 29, 2013 | 31. Quieting
Learning to pray inwardly throughout the day * learning to gaze upon Christ with the eyes of the soul * to become acquainted with God in our own souls * to have order in our inner lives * to have increased sensitivity and compassion for others * to discover God as our healer, teacher and guide * to build and sustain an inner fire for God. Would you be interested in gaining any of these as qualities in your life? If so, may I encourage you to spend some time, quiet and alone, with God this week. I cannot tell you how many people have stumbled into this discovery with the Blue Book.
Many of you, who offer me Blue Book feedback, often remark about the depth of insight you see in the contributing author’s writings. You say, “These writers are amazing, where have these people been?!”. Well,. ..most of them have been off alone somewhere just being quiet before God – often in the midst of trying circumstances. The qualities I just mentioned belong to them and they attribute them in large part to having learned how to be still before God.
The reason you may not have heard of them is that they are “be-ers” in a world where “doers” are the pop-heroes. They are from a small tribe of Christ-followers who have learned to live more out of their hearts than their minds. They have valued His presence above production and intimacy above information. This is foreign terrain to most of us because this type of spirituality has not been modeled for us. You may even doubt that it a lifestyle worthy of modeling. I cannot really debate this but as a red-blooded American male, one with a bit of the “doer-producer” in him, I can offer my testimony.
Note; Our observations and experience regularly confirm that desirable rewards accrue to us when we “do” things. These rewards may include good things like profit, awards, diplomas, titles, wins, visibility, prestige, influence and last but certainly not least – a better handicap.
May I confess to you that few things have ever given me as much pleasure as performing well athletically. So, to say the least, it was gratifying to have been flirting with scratch golf scores at mid-life. For the aging, golf is one the final arenas where we can excel after we no longer have any vertical leap or bursts of speed left in us. I had to put down my clubs though, due to back problems. It seemed like a cruel blow to a guy whose yard borders the signature hole of his city’s finest golf course and who had envisioned his golden years being spent honing his handicap.
Even though it has brought some pain and what I initially thought was loss, the back injury (as bizarre as it may seem) was a catalyst to a discovery that I will never regret; that there are things in us (at a foundational level) that are below all the “doing” that are driving the “performing” and as good and desirable as the rewards may be, the presence of these things render the foundation unstable and they prevent God from building the superstructure He has in mind.
The upside of the back problems is that the absence of golf has created some extra space and time in my life. The back pain also served as an incentive to meet God, preferably as my healer. While I am increasingly convinced that He is my healer, I have not yet met Him in that capacity (at least as it concerns my back). But in my seeking, I have had the privilige of rediscovering Him as Father after He addressed some of the foundational issues of my heart. These foundation repairs have made the absence of golf a non-issue.
A Golf Tip. You red-blooded big-swinging, golf-studs out there will cut five to ten strokes off your game if you slow your swing down. Granted, you sacrifice that testosterone high you get from flexing your big big T-Box muscles but the gain of finding yourself in the fairway with a real shot at the green (I found) was apt compensation for my loss. No extra charge.
Jim Branch’s motive behind the Blue Book (and I suspect, its contributing authors) was to present a God to us who is accessible and knowable. They are trying to say to us, “Be still and make the discovery in your own experience, that God is deeply involved and invested in you. By learning to be still, we get to unwrap a gift of inestimable value – a functional intimate relationship with God Himself. This is the pearl of great price for those who can spiritually slow down their swing long enough to develop ears that hear. While waiting and being still are excruciatingly painful initially, (esepcially for “doers”), they will seem like a small price when we encounter Him.
Father, continue to pour light into the dark places of our hearts that doubt your intentions to reveal Yourself to us. Help us to make those adjustments, those investments of stillness. In Your presence, help us to convert our losses into gains and our sorrows into opportunities of discovery. Amen.
