Fear (Tuesday) – 1 John 4:16-21

by RobertCummins | Nov 3, 2015 | 44. Fear

Fear – 1 John 4:16-21

We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

New Christians seem to instinctively grasp the love which God has for them. They just know, “God  loves me!” Being loved is natural to them. It is as though life is flowing directly up through the root system into the new heart; flowers bloom and fragrances abound. Yet, new Christians often wilt. Its as though a winter overtakes the new plant, robbing it of its color and aroma. What has happened? Having bloomed and wilted, I have asked, “Are we annual or a perennial plants?”

Annual plants are only enjoyed for one season. When the first freeze comes it perishes. Perennial plants also appear to die at the first frost but they return each year because their root systems remain alive. Christians are like perennial plants except our above ground beauty and fragrance appear in less predictable cycles. Because our root system lives, we can bloom, provide color and aroma even in times of drought and harsh weather. A scene come to mind …

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them; and suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened.

Plants that sing in prison have learned to abide. Sadly though, an abuse of this word has wilted many a plant and kept a multitude imprisoned in a perpetual winter. It is essential to remember that abiding is facilitated exclusively by the Master’s grafting skills. Beyond acknowledgement and thanksgiving, we make zero contribution to this miracle. However, religion is crouching at the door with its anti-gospel, preaching that it our job to cling to the root in order to abide. We are encouraged to cling with all our hearts as unto the Lord. Our young hearts recoil, “Yikes! What happens if I can’t cling tight enough?” Fear has now reentered the garden. Religion has challenged grace and the plant has begun to wilt.

How then must l be saved?

Religion asks this question then provides the answer, “Thou shalt comply.” Embedded in our religious codes are penalties for those unwilling to comply. In myriad and sundry ways, religion enforces its codes. Penalties await the non-compliant.  Religion threatens the young plants ….

“If you do not conform, then … pick your poison; Then … You will be bad; Then … God will be angry; Then … You will be rejected; Then (in Jesus case) … you will be crucified. The “if – then”  thought loop is religion’s maximum security prison. Fear (our jailer), taunts, “Just you try and escape!”

Sitting in our cell, we might plot an escape but we imagine the concertina wire… What would happen to our relationship with God, with the church, if we went non-compliant? What would happen if we ceased that most hallowed practice of our particular religious code? It could be church attendance, baptism, bible study, prayer, the Rosary, Eucharist, Baptism of the Holy Spirit or all the above. It really doesn’t matter as long as you believe that thing (or things) is currying favor with God.  

The degree to which we fear the penalty is the degree to which we are imprisoned. The lie that imprisons us, is thinking we could ever cling tight enough to secure ourselves to the root. We cannot sustain in our own strength what God has miraculously done in his. We can’t sustain with works what began in grace. Just ask the Galatians. Paul called them foolish.

What is the Christian life then, if it is not working out right and wrong in fear and trembling, always uncertain about the “then” penalty. Isn’t this the fear of God? These are the dead end questions of religious bondage. The only escape plan that has ever worked is abiding.

We must abide in order to draw life from the root. Abide simply means to remain in, to continue on in, to dwell in. To illustrate abiding, I am going to draw upon Wayne Jacobson. He is working with Father to set captives free. He exposes the “if-then” and the “we-must-cling” myths for the damning lies they are. Listen to this paragraph from his book, He Loves Me …

                              He loves me. He loves me not….He loves me. He loves me not.

A little girl stands in the backyard chanting as she plucks petals one by one from the daisy and drops them to the ground. At games end, the last petal tells all: whether or not the person desired returns the affection. (From Chapter 1; Daisy Petal Christianity)

This picture seems innocent but the child has been bitten by a cobra. It’s venom, mingling with the child’s insecurity does its work. It produces an alternating conscience driven by fear. In He Loves Me, Wayne exposes the bite and provides the anti-venom. He exposes the the myth that God’s feelings about us change when our sin management fails. He makes a clear case; we were not designed to cling, we were designed to abide. Abiding is not clinging. Its is simply remaining and continuing at rest in the gift of God’s initial grafting. It means that with each petal plucked, we voice the refrain …

He loves me. He loves me. He loves me. He loves me.

Color and fragrance return when we are liberated from religion. As we rest in God’s love our identities are sealed. We start to see who we actually are. We are his with zero outstanding debts. Free of the back-breaking burden of trying to please God, we are now free to enjoy the gift – Christ in us, the hope of glory. We can return to childlike innocence where we too know, “God loves me!”

Father, let this be the day and the hour that you put your foot on religion’s neck. Expose every place this spirit has its clutches in us. Liberate us from the constriction of works-oriented religion. Where evil has abounded in this way let grace abound all the more. Clarify to our deepest selves that, in your love, there is zero basis for fear. Let us walk among the religious captives. May they hear our song. May the earth be shaken. May the captives finally go free. So be it.

Personal Testimony

Have you ever felt like Pastor was the quarterback in the kingdom of God and that you (and your co-bench warmers) were something akin to third string equipment managers? I have. Listen to John Fogarty’s advise from his song, Center Field Song.

Beat the drum and hold the phone /  The sun came out today /  We’re born again, there’s new grass on the field……Oh, put me in coach, I’m ready to play today /  Put me in coach, I’m ready to play today!

A friend brought me a copy of He Loves Me in 2011. It so meshed with God’s work in my life and spoke such a clear and healing word to me about God’s love, I got up off the bench and put myself in the lineup. I decided I could not wait for Pastor to either feed me enough or endorse me to go into all the wold to make disciples. I went non-compliant just to see if I could put the bat on the ball. I bought a case of the book He Loves Me and distributed them to anyone and everyone within my relational network. After all, He loves me! He loves me! He loves me! Even if I strike out, I’ll get another turn at bat.

Note: If you like John Fogarty’s attitude, check out his song “Gunslinger”.

Fear (Monday) – Mark 6:45-52

by RobertCummins | Nov 2, 2015 | 44. Fear

Fear – Mark 6:45-52

Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side to Bethsaida, while He Himself was sending the crowd away. After bidding them farewell, He left for the mountain to pray. When it was evening, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and He was alone on the land. Seeing them straining at the oars, for the wind was against them, at about the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea; and He intended to pass by them. But when they saw Him walking on the sea, they supposed that it was a ghost, and cried out; for they all saw Him and were terrified. But immediately He spoke with them and said to them, “Take courage; it is I, do not be afraid.” Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped; and they were utterly astonished, for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.

If the disciples had gained the intended insight from the loaves and fishes incident, what should their response have been to Jesus walking on the sea? Instead of astonishment, what reaction would have been appropriate? Mild terror?  What was it that Jesus wanted to convey? At the very least, it was this; the rules have been changed! Things weren’t happening as they previously had. The sick are healed, food just materializes, men walk on water, and astonishingly, even tax collectors repent! Suddenly there is a new baseline for normal. All things are apparently possible now with Jesus!

How does this all-things-are-possible thing play out? After witnessing a miracle were the disciples supposed to just flip a switch and open a new faith circuit? Jesus told them the problem was their hearts were hardened. How did this happen? “Did they do this to themselves Lord?”  “You didn’t do this to them did you?” 

Whose domain is the heart anyway, God’s or ours? Who has access and responsibility for the circuitry of our hearts? Who wired them in the first place? I propose that we credit God as the master engineer who had wired his prototype (Adam) without a flaw. Let’s assume God is keenly interested in this circuitry and has told us to watch over it with all diligence. What will that look like? Will bible study and memorization repair the damaged wiring? Will the confession of God’s Word solder the loose ends back together? Will another sermon be the fuse for our blown circuits? In our quest for answers, let’s begin with this idea: In Adam, our wiring was fried. This was the hardened condition of the disciples’ hearts, and ours. 

When we are born again, do we get rebuilt hearts – ones that have been worked on, reissued and are now warrantied by the factory?  I don’t think so; we aren’t going to be made into the image of Christ with used parts. New hearts, capable of relating rightly to God, are central to the New Covenant. Christ in us, is our new circuitry.  So, is that the end of it? Are we to have no further heart problems? Can we now flip that switch, default to auto-heart pilot, and cruise on in without any turbulence? With no fear and trembling?

No. As long as we have choices and there are commands in scripture, there is some kind of mysterious joint-venture going on between God and ourselves. We have shared-responsibility for the domain of our hearts. Since all life flows through our heart, it essential we have some idea of what our responsibility is and what is God’s.

It is helpful to acknowledge that God created us with access to the switch. Man had to be able to choose. This was essential to our hearts as well as to the ultimate kingdom power grid. Since the kingdom’s power is based in love, and choice is essential to love, the plan necessitated human access to the switch. It is tragic, isn’t it, to think of God watching his children turn out their own lights? After Adam threw his switch, God was no longer central in his heart, he was. He now had the desire of his heart and the flow of Eden-current ceased.

How does this work though? If our wiring is now good why do we still do bad? Think of a child’s brain. It is a universe of potential electrical connections which will either be made, or not. For the child to reach its potential it must have the right kinds of stimuli. Our hearts are similar.

Like the field of the child’s brain, the potential for circuitry is all in place. In Christ, this is true of our hearts as well. Scripture would say, we are saved and are being saved. Our metaphor says that we have new wiring and that, we are completing our circuitry – in fear and trembling. The uncertainty of things has to do with the mind of our flesh which might be thought of as the remnants of that wiring we inherited in Adam, which has been tampered with by the world and the devil. Through these temporal circuits, phantom currents flow, carrying dying impulses of a life that has been buried in Christ.

The stimuli required for our new wiring is the moment by moment relationship we now have with God. Experience upon experience, encounter after encounter, the potentials of our new hearts are realized.  As God show us where we are still maintaining the old circuitry, by way of our agreements and choices, we see, by design, we still have access to the switch.

To my fleshly mind, it seems like a fearful risk to allow my grubby mitts anywhere even near a switch – yet love demands it. Understanding love’s requirements, we surrender our exclusive rights to this switch and a grace is released which connects miles of potential circuitry in our hearts. Mysteriously, this inner grace makes a way for Jesus to express himself outwardly through us to the world.

Brace yourself for some heavy theology; Our heart circuitry is fried in Adam yet it is brand new in Jesus. In this sense our hearts are good hearts with capacity to process Truth. Our minds are another matter. They must be renewed. There are synapses and relays yet to be connected. As these connections are made, we are transformed, one circuit at a time, back into the image of God in Christ. This is how we are becoming the light of the world.

This is our joint-adventure with God.  As steward-partners with him, it is our simple, yet fearful task (in light of the voltage) to yield those circuits to God where its obvious his abundant life is not yet flowing, asking him to have his way in restoring us to the original schematic – His image.

Father, like the disciples, perhaps we could use a little terror or astonishment, at least enough to remind us that the rules have been changed. Please let us be the generation who learns to live from your new baseline of normal – where our hearts are not hardened, rather in Christ, are discovering that all things are new and truly possible with you. Help us to see that in Christ, the light of your kingdom is now within us and, by nature, it radiates outward into all creation.

Father, help us to recognize the kingdom is our domain  – yours and ours. Teach us to jealously guard this space. Teach us to live the types of yielded lives which allow grace to flow from our new hearts out to the world. Help us to renew our minds that we may be radiant with your glory and shine into all the dark places around us.  Amen.

Fear (Sunday) – Romans 8:12-17

by RobertCummins | Nov 2, 2014 | 44. Fear

Romans 8:12-17

The phrase “So then” which is how the NAS begins this passage reminds me of why the apostle Paul is a hero of mine. Paul was not afraid to use his considerable powers of reason to communicate and influence. “So then” is evidence of Paul’s habit of connecting related ideas and building upon them to present the gospel of the kingdom. In the case of this passage,  “living” and “being led” are on his heart. But, its not just Paul’s intellectual prowess that attracts me. Stored away in his mind were encounters with the risen Christ and His Spirit that did not require an iota of logic. Paul was keenly aware that God was not averse to speaking directly to man even when the scrolls were unopened. Paul was a man who learned to honor, listen to and be led by both the Holy Spirit and the scrolls. I see Paul as one of those whom God sought to worship Him in Spirit and Truth. In Paul, there was a beautiful marriage of the Word and the Spirit. That Paul was a mystic with an agile mind attracts me to him.

The flesh, as I have come to understand it, is simply that unregenerate part of man that is still living by its wits and its self-oriented will. However, when many Christians hear the phrase “the flesh“, I think they have visions mostly of debauchery. While “the flesh” can certainly produce things like adultery, larceny, violence, and drunkenness, it is just as capable of brilliant reasoning, persuasive speech and socially beneficial deeds. My point is that “flesh” could be just as happy in a church as it is in brothel, just as long as it gets its way and has its needs for attention met. Having a definition of “the flesh” that transcends immoral behavior expands the meaning of this passage;

So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh – for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if, by the Spirit, you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.

Question for Reflection; In our experience with God, can we identify an occasion, or occasions where, by the Spirit, we have put to death he deeds of the flesh?

In our passage, I believe Paul provides us with an essential revelation;

For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

As one who has lived where the primary witness in my spirit was incomplete, I have an observation. In that season where I was somewhat insecure in my Abba-orientation, I clung to the scriptures nearly exclusively as my source of revelation. I would have shunned the notion that a communique from God could be a still small voice or that a revelation could survive any prolonged exposure to my reasoning. Due to the spiritual culture I had been living in I would not have been encouraged that a directive from God could actually be a byproduct of sound reasoning and dialogue. (After all…..where is the the wind of the Holy Spirit blowing in that process?)

It is clearer to me now in retrospect that to maintain the thought of my union with God in that season, it was easier to posture myself before Him (Holy as He is and depraved as I perceived my flesh was) as a penitent servant casting myself continually on His mercy rather than as a son who could stand boldly without any fear in Abba’s presence (Jude 24) celebrating His love and acceptance.

Today, I still love the scriptures and consider them as an essential source of revelation. But standing more securely in His love as a son, has given me freedom and liberty to trust that He can also speak to me by His Spirit as well. For me today, “living” and “being led” involves study as well as meditation. It involves listening to my own heart, where His Spirit dwells. It also involves my own reasoning and experimentation.

I once related to God more as servant whose means to revelation was by way of study. The truth I gleaned I could then apply. The application of the principles I gathered from scripture was the essence of my obedience. (Belated repentance: In retrospect, I do see where, in my obedience, my motives were often to fashion a life that worked efficiently as opposed to simply pleasing my Master.) Now I believe as a son, I am invited into a place with much greater freedom – a place where I am invited to also know His heart and to hear His voice. His Words are not just static principles to which I must conform. His Word (previously spoken and currently speaking) are transforming me by way of a dynamic relational process from within.

Father, may your Spirit prevail over our flesh however productive and influential it may be. We declare our desire to live and be led by You. May our confidence as Your offspring give us such boldness as to rightly see ourselves as fellow-heirs with Christ. Strengthen us to accept and endure any suffering that we may inherit as well. That Your name be glorified. Amen.

Fear (Saturday) – Isaiah 41:8-10

by RobertCummins | Nov 1, 2014 | 44. Fear

Isaiah 41:8-10

Isaiah is speaking in God’s behalf to Jacob, one who had been called as a servant from the ends of the earth. It was Jacob’s and his ancestor’s good fortune to have been chosen instead of rejected. I think of a verse from Psalms, “What is man that God would consider him?” In light of who God is and where Jacob comes from, it seems that we have much in common with him in terms of obscure origins and favored status.

While Jacob was referred to as a servant, God has called us his children. Servants, in the strictest sense, exist to carry out their master’s will from a fear-driven motivation, hoping to avoid punishment. Servants win favor by production and performance. Offspring, on the other hand, delight their father simply by being born into the family and by presuming upon their favored status. True offspring ultimately inherit their father’s attributes and carry out his will with a love-driven motivation born out of the essence of who they are by nature – inheritors, in Christ, of their Father’s DNA and resources.

Sadly (and I speak from experience), even the offspring are not immune from the enemy’s efforts to entangle their identities in religion. If he can leverage our pasts, that are often filled with rejection, and get us working to earn approval, he can condition even a child of God to function as a servant or even a slave. As the deceived offspring work they receive the approval of man. Over time, they can come to see themselves as disciples in good standing while it is no longer on the merit of God’s grace and selection that they stand.  Instead, it is on the merits of whatever contribution they perceive they are making and by a moral standing they believe they have achieved. This is a subtle and powerful deception. How much of the Church’s activity is driven by this energy?

Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

Perhaps the litmus test for us in knowing if we are truly living in the fulness of God’s grace is whether or not we are anxiously looking about. We might ask if anxiety isn’t just a natural reaction to threatening circumstances. Can we really alter our level of anxiety as a matter of choice? If this were not so, God would not have commanded us to cease being anxious. So, following this line of reasoning, God must only think of the threat of our circumstances as an issue of our perception. He is saying when we see the threatening circumstance, we must not be tempted to fear because He is our God; He will strengthen us and He will uphold us in the strength of His strong and capable hands.

Would your time alone with God today allow you to pause and list the things that are currently producing anxiety for you? It is not likely that our deceptions will be overthrown unless we can specifically name them. Unless we humble ourselves by owning these places in our hearts where fear is ruling, we cannot adequately repent. Let’s try and find the time to identify the places we are currently allowing anxiety to shape our thoughts and emotions. Let’s then offer them up to God and invite Him in to freshly occupy those spaces in our hearts. And let’s persevere until our identities, as offspring, are fully restored and we are staring down our circumstances, those within and those without, with bold confidence that we are by nature over-comers.

Father, you have forgiven us of our sin; forgive us for trafficking in performance-based religion where we have traded the joy and freedom of offspring for the approval and applause of servants. Pour Your Spirit out upon Your children and deliver us from our deception. Show us each where we are anxiously looking about. Lay the axe to the works-oriented roots that defile our fruit. Rather than the noisy gong we have made with our anxious religious lives, let the world soon hear the laughter of revival and song flowing from bold and celebrant hearts living in stunned awe at Your overwhelming love and Your undeserved mercy and kindness. Amen.

Fear (Friday) – 2 Timothy 1:6-12

by RobertCummins | Oct 31, 2014 | 44. Fear

2 Timothy 1:6-12

In the 7th grade, a classmate of mine lost control of his bowels during class. Sadly, he was never to be seen again. My own personal classroom catastrophe occurred the next year in speech class. I had two primary character traits when I was 14. I was lazy and I was painfully shy. These liabilities merged on the fateful day I was to deliver my first speech.

When my name was called to come to the stage fear struck my soul like a lightening bolt. Although the sting is finally gone, I can still recall standing on that stage in front of this group (I desperately wanted acceptance from) with zero preparation and fear paralyzing my mind and powers of speech. What I might have said was lost – sucked up into the intensifying storm that was raging in my mind, composed mostly of self condemnation and self pity. In my own way, I had soiled my pants publicly and, in a sense, that was the last that was seen of me for a long long time.

Timothy, it seems, was also shy. He was fortunate to have an affectionate mentor to encourage and even goad him to acknowledge that his nature had been altered and that his timidity had been displaced by the presence of something (actually Someone) greater.

For God has not given us a spirit of of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.

The speech class debacle confirmed my deepest fear, one that I had been flirting with since I was quite young and especially since going from a grade school class of 20 into a junior high class of 200. It was my conviction that I was worthless. The other thing I discovered when I was 13 was alcohol. For the following decade, I eased my agony in social settings with liquid courage. By the time I was 23, I was well on my way to alcoholism. By the time I met Christ in 1976, the dark thoughts that had attached themselves to me in the eighth grade had progressively strengthened and coiled around my identity so tightly that I knew I would soon suffocate. I was not a spiritual person but I knew something evil and powerful held me in its power.

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord.

When I gave myself to Christ I held nothing back (that I knew of) and behold, a miracle occurred! Whatever, or whoever, had a death grip on me was apparently evicted. When Christ came in, that thing left. There was never a more astonished soul than I was, realizing that I had just been set free. Liberated prisoners tend to be grateful to their liberators. They tend to be vocal in their praises. That was me. A new spirit of boldness and strength and love had somehow won the battle for my soul. The shy introvert could not keep from sharing about the new Life he had found (or had found him).

It turns out the deepest and truest thing about me was not that I was shy and lazy. I went back to college which was the scene of another grand flameout, and discovered I was not stupid, which I forgot to mention was another core conviction of my old life. I was raised from the dead and began reading and cooperating (as best I knew how) with the new Spirit within me. It was a true 180 degree turnabout.

I was quite blessed to meet a company of others who had been raised to new life as well, who were there along side me reminding me and assisting me in “kindling afresh” the gifts that were in me by virtue of Christ’s presence. As a means of declaration and prayer, I like to personalize the scripture…….

Father, you have saved me and called me with a holy calling, not according to my works, but according to Your own purpose and grace which was granted me in Your Son from all eternity, but has now been revealed by the appearance of Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel….Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! I know You! I believe in You! I am convinced that You are able to guard what I have entrusted to You (which is all of me) until that day. Amen.

Fear (Thursday) – Isaiah 43:1-7

by RobertCummins | Oct 30, 2014 | 44. Fear

Isaiah 43:1-7

This passage encourages us to paddle out over some deep and mysterious waters. The depths I am referring to are created in large part by at least two seemingly opposing ideas. One is that man is an independent agent of free will. The other is that God has written a script and that man is just playing his part, some of us wittingly, most perhaps, unwittingly.

This passage references fires and floods as the fear producing threats that Israel would encounter in her pilgrimage with God. The same God is leading us, as chosen ones, on a journey where we too will encounter fear producing threats. It may include being burnt or drowned but for certain ours will at least involve bearing the incredible stress that our vocations, relationships and health issues will create. And as we paddle on we are also aware that a void of true statesmanship haunts the political world from which our leaders are chosen. We ask, or perhaps have given up asking, who will lead us?

I think deep down in all of us there is an awareness that some where far beneath our awareness and all that is visible there are forces at work that are spiritual and cosmic in nature, that with only a modest shift, could suddenly produce a tsunami that would swamp all our little canoes.

Even a near-sighted prophet could predict that the presence of an economic tsunami currently exists. If and when it comes no one will be exempt as to the fear we will be threatened by. Who will save us? Will it be the gold that some are trusting in as their hedge or some other supposed refuge?

Back to the deep waters below us. If you back up a few verses to 42:25 you see it is possible that some who were on fire and are burned were not even aware of it. Somehow they had become accustomed to the heat. (I am thinking again about frogs in kettles). Those who subscribe to a “scripted” cosmology (why things ultimately happen) must adapt to the idea that God, who is on record as loving this world and who desires that not any perish, is permitting the indifference and blindness to the fire that will ultimately consume and destroy.

The theologies that many prescribe to provide them with pat answers as to the script. And they, like the God they have imagined, are indifferent to the heat. In a world where threats of some magnitude are certain, I believe it is wise to acknowledge that God does not exempt His chosen ones from high waters or extreme heat. If our theology creates indifference in any form or exempts us from the potential of earth quakes or tsunamis, we are operating out of an extra-biblical revelation that is a deadly deception.

My beliefs include another player who complicates matters further; that is Satan, who is the temporary ruler of this world, wielding influence from a platform of deception. The deep waters below, in my assessment, are composed of the mysterious interplay of wills; that of God’s, Satan’s and our own. My beliefs trace our earthquakes and tsunamis back to the cosmic tensions created by the war between these three kingdoms. My beliefs, which I pray are grounded in His Word and in a legitimate life experience with Him, do not give me the luxury of exhaustive revelation and the certainties that that a comprehensive light might afford. They do provide me with sufficient revelation to paddle on by faith, trusting in His good and kind nature. My faith is grounded in the idea that, among the three, God’s will prevails in the end.

In His kindness, He has often used the modest little waves that have hit my boat to lead me to repentance which is simply a change of thinking and a redirection of my will. If I am hearing anything along the way it would be something like this, and I will borrow from this passage in composing what I hear coming from His heart;

“My children, trust that I have been and always will be the prevailing Personality in the contest of wills that you are caught up in. Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. As I gave Egypt as ransom for Israel, I have given My Son as ransom for My elect. You are precious in My sight. You are honored and I love you.

Do not fear the coming tsunamis. All my judgements are born of love so that you will awaken from your indifference, delusion and hardness of heart. I am calling even now to the ends of the earth to gather my offspring – everyone who is called by My name, and whom I have created for My glory, whom I have made.

Do not fear. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you. For I am the Lord your God and your Father.”

Lord, teach us to give thanks for the heat of these various momentary trials we are faced with. Help us to harvest the revelation of Yourself you have buried in them for us that is for our benefit and Your eternal glory. May the ongoing story of Your good and loving intention be revealed in the presence of those around us whom You love yet who remain asleep. Allow them to feel the heat and turn to You as their Savior and as their refuge. Amen.