This is my first thought in reading chapter one of HG. I haven't finished the chapter and am doing my best to take it very slowly, so my initial reaction will be more informed later (and therefore may change later) when I finish the chapter and/or the book.
On p 16, Willard says that he comes to recognize a "characteristic thought and impulse" as God's speaking. This seems to me to be in line with what we are taught as Christians to assume that God's voice is, but I feel that this is somewhat dim/disappointing. I am guessing that this "thought and impulse" is supposed to be a deeper form of conversation (like ESP - a direct communication to the brain and/or heart). But supernatural as conversing with God must be, I would expect it would be more satisfying and real than having a human to human conversation.
I think that I know what Willard means by these "thoughts and impulses." I too have had moments where for no deeply held reason, I felt convicted that I should make a certain decision (like choosing to go to Samford over Bham Southern for college); and these are moments of enlightenment that I have attributed to God showing me His will.
But am I wrong to feel that this is not nearly satisfying enough? Is imperfect communication part of God's design - so that we remember to continually yearn for heaven, when we will be in constant communion with God? Going back to God speaking to Moses face to face as a man to his friend, am I wrong to find that far more preferable to some often-inscrutable, but persistent thought or impulse that leads me with no words said?
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Preface - the Premise of Friendship
I read the Preface of Hearing God (HG) last night, and was struck by a certain premise on which Willard is basing his book - that ultimately we are created specifically to have a relationship with God (10). I don't think that this is something that I often overlook, but I think what I do often miss is the TYPE of relationship God designed this to be. I often think of my relationship to God as one either of parent/child or of master/servant. While this is not an erroneous view of that relationship, it can lead to an erroneous view of what God wants from us. I will admit that I tend to look at God as having a "to-do" list for my life. He gives orders; I follow them. But there is a much deeper relationship God seeks to build with men.
Willard focuses in the Preface on the friend/friend nature of the God/man relationship. Note the following passages:
Ex 33:11 - where God speaks with Moses "face to face, as a man speaks to His friend"
Ps 23 - I never really paid attention before to the constant side by side presence of God in this psalm, and this made me realize that I tend to think of God like a distant relation - someone who cares for me but is ultimately far removed from my day to day situation
Going back to the master/servant relationship, Willard notes that even if I were to DO everything God commands explicitly in scripture, I may still not BE the person He wants me to be (11). He follows by citing what I think is a fairly unpopular parable with both the Pharisees and the modern day church - Luke 17:7-10. I would summarize this parable by saying that it is a reminder to us as servants that when we do the will of God, we do only our basic duty, yet we expect to be rewarded as if we have done something above and beyond what we are capable of. It makes me think of writing a C paper and complaining because I wasn't given an A. (Willard says that this parable will be part of the foundation of the entire book).
The final note that I made from my reading last night was Willard's point that merely "doing" actually limits our spiritual growth. I think we as humans seek the easy route to the perfect life, and as Christians we are no different. Give me a checklist of all that I have to do to fix everything. Willard's reminder in the preface is that God wants more from us than obedience. Yes, we have a list of do's and don't's to follow, but these are absolute basics. If we want a true spiritual life, we cannot just DO it, we must learn to also BE it.
I am left with one final question which I technically think is totally unanswerable in this life - why would God choose us as friends?
Willard focuses in the Preface on the friend/friend nature of the God/man relationship. Note the following passages:
Ex 33:11 - where God speaks with Moses "face to face, as a man speaks to His friend"
Ps 23 - I never really paid attention before to the constant side by side presence of God in this psalm, and this made me realize that I tend to think of God like a distant relation - someone who cares for me but is ultimately far removed from my day to day situation
Going back to the master/servant relationship, Willard notes that even if I were to DO everything God commands explicitly in scripture, I may still not BE the person He wants me to be (11). He follows by citing what I think is a fairly unpopular parable with both the Pharisees and the modern day church - Luke 17:7-10. I would summarize this parable by saying that it is a reminder to us as servants that when we do the will of God, we do only our basic duty, yet we expect to be rewarded as if we have done something above and beyond what we are capable of. It makes me think of writing a C paper and complaining because I wasn't given an A. (Willard says that this parable will be part of the foundation of the entire book).
The final note that I made from my reading last night was Willard's point that merely "doing" actually limits our spiritual growth. I think we as humans seek the easy route to the perfect life, and as Christians we are no different. Give me a checklist of all that I have to do to fix everything. Willard's reminder in the preface is that God wants more from us than obedience. Yes, we have a list of do's and don't's to follow, but these are absolute basics. If we want a true spiritual life, we cannot just DO it, we must learn to also BE it.
I am left with one final question which I technically think is totally unanswerable in this life - why would God choose us as friends?
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Developing a Conversational Relationship With God
We (my mom and I) are starting a book study on Dallas Willard's work "Hearing God." The book was originally titled "In Search of Guidance," and it was written to address the following questions:
- How do we hear God's voice?
- How can we be sure that what we think we hear is not our own subconscious?
- What if what God says to us is not clear?
Since mom has the book already, she'll probably go ahead and get started on the discussion, which we will have online on this blog over the next few weeks, months, or however long it takes us to get through this piece. If anyone else has read the work or wants to read along and add comments, feel free.
Friday, December 01, 2006
End Times?
The other night Geoff and I watched the Al Gore film, An Inconvenient Truth. If you are reading this and you have not seen it, I would encourage you to rent and view it. What Mr. Gore speaks of in global warming and the destination of the world as far as the melting ice caps are concerned is, I believe, inconveniently true.
Now, on top of it all I know that this world was created by a sovereign God who will not allow one cube of ice to melt aside from His will and His plan of salvation for all people. So when I immediately felt the gravity of what I learned of global warming from Mr. Gore's film, I started to tell myself that it could just be another one of these "Chicken Little" cries that the world would come to an end. But then in my reading, I came across the following passage in Luke:
"There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken." - Luke 21: 25
These are the words of Christ as He tells His disciples to be on guard for His second coming. Someone with a great deal more theological knowledge than I possess will probably come by and tell me I am wrong in my conjecture, but I wonder if what Christ is foretelling is the problem of global warming. See, the whole issue of warming (for those who haven't seen the film or need a refresher) is like this:
"Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This is a good thing because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and temperatures are rising." (from www.climatecrisis.net/thescience)
The result of these rising temperatures is pretty astounding. Scientists project that in 15 years we will no longer have glacial national park. That is a sad thing to me because I have always wanted to see Alaska. Biologists have discovered polar bears drowning because they swim for long distances searching for ice that is no longer thick enough to support their weight. As the ice melts, the sea rises. In the next 50 years if we continue our emissions as they currently stand, the water level will rise 20 feet. We won't have to worry about the destruction of Hurricane Katrina because New Orleans will no longer exist. Heck, I'll have beachfront property in what will no longer be central Alabama!
The first and most natural response to such things is clearly to PANIC! Fifty years is (God willing) in my projected lifetime. What would it be like to feel the impact of temperatures and water rising 20 degrees? (I'm moving to North Dakota if it gets in the 120s here)! However, Christ gives us a different perspective. In Luke 21: 28 he follows with this:
"But when these things begin to take place; straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."
That is a beautiful picture to me. What should our response be to signs that the sky is falling? We should Praise God! We find it easy to praise God when we see His goodness, but when things don't seem so great we don't have the feeling of praise in our hearts. But Christ tells us to view the end times in light of what they point to - His second coming - the greatest good of all.
Christ is often reminding us to view the present with the future in mind. Paul gives us an example of considering the present with the future in mind in Romans 5:3-4:
"we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope."
While the world falls to pieces around me, I want to feel excitement in my heart, to sing "Hallelujah, He is risen! He is coming!"
When I was young I used to say that I had a long list of things that I wanted to go through and experience before the second coming of Christ. I wonder how many people out there are guilty of saying, "Come, Lord Jesus, just please not yet...". I have been guilty of it in the past.
I haven't had a baby yet. I want to watch my child grow up. I want to experience true love. I want to finish my Ph.D. I want to break this world record. I want to fulfill my greatest dream. Have we really begun to consider these insignificant achievements of this life as a real substitution that we even prefer over the establishment of the Kingdom of God? Shame on us. Let's straighten up, and lift up our heads (and hands and hearts and wills). Our redemption is drawing near. Hallelujah!
Monday, October 30, 2006
Sixty-Four Seventy-Five
The last four weeks have been intensely chaotic, full of frustration and full of reward. There is a part of me that seems to think that all I have to show for this painful period has been the hard-earned $64.75 from my yard sale on Saturday. But what I can honestly say is that I have much more than that.
I'm thinking of the whole concept of receiving beauty for ashes right now, because it seems so appropriate to this past month for me. I have learned more about myself, about my God, about my husband, and about life in the last four weeks than I have in a long time. And I realized something. My marriage had been reduced to ashes. As much as it is not easy to admit, I was the arsenist. I am not assuming full responsibility for the failure of my marriage, but I was definitely the one who struck the match.
At the beginning of this month, I left my husband. I had no idea what I wanted or who I was or where I was headed. I just went to my parents house. And let me stop here and say something about parents who love too much. My mother used to have this book that had a silent impact on me because I never read anything beyond the title "Women who love too much." I don't know if I ever felt when I was growing up that my parents were people who loved us too much, but I believe it is true as I look back.
I don't say this of my folks in order to pass judgment on them, I say it as a statement of the obvious. I think my parents greatly value their children, and I am no exclusion from that rule. In their love and acceptance, I found a safe retreat from the frustrations of my marriage. I struck the match here, burned several bridges and ran to their arms and away from my husband's.
Going to my parents' home was like trying to take a nap on an inverted pincushion. I told my father repeatedly that I did not want to be there. The nettles that I felt so poignantly at their house were not of their creation, but of mine and of a God who instead of loving me too much, loved me perfectly and knew that the appropriate place for me was not in the home of my parents, but in the home of my husband.
Coming home to my husband two weeks later was not easy. I feared that I would return to a pile of ash and rubble - evidence of the significant breech in faith that I had created by my rash behavior. Instead I found something totally unexpected (to me) - that God had been working on my behalf to replace my ashes with beauty.
I am experiencing the honeymoon that I dreamed of from the beginning, in a marriage that I had not only nearly lost hope in, but one that I had also intentionally sabotaged out of my frustration. What I discovered in the midst of thinking that my marriage was for my benefit only was that my marriage, like everything else in my life, was soli deo gloria - all for the glory of God.
The concept is so basic, but from the moment I began to focus on all of the voices in my life (often including my own) that led me to alternately question and defend my views of marriage, and more specifically my marriage, I began to lose focus on the purpose of my marriage in the first place.
My hope is restored, my commitment renewed, my vision refreshed and my troth plighted (faith pledged) to my husband and my God once more. I have a great deal of work to do to rebuild the burned bridges I left in the wake of my leaving, but in the midst of this work, I have something to hold onto - out of the ashes God has recreated in His image a marriage that I was trying to conform to my image. This amateur arsenist has exchanged her matchbook for the building blocks of God's word on marriage. I hope to use this blog as a place to chronicle what I learn. Maybe others will be able to use it in some way to encourage them on the days when all they see is a pile of ashes where a marriage once was...
I'm thinking of the whole concept of receiving beauty for ashes right now, because it seems so appropriate to this past month for me. I have learned more about myself, about my God, about my husband, and about life in the last four weeks than I have in a long time. And I realized something. My marriage had been reduced to ashes. As much as it is not easy to admit, I was the arsenist. I am not assuming full responsibility for the failure of my marriage, but I was definitely the one who struck the match.
At the beginning of this month, I left my husband. I had no idea what I wanted or who I was or where I was headed. I just went to my parents house. And let me stop here and say something about parents who love too much. My mother used to have this book that had a silent impact on me because I never read anything beyond the title "Women who love too much." I don't know if I ever felt when I was growing up that my parents were people who loved us too much, but I believe it is true as I look back.
I don't say this of my folks in order to pass judgment on them, I say it as a statement of the obvious. I think my parents greatly value their children, and I am no exclusion from that rule. In their love and acceptance, I found a safe retreat from the frustrations of my marriage. I struck the match here, burned several bridges and ran to their arms and away from my husband's.
Going to my parents' home was like trying to take a nap on an inverted pincushion. I told my father repeatedly that I did not want to be there. The nettles that I felt so poignantly at their house were not of their creation, but of mine and of a God who instead of loving me too much, loved me perfectly and knew that the appropriate place for me was not in the home of my parents, but in the home of my husband.
Coming home to my husband two weeks later was not easy. I feared that I would return to a pile of ash and rubble - evidence of the significant breech in faith that I had created by my rash behavior. Instead I found something totally unexpected (to me) - that God had been working on my behalf to replace my ashes with beauty.
I am experiencing the honeymoon that I dreamed of from the beginning, in a marriage that I had not only nearly lost hope in, but one that I had also intentionally sabotaged out of my frustration. What I discovered in the midst of thinking that my marriage was for my benefit only was that my marriage, like everything else in my life, was soli deo gloria - all for the glory of God.
The concept is so basic, but from the moment I began to focus on all of the voices in my life (often including my own) that led me to alternately question and defend my views of marriage, and more specifically my marriage, I began to lose focus on the purpose of my marriage in the first place.
My hope is restored, my commitment renewed, my vision refreshed and my troth plighted (faith pledged) to my husband and my God once more. I have a great deal of work to do to rebuild the burned bridges I left in the wake of my leaving, but in the midst of this work, I have something to hold onto - out of the ashes God has recreated in His image a marriage that I was trying to conform to my image. This amateur arsenist has exchanged her matchbook for the building blocks of God's word on marriage. I hope to use this blog as a place to chronicle what I learn. Maybe others will be able to use it in some way to encourage them on the days when all they see is a pile of ashes where a marriage once was...
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Recurring Dream Weirdness
This morning I learned of something new that my mother and I share. As bizarre as it seems, we both have the same recurring dream. I absolutely hate the dream (so does she). We dream that we've been skipping a class in high school because we never could find the classroom and that we're ready to graduate but can't because we have to go back and take it. For me it's almost always a math class, but is occasionally science. For mom it's always P.E. But how strange is it that we have such a similar dream??
I don't know what the dream means, but for me it tends to recur the most when I'm really stressed out. Which means I've had it alot lately, including last night...
I don't know what the dream means, but for me it tends to recur the most when I'm really stressed out. Which means I've had it alot lately, including last night...
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