For my friends and fellow-travelers who have suffered loss…

I mentioned Sunday that while we were singing praises to the Living God I had a “vision.” I don’t know how else to describe it. It launched as small waves of gratefulness began to wash over me, and I recognized the familiar Presence Who has often visited me over the years. I have learned to neither resist, analyze, or control when this happens. It just – happens. Kind of like a gentle, blowing wind…so I gave my heart permission to sing along with my voice.

All of a sudden I had an extreme urge to dance, but of course, I would never do that in public (and rarely in private). When you have two left feet the idea of being swept away in an emotional frenzy is quite terrifying. Dave – get a grip. You are NOT going to start dancing.

By now I knew the Spirit was giving me one of those few and far between experiences of raw communion. I couldn’t control my tears – but I’ve gotten OK with that – so I let it flow (I’m actually not sure I could have stopped, really). This weird passage came to mind: “Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel; and under His feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself. Yet He did not stretch out His hand against the nobles of the sons of Israel; and they saw God, and they ate and drank.  Exodus 24:9-11

I closed my eyes, and all of you began to dance. Wow! Not just like couples dance (although many of us were) but more like dancing souls. Each one of us (Scott and Inez/Dennis and Gretchen/many children – to name a few faces I could see) were all dancing around me. It wasn’t so much the dancing as the freedom that was everywhere. It really was quite spectacularly beautiful.

And all of a sudden we were all before His throne together, in the New City, and I had finally become emotionally free to dance. I felt like I was spinning through the air – and most of all – I felt free! Someone began to talk to me – asking me what was happening. I remember saying, “I am so sorry – there is no time to talk – it is time to dance!” All I could do was continue to dance. I was free to dance. And it was exhilarating to my Spirit – to be so free!

And then, there she was, a young woman in a white dress. The most beautiful dancer of us all. She was moving – flowing actually – weaving through the room. In and out and among our dear friends. I strained my mind to recognize her. Everyone else was familiar. She was new. Long brown hair. Graceful womanly face. Unfettered by the strain of bondage. Free. And then it hit me like a wonderful cut to my heart. It was my granddaughter Rebekah. Dancing effortlessly, without inhibition. Peaceful and preoccupied to her core with The Dance. It was her. As she glided past me (this felt awfully real) she didn’t look at me so much with recognition as with expectation. Her face revealed everything. It was all about The Dance.

That’s why I couldn’t say anything on Sunday. It was just too much. Even now as I put this down I am overcome and weeping at the image of what I saw. For all that my dear daughter Rachel and her husband Eric have lost – Rebecca is free. And waiting for us to join her. Waiting for us to be free to dance. Selah.

 

There is a corrosiveness in being human which is inescapable – apart from a turning from one thing and toward another. This is the very nature of repentance. The word literally means to turn away and turn toward.

This is how we escape the inevitable. While it is convenient to believe we live on a continuum of who is better and who is worse (there are many “good people”) the God Story reality is that it is only the presence of God in us which can change an oppressor’s heart, a corrupt politician’s intentions, or release any submerged, addictive heart. Jesus’ brother James (can you imagine growing up with a perfect-hearted older brother?) gives us insight into this potential of escape:

“What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the cause your self-pleasures that cause you to wage war with others? You covet what others have and you do not; so you commit relational murder. You are jealous and cannot obtain it; so you fight and organize relational war.

What you do not have is because you do not ask. Or you ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so you may spend what you desire on your self-gratifying pleasures. 

You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks with no purpose: “He jealously longs for the Spirit which He has made to live expansively inside of us?” 

But He gives a rich and surpassing grace to us. This is why the Word says, “God sets Himself against the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” You should submit then to God. Make your stand against the devil and he will run away from you. Draw near and press yourself to God and He will do the same to you. Cleanse your hands with innocent actions and quit missing the mark; and purify and reset your hearts: you cannot succeed in God by being double-minded. Rather choose the hardships of suffering for choices which are right; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom and in so doing exchange what you value. Humble yourselves in the eyes of the Lord, and He will raise you to new heights.”                 – James 4:1-10

Peter must have heard the same thing from Jesus as James. “For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.”  – 2 Peter 1:4

We must each find our own deliverance from the corrosive impact of our lost heart. This is the only way we will ever become “a good person” inasmuch as only God is good (Luke 18:19). It is only from within that we will have any hope of becoming free. When God’s Spirit is overcoming within us. As Peter says 1) He has given us His amazing promises and 2) we share in His divine nature and 3) we escape the corrosive soup in which we all find ourselves.

The World and the Father: How it works
A deep walk through James
A great freedom song

Few of us like to think of ourselves as greedy, but you and I both know it is woven into our Adamic heart. This is why Jesus (in the midst of a hugely poignant teaching in Luke 12) says:

“Beware (be actively discerning), and be on your guard (push away) every form of greed; for not even when one has an overflow does his life consist of his possessions.” Think with me for a moment.

I identify several avenues of greed from my own fight of faith – based upon the Word of God. The first is obvious: un-satiated pursuit of possessions. When is enough enough? When this is unbridled (it is not necessarily tied to an amount) the heart is carried away by self-thirst, and the ends begin to justify the means. This, in turn, impacts our judgement for what is right and wrong. It is a bottomless pit.

Greed is also unleashed when we want to be lifted up in the eyes of others. Recognition is a consuming master which is never satisfied. The bad part about this one is that other people will pay the price for our greed – always. People become diminished because our view of ourselves is elevated. Greed inevitably leads to some form of oppression of others.

Finally, self-gratification is probably the most insidious tool of the evil one to capture our souls. Instead of making a list, it is more helpful to begin evaluating our inner-selves for the things which steal our heart intentions away from God. The whole two masters thing. (Matthew 22:34-40)

Greed has been with us since the beginning. It is chilling to think of the serpent’s lie to Adam and Eve: “you will surely not die.” The second Adam (Jesus) shows us the way to subjugate greed to the will of the Father. It is a lifelong quest to allow Jesus to master the greed which flows from our fallen hearts.

Passages: Proverbs 11:6; Romans 1:29; Ephesians 5:3; Colossians 3:5; 2 Peter 2:3,14

Join me in identification and Spirit-subjugation of all forms of greed. Selah.

A multi-facets of greed song

 

There are so many conflicted things about the human race. Oppression. Dishonesty. Our takes on real love. Where did we come from? Where are we going?

I don’t know what you know about God – but it is worth an inventory. The things which are solid in an authentic faith can help with our hope for the future – and our experience of a satisfied mind.

I wrote this song during one of those times I was trying to see something higher – something greater. Hope you enjoy it – Burnadette and I had fun singing it.

Read Job 38 while you listen!

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you instruct Me! 

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? 

“Or who enclosed the sea with doors when, bursting forth, it went out from the womb; when I made a cloud its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and I placed boundaries on it and set a bolt and doors, and I said, ‘Thus far you shall come, but no farther; and here shall your proud waves stop’? 

“Have you ever in your life commanded the morning, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? It is changed like clay under the seal; and they stand forth like a cloak. From the wicked their light is withheld, and the uplifted arm is broken.”

“Have you entered into the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you understood the expanse of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this. Where is the way to the dwelling of light? And darkness, where is its place, that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home? You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great! 

“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved for the time of distress, for the day of war and battle? Where is the way that the light is divided, or the east wind scattered on the earth? Who has cleft a channel for the flood, or a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land without people, on a desert without a man in it, to satisfy the waste and desolate land and to make the seeds of grass to sprout? 

“Has the rain a father? Or who has birthed the drops of dew? From whose womb has come the ice? And the frost of heaven, who has given it birth? Water becomes hard like stone, and the surface of the deep is imprisoned. 

“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth a constellation in its season, and guide the Bear with her satellites? Do you know the laws of the heavens, or fix their rule over the earth? Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, so that an abundance of water will cover you? Can you send forth lightnings that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’? 

“Who has put wisdom in the innermost being or given understanding to the mind? Who can count the clouds by wisdom, or tip the water jars of the heavens, when the dust hardens into a mass and the clods stick together? Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait in their lair? Who prepares for the raven its nourishment when its young cry to God and wander about without food?” 

I think we know the answer – right?! The great God of everyone and everything is worthy of being trusted and honored – even when everything around us let’s us down. Selah.