A word from God

I've been reading Adrian Plass's An alien at St Wilfrids. At the climax God gives the main character a 7-fold list of things he needs to change in his life. God, give me a 7-fold list of things you want to change in my life. A dangerous request I know, but it’s like the one where one guy asked the other to pray that he might really experience what it means to be crucified with Christ – and that was such a liberating experience.

Well, Michael, says God, first you need to deal with idolatry. Focus on me. You’ll never be your best for me if you continue to dabble in the sin of idolatry. Cut it out. Secondly show a whole lot more patience with your family. Think hard, count to ten and relax before speaking. And then speak in a calm, peaceful manner. Thirdly, focus more on your relationship with me. You’re reading the Bible regularly right now, that’s good. But get deeper. Let it affect your life. And pray. You say that praying for others was your high point of the recent conference you were at. Well, keep up the praying. Yes, it may be more difficult when you’re not in a spiritually charged worship service with your friends, but it’s still just as important. Pray at all times and on all occasions and in all manners. For others. As praise and worship. Pray. Nurture that relationship with me. And fourthly, nurture your relationship with your wife. Your spiritual relationship. Don't forget that the relationship between man and wife is a model of the relationship between Christ and his people. So develop that spiritual relationship. You got Willard’s study guide yonks ago. What about using it? You encourage other couples to pray and worship together. Look to yourself as well. Fifthly, organise your private world better. Show regularity and self-discipline. Sixthly, pursue your calling. I have called you. You are mine. Follow me. I’ve given you many signposts. Don’t get sloppy. I’ve got work for you to do. Follow me. And seventhly, relax. Relax in my love. I want you to be at peace and be a channel of my peace. So relax. You know when you’re relaxed and when you’re not relaxed. When people spend time with you may they come away peaceful, as though they’ve met with a bit of me. And I’m going to give you an eighth one as well: pray for your family. Hold them together in my arms. Be a spiritual leader to them. Lead your children closer to me, into my arms. I’ve a lot for them to do, and I want you to help them start that path. Got it, Michael? Will you obey? Will you follow? Will you put me the first in your life? You’ve defragged the computer. Now defrag your life.

The enigma of freedom

Freedom is an enigma. I’ve been speaking to others of my desire, calling even, to set others free. I recognise from the vision that I cannot do that unless I am free myself. I believe I can be and am already involved in setting others free. Since I have that focus in my own life it will inevitably spill out. But I’m not free in worship. At least, not in the environment of my Lahti fellowship. Others laugh, shout, wave banners, dance – actually, make fools of themselves in the Lord – but I do no more than raise my hands, clap, sing in tongues… Is it the environment that is holding me back? Is it that I don’t feel at home there? It’s true that I don’t really feel at home there. If I never went back again, there are no relationships that I would miss, and so there is no bond between me and them. In contrast perhaps, when it comes to worship with my work colleagues I do feel freer, within the boundaries of what is expected there. In Lahti I am one of the most conservative worshippers; when worshipping at work I am one of the most open. Because I feel at home in that environment. Because there is love (given and received). And I believe because I am able to use my gifts. In Lahti I am just pew fodder. Everywhere else I am able to help lead in some way.

But it’s as though I’ve woken up. But I have this earnest (passionate) desire to go out and make a difference. To cut the talking (we’ve done far too much of that as it is) and do something. Hence the strong focus and push on mentoring, growth plans, empowering, motivating – to get the desire and ability to make a difference out to the whole Group.

The battle with sin of course remains. I wonder whether following Dallas Willard’s curriculum for Christlikeness will make a difference? (http://www.dwillard.org/books/DivConsp.asp) It should, I guess, since what is being addressed is a transformation of the heart. And a change of heart is what is needed. Rules and regulations won’t make any difference. There’s always a way around them. It’s the heart that needs to be addressed, so that there will be no desire to search for a way around the rules and regulations, and so there will be no need for the rules and regulations themselves.

Michael

PS: Now I've worked out how to do hyperlinks (quite easy really)... Here's where you can get "Awake me": http://direct.crossrhythms.co.uk/cd.php?cd=7198. Go for it!

An everlasting cycle?

It's scary. If the Spirit of God were to take control of me I would not be in control of myself. But on the other hand it would make the battle with sin a whole lot easier. What matters to me: What I really am, or what others think of me? So often I play to the gallery, and evaluate a particular course of action by what others will think. Is that authentic? Is that being free? Is that what God intends? Is that taking God seriously?

But life goes on. Until God steps in. This time in the form of someone at church with the gift of prophecy. The prophecy was simple: "You know what God is saying to you." It took me a full week to realise what it was that God was saying to me! How could I have been so blind, so entangled in the sin that so easily pervades, that I'd entirely forgotten, I'd failed to see! I long to rise up on wings like eagles. But to whom does that happen? “Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength and mount up on wings like eagles.” My “waiting on the Lord” has been virtually non-existent.

Is there always this everlasting cycle? The night, the dawn, the day, the fading light, the night, the dawn… The night, the time when we cannot see the unseen, when temptations ravage as all we can see are the bright colours that entice and drag us away. The dawn when God brings us back to our senses. The day when we can see God and the vision he has for us. But then the light fades and the synthetic attractions raise their ugly head once again and the sin that so easily entangles entangles us once again. But it doesn’t have to entangle! Sing your praises in the night! But even Paul was perpetually battling with sin in Romans 7. Who will deliver me from this body of death! Come, Lord Jesus! Be the centre, the source, the vision, the path, my guide, so that

High King of Heaven, when battle is done
Grant Heaven’s joy to me Bright Heaven’s Sun.

Michael