"The Value of Mystery" . . .

I have been reading this incredible book written by Pastor Bill Johnson from Bethel Church in Redding, California. It's title is called "Dreaming with God", and it has been bringing so much perspective and value to my life. I have been through so many "ups and downs" in my walk with the Lord over a period of the last few years, but I believe that God is wanting me to recognize areas in my life that He wants me to surrender in, and teach me the art of "submission" and "obedience". I can honestly say that I have failed miserably at both, but I am equally grateful that even in my weakness, I am lovely to him, and His grace endlessly abounds for me. Please read this excerpt from the book and ponder these things that are written. They will be life-changing for those who find the truths written, and truly grasp what is being said.

"THE VALUE OF MYSTERY"

"God hides things for us, not from us."

An intellectual gospel is always in danger of creating a God that looks a lot like us; one that is our size. The quest for answers sometimes leads to a rejection of mystery. As a result mystery is is often treated as something intolerable, instead of a real treasure. Living with mystery is the priviledge of our walk with Christ. It's importance cannot be overrated. If I understand all that is going on in my Christian life, I HAVE AN INFERIOR CHRISTIAN LIFE! The walk of faith is to live according to the revelation we have received, in the midst of the mysteries we can't explain. That's why Christianity is called the faith.


*** All too often believers abandon or dilute their call in order to feel better about the things they cannot explain. ***

Consider these truths . . .

To allow what we cannot answer to downgrade what He has shown us is to be carnal minded!!

Too many obey what they understand , thus subjecting God to their judgements.

God is NOT on trial; WE are!

A true Cross-walk is obeying where we have revelation in spite of the apparent contradiction in what we cannot explain.

To obey when we see that there will be a FAVORABLE out come IS NOT OBEDIENCE!

Obedience is supposed to be expensive.

To embrace what He has shown us and to obey what He commanded us, often in the midst of unanswerable questions, is an honor beyond measure. It is a great priviledge to be a believing believer in the midst of a culture of unbelief. We must embrace this priviledge. No Christian should be unmoved by the Lord's question, "When I return, will I find faith on the earth?" I have set my heart to be His pleasure by living in faith.

"THE POWER OF THE OFFENDED MIND"

When Jesus felt it was time to minister in His hometown of Nazareth, He went to the synagogue. As He began to teach the people, they were quite amazed at His wisdom. They were also very impressed with the healings they were seeing. But when they realized they knew Him, having watched Him grow up, they were offended in their "reasonings". "It is Jesus. We know His brothers and sisters. He grew up here! How can He do this stuff? And where did He get this wisdom?" They were not offended in the typical sense; their feelings were not hurt, nor were they caught up in bitterness. They simply could not put two and two together and arrive at the conclusion - their Jesus was a miracle worker and a man of great wisdom. It didn't fill them with wonder and awe. Instead it caused them to be hardhearted and reject Him! This unresolved question became the mental stumbling block that was strong enough to shut down Jesus' anointing to perform miracles and teach with power. To have questions is healthy; to hold God hostage to those questions is NOT.

***It sometimes creates an atmosphere that fulfills it's own prophecy about the power of God not being for today. It shuts down the very anointing that would teach them otherwise.

**Not understanding is OK. Restricting our spiritual life to what we understand is not. It is immaturity at best. Such a controlling spirit is destructive to the development of a Christ-like nature. God responds to faith but will not surrender to our demands for control.

A person's heart is more clearly seen by what they're willing to embrace without offense, than by their expression of faith only in what they already understand. . . .


"HOW WE LEARN"

I'll never forget when God first began to opwn up the scriptures to me. As I read, my heart leapt within me over the richness of what I was reading. Yet I couldn't have taught on that particular passage if my life depended on it. My spirit was doing the learning and my mind would have to wait. The mind is trained through the experience of divine encounters and supernatural experiences initiated through the revelations from Scriptures. Revelation that doesn't lead to a divine encounter will only make us more religious, teaching us to embrace external standards without the internal realities.

God is not opposed to the mind; He created the mind to be a complement to all that He had made. He is opposed to the unrenewed mind. It is at war with God, being incapable of obeying Him. (see Romans 8:7). The believer who governs his Christian life through the mind is the carnal Christian that the apostle Paul warned about. (see 1 Corinthians 2-3). The soul can only lead us into religion - form withour power. It is what makes way for Ishmaels instead of Issacs.

It's important to understand the learning process. Our spirit is where the HOLY SPIRIT dwells. Our spirit is alive and well and is ready to receive great things from God. When I filter everything through my mind and remove what isn't immediately logical, I extract much of what I really need. Only what goes beyond my understanding is positioned to renew my mind. (see Philippians 4:7). If we can learn more about the actual voice and presence of the Lord, we will stop being so paranoid about being deceived by the things that we can't explain. Usually those who use the natural mind to protect themselves from deception are the most deceived. They've relied on their own finite logic and reason to keep them safe, which is in itself a deception. They usually have an explanation for all that's going on in their walk with the Lord, by criticize those who long for more.

Our hearts can embrace things that our heads can't. Our hearts will lead us where our logic would never dare to go. No one ever attributes the traits of courage and valor to the intellect or the strength of human reasoning. Courage rises up from within and gives influence over the mind. In the same way, true faith affects the mind. Faith does not come from our understanding. It comes from the heart. We do not believe because we understand; WE UNDERSTAND BECAUSE WE BELIEVE!! (see Hebrews 11:6). We'll know when our mind is truly renewed, because the impossible will look logical . . .





"MYSTERY - A CROSS FOR THE MIND"



What we don't understand is sometimes as important as what we do. It's one thing to obey when He has given us understanding about a matter, and quite another to obey while facing questions and circumstances that seem to contradict what we understand. So many fail at this point, and then bring the bible down to their level of experience.

MANY DO THIS TO FEEL BETTER ABOUT THE FACT THAT THEY ARE LIVING IN

COMPROMISE -

A COMPROMISE OF THEIR REVELATION FROM

SCRIPTURE.

OUR CHALLENGE IS INSTEAD TO BRING OUR

LIFESTYLE

UP TO THE STANDARD OF GOD'S

WORD. . .

To embrace revelation with one hand, and embrace mystery with the other, forms a perfect cross. This is a cross that everyone who is hungry to do the works of Jesus will have to carry. God must violate our logic to invite us away from the deception of relying on our own reasoning.

Wings . . .

Here are the lyrics to one of my very favorite prophetic songs from husband and wife team worship leaders Kimberly and Alberto Rivera, appropriately called "Wings". It makes me cry like a baby everytime I hear it - I KNOW that God's promises for me are still true . . .

~WINGS~

Nothings gonna hold me back
I'm gonna fly so high
So high away
Fly

When I saw some of you
You took from the Lord your NEW wings
You had this look on your face that said, "Yeah, these are new
But I still have the memory of how it felt when I flapped my broken wings"

And I saw this fear in your eyes
What will it feel like to flap my new wings?
Will I have the pain? Will I still remember?
And then I saw the Lord, look into your eyes
And they penetrated and then He said, THE PAIN SHALL CEASE
He said, "Even the MEMORY shall be released
Even the pain I shall take upon Myself"

"For I will NOT give you a NEW THING that will cause you pain
So DON'T BE AFRAID to fly
For eveything that I give is good
You will Fly in My goodness
Fly in My love
Safely under My wings
You will fly in My faithfulness
Fly in My comfort
Fly in My mercy"

"So STAY CLOSE to Me
Fly with Me
Don't EVER go away"

***** If you would like to hear this song, simply click on the "widget" at the upper right hand corner of my blog,

right under the "About Me" section . . . *****

Painting by Sonnet Hardgrave - See her website at: http://www.belovedsonnet.com/

My future . . .

"He sets on high those who are lowly, and those who mourn are lifted to safety" . . .
"Be the lifter of my head, be the lifter of my head, be the lifter of my head, tonight" . . .

This song was recently birthed into my heart by the Lord for this season I have been walking through in my life. It is such a beautiful thing that the Lord has used the Holy Spirit who lives inside of me, to minister to ME through the songs that HE inspires me to write!! Our God is SOOO creative, yah?! I am so encouraged that God's promises in His word are for us when we believe them and stand, even if it takes every last thread of hope for us to hang on to. I know of this personally; it's what I've lived through this past year. But I have a HOPE and a FUTURE knowing that the God of this universe is in love with me and desires for me to flourish, no matter what the circumstances are that surround me! I don't have any answers, I don't even have a clue, but I know that if my eyes are firmly fixed on the Lord, He WILL guide me every step of the way! I wake up every day thinking, "Lord, I don't even know how this day is going to turn out, but I know that "You are working in my afflictions, and my afflictions are working for me!!", as Jason Upton says. You see, all of these afflictions (daily battles, spiritual and physical) we face daily have a purpose; we are finding out that we are literally DEPENDENT upon God for everything - we cannot do anything separate from Him!! (Oh sure, we can, but we'll mess everything up REAL GOOD!! I have . . . )

I love Jeremiah 29:11, so much in fact that I have memorized it, and whenever I feel like my situations are completely hopeless, I am reminded about what GOD says about my future, and it helps me to stop believing and agreeing (yes, I said AGREEING) with the enemy, and his plan of deception to destroy my life! If we are not agreeing with what the word of God says about our lives, we are coming into agreement with the enemy, and his lies and whisperings of hopelessness, loss of direction and purpose! Read all of these different translations; any way you read them, they are all encouraging!

NET © For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord. 1 ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you 2 a future filled with hope. 3

NIV ©

biblegateway Jer 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

NASB ©

biblegateway Jer 29:11
‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.

NLT ©

biblegateway Jer 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

MSG ©

biblegateway Jer 29:11
I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out--plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.

BBE ©

SABDAweb Jer 29:11
For I am conscious of my thoughts about you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you hope at the end.

NRSV ©

bibleoremusJer 29:11
For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

NKJV ©

biblegateway Jer 29:11
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope

We all experience obstacles and go through life's trials. When we find ourselves in these situations we must not give up. We must do our part and continue living and being fruitful. God does have a plan for us but His plan might not be on our timing. We must pray to God and when we do, He WILL listen!! We must seek Him with all of our hearts. Then and only then will we find Him and He will bring us out of our captivity to experience the plans He has for us. And finally, God does indeed want us to live an abundant life here on earth but the true plans He has for us will be realized when we meet Him.

*******"I am tearing down all of the old foundations in your life, so that I, the Lord, can build new foundations; foundations built on love, trust, purity, respect, honor, kindness and goodness! And behold, the LATTER shall be GREATER than the FORMER!!!!"*******

I have received this prophecy by many different solid, grounded believers of God, more than a half a dozen times this past year!!! (I think the Lord is trying to tell me something, eh?!) I am open to WHATEVER the Lord has in store for me; my heart is open to receive what His will and plan for my life entails, and it may just shake up everything that I thought it looked like from my current perspective!!

Potential Requires Participation . . .

So I'm reading this really awesome book written by Bill Johnson, Pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, CA. It is titled, "Strengthen yourself in the Lord", and there is a section that really awestruck me, simply because it has brought some clarity to me regarding God fulfilling His purposes in my life. Read on if I've sparked your interest . . .

"We are living in a time when the Lord is restoring this revelation to His people - that the blood of Jesus was not shed merely to save us from our sins, but to restore us to a relationship with God in which we partner with Him as kings and priests to bring the planet under His rule and reign. We have delagated authority to establish His kingdom wherever the sole of our foot treads. But the fact is, while God calls us "kings", the degree to which we walk in that position is a matter of potential. And as Larry Randolph points out, God is not responsible for making us reach our potential. "

*** "A lot of believers think God is not fulfilling the prophetic words over their lives because they have missed the fact that the word was pointing to their potential, which requires their participation." ***

"God won't fulfill your potential because he wants you to become a mature believer who thinks and acts like Him out of your own free will. Mature believers are those He can TRUST with the secrets of His heart because they will not use the favor He gives FOR THEIR OWN PURPOSES, but for His" . . .

See my hands, See My face . . .

Hi Friends! I just wanted to share an amazing prophecy given by about God’s heart of love towards us as and His ability to heal us when we seek His face. As we are healed, we become equipped to share His love and power as a testimony for others to be saved!
Please take the time to read this powerful vision and prophecy received from the Heart of God to Catherine Brown of Gatekeepers Global Ministries. You can read about more incredible prophecies and visions given by God to His children in these last days at:

http://www.elijahslist.com/

"We are called as apostolic ambassadors to carry His heart of love to the nations so that the nations may experience the love of His heart."


"I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! For they are ripe for harvest." John 4:35b
In a recent vision I received, some people approached the Lord and reached out to touch the hem of Jesus, in much the same way as the sick woman who had bled for twelve years (Mark 5:25). It struck me how these dear ones were so heavily burdened and how much the Lord wanted to heal them with just one look of love from His eyes. Have you ever been in that place of being bent over and reaching out in desperation to the Lord for help? It is so important to know He is always willing and always able to lift up our heads and flood our beings with His healing power. As if in affirmation, the Lord spoke in the vision, "See My hands, see My face."
As more people approached the Lord, they held onto His hands, but nonetheless, they seemed unable to look into His loving face. So often, we read how Jesus took others by the hand and healed them. His look of love shattered chains of sickness, bondage and oppression from sin and compelled even the dead to respond with resurrection life. As I pondered how our hands are used for works, the Lord said, "All fruitfulness flows from holy intimacy with Me."

We are healed for harvest, and each one of God’s children has a testimony to the Risen Christ that will bless others as it is shared. The Lord Jesus desires for us to have a worship mindset that embraces holy works. From this place of relational security, the Holy Spirit will produce His witness to Christ through us. If we try to approach the harvest from any other perspective than His love, we are in danger of running on empty. Intimacy with God is everything, and without this, we have nothing of any worth to offer to the world.

We cannot hope to be Jesus’ hands if we have never seen His face, and yet we cannot see His face unless we receive His pierced hands. In this, we find the paradox of grace. Seeing the Cross is about first believing, and in believing, we perceive and see Him more clearly. In gazing upon the loveliness of Christ, we are blessed to receive the Father. Jesus said, "Anyone who has seen Me, has seen the Father" (John 14:9b).

FACE TO FACE

In the midst of this revelatory experience, I had another beautiful vision of a good friend of mine who has been used by the Lord to usher in revival in a number of nations, including Mozambique. Jesus held my friend face-to-face, and as He held her, rivers of live giving waters poured out from Jesus’ belly through her. As He held her in His love-gaze, I watched the flow of His love cause nation after nation to be born again. This picture is not just for one, but for all of those who will answer the Master’s call to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom and make disciples of all nations. It occurs to me that the most profound experiences we have, take place in the inner sanctum of our hearts, where the Lord creates moments of holy communion with us in which we are forever changed.

Jesus longs to hold each one of us in a personal face-to-face encounter. When we behold His face, we are enabled and motivated to become His hands reaching out to a hurting world. The birthing of multitudes is born out of the secret place. The secret place of Christ, the Bridegroom King, is where His inner gaze captivates our hearts and makes us lovesick, causing us to overflow from His love. Face-to-face is a place where we are enabled to trust God fully and to rely completely on His love.

Time alone with Christ enables us to surrender in adoration to God’s will. Seeking the heart of God is a precursor to seeing His power manifest in our lives and through our lives, into the nations of the earth. God is asking us to restore the altar of devotion as an inward response to His glory. The outward manifestation of such devotion will be fruit that will last for all eternity.
The inner gaze of Christ is a multifaceted experience--a secret moment, a holy tryst and a private place of pilgrimage where Christ becomes our all-in-all and when all our defenses and distractions melt away in the silence of communion with our Savior. The inner gaze of Christ may be described as a place of divine encounter and surrender, when our hearts acknowledge the Lord in absolute obedience and adoration to His will. The inner gaze speaks of a time, a place or a season when our souls become saturated in God’s presence, and from this, we often receive a fresh commissioning to walk and work with our Redeemer.

Each one of us is brought to a fresh realization of our need to be filled to overflowing with heavenly manna--the sustenance that can only be found in the rest of the Lord. The writer of Song of Songs tells us that the Bridegroom King has been captivated, "with one glance of your eyes." God longs to remove the veil from our eyes, so that we might know Him more. In such holy moments, the Lord reminds us that He is all-powerful, all-knowing, eternally present, and overflowing in unconditional love. The Lord is captivated by His beautiful Bride, but perhaps we do not always fully comprehend how deeply we are adored by our King of Kings.

FACE TO FACE IS ABOUT HAVING HIS HEARTBEAT

Recently as I waited with Jesus, He reminded me that I need to remember to rest in His love and not always be concerned about "the next assignment." As I pondered my deepest desire to be one with my Savior, I realized that I needed to stop and just breathe deeply of His presence and allow myself to receive His love. God began to speak to me about how those in the battlefields must find rest in the company of the Commander of the armies of Heaven. God spoke of His great longing for lonely leaders to come and find fellowship with Him and allow Him to fill up the empty places. He spoke to me of His grace to dismantle every place of defense in our hearts and allow His love to complete us.

When God meets us in such encounters, it is a uniquely individual experience. To the sinner or the saint who seeks the Savior, "they will look on the One they have pierced" and in return will receive the magnificent grace of Christ. One of my most favorite and lovely verses in the Bible is when Jesus looks at the rich, young man, "Jesus looked at him and loved him" (Mark 10:21). Jesus probably knew before He spoke that the young man couldn’t do the one thing that was needed: to give his all for Christ--but not even this rejection could prevent Jesus from loving him.

Time spent in God’s presence ploughs the furrows of our hearts, planting the seeds of His will and His word deep into our beings to bring forth fruit at the appointed time. When we are alone with God, He is able to both prune and nurture us and bring our minds, will, and emotions into alignment with His perfect plan for our lives. Jesus softens the hard places in us and refreshes the dry places when we make time to worship Him. He readjusts our spiritual eyesight in the places where we are blind to His compassion, so that we are enabled to view things from His perspective and not our own. His eyes of fire are irresistible and draw us to Himself, compelling our consciences to bow down in humility and reverent awe. Jesus wants us to know that lowly is lovely!

THE THREE ALTARS: DILIGENCE, DUTY AND DEVOTION
In a vision, I was shown three altars in Heaven. One was called the "altar of diligence," one was named the "altar of duty," and the third was the "altar of devotion." Each heavenly altar was truly exquisite, and each burned with a different size of flame, yet, devotion burned the brightest. These altars represent witness (diligence), works (duty), and worship (devotion). The altar of diligence is where the standard of His love is outworked in our actions. The altar of duty is an altar of grace where faith and action meet to do good works, and humility enables us to emulate the obedience of Christ.

On the altar of devotion, I saw beautiful jewels in the flames. This is an altar of love and worship, and the one on which our lives can be spent, bringing much joy to Jesus. On this altar, the fire of the Rock of Ages descends to refine the precious jewel of our faith, producing Christ-likeness in us. Devotion to Christ releases the atmosphere of Heaven into the heart of a worshipper.
Jesus taught, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God" (Matthew 5). When the altar of devotion burns brightly, our hearts are purified because of the time spent in His holy presence. The eternal purity of Jesus’ love reveals His heart in us, and we see Him as He truly is.

This "seeing" is not so much about physical vision; rather, it is about being anchored in a covenant relationship of knowing Him and being known by Him. Loving Him creates a desperate longing in us for more of Him, and this earnest longing becomes a catalyst for Godly transformation in our lives. When we are in love, we will reflect His radiance.
True discipleship seeks simply to be like the Master. Converting others is not our primary goal. However, we will positively influence others with the salvation message of the Kingdom when we surrender our lives in honor to God. It is not the vastness of our revelatory knowledge or the clarity of our theology that will capture those whom Jesus has ransomed by His Blood; it is the evidence of our being ravished by holy love and wasted on the wonder of being His which will cause the lost and the prodigals to discover their Redeemer King. What might that evidence look like? It is simply holy, forgiving love that has no earthly agenda.

We run into God’s heartbeat for a myriad of reasons, and the Lord longs for us to run out of this encounter with His passion for the multitudes and His Bride. We are called as apostolic ambassadors to carry His heart of love to the nations so that the nations may experience the love of His heart. The Holy Spirit sets our hearts in alignment with the Father’s heart. We are anointed and appointed and commanded to love, to teach, to preach, to witness of the Risen Christ, and to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey the Lord. My prayer for each of us is that our onward journeys of faith flow from face-to-face encounters with the Lord.
God bless you as you discover (or rediscover) His love for you today.

Catherine Brown

Gatekeepers Global Ministries

"Less Wild Lovers"

I haven't blogged about any real topics for awhile, simply because of life's circumstances that have kept me quite occupied these days. I have been doing a lot of reading and some serious soul searching lately; pondering deep emotions and doing regular "heart examinations" to find myself again, after the devastating effects and after effects of divorce. This book that I am reading right now is so amazingly true to life, and has helped me to identify with the swirling tide of raw emotions, and has brought answers to these main questions that I have asked and falsely believed about my own self worth . . .

"Why wasn't I good enough for him to want to stay and try to work it out?"

"Why does he do special things for his new lover that he never even thought or dreamed of doing for me?!"

"Why wasn't I good enough, period?!"

I realized that even with all of my shortcomings in the marriage, that it wasn't me at all. It was about the power of addiction ruling his life, and the sense of control that he felt to numb the deeper issues of the heart.


The book I am reading right now, The Sacred Romance written by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge, nails this problem on the head and gives incredible insight as to why we establish these unhealthy patterns in our lives. I allowed myself to fall into this type of addiction,and it ruled my life for a period of time a few years back. This taste of indulgence and selfish desire for immediate gratification was only broken after hitting a wall, and becoming broken before the Lord, realizing that intimacy with God was the only thing able to satisfy this insatiable hunger. I begged for my husband not to leave, because I "got it"!! I tried to tell him to not run after those things, it would only lead to destruction. I pleaded with him to try and understand and allow Jesus to come in and deal with those places of brokenness. I knew that if only he could see this amazing truth, he would eventually see that I was not his problem, and would be restored and able to see me in a whole new light - and more importantly, himself! Sadly, he could not see what I was trying to tell him.


My intention in writing this is not to defame or degrade my ex-husband. Rather, I hope it gives some valuable insight to those who do not understand why they do the things that they don't WANT to do! We don't really want to run after the world, or it's pleasures, but there is a drive that leaves us wanting desperately to be filled. My prayer is that someday he will realize that running after those other things will never give true gratification, and that his heart CAN be filled completely with the satisfying bread of life - Jesus Christ who said Himself that He alone is the Bread of Life, if only he will allow this healing to take place!! Indeed Jesus is the true Bread of Life, for I am finding this out every day that I desire to run after and seek His heart, with my whole heart!


I am no better or worse than my ex-husband, I do not claim to "know it all". Though I do not agree with the path he has chosen, I choose to forgive him. Because his actions have affected so many around him, and has caused incredible hurt, pain and anger to rise up out of myself and others, it is a hard thing to be able to forgive, but it MUST be done! The Word of God clearly tells us that if we do NOT forgive, neither does our Father in heaven forgive US!! (forgiving someone in and of itself, is something that is very hard to walk in, and can only be accomplished through the power and grace of God! It is a daily process and is NOT easily accomplished - Loving the person, yet hating the sin, are very hard to separate, to look at, and deal with) I know that while in the midst of my own selfish quest for immediate self-gratification, that I deeply hurt not only him, but others around me as well. My goal by writing this, is to testify that I have found the One true way to living a fulfilled life, and that having a satisfied heart is obtained only after ceasing to seek after things that don't satisfy. Finding intimacy with the one, true Living God, was only found after I "hit a wall" and came to the end of myself. I had to hit "rock bottom" before I found this truth. I had enough of the world, and I needed a true answer. Thank you Jesus for filling my yearnings and longings to find peace, and for answering the burning questions of my heart! I must warn you though, it is a DAILY process, and you MUST determine in you heart and mind to keep established communion with the Father, to prevent those "other lovers" from seeping back into your relationship with God. Do not allow yourself to slip back into old patterns and try to find immediate gratification when circumstances in your life get rough . . . Don't go back to Egypt!

~ Nikki Fairbanks

THE SACRED ROMANCE

~ LESS WILD LOVERS ~

Our adversary seduces us to abide in certain emotions that act as less-wild lovers, particularly shame, fear, lust, anger, and false guilt. They are emotions that "protect" us from the more dangerous feelings of grief, abandonment, disappointment, loneliness, and even joy and longing, that threaten to roam free in the wilder environs of the heart. These are feelings that frighten us, sometimes even long years into our Christian journey.

If those of us in the first cadre of less-wild lovers choose to control our desire through various kinds of "stay at home" anesthesia, we who hang out in the emotional nightclubs of Vanity Fair choose a different kind of control: indulgence.

We put our hope in meeting a lover who will give us some form of immediate gratification, some taste of transcendence that will place a drop of water on our parched tongue. This taste of transcendence, coming as it does from a non transcendent source, whether that it be an affair, a drug, an obsession with sports, pornography, or living off of our giftedness, has the same effect on our souls as CRACK COCAINE! Because the gratification touches us in that heart-place made for transcendent communication, without itself being transcendent, it attaches itself to our desire with chains that render us captive.

A few years ago, I was counseling with a christian man who was just ending a yearlong affair. He was married to an attractive and energetic woman who was also a believer, and he knew that he really loved her. He also began to understand that whatever it was that attracted him to the affair, it was not the woman herself, BUT SOMETHING THAT SHE REPRESENTED! As we talked of making his break with her final, he wept with grief, immersed in the fear that some shining, more innocent part of himself would be left behind with the affair - left behind and, perhaps, lost forever.

And this is the power of ADDICTION. Whatever the object of our addiction is, it attaches itself to our intense desire for eternal and intimate communion with God and each other in the midst of Paradise - the desire that Jesus himself placed in us before the beginning of the world. Nothing less than this kind of unfallen communion will ever satisfy our desire or allow it to drink freely without imprisoning it and us. Once we allow our heart to drink water from these less-than-eternal wells with the goal of finding the life we were made for, it overpowers our will, and becomes, as Jonathan Edwards said, "like a viper, hissing and spitting at God" and us if we try to restrain it.

"Nothing is less in power than the heart and far from commanding, we are forced to obey it," said Jean Rousseau. Our heart will carry us either to God or to addiction. "Addiction is the most powerful psychic enemy of humanity's desire for God," says Gerald May in Addiction and Grace, which is no doubt why it is one of our adversary's favorite ways to imprison us. Once taken captive, trying to free ourselves through willpower is futile. Only God's Spirit Himself can free us or even bring us to our senses.

If God's experience of being "married" to us, who are his Beloved, is sometimes that of being tied to a legalistic controller in the ways I've described in the paragraphs on anesthetizing our heart, at other times it is more like that of being married to a harlot whose heart is seduced from Him by every scent on the evening breeze. In our psychological age, we have come to call our affairs "addictions," but God calls them "adultery."

God is saying, "I love you and yet you betray Me at the drop of of a hat. I feel so much pain. Can't you see we're made for each other? I want you to come back to Me. And Israel's answer like that of any addict or adulterer, is: "It's no use! I love foreign gods, and I must go after them" (Jer. 2:25).

Perhaps we can empathize with the ache God experienced as Israel's "husband" (and ours when we are living indulgently). Having raised Israel from childhood to a woman of grace and beauty, He astonishingly cannot win her heart from her adulterous lovers. The living God of the universe cannot win the only one he loves, not due to any lack on his part, but because her heart is captured by her addictions, which is to say, her adulterous lovers.

Many of us have had the experience of not being able to bridge the distance between ourselves and others, whether the distance is caused by unhealed wounds or willful sin in our lover's heart

or our own.

*****WE EXPERIENCE THEIR REJECTION

AS OUR NOT "BEING ENOUGH" TO WIN THEM*****

*****UNLIKE GOD, WE BEGIN TO THINK OF OURSELVES

AS HAVING A PROBLEM WITH SELF-ESTEEM*****

Whereas God became even more wild in his love for us by sending Jesus to die for our freedom, most of us choose to both become and take on lovers that are less wild. We give up desiring to be in a relationship of heroic proportions, where we risk rejection, and settle for being heroes and heroines in the smaller stories where we have learned we can "turn someone on" through our usefulness, cleverness, or beauty (or at least turn ourselves on with a momentary taste of transcendence).

The list of our adulterous indulgences is endless:

There is the exotic dancer, the religious fanatic, the alcoholic, the adrenaline freak, the prostitute with a man, the man with a prostitute, the eloquent pastor who seduces with his words, and the woman who seduces with her body. There is the indulgent lover who never really indulges physically, but spends his life in a kind of whimsy about what is lost, like Ashley in Gone with the Wind.

What these indulgent lovers have in common is the pursuit of transcendence through some gratification that is under their control!

In the religions of the Fertile Crescent, access to God (transcendence) was attempted through sexual intercourse with temple prostitutes. Perhaps, as we indulge our addictions, we are doing no less than prostituting ourselves and others in this very same way.

"Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God."

~ G.K. Chesterton

At first glance, those of us who live by indulgence - illicit affairs of the heart - appear to have a certain passion that is superior to those who live by anesthesia. But it is a passion that must be fed by the worship or use of the other and so it is a passion that does not leave us free to love. Indulgence leaves us empty and primed for the next round of thirst quenching in an endless cycle that Solomon described as "vanity of vanities." Jimi Hendrix, one of our modern - day poets, just before his death of a drug overdose, said it this way: "There ain't no livin' left nowhere."

Life on that first road where the signs promised us life would work if we just applied the right formula - the road that seemed so straight and safe when we first set out on it - gives us no wisdom as to what we're to do with the depth of desire God has placed within us. It is desire that is meant to lead us to nothing less than communion with Him.

If we try to anesthetize it, we become relational islands, unavailable to those who need us; like the father who lowers his newspaper with annoyance at the family chaos going on around him, but makes no move to speak his life into it.

If we try to gain transcendence (access to God) through indulgence, soon enough familiarity breeds contempt and we are driven to search for mystery elsewhere.

So the man having an affair must have another, and the man who is an alcoholic must drink more and more to find the window of feeling good.

"There is only One Being who can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ"

~Oswald Chambers

***All excerpts written above are from the book, "The Sacred Romance", written by John Eldredge and Brent Curtis***