Don't Forget There are Two Realms

My journey through recovery is now at 15 months. The view of today contrasted to May 13, 2013 is a complete 180 to use the cliche, yet it is the only adequate description that can be applied. It strikes me that I cannot offer proof that my life has changed, because all anyone else can do is observe and conclude for themselves whether a real change has occurred or am I merely posing while wearing a different mask? In this case my words saying I have changed are not enough and I believe that should not be the final answer for everyone to have to accept either.  However, if proof is the only form to allow acceptance to happen then mankind is in trouble, because most people would choose to say I am skeptical and will choose to wait years if need be to say "Aha! See I knew he was not different."

Is there an adequate answer then? While reading a testimony about a person going through the grief of losing his wife, the comment was made that sometimes all a person can do is acknowledge that all they can do is say to God, "thy will be done." This thought triggered a revelation from the spirit in my heart.

It strikes me that when we pray; "Father, thy will be done.", this is really a prayer of understanding and acceptance. It represents understanding because we are acknowledging that - God, I know you can alter this. I know you can heal my loved one. I know without question you are able and you have the power. All it takes is a single word from your lips and the present course will be altered, and the outcome will be changed. 

However, the above cannot be the final sentence of what thy will be done suggests. we must also continue in our prayer and say, "Yet for your reason you have chosen not to do what I have asked, and though my grief is great and suffocating, I trust you and submit to thy will."

This revelation sugests to me that we occupy two realms in our lives. The first is realm of proof. This realm is essentially everything is black or white in a manner of speaking. This is the realm of sight, touch, taste, hear, and smell. The realm of proof is the realm of our senses. There is no place for doubt, because our senses have confirmed the reality of the moment. But what of the inquiry of the one who has lost a loved one or my initial statement that my life is now 180 from a year ago. These things cannot be proved with the senses alone.

Here is what I mean. When someone loses a loved one those of us who are not grieving typically say he/she is in a better place. He is in a place of joy. She is free from pain in her new home. We say these things yet we cannot prove them at all. Like the thy will be done prayer, those who are grieving and those who are being transformed are in the other realm that exists beyond proof. The answers to the questions that the senses cannot provide are found in the realm of love. That transcendental realm where God, Jesus and the spirit are found. The realm of love is where we must go when we are seeking the peace, comfort and understanding that the realm of proof is unable to provide.

Where does a Nomad Call His Home?

One of the basic of all Bible stories is the journey of human beings, exiled from all that is familiar, who find home. Lynda Weaver Williams from foreword in The Glad River.

This thought intrigues me because I've lived a nomadic life. My parents moved 4 times during my youth and I have followed that with 7 moves during my professional career. At my current age of 57 that is an average of 5.2 years, (57/11), at each place.  While I did find gifts of beauty at each city where I have lived I can't say the longing for home ever left me. I enjoyed those homes in those cities but I never came to think I am home. My question then becomes how do you find home? Is the emptiness I feel telling me I'm not home yet?

Our longing is for home, but where is that for a people who have lived nomadic lives? Both sets of my grandparents lived out of state and we made annual trips to visit them. I loved the country living of my maternal grandparents and the quiet smallness of the town my paternal grandparents lived in. Yet, whenever we visited them there was never a feeling that we were returning home. Last summer I spent 4 days in the Rocky Mountains west of Denver and my time there can be described as beautiful and breathtaking, but they weren't home and when it came time to leave I felt no drawing to stay there. Colorado was nothing more than just a place to visit. 

I lived in California and enjoyed gold panning, the redwoods, and the mountains, but when I was transferred to Houston I picked up and left with barely a look in my rear view mirror. I fear westerners have lost the comfort of home, because we have become nomadic and have tried to convince ourselves that home is wherever you live. It's not! Of the 11 places I have lived in my life time, none of them ever felt like home. In the River Dance play there is a moment when a young couple has to leave their island and migrate to America. As they are preparing to leave the wife, stands and looks out over the countryside as though she is trying to burn the image into her memory. Her husband takes her hand and then they turn and walk away. At the last moment before boarding the boat the husband takes a quick glance back to see their land for the last time. That is my thought of what it means to have a home. A place your heart longs to be. A place that tugs at your soul. A place that you can tell others about with much detail. Home. Where are you?

Remember the Promises

I've read a couple of books authored by Max Lucado on the story of Joseph, and I have been moved by some of his thoughts. We all know that before Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers that God spoke to him through two dreams and revealed to Joseph that one day his family would bow to him. I am convinced that God was telling Joseph you are not going to be worshipped, but soon something is going to happen to you and these dreams are going to remind you to hold on, because I am God and I have told you your family will bow down to you. So as Joseph was led off in chains and his pleas for mercy to his brothers went unheard, this would have presented a great moment for him to have a crises of faith, and not only this but all the other things that happened to him along the way as well. Being falsely accused and imprisoned for rape, to telling another good news and asking him to speak to Pharaoh on his behalf only to be forgotten. Joseph had many moments to forget his two dreams. Yet, he held on. It is as though while wearing the heavy chains of the slave owners, he knew, I've been called to more than this (Max Lucado).

I have no clue why all this happened the way it did, but I do have a thought. The enemy was aware that God was going to bring his son into the world through the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If he could destroy the line he would prevent God's plan from coming into fruition. So he used every means within his power to destroy Joseph, first by enslaving him, then imprisoning him. With Joseph safely tucked away in the dungeons of Egypt, there would be no way the line could be preserved, assuming he knew about the famine that was coming. This would keep the Israelites from being able to find refuge in Egypt when the famine struck, and they would subsequently die off. It is a facade, because God's power always trumps Satan's plans. Joseph did endure and remained faithful and hopeful and God rescued him in a big way.

Lucado also made a comment about Joseph being in prison that I absolutely love. He said, The dungeon looked like a prison, smelled like a prison, sounded like a prison, but had you asked the angels of heaven about Joseph's location they would have replied, "Oh, he's in boot camp." Yes! Because when I'm in the prison or the pit, I only have to remember; My Father said he will do this and I might not understand how he is going to accomplish through this mess, but I do know without a doubt it's gonna happen, so I'm going to believe and wait.

I'm struck at the difference in the way the Israelites would react to similar actions 400 years after Joseph, when Moses comes back and tells them, God is going to rescue you from Pharaoh, and you will no longer be slaves, but live as free men. Then Moses proceeded to go tell Pharaoh that God said let my people go and the first thing Pharaoh did was increase the burden and labor of the slaves. Yet, instead of saying to themselves, "Uh oh, Mr. Pharaoh you shouldn't do this because you are going to make our God mad". They instead whined about what unfair demands they have been saddled with. 

They have been enslaved for 400 years and Moses had just told them what God was going to do. Yet their response was to whine. Why not look down the road and say God said he will rescue us so that's what is going to happen and while Pharaoh may think he's hurting us all he is doing is making God mad and we are going to be rescued soon. Let's celebrate and make the last few batches of bricks for this tyrant and see what God will do.

For me today, I live under the covenant of God, yet I've neglected to remember the promises of his covenant, and I have been bitter and angry at times. Now as I read the word and listen to his revelations I want to write the promises down so I will be more like Joseph and know it's going to happen regardless of whether I can understand how, but I will believe because my God said it's going to happen and that is good enough for me.

God Speaks To Us Through Our Name

In Stasi Eldredge's book, Becoming Myself, she wrote that her name, Stasi, means resurrection. She went on to explain that her parents named her Stasi, but God named her resurrection. She also shared that this is appropriate because God has resurrected those parts of her heart that were dead, and now she knows her purpose because she knows her name. This has led her to reaching to all women who are broken and looking for God, so in a way she is the tool that God uses to resurrect other women. She encourages her readers to look at the meaning of your name and let God reveal who you are through what he has named you.

Kenneth means born of fire. Dale means dweller in the valley. So, my Father has named me born of fire and dwells in the valley. This shook me. During the boot camp I attended in August 2013, I shared that I heard compassionate son as the image of God I reflect in my masculinity. My Lord is a man who was unafraid of a fight and he also was most likely to be found where those who society and religion wrote off were congregating. In our time we reserve the valley as where we find our selves when something bad happens. "I'm in the valley and it's dark" or "I'll climb back to the peaks in time." So, my Father says I reflect his compassion and I should not be afraid to make a stand and dwell in the valley to free those who are prisoners bound by the kingdom of darkness. This was an incredible moment for me.

I then decided to look at my brides name and see what God named her through her parents. Susan means lily, and Marguerite means pearl. I asked God to reveal to me what he was trying to tell me in this exercise.  The first verse that came to mind was from Song of Songs 2:2, where Solomon say "Like a lily among the thorns is my darling among the young women. The second place he led me was to Matthew 13: 45-46, Again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant of fine pearls, who, on finding one of great value, went and sold all that he had an bought it. The Father revealed to me that in the hurt and nastiness of life Susan shows beauty, and for me she represents the single pearl of great value who is worth all that I have. 

This revelation brought me back to a lesson I have been learning since May 13, 2013, when Susan left me for two nights and my back was firmly against the wall. Our Father has been active since that evening using what the enemy had used in his determination to destroy our marriage, into a tool that God is using to make us stronger than before. All I can really say is the valley is dark and deep, but grace runs deeper.  Use me Trinity to free those prisoners bound in the kingdom of darkness.

2014 - A New Year A New Perspective

Physicists say they are able to get to 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds, (10^-43), of the big bang. Yet, even though this number is so incredibly small, physicists admit that at present they cannot get to absolute t = 0, because they cannot fathom the “singularity” that existed before the universe began. As close as the theorists are to t = 0 it is difficult to comprehend that they are unable to get there. So the question is why can’t they get all the way to t = 0? Why does it remain just beyond their grasp? While it is so close it might as well be billions of miles away!

The reason is because what the physicists are seeking is before existence, and before time. They are trying to explain pre-creation and I believe this will always be beyond them. Pre-creation is the “realm” of the trinity, the fellowship of the trinity with one another. This fellowship was so wonderful, so glorious that Jesus prayed about it in the garden before he was arrested. John 20:24; “Father I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.” Before the universe, Jesus was with his Father and he wants to return to that relationship. All we can postulate from this prayer is the trinity was together, and their existence preceded everything we can see, touch, smell, taste and hear. Therefore their realm will always be beyond our grasp, because the trinity did not come from us but before us. What an incredible testimony of the fellowship of the trinity the most intelligent people among us are giving the rest of us whether they will admit it or not. These incredibly intelligent people can make sense of the universe to a very short time after the universe came into being, but they are unable to explain or even describe t = 0 or before.

In the boot camps that John Eldredge hosts he shares that we can try to understand the fellowship of the trinity by looking at the opening scene of Last of the Mohicans. The scene opens and we see three people running through the woods. Two are together and the third is someplace else within the same woods running and driving a deer to a specific place in the woods. It is this picture that the physicists are trying to deduce and t = 0 is meaningless as a result. This movement together, this fellowship of the trinity we are only able to get a brief glimpse of it in reality through words like the prayer of Jesus in John 20:24.

The reason I am sharing these thoughts is because I was very full of myself during my 20 – 30’s. I loved that science could provide so many explanations about our universe and our existence. I also had a deep desire for science to render God unimportant. I wanted to find life elsewhere on Mars for instance, because I believed that would prove that God does not exist. Truthfully, I must be honest and confess I hated God. Yet the trinity would not give me up. I was continually being drawn to thinking about God and I also began having revelations in the form of questions that were and remain difficult to answer. The following is among some of the many questions that tormented me:

• If I am so special why is my life so messed up?
• If I am so amazing why do I feel so small when standing on the shore of God’s ocean?
• If I am so deep and contemplative why was I so humbled by God’s Grand Canyon?
• If I’ve got all the answers why am I so angry?
• If I judge others so harshly why do I not judge myself as harshly since I do the same things?
• If I know it all why aren’t I satisfied and content with life?
• If I am so significant why do I see all the stars as they were and not as they are right now?
• If I am so great why doesn’t the world recognize that?

I believe these questions came about from the spirit through nudging, whispers, and promptings to make me look at myself with no blinders on. I also began to notice that things I had read previously in the word seemed to yield new discoveries for me as though I was reading the verse for the first time. I also experienced the nudging, whispering, and prompting through the writings of others such as Jennifer Rothchild, Henry Blackaby and sons, Philip Yancey, Brennan Manning, Henri Nouwen, and John Eldredge among others. Revelations also began coming to me through songs, and movies as well as brothers. The trinity also used nature to speak to me of the glorious realm before time. It was especially through the words and thoughts of John Eldredge that the trinity started touching deep places within me. Eldredge asked, “Why do certain images and movie scenes resonate so deeply within us?”, and I began to ask the trinity this question about myself. The answer that came back is because this is the heart that God placed in me, and those pictures and images resonate with me because they touch the desire that is hardwired within me to drive me to God. I will find no satisfaction through anything else or anyone else, and if I try to find satisfaction elsewhere I will be frustrated at every attempt. Then in August 2013 on a small platform above a stream in the Rocky Mountains near Fraser, Colorado, the trinity revealed to me that I am called a compassionate son, because that is the image I reflect of the trinity in my masculinity.

Finally, as proof that what physicists are trying to decipher at t = 0 is unreachable; I will share a transformation in me that the trinity began bringing about in 2013. Unfortunately and foremost I had to reach bottom in order to understand the trinity, and I reached bottom the evening of May 13, 2013. Since then through therapy and the revelations I mentioned above below are words that describe me 5 years ago and words that describe me today. The contrast is startling, and this should not be possible either because there should be no reason for me to want to change or look within myself.

5 years ago                              Today

Critical                     Awakening – I’m becoming conscious of my purpose

Harsh                      Clarity – I have focus of how to respond to life

Rigid                        Grateful – Susan leaving shocked me to seeing myself

Unapproachable      Hopeful – I have tools, skills, abilities to use and change my responses

Angry                       Determined – I do not want to go back to my old life

In the garden before his arrest Jesus prayed that we would see his glory that was before the world. I reflect some of that glory through compassion which is why I was created and why I exist. Physicists can try to get to t = 0, but in reality all they really need to do is look at those who know their purpose and reflect characteristics of the trinity and they will get a glimpse of what t = 0 was like.

Adam Dropped the Ball

In Genesis chapters 1 and 2, we learn that God created Adam and then for an unknown time they were both together, talking and walking with one another in the garden. In chapter 2 God placed Adam in the garden with the purpose to "work and take care of it." We also learn that God brought all the animals to Adam so he could name them. We can assume that Adam knows who he is and his purpose. 

Adam exists in unprecedented freedom. There is only one thing he is forbidden to do and that is to eat  the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God, the Trinity, spend intimate time with Adam, teaching him about his world and fathering him on how to work it and take care of it. The Trinity must have been working to show Adam their nature, their character, and their unconditional love for him. They allowed him unbelievable and unimaginable access to them, so Adam would come to love them as much as they love him. Yet in spite of their relationship with Adam the Trinity still said that it was not good for him to be alone so they made Eve. She is described as the crown of creation.

The Trinity had a fellowship with one another before the world existed and it was because of their fellowship with each other and the joy through it that they wanted others to share in a similar fellowship as well, but there were no others to share their fellowship with so they had to create them. First they made the angels and then they made mankind. While Adam was alive without the company of Eve, he must have learned about the fellowship the Trinity enjoyed. They might have taught him how they wanted mankind to enjoy such a fellowship as well. They must have taught him, showed him and explained to him how such a fellowship is possible and how wonderful it is. But, to enjoy a fellowship in his own way, there had to be another to have it with, and the Trinity gave Adam the gift of Eve. I think it is interesting, that the Trinity did not give Adam another man to have a fellowship with but a woman. So a man's first and most important fellowship will always be with his opposite. The subsequent fellowships that will come with other men are important in their own way but they are secondary to Eve.

So the task of teaching Eve fell to Adam. He was probably instructed to tell Eve about the Trinity, their nature, character, and love. The responsibility fell to Adam because he had walked with them while Eve never had the singleness of time alone with them. Everything that Eve learned about the Trinity was shared with her by Adam, and it appears as though Adam chose for some reason not to share everything with her. For instance, God told Adam he was free to eat of every tree in the garden but you must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, yet that is not what Adam told Eve! She said to Lucifer, we were indeed told by God that we cannot eat of the tree in the middle of the garden and we cannot even touch it or we will die. Amazing, Adam put words into God's mouth that the creator did not say. It is as though Adam was trying to scare Eve rather than guide her and show her the purity and beauty of a fellowship with the Trinity. This is presumptuous, but perhaps Adam was fearful that Eve would choose the Trinity over him and as a result he decides to keep some things to himself to prevent her from getting too close to them.

If this is true then this means Adam must not have trusted the Trinity even though they revealed to him who they are and how deep is their love for him. When Lucifer told Eve you will not surely die, you will instead become like God. She had a choice. Remember she was told if you even touch the fruit you will die, yet here is this serpent telling me I can eat it and be like God. Who do I trust? She trusted Satan, and picked a fruit. Once she picked a fruit she knew immediately that she had been lied to and it must have been by the Trinity because Adam told me they said to him if you touch the tree you will die. Yet here I am holding the fruit and I remain very much alive and kicking, so I can probably also eat it and become just like God. Eve must have believed the Trinity was misleading them because if I can touch the tree and live I can probably eat the fruit and live as well. She might have concluded I wonder what else the Trinity is hiding from us?

We can see that Adam did Eve a great disservice by not being candid, open, and truthful to her about the Trinity. She has legitimate doubts not brought about by the Trinity, but by one who walked with the Trinity yet chose to put his own spin on their words.  All these centuries later the decisions by Adam towards his wife continue to haunt our world, and the brokenness all over the world that is so deep remains the result of Adam dropping the ball even though he walked with the Trinity and knew them  intimately.

Can't Hide the Poser

John 4:29 Come, see a man who told me all things I ever did. Could this be the Christ? 41-42: Then they said to the woman, now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the savior of the world.

This conversation is taken from the story of the woman at the well. Her story is typical of this world. She has moral failings and as a result she is shunned by her neighbors, and family. So, one day while going about her normal routine she has an unexpected and unplanned encounter with a stranger. Now Jesus asks her for a small favor, please give me a drink of water and her skepticism of motives is revealed by her reply. "I'm a woman and you're a Jew and you are asking me for water?" You can imagine her shock when he doesn't reply in kind, but says "yeah, and if you only knew who you are talking to you would have asked me and I would have given you living water." This encounter reveals something to us. We don't recognize Jesus when he first comes into our moment. He looks like any other guy. There's nothing distinctive about him that clues us into his real essence. Yet the dialogue once initiated must continue on until he reveals who we really are talking with.

The woman realizes, she is talking to someone unique in some way that she can't quite put her finger on. So she tries to challenge his words concerning living water. To which Jesus tells her I will give the living water to you but first go get your husband and come back to which she replies I have no husband. How deeply this request must have hurt her, because this is the area where she has been wounded so severely. It is because of these moral failures that she is ostracized by her community. She has had five failed marriages and is currently shacking up with a man. This is why she goes to the well by herself everyday, because the arrows of the other women are too hurtful and she needs respite from their meanness, their judgements, their self righteousness. So with the arrow she thinks has been shot at her by this man, she quickly puts up the mask, her poser, so he won't ask about her moral failings. Yet Jesus doesn't stop there. He finally reveals who he is and her fears are over. She is transformed and she knows that others in her community need to meet this man because they pose also.

So in my life as well, Jesus comes in and says I know you and proceeds to expose the poser so there will be no doubt in my mind that he is who he says he is. But there is a difference between how Jesus and everyone else reacts when my poser is exposed. When Jesus exposes my poser he is compassionate  towards my wounds. The world celebrates my being exposed. Jesus knows how deep my wounds cut and the hurt they bring and why I created the poser to prevent the hurts from happening again. The world on the other hand doesn't care about the pain, and indeed wants me to hurt even more through my exposure.

Jesus affirms, I know you and I care deeply for you anyway. Your wounds are real and the pain and heartbreak they bring is difficult. But I won't hurt you I will heal you. The relief that comes through such an encounter is life transforming, and when another person's poser is exposed, I don't want to celebrate instead I can say come and meet Jesus he can heal your wounds because he healed mine.