Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Trust 6

 God’s provision is abundant. I’ve questioned that statement many times over. A lot of decisions have been made on the fear of what could happen tomorrow. Our culture implants a a frozen fear that tomorrow will be scary with scarce provisions. Yet those in poverty in our culture have more abundance than most in the world. But I wonder how God defines His provision. By choosing Him and following His lead, we are asking our little world to be as it is in heaven. May our hearts align with His desire to provide what we need. 

“In the noise of life, it’s easy to miss God’s voice. Take a moment to pause, look around, and listen. He may be guiding you in ways you haven’t yet noticed. Be open, be still—God is always speaking. Are you listening?” - Tim Tebow



Bible 325

 The enemy within us is scary. If pushed into a corner, I’m not sure what I would do. Would I try to run or would I stop with a mere defensive fight?  James’s words echo Proverbs, but in a realistic brutal format about who we really are. I can either pursue wisdom or foolish living. Wise livening is an everyday choice of walking the talk. One key word that jumps out at me is humility. The more self suficicent and independent I am, the less humility I have, getting me into trouble. The more I dells upon Him, the more I choose wisely. 

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Trust 5

 How have you found your emotional ups and downs stabilized as you have grown closer to Christ?  Redemption and renewal in Christ is a transformation of our whole being, including our emotional response to life events. It seems to be a life long process, discovering a perseverance that was not present before. Peace, joy, generosity, kindness and many other responses become natural. Our burdens and sorrow increase as well as we become sensitive to the stories of others, yet realizing that our Savior is with us each step of the way. 

“To lose charity, tenderheartedness, sympathy, and generosity is always to simultaneously pervert the redemptive nature of biblical revelation. Narrowed “truth” may bristle enough to defend one city wall, but it is not good enough to conquer the world.” - David Powlison


Bible 324

 Our words can build and develop our connections or they can disappoint and divide us. I try to forget the rude things that are said but savor the life giving encouraging words. It’s difficult to get rid of jealousy, envy, and competition among friends. Looking back, I can see how I’ve compared myself to others far too much and have felt put down by those who had more or who thought they were in a race for power and possessions. Peace and contentment in the heart do not result from envy. The more I grasp how much God lives is and what He has done for us, being jealous is very silly and petty. God’s power gives life and purpose for loving / living like none other. 

Monday, November 18, 2024

Castle - Dallas Willard

 I first studied Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castletwenty or so years ago, after many years of efforts to understand, live, and communicate what the spiritual life portrayed in the Bible was meant to be. I had found many helpful companions on The Way, spread across time and space and denominational distinctives.” But this book and this author immediately announced themselves as a unique presence of God in my life. The book provided instruction on a living relationship with God that I had found nowhere else. I think it very likely that you will experience the same refreshing shock as I did when you read this book. 

The first thing that Teresa helped me with was appreciation of the dignity and value — indeed, the vast reality — of the human soul. Emphasis upon the wickedness and neediness of the human being tends to submerge our awareness of our greatness and our worth to God. That emphasis in turn inclines us toward thinking of ourselves as nothing, and to mistake our lostness and vileness for nothingness, a mere vacuum, rather than seeing it as the desolation of a splendid ruin

Teresa urges us to start on the path to transformation by considering our soul to be like a castle made entirely out of a diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms.” We are meant to occupy every room or dwelling place” with God, and thereby to become the radiant beings which he intends. Teresa makes clear what lies half-concealed upon the pages of the Bible and in the lives of the great ones” for Christ — that I am an unceasing spiritual being, with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe. We may be far from God’s will, but we must know that it is possible in this exile for so great a God to commune with such foul-smelling worms; and, on seeing this, come to love a goodness so perfect and a mercy so immeasurable.” 

The rooms” in the interior castle are ways of living in relation to the God who made us and seeks us. Teresa’s superiors had ordered her to write on prayer. And so she does, but prayer understood precisely as a way of living, not as an occasional exercise. This book, and others such as The Way of the Pilgrim, helped me to understand what it is to live a life of prayer. I learned from it what it means to live in communication with God to him, not just speaking, but listening and acting. Most of what I know about the phenomenology of God speaking to us, I learned from studying and putting into practice what Teresa says in the Sixth Dwelling Places, Chapter Three. It is still, I think, the best treatment ever written of what it is like for God to speak to his children. 

Another thing I came to see more clearly from studying this book was why things go as they do in the lives of professing Christians. There is still today not much good information on this. But if you will look at ordinary church life” with Dwelling Places One through Four in hand, you will be able to understand a huge amount of what is really going on, and of what to expect, for good and for ill; and you will be able to give good counsel and direction to yourself and others as you go through the process of life together. You will realize that Teresa is an absolute master of the spiritual life and possesses an amazing depth and richness of spiritual theology. Yet there is no stuffiness or mere head knowledge” in her at all. She has remarkable freedom to be experimental, and to say now I can’t really explain this to you,” and to go ahead and say astonishingly illuminating things anyway. You can put what she says to the test. 

Back of all this instruction is the fact, which was very important for my particular background, that there is a reliable order and sequence to growth in the spiritual life. This is built into her model of the castle” of the soul. Now,” she in effect says, this is the layout, this is what is to be gone through, here is where you start, here are some things to do, and here is what you may expect to happen and what it means.” And she conveys all this wisdom with an appealing humble, experimental tone. 

Finally, Dwelling Places Five through Seven proved to be, for me, the finest treatments of union with Christ and with God that I have found in spiritual literature. There are other helpful things, in this connection, such as James Stewart’s A Man in Christ, but for the phenomenology, the descriptive analysis of the details of what it is really like, nothing has ever surpassed Teresa’s Castle. Union with Christ — in regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification — is of all themes the one in most need of recovery today. And Teresa’s entire treatment of redemption in the spiritual life with Christ is unsurpassed and unlikely to be surpassed in the future. 

One of the unfortunate things that has happened to the latter stages of the Interior Castle, and even to the book as a whole, is that people have tried to read it as if it were an interfaith,” not a distinctively Christian, portrayal of mystic union.” To do this is to miss its substance, deprive it of its context, and make it unprofitable for those whose faith is in Christ and his Father. Of course anyone is free to take what they can from it, but to dismiss its particularity will leave little to genuinely assist the reader to walk with God. 

A word about how to read this book. It is not a model of easy reading, judged by today’s standards, and must be approached as if you were mining for treasure — which you are. First, read it nonstop — just push ahead — to get a view of the whole. Mark themes and divisions clearly as you go, and at the end sketch out the outline. This is crucial for understanding Teresa’s project as a teacher. Then go back and read slowly from beginning to end. This time you mark striking passages for further study. Then meditatively dwell on those passages, not necessarily from beginning to end, but in the order your heart and mind call you to. Call upon His Majesty” to assist you as he assisted Teresa. And the diamond castle which is your soul will increasingly glow with the divine presence.

From Teresa Of Avila: Selections From The Interior Castle, Harpercollins Spiritual Classics, 2004, Pp. XIII-XI. Also available in The Great Omission, San Francisco: Harpercollins, 2006, Pp. 206 – 209.

Trust 4

 I wonder what God thinks of my planning skills. Does He view them as haughty and audacious?  Does He think my goals have been set too low?  We do our best with what we know at the time of our decisions, but I often question whether I have spent enough time praying, reflecting, weighing the consequences of options. I also wonder whether my analyzing is a fear and I don’t take enough risks. I can he on and on but the main take away for me is to trust Him, honor Him, in everything I do. If I’m committed to His glory, He will change my thinking and direction.

“It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply." God actually rises up storms of conflict in relationships at times in order to accomplish that deeper work in our character. We cannot love our enemies in our own strength. This is graduate-level grace. Are you willing to enter this school? Are you willing to take the test? If you pass, you can expect to be elevated to a new level in the Kingdom. For He brings us through these tests as preparation for greater use in the Kingdom. You must pass the test first.” - A.W. Tozer


Bible 323

 It is possible to accumulate knowledge and information without making any change in the heart. I can certainly be driven to be a an expert (in my opinion) on a topic and be judgmental about related topics. But who cares if I don’t treat others with respect. I’m constantly learning how my thoughts are not consistent with my actions. There is a gap between the head and heart. I want to be congruent and consistent, not a hypocrite. May God empower our hearts to follow Him. 

Trust 6

 God’s provision is abundant. I’ve questioned that statement many times over. A lot of decisions have been made on the fear of what could ha...