Stand out thought from class today

After hearing this today, I just thought to myself, you know--this is the kind of thing that I may not have thought of for a long time, so it's a good thing someone said it. Because sometimes, it just feels like, if no one tells you, how in the world are you supposed to know?

"He told me, that's how I found out."
--Bill Murray, in The Man Who Knew Too Little (I threw that one in for my dad and my brother)

Quote from my notes:
"Scripture says earnestly desire the spiritual gifts. How do we get them? Asking for them.
Just because someone has spiritual gifts doesn't mean they have a great relationship with God. It means they're good at asking for things.
So what does this mean?
a. It means, don't just follow someone because you see them doing powerful things.
b. You can't be sure of your relationship with God just because you're praying for people and they're being healed."

I actually even think I felt some kind of a sense of relief as we recieved this teaching today.

So I thought this was a really great statement to bring to light, especially for people who come from a similar background as I do where seeing miracles and healings isn't really all that normal and sometimes it's hard to really figure out what you think about them in themselves--not to mention the complication of bringing leadership and humanity into the equation.

I mean, my underlying assumption was/would have continued being that if someone is able to bring God's presence and pray for heaing and see it, then they must be in a really great place with God. (I probably wouldn't have ever known that this was my assumption, but now, I can see that it was.) So, then, if later, some inconsistancies in this great miracle ministry leader's regular life come to light, or they just seem to be quite immature in thier Christian walk--that really throws trying to understand the miracles they are claiming in a big giant loop. For me, seeing someone who claims to walk in the power of God fail in thier walk with God in thier personal life would have discredited the miracles and healings they had been a part of and also thrown a shadow over the whole idea of God moving in these ways.
The lack of maturity, integrity, reliable leadership, and what would seem to me to be authenticity in a person's claim to know and love God, would have tainted the ways my mind could process the idea of God preforming miraclous signs right here, right now.
It would have been a mistake to connect those two currents.

In understanding that these two aspects of christian life aren't one and the same--that one isn't a measure of the other--that changes how seeing that kind of inconsistancy would look to me, and what it would mean to me too. It makes it understandable--we have to remember, that we're all just people. And, also, that if we aren't seeing great miraculous things all the time, it doesn't mean that we don't know God. There's nothing to fear, we do know him.

Our judgement against those who may be in a more immature place but who pray for miracles, should be the same as it is against those who are weak in the faith and don't try praying for them--and that is no judgement at all, but rather, acceptance as a brother or sister in Christ.

Our expectations for leaders who contend for the supernatural should be the same as for leaders who don't--they earn our trust by how authentic they are, we can trust what they say when we see how they live when they are with thier families, in thier cars, in thier private lives.

Seeing inconsistancies in any pastor's life doesn't mean that the whole Bible, or all christian faith has to have a shadow cast over it or has to be discredited in some way. Most probably wouldn't react by rejecting the entirity of thier faith after such and occurance, some would, but not most people. Most people would be able to draw a line between what they know to be true of thier faith, and how thier leader's life got messed up and maybe wasn't the most top notch representation of that faith for a time. We throw in a little grace, some forgivness, some understanding and life goes on with a lesson learned.
But it seems that when it comes to the miraclous, something that isn't easy to understand if you've never seen it before, it's very easy to discredit the whole concept of it after an experience with one flaky crazy healing evangelist who makes the most out of every story he's got, on TV, with a big cheezy smile and a loud voice and a telephone crew ready to take your pledges.
(I really am just making up some stereotyped person--so no personal references are intended, but, haha, this person really might exist and if he does, we should love him.)

so, to end it all: I wanted to post this because hearing the articulatulation of what I quoted from my notes set well with me somewhere--it helped to settle some things down somewhere inside me and i thought it might ring a chord with people back home.

paraphrase:

• seeing healings and miracles and other spiritual giftings in someones life is not a sign of spiritual maturity.
• To mistake it as a measure of maturity will cause problems for everyone.
• You can tell how much you are growing in God by how much fof his spiritual fruit you see in your life (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control), not by your sucess rate in praying for miracles.

this, that, and some pictures too

We are now reading The Supernatural Ways of Royalty by Kris Vallotton, which many people at CCSA have already been reading. I actually haven't started it yet, but it's the last book of the semester. http://www.amazon.com/Supernatural-Ways-Royalty-Discovering-Privileges/dp/0768423236/sr=8-1/qid=1164698852/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-9937458-6880130?ie=UTF8&s=books

A book I recommend to anyone who wants to know why the heck in the world I came out here in the first place is the one we just finished by Bill Johnson: When Heaven Invades Earth.
Before I came I was able to articulate the thought, "If Jesus really is who he says he is, and he's here with us, then there must be more--there must be more to this life with him."
and then after I got here, I could put words to the feeling that I've tasted something now, and I can't go back to living with the understandings I had before.
But, there is so much that I am not able to articulate about what I'm experiencing here. I think this book does a really good job of doing that for me. Bill Johnson writes clearly and the book is broken up into a lot of short chapters and is easy to follow. It just puts to words a lot of what I wish I could share with people but can't because I wouldn't know how to say it all. So, Christmas is coming, give yourself a present!
http://www.amazon.com/When-Heaven-Invades-Earth-Johnson/dp/0768429528/sr=1-1/qid=1164699138/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-9937458-6880130?ie=UTF8&s=books

We had an assignment a few weeks ago to make a list of our core values. Core Values being defined as the deep truths of your life, your motivation for a way of living, and what is ingrained in you to help you bounce back to truth when life is out of control or you've hit bottom. I kindof rushed through my list, we had to have at least six--so I may be editing it soon. But I thought I'd post it anyway, just for kicks.
1. God's love is the most powerful force in the universe for creating change.
2. There are things that carry eternal value and things that carry temporal value. That which holds eternal value is always of greater importance.
3. It is possible to search out and find the truth of God in every situation.
4. Healthy relationships within a family are SO important and full of blessings.
5. Complete satisfaction and fulfillment exists only within the context of a relationship with God.
6. God is always good. I can't do anything that would make him love me more or less. He is not limited or defined by my understanding of who he is and what he can do.



Here's me and a cat that I wish could be mine. About a month ago I was pretty set on getting a collar for it and adopting it, but then I found out that he belongs to the neighbors.

We got library cards for the public library the other day. So far we've checked out dated VHS movies for free and today I got a book about clouds that claims to be able to teach me how to predict the weather. This is a pretty sunset from our upstairs, facing the southwest--maybe next time I'll be able to tell you what those clouds are called.

Annd lastly, our apartment downstairs in the preliminary stages of being decorated for Christmas. You can't tell by the picture, but there is, of course, an Amy Grant christmas album playing in the background.

Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
Psalm 42:7

Starting to talk more about the Holy Spirit

A concept that probably most people are familiar with is the concept of revelation, a deeper understanding that seems to come not from a logical thought process, but from the spirit itself. That seems to be a part of encountering the Holy Spirit that most Christians are familiar and comfortable with. We are not just flesh and bone, we are spiritual beings-to ignore that fact or lessen it's significance would be cutting a lot out of the life it is possible to live.
I'm learning these past weeks about the presence of the spirit of God. Soon I hope to write more about his voice, but first--his presence. "the counselor" that Jesus sent when he returned to the Father, what we have that "will lead us into all truth", the spirit which "helps us in our prayers, with utterances which words cannot express." The Holy Spirit that is ever present along side believers, comforting, leading, and speaking to us.
For much of my life, I did not understand the role of the Holy Spirit. I did not understand that I have God's Spirit along side my spirit and how much he speaks to people. The Spirit searches all things, even the deeper things of God. Followers of Jesus have that spirit dwelling inside, and alongside them.
I've been learning that when he shows up, if you want him to stick around, the terms are set by his agenda, not yours. What the encounter looks like is not going to be dependent on what you are comfortable with or maybe even not what you believe about what it might look like. Honestly, it seems to me, that you have to throw caution to the wind and be willing to be embarrassed at first.
People jerking around, feeling so heavy like you can't get up from the floor, grown ups rolling around laughing hysterically, people stumbling around literally drunk from encounter with the Holy Spirit.
Walk into the back of the room at the end of a Sunday night service and if you aren't someone who's ready to go run and join in, most likely you'll be feeling uneasy and ready to head home and go to bed, trying not to think too hard about either what's wrong with you, or what's wrong with all these crazy people.
A couple biblical examples float around in my head as I ponder this subject. One that I just thought of tonight, and the other which I read a few days ago.
The first--which I know is very obvious, but I myself had never thought about it in this way before. The Pharisees, they knew Jesus, they saw what he did, they were right there! They were right there next to him, in a breath's distance, but they couldn't get it, even within such close range. His power and his identity were lost to them. Probably everyone else in the world has thought of that, but it hit me tonight, I guess you could say I got a deeper revelation of it, the spirit speaking it to me (which is basically what I'm writing about right now). I subconsciously always imagined the Pharisees as some shriveled, nasty dudes just looking for a way to come out on top and I just stopped there. So maybe that could have been true in some cases, but the part I hadn't thought about before is that in many cases, these guys were right there in the midst of the very presence of God, and they missed him, they rejected him. They judged it by what they thought must be right, and they completely missed out on the complete and perfect manifestation of God. So what that meant to me tonight, was that, that is still possible for that to happen in the church today. It is still possible to be in the very presence of God, and judge it by our religion and what we think is right, and it is possible for us to miss an encounter with the true and manifest presence of God.
The other is in the story of King David. I forgot what had just happened, I think that the ark of the covenant was returned to Israel and David was so happy about it, he was dancing before the Lord with all his might, wearing only a linen ephod instead of his royal robes. His wife saw him out the window, was displeased, and my version says, "She despised him in her heart." She wasn't seeing the praise and rejoicing that was pleasing to the Lord, but was instead placing upon David her standards of how a respectable person, let alone king, should act. And because of her judgment, she was made barren.
I totally understood the wording of that phrase, despised him in her heart, because at times, I still feel like I'm fighting feeling that way when it seems like things aren't going the way I subconciously/naturally/automatically ( I can't really think of the right word) think they ought to go in a church service or school session. Basically, when I place structure, order, religious code above honoring the presence of the Spirit of God I'm placing whatever religious laws I still have left in me, on those around me, which brings annoyance and irritation directed towards the person, and ultimately the Holy Spirit who is manifesting himself to them at the moment. And it sure does feel like that annoyance and irritation is in my heart. I think the same application can be made for all kinds of situations. My main example is that when people get up to give announcements, or talk on the microphone, sometimes they begin to manifest the Spirit of God, maybe jerking, or saying whoa a lot, or moving around in a weird way, or getting really emotional. And my first thoughts are, "come on now, control yourself, save that for your private time not when you're speaking to everyone, please." And I just have to confess, how I was convicted and that to me, is exactly the sin David's wife committed when she judged him and despised him in her heart for his praise of dance to the Lord.
Being confronted with these encounters of the Holy Spirit for the first time can really throw someone for a loop. Really make you turn over and over in your mind all the possible explanations, all the possible good outcomes of this being true, all the possible bad outcomes if it's not. Initally, it made me really cry out and ask God, " What the heck is going on with all these people? What is all this? and Am I less to you? Am I less a lover of you that I don't know you this way, and that I'm not even sure I want to?" Let me tell you, that was a really painful and confusing few weeks.
Even a while after I was thoroughly convinced that these experiences are God moving, I still wasn't sure that I wanted to be a part of all that myself. And just for the sake of being a part of the culture (and there is a culture of it: a set of words people understand, sets of ideas that out of the context would not be easy to understand. The culture is a product of a lot of people in one place all having the same kinds of experiences and needing ways to talk about it.) but for the reason of being a part of the culture, I don't want to choose it. Honestly, the culture of it all still kind of annoys me at times--I think I have some things to work through. But to move closer to my God, and experience him in a more intimate way, I'll choose anything for that.
But where in scripture does it say that people will act in all these ways and that it is in fact a move of God in the lives of his people? A legitimate question, an honest question, but what is the motive to the question. the motive is more important than the questions themselves I think.

What finally made it seem not so weird and beyond understanding for me, was when a guest speaker came named Gorgian Banoff. There was a huge amount of hype and talk going around before his visit about how constantly"drunk" he was is in the spirit. And how people always were offened at his mannerisms while speaking speaking. So, i was a little nervous about it, because i mean, who wants to be uncomfortable right? Anyway, i loved it! Because, what he was talking about was just being in love. I remember he said, "Love makes you nuts!" and haha, that just clicked everything to me. It wasn't about some particular kind of church, or people, or ideas, but instead just about being IN LOVE with God, being so in love, that nothing else matters, not even dignity. Being so in love, that you just can't get enough of God. That was the first night that I personally experienced something supernatural in my body in relation to the manifestation of the Spirit of God.
I had heard it all, prayed and thought, thought and prayed, but until my own experience, the explanations either way were not enough to carry the weight of a decision and peace of understanding.
I am seeking my God in these matters, my same Father God I've known my whole life and I'm coming to know him in a completely new and incredible way. The best point I can debate or argue or support for anyone with questions is that you should do the same, seek your God--after all what we're after is his truth. That's the goal of our Christian lives is it not? His very truth?
However he leads you, it's up to him, not up to me and what I think or what anyone can say. He's big enough to take care of himself. You know yourselves, so if you trust that you are seeking your God in understanding this, and trust that I am seeking my God in understanding this, then we don't have much to worry about. I appologize if that sounds a little defensive, but, honestly, that's how I feel--a little defensive, a little afraid of the sting of criticism and weary of people i love being worried about the direction i'm headed. So, that's where that edge comes from. hopefully soon, I will be able to write without it because I will be without it.
blessings to everyone! the mountians here are getting snowy in the distance and it's supposed to rain all this week.

the next big step

This is God’s world.
It’s not society’s, it doesn’t belong to any culture of any people group. It’s all God’s. It’s his dirt, his nature, his air that we breathe, and his reality that we function in. It’s in his world that we work, drive around, go to school, learn, have families—everything—we do all that in his world. It's His reality, and I'd like to learn to see it from his perspective.

“Jesus did everything as a human. It is our job to be like him, without sin, and with power and authority. We shouldn’t have so much awe in what he did that we attribute it all to his divinity. Everything Jesus did was in complete yieldedness to divinity.”
Bill Johnson said that I guess a long time ago, but I just heard him say it last week and thought it was pretty profound. I think there are two important concepts—yieldedness and expectation.

John 5:19 Said in answer to accusations that he was breaking the Sabbath by healing a man. “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these.”

John 14:8-12 Philip says to Jesus, “Show us the Father and it will be good enough for us.” Jesus said, “Don’t you know me Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”

On being yielded to God: How huge is it that Jesus identifies as his source the fact that he did not do anything without the Father, that he only did what the Father told him to do! We can expect a live of power and closeness with God, just as Jesus had, if we are willing to submit ourselves to him completely. If we are willing to admit that this is God’s world that we're living in, and the best way to invest in it is to let him have my actions and dreams and hopes and use me and what I can add to the world for the ways he sees best.

To me, what that looks like is saying, “Alright God, I will do anything you tell me to do, the moment you tell me to do it, anything and everything.”
Scary!
At least it is until you can see the fruit of such a life or until you feel completely safe following your God.

Without trusting God’s goodness and his willingness and desire for us to have the very best, total submission is going to be an impossible thing to do. Unless you’re just really spiritually disciplined or a masochist or something, you’re not going to be able to give yourself over to someone who you don’t think is going to take good care of you.

So, if thinking about being submitted to God makes you want to turn and run the other way or change the subject or think the level you’re on is good enough and settle there, I’d say, don't give up! don't think it's too much for you(and i'm saying this to myself too)--just keep asking him to teach you about who he is, because the more we learn about him, the easier it is to trust him. It's all a process.
I’ll take that one to the bank in regard to any life thing that seems impossible to give up. Learn about him, and we’ll find out, that He is better. Life with him will begin seeming so much more attractive, and pretty soon, that thing we’ve been holding to so tightly will be easy to let go of. The process can go on as long as we let it and we can make it as far along as we set ourselves to.

The other half of the equation is expectation. And here is where things could get really sticky and complicated with people coming from all different theologies and doctrines. But Jesus said, “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”
Now, I haven’t done a Greek word study or anything like that, so any of you scholars out there, feel free to go back and see if this is the wrong idea of what he’s saying. But, Jesus raised the dead, he walked on water, he healed the blind and the deaf, he ascended into heaven, he loved everyone, he outsmarted the Pharisees and Sadducees, he never sinned, he was all this really incredible guy, who did all kinds of crazy, impossible things. He said he’s leaving, and because he’s going to be with the Father, we’re going to be doing what he’s been doing and even greater things.

If thinking in those terms is foreign to you, or too strange and difficult to think rationally about, even apply it to the fact that Jesus loved EVERYONE. If you can’t think about it in terms of miracles a good starting place would be to think about it in terms of how he treated other people.

And I know there are a lot of things can could be argued about, but I just really don’t ever want to have to convince anyone of anything. And another thing that Bill said (he’s really full of profound one liners) was that Jesus Christ is perfect theology. That sounded good to me, so I’m going to stick with that. It's also said here that we create theology around the disapointments of Christian life. For example, you pray for someone who has cancer, you pray with great faith, you do everything the best you know how, and that person still dies. It hurts so much, deep pain to be caught in the tension of knowing and believing what God says he does, and seeing the reality of our expereince that does not add up. It hurts, unbelief hurts, so we find ways to explain it away, to compartmentalize our experiences into rules and ideas that make us feel better about that tension. Believing God and contiuning to hold to his word when our experience does not seem to back it up takes great courage and will probably hurt a little or a lot, but God is faithful and he will fulfill his promises to us and how great is the reward for continuing to trust his reality more than the reality we experience on earth.

Everything flows from intimacy with God, fulfillment, coming into your full potential, miracles. I’ve come to a place where unless I submit my life, my loves, my plans, my ideas of my future, my everyday moment to moment actions to the Lord, I can’t get to know him any better. It’s the key for me to take the next step in closeness with him. I don’t know if that will end up being the case for every person, but that’s what it’s been for me. It’s a cliff I’ve come up to the edge of, and what feels to me like a big scary leap to take, but I know I must take it and for my good, the sooner the better. If He tells me to pray for 200 people and I don’t ever see any of them get healed, what’s important is that I continue on in obedience and trusting him. There is a lot we can do on our own and a lot we can do successfully, even in regard to ministry. But God’s idea of success is not our idea of success. God is looking at our hearts. Suppose he tells you to go and do something, and so you muster up your courage and you go and do it and you fail. You are not a failure to him, and he did not send you out without cause. What he cares about is your heart and the fact that you were willing to go do it.
I can’t look at what it seems that I am giving up—my plans, my ideas, my reputation as a sane and rational person :o) , but rather at what I receive in the transaction. He is always working the greater good—my roommate Heidi says that a lot. Though I want to see miracles and see people come to know the love of their God, what’s most important is my heart being united to his heart, that’s the highest goal I can set and run towards in my whole entire life. I think a life of power will flow out of that, but that’s not the goal it’s just a side effect.

Jesus set an example for us.

We are to expect a life of power meant for the glory of God and for his kingdom, our source is to be a heart yielded to our God. It’s a really great adventure—deep, mysterious, very alive.

I'm really changing so much. Honestly, I could not go back to the kind of christian life I was living before, it wouldn't be enough for me.

A somewhat silly example: I make my bed now, which is something I ususally only do if my mom is coming for a visit. I make an effort to keep a clean room. ha, maybe that doesn't really mean a whole lot, it's not like clean rooms are all spiritual or anything. but for anyone who knows me, or has lived with me, that's an indicator of some kind of change in me. It just happened too, just changed me, someone said something about practicing the principle of stewardship and taking good care of what we've been given and boom, my lifelong habits of laziness just start changing. haha, I don't know what's going on. But stuff is changing, the way I see things is changing. Heidi also keeps saying that God's shifting reality on us. I don't really know what she means most of the time when she says that, but I do know that a lot of stuff seems really different than it did two months ago.

for just a regular update: went to a costume party the other night, started making an effort to make friends (for the first little while i was too overwhelmed to talk to anyone), got a flat tire on my bike while on a long ride, hiked around a waterfall today, put leaves in my hair and watched the sunset over the lake and mountains, drank hot chai, ate wild blackberries, had a really great time. still doing ceramics stuff and learning a lot of new techniques, etc.
I'd be excited to have some visitors too, so if you have extra time and money come see me!