Wading through life

Had an interesting thing happen to me this morning: When I finished my shower, I could not turn off the hot water; the nob had stopped working. I fiddled with it for a while, wondering if I was simply turning it the wrong way or not hard enough or what. But I couldn’t get it stop no matter how hard I reamed on the nob. And I can ream pretty hard, I might add. Summer after summer of swinging hammers and carrying OSB developed in me a pretty decent grip, even if years of keyboard and mouse use have tamed it.

So, in summary, the cold water nob worked fine *, but not the hot. The hot, gushing water could not be stopped.

I called the office and had them send emergency maintenance over. Not quite an “emergency” per se, but something that needed to be fixed sooner rather than later. At first I thought I would have to bail water out of the tub with a bucket until it was fixed. Then I remembered that tubs come equipped with overflow preventers that let water out when it gets near the top. And then I realized that I had access to the water line valves through a wall panel and could shut the water off that way. So I did.

Anyway, it got fixed soon enough by Mr. Emergency Maintenance Guy. As it turned out, some washer had broke and some screw had stripped or something like that. But even before it was fixed, I was left wondering: What could this mean? What could God be trying to say to me through this? It’s a question I ask all the time of seemingly random life events. I’m finding more and more that there are all sorts of deep meanings to be found in everyday life.

For instance: One day on the way to work, twice as I was walking from the parking garage to my office, someone on the opposite side of a door opened it pretty much the second I was reaching for the handle. Two times could surely be coincidental, but why not probe it for meaning. It doesn’t hurt anything, does it? What meaning did I pull from it, you might ask? Well, a door opening reminds me off all sorts of scriptures, such as Matt. 7 and Luke 11. But the one that fits especially well is Rev. 3:8 where Jesus tells the Church in Philadelphia that he has “set before you an open door.” So, I use such situations to study out relevant scriptures and see what God may be trying to show me.

The day after the two-open-doors incident, I was driving to church and, as I entered Albion, had three cars pull out in front of me in rapid succession. I didn’t have to slam on the breaks or anything, but they all caused me to slow down a bit. As it turns out, they slowed me just enough so that as I neared a red light, it turned green before I had to break. I can’t remember any scripture coming to mind with this situation, but I felt impressed with the idea that God can orchestrate events in our lives to control our pace so that we can cruise through green lights rather than sit at red lights. That lesson even connects with the above open doors. Had I arrived to work just a second or two later, neither of those doors would have opened for me.

The day after the three-cars-pulling-out-in-front-of-me incident, I was again driving to Albion and I passed four Army humvees traveling west on I-94. I doubt I would normally think anything of that particular incident, but since it built upon the patter of two open doors and three cars pulling out in front of me, the four humvees made me think. Again, no scripture for this one. Just felt it represented the move of God’s army into the Albion region.

The day after that, I was super pumped to see what five things God lined up to communicate something to me. But, alas, I was probably looking so hard for it, I missed it.

Last summer, the very morning I was driving to Lansing to test drive a new Toyota Rav4, I walked to my car only to discover my stereo had been stolen out of it. The driver door was slightly open and the dash trim was pulled off and laying in my seat. I was pissed. Not so much that my stereo was gone, but that someone would have the gull to do that to another human—to totally invade another’s property and take what wasn’t theirs. Such disrespect.

Whenever something is stolen, I think it’s a no-brainer to consider what it may represent from a spiritual perspective. We know the devil is a thief who comes to “steal, kill and destroy” (John 10:10). He’s the root of all robbery; he loves to pilfer from God’s people. So why not try to discern what spiritual reality could be manifesting in the natural? The spiritual is more real than the natural, remember.

This one was pretty easy: Cars, in dreams, usually represent a person’s calling or ministry—the “vehicle” through which you will serve God. I felt the stereo represented music and worship. So, I took it as an indicator that the enemy may be trying to mute the worship and praise in my life and thus sabotage my calling. Worship is such an essential component of serving God and ministering to and for Him.

A few months ago, a good friend of mine had his wife’s bicycle stolen right out of their garage. And just her bike, nothing else. No tools. No ladders. No nothing. They had four bikes handing from their rafters and someone stole the most inconveniently located one. When he was telling me this, I felt it simply had to have some prophetic and spiritual significance. The scenario was just too random to think otherwise. I have some ideas of what it may mean, but it would take too long to type out.

Anyway, those are just a few examples of insights I glean from random life events. There are a lot of others.

Such events are deemed “prophetic” because God can speak to us through them. Prophecy isn’t just about the future; prophecy is, at its most basic level, a communication from God. God had the prophets of old use all sorts of bizarre situations as object lessons for His people, such as preaching naked (Isaiah), marrying a prostitute (Hosea) and having a king strike the ground with arrows (Elisha). These were “prophetic” acts that gave insight into God heart.

The insights I had into the above situations are entirely subjective, though. I don’t make decisions based on them or make “Thus saith the Lord” speeches based on them. I’m comfortable saying things like “I think God might be saying…” when talking to someone about these things, but I never put them on the level of inerrant Scripture. What God might say through a random life event will never conflict with his established Word.

All that to say: I encourage you to look for little things He might have to share with you throughout your days and seemingly random life events. Some might say I’m a little overboard with “finding God everywhere” or making something out of nothing. But if “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it” as Paul says, how could we not run into God wherever we go and look. If He is “with you always, even to the end of the age,” how could He not have little things to talk to you about during everyday life? Don’t you and your friends have random observations about life you share with each other from time to time? Just some food for thought.

Oh… and if you’re wondering what lesson I pulled from this morning’s hot water affair: Well, we all know that we’re to be “hot” for the Lord. He’s an All-Consuming Fire (Heb. 12:29), after all. He’s also Living Water. Aand since He’s in us, “out of [our] heart[s] will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). I felt the fact that the hot, gushing water could not be turned off was a good sign—that as I continue to draw near to Him, He’s birthing from within me uncontrollable hotness for Him and will gush it out of me for His praise and the blessing of others.

Taking it step further: I could only stand in the water that was accumulating in the tub for a little while. Eventually, because it was the hot water that was not shutting off, I had to get out of the tub, lest I scald my feet. It was getting really hot! The hot water had overridden the lukewarm water in the tub and made it hot.

It feels good to soak and relax in hot water for a while, but if it continues to increase in temperature, you have to get out. I feel that’s a decent prophetic picture of where the body of Real Life Ministries. For almost the last year, we’ve been enjoying a good, long soak in the Holy Spirit’s warm bathwater, being cleansed and refreshed by Living Water. But hot water is continuing to pour in. The temperature is rising. And it’s going to cause us to go out. We aren’t going to be able to ramain in the safe, cleansing confines of our tub much longer.

So, I’ll commit to being one who always releases that hot water.

* Just an FYI: I hate any faucet that has separate hot and cold controls. All the faucets in my apartment work that way and I just think it’s stupid. I suppose it’s cheaper… but it’s still stupid. Who wants to have to balance two sources of pressure and temperature when they could both be controlled at once? Realize, though, that I am thankful for instant access to water.

Sometimes I like to believe God coddles me in my areas of unbelief. As you’ll read below, AW Tozer and the Word disagree. It’s also interesting to consider what America’s collective idea of God may be (a god of convenience, maybe?) and what we are experiencing collectively as a result of erroneous understandings of God.

All things else being equal, the destiny of a man or nation may safely be predicted from the idea of God which that man or that nation holds. No nation can rise higher than its conception of God. While Rome held to her faith in the stern old gods of the Pantheon she remained an iron kingdom. Her citizens unconsciously imitated the character of her gods, however erroneous their conception of the Deity might have been. When Rome began to think loosely about God she began to rot inwardly, and that rot never stopped till it brought her to the ground. So it must always be with men and nations. A church is strong or weak just as it holds to a high or low idea of God. For faith rests not primarily upon promises, but upon character. A believer’s faith can never rise higher than his conception of God. A promise is never better or worse than the character of the one who makes it. An inadequate conception of God must result in a weak faith, for faith depends upon the character of God just as a building rests upon its foundation. This explains why unbelief is such a grievous sin; it is pure libel against the Lord of heaven and earth. Unbelief judges God to be unworthy of confidence and withholds its trust from Him. Can there be a more heinous sin than this? “He that believeth not God hath made him a liar” (1 John 5:10). Our hearts shrink from the full implications of such a statement, but would not this seem to teach that unbelief attributes to God the character of Satan? Jesus said of Satan, He is a liar and the father of it. Unbelief says virtually the same thing of God.

I post quotes from Tozer quite often. If you’d like to subscribe to the same source of these writings as I do, head to his part of The Alliance Web site, where you can get the RSS feed.

Woo-hoo to bulk coin deposits! $57.07 will get me to Valpo and back

Now… a few years ago, it would have gotten me there and back twice, if not three times. But, once is way better than none!

Not sure over how many years those coins accumulated, but I was pretty happy with the total considering there were no quarters. I keep those seperate for laundry purposes.

Yes, I’ve been rather quiet on here lately. And yes, it absolutely has something to do with the fact that I’m dating a brilliantly beautiful and wonderful woman and like to spend time visiting her and talking to her. And I’m absolutely okay with that because God’s teaching me so much about Himself through her.

But while you have my attention and I’m taking the time to blog, let’s take a moment to look at what the Bible really has to say about the Christian life. This certainly isn’t all it has to say, but it’s an important aspect.

Check out Ephesians 4:11-15 from the Amplified:

11 And His gifts were [varied; He Himself appointed and gave men to us] some to be apostles (special messengers), some prophets (inspired preachers and expounders), some evangelists (preachers of the Gospel, traveling missionaries), some pastors (shepherds of His flock) and teachers.

12 His intention was the perfecting and the full equipping of the saints (His consecrated people), [that they should do] the work of ministering toward building up Christ’s body (the church),

13 [That it might develop] until we all attain oneness in the faith and in the comprehension of the [full and accurate] knowledge of the Son of God, that [we might arrive] at really mature manhood (the completeness of personality which is nothing less than the standard height of Christ’s own perfection), the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ and the completeness found in Him.

14 So then, we may no longer be children, tossed [like ships] to and fro between chance gusts of teaching and wavering with every changing wind of doctrine, [the prey of] the cunning and cleverness of unscrupulous men, [gamblers engaged] in every shifting form of trickery in inventing errors to mislead.

15 Rather, let our lives lovingly express truth [in all things, speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly]. Enfolded in love, let us grow up in every way and in all things into Him Who is the Head, [even] Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).

Before I reflect, let me encourage you to take the time to really meditate upon and consider what the Bible is saying when reading it. I often get my daily Bible reading in without much dedicated contemplation on the weightiness of it’s living and active words. And I think this is a common occurrence, especially among us who grew up in Christian homes and have had access to the word of God like we have access to bread and water; we can take it for granted.

One of the things I’m growing to love about reading out of the Amplified (thanks for the gift, Sherry. I’m using it more than I expected), is that it more or less forces you to read the Word slowly. And the “shades of meaning” of words and phrases it offers forces you to consider the full weight of words.

Even just a single, extra word of emphasis can drive home a point in a new way. Consider Eph. 4:29 in the Amplified:

Let no foul or polluting language, nor evil word nor unwholesome or worthless talk [ever] come out of your mouth, but only such [speech] as is good and beneficial to the spiritual progress of others, as is fitting to the need and the occasion, that it may be a blessing and give grace (God’s favor) to those who hear it.

The addition of “ever” in the first part of the verse really jumped out to me. Adding it doesn’t change the meaning of the verse. One could say “ever” is implied when Paul starts the verse with “Let no”. But adding “ever” reminds us that God’s Word doesn’t suggest how to handle situations; it commands how to handle them. And reading the verse in the Amplified offered me a fresh perspective and new conviction on this verse.

Now, back to verses 11-15. If the intention we have for our spiritual development is anything less than arriving at “the standard height of Christ’s own perfection, the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ and the completeness found in Him”, then we’re in sin. That is God’s will for our lives and when we know God’s will and don’t desire and pursue His will, then we’re in sin. We are to “grow up in every way and in all things into Him Who is the Head, [even] Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).”

Christ is the standard. We know this, but I think we sometimes look at it from a narrow perspective. I think we often just look at Christ as the standard against which we’ll be judged. As in, when all was said and done for Jesus, He was able to say “It is finished;” He completed 100 percent of which God sent him to complete. We’ll be lucky to complete some small fraction of what God’s will was for our lives. And so we’ll have fallen short of the standard Jesus set and we’ll be judged accordingly (though Christ’s blood allows us to be judged “Not Guilty”).

But let’s consider that Jesus is the standard God is using to transform our lives. Our destination is Jesus. The original model we’re being replicated after is Jesus Christ. God’s intent isn’t to make us better people; His intent is that we manifest Jesus’ very hands, neck and feet here on the Earth. This absolutely must be our intent: to be conformed into the image of Christ no matter what kind of sacrifice it demands.

It’s essentially the same thing, just looked at differently. Some may call this heresy, but I don’t believe God’s focus is stripping sin off our lives. I believe God’s focus is building us up into Christ. Sin falls off as He does so.

What does “the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ” (v13) look like? What did Paul mean when he said to “grow up in every way and in all things into Him Who is the Head” (v15)? Have you thought hard about that lately? It’s a very weighty statement. And I haven’t even mentioned yet that “His intention was the perfecting and the full equipping of the saints” (v12).

Yes. His desire is to perfect us. He didn’t call us to sit under the tutelage of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers so that we could simply learn how to manage our money better, or learn how to raise our kids better, or learn better workplace ethics. We’re to be discipled in the very ways of Jesus: In the way of unconditional love; in the way of meekness and humility; in the way of intimate fellowship with the Father; in the way of supernatural wisdom, discernment and revelation; in the way of miraculous physical healing and demonic deliverance; in the way of being filled and led by the Holy Spirit; in the way of prophecy; in the way of setting captives free.

Jesus didn’t come to help our lives; He came to take our lives and give us His. The wage we’ve paid because of sin was the death of ourselves. The gift we’ve been given upon accepting Christ is His resurrected life. He didn’t give us back our old lives, version 2.0. That old man is was killed and buried and is not to live again. He gave us His life, for “I have been crucified with Christ [in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ (the Messiah) lives in me; and the life I now live in the body I live by faith in (by adherence to and reliance on and complete trust in) the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20).