Check out this vision of the Cross

Check out Simon's blog on Easter's Cross from Saturday, April 15, 2006 @ Adullams Cave .
Here's some of it. Very moving...

The truth is that the more I see the cross the more I want to stay with it and have it and have the guy who was on it to stay by me. There on that little hill we have called calvary, outside the walls of the city and in the place were thieves and murderers and losers died, I have found an end to my life sorrows and the struggles that crippled me for so many years.I have a recurring and ever growing vision that swims around my heart and mind becoming clearer and clearer whenever I close my eyes to soak in his presence and think of him. I am in a garden as a boy just looking around under rocks and playing make believe and I am alone, like I mostly felt I was as a kid, and I'm trying to make my own fun and to forget some stuff that went on regularly in the home of my boyhood. I look up and I see at the edge of the garden, where it is barren and lifeless, an old dry and dead tree sticking out of the ground with red rivulets of blood running down its base. It is the red that attracts me to it because it is the only thing giving it some colour. As I lift my head I see the vague form of a man with his feet immovably fixed parallel to the tree, one on each side, with thick nails going sideways through the heels. As I move a bit closer and my sight becomes clearer I follow the line of the man's body upwards and notice through the red map of fresh bright blood that his skin is almost as dark as the tree and the dying sun at his back is turning him into a silhouette. Again I move closer, having to squint my eyes a little because of the angle of the sun. But as I get nearer, I realise the dark skinned man is breathing still. Though still a few feet away from him, I hear each loud breath is incredibly strained and desperate. I notice that with every new attempt at breathing he has to lift his whole body upwards from his feet, using the nails that pierce his heels to push up from. Every breath he manages also pumps a new stream of blood from the nail holes in his heels. I sense the man's terrible pain as well as his desire to let go and die, and yet I can tell also that his human instinct to live is contstantly willing his body towards yet another and then another agonizing breath. I am frightened. I look around but no-one is there to help. I hesitate before moving closer to the man as I realise that tears are forming in my eyes, not so much in empathy for the man but more because of the fear and powerlessness I feel. Fear and powerlessness being two emotions I was acutely aquainted with as a young child and here, with this man who hangs before me so helplessly, the sense of them is incredibly heightened.

I stop within arms distance of the dying man. He is still laboring with all his strength for every breath. Breaths that are becoming so loud and disturbing for me that I wish in my heart he would hurry and die. The man is not aware ...

Beauty So Ancient

A quote from Augustine that has meant a lot to wife and me...
"I came to love you late, O Beauty so ancient and new; I came to love you late. You were within me and I was outside where I rushed about wildly searching for you like some monster loose in your beautiful world. You were with me, but I was not with you. You called me, you shouted to me. You broke past my deafness. You bathed me in your light, you wrapped me in your splendor, you sent my blindness reeling. You gave out such a delightful fragrance, and I drew it in and came breathing hard after you. I tasted, and it made me hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned to know your peace."

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Living loved as a believer in Jesus means ...

Living loved as a believer in Jesus means that you first of all understand how solid his love is for you. No one ever has or ever will love you as much as God our Father does. You stand firm in his grace. That means what you do or don't do will not change his love for you. There is nothing you can do that will make him love you any more or any less. Are you concerned that God will give up on you? You need not be. Are you worried that he will at some point have his fill of you and become disillusioned with you? How could he? He never had any illusions about you in the first place. His love is perfect. He knew what he was getting into. You have a father who loves you more than anyone could ever love you.

Living loved also means that God isn't playing this guilt-trip motivation game with you. He doesn't use guilt to shame you into obedience and growth. There is no condemnation to anyone who is in Christ. This understanding can be found in chapter 8 of Romans. Think about it? If we live in the foundation of his unwavering love and unfathomable grace, and we certainly do, we are walking in the Spirit. We no longer have to live by our fleshly desires and motivations. Guilt, shame, and condemnation are not on God's agenda for us. Those things do not help us live in God's life. He has removed them by the wonderful cross event. In Jesus, there is no condemnation.

We also do not need to try to earn points with with God. He is not keeping score. Paul said as much in verse four of Romans 8. God did what he did in Jesus so that "the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit." You could never earn enough points to gain God's favor. You could never do enough to deserve his grace. Never. You could never be good enough to deserve his love. God knows that and that is why he filled out the score card for you and me.

You know what else? He loves you so much that he wants to make himself known to you. He wants you to know him. He wants to show you each day how to live in the freedom of his love. He wants to teach you how to recognize his voice.

What you learn about his love and experience in him leads to greater trust. I used to think of trusting God as something I had to make myself do. You know how it goes if you have been on this journey with God for any length of time. Life's circumstances become so very hard that you find it difficult to see that things will turn out all right. You know God has said that you can trust him, but it is not easy to do that. Right? Isn't that how it goes? Well, guess what I have been discovering? I have begun to understand that trust really is more of an outcome than a decision. Everything about my life is in the Father's hands. Everything! Nothing escapes his watchful, loving eyes. As I understand more about his love for me, I naturally trust him more. Trust, in the best sense, is not a choice. It is an outcome. It is the fruit of my ever growing confidence in Father's love for me.

One of the beautiful things about this journey with God is that Jesus is the one who grows our trust. HE does it! We cooperate. But, he does it. Jesus is the author of our faith and also the one who perfects it. The Father is always at work wooing us, teaching us, growing us.

There's something else about this trust thing I am learning. It comes to my understanding from Matthew's gospel, chapter 6. Jesus said this:

30"If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers-- most of which are never even seen--don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? 31What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. 32People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. 33Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

The thing that pops out at me from this passage is the part about relaxing and not being preoccupied with the wrong preoccupations. He wants to free us from being obsessed with getting from God so that we can simply live in the reality of what God gives. As I learn the scriptures, I begin to see how God works, how he does things. I watch Jesus as he watched his Father. He was never in a hurry. He was never worried. And, he exampled and taught us to do the same. This is great freedom, my friends! Great freedom!

Living by rules, laws, and "principles"

One of the freedoms of living in the Father's Affection is that I don't need to see this life in God in terms of rules and lists and laws that are thinly veiled as "principles."

I spent so many years first learning and then teaching systematic ways of relating to God through “theology” and “biblical principles” that sometimes I think it will take forever to break out of lists, formulas, steps and a-principle-for-everything approach to this life in Christ. I’m also seeing implications in my work in career counseling. I have learned and taught individuals how to come to a decision based on certain factors, make that decision and follow it to completion. This new God journey way of seeing our life in God seems to arrest some of my prior assumptions. While I can’t really say to non-believers in Jesus (I’m in a secular education/corporate setting), “What is the Father saying to you about your future?” I am rethinking how I approach other believers in this regard.

I think for a lot of us, like Peter, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” I want to walk this New Life God Journey, and I am, but my old habits of trying to box everything up in nice, neat little categories seem to be hard to break. I have wanted so much to just walk in the freedom of his love each day, to be freed from my own selfish desires and agendas. To listen to his voice and know how to come along side what he is doing, both in me and around me, every day.

God did something in me about a year or so ago that seemed to open the door more widely to that than any other time before. It was one of those life changing moments. It was one of those many times that I was agonizing asking God to give me a close, intimate relationship and fellowship with him. I had prayed like that for a long time with great earnestness and wondered if it would ever happen. I was washing my hands in the restroom at the office of all places and was praying “Lord, please let me have an intimate relationship with you!” He surprised me. I sensed him say simply, “You’ve already got it.” That was it. I was surprised. It just dawned on me. Just like that. I have since lived along that vein, with the assumption that I do have an intimate connection and fellowship with the Father. I don’t have to beg for it anymore.

I’ll have to say that I don’t walk completely in that liberty all the time. I seem to slip back into doubt and selfishness often enough. But, now I know where I really stand with him. He is in me and at work all around me in every circumstance. I seem to still have to make a conscious effort though to live in that. During my times of failure, I seem to naturally move away from him. Sometimes, I even find myself trying to drown out his voice. Seems sort of wierd, doesn't it? It amazes me that I do that. Maybe I am afraid of what he’ll tell me. I guess I still need to grow in the confidence of his love for me. Even so, this ephiphany was so simple and clear. I don’t know why he chose that moment and what it was about that time. But he did, and I’m glad he did.

Here's a quote from one of my favorite books, So You Don’t Want To Go To Church Anymore.
“Every act of sin results from your mistrust of his love and intentions for you. We sin to fill up broken places, to try to fight for what we think is best for us, or by reacting to our guilt and shame. Once you discover how much he loves you all that changes. As you grow in trusting him, you will find yourself increasingly free from sin.” (p. 44)

Keeping things in perspective?

Embracing Freedom

• The greatest freedom in this kingdom is from the tyranny of your own desires, agendas and plans.
• The second greatest freedom is from the tyranny of other people’s opinions about you.
• Another great freedom is from the tyranny of unforgiveness.
Someone said unforgiveness is like “drinking rat poison waiting for the rat to die.”
• As long as your personal well-being depends on someone else’s actions, you will manipulate them.
• Human effort, on its best day, will not produce the fruit of the kingdom. I don't think most Christians that I know really believe this. They might give it lip service though. I really do think that most Christian I know feel like they have to work harder and harder to please God and usher in his kingdom.

Growing in Trust

I'll comment more soon, but just wanted to get these down. Thanks again to Wayne Jacobsen for the inspiration. I'm not a WJ disciple, but God has used his words to begin some deep changes in me.

Some of the elements of trust in this kingdom...
• Everything about your life is in the Father’s hands.
Is there anything that could even possibly not be in his hands?

• Trust is not a choice it is the fruit of your growing confidence in Father’s love for you.
Trust in this purest sense is as natural as breathing. It is this kind of trust: I have so much confidence in His love for me that there is never any doubt about him taking care of me and doing what's best for me.

• Jesus, as the Author and Finisher of our faith, is the one who grows our trust in the real circumstances of life. I think it's majorly God and just a little bit of us. I think we give ourselves a little bit too much credit when it comes to our growth. He is the one who starts us on this journey of love and grace and he is the one who takes us all the way through it to the finish. We cooperate. We yield. We relax in him. I like the way The Message puts that passage in Luke 12 where Jesus tells us where our focus and energy ought to be:

29"What I'm trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God's giving. 30People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. 31Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. 32Don't be afraid of missing out. You're my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself.

That's our job, I think. Our job is to go with his flow, to learn to relax in him. Not just on occasion, not just on a retreat of some sort, but as a lifestyle. It doesn't mean that we don't do anything and aren't very active. It means that our work is more productive, growing out of a vital communion and connection with the Father. It isn't a frenzied searching after something to "do for God." My work is fruit. It is the fruit of his vital relationship with me. I ask him to show me what he is doing today and to show me how he wants me to get involved in that work. I ask him to show me where he is going today so that I can come along side of him and go there with him.

• He wants to free us from the preoccupation of getting from God so that we can simply live in the reality of what God gives. Again, the Luke 12 passage fleshes this out. He wants our focus on what he has already provided. Scripture is full of his assurance of provision. Provision in every sense of the word, material, physical, in every way.

• Know the story of Scripture well enough to know how God works.