Truth, Grace, and Time

How do we make a way forward is the question for today. There is an ideal and something short of ideal. Our lives represent a certain percentage of either of those in our day. The ideal being a mode of love, joy and peace and the less ideal being things that lead away from the above. On good days we experience more of what God intends for us and on bad days the opposite has overrun us.

Like an athletic contest there are runs of either of those. How do you weather the storm and continue in the better of those.

The instruction from the book is one of focus. Do you spend time rooting out the destructive feelings or do you learn how to cultivate this Love, Joy and Peace in such a way that the destructive feelings begin to have no root or home in our lives?

The bible warns us to not let a root of bitterness grow up in us. I think that we have to acknowledge that we do have roots that feed us. Roots that say we aren’t capable, not good enough, don’t belong. They don’t feed us well but when you begin to wrap an identity around those messages it isn’t easy to let them go. So, we are called to make a transition from one destructive root to a healthy root. Cutting off the bad root means that the good root needs time to grow to feed our hearts as well as the old root did.

I believe it is important to discover the messages that come from God that center on His love for us, joy that can be ours when we are reconciled and aligned with Him and a real peace that isn’t rooted in an ideal set of circumstances, but in an awareness that envelopes us and steadily rejects all of the things the world would speak over us to keep us from peace.

I love the word choice in the book, “drenching ourselves further in God’s love, joy and peace,” then that life soaked in those truths, begins to pass that life onto others, being the salt and light that Jesus talked about. Drenched is such a great word as it leaves no doubt about the quantity. Not just a little moisture to get out a stain on a shirt that you still have to wear to the business meeting, but rather everything about it oversaturated, running over, beyond wet.!

It is a time thing; it takes a while to uproot these destructive things that lie deep in our hearts. It’s also a one day is better or worse than another day. Don’t beat yourself up or get too proud, just keep walking in the love, joy and peace of our God so that the world may know!!!

Here’s to being drenched!!

There are some days where in an attempt to write a good synopsis of the chapter, I feel like the best course of action would be to simply invite you to reread the chapter!!

At its heart is that joy and peace are rooted in faith. To step outside of faith is an invitation to be robbed of joy and peace.

In my own life it works a little bit like this… God has wired me to be a strategic thinker. I enjoy breaking down a situation, consider the broken parts, then come up with a plan to bring it all back together in a way that works. When that all works out it’s a real joy! But it doesn’t always work out, sometimes situations are more complicated or sometimes things are just not going to work out. Sometimes people like their broken things broken.

Overtime I begin to see all the things that are in need and some days I just want to be one of those blissfully unaware people. So I begin to carry a load of my own choosing. Convincing myself that all of this needs to be fixed by me and sometimes failing to ask God do his thing in the midst of my life story or the stories of those around me.

Today this chapter invites me into a couple of questions. Can I have the peace to trust God to take care of the issues at hand? Can I find joy when many things beyond my control need a God-sized intervention? The serenity prayer is a great guide for me some days…

“God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Isaiah 26:3 “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are stayed on you, because they trust in you.”

Lord continue to teach me how to trust you and lose any misplaced confidence I have in myself.

I appreciate this chapter as it gets us looking forward, where are we headed? In the world of feelings that can go wrong, what does it look like for the redeemed version of this to shine through?

The book takes a look at love with a bit of a definition: will-to-good. We love others when we promote their good and not only wish them well but offer our support to move them along in that direction. They compare real love to that of desire noting our frequent mix of those two definitions. But love is not the same as desire. I desire pizza, I do not wish it well I only really want to consume it. Thus, the difference between lust (mere desire) and love. So, our culture has a heart-sick inability to differentiate between a love that promotes the good of another and a desire which simply consumes someone for their own good.

In the same vein friendships can fall prey to this same type of scenario. If I have a deep longing to erase a sense of loneliness I have in me, then I end up using a friend to try and erase that only to find out it still lingers even in the best of friendships. Loneliness is a longing for the kind of belonging that only God could provide for us. Instead of discovering that through Him, we use others to erase something deep down inside of us. Often it will cost a person that friendship only to make the whole larger for the next friend to try and fill and round and round it will go.

When a love-filled relationship exists between us, and God pride and fear will no longer rule our hearts. When God’s kind of love exists inside of us then fear and pride can be cast aside, and genuine relationships rooted in the exchange of God’s infinite love begins to free us to look to the interest of others.

The world views us as consumers. People who live in a mode of bringing things into us, the seagulls that relentlessly say “Mine” on Finding Nemo. But God so loved the world that he gave. Instead of using us for himself he gives out from himself to us. Resources flow out from Him. This is the end goal of our lives, to make the exchange from a consumer to a giver. By God’s grace, may it be so!!

Today’s chapter starts with a shot over the bow of our life with a profound truth that animates the day in which we live.

“In modern times, feelings exercise almost total mastery over the individual. When people must decide what they want to do, feelings are all they have to go on… people are overwhelmed with decisions and can make those decisions only on the basis of feelings. As a result, people cannot distinguish between their feelings and their will, they confuse feelings with reasons.”

This always reminds me of the Pirates of the Caribbean” movies. In the movie there is a compass by which you direct your life. The traditional view of a compass that directs your life is a moral compass. A moral compass is something that comes from outside of you, an objective source. In the case of religion, the idea that God sets that objective moral compass is the norm. But our movies reflect our current days thinking so the compass in these movies is driven by whatever your heart desires. But what if your heart is selfish and desires something at the expense of a real moral value? When does your dream of world domination give you the right to exterminate 6 million jews for no cause? An objective moral compass has more value than everyone following their feelings.

The chapter goes on to talk about the traumatic events of our life that foster strong feelings inside of us. Betrayal, rejection, abuse, etc. These events linger in the corners of our lives and cultivate painful feelings from deep in our soul. For the ways in which people simply try to deny or bury these feelings, they always end up coming out sideways in our life, wreaking havoc and ironically recreating the same type of problem we are always trying to avoid.

The goal here is to move into exchanging destructive patterns with the message that God says about us that creates constructive patterns on which to build a life. To move toward faith, hope, love, joy and peace and to move away from what has stolen those from us. As was said in a previous chapter our first freedom is where I choose to put my mind. The invitation to set our mind on things above isn’t simply some rule to follow, but an invitation to freedom and life that God offers to us.

What are some feelings that plague you? What is the Godly value you could choose to set your mind on that would alter that? How could a redeemed vision of God alter our unredeemed version of feelings? What feelings is a redeemed heart blessed with?

Is it the feelings or the conditions that lie beneath the feelings? Interesting question.

The writer points us to James 4: 1-2 “4 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions^[a] are at war within you? ² You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.”

There are conditions that lie underneath our feelings that drive us to the choices we make. If I lack a sense of belonging deep down in my heart, then an event with a friend gives off some sort of slight or offense then a reaction wells up inside of me. It’s easy to point at the relationship moment that went wrong and a fail to even look at what that underlying condition might be in my heart.

We can have underlying conditions of anger, discouragement, worthlessness, belonging, arrogance, sheepishness, hurry, hatred, the list could go on. These underlying conditions don’t always translate into feelings until some event in our life tightens up the spring and the spring goes off.

As a teenager, I was a pretty good church going kid, not prone to too much trouble. But put me in a competitive situation and struggle a little bit, I would swear like a sailor and maybe even make them blush. I was cool when things went my way, but any setback and this underlying condition of anger in my heart was unleashed. The problem is not only the obvious one that everyone can see, but it’s also the inability to address my anger. I thought if I wanted to fix my anger, I just needed to be better so I’m not in that situation. That made more sense to me than figuring out why I was so worked up in those moments and fix an angry heart.

It’s a real priority to address these underlying conditions inside of our hearts. I think the pandemic was another moment where our external life was forced into change and that pressure loaded up some springs. We can blame the pandemic for what happened inside of us OR we can use that opportunity to peer into our heart and see some of these conditions that God would like to set us free from.

Then the growth point is an invitation to exchange the faulty condition for a God-inspired, faith-inspired condition that bring the light of God to the world around us.

Today we move from thoughts to feelings. They are an undeniable part of who we are. Much like our thoughts, they must be mastered as well. However, some balance is important here. For years Christianity has been too much about rationale thought, which begins to create a pretty sterile if not uninteresting world. It reminds me of a quote from the movie Dead Poets Society…

We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. 

Theology, orthodoxy are important pursuits as a function of the value of good thinking, God thinking that would be a blessing to us. But Christians have totally dismissed our emotional world which is a gift given to us by God. To be free, to love, to experience the heights of joy and the pit of despair. To throw all of these things away would be a great detriment to the human experience. Because emotions can lead us astray, doesn’t mean we should ignore them. Thinking has also led people astray… right…

The issue becomes mastery. Who is our master? Our mind… our thoughts are not like Gods’ thoughts. Our feelings… what does a life look like when it’s mastered by fear, anxiety, sexual attraction, food, power, what happens to a life mastered by feelings? Steven Tyler was talking about sobriety on a talk show years ago and asked the host, “If you could put a button on your arm that gave you the highest high, who of us wouldn’t be touching it all the time?” Those high feelings actually have a deadening effect, makes you need a higher high.

The results of lives rooted in feelings is evidenced in our culture all around us. So many spend their days looking for a higher high. Maybe it’s drugs, maybe its social media likes, maybe it’s being at the hub of the town gossip, maybe it’s the acquisition of a new thing, or a promotion. The question is are we being mastered by it? Does it consume us, does it feed our soul?

¹² “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be mastered by anything. ¹³ “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. I Cor 6:12-13

The good feelings we get from doing the right thing, is God’s gift to us, so enjoy it!! Just don’t let it be your master. The feeling comes from doing the right thing, if you begin to chase after the good feeling, you might not be doing the right thing, irony can be a heavy load, God wants to free us from missing the point!!

I apologize for being a day late. Sickness has caught up with me. I did want to address this chapter though and maybe it will be ever so brief.

Scripture memory may or may not be a thing that inspires you. But the verse, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” Psalm 119:11

I think Bible memorization programs for kids are a spectacular way to infuse our thinking with God’s way of thinking. As we get older our capacity or interest begins to lessen concerning these matters. In those instances, I find it useful to find verses that really connect with where I am in life at the moment. I word of encouragement, a promise, a reminder of where to set my hope. Adult learning generally centers on things that matter to us in the moment.

The book made a couple of suggestions, and the smaller one concerning love goes like this…

“⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.⁸ Love never fails.” I Corinthinans 4-8

What a great reminder of what love is, and who of us doesn’t need a reminder often!! Write it on a note card, put it on a post it on your mirror, on your monitor. Read it enough to let it soak in at least, and maybe even get memorized at best. It will come in handy when someone is treating you in an unlovable way.

The theme for the week has centered on our thought life. Today’s chapter speaks to the importance of good thinking. When I watch small children play and think through their process of thought, often it becomes humorous to listen to their conclusions. I always say to myself “it makes sense to them!” Bad thinking is never the way to go and the ability to consider the quality of thought is a priority.

The invitation is to have the mind of Christ, clear thinking about the world from the one who created it. What we learn from Scripture offers clarity from the Holy Spirit who wrote it along with the same Spirit that dwells within believers. Psalm 119 is the repetitive proclamation that thinking Gods way will bring us life.

Some would like to put self at the center of their thinking, it’s the story of humanity. And as the chapter states, “Crooked thinking, unintentional or not, always favors evil.” Good thinking is rooted in Gods thinking which is part of what gets revealed to us in his word.

The chapter goes on to point out that good thinking is what leads us to worship!! And worship is a powerful force in our own restoration process. Valuing that which is most valuable and making proclamation to place Him at the highest place is a fertile ground for learning how to think well.

It’s always a great consideration to ponder the nature of our thinking process. Is it filtered through fear, power, control, self or sin? God has blessed us with an ability to think, with that tool surrendered to Christ there is capacity to bring us to right places!!

I’m Terry White and I have a thinking problem (instead of a drinking problem). Confessions!!

God has given us this incredible ability to connect things in our mind, it’s this capacity to gather, sort, collect information and figure out ways to use that information. As a football coach, I love tendency analysis. Watching tape of your opponent to gather information about how they use their personnel to gain advantage over you, then coming up with a plan to counter that. So much fun!!

Spiritual formation requires thinking, requires sorting, especially in our day when volumes of information come our way everyday. Which pieces are worth holding on to and which pieces should be tossed almost immediately.

As a former Police Officer sorting out statements was a priority. Based on what the evidence tells me, which story do I believe? So our journey into the Bible and the newspaper requires the ability to think, to process, to sort. God invites us to His inspired word and in faith trust what He says verses what comes to us as news.

The chapter today invites us to think about Colossians 3:1-4 “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

What does it look like to set my heart on things above?

What does it look like to set my mind on things above?

What advantage is there to have our life hidden with Christ in God?

What can we be thankful for in the midst of our thinking?

Continuing the theme of our thoughts, this chapter addresses the way in which the images we hold in our mind can impact us. Oftentimes that is positive and it could be negative as well.

At one point I was pastor in a church with a series of stain glass windows that told the story of Jesus from the Old Testament to His resurrection. Images/symbols with meaning. However, in a world of purposes defeated, many parishioners began to ask questions about the symbols on the windows. Symbols represent something, but if that something is unknown to you, what’s the use? I preached a sermon series on each window.

A useless image, how tragic. Maybe even worse is a wrong image of God we have gathered over the years.

The author asks a great question: What comes to mind when you think if God? Or finish the sentence “God is the kind of being who…” Some examination about our view of God helps us frame our history and reactions we’ve had and then making some observations based on what God has revealed about Himself.

Some images are worth gathering!! God singing a song over us: Zephaniah 3:17, God protecting us under His wings, God being a fortress or a refuge. He’s a root, a rock, a rose. He is the way, the truth and the life. He’s the bread of life, the water of life. He’s a rock, He’s the stone rejected by builders,He’s the cornerstone, He’s a stumbling stone, and if your wise He’s the stone upon which the wise person builds there life.

There are images that are of great importance to building our life!! May we gather and discard these images that dwell in us and see what God continues to bring in us and out from us!!