Whose Will Is It Anyway?

Let’s just settle the matter: God is good. OK? Are we good on that? 

Jesus is the perfect representation of the Father, and he never gave anybody sickness, never broke anybody’s leg, never killed anybody. He got angry, yes, particularly when religious people put obstacles in front of others coming to know God, but he never brought disaster, never encouraged disaster, never taught his kids that disaster is good, never looked the other way when somebody did bad things.

God is good.

Unfortunately (or at least inconveniently), God’s will is not the only force happening in the universe. If God was the only one who got to choose, we’d see an entire universe full of the stuff Jesus did: healing the sick, raising the dead, deliverance from demons, teaching how good God is.

But that’s not what we see. We see wars, famine, busted relationships, child prostitution, kids disrespecting parents, all manner of evil.

Some people have begun with the assumption that God is the only free-willed being in the universe, and, looking at evil in the world, they accuse him of being either powerless or evil. You can’t reach a wise conclusion beginning with a faulty assumption.


The real reason for this mess is love. Real love. Because real love has to be free; it has to be freely chosen.

One of the evils we see in this life is people trying to force other people to love them. Variously expressed as manipulation, self-pity, stalking, control, abuse, and occasionally murder, it illustrates that love cannot be forced. In order to really have real love you really need to have real free will. Without free will, the closest you can get to true love is a sex slave. Not the same thing.

God has set up this universe to allow real love relationships between his creation – you and me – and himself. Which means that God has given us free will. Not “pseudo free will,” the real thing, absolutely free, dangerously free. We can choose to love him, but we can choose anything else we want to. We can choose to hate God, or other people; we can choose to ignore God, or people, or traffic laws. We can choose to speak only in King James English, or to rub blue mud into our belly button.

There are real consequences to our free-will choices. It may be as simple as ending up with a belly button that is now stained blue. Or my choices may result in someone hating me back, beating me up because I didn’t live up to their expectations of me. Or I may end up in jail simply because I decided that red traffic lights meant “Go” this week, and crashed into someone who foolishly thought that my choices were controlled by colored lights. Free choices result in real consequences.

A whole bunch of nasty things in this otherwise lovely planet have come from people – human beings, made in the image of God – making stupid choices. That’s a lot of the reason we have slums and wars and corporate greed and manipulative leaders: people exercising their free will, and nasty consequences resulting.

And without that free will, we could never experience love. We couldn’t be loved, we couldn’t love. So we kinda have to keep the free will thing. Not that we have the power to change it anyway: this is the way God created the universe; I can’t overrule his free will, and he won’t overrule mine.

But that’s not the end of the matter. There is another free will at play in this game.

You and I – the human species – were not the first beings created with free will. Apparently long before we were created, an angel decided to depose God and become God himself instead. When God objected, the rebellious angel started a war with a third of the angelic host, and was about as effective as a gnat would be in its attempts to stop a volcanic eruption: not so much.

So the rebel Lucifer and a bunch of his friends were chucked out of heaven and landed where? Yep, here: this planet. Good ol’ Mother Earth. (Bunny trail: I wonder if that was the “mega asteroid” that destroyed the dinosaurs? Hmmm.)

So now we’re inhabitants of a planet with at least two intelligent species with free wills: humankind and angel-kind. And Lucifer, now going by Satan, has made “steal, kill and destroy” as his choice. So he steals, kills, and destroys. (We could get into how he implements that choice, but that’s another conversation.)

And a good deal of his efforts are still about gathering a following: he persuaded 1/3 of the angels to follow him, and how he’s persuading human beings to follow him.

One significant difference: humanity was given authority that Lucifer was not: “Fill the earth and subdue it.” We were given authority on this planet; the only way the Lucy & Co can get it is to persuade someone with authority to give it to him. He’s already failed at persuading God, so he goes to work to persuade man: and when Adam submitted to the Lucifer rather than to God, he handed his authority over the planet to Lucifer as well.

It’s a long & exciting story, but the conclusion was that Jesus got that authority back in the cross, and rather than keeping it himself (making all of creation slaves without free will), he handed it back to us. “All authority in Heaven & Earth has been given to me. Go therefore….” It’s our planet, and we have authority here, unless we can be persuaded to make the choice to give that authority away.

We still have our free will, of course: we can choose to eat the apple, to turn the stone to bread, or we can choose not to. It bothers me how many of my human brethren have chosen the apple, the bread, over real freedom; it bothers me how often I’ve chosen them. I’m taking my choices back.

That's a whole lot of free will going on! No wonder so much happens that is not like our good God. 

One of these days, the rebel Lucifer will experience the consequences of his free-will choices on this planet. An eyewitness described that event as a “lake of fire.” And anybody who chooses to follow him will have the privilege of following him there, much to the grief of the One who made them for love. But free will is really free, absolutely free, dangerously free.

I must admit, in some ways, I’m really looking forward to the day that the fallen-angel-without-authority is removed from free circulation upon my planet and among my people. I’m sick and tired of his shenanigans: stirring up hate and murder and destruction, and then blaming it on God; planting hopeless or accusing thoughts in people’s minds and then accusing them for the thoughts he planted. I’m tired of smelling his stink on the planet. I look forward to being free from that foul influence.

So in my free time (that portion of my time that I can actually make a free-will choice about; that is: all of my time!), I’m working to minimize his stench: I’m working to persuade people to “Step away from the lie” and learn to live loved. I’m working to confront lies when I see them, and when those who believe them (including myself) will listen to me. I’m working to put limits on the actions of the fool who wants to steal, kill and destroy. I’m working to let my loving Creator be seen, be loved, be followed in my house, in my neighborhood, on my planet. I’m working to enter his rest, and learn how to better be loved my own self. 


I can ’ t change it all. But I can change me, and that will change the people I can touch. I can’t solve the problem, but I don’t do what I can do, I’m letting the problem continue unabated. Not good.

I want my planet back! 


Care to join me? 

A Problem with Trusting.

One of the less-visible wounds from betrayal or abuse by leaders we've trusted is an unbalanced sense of trust. Some will not easily trust again, and yes, that needs healing, but a less-visible (and therefore more dangerous) wound works in the opposite direction: too much trust.

 

A victim of untrustworthy leadership (and the "untrustworthy" can be merely in the mind of the wounded) very often has lost a measure of confidence in their own ability to "correctly" hear from the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, this makes it easy to walk away from an untrustworthy leader, only to concede too much trust to trustworthy leaders, even to the point where we (perhaps unknowingly) trust the leader's words more than the things that Holy Spirit speaks to us directly.

 

I see at least three temptations in this:

1) Leaders can be flattered and tempted to take the place of the Holy Spirit in a wounded person's life. ("They need me!") This is not an insignificant temptation; it feels good to be needed.

 

2) The wounded person can be tempted to look to a man (or woman, but usually a man) instead of to the Holy Spirit. ("I trust him to hear God correctly!") This often masquerades as a "safe" alternative.

 

3) They both are likely being set up for a serious disappointment. We're talking "crash and burn" level  disappointment here.

 

The reality is that no human being can really take the place of the Holy Spirit in my life, and any attempt (intentional or not) to do so will end in disaster.

 

I have watched helplessly as this scenario has exploded in marital affairs, divorce, broken congregations and the violent end of the successful ministries of people on both ends of the equation. Occasionally it has resulted (presumably with other complications) in murder. I suppose these are predictiable, given that the source of this calamity is famous for "stealing, killing & destroying." 

 

My "takeaway" from this is to emphasize - in my life, and to the folks around me - that God is an effective Father, well able to lead his children Himself: my goal is always to lead others to Christ, and to be led myself to Him. Any time (and I think this is an absolute) one human being lingers between God and another human being, there will be trouble. 

Trust His Heart (Even When It Hurts)

It's always a challenge to trust someone's heart, whether it's God or our brothers/sisters. But it makes a huge difference in our experience in that relationship; it can make the difference between growth and suffering.

Spurgeon wrote: ‎”God is too good to be unkind. He is too wise to be confused. If I cannot trace His hand, I can always trust His heart.”

When others (whether God or man) do something that we don't understand, or something that hurts, the enemy accuses them before us. He often declares, “Look what they did to you! You can’t trust them! That hurt you! They did it on purpose!” Implicit in his accusation is the assumption that we have the right to judge God, to judge our brother or our sister. The accuser of the brethren accuses them before us, and invites – tempts – us to join in that accusation. He tempts us to join his work against those whom we have trusted.

But we actually have the choice: We can often look past the event to their heart. With God we can say, “I am confident that God will not do something for the purpose of hurting me. If I can't trust my understanding of what He's doing, at least I can trust his goodness; I can trust that he is FOR me! He has my best interests in mind.” And it helps take the sting out of it.

And if our brother or sister does something that we don't understand, something that hurts, we have the option of looking past that “something” to their heart. We can't say that every brother, every sister has our best interests in mind, but often, they do, and yet the enemy still accuses them before us. It is appropriate to look past the thing that we don't understand to their heart.

If we can say, “I don't understand, but I know that they're FOR me,” then we can trust their heart, instead of our understanding of their actions. It doesn't fix the problem (and there will always be problems among human beings), but it takes out some of the sting, and it silences the enemy's accusations, which are much of the source of pain.

Sometimes we have to say, “Yeah, that was stupid, but they didn't know any better.” Maybe it's because they're immature; maybe it's because they didn't know we're fragile in that area; maybe it's because they're going through their own storm right now.

Often enough, I have been led to declare, “I don’t know that they are for me, but I will not assume otherwise. I don’t even know that they didn’t know any better, but I will not assume otherwise. They may have done that to hurt me, but I will not join the enemy’s accusation against them!”

Still the enemy accuses them before us, tempts us to be their judge and jury, tempts us to take our eyes off of Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, and focus instead on the offense, on the pain (real or imagined) that it causes.

If we choose to partner with the father of lies, we will believe his accusation, assume evil of our brother, and join his accusation or resent him, and thus is a “root of bitterness “planted in our heart. We don’t often intentionally choose to partner with the accuser, but if we respond with accusation, resentment, bitterness, then that is in fact the choice we have made. Ouch.

If we instead choose to partner with the Father of Light, then we can choose to trust that in the midst of it all, He has our best interests in mind, trust that he will bring good out of the evil, trust our brother’s heart. I’ve heard some starry-eyed brethren insist that if we’re focused on God, then it won’t hurt. Bosh. That’s denial.

A wound is a wound, and while it’s not profitable to focus on the wound, neither is it profitable to pretend it’s not there. But if we respond in trust – of God, and of our brother – then it’s a lesser wound than the enemy’s plan, and it can be healed more quickly, more completely, and more profitably: we can learn from the wound.

Graham Cooke teaches that the wise response is not to become hard in an attempt to be un-woundable. The wise response is to learn to be healed quickly.

Father, let us respond as Jesus did, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do,” and as Stephen did, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” The devil’s got more than enough followers anyway; I won’t add my name to that list.

Diversity as Maturity.

I've been thinking (a dangerous task for an otherwise peaceful Sunday morning, I understand).

I suspect that we can learn a lesson from disagreement: the degree to which we are able to remain in relationship with someone who holds opinions contrary to our own is an indication of the maturity of our relationship. If I can continue to be friends – not an acquaintance: real, genuine, share-your-lives friends – with someone whom you disagree about significant subjects with, that is a sign of maturity in the both of you, an din them.

There are many among us who appear to be compelled to be right in their relationships (or to bee seen as right, which – unbeknownst to them – is NOT the same thing). There are numbers among us people who cannot abide the idea of divergent thought among friends! Free will? Predestination? Grace? Judgment? Pre-trib? Post trib? Sola Scriptura? Revelation? Gay marriage? Abortion?  There are some who seem to think that it is their calling in life to convince others that they are right, and if we’ll only shut up and listen to them, our eyes will be opened and we’ll see the error of our ways and repent from disagreeing with them.

They demonstrate their immaturity.

Jesus Himself is a fine model; let no one say that his choices are the result of immaturity! And yet His best friends, the men with whom He shared every aspect of life while he was on this planet, did not even understand the things He most treasured. One of His best friends so completely disagreed with both His end and his means that he sold Him out for a month’s wages. And yet Jesus – until the very betrayal – was as good a friend to him as to Peter and John.

Consensus about doctrinal issues, or political, social, vocational issues, is not a requirement for mature friendship. Two cannot walk together unless they are agreed, but nobody said there needed to be any more agreement than just agreeing to walk together as friends.

Our unit, we remember, does not come from what we have learned, what we believed, what nation we were born in; our unity comes from our Father: if we are children of the same Father, then we are brothers. If one of us has an agenda ahead of the Father’s agenda, then that other loyalty is the issue, not the fact that we’re somehow, mysteriously, brothers, sons of an amazing Father.

  

I Have Misunderstood the Tithe

Tithing is a difficult topic to examine objectively for many reasons. One of the most hidden and un-talked-about reasons is the issue of benefit:

If those teaching me a principle get their paycheck from my believing what they teach, then their teaching cannot be objective. It might be factually correct, but they are not the right person to help me understand the truth of the subject.

In my history, the people who taught tithing were nearly always the people whose paycheck came from my tithe. I have almost never heard anyone whose paycheck came from people’s tithes ever question the need for people to tithe to their church. I cannot help but question their objectivity. Worse, I have known pastors who will not allow anyone in their church to even ask questions about tithing. And we’ve heard stories of religious groups who make membership conditional on tithing. They’re called cults.

Tithing is a topic where truth is best revealed by personal study, by prayer and counsel of the Holy Spirit, and by consulting with knowledgeable, faithful friends whose objectivity is not so desperately compromised by the topic.

God taught it to me this way: Never ask the car salesman if you need to replace your car. Never ask a real estate agent if this is a good time to buy a house. Never ask a pastor whether you need to tithe. It’s not fair to put them into that position.

Note that there are at least three ways to compromise objectivity on the subject:

a) If you believe what I tell you, you'll be morally obligated to give me lots of your money.

b) If you believe what I tell you, then I won't be alone in believing it, and my position will be easier for ME to hold.

c) If I choose not to give 10% of my money to you, then I’ll have more money to spend on me.

It is not only those whose paycheck comes from the tithe that are compromised on the topic.

I’ve made a list of some of the difficulties that I have with the tithe as it is preached in American churches in this generation:

1)       All of the Biblical teaching about tithing is in the Old Covenant. Remember, please, that the New Covenant began with the Cross. Jesus mentions tithing, but does not teach it, but he is speaking to Old Covenant Pharisees during the time of (the end of) the Old covenant. The only mention of tithing after the Cross is in Hebrews 7, where it is used as an argument that Jesus’ New Covenant has more authority than the Levitical priesthood.

The conclusion of the Hebrews passage on tithing is verse 11: “Therefore, if perfection were through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be called according to the order of Aaron?”

By contrast, the New Covenant addresses the Old Covenant Law this way: “By means of his flesh he abolished the enmity, the Law of commandments consisting in decrees, that he might create the two peoples in union with himself into one new man and make peace.” (Ephesians 2:15)

2)       It is manipulative. While not all teaching on the subject of tithing is manipulative, a great deal of it is based on taking Old Covenant scriptures out of context and laying that burden on New Covenant people. The most blatant case is Malachi 3, where we hear the oft-quoted, “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house,” but we never hear the introduction to that section: “And now, O priests, this commandment is for you.”

This was speaking to the priests, not the people. It’s manipulative to tell the people that this passage is commanding them to give their money to the pastor/priest.

3)       It misses the point. The purpose of the Old Testament Tithe was a party.
And you shall eat before the LORD your God, in the place where He chooses to make His name abide, the tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil, of the firstborn of your herds and your flocks, that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always. Deuteronomy 14:23

Even the Malachi 3 section, which we now understand is commanding the priests, “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house.” This is about helping others celebrate God, even if they were too poor to chip in for the food: being broke is no excuse. This is consistent with Deuteronomy 14.

4)       It supports the wrong goals. The goals for tithes were never to build buildings, pay for clergy or create programs. The Tabernacle was funded with offerings, the Temple was funded from David’s private wealth, essentially a sugar-daddy. The Levites made their own living like anyone else, though the priests did eat of sacrifices (not tithes) brought to the temple: their priestly work paid for the priests who did the work.

The typical tithe-funded church budget (and I know whereof I write) spends between 60% and 90% of those tithes on salaries and building expenses. Therefore even if the Old Covenant law of tithing applied in the New Covenant, it does not apply in the way that we’re applying it.

5)       It violates the principles of fatherhood. The model from both Scripture and culture is that fathers provide for their children; it is not the children’s responsibility to provide for their parents.

Note: there is, of course, an exception, but that only applies when the parents are old and cannot provide for themselves.

6)       It creates an artificial separation: Clergy vs. Laity. Jesus was pretty adamant about removing the differentiation between clergy and laity: “Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.” 

The idea that some people (“clergy”) are supposed to do the work of the gospel: visit the sick, teach the Word, and so on, while other people (“laity”) are supposed to pay them to do that work is not found in the pages of Scripture.

7)       It’s too cheap. In the Old Testament, we “owed” one tenth of our increase in the tithe (“tithe” means “a tenth,” or “ten percent”). But if we eliminate the Old Testament law about tithing, then we’re left with Psalm 24:1: “The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness, The world and those who dwell therein.”

The truth is that I don’t owe God a tenth of my increase; I owe him all of me: everything I own, all that I am.

Having pointed out problems with the contemporary system of tithes, let me put some limits on this:

1)       Generosity is healthy and Biblical. While it’s difficult to support a New Covenant tithe from the Bible, the idea of giving generously is well grounded in the New Testament.

2)       There is power in numbers. Several thousand people giving money to a single cause can accomplish more than all but the richest of individuals. Even billionaires Bill Gates & Warren Buffett, two of the richest of individuals in the world, recognize that the contributions of many accomplish more than the contributions of a few.  

3)       “Not tithing” does not equal “Not giving.” It only means “Not giving a specified amount because of a law.” The alternative to tithing is not “I keep it all and spend it all on me!”

4)       Tithing is an effective reminder. Those who give “to God” are using a very powerful tool (their money) to remind them of the reality that God is their provider. It is not the only powerful tool (a love relationship also works), but it is a solid way of remembering.

By way of a conclusion, I offer this exhortation: This is a good time to question what you have been taught about tithing. This is a good time to study the subject on your own; I’ve added a great number of hot-links to relevant passages specifically for that purpose. This is a good time to get in God’s face, and ask Him to teach you about how He wants you to handle your giving. And this is a great time to participate in conversations with godly people on the topic: don’t preach; ask questions. Listen to answers and opinions.

This is a lousy time to respond in greed: to stop giving in order to spend money on yourself. The principle of Sowing and Reaping is still true. And selfishness just stinks.

Be generous. Be free in your generosity. Reflect God in your finances.

A Biblical Perspective on the Bible

A number of folks I hang around with that are asking hard questions about the Bible and its place in the life of the child of God.

These conversations have been among friends, believers, individuals who are passionately committed to the Bible as the foundation for life, and who confidently acknowledge its profitability for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. I have heard many honest people asking honest questions and expressing both conventional and unconventional points of view. Some of those perspectives are kind of weird. Some are troubling. Some make a lot of sense. A few qualify as “all of the above.”

Such is the way of mere mortals as we learn new truths. We poke and prod and ask questions; we wobble around and stumble; we get up and give it another try. I’m thankful for honest friends who are willing to help me in that stumbling. They’re not, WE are not questioning the foundation of the Bible, not in any way, shape, or form, but we are questioning the traditional ways God’s people have related to God’s word.

I’ve come to the realization that while the Bible is the First Word, while it is the Standard by which everything else is measured, it is not the Last Word. Sacred Scripture has nothing to say about flush toilets, social networking, pornography, pro sports, abortion, personal computers, masturbation, public schools, motorized transportation and ten thousand other topics (though it may speak to topics tangential to these). If we limit our thinking to only what the Word says, we’ll never be “prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks us.”
 I believe God is calling his Bride [hear me carefully here] to stop treating the Bible as a limitation, and to employ it more as a launch pad.

The Bible itself is filled with directives (eg John 3:8-10, 14:26, 21:25, even 1 Corinthians11:14), instructing us to extend our learning beyond the foundation of this magnificent, foundational Book. The Bible is our foundation, our starting point. But a foundation is useless unless one builds on it.

Several New Testament writers bemoan an unwillingness of Christians to grow up. Hebrews 6 clearly describes the “milk” the new believers’ curriculum of the first century: “…not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.” These are the baby steps (“milk”) of the apostle’s teaching. After we learn these, then we must move on to the “solid food” of the ways of God. Unfortunately, the apostle could not write about the meat that was on his heart, because those to whom that book was originally written were unready for real meat.

Someone wise has said, “It’s hard to expect the results of the first century church when we rely more on a book they didn’t have than the Spirit that they did have.” And we clearly do not have the results of the first century church. When measured by the 1st century standard, our 21st century church, which is well-grounded on the Book, has been an utter failure at changing the world around us. When was the last time you saw a spontaneous, accidental revival meeting in the streets of your hometown, with thousands coming to faith in Christ? When was the last time that your church saw someone so convicted of sin that they fell down dead? How many people have you raised from the dead? We are (mostly) well-grounded in the Word, but we are mostly powerless.

If sola scriptura (“doctrine that the Bible contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness.”) were enough, we’d be walking in way more power, way more holiness, way more intimacy than we are.

Someone else has said, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” If you are content with what you and your church are experiencing in God, then well and good. Keep up the good work!

Many believers, however, are not able to say, “Wow, my church is amazing! I can’t imagine things any better!” We want to find that “better.” My church, after twenty centuries of “growing,” should not lag so ridiculously far behind the beginners, the absolute rookies of Jerusalem and Antioch, who are the subjects of the Book of Acts: we’ve had two whole millennia of the Holy Spirit in our midst, but not one church in a thousand lives up to the first century, our “beginner’s standard.” If your church is that one, then hallelujah! Mine is not, I’m afraid. And I WILL NOT SETTLE FOR THIS WIMPY, POWERLESS CHRISTIANITY.

I will give everything I have to see the church in my region grow up into that which Jesus died for. I have already spent my fortune. I will risk my respectability, my reputation, my understanding, my sanity in order to attain to the high calling that is still un-touched before us. I will guard vigilantly against error, but because I am going where nobody that I know has ever gone, I expect I will make mistakes, I expect I will fall. But I will fall towards the goal, the high calling in Christ Jesus. I will NOT settle back in my pew, put another check in the plate, and pretend that we’re living up to the “greater works” that Jesus promised.

I haven’t raised a single person from the dead yet, but I’ve tried several times. I’ve not transported from here to there like Elijah and Philip and maybe even Jesus did, but it’s not for lack of trying. I have visited Heaven, as Jesus did. I’ve never walked on water like he did, but I’ve gotten soaked trying. I have changed the weather. I have sat with the King of Heaven as He fell in love with me and sang me love songs. I have plundered hell and brought back spoil for my King and my co-laborers. I have embarrassed myself more times than I can count, pressing forward to apprehend what has been promised to me.

Someone will say, “But you could get it wrong! You could make a mistake! I must warn you! I must protect you from the possibility of making a mistake!”

To which I answer: Of COURSE we’ll get it wrong! Of course we’ll make mistakes! We’ve never gone this way before. We’re rookies, for pity sake! We are NOT experts at this! But we’re not afraid of mistakes; we embrace them because they show progress. I’ve made a bundle of mistakes already, and I’ll bet you I’m not done yet. (Wonderfully educational things: mistakes.)

I will further answer that I will absolutely listen to the warnings and the encouragement of the Holy Spirit. That’s where we’re headed: “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” [emphasis added] He’s talking about us! We as a people are called to being blown by the Spirit anywhere He wishes. That is not the church that I’ve grown up in, not the church that I see today. I am not content with where I am.

I will also listen to warnings from my friends and companions who are running this race with me. If you feel the need to warn me, come run with me for a while; I’m sorry: I won’t pay much attention to people throwing stones, to people calling me names, to people trying to kill me or my reputation. And I won’t listen to Pharisees. If you want to be heard, this won’t work. I will not stop to have conversation with those trying to stop me from running the race that He has set before me.

I’m comforted knowing that Jesus faced people who were content to judge him, and he didn’t listen to them either. They were so content with their system that they opposed, and then they killed, the King of Glory. They murdered a whole bunch of His followers, too. Those are not the people whose counsel I will be seeking in this race.

We often talk about how every movement of God is opposed by the participants of the previous move of God: it’s true. There are likely to be Christians – our own brothers and sisters – who oppose our march toward “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven!” It’s sad, but it is a reality.

I invite you to join us. I invite you to leave your traditions, your respectability, your doctrines and join in this mad passionate pursuit of Heaven! If you are satisfied, if you don’t understand, or if the price is too high for you, that’s OK: we offer no condemnation: stand aside, and watch us march, run, wander, fall, get up and run again toward the finish line.

If you choose to be one of the naysayers, please don’t be offended if we don’t stop and take notes on why you think that the things we’re doing are impossible. Please don’t feel hurt if we don’t defer to your contentment or your fear, or if we don’t abandon our passion for Jesus in favor of your restraint and hesitation. I’ll try not to hurt you as I march past. But I will not stop to listen to your fears.

I’m pressing forward. Lead, follow, or get out of my way. 

Dangerous Roads Ahead

There are some interesting roads ahead of us. Dangerous roads.

Some will choose not to walk the roads, because there is danger there. But to fear to go in that direction because there is danger somewhere down that road, well, that's the mistake that the Pharisees made, and that didn't turn out so well for them.

Someone spoke of vomiting out lukewarm believers in Revelation.  "I wish that you were hot or cold!" he said.

No thank you.

I will guard against error, against danger, of course. I trust my brothers and sisters to help guard me, as I help guard them. (Thank you for your help!)

But I will travel the road that my Father lays in front of me. If I fall, I fall, and I will get up and go on. But I will not be one who avoids the way my ever-loving Daddy has laid out before me, merely because it's dangerous. I trust him to help me travel this road. He has not promised that I would never fail; he has promised that he would never leave, and that he would provide all that I need. I can trust him.

Do you remember what Bilbo used to say: "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."

We must not hide indoors, simply because it's dangerous out there.

Learning From the Book and Beyond

I’ve been talking with a bunch of very cool people about the Gospel of John recently. It’s important to me to be fresh with what I’m talking about, so I’ve been burying myself in the first part of the book recently, more listening than reading this time, just for a new perspective. And indeed, I’ve heard things I’ve never seen in there.

I’ve been attracted to the very fascinating story of Nicodemus in John 3. There are so many interesting things in that encounter! Specifically, I’ve been watching how Jesus and Nick interact, and frankly, I’ve been sympathizing with Nick’s confusion in that conversation. We teach regularly from some of the content of that conversation. I’d like to look at the nature of the conversation itself, the context of it. 

A little background: Nicodemus is a Pharisee, which means he’s spent his life studying the Bible of his day, our Old Testament. Moreover, he’s “a ruler of the Jews,” which means that he’s been studying the Bible for a very long time, and that he has the additional weight of leading the People of God, by means of his immense knowledge of the Book. He’s probably a member of the Sanhedran, and he probably teaches teachers in Israel. 

I was taught from Sunday School on up that Pharisees are “the bad guys,” but Nick embodies all that is good about them. He comes to Jesus, seeking, recognizing God’s presence in Jesus’ miraculous ministry. He’s teachable! And so Jesus, who is the Word of God (John 1:1), teaches the teacher of the Word of God.

And Jesus is dropping some pretty heavy stuff on him. In a few short paragraphs (which may merely be a condensation of several of hours of conversation), Jesus introduces him to the concepts of being born again and being led by the Spirit. We think of these subjects as relatively foundational in the church today, but these would be revolutionary to a Pharisee who has only had the Old Testament to study. He’s studied the Word all of his life, but it hasn’t prepared him for the topics that Jesus is opening up to him. I’m impressed that he stays in the conversation; he doesn’t blow Jesus off, which tells me that he tastes some truth, some life, in it.

In the midst of this earthshaking conversation, Jesus drops in the fact that he, himself, makes visits Heaven while he’s on Earth (verse 13: “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven,” whom he clarifies as being himself.) Even in our post-Resurrection era, the idea of visiting Heaven one is a bit of a stretch for many Christians. Fortunately, it allows us to experience a tiny bit of the paradigm shift that Nick was reeling under: this Man, clearly from God, is teaching some things that are waaaay outside the lines of Nick’s religious experience, just as most churches would consider visiting heaven at least “outside the lines” and possible “heresy.” This is what Nicodemus is dealing with.

This is no light conversation between Jesus and Nick. In this context we find the archetypal New Testament verse, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” This is that conversation: foundational.

Let’s look at our context: Today, we live in a season that has a lot of this kind of conversation in it. For decades, even for generations, we’ve known what we believed; our theology was settled, grounded, not really subject to change. And then Jesus steps in and suddenly it shifts. Suddenly, those theological foundations are remarkably less solid than we thought they were. Nicodemus experienced that shift, and we are also dealing with the that kind of shift, as the Holy Spirit brings up new topics for us as well. Think about the subjects of revival, apostolic ministry, street-healing, visiting Heaven, even translocation; things these were even not part of the conversation a few years ago. Like Nick’s conversation, these also are topics that are not easily supported from inductive study. 

Then verse 10 of Nick’s conversation with Jesus hit me: “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?’” Jesus acknowledged that he was speaking to “the teacher” of Israel (the definite article really is in the Greek), and knew that he was speaking of content that was not supportable from exegetical or inductive study of the Old Testament, but He expected the teacher to know anyway. The topics did not reveal themselves in the Word, but Jesus expected “the teacher of Israel” to know – or at least have some familiarity with them – anyway. 

 

If an Old Covenant teacher (“the teacher of Israel”) was somehow expected to understand things that were not directly supportable from the Scripture of the day, is it not reasonable that we who are teachers, leaders, thought-shapers of the New Covenant may likewise also be expected to draw some of our understanding from sources OTHER than strict didactic study of the Word? 

If we stop and say it slowly, it’s not quite as scary: “There are more places to learn things than the pages of the Bible.” But we have a hard time with the subject. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “Show me that in scripture!” (Comment: they said that to Jesus too. He gave them grief for it.)

Now, I am NOT suggesting that we teach – or personally hold to – any doctrine or practice about which the Word says “Don’t do it!” We don’t contravene scripture. End of story.  

Nor am I suggesting that we listen to every self-appointed spiritual authority out there. I’m suggesting that the Bible is about God speaking to us: let’s listen to God. I’m am suggesting that we allow ourselves and others to draw from non-Biblical sources – including personal revelation, supernatural encounters, and interesting conversations after hours – in order to correctly form our understanding of what the Spirit is doing and saying to the churches today.

Am I saying “The Bible is not enough”? Not quite. I’m saying, “Jesus seems to be declaring that there’s substantially more to learning than just the Bible.”

It looks to me as if Jesus doesn’t believe in the concept of “Sola Scriptura,” the doctrine that the Bible contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness. The amazing thing about the Bible is that God is speaking. Why do we assume that just because we wrapped it in leather, He has stopped speaking?  The more I know Him, the more I am inclined to follow Him instead of the Book. And I'm coming to the radical conclusion that he has more to say than merely what had already been said and recorded

Personally, I am feeling challenged by the Spirit: that if I do NOT stretch my learning – more than just the Word, not replacing learning from the Word – at least in the data-gathering phase of my study, that I am short-changing what He can do in me and say to me. It is fine to teach from the Bible, to teach what God has said. But I suspect that we’ll be more and more relying on what God is saying. And I believe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

The real issue with Nicodemus was that the Spirit alone can unlock scripture; Nick’s head knowledge could never reveal mysteries of the Spirit. You know, I really don’t want Jesus saying to me, “You’re my child, and you still don’t get it?” 

I Have Peas! (I Have Revival!)

I have Peas!

Some time ago, I planted peas in my garden. This is what they look like now. I'm so excited! I have peas!

Actually, to state it precisely, I don't really have peas. I have sprouts. If I care for the pea sprouts and pull out the sprouting weeds, if I train the tiny plants to climb the poles, if I keep the slugs and beetles away, if I water them with some regularity, then I am likely to have peas next month.

But I have peas! I know I have peas. I just can't see them yet.

Father spoke to me through this. "It's only those who recognize my move when it is in its infancy, who bless it when it's only a sprout, who will be qualified to be a leader in the movement when it is bearing fruit."

There was a gathering last weekend, a convocation, of some of the prophetic folks of the Northwest (notes are here: http://nwp.link/If5Xgl). The one thought I heard over and over again was different prophetic folks saying, "It's here. The move of God has already started, but it's only in sprout form just yet.

Now my job is to recognize the peas, the awakening, the move of God. My job is to to nurture the tiny sprouts, to train them to climb the poles on their own, to keep the pests away, to water them once in a while.

It's going to be a glorious harvest!

(Hint: This is not about gardening. This is about partnering with God. :-)

Guard Against Counterfeit Grief

We’re in a season of transition. The old leaders are being replaced by new leaders: we knew that was coming, though we may not have considered that the old leaders might be going home in the process. In addition, the battle has been heating up for a while, and more warriors, more bystanders, are getting hit by an increasingly desperate devil.

As a result, there are a lot of us still in the battle who are grieving: for fallen brothers & sisters, dying fathers & mothers, wounded family members, and more. (There is a reason someone said, “War is hell.”)

I felt the Lord warn me this morning: Son, grieving is a good thing; it’s a good and healthy response to fallen comrades. But Son, watch out for the counterfeit: sometimes sadness slips in and the enemy tells you that you’re grieving.

Grieving is a process, and being sad is part of that healthy process. But it’s not hard to get stuck in just the sadness, and then the process stops. Instead of moving on, of resolving into healing, sadness just sits there; the longer we stay in the stationary place of sadness, the more difficult it is to choose to move beyond it.

The result of healthy grieving is healing. If we don’t see the process heading towards healing, we might have lost our way, and we may need help finding it again. Don't be afraid to ask for that help.

If we don’t keep moving through the grief process, if we get stuck in sadness, then sadness wants to bring forth fruits of bitterness, or of depression, or of some other unhealthy bondage and keep us in chains. The result of a derailed grieving is bondage, and nobody but the evil one wants us in bondage.

Grieve, brothers & sisters! Weep where you need to: even Jesus wept when his friend died. But guard against getting stuck along the way. 

A Basic Introduction to Prophetic Giftings

There is Not A Gift of Prophecy.
The prophetic is not one gifting, it’s several related ones. First the basic ones, available to anybody:

• Every believer can hear God’s voice. John 10:27 speaks to this.
• Pretty much anybody can prophesy when they’re in a prophetic environment. King Saul did in 1 Samuel 10:11.

In addition to those, some people get specific gifts. In fact, the whole Trinity gets involved: each person of the trinity gives their own version of the prophetic gift:

• Holy Spirit’s gift is described in 1 Corinthians 12:10. It’s a “tool in the toolbox” kind of gift: pull it out & use it when you need to.
• Father’s gift is in Romans 12:6. It’s a “This is how some people are built. This is how they relate to the world.” kind of gift.
• Jesus’ gift shows up in Ephesians 4:11. He gives some people as prophets, and their job description (v12) is “to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.”

Prophecy is much more about knowing what’s on God’s heart than it is about predicting the future. But the future is on his heart, so they do in fact go together.

Final word about it: 1 Corinthians 14:1 says we must “Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.” We are commanded to want to prophesy.

Left Turn: Discernment:

First cousin to the gift of prophecy is the gift of discernment. Both are critical in this day and age, and it appears that you have both gifts.

Properly called “discerning of spirits” (from 1 Corinthians 12:10), the gift has a few highlights:

• First, it’s about judging spirits. It’s not about judging people. When you heard noises and saw creepy things on that person, I suspect that what you encountered was demonic spirits showing off, not something weird that weird guy was doing.
• It means that you might see things that not everybody sees. That’s OK. It doesn’t make you weird (though you may be weird on your own…); it means you have a gift from God.
• The gift of discernment is mostly about being able (with experience) to identify, “This is from God,” “This is just them,” or “This is demonic.” You may develop to the finer discernment: “This part is from God,” “This part is not from God.” I have observed that not everybody gets there.
• The word means literally, “To know all the way through the thing.” As you mature in the gift, this aspect comes into play: as you discern gunk (like the creepy thing on that guy), you have authority over it: because of who you are in Jesus (and the “in Jesus” part is the biggest part), you can tell the creepies where to go and what to do. Mark chapters 5 & 9 have some cool stories illustrating this.
• Note: guard against interpreting the gift by what other people tell you. Let the Holy Spirit tell you (remember John 10:27). He’s the one who gives the gift, so he’s the best source of training for it. There are a whole freaking lot of ignorant ideas floating around out there.

Neither of these gifts work all that well without practice, even training. I encourage you to use the gifts, and to talk with other folks who use the gifts. Growth is necessary. Without growth, the gifts will likely kind of fade into obscurity.

On the other hand, even with pursuing the gifts, the experiences we have in God will likely be less dramatic than the early days, not more so. The goal is to focus on the One who gives the gift, not the gift itself, and so he whispers, so that we have to snuggle closer to him to hear. That’s because it’s safer for us there, it’s better there, and frankly, he really likes it when we snuggle close to him. He’s that kind of God: he likes his kids close.

Note that the gifts - all the gifts - are tools, not toys. But nobody said that you can’t have fun with the tools. Just know that there is no “kid’s size” version of the gift of God; they still have the power to change a life forever while you’re learning. Have fun with them, but have fun carefully! By all means, play! But play safely.

Oh yeah, the gifts are to you, but they’re not for you. 1 Corinthians 12:7 says, “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” The gifts are more for the people around you than they are for your own benefit, like Jesus did: he was always healing other people, doing miracles for other people, not all about himself.

Correcting Prophetic Inaccuracies

I was asked the other day, "When a well known prophet gives a national prophetic word and it ends up being completely wrong, how should the prophet address it?" Excellent question.

This strikes me as another way to ask the question, “Who is responsible for inaccurate prophetic words?”

If there was such a thing as an ideal world, everybody would take responsibility for their own stuff. But that doesn’t happen, and there are at least two ways that it doesn’t happen that make this a complicated question:

First, it has appeared that prophets with big public ministries don’t often take responsibility for their prophetic words. There are a few that DO take responsibility when they find out something was predicted correctly, but most don’t slow down enough to even recognize either when a word is fulfilled or when it’s proven inaccurate.

The other side is that I can’t really affect whether the national prophet will, in fact, acknowledge and respond to an errant prophecy. National prophets generally haven’t made themselves accountable to me, so my expectations have no real effect on their actions.

Second issue: so many prophetic declarations are worded in such a way (I make no statement about intent here: this is just the way it is) that it’s hard to clearly interpret and apply portions of the word, and therefore, it’s hard to judge the word (1 Corinthians 14:29). For example: the word is about an earthquake: but is it a literal, physical quake, or a metaphor for God shaking things up? And does a 3.4 quake that knocked a pencil off of a teacher’s desk somewhere qualify as fulfillment when we were all clearly expecting the earth to open swallow a region whole?

But let’s face it, the people receiving a prophetic word are more likely to be invested in the word than a prophet that’s travelling through, heading towards their next meeting. That’s not a criticism, it’s just recognizing how the “real world” interjects itself into the ideal.

This leads me to a third issue. I’ve long been an advocate of the concept that when a prophet gives me a word, it’s now MY word; it isn’t theirs anymore. And therefore I am the one who needs to take responsibility for that word: I need to nurture it, feed it, cherish it, and help it grow to fruition.

And I need to discern it. It certainly saves time and energy if I can successfully discern a word BEFORE I encounter the conditions stated in the word. I’d much rather recognize beforehand if a prophet was adding something of himself into the revelation, rather than wait till afterwards.

Note that it may not be the prophet that’s adding something to the word: it may be my own expectations. I met a woman who was praying for the death of her pastor’s wife. “But God said I could have anything I want! I want him, and she’s in his way!” And I’ve run into lots of prophecies that have been taken way beyond the original word that was spoken.

So yeah: if the prophet is aware of having given a word that turned out to be inaccurate, it would be appropriate for that prophet to take responsibility for the mistake, acknowledge it, and (how does one do this?) apologize to those who were misled by it.

But whether or not they take responsibility for a word that they’ve given to me (or to a group of which I’m a part), still I have responsibility for the word, which is now mine. I need to discern it (“judge it”) even if I’m late in doing that, and if it’s bogus, I need to toss it out.

I’ve done that with a lot of words recently. I find myself frustrated with a number of national and regional prophets who drop a prophetic bomb and move on, or who prophesy so vaguely that they are essentially mumbling gibberish in God’s name.

More than once, I’ve stood with a group of people (the prophet having never left their home, on the east coast, or wherever) and renounced a prophetic declaration that we’ve judged to be inaccurate, false, mistaken. Sure, it would be better if they did it. But if they don’t, then somebody needs to. I often find myself following these sessions up with prayers for the prophets whose work we were just correcting.

Your Town's Move of God

I'm hearing something in the Spirit, feeling an unction in the Wind. It's time.

If you've been seeing the move of God in other regions, and hoping for it, praying for it in your own community, I believe this is the season that God is blowing on that, encouraging that hope, encouraging that vision, because it's on his heart too.

May I encourage a couple of first steps that you might consider on behalf of your town, your region:

• Pray for the leaders – especially pray for the emerging apostolic leaders – that God is raising up in your region (and note that it may be YOU that he’s raising up for such a time as this). When God does things, he often works through leaders, but those leaders are often not the people in “positions of leadership,” or the people you’d expect.

• Expand your relationships with God’s people in your region. It doesn’t matter if they believe what you believe, or if they worship like you do, as long as they serve the same God you serve. Some don’t, you know. Some serve the agenda or structures of man. But don’t shy away from people who are within those structures, people who do things waaaaay differently than you do.
  
  (Note that "build relationships" is not related to "attend meetings." It probably has more to do with the local coffee shop, or the dinner table, than it does with church meetings.)

• Give thanks for that which is not yet happening, as if it were. Give thanks for the barest little sprout of the thing that God has promised, even if (possibly especially if) it looks completely different than what you expected. The business of expanding the Kingdom is a work of faith, not sight. It’s when we can recognize and bless the tiniest hint of revival that revival is really planted.

• You pursue God. Fan your own passion into a good, healthy flame. Set your own heart to pursue the Kingdom, to expand the Kingdom, regardless of whether anyone else comes with you.
  
  Interestingly, it’s often when we declare that we’re moving forward, whether anyone else comes with us, that people decide they want to come with you. They can’t follow unless someone is willing to lead the way.

• Take ownership. Understand that you are God’s representative in your community. As you take that seriously before Heaven, your prayers will change, and you’ll have more authority in Heaven to move Earth. If you’re praying as a resident of the region, you have more authority than a stranger. But if you’re praying as Heaven’s representative in the region, accountable before God for what happens here, you’ll have both more authority and more passion.

• Recognize the strengths of who and what is in your region already. There’s nothing wrong with driving to another area for a conference, or bringing guest speakers in, but God wants to raise up His voice in your region, not just to your region. Look for “the voice” of your region. Look for the gifts that God has given your community. You’re not above others in the purposes of God, of course, but neither are you below them. God is at big in your little town as he is in New York or Seoul or Redding.

I believe that there is a grace available for this, for spreading the fire, for infecting the entire Northwest (well OK: the whole world, but the Northwest is my focus!) with the move of God. I believe that the time is right to move from a region with a handful of campfires, to an entire region on fire in God.

Testing in the Waters

There’s an interesting story in Exodus 15. Right after the kids cross the Red Sea, right after God drowns their enemies, there are two significant events:

The first is a party about the multiple miracles in their escape from slavery. Moses and the kids sang a song about his glory and his strength. It sounds like three million people (historians’ best guess for the size of the crowd exiting Egypt through the middle of the Red Sea) spend the better part of a day partying with God, and Miriam and the ladies took up the refrain and went after it with dance and tambourines. That is a serious party! Have you ever had three million people at one of your parties?

After the party, they headed out into the wilderness, though they weren’t particularly well prepared for the wild-ness of it, and then the second significant event happened: the bitter waters of Marah. The hike from the party spot at the edge of the Red Sea was about three days, and by the third day, there was a lot of complaining among the community. These people had been slaves for hundreds of years, and had received their every provision from their slavers, and who had lived on the banks of one of the greatest rivers on the planet. They weren’t so good at taking care of themselves, and never thought they needed to bring water!

But the desert they were waking through had no water. Unfortunately, there wasn’t one person, except Moses himself, who had backpacked through the wilderness before, and I’m thinking Moses had other things on his mind besides telling three million people how to pack for the journey. The beginning of the trip was hard to plan for anyway, so it’s not completely unexpected to discover that they didn’t actually carry three days’ worth of water with them.

So on that third day, they’re whining and complaining, focusing mostly on their need (their thirst) when they round the bend and look, there’s water!

And it is there that the problem exposes itself. Here were a very large number of people who had been focused on their thirst for the last several miles of their trek through the wilderness, and when they come around the bend and discover something new, they interpret it through their focus for the past couple of days: they make an assumption.

I hate assumptions. They get me into all sorts of trouble, and it appears that an assumption got this vagabond community into trouble as well.

The people were so heavily focused on their lack (of water) and their problem (their thirst), that when they saw the water they made the assumption that this water had to be God’s provision for them.

The thought process apparently went something like this: “I’m following God, and I have a need. Here’s something that looks like it might be an answer. Therefore I conclude that this is God’s answer for my need.” Suddenly, the whole world was to be interpreted through the particular need that they were focused on. (I suspect that there were other things that this vagabond metropolis needed besides water, but water appears to be the primary one they noticed at the moment.)

And apparently that was an incorrect assumption, as the water wasn’t even drinkable: it was bitter. But they’ve already concluded that this must be God’s provision for them, so they go after Moses, who goes to God, and in his mercy, God provides a solution to the problem of the bitter water.

If the rest of their journey is any example, and if we’re able to learn from hindsight, then it is not unreasonable to infer that God’s plan actually had more to do with water flowing from a rock at the command of the man of God, than it did with a loving Father’s provision consisting of a nasty puddle of ickyness in the wilderness.

God, of course, had intended that instead of the people trusting what they found along the road, instead they would trust him for their provision, and I think that this is the crux of the issue with these people, and perhaps in our day as well. They trusted their need – and their interpretation of their need – more than they trusted God to take care of them.

I have known people – God’s kids even – who do this very thing. They discover they have a need, a lack, and they fix their attention on that lack, and now a disproportionate portion of their lives is defined by their lack. It’s easy to interpret a great many things by the vocabulary of that one perceived lack, and that perception begins to define their relationship with the Almighty.  

I have lived among people who described their provision as “living by faith.” But some of them lived a life that could better be described as “living by hints,” and by the donations that came as a result of the hints. Others have lived by scrounging: always on the lookout for money lying around, on the floor, in pockets, in vending machines, in parking lots. (Since I’ve participated in these patterns, I’m afraid I know whereof I speak; if others have not lived there, then I suggest they give thanks, rather than pass judgment.)

Even affluent people can fall into the problem of relating to the world through their lack, whether in regards to money, or to the need for a husband (or a wife), or the need for acceptance, or significance, any lack, really. Their interpretation of the world – and ultimately of God – revolves around the need that they are fixated on. This presents some problems.

·         Some of us see every expense, every scrap of money coming or going as an expression of God’s provision for our (very real) financial need. Often, these people find themselves “living by faith,” and financially living on the edge, where “enough” is a scarce commodity, or has fallen off the radar entirely.

·         Some of us see every relationship in terms of our own needs, and their conversations often center around their own healing, their own goals, rather than about the real need for community. If every relationship is evaluated by “Do they help me feel better?” then I’ve become just as guilty as these Israelites: I’ve stopped looking to God for my provision. Instead, I’m looking to my own understanding, though I may disguise the issue by using religious terms like “God wasn’t leading me that way.”  I may slap a prayer onto the process to convince myself that I’m focusing on God, while I focus on my own needs.

·         Some of us see every sickness and injury as a ballot on whether God is still in the healing business, or whether they’re good enough, devout enough, or holy enough to be successful at healing the sick. If we were to look at the situation from God’s perspective, we’d see it differently.

·         And we tend to judge (yes, “judge”) God’s care for us, predominantly by that one issue: has he met this need? At the waters of Marah, the people judged Moses and the God whom he served as having failed, because this puddle that they so desperately wanted to be God’s provision for them was not actually God’s provision for them.

Note that these are not illegitimate needs. We need provision. We need real relationship, we need to walk in the power of the Kingdom. And the Children of Israel in the desert really needed water! Those are real needs.

The issue is not in having a need, or even in acknowledging a need. My need is not a problem. It’s only when I begin to make a solution for my need apart from my relationship with God that I get into trouble.

This leads us, or at least it leads my own thinking, to an uncomfortable place: much of this could be resolved by simply trusting God – the God who promised to provide for us – to actually provide for my needs. It’s a shame that this is something of a radical proposition.

Trusting God really shouldn’t have been a great stretch for these particular folks. Apart from the testimony of their ancestors (Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, though their reputation was not yet what it is now), these same people had just watched a grand showdown between their God and the gods of the Egyptians. It wasn’t even close, which, of course, was God’s plan: God was showing off his provision for them, his advocacy of them. And in the actual departure, he made these former slaves wealthy, wealthy enough to construct a very impressive gold-laden tabernacle a few months later.

Oh, and the parting of the Red Sea (and the drowning in that sea of one of the most powerful armies in the world at that time) was what? four days behind them? They spent a day partying and singing about it! God had demonstrated his supernatural provision this week, another set of testimonies last month, and the testimony of their ancestors. God had proven both his willingness and his ability to provide for the people. But they hadn’t learned the lesson.

And then I’m reminded of the many times that God has very effectively provided for me and my household, and I’m reminded that every time he’s provided for me is another testimony of his faithfulness, and another reminder that I need to focus on God and his provision more than I focus on my own needs and wants. God – my omnipotent and beneficent, heavenly Daddy – is my provider, not the mud puddles along the road of my life.

We will prevent a whole lot of serious problems if we leave the means of God’s answer in God’s hands, rather than focus on the thing that we assume his answer must be.