silence

Be Still and Know I am God. Psalm 46:10

I’ve been learning a bit more about prayer over the last few weeks. Prayer has been the focus of a book I have been reading by Jeanne Guyon entitled “Experiences the depths of Jesus Christ”. It’s a short book but I’ve found to be of great help and I highly recommend it. Written in the latter half of the seventeenth century, this book was publicly burned in France at some stage and it has also been received by seeking Christians as one of the most helpful and powerful Christian books ever written.

I’ve been teaching myself to be still in the presence of God, practicing this while being in a very quiet place and emptying my mind of all things – I’ve found emptying my mind to be quite hard, it’s amazing how many things – random things – keep popping into my brain. It’s becoming a little easier the more I practice but still a challenging thing to do. Thinking momentarily of a verse or silently calling on God - helps me to be still.

The result has been amazing, as I’ve had a little faith to know that God is dwelling inside of me, as I turn inwards to myself I have been able to experience a joyful lavishing of Gods’ love. I’ve learnt that no words are better than any words and in fact I’m struggling to find the right words to describe the experience. It makes sense though, we all know, listening is way more important (and harder to do) than talking when it comes to communicating with people. How can we really experience what God has to say if we don’t be still, observe or expect communication in both directions?

I feel I’ve only just scratched the surface of understanding all of this and there are further depths God can unveil if it’s his favour for me to experience more. Has anyone else had such close experiences in the silences of their prayers?

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. Psalm 62:1,5

My child, give me your heart and let your eyes observe my ways. Proverbs 23:26

To everything, there is a season. Ecclesiastes 3:1

The kingdom of God is within us. Luke 17:21

Check out the description of this book here.

One

In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have not told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you may also be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going. John 14: 2-4

I have been busy as usual exploring relationships with school kids over the last couple of weeks. Part of our journey has been values, one of the exploration points being sex before marriage – ok or not ok…. It is fair to say that most thought it was OK to have sex before marriage, and the idea of marriage wasn’t looked too favorable. Perhaps that’s a reflection of the age of the students (marriage is far in the future) or maybe a reflection of their experiences of marriage breakups, failed relationships of significant adults in their lives. After all, the stats on relationship breakdowns is sadly very high.

It has made me think about how God views marriage and also explore how God designed marriage to be. There seems to be a sense that when two people come together they become one “in flesh”. It’s a bit like how our lives become “one in Christ with God” – there is a lot of this “oneness” language in the bible – God being one, us being one with God, us becoming one in intimate human encounters.

I was amazed to learn something new about scripture passage at the top of this entry – it connects with this oneness, it is wedding language. Yes it seems that within the oneness we share in God’s circle of divine relationship, God wants to be “married” to us!!

Around the time of Jesus these words were used as an exchange between engaged couples - the man speaking to the woman – said after the marriage proposal. It was the mans way of saying he had a home for her – in his family home, but he had to go off and build a new room for them - a bedroom, within the house – that’s the “prepare a place for you” part. Under the watchful eye of his father, the husband-to-be would build on this room, and only when it was deemed good enough in the eyes of his father would be able to go back to his fiancées home and take her to be his bride – the celebration would begin.

When Jesus spoke these words to his disciples, Jesus had just predicted Peter’s denial of Him, things were heating up in Jerusalem about Jesus and they were scared. Jesus comforted his disciples with these words and the disciples would have immediately recognized it as wedding language – they would have heard these words before. If they truly knew who Jesus was, if they knew in their hearts that Jesus is the divine in human flesh – I reckon they would have been cut down with awe and wonder and felt overwhelmed by God’s love for them.

We too are invited to share in marriage with God – perhaps we are in courtship at the moment – engaged…

Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. Revelation 19: 6-8

Vineyard

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is more delightful than wine. Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the maidens love you! Song of Songs 1:2-3

Strengthen me with raisins; refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love. 2:5

I was with a group of students the other week and we were exploring relationships. One of the girls found a Dolly magazine that had a result of a survey I guess the magazine had designed. This survey produced a stat, which read something like “80% of girls feel they need to have sex with their boyfriend to keep them”. Sure, it’s Dolly and probably really can’t be considered as accurate – far from it perhaps. It’s also making an assumption about how boys view relationships – have some of these girls made assumptions about what boys want.. It does, however, highlight some the pressures boys and girls are under to think about sex being necessary in a relationship. Strong pressure from media and friends. We are seeing a trend on serial monogamy with young people having several sexual relationships over short periods of time, unfortunately with this comes a higher risk of STI’s – particularly Chlamydia.

Song of songs is a beautiful love story charged with sexual energy, attraction and desire. It follows the love poetry between two young people, madly in love with each other and not afraid to speak their feelings to each other – a key to a good relationship – communication!

Some other comments are made by the couple, the girl says “but my own vineyard is mine to give” (8:12). Vineyard apparently is a metaphor for sexuality. You could read this as – I’m not going to give myself to just anyone. It’s her decision to make without coercion or manipulation – something we see way too often between relationships.

The guy says something interesting too, “You are a garden locked up….you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain” (4:12) You are a garden fountain, a well of flowing water… (4:15). Water is a metaphor for life, energy and purity, freshness. A garden is a place of sensual delights – locked up perhaps resembling virginity or keeping herself exclusively for her husband. I see a guy who is praising his beloved for her control of her sexuality. He isn’t pressuring her, making her feel guilty.

What is it about these two – they have so much passion for each other, so much desire they express to each other yet seem to embrace a higher level of understanding - something guiding them that seems to be stronger than their sexual desires.

Rob Bell in his book Sex God says this about how perhaps how people can regards sex;

“Sex becomes a search. A search for something they’re missing. A quest for the unconditional embrace.”

“But sex is not the search for something that’s missing. It’s the expression of something that’s been found. It’s designed to be the overflow, the culmination of something that a man and a woman have found in each other. It’s a celebration of this living, breathing thing that’s happening between the two of them.”

Not all young people are having sex and many are choosing to make their own decisions - perhaps not wanting to give themselves to just anyone. I hope all of us can find the kind of love and sexual energy expressed by this young couple in Song of Songs.

Unity

He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. 1 Corinthians 6:17

I have finished reading through “The Interior Castle” by St Teresa. It will be a book I will have to re-visit; I feel there is more to learn and experience here.

I wanted to write down some of the symbols used to describe the term she has as “spiritual marriage” of individuals with God. Isn’t this expression such wonderful one – it beautifully describes the intimacy of relationship God chases us for.

Here they are;

Union may be symbolised by two wax candles, the tips of which touch each other so closely that there is but one light.

Spiritual marriage is like rain falling from heaven into a river or stream, becoming one and the same liquid, so that the river and rainwater cannot be divided; or it resembles a streamlet flowing into the ocean, which cannot afterwards be disunited from it.

This marriage may also be likened to a room into which a bright light enters through two windows – though divided when it enters, the light becomes one and the same.

I love the use of nature in these symbols. God can teach us so much through our natural surroundings – I find it so powerful. I personally find it easiest to draw close to God while observing and experiencing nature.

This “spiritual marriage” described also reminds me of the unity shared between the Father and the Son in the fellowship of the spirit – so intimately close they are like one. And to think that we share in that circle of fellowship – in Jesus – with God. Stunning.

Light

And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and the people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God. John 3:19.

Jesus words above are part of a conversation he is having with Nicodemus (who interestingly enough came to Jesus during the night). Nicodemus was a Pharisee – a leader of the Jews. The Pharisees were very “law laden” in their approach to observing God, they were looking for a Messiah who would bring all the JEWS into full observance of the law but Jesus was going to redefine the law. It is safe to say that the Pharisees didn’t understand Jesus’ teaching.

Getting back to the point, while I was reading “Jesus and the undoing of Adam” I came across this concept of humans not liking “being in the light” of God. Baxter (the author) explains that God’s relationship with humans is intended to be in such a close union that “knowing the truth baptized Adam and Eve in assurance transforming their existence into abounding life.”
But then a doubt about this assurance came into being which caused them to;

“hide because God’s presence with joy, love, fullness was exposing their own bankruptcy perversion, nothingness and misery. So they hid themselves from God – and we have been hiding ever since”.

CS Lewis in his book “The Great Divorce” writes;

“Here was an enthroned and shining God, whose ageless spirit weighed upon mine like a burden of solid gold”.

Baxter goes on to say;

“this pain (from the feelings described above) altered Adam’s understanding and the way he saw himself, his world and others, but most importantly, it changed the way he saw God. Adam projected his own brokenness, as it were, onto god’s face. He tarred God’s own face with the brush of his own angst…….
….he now projected his pain, his anxiety, onto God, thereby creating a mythological deity, a legendary god…..
….he believed himself to be standing before a god who is a hair’s breadth away from anger, judgement, and utter rejection”.

This concept of hiding from God and seeing God angry, judgemental etc is something I can relate to – it does seem that this is the picture of God we so easily hold in our hearts and minds as we go about our business – as we relate to others. It makes us (like the Pharisees did) come up with up rules of engagement on how we act as to try as hard as we can to appease God – in doing so we damage ourselves and others, we start to judge others and project the angry wrath of God onto them and ourselves in the process.

In John 3: 17 Jesus states that God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world (we do that OK ourselves), but in order that the world might be saved through him.

I think that the truth that Jesus speaks of in saying, “do what is true” is knowing that although man hides from God, God hasn’t ever changed. He has the same personality and plan for us - to be washed with assurance and transforming our existence into abounding life. What an amazing freedom – and what an impact this truth will have on how we then naturally relate to others.

Ever since man started hiding, God has been following. Unfolding His plan for us – completed through God becoming a man and converting this fallen existence of darkness to Himself – to light.

This is how Baxter describes God’s wrath;

“Wrath is not the opposite of love. Wrath is the love of God in action, in opposing action;
NO – this is not acceptable! I did not create you to perish in the darkness, not you.”

Nicodemus battled with the words Jesus spoke – God brought a slow, steady wind of understanding, of new life, of light.

So as I journey on with a With-God, I pray I will hold fast to and accept God’s plan for me and humbly stand in this truth and light.

Trinity

My attention has been focused on thoughts around the trinity over the last couple of weeks – that God is the father, son and Holy Spirit as one. It’s been enjoyable revisiting this topic and it led me to read one of Baxter Kruger’s books – Jesus and the undoing of Adam (it's been on the bookshelf for about 2 years). It’s always very exciting reading his work as he sets straight what I hope are some fundamental truths about our God and turns onto it’s head our western concept of who God is. It’s been a “revision of (my) perception”. Baxter describes repentance as “the radical re-orientation of our minds” - something I need to be reminded of every day. Below are a few phases from this book, which I would like to be mindful of as I go about my with-God existence.

God always intended to become flesh. It wasn’t a second plan – the eternal plan of God which precedes creation itself.

The Father loves the son, the son loves the Father and they share all things in the love and unchained fellowship of the spirit.

Trinity means that we believe that God is a relational being, and always has been, and always will be. The doctrine of the trinity means that relationships, that fellowship, that togetherness and sharing, that self-giving and other centeredness are not after thoughts with God, but the deepest truth about the being of God. Baxter speaks of how before God created anything - the universe, earth, heaven, heavenly creatures etc- God was there and as God is love, God had to be in relationship and thus suggesting that God is Father (lover) and the Son (re-loved) and sharing all things in the Spirit - being in loving relationship. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God." John 1: 1-2

For while the father, son and holy spirit remain eternally distinct, their love for one another is so pure and their fellowship is so deep that any descriptive word short of “one” betrays the sheer reality of their togetherness.

The understanding of all this implicates the type of relationship God wishes to have with us – to share in that relationship, that fellowship, that togetherness and sharing, that self-giving and other centeredness. To be brought into the one-ness of God the father and the son – and share all things in the love and unchained fellowship of the spirit. How amazing is this! It gives me a closer understanding of “God is Love” and understanding what love truly is. It gives me plenty to think about too! Just imagine how the church would be if all people could understand this utterly amazing love God has for us. It would radically re-orientate the way we relate to God, to people. Why is it that our view of God is often turned on it’s head – that the words which quickly come to mind when describing God include anger, judgment and rejection..

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who HAS blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose US in Christ before the foundation of the world to be HOLY and BLAMELESS before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children though Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will…Ephesians 1: 4-5.

Silk

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things from above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand side 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 is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Colossians 3: 1-4



I became more aware of this passage after coming across it in “The Interior Castle”. The book pays particular attention to verse 3 “and your life is hidden with Christ in God” – and Teresa has painted yet another wonderful image of this hiding (and revealing) through the silk worm;

The silk worm symbolizes the soul which begins it live when, kindled by the Holy Spirit….

Then it comes to life and continues nourishing itself on this food and on devout meditation until it has attained full vigour….

….it begins to spin silk to build the house wherein it must die. By this house when, speaking of the soul, I mean Christ. This shows how much, by God’s grace, we can do, by preparing this home for ourselves, towards making Him our dwelling-place as He is the prayer of union….

Forward then, hasten over your work and build the little cocoon. Let us renounce self-love and self-will, care for nothing earthly, do penance, pray, mortify ourselves, be obedient, and perform all the other good works of which you know. Act up to your light; you have been taught your duties. Die! Die as the silkworm does when it has fulfilled the office of is creation, and you will see God and be immersed in His greatness, as the little silkworm is enveloped in its cocoon. Understand that when I say “you will see God”, I mean in the manner described, in which He manifests Himself in this kind of union.

What an amazing description! I love the symbolism found in us being little butterflies – all of a sudden, earthly things mean nothing to it – it can fly! It rejoices in a newfound freedom through an amazing transformation.

Through putting effort into nourishing our souls and seeking to what is above, God further lavishes us with the riches of His grace.

I have been following God through Jesus for half my life now and I can’t keep thinking that there is so much more God wishes to reveal to me about Himself and the of the extraordinary authority He hands us to co-rule His kingdom.