Transformed Changes and changing

Ecclesiaties 7:29 “This alone is my conclusion: God has created man straightforward, and human artifices are human inventions.” (The Jerusalem Translation)

According to Merriam-Webster an artifice is:

1 a : clever or artful skill : ingenuity <believing that characters had to be created from within rather than with artifice — Garson Kanin> b : an ingenious device or expedient
2 a : an artful stratagem : trick b : false or insincere behavior <social artifice>

Maybe a David E translation of this passage would be…”life is simple, but we complicate it.”

Transformation then, must be a return to the simple.

I think the simplest way to understand life is that it is not ours. We did not create it. We are dependent for birth, breath, heartbeat…and when we move away from an understanding of dependence…things get complicated.

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“I waited and waited and waited for God. At last he looked; finally he listened… Now God, don’t hold out on me, don’t hold back your passion. Your love and truth are all that keeps me together. When troubles ganged up on me, a mob of sins past counting, I was so swamped by guilt I couldn’t see my way clear. More guilt in my heart than hair on my head, so heavy the guilt that my heart gave out. Soften up, God, and intervene…” (Psalm 40 MSG)

It feels like it has been a long time since I have “heard” from God. OR…maybe I am just more contented in knowing who I am to Him…less fearful…less in need of His constant intervention…more willing to simply walk with Him…even in silence.
Surely He owes me nothing. Life is difficult, for various reasons, for all of us. Most self-employed people either don’t make it at all, or find themselves with negative bank balances perpetually. Not every venture will succeed…though I am not sure that I even know what success truly is. My whole world is about words, and I have experienced how perspectives are revolutionized with a simple re-ordering of word sequence. One word change, or even a single comma, can make all the difference. How do you measure the impact one positive word in the life of another, and what price is acceptable?

As David said in Ps 39:5… “You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath.”

One key to transformation must be an arrival at this understanding: If my life is but a breath, there is much more at play here than me.

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Recent ponderings…a merger of a two principles:

1. The Golden Rule (proactive) – do unto others as you would have them do to you
2. As you think you become…(proactive, +/or cause & effect)

As I have been studying the enneagram of late, I have been arriving at a few conclusions. If I am heading in the direction of disintegration…I need to turn around and head the other way! Simple enough.

If I fear abandonment, what is the opposite direction? Become loyal to others.
If I fear ridicule, what is the opposite direction? Respect others.
If I fear judgment, what is the opposite direction? Extend grace.
If I feel unloved / unwanted…be loving & helpful.

Crazy…

Luke 6: ^43-45“You don’t get wormy apples off a healthy tree, nor good apples off a diseased tree. The health of the apple tells the health of the tree. You must begin with your own life-giving lives. It’s who you are, not what you say and do, that counts. Your true being brims over into true words and deeds. (MSG)

How easy it is to come to believe that our lives are at the mercy of those in relationship around us…and how wrong. Thanks be to God’s grace…we are not left alone in our change, but we must acknowledge (confess) our sin, and turn from our ways (repent)…then rest as He transforms. (Isaiah 30:15 / Phil 2:13)

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I have written under this title before, but I found my thoughts returning to this simple concept as I walked the trail across the lake from our house on Saturday afternoon.

Change and challenge are givens in life. There are times when we may choose to initiate change or undertake a new challenge, but there are also times when either one will rudely force their way into our lives. Sometimes we see the next step clearly, other times our eyes are blinded by obstruction. Emotions can be self-imposed obstruction. Like fog or darkness, they can keep us from seeing clearly. The path may actually be free of obstruction, but we can end up inhibited or  even paralyzed, experiencing little forward progress.

Conversely, if the fog lifts and sun shines brightly, we can pick our way through the complexity of many obstructions, and even find ourselves enjoying the journey.

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Transformation is partly about deliverance, partly about trust, and ultimately about entering into rest. It is a journey, and the story of the people of Israel leaving Egypt for the promised land is a great example of this journey.

DELIVERANCE

As God leads the people out of Egypt, they are delivered from bondage. It is easy to see the bondage of the Israelites as they were actual physical slaves to the Egyptians. What is more difficult is to see how we are slaves to sin (Romans 6), and how desperately we all are in need of deliverance. We have long understood that Christ came to set us free, but we barely understand our bondage. The Israelites often wanted to go back to Egypt as the journeyed through the wilderness, implying that they forgot the hopelessness of their former condition. So to we.

I fear that we have become anesthetized to the reality of our human our condition, that we have been deluded into feeling that we are actually well, implying the Jesus may have sacrificed himself needlessly.

TRUST

As the Israelites enter the wilderness they are challenged to trust God. He constantly reveals Himself to them, in fire and cloud, parting the sea, the provision of manna, water from rocks, victories…on and on it goes. Still they do not trust Him, for sadly, they have not come to know Him. (You cannot trust a God you do not know – who trusts anyone they do not know?!) This lack of knowing Him is a fatal error. The whole generation is prohibited from entering the promised land; from entering their rest. At one point, God brings them right to the threshold, the could enter the promised land, and sadly they turn away in disbelief. (Numbers 14)

Like the Israelites, we have received out deliverance, yet we wander in the wilderness, refusing to trust God with our jobs, families, friendships, finances, or our hearts.

REST

Finally the Israelites enter their rest: the promised land. We could see this as our “Heaven”…but another interpretation would be the peaceful rest of complete trust in and surrender to God.

We must come to know Him so well that trust becomes an automatic response. As this is accomplished in us, peace flows freely into our hearts and minds as we understand more of (though never the full magnitude) the capacity, competency, and HEART of our sovereign Creator.

Trust is not the mission, knowing God is. Challenge and trust are just points along our journey; our Transformation.

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A very good friend of mine learned this past week that he may have cancer. Maye hearing this news should have sent me reeling, but instead I felt numb. It is not that I am insensitive to my friend, or his family and friends…when we love deeply it is logical to assume that we would mourn deeply as well. In any event, many people recover from cancer, and this whole situation could go several directions from here…still…death makes us think about life.

I am only 44, and yet I have outlived both of my parents. My dad actually didn’t die until he was 68, but he was permanently disabled (mentally & physically) from an accident when he was just 42, and mom passed away suddenly at the age of 37. Periodically I am acutely aware that each day is a bonus…I could already be gone.

When I reflect on Isaiah 57:1 (The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.) I am struck by the impression that death is relief…simply the end of the curse (see Genesis 3)…and not tragedy. (1 Cor 15:55)

Now, I am not advocating self-initiated premature death…quite the opposite.

Could the reality of death not propel us in the direction of  a more fulfilled life?

What fear could possibly hold us if we actually understood the true implications of what I have stated above? How much differently would we live, if we rose each morning with this truth firmly entrenched,directing all of our thoughts and actions with steadfast consistency? Would we actually consider that trusting God for anything…anything(!)…was a risk?

Faith that God exists is quite easy to establish…however, trusting Him is another issue. Trusting Him to provide whatever we need for our future…or forgiveness for our past; to be our healer, or our comforter.

I don’t wish for my friend to be gone early, but I am reminded that we are all on the same journey…and none of us knows the day or hour of our passing. If we feel that our time has come too soon, then maybe we should consider why we would want an extension. What are we engaged in that we must continue…something so eternally impacting that we must see it  through to completion?

Given that we are not indispensable, and that God can raise up others to carry on…let me propose that there is only one thing that simply must continue…one thing that only we have the power to initiate; to request: our own personal surrender to the transforming work of God within us.

Let me also suggest that since we do not know the day or hour, we had better get on with making the request.

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Last summer I was watching the moon rise over the lake…one of the most beautiful moments I have experienced each summer…something I truly look forward to each year! This particular time I was struck by the thought that, “I am like moonlight…just a reflection of the Son.”

As I prepared last week to speak at our church service yesterday, I was confronted with a new challenge in Paul’s exhortation for us to “shine like stars” (Phil 2:15)…stars have their own light…they do not simply reflect.

Then this morning, I was studying the two times that God speaks out to affirm Christ, once at the river during His baptism, and once on the mount of transfiguration. Both times God says, “this is my dearly loved Son, in who I am well pleased”. Something within me longs to hear God speak this over me…yet I am aware that I am powerless to achieve this on my own. I am simply not able to be good.

I was brought to an awareness that Christ, on the mount of transfiguration, experienced a metamorphosis; a change on the outside that comes from the inside. Jesus did not simply reflect God’s glory, but rather it radiated from within Him, and thus He shone like a star.

I guess, as pretty as it looks, I don’t just want to be moonlight. I’d rather be transformed from within…to experience God intimately so that He shines forth from within me…and in this being glorified.

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“Self-worth is not created, it is discovered.”  (Richard Rohr)

We do not recognize ourselves, just as we did not recognize Him. (1 John 3:1)

What is so insignificant about being created in the image of God that we would pursue the understanding of it so little? Our worth is not in what we achieve or put our efforts into…it is a dictate. As a creature, our value is dictated by our Creator, and it is most amazing that He created us in His image…a reflection and representation of Himself for the rest of creation. Very cool.

I have been studying the “Enneagram” quite a bit lately. It has been an enlightening (albeit sobering) undertaking. On one hand I am discovering that I have more that is broken within me than I realized (which grieves me), and on the other I am finding articulation for much of the struggle that wreaks havoc with my emotions…or should I say “emotions which wreak havoc…”?

The Enneagram (info here: 9types.com…or alternatively “The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective” by Richard Rohr) is helping me to understand that I am not alone in my internal battle over self; all of us have an ruling party and official opposition within…sometimes it is hard to tell which is which. It is also helping me to see the eventual outcome of the choices I could make. There are basic routes we can choose in our journey: to withdraw, to attack, and to stay humbly engaged. The first two make it impossible for us to receive or extend true love…only the latter offers this opportunity.

Transformation is all about growing the capacity to receive and extend love.

All we have as creatures comes from our Creator. All our efforts to live on our own  remove us from drawing on the life-giving energy and love of the Creator. As we continue in our own efforts throughout our journey, with an honest assessment, we eventually arrive at a place of disgust with ourselves. We cannot be the good we want to be on our own. (Am I alone in this?)

We need a greater love…we need true, deep, authentic, rich, energizing, empowering, sustaining transformation. The kind of transformation that can only flow from the Creator…not a form of Him captured in religion…but rather the source of all life, directly…in the person.

I resolve to pursue this at all cost, for I have been close enough to the edge to see that anything short of this will only end in the destruction of life.

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Enter guest writer Ken Rutherford…

Joy To The World

Joy to the World , the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

Do I really believe the words of this familiar Christmas carol? It seems to be saying that joy comes when the Lord (Ruler, Master) comes, and people allow Him to be King. Doesn’t it seem more believable that joy comes when I get what I want?

Could it be that real joy comes when the “Lord” Jesus Christ gets what He wants in my life? It seems that the pursuit of happiness can be the strongest motivation in life. If we engage our pursuit based on wrong assumptions we will definitely miss the goal.

I recently met a man who was having major heart problems. In fact, his heart had stopped 3 or 4 times and had to be revived. He was told that he would need a pacemaker. He didn’t want to have a pacemaker because of certain wrong assumptions he had about pacemakers. He believed that a pacemaker would be limiting; that it would hold him back from really living. The reality was that he would die without a pacemaker, but be free to really live and enjoy life with one!

It is easy to get the idea that surrender of the control of my life to this Lord or King would be a hindrance; that it would be limiting. The truth is that without Christ as King in our lives we are dying.

This simple Christmas carol declares the truth that often gets overlooked. All of creation will “sing” when people allow Jesus the Creator to be King.

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On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe…This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.” From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.

Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

John 6: 60-69

Why do I get the feeling that, through most conversations, we all assume (imply) that we are (would have been) one of the 12…not one of the multitudes that walked away?

Are we so sure?

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