Category: Wildman Journey (Page 75 of 87)

The novelist Walker Percy once observed, “To live in the past and future is easy.  To live in the present is like threading a needle.”  Think about that statement for a moment.  We might think that living with the pain and regret of  the past or the uncertainty and fear of the future is our greatest challenge.  But in many ways it is more difficult to live in the present moment because of our preoccupation with the past or the future.  Preoccupation becomes our enemy, for it causes us to become focused on ourselves.  Men as I have mentioned before it is all to easy to live in and from our “control towers.” In a confusing cultural environment, where the voices of so many opinions call for our attention and the need to make our way through the spiritual wasteland of modern life makes God’s presence seem so distant, we can so easily find ourselves living by our own wits.  While thinking  we are fully engaged, we are in actual fact falling asleep spiritually. We can go through our days as sleepwalkers.  George Gurdjieff maintains that the fundamental human problem is that we keep falling asleep. 

Scripture warns us about falling asleep. “But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off obvivious to God.  The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing” (Romans 13:11-12 – The Message).  Listen to these words from George Gilder who has studied men’s issues for years. “Men lust, but they know not what for; They wander, and lose track of the goal; They fight and compete, but they forget the prize; They chase power and glory, but miss the meaning of life.”  All of what Gilder is discribing is all built on our effort and energy.  We become preoccupied with our effort to control and understand our lives.  In the meantime we go to sleep spiritually.

Mary Oliver has noted the the soul is built entirely out of attentiveness.  Attentiveness allows us to live with depth; you could say soulfully.  To be inattentive, that is, to be in a spiritual slumber, is to live very shallow lives. Ricard Foster talks about people living on the surface.  Richard Rohr describes it as living on the circumference.  We deprive our inner life, the life of the soul, from the essential ingredients that is needs to be in alive.  To be alive is to live in reality.  Reality is living as we truly are in the present moment.  Any other posture is an illusion.  This was very hard for me to admit to myself, since as a “professional holy man” I was trying so hard to be “good.” Reality become something of my own making. Instead of having depth, I lived a shallow life, operating on  “auto pilot,” working hard to maintain some kind of equilbrum, but all the while going to sleep spiritually.  I have been learning to wake up, as I pay close attention to my soul.  “Let me know you, O God and myself” said Augustine, “that is all.” 

The challenge men is the desire to stay awake.  Here are a few things I have learned the hard way, so that I might stay awake.  First, I have to give up the control.  Otherwise, I get stuck in my small, egocentric world, going around sleepwalking.  Second I have to surrender to someone bigger who truly loves me as I am.  That means Jesus has to be first.  Thirdly, I need to allow myself to get touch with all that is going on in my soul, the good, the bad and the ugly.  Sometimes it is not very pretty. But remember this; it is reality and not illusion.  Fourthly, it is imperative that I spend time with Jesus.  That is, I need to get still and listen to His voice speaking to me deep within.  Fifth, to recognize his voice I have to spend time meditating on the life of our Lord in Scripture.  I can testify that  being willing to stay awake, bring freedom, authenticity and grace to for the journey.

Thomas Merton warns us when he states, “There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in us by our vital relation with reality.”  I have found that facing the reality of my sinful nature has been the most difficult part of the spiritual journey  To finally come to the place of accepting the good, bad and ugly found in my heart has not been easy.  I have lived most of my life with an illusion of self  rather then reality of self.  Instead of accepting who I really am, I have denied my real self, trying to present an image of a “spiritual” man who has it together.  That practice robbed me of authenticity, that is, living with others as I really am.  I did not have freedom to be me and live in the joy of the present moment.  My focus more often then not was on my image of self rather then who I truly was in God.

Men, we can in confidence and humility come to know and accept all the parts of our inner life, especially those parts that are most shameful and fearful.  Why?  Because God know all about who we are and yet loves us in our stink.  “But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him” (Rom 5:8 – The Message). I can not stress to you the joy and freedom in coming to accept all aspects of who you really are before God.  When you come to the inner knowing that God loves you with unconditional love, you are able finally to accept yourself as you are.  Knowing God and knowing self are intimately related.  As David Benner puts it, ” Knowing ourselves must therefore begin by knowing the self that is known by God.  If God does not know us, we do not exist.”  In other words, we  can live with an illusion of self, rather in the reality of who we are.

Think about it for a moment.  How is change going to come to a part of our self that we do not even accept?  Living with an illusion of self takes a lot of work.  We know that Jesus wants us to be crucified with him.  But when we live in illusion we end up often crucifying part of our true self in God.  Living in the reality of who I really am, means living in the light of God’s love and acceptance.  Take it from a fellow traveler, there is grace and mercy to crucify, that is surrender and give up control, of those bad habits and diseased atttiudes when they are exposed to the light.  In the clear, bright light of God’s grace I can then rejoice and be accepting of who I really am in Christ.  This is the real authentic me, giving me energy to live in joy and freedom.  Illusion simply is not an option once you taste the freedom and joy of living in your true self in Christ.

So here is a simply practice that has been very helpful for me.  I learned this from David Benner.  Spend time imaging God looking at you.  All those negative feelings and images you have of yourself, allow to flow out of yourself into the presence of God.  It might help to see them going into Jesus’ body as He died to healing you of your sinful condition.  You can bring all your inner junk to him at the foot of the cross.  Then visualize God the Father receiving you in love.  “Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud.  A new power is in operation.  The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death” (Romans 8:1-2 – The Message). Like a strong wind the Spirit clears to air of our inner life.   “If you’re content with simply being yourself, you will become more than yourself” (Luke 18:14 – The Message).

Today I preached on the gospel lesson for this Sunday.  The text was from Matthew 16:13-20.  Again I was struck with an application for men as they follow Jesus.  In the text Peter makes his confession of who Jesus is by saying, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (v 16).  This was the best that Peter could offer on behalf of the other eleven.  He was making clear that he and the others thought that Jesus was God.  He was the promised Messiah.  Peter still had a long ways to go in his understanding of what this meant for him.  But he offered would he know to be true. Remember Peter stumbled badly later.  Yet the Lord was able to use him.  Take courage from one who was “a fragile stone.”

Jesus’ reply to Peter was to encourage him, “God bless you, Simon, son of Jonah!  You didn’t get that answer out of books or from teachers.  My Father in heaven, God himself, let you in on this secret of who I really am.  And now I’m going to tell you who you are, really are. You are Peter.  This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out” (vs 17-18 – The Message).  Jesus understood that Peter and the others where moving from acquaintance with him to a heart felt commitment.  Something was getting internalized.  God the Father was revealing to the disciples that this was indeed the Messiah, the promised one.  In this regard I appreciate a quote from Soren Kierkegaard: “In order to fully understand what it means to be a Christian, you must stand in the crowd, point to a man and say ‘He is God.'”

What is noteworthy for us as men, is Jesus calling Peter a rock (Petros) and on this rock (petra) I will put together my church.  Jesus names Peter as the rock and maintains that on petra, that is Peter’s confession, He will build his church.  The thought I have for men is this.  By our heart-felt commitment to Jesus we are placed on the rock.  This is the most secure place we can stand in our day.  While much around us will fail and crumble, the rock will remain.  So the question for each of us is, “Am I standing on the rock.”  I know there are times when I feeling I am slipping, when in fear and uncertainty I loss my focus on Jesus.  But the rock is till there.  As I repent of my self-focus, crying out to him in mercy, he hears my prayer and lifts me up back unto the rock.  Like Peter instead of being a rock I am more like “a fragile stone.”

So men, when you are on the rock you are in a stable place.  Furthermore you get connected with folks who are building on the foundation of Jesus; folks who are on the rock.  Listen to what this means. “This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out” (v18 – The Message).  Now that is real protection.  This should be motivation to be connected with others who are on the rock.  But there is more. “And that’s not all.  You will have complete and free access to God’s kingdom, keys to open any and every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven.  A yes on earth is yes in heaven.  A no on earth is a no in heaven” (v19 – The Message).  You will see the hand of God at work in your life.  All this is possible because we are on the rock and have found others who are on the same rock.

In the mid 80’s, I began to read Thomas Keating’s books on centering prayer.  They became foundational in my journey with the Lord. One quote from Keating on the silence of God stuck with me, yet for some time just did not make sense to me.  In these last years, however, it has become more and more relevant in my personal pilgrimage with Jesus.  Keating observed, “God’s first language is that of  silence.”  I thought of this quote as I prepared to preach on the gospel text of Matt 15:21-28.  It is the story of the Canaanite woman coming to Jesus.  The woman cries out in desperation for Jesus to heal her demon-possessed daughter.  “Jesus,” however, “did not answer a word” (Matt. 15:23).  He was silent.  The disciples tried to get rid of the woman because the silence made her pleading even more pronounced: “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

My sense is that we often have trouble with Jesus’ response because our Western mindset does not mentally and emotionally equip us to deal with the silence of God. We want to understand and to have control over our personal affairs.  It is, however, in silence that we begin to know more about ourselves and our relationship to God.  Euguene Peterson writes, “There’s a silence that deepens relationships.  It’s a reflective silence.  It’s a silence that absorbs all that is being said by the other person.  Intimacy is awakened in such silence.  Experiencing such silence, I discover that I’ve been listened to, that my words have been taken absolutely seriously, that I’m being responded to as a unique person – too important a person to just be turned off with a phrase.”

Men, I want to encourage you in your experience of the silence of God.  There will be times on your journey when God will seem very distant and uninvolved.  Your prayer life will seem fruitless.  You may even begin to question God’s love for you.  You may feel anger at your sense of his absence.  But remember, please remember, that God is present in the silence.  He knows all about you and even the thoughts and emotions you are experiencing.  Peterson observes that we are puzzled by the silence of God because we do not know him very well:  “For when he is silent, he is stil listening.”

During the times of God’s silence in my life, I have learned to listen in the silence.  In this silence I have become more aware of myself and my reactions to God.  I have begun to learn that God speaks loudly in the silence.  It is an awareness that goes beyond words and sensations.  It is the calm certainty that God loves me and that I am in his presence. I am able to accept the whole truth about myself, which includes the bad and the ugly.  It is in the silence that I face who I really am.  In facing the real me, I am able to be honest with God.  And in this honesty, I come to know God for who he is and not who I would like him to be in my life, what I’ve imagined him to be, and what I would like him to do for me.  As I have become more accepting of the silence of God, I have come to know more of the true God and my true self. This is not illusion but reality.  Real relationship is built not on illusion but on reality.

This morning I preached on the gospel text from Matt. 14:22-31.   In this storyJesus  has his disciples get in a boat to go across to the other side of the sea of Galilee, while He goes up on a mountainside by himself to pray.  John tells us that “they had rowed about three or four miles.”  Mark tells us that, “he saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them.”  So at about four in the morning Jesus comes walking to them on the water.  Mark  mentions that “he was about to pass by them.”  They thought it was a ghost, which, of course, made them terrified.  Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I.  Don’t be afraid.” 

Only Matthew tells the account of Peter wanting to come out to Jesus on the waves.  Jesus invites him to come.  His walk on water is going  just fine, until he begins to take his eye off of Jesus and unto the waves.  He begins to sink.  Matt tells us: “Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. ‘You of little faith,’ he said, ‘why did you doubt?'”  As I worked on this sermon, I recalled some of the stuff I read in John Ortberg’s book “If you want to walk on water, you’ve got to get out of the boat.”  He makes this statement regarding Peter’s failure in continuing to walk on water. “Failure is not an event, but rather a judgement about an event.  Failure is not something that happens to us or a label we attach to things.  It is a way we think about outcomes.” 

Yes, Peter seemed to be failing as he sank.  Think of the others in the boat.  They were playing it safe, not wanting to risk being out of control.  Those in the boat never learned the new level of trust that Peter did, when he was rescued by Jesus.  Listen again to Ortberg: “The worst failure is not to sink in the waves.  The worst failure is to never get out of the boat….Whether Peter sank or water walked depended on whether he focused on the storm or on Jesus.  But now he understood his dependence on faith much more deeply than he would have if he had never left the boat.  It was his willingness to risk failure that helped him to grow…Failure does not shape you; the way you respond to failure shapes you.”

So, men, I ask you, “Are you willing to get out of the boat and become a water-walker?”  I know there have been times when I stayed in the safety of the boat and other times when I was willing to get out of the boat.  Remember in the story Jesus is not in the boat but on the water.  It is out on the water that we grow in faith and trust.  To be sure, you and I will fail.  But the fear of failure is what we have to come to grips with in walk with Jesus.  I love these words from Ortberg: “Let water-walking be a picture of doing with God’s help what you could never do on your own.”  Don’t let the fear of failure stop you from getting out of the boat.  Just as with Peter, Jesus will be there to rescue you.  He will not let you sink.  Don’t be like the guys back in the boat, playing it cool and safe.  They did not come to know Jesus in the new ways that Peter was experiencing Jesus, even in his failure.

I have started a new book entitled “Veneer’ with a subtitle “living deeply in a surface society.”  There is a quote from Jon Foreman of the music group “Switchfoot” that I would like to quote, because it expresses a lot of the sentiments of this blog site.  “There is a deeper portion of our being that we rarely allow others to see.  Call it a soul maybe; this is the place that holds the most value.  All else can drift but this.  When this dies our body has no meaning.  We handle this portion of our being with extreme care.  Life tears at us and scars us as children, so we adopt facades and masks to hide this part of us, to keep this sacred part of ourselves from the pain.  And yet, we long to communicate this deeper place….to connect with each other on this spiritual level, for we know that this is the only part of us that will last.”

As I write this quote I think of the words of Jesus in Matt. 16: 26, “And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?  Is anything worth more than your soul.”  How much attention do we as men give to our souls.  Could it be that as the  above quote mentions, we have been so careful to avoid the pain in our souls that we live with facades and masks rather then from the strength that can be accessed in our souls. Remember the very presence of God dwells deep within, at the center; in the soul.  Paul prayed for strength to be found at the center.  “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in you hearts through faith. (Eph 3:16-17). 

 There is a part of us that desires deep connection.  This is the cry of our soul.  We as men have a hard  time coming to peace with the life of our soul.  We remain silent.  The Psalmist spoke often about being silent and the harm that it does to our inner life.  For example, “So I remained utterly silent, not even saying anything good.  But my anguish increased; my heart grew hot within me, while I mediated, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue” (Ps 39:2-3). I take this to mean that the Psalmist finally had had enough of remaining silent with the termoil in his soul. He finally spoke it out having become tired of playing the religious game of being “a niece, spiritual man.” 

I have found that when I am honest about my inner termoil and get it out before the Lord and another trust friend, there is relief.  One simple awareness for me has been to finally understand that God knows all that is going on within my soul and even the reasons for the termoil.  My job is to access that termoil and get it out.  I need to take responsibility for the part of the termoil that I have created.  The continuing surprise for me, is that I meet God in the termoil.  In that encounter I experience His love and acceptance of me.  This would never happen is I tried hard to keep the lid on.  Men it is true, God loves us in our stink.”

For those who read this blog, you are aware that I owe a great deal to David Benner, for being a spiritual guide, during these latter years of my journey.  Each of his new books are been food for my soul, and enlightenment to my mind.  I highly recommend his insights to you.  In the early years of my spiritual journey, I was aware that there was much more to my walk with Jesus then simply thinking good thoughts based on Scripture ( while important) and doing the right things, much of the time out of obligation.  There was a deep hunger within me that was not being satisfied, along with an inner cauldron of emotions and desires that I was almost afraid to experience.  

Benner has helped me to finally come to peace regarding this cauldron within me, while tasting my desire for God.  I can say now that in my opinion and experience, our deepest desires are from God.  Embracing our desires is vital on our journey with Christ.  Listen to Benner – “Our desires keep us molten, they keep us moving, and they keep us awake…Within  each of us is an unquenchable fire, a restlessness that renders us incapable of ever coming to full peace in this life.  Our longings will always be larger and more persistent than our satisfactions.”  Benner talks about “the inextinguishable burning bush” at the center of our being that he calls “our fundamental life energy.” 

It has been a terrific relief for me to realize that my sense of obligation to serve Jesus will not necessarily help me to become fashioned in the image of God that is intended for me in particular.  “Guilt may be strong enough to motivate religious behavior, but only desire can lead you ahead on the spiritual journey.’  While it has been difficult at times to face what is really going on in my soul, I am slowly learning that the journey inward to become aware of what is there, has given me greater freedom and confidence to be who I am intended to be in Christ. 

So men I encourage you to embrace all of who you are.  This will include the inner journey of going into that cauldron of deep desires and emotions that are from God.  I quote once again from Benner. “Our deepest desires call us to a place of both greater height and greater depth….the restlessness occurs in the depths of our soul, our desires also invite us to attend to these depths.  We are to soar on the winds of the Spirit and be grounded in the realities of body and soul.  They point us toward the self-transcendent but encourage us to us to remain anchored in the mundane and immanent.”  Part of living with reality is to be honest and open about what is within our souls.

As I mentioned in my last post, I am busy during these weeks with family visiting Judy and I on the lake.  The time I need to reflect on a post and then do the writing takes time.  I simply will not have much reflective time to write a post.  For me it takes time.  I do the work out of obedience, with the prayer that I might improve in my ability to communicate what is in my heart.  I do not want to stop writing.  Sometimes that would be the easiest thing to do.  But with God’s help and his grace I will keep posting.  I simply leave the results to God.  So here are some quotes from Tersteegen on prayer.

“What is easier and simpler than to open one’s eyes and see the light which surrounds us on all sides?  God is far closer to us than the light.  In Him we live and move and have our being.  He comes into us, He fills us; He is nearer than we are to ourselves; to believe this simply and to remember this simply, as well as one can, is prayer.”

“We do not need to bring this thing or that, put ourselves into this or that attitude, or see or feel much every time we pray.  We must just say simply and briefly what we are and what we would like to be; yes, it is not even necessary always to say it, we should just allow God, the ever-present, all-loving one to see us thus – but not perfunctorily: we should try to keep close in front of Him for some time, that He may have a good look at us and cure us.  We must tell Him nothing and let Him see nothing but what is in us, whatever it may be.”

“Pray, if you like, without words, but never without worship.”

“Prayer is looking at God, who is ever present, and letting Him look on us.”

This is an extended quote from Gerhart Tersteegen, whom I have quoted before.  I first read his small book “The Quiet Way” so twenty years ago.  At that time his words spoke to my heart, but now I find that I can more readilyassimiliate his thoughts into my spiritual life.  I am sending along this quote because I will be spending less time on my next two blogs.  I will we busy with grandchildren for the next three weeks.  Each blog I write takes time.  This reflective and writing time will be at a primium during this time.  So I am sending along some thoughts from Tersteegen.  Here is the quote.

“The mind of God and the light of God do not come in from outside.  They do not borrow thier certainty and strength from our minds or our senses.  They make themselves known in the heart’s core and have energy anc certainty in themselves, although these become darkened and disappear when the soul begins to search after clear certainty in her depths.  So do not go out so much into reflections.  Do not seek merely by reasoned, external methods to fin dsure foundations, but close your eyes like a child and confide yourself to the hidden Being who is so near to you inwardly.”

Here is a second quote.  “O that I could pour pour our my whole heart in tears and weep for the blindness of men!  They take their deceptive illusions and their trivial things for the essential, and the essential things of the spirit for imagination and error.  Yet it has been told us aforetime that the natural man, in contrast to the spiritual, can perceive nothing of the things of the Spirit of God.”

While I am at it, here is a third quote. “Even when all the powers of sin and wickedness are active within you, and you are aware of nothing but temptations on every side, say sincerely to God: ‘Lord, in spite of this, I will not sin.’  Withdraw your inward will gently but completely from the evil and incline yourself inwardly to God as best you can.  In Him and with Him no evil can reach you.  If you cannot do even this, then suffer quietly, as a rock suffers the raging of the sea and a tree hailstorms and thunder, until bright weather returns

Parker Palmer has argued that it is important to listen to our life rather than living on the surface of life, never paying attention to the inconsistencies between our inner life and outer life.  Instead of determining the shape of our spiritual journey, we need to pay attention to all of the factors that are influencing the way we choose to respond to life.  Much that influences us is hidden in our souls.  I assume that most of the men who read this blog desire to serve and follow the Lord.  One of the built in dangers that we face is trying to live with our christian “ideal self” and forget or even deny our actual self.  Living with the ideal, while denying the actual and real self  

Thomas Merton warned against our focus on the ideal self which he called “the false self.”  He maintained that the life of the false self was particularly tempting for spiritual folks who can so easily convince themselves that they are special and somehow different from and better then others.  Instead we need to  face the inconsistencies found in our souls.  “To deny the existence of inner realities is not to escape their devilish aspects but rather to fall victim to them.  To deny inner realities is to fail to truly know one’s self and to know one’s self is to risk becoming possessed by that which we have ignored.”

 Listening to our life means embracing our inconsistencies that are reflected in the way of false self manifests itself.  Denial of its presence only drives the false self into a hiding place, from where  it continues to influence of our lives.  To be truly alive and living in the Spirit we all need to welcome the parts of ourselves that do not fit easily with what we consider our presentable self.  We need to ask, as David Benner puts, “what uninvited and unwelcomed guests are present in the guesthouse of our souls.” 

Benner give this advice regarding these unwelcomed guest that make our life inconsistent and prevent us from being truly alive.  Identify the unwelcomed guests and see if you are able to make peace with the “unwanted parts of your experience.”  “Give up your battle with it.  You cannot defeat it, so you may as well accept its presence.  Do not ever bother to label it as good or bad.  Just accept it, and your life as it is.  Remember the truly alive person will always have parts of self that do not fit easily with other parts of self.  To be fully alive we need to embrace the mixed bag of contradictions that are part of our inner life.

Jesus warned against be contaminated with the Pharisees yeast which, of course, was a life of inconsistencies between the outer life and the inner life. “Watch yourselves carefully so you don’t get contamined with Pharisee yeast,  Pharisee phoniness.  You can’t keep your true self hidden forever: before long you’ll be exposed.  You can’t hide behind a religious mask forever: sooner or later the mask will slip and your true face will be known.  You can’t whisper one thing in private and preach the opposite in public; the day’s coming when those whispers will be repeated all over town.” (Luke 12:2-3 – The Message) I have had the experience of the mask slipping in my life as a pastor.  It exposed my inconsistencies.  Thankful I am on the way to recovery from being a pharisee. I call myself a “recovering pharisee.”