Listening to God - My experience

Thank you all for your answers and input. I agree with all of them. Unfortunately, being in perfect agreement does not lead to a very lively discussion, but it does edify and lift up. =) Here are my thoughts. Sorry to be so late in publishing them.

Recently, because of having to make some decisions, my belief about most of these questions has been reshaped. I find that God continually puts me in the position to re-think what I believe about Him. Is it not laughable how quickly we decide who God is and how He acts? No matter how often I remind myself that He is infinite, I always put Him into finite limitations. He seems determined to strip away any theological formula that I have built and rested upon as solid ground. Apparently, He will not share His glory with theological formulas.

In the decision I had to make, I knew that all three choices were good. I just needed to know which one He wanted me to take. I asked my parents and they thought any of the choices would be fine. He didn't use a verse to guide me. There was no guidance that I could see.

So, I asked people I trusted about how God generally leads or speaks to them. Through different people, by the agreement of the Bible and my spirit with little things they would say, God did speak to me. Not about where to go or what to do, but about how to trust Him.

I was, unknowingly, afraid God would punish me for making the wrong decision. Maybe I should choose something that would deny my flesh? Okay; but in this situation every decision was going to be a place of self-sacrifice and ministry to others.

This is what God did say to me when He wouldn't say what to choose:

Lauren, is your flesh crucified with me or isn't it?
Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Galatians 5:24)

Am I your life or not?
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Have I given you a new heart or not?
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. (Ezekiel 36:26-27)

These took away my fear. Could it be true that, "There is no fear in love . . ."? I decided based on what I wanted. Could it be true that He gave me the desires of my heart because I delighted in Him and His will?

If God does not write your future for you on the wall, if He opens the doors to more than one good and God pleasing option; please do not fear but step ahead in faith. Faith in His goodness.

Listening to God - Your opinion

I have decided I'm tired of posting as though I am the greatest of the wise guys. In other words: It's your turn! Let's get some good web conversation going.

If you have an opinion (don't fool yourself, you know you have one!) then answer one or more of these questions:

1. Does God still speak?
2. Has He ever spoken to you?
3. Is there only one godly choice for every decision?
4. What happens if you miss God's best?
5. How long do you wait for an answer from God?
6. How can you be sure it is God speaking?

Of course I have an opinion too. I promise I'll share it in a day or two.

I'M HOME!!!!

I was just re-reading my last post and all of your sweet comments. I promised to return with testimonies of God's goodness and He has not disappointed. It amazes me that those three names I asked you all to pray for were, just a few short weeks ago, nothing but names to me. Now they are full of meaning. People that I love, know, and miss being around.

I was constantly amazed that I even cared, much less had a passion to share about who God was to me. A year ago I could have taught the Bible just as any Pharisee could have taught the law: boldly perhaps, but without joy or lasting change in myself or anyone else. Now, what Who I believe makes a difference in my life and I no longer doubt that it He can make a difference in other's lives. I have Someone worth sharing and He is so much more than a law, a religion, or a book. (Yes, even the inspired book.)

My "wisdom searches" or "God searches," as I preferred to call them, were a continual act of faith. Just because I was passionate about what I shared did not guarantee that it made any sense to others as I jabbered about it. But, God did good things in spite of my jabbering and even, sometime, through and in my jabbering! As I was saying, God is good.

Many girls went home knowing God in a more personal way than when they arrived. Excel is a place for girls to admit that they have questions, doubts and fears about God; a place to admit that they have believed and acted on lies. It is also a place for them to bring all of these to God in honesty and find that He is not offended or surprised. In fact, they find that the more honest they are with themselves and Him the closer they are to Him.

As God taught me what I was teaching others, that without Him I can do nothing, and with Him I can do all things, He began applying it to prayer. He taught me to trust Him to pray through me according to His will and leave all the questions up to Him. This is a miracle to me.

Although many or most of you have heard me pray, just believe me that I am a good actor. When I would decide to pray, in a group or by myself in the woods, I would literally almost choke on the words. I may be dramatic, but I'm not that dramatic; besides, I really wanted to pray.

Sometimes I just felt silly, sometimes I felt that I was trying to shout to someone on pluto, sometimes my mind just wandered, sometimes I knew my heart was so hard that I needed God and that God was the only person I couldn't connect with because I had a hard heart. Consequently, my "prayer life" was limited to 15 minutes of trying about twice a month. What God taught me about prayer during Excel was only a small step towards becoming a prayer warrior, and a giant leap towards trusting God.

This is a small random snippet of what I want to tell you all. I trust God that He put something worthwhile here.

Goodbye notes

Dear all,
this Thursday I am leaving my sweet little home for the dark ages. In short, this blog will not be updated till some time after November 11th.

I leave on Thursday to become a team leader in the infamous girls discipleship program EXCEL.
For those who have asked I have compiled a short prayer request list.
please pray for:

1. The hearts of the girls who are coming.
They may be anywhere in their spiritual walk from not believing in God to having believed since they were three. Some don't want to be at Excel. Excel 29 is currently the smallest ever with only about 24 students. An average class is usually around 60. The noted difference in size makes me wonder what God is up to. Are these girls going to be the type that we are really grateful they are only three to a team instead of nine or more? Or does God just want us to take our eyes off of numbers to give us a glimpse of what He sees? There are three girls on my team their names are Celeste, Kelsey, and Carri.

2. The team leaders
There are seven of us, we will be going through our own behind-the-scenes discipleship class as we help make these girls successful in this one. We are only barely a step ahead of these girls, in that we have been through Excel and already 'know the ropes', yet we will be the ones they look up to.

3. For me, that I would learn to pray.
As God continues to build me from the 'great spiritual crash' in the summer of '06, I believe that trusting Him to teach me how to pray is next on His agenda. It is a slow process however, and I feel like I've been put in the real sword fight before I have been taught. On the advice of a friend, who didn't even know that I had been thinking about the topic of prayer, I have been reading Andrew Murray's The Ministry of Intercession. I'm about half way through. It is an excellent book, I highly recommend it.

4. For 'Wisdom Searches' every morning.
These are bible studies that I will be leading for my team. God has really put some stuff on my heart to present to them, but these are things that only His Spirit can really reveal. Pray that they will have eyes to see and ears to hear and that nothing thwarts His plan.

While I'm there I will only be able to communicate through snail mail. I think you should all have my address, but if you don't you can get it from Gracie.

Thanks so much my friends. I'll see you in nine weeks with testimonies of God's goodness.

there is an I AM and i'm not Him

God has been teaching me again. Actually I believe that He teaches me all the time. Maybe the difference is that I've been learning again.

I quit Christianity. No, I've not converted to Buddhism, Hinduism, Atheism, or Islam. I've just realized that I'm a nothing. I quit, not because I don't believe it anymore, but because I realized that I already wasn't.

Have you ever noticed that if it were possible to be the kind of Christian that we keep trying to become, then we wouldn't have any need of Jesus? Go, read Matthew 5, 6 and 7. This is what a Christian should look like. You who call yourself a Christian, is that what you look like?

If it isn't then what are you going to do? Has God set us up to fail? No. Jesus did come. Matthew 5, 6 and 7 is definitely not a picture of me; but it is a picture of Jesus.

Are we still trying to annul our need of Him, by becoming perfect 'for Him' or 'with His help'? I don't deny that God helps us. But in any other context we think of help as something we only need when we get in really tight spots, every now and then, and often as our last resort. I personally need a lot more than just help.

God has taught me a game. I'll call it the "I'm not I AM" game. I think of something that I'm not and He replies with what He is. Like this:

Me: I'm not loving, I really don't love my family.

God: I AM Love. I AM the only one who can love your family.

Me: I'm not a good friend either. I keep letting people down.

God: I AM the perfect friend. I'll never let you or them down.

Me: God, what am I supposed to do, don't You expect anything of me?

God: I expect only what you are capable of. What can you do?

Me: I can't do anything.

God: Good, then I'll do everything.

Am I crazy? Probably. This is one of the most exciting things that has ever happened to me. I love this game. It may sound silly, but I promise if you try it you will find it very practical. Sometimes I play it with Him just for the sheer joy of hearing Who He is and everything I'm not. But other times I play it as a weapon.

Mom calls me to do something when I finally thought I was done.

Me (through gritted teeth): I'm not respectful, and I don't even want to be obedient.

God (chuckles): I AM, and I AM. I'll do it.

It is amazing, suddenly the fight is over and everything is off me.

I'm not, and I don't ever want to be again.

The Truth Who Set Me Free

I have previously been taught that the struggle against our flesh was something like having a white dog (God's spirit) and a black dog (our flesh) both living in the same kennel (ourselves). They are mortal enemies and are fighting all the time, but only the one that you feed will win. So, although you have these two fighting, it is your decision who wins. At first this sounds very reasonable, but as I tried to just feed the white dog by doing what was right, my black dog overpowered the white dog and effectively stole its food.

In more spiritual terms: no matter how hard I tried to do what was right according to the new spirit God had given me, my flesh still won at least ninety percent of the time. Even a non-Christian can do what is right ten percent of the time. How then, was my belief in Jesus helping me or making me any different than the rest of the world? The only difference that I could see was that I knew what was right so I had more guilt when I failed. I had no peace and no joy, and when I was really honest with myself, I wasn't sure if I loved God like I professed.

I obviously had some skewed ideas of God. First, I used to believe that God loved me unconditionally but He also wanted me to know that I was just a worm in the dirt and I had better be grateful that He took notice of me. I now believe that this mindset was a tactic of Satan's, ninety percent of the truth and ten percent deadly lie. Have I done anything to deserve God's love? No. But neither has a new born baby done anything to deserve its parent's love. God really does love me unconditionally as parents love their children. There is nothing that I can do that will change His abundant love for me in any way.

Second, I thought that God expected me to live up to the law. I understood that I was not under all the rituals and sacrifices of the Mosaic law. But there is a law in the New Testament. Jesus says things like, "You have heard . . . 'You shall not commit murder.' . . . "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty . . . whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. (Matthew 5:21-22) and other verses such as "But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy . . . " (1 Peter 1:15)

Needless to say I failed again and again. Satan used John 14:15 "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." to accuse me that I did not love God because I failed. He also used a skewed version of Philippians 4:13, something like, "I can do all things." to remind me that God said I could do it, but that I just wasn't trying hard enough. I always felt guilty, and yet I came to a place where I knew I could try no harder. I was defeated.

I now believe that although God wants His law obeyed, He is well aware that I am incapable. In fact, that is why He created the law, to drive me to total dependence on Him. I now read Philippians 4:13 something like this, "Without Christ I can do nothing, not even tie my own shoes, but if I trust that Christ is living in me then my body is consequently capable of doing everything that Christ is capable of doing." It is no longer a matter of obedience for me, Christ in me is the one who will handle the obedience, for me it is a matter of belief. It is not just a belief in God, which is something demons have as well, "You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder." (James 2:19) I believe God. I believe everything that He tells me. Demons do not share this belief, they believe God is a liar.

"What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be!" (Romans 6:1-2) Let's imagine for a minute that your dad is perfect, he has always loved you perfectly and you have never had even the slightest reason to distrust him. You have such a good relationship with him that even when he tells you things that you don't understand you believe him explicitly. You are young enough that you do not understand fire but you have figured out how to strike a match. So you strike a match and are fascinatedly watching it burn towards your fingers. You are inexperienced and have not figured out that it is heading towards you fingers, nor are you aware that it will hurt when it gets there. It is just a pretty, harmless toy to you, no different in your mind than many others that your father has given you.

Your father walks into the room, quickly takes in the situation and your inexperience, and tells you to drop the match. First, you are so excited that he is in the room that the match is no longer interesting. Second, you love to have an opportunity to obey him. Now, are you going to fight with him about why you should drop the match? Is it going to be a big internal struggle for you to obey? I don't think so. Does he mean for you to do exactly what he said? Of course. Are you still perfectly free to disobey him? Yes.

Jesus living in me and acting through me has not abolished temptation in my life. Neither has He made it impossible for me to sin, nor made me into a person with no weakness. But, as I learn to trust Him, and relax in the knowledge of His goodness, sin has lost its desirability to me. Guilt, when I fail in the moment to act according to what He tells me, is no longer an issue either. I believe that His blood has covered all my sin, past present and future. He does not sanction or gloss over any of my sin, but it does not come between us. He has already forgiven and atoned for all of it.

When He reveals sin, that I had not recognized before, I confess it, agreeing with Him that this action was indeed sin against Him. Then I drop it, and tell Him, reminding myself at the same time, that my fighting cannot conquer this sin, and I will be a slave to it unless He keeps me.

This does not nullify Romans 8:13. "For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live." (Romans 8:13) We must have total reliance on God in us. The Spirit does not help us to put off the deeds of the body, that implies that it is a team effort - that the Spirit, as part of the team, needs our help, as the other part of the team. The Spirit does it for us, because we are totally helpless.

Galatians 5:16, is not nullified either. "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." It does not say fight against the lust of the flesh, or fight to walk in the Spirit, nor is there any mention of prolonged struggle. It says, walk in the Spirit. If Jesus abides in you, then I'm not sure how you could walk in anything but the Spirit.

This is an imperfect description of something I imperfectly understand. But, mine and Gracie's point is that our struggling to Do Hard Things, our struggling against our flesh, will never accomplish the righteousness of God. If it could, then there was no need for Jesus to die.

I am going to include some of the people that Gracie and I have heard this teaching from. These people have been studying and living what they teach a lot longer than I have, however, I do not necessarily agree with everything they might say.

Paul Anderson-Walsh at http://www.thegraceproject.com/grace_audio_messages.html I particularly recommend The Pathway-an introduction into Freedom in Christ series.

Bill Gillham, particularly his book: Lifetime Guarantee

Longings

I decided I should share a journal entry from a few days ago. This is not like me. I don't share my journal entries. Not because they are too private by any stretch, but because they are too boring. :) I'm not sure why this one is any different, but here goes!

July 27, 2007

I have been discontent. There is always a little bit of discontentedness in the back of my mind but some days it is much stronger. Today it was stronger. Discontentedness is generally a bad thing, but I'm not sure that this is. I'm trying to put my finger on what exactly I am discontent with.

I long for something bigger, something that will require my all. A greater every day purpose perhaps? But that is not quite it.

Sometimes it comes to my mind as the lover I hope to have someday, sometimes as children, sometimes as other countries, sometimes as a danger worth facing, sometimes as anything outside of this house and family, sometimes for peace within this house and family, sometimes I think it might be music that I seem to remember having felt, but can't remember actually having heard.

But any one of these things is not quite it, either. In my most honest moments I think my longing is too great even to be satisfied by the culmination of all these things. Am I just hard to please? Am I going to be a hopelessly discontent person for the rest of my life?

I know that all of these things at once can only happen in One Place and with One Person. So, although I hope that You will be granting some of these longings, or rather some of my longing, I realize that my real desire is for You, and the eternal perfection of a life with You.

This knowledge does not help me become content as I mostly feel heaven is a long time off. But I don't know that, do I? I can live as though heaven happens tomorrow. I only need enough contentment for today.

The oddest thing about the discontentedness that I mention in this journal entry is not that I am discontent, (which as I said has been going on more or less since I was born,) but rather that I am quite content at the same time. I used to be discontent in a very different sort of way.

In times past my discontentedness would fester for about a month or two and then I would come to Mom to spill it all out in anger and tears. At that time I was very sure what I was discontent with: myself, my Christianity, and God. I knew that He was my only answer . . . but He didn't seem to be answering anything.

Over the past months, maybe eighteen now, He has been expanding my little mind. He has been telling me that I wasn't content with my Christianity because I had created my own god.

The god I created was not a blood sucking idol. He was a very decent, encouraging, wise sort of chap who chanted "keep it up, try harder, you're almost there!" and

"You really should have read your Bible today. It is going to be awful since you didn't. But don't worry, I know you'll do better tomorrow. Tomorrow you will try harder." and

"Of course I accept you just as you are. I'm just asking you to be a little kinder to your family; that is not too much is it?" and

"I love you unconditionally. Why else would I come and die an agonizing death for an insignificant person like you?" and

"Dear, dear, IF you love me you will keep my commandments. You keep saying you love me, but look at all those commandments you keep breaking. This is all you can give me? Of course not, you just don't love me enough."

Did I say decent, encouraging? No, my god was demanding and manipulative, always keeping me on the downhill slope. Telling me to try harder, telling me I wasn't good enough, telling me he deserved more.

I did try. I tried to love him. I tried to obey him. I tried to be good enough. I tried to believe hard enough. I tried to be more humble. I tried to confess my sins. I tried fasting. I tried praying.

The outbursts came every now and then when I was honest with myself that it wasn't working. But I knew it should work because God is not a liar, so I tried harder. The last outburst I was more honest than ever before. My 'god' WAS lying to me. He knew that I didn't have any more to give, he promised peace and joy. I didn't have either.

After that, things gradually changed. Very slowly, very gently, one step at a time, I began to take God at His actual word and stopped trying to figure everything out and make sense of Him. I told Him I wasn't trying any more, I didn't understand anymore. I told Jesus that I would believe, in spite of my experience, that He was indeed good. But to believe anything else . . . I just didn't know. If He wanted me to have any greater understanding of Himself then He would have to build it Himself.

So He built. He continues to build (or is it heal?) me. For the first time in my life the 'good news' is actually good enough to try to explain even when there is so much that I don't understand yet and so much that sounds foolish.

All those things that I think might be the answer to my longing? they are just ways that I haven't had the opportunity to experience God yet. So am I content or not? Well . . . I am deeply happy (my circumstances are not always happy, but I am.) And yet, I want more.

My aim is to know Jesus,
to experience the power of His resurrection,
to share in His sufferings,
and to be like Him in His death . . .
(Philippians 3:10)