Definition

The following is from a brother, Mike Rule, you can view his blog here.

What he shared here is something in my opinion that was birthed out of his life being reduced to one thing, and in my opinion that one thing is, “That I might know Him”!

None of us who think we know our inner motives, reasoning’s, and heart attitudes know any reality apart from His divine untameableness blessing our lives by working utter devastation in them.
Jesus is NOT an add on to what may already be working so wonderfully well in your already smooth sailing life, He has come as a Ruling Prince, bearing a sword, His intent is division, separating the flesh from the spirit, and therein lies the unpronounceable pain.
Out from this prolonged agony is birthed the living ecstasy of knowing Him and wanting nothing more than for that burning reality to consume the wood, hay and stubble that I have known as living in the “real world.”

Rich


I am realizing more and more that our hope cannot be in what God is going to do in our situation. It cannot be in Him changing the circumstances; it cannot be in Him changing us IN the circumstances. Our hope can only be in Him, and Him alone. I teach, preach, and counsel that Jesus is enough, but in daily life I really struggle to believe it when God makes so little sense. Amen. I am glad to participate in His life, to be involved with a God who is not predictable, who really is not safe. But I am so thankful that He is good, all the time. However, there are SO many times when it does not FEEL like He is good.

Recently, as He and I were having a discussion, He point blank said, "Mike, I love you as you are. Flesh and all. Stop expecting yourself to change. Stop expecting me to do some miraculous thing to save you from your circumstances. Stop expecting me to do so miraculous thing to save you IN your circumstances. Am I not enough for you?" As I have continued to walk this journey and argue with God, I still continue to pray as He has led, "ENOUGH". During one of these discussion/arguments, He recently revealed something very profound. One of the Hebrew names of God - Shaddai - is translated into English as, "Almighty God", but it can also just as easily be translated to mean, "That's Enough." I find that interesting to say the least. The timing of His revelation is quite profound to me and not a coincidence I am sure. What does it all mean? I have no clue. In the past I would have made many assumptions about what it meant. Now? As I said, I have no clue. However, I trust Him to teach me in spite of all my kicking and screaming and cussing.

We all want so much attention from God. We want Him to make things go OUR way. We have huge temper tantrums when God does not do things the way we want, in the time we want. Most of us have made God into an idol, and we attempt to craft Him after our own designs, but He cannot be crafted. He cannot be forged. He does not play the game according to our rules, and so often He does not play the game according to our perception of His rules. Did it ever occur to you that your frustration is a revelation about your situation?

Can you take up the challenge to embrace this God who is untameable? It will be the greatest challenge of your life. He will not necessarily change you; He will not necessarily change your circumstances. Isn’t it arrogant of us to think He even wants to? We stress and fuss about our circumstances and think they are the problem. But the problem is rarely if ever the problem. WE fuss and stress about ourselves too, we conclude that maybe WE are the problem. Did it ever occur to you that it may not even be about your comfort or happiness?

Again, I ask, can you take up the challenge to embrace this God who is untameable? You will learn things about yourself that will make you shudder in revulsion. You will learn things about Him that you will not like. Yet you will also find encouragement and hope in spite of it all. Is it worth it? Honestly, I don't know. For me, the verdict is still out. But this I can say... just as the disciples said to Jesus, "To whom else can we go? Only You have the words of eternal life" Amen? Amen!

“May all your expectations be frustrated, may all your plans be thwarted, may all your desires be withered into nothingness, that you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and sing and dance in the love of God who is Father, Son, and Spirit.”

Beached Whales

“Why are you so despondent?” I asked my friend while enjoying a great cup of coffee in our favorite coffee shop. Haltingly, he began to divulge his feelings of hopelessness and despair. “I feel much like a beached whale simply waiting for the inevitable to speed up my demise,” he sighed. “I believe I’ve missed out on God’s best for my life.”

“What makes you think that?” I asked.

“Because it was always my intention to remain on the mission field doing what I know God called me to do, but because of a series of unforeseen events, and then life happening, here I am doing what couldn’t be anything further away from that goal!”

My friend had fallen into the trap of believing that, due to life’s circumstances, having to give up his ‘ministry’ to work at a ‘secular’ job meant failure in terms of fulfilling God’s destiny for his life. It’s heartbreaking to see how so many believers have been crippled – essentially rendered spiritual quadriplegics – because of believing such lies.

So many of us, especially those now outside of the institutional religious (church) establishments, feel that we have missed out on God’s best. But, unless we know the surpassing greatness of His total unconditional love for us, and apart from this being our foundation, we will inevitably become ensnared by the father of lies who is relentless in his efforts to keep us from the true knowledge of Whose we are.

Here is Jesus’ definition of success: “And this is the real and eternal life: That they know you, the one and only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.”

Let’s look at how this is defined by our brother Paul: “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

If our lives are not defined by, in and through the Father’s love alone, then we have missed His very best. One of the prayers Paul prayed for the church is this: “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Maybe His ‘calling’ or specific vocation for each of us is simply this: that we be totally His, and in the process of learning to be His discover a depth of love that has no conditions attached to it.

It is not enough to know God’s forgiveness. If that’s it, then we are eternally ‘beholden’ to the Lord (as we should be) for his sacrifice on the cross and relieved to be in his good books, but that doesn’t in and of itself transform our lives. What does transform us is learning that there is nothing we can add to our title of ‘child of God’ that causes Him to approve of or delight in us more than He does already – even if we never ‘do’ anything for Him! Learning to rest in that love will result in establishing a growing, deepening vibrant intimate relationship with God as our Father, and that is God’s best.

Rich