God: Alone and Lonely: Part 4-Sharing the Heart of God

After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: 'I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.'

When two people see the same thing the same way, a life long friendship begins.  But to have the same passion for the same reason is a bond of the heart.

This is what David had with God, from God’s very own perspective! 

For God to find a man or woman on earth who shares the same passion He does is an honor beyond description for that man or woman.

I remember getting a glimpse of this in college, and experiencing the reality in marriage.

I met someone in college that shared the same desire I had for God:  For God to speak to me face to face, intimately, and directly.  When this woman said she wanted God to talk to her, to not just read verses about God’s love, but for God to tell her personally that He loved her, my heart melted.  When I said, “I want the same thing,” we instantly loved each other.  I understood her, and she understood me.  But she didn’t make it her life’s aim to find this with God, so we couldn’t share this bliss together.

Years later, on the night I met my wife, we realized we saw the same movie, a very rare movie, and felt the same thing about it.  We both wanted the same thing in life for the same reason.  There was an indescribable and permanent bond I felt with her, a bond that remains until this day.

Imagine God feeling this about you.  Imagine God listening to you as you tell him your deepest desire, and God saying, “I feel exactly the same way.”  Or imagine God sharing a deep and intimate thought or feeling from His Spirit with you, and imagine you saying to God, “I feel exactly the way You do.”

This is what it means to be a man or woman after God’s own heart.

God: Alone and Lonely-Part 3 (Face to Face with God)

The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Exodus 33:11a

The word of God doesn’t say Moses “spoke to God face to face, as one speaks to a friend.”  God is the one speaking openly, plainly, and candidly with Moses like friends do.  This verse assumes we know how friends speak face to face.  The picture needs no explanation.

As we said with Abraham, true friendship assumes trust.  Face to face openness takes this kind of trust for granted. But it also assumes access to someone in a way that others don’t have.

Friends meet and connect with each other in ways that are unique to them.  They know each other’s mannerisms and tones of voice.  They know their body language.  They look each other in the eye, or both look at the same beautiful truth, understanding how it inspires them the same way.  In fact, as C.S. Lewis said, true friendship begins at that very moment, when two who thought they were each alone in feeling a certain way about a certain thing find that there is at last someone else in creation who understands and sees what they see!

God looks throughout the earth for those who understand Him, who see things the way He does.  God looks for men and women after his own heart….

God: Alone and Lonely (Part 2: God's Friend)

You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.  And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”and he was called God’s friend. 

James 2:22-23

Friends trust each other completely and implicitly.  Abraham trusted God like this, so God befriended him.  (Those who trust God are trustworthy to God.  This only makes sense.  If we distrusted a perfectly honest person, wouldn’t that be proof enough that we are untrustworthy, that our judgment was clearly off?)

Friends feel free to talk as much as they want or be silent.  They trust that they are accepted and acceptable. 

Friends never wonder what each other feel because they are free to share feelings of love or displeasure.  Knowing they won’t be rejected, they are safe in each other’s company.

Abraham and God were friends.  Even more interesting to me is that the scripture says Abraham “was called God’s friend.” It doesn’t say God was Abraham’s friend, which of course He was.  It speaks of God’s feelings for Abraham.  The honor of this is staggering to me.  I live for God to call me His friend, to have the reputation of being among His best friends:

Enoch

Abraham

Moses

David

I live not only by and for trusting God, but even more than this, to have the honor of God trusting me, the honor of being called God’s friend.

The ONLY place in America where there is LIBERTY

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.  The Apostle Paul

Singing with a chorus of men with angelic voices felt like heavenly power and glory.  We were free.  We were liberty.  The Spirit of God sang with us, in us, and through us.  In Atlanta, Georgia, on that day, there was liberty.  If you wanted to feel free, you could’ve come to rehearsal with me.

On the Central High School football field in Macon, Georgia, a band played to the rhythm of the drum line.  Our sticks and steps were one.  We were free.  If you wanted to experience liberty, Spirit empowered unity; you could have marched with me.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is in America, there is liberty.

It is no where else America.

Our flag doesn’t bring it about.

Nor does our constitution.

Nor our independence declarations.

Only God’s children are truly free.

Choruses and bands experience glimpses temporarily.

True liberty is perfect liberty (and justice) for all. 

Where do you go in America where every individual in that situation experiences perfect liberation?

Where ever that is, the Spirit is there.  Without Him, liberty is nowhere.

For those who have and know the Spirit of Liberty, let us be liberators by His power, celebrating eternal liberty, today, and everyday, until Christ comes to set the earth free from the tyranny and slavery of iniquity. 

May the slaves of Christ in America enjoy the celebration of our truest libertation--our eternal salvation, and may we show this nation the true meaning of freedom.

God: Alone and Lonely (Part 1)

"No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”  The Lord Jesus

“For who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.”  The Apostle Paul

God eternally exists alone and is “lonely.”  Not in the sense of being needy, in misery, or in any way unhappy, as if he needs Creature Company.  The Trinity is Their Own party, their own intimate company!

But in a sense God is alone and lonely in that no one understands Him but Them, except for those who seek Him out.  But who really seeks Him out?

Even in human relationships, few seek to know one another deeply and intimately, to experience the perfect vulnerability of being “naked and not ashamed.”  When is the last time you were genuinely listened to and understood?  It is rare to find this in one man or woman. It is even rarer for God to find true friends.

The reason is the same for God and humans:  We won’t accept God, or each other, for who we are, and who He is.  We won’t accept the fact that only God can reveal His heart and mind, in the same way that no one can know your thoughts unless you reveal them.  Have you ever had someone ask you what you were thinking and then change your thought so that you could keep that thought hidden?  Did you wonder how many people you’ve asked the same question did the same thing?  I’ve done both, and felt depressed afterward. 

“How can I really know anybody?”

“How can anybody really know me?”

Honesty and vulnerability, as well as thinking thoughts of which I am not ashamed.  This is how I can be known without fear.

But the only way to know anyone else is trust.  I have to trust that when I ask my friend his thoughts, he tells me exactly what he was thinking.  How else can I know him?

But I can always know God’s thoughts, because He has no fear of sharing them!  There are men of God in scripture that actually understood Him, men he considered friends.  We’ll think about them together…next time….

Leah's Song

She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, "This time I will praise the LORD." So she named him Judah. Then she stopped having children.  Genesis 29:35

Jacob had two wives:  Leah and Rachel. 
He loved Rachel, who was beautiful, more than he loved Leah, who had soft eyes.
God saw this. 
God saw Leah. 
God opened Leah's womb and closed Rachel's.

Leah had her first son, hoping Jacob would love her. 
But he didn't.  He loved Rachel.
She gave him another son for his love.
She gave a third son for his affection, receiving only rejection.
When God gave her a fourth son, she no longer sought Jacob’s love.
With this son, she praised the Lord, the one who saw her pain and rejection.

I know how Leah felt. 
Before I met my Lucy I sought love and intimacy, remaining lonely.

“Maybe this relationship will make me happy.”
“Maybe this girlfriend will want to marry me.”
“Maybe this one will follow me wherever God leads me.”
“God sees me.  God loves me.  God desires me.  This time I will praise the Lord.”

“Maybe my father will call me.”
“Maybe he’ll remember my birthday.”
“Maybe he’ll like what I bought him for Father’s Day.”
“God created me.  He is my Father.  He is my Dad. This Father's Day, I will praise the Lord."

This time, I will praise the Lord.

"I Give You Praise."  Richard Smallwood

Saying what we FEEL (Part 2)

My two year old daughter struggles to make complete sentences.  My wife and I see her searching for words to match her desires.  She experiences something, like hunger.  Her feeling of hunger feels like a banana.  The sensation needs translation:  “Mommy, I want a banana, Mommy.” 

Words are the translation of the revelation of emotion, pointing to the object that will fulfill their desire. 

Having forgotten this time in our lives, we take our words for granted, as if they are our original language.  But crying is our native language---Feelings without words that are very real.  We feel.  But what do we feel?  When we find the perfect words for our desires, we experience bliss, in the words of C.S. Lewis,

“Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words.”

Musicians, artists, poets, and dancers desire what we desire:  To say what we really feel.  To be raw.

Babies don’t know how to hide their feelings.  They don’t know which feelings are right or wrong, good or bad.  Is there such a thing as a good or bad feeling?

It depends on the object desired.

It is written, “Abhor evil, cling to what is good.”

So, if we feel good about what is good, and feel bad about what is bad, our feelings are right and good.  But initially, our feelings are neutral.  Simple facts experienced.  Until we investigate what they are and why we feel them, we cannot judge them.

What should we do?

1.       Feel what we feel.

2.       Tell the truth to ourselves and God about our feelings.

3.       Share them if necessary for intimacy, connection, or correction.

4.       If we find our feelings are wrong, then we change our focus, because a wrong feeling means a wrong focus on a specific object. 

Objectless feelings are of the devil.  Satan hates because he is hate.

But God is love.

Therefore, all feelings should have love at their root, even our anger, even our displeasure.

May we be love like God is love, so that we may be free to say what we feel.