In the meantime, I will be working on taking the words and ministry of Jesus in the Gospels and writing them out in novel form- that is, descriptively. I have been asking Jesus for a few years now to please let me write it, and the answer had been to wait. While I've waited, I've been reading the Gospels over and over again, partly because I hunger to see Him there, but also, to get the rhythm of His words and ministry worked into my understanding. But now the answer is yes, so I have begun. I must steward my time very well. I might be sharing pieces from that work.
October 1, 2017
I’ve been seeing Jesus in Nazareth and Capernaum, and it’s something about the white stone dust smudged across the back of His thumb, the way the sunlight bakes the ground, the way the air is fresh and clear in the early morning and the chill of the water as it touches your face, and the way His smile creates dimples at the corners of His mouth, seen even under the beard. Or the heap of stiff and discarded sandals by the main door to the outside, and the feeling of putting them on again to go back outside and into the dirty street, and steaming cups of something hot to drink in the morning.
Standing,
holding carefully the loose woven garment I had been hemming with a sliver of a
bone needle, aware of how much work had gone into the getting of the wool from
the raising of sheep, and the washing and carding and weaving of that wool, and
aware of the care that had gone into the shaping and cutting of the garment,
and therefore, hemming it carefully, with a needle that is bound to
break sooner or later, but easing it through, because to make another or to get
another was time taking work, as it all was. Holding all this in one hand, and
holding the work roughed hand of Yeshua in the other, in the evening light,
sounds echoing off the hills and rising from the narrow village streets with
the high walls, neighbors on roofs nearby, the hills rosy, parts in shadow
already.
All of
these details and more, revealed in slow motion, under great light, in
His presence- watching the way in which Yeshua moves- slowly and surely, with
deliberate grace. He sits for long periods of time, listening and watching. The sound of
His voice is marked, because only rarely does He speak. He is endowed with
dignity and authority that is recognized by his family and community, but in an unspoken way. It's the way they watch Him and unconsciously defer to Him- before He had begun His ministry.
October 2, 2017
October 2, 2017
“But He Himself often withdrew into solitary (desert) places to pray,” I have been
reading many times, as I pick up the Bible and begin again in the Gospels, in
Luke.
But He Himself. That phrase is what captures me.
“You. most Holy Lord,” I say to Jesus- the Lord Himself, visible, historical,
tangible. That’s where He was, that’s what He was actually doing- in His
historical life far from my reach. I cannot go back in time and search those hills and tracks and desert places to find Yeshua, the Prophet from Nazareth, the long awaited Messiah of God, in the places where He had gone to pray. Besides, He is holding
such dignity and tangible holiness that, even if I had been born then, I wouldn’t dare try.
And then I
remember that it is that same Jesus who makes His home in me. He is not far
away. He is not unreachable. Then I turn to Him and I pour out worship and
adoration and gratitude and Jesus says to me, you know Me and says all those sweet phrases that He always says.
Furthermore, I do see Jesus and not only that, but I may be enfolded into His presence in the same way in which a person is lowered down into water for baptism- that is, enveloped. He reminds me that He is the Good Shepherd who leads His own to the springs of the Living Waters, and He gives them to drink.
Furthermore, I do see Jesus and not only that, but I may be enfolded into His presence in the same way in which a person is lowered down into water for baptism- that is, enveloped. He reminds me that He is the Good Shepherd who leads His own to the springs of the Living Waters, and He gives them to drink.
"I bind my
wandering heart to Thee," I have said sometimes to Jesus lately, when my soul
hungers and thirsts for something else, or is stirred up into a passion by some
deeply moving, but essentially worldly image. Then I deliberately bring to mind
Jesus. His ethnicity and His words are the two things that have the most immediate
effect- that Jesus is Jewish by human birth through His mother Mary, and that He said, “Truly, truly I say to you, you seek Me not because you saw signs, but
because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not work for the food which
perishes, but for that food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man
will give you. For God the Father has set His seal on Him.”
Then I see
His clarion eyes as He looks up unexpectedly, the intelligence and determination in them striking, and His long, curling black lashes that partly shade
them when He looks down, and His thick, strongly marked eyebrows, and I
see the taut, sunburned skin of His cheek bones and the curling texture of His thick beard, and I know that Jesus is a living person, a Hebrew, the son of David, and He lives now, and I know that He is the only One. I have only one longing, I have only one direction.
October 5,
2017
On
Thursday, I pray with my aunt at nine o’clock in the morning, and so at
twenty before nine, I began preparing for prayer. What I wanted to do was to pray over the house
and to ask forgiveness and to be washed in the blood so that I could lift up
others to Jesus and to do His work as He guides me in direction and words.
So I was
praying in tongues heavily, and the fear of the Lord had come down over me.
Jesus was making me entirely conscious of His reality, His glory and His
authority. I was seeing in a spiritual way His throne, and I knew in a way that
I can’t describe that He is God and God alone, that all power belongs to Him
and that He is good in everything and righteous in all that He does.
This was
taking away every scrap of pride, self-reliance and self-defense in me. What was left was only who the Lord made and then redeemed- a small
but beloved, created self, entirely dependent upon
God. I put my little self before the Lord Jesus in complete submission to Him, depending
upon Him for His mercy, His goodness and His ability.
Jesus told me to put on
the music that I usually listen to during my devotional time with Him. I swiftly obeyed Him in this request, as I had been doing in everything He had instructed. As soon as
the melodious, well known sounds of that piece of music began playing, the
atmosphere of tender, personal love infused effortlessly into the heavier
atmosphere. It did not diffuse the fear of God, but it washed into and saturated it, so that both together were speaking in a harmony.
I knew immediately Jesus wanted this infusion of both together, and that is why He had told me to put that music on in that moment, because what it was doing was carrying away old thought structures in my mind, healing and renewing my mind.
I was in tears, physically on my face before Jesus, murmuring broken phrases in tongues, because even in that language, I could only begin to speak what I felt. I bowed myself down before Him and
placed my cheek against His feet, which I could see in a spiritual way as though He were standing before me. An awareness of how close I
am to Him and how much He had given Himself to me washed through my mind,
carrying away doubt and shame and leaving in itself place nothing but worship in its most basic definition, which is to bow down, to prostrate oneself, and to give oneself as a sacrifice of obedience.
I could not understand why Jesus, the King of Heaven, holy and sovereign and perfect- the Son of the Living God, should give to me, a person of flesh and blood, imperfect, flawed, finite, such ineffable gifts of His presence, and pour into me so much of His intensely personal love.
I could not understand why Jesus, the King of Heaven, holy and sovereign and perfect- the Son of the Living God, should give to me, a person of flesh and blood, imperfect, flawed, finite, such ineffable gifts of His presence, and pour into me so much of His intensely personal love.
This
lasted for some time, until the music ended by my receiving the call from my aunt. The Holy Spirit had not given her anything to pray for, so after placing
myself fin the hands of the Holy Spirit, I took the papers and read the prayer
from them. In it, I had included Jesus' prayer of forgiveness from the cross. When I reached this point, Jesus opened His heart to me. It was not a seeing; it was a knowing. I was sobbing and it was a while before I could take up the prayer and continue with it.
October
10, 2017
Jesus just
gave me a little glimpse of the beauty of the story that He has written in my
life. He usually keeps the blinders on me like those that working
horses use so they can only see straight ahead and not get distracted by what
is going on around them. This a gift from Him, as there is usually a lot going on, and yet steady obedience is still required.
I saw how Jesus has been with me since the very beginning, and His delight in me, and how He has delighted to grow me up and to be with me, seeing the end from the beginning, and just liking me. I am full of flaws and I find myself very annoying, but Jesus likes me. He created me, so He must have created me to be attractive and enjoyable to Himself. If I think about it that way, I can believe it.
I saw how Jesus has been with me since the very beginning, and His delight in me, and how He has delighted to grow me up and to be with me, seeing the end from the beginning, and just liking me. I am full of flaws and I find myself very annoying, but Jesus likes me. He created me, so He must have created me to be attractive and enjoyable to Himself. If I think about it that way, I can believe it.
When I saw His enjoyment of walking me through this journey of
learning to see Him and to love Him and to trust Him, my eyes opened wide, and Jesus burst into laughter. It's like sunlight
breaking out from a cloud- light hearted and pure joy and all good.
In heaven,
there is nothing but what is holy and uncorrupted.The original intent, the
original goodness at the beginning with God, is kept there, and the glorious goodness of the
end in God is there, and in between in heaven, nothing but God, and to God, all things
given in the gratitude of faith. In heaven, it is safe to be seen for what one
really is, because God has ordained that in the first place.
October
19, 2017
Sat down,
immediately lost in meditation on how Jesus is close to me, right
within spiritual reach. I can reach Him and be with Him. Saw a swift
glimpse of His face, saw the golden nest, saw a large green leaf held over my
head- big as an umbrella. I thought about how I used to have the stone house and now there is the golden nest. Saw
the view of the mountainsides far below me as I wafted on air currents
lifting up, gliding upward and across, seeing
with detail the landscape below. But I withdrew from that
seeing, because along with the joy was something like pride. So I pushed it
away.
“With the
seeing, I want to stay in the straight and narrow,” I said to Jesus, meaning,
there might not be any harm in seeing that and it may well be spiritually true
in some sense, but it doesn’t do any good to see it either, and it’s not
necessary to know or to see oneself like that. All that is necessary is to see
the Lord Jesus and never look away from Him.
It’s similar to knowing that one
must have spiritual beauty because the Lord Jesus has said that one is very beautiful, but never does one ever want to look in the mirror
to see this- His face must be the only mirror. Anotherward, take heed
if you think you stand, lest you fall, and the best way to take heed is to look
at Jesus all the time and never at oneself.
It is extremely important not to care about one’s own potential or actual beauty. There are severe and sobering passages of Scripture that make clear that Israel’s downfall was partly the fact that their beauty, given to them by Yahweh, their Husband by covenant- that beauty which was a gift, caused them to turn vain and turn to others, which is a desecration and a horrible thing.
It is extremely important not to care about one’s own potential or actual beauty. There are severe and sobering passages of Scripture that make clear that Israel’s downfall was partly the fact that their beauty, given to them by Yahweh, their Husband by covenant- that beauty which was a gift, caused them to turn vain and turn to others, which is a desecration and a horrible thing.
Besides which, Jesus, Who was and is the most beautiful of all, the Glory of God and flawless in loveliness, left all His glory behind and humbled
Himself to become like humankind, and came down even farther to
serve and not to be served, was a Man of sorrows and afflicted and not
esteemed and had no beauty and was counted a sinner and made sin that we might
be the righteousness of God, so that He might present us to Abba as sons and daughters of the Living God. That is devotion, that is holiness- to be so open handed with one's own beauty that you are willing to lose it all to lift others up. That is the perfect beauty, that is the glory of the Lamb of God, who has no equal and is given all dominion and authority and power and glory, and is the glorious Head of His church.
So I
returned to Jesus and settled in. Saw His
hand, work roughened, saw the rough stones of Galilea. Took His
heavy hand in both of mine. Thought about
the demanding life He had to lead in the time of history that He lived.
Thought with joy of how, when I die, I
will know Him. Jesus will not a stranger- I will already have a long, long
history of loving and obeying and trusting Him. I will finally see fully the
One I love and know now. Thinking on that always makes my love for Him spring
up like a fountain.
“Lord
Jesus, I give You the glory, I give You the praise,” I was saying almost
sleepily, as He was drawing me into the heart of His presence, every anxiety
and hindrance ebbing away in His peace. “Any wisdom that I might have is really
Yours and came from You. Apart from You, I know nothing good and have nothing
good.”
“I will
make my boast only in the Lord, I will boast in the Lord,” is the phrase that
often I have been using lately, because I never want to be arrogant in my
fearlessness. Apart from the Lord, I am a sitting duck. But I am never apart
from Him, and within Jesus, I am sheltered and provided for and guided and I
must have no fear.
That’s
what I say often when I think back to some of my prayers and am tempted to
think well of myself because of my fearless stance in some of those situations,
which I have not written down, for various good reasons, but when I start to
think about them, almost immediately, my thoughts begin to veer off in an
unbalanced manner toward pride, and Jesus caused me to see something that
humbled me immediately and gave me a more sober point of view.
One can
never, ever be arrogant in spiritual warfare. On the other hand, one cannot be
timid or fearful either. So the best way forward is to say always, “I will make my
boast in the Lord,” and be fearless for His sake and be fierce hearted and
unrelenting because of His name and the truth and power of His word.
November
9, 2017
Again, or
as usual, struggling with doubt. There are two ways I can
go with this now, after all this time, after all the confirmations and
countless comforting statements that Jesus has made to me and given me. The
first and most obvious is to condemn myself as hopeless, never to
overcome this struggle. I am tempted sometimes to go this way, and even begin
heading down this road, but the kindness of Jesus stops me.
The other
way that is beginning to take shape, is to realize that
Jesus is using this particular weakness to His glory, and through the weakness,
He is making perfect His strength, and that His grace is sufficient for me with
this, to carry me through time and time again. This requires a great deal of
trust, but it also makes possible a great deal of triumphant thanksgiving.
The important thing to remember about that passage in II Corinthians, was that Paul was given a thorn in his side to keep him from excessive pride. So whatever was constantly bothering him, humility was the outcome. And that is the outcome also here. I cannot become carelessly overconfident, or take what I've been given for granted, or use it for myself, because the doubt forces me look intently and expectantly and urgently to the Lord and His word to overcome it. The end result is that I am constantly depending on the faithfulness of the Lord and His word, and not myself.
The important thing to remember about that passage in II Corinthians, was that Paul was given a thorn in his side to keep him from excessive pride. So whatever was constantly bothering him, humility was the outcome. And that is the outcome also here. I cannot become carelessly overconfident, or take what I've been given for granted, or use it for myself, because the doubt forces me look intently and expectantly and urgently to the Lord and His word to overcome it. The end result is that I am constantly depending on the faithfulness of the Lord and His word, and not myself.
Even so, I must still consciously choose belief over doubt. I cannot reach the presence of
Jesus with doubt. Trying to do that would be like getting into the car, turning on the ignition, getting my directions, and then pressing down on the brake. The
car will not leave the driveway. I might have a full tank of gas, I might know
exactly where I’m trying to go, I might have driven there a hundred times. But
if I don’t take my foot of the brake, I’m not going anywhere.
And Jesus
is meltingly merciful with me, merciful because He sees all the way down
through the layers of my heart and soul, the way in which my understanding has been built up,
because He created me and built that up in me. Jesus knows a lot of my doubt comes from a high estimation of Him and a low estimation of me.
Jesus made it very clear that I must think of Him, and relate to Him, as a husband, in a spiritual way symbolic of His love and commitment for His Church, in order that others might be drawn to Him, to come to Him at a similar depth of commitment and surrender. This is not an easy or light understanding to receive. Jesus told me that He would not have given it to someone who would not tremble in the light of it.
Jesus made it very clear that I must think of Him, and relate to Him, as a husband, in a spiritual way symbolic of His love and commitment for His Church, in order that others might be drawn to Him, to come to Him at a similar depth of commitment and surrender. This is not an easy or light understanding to receive. Jesus told me that He would not have given it to someone who would not tremble in the light of it.
It's often difficult for me to see how someone as holy and real as the
Lord Jesus could possibly want to be that closely associated with someone like myself, who is also real, but embarrassingly real, and not even close to being holy, as each
day, I fail to love Him with all of my strength, all of my breath, all of my
heart and I fail each day to love my neighbor as myself, and often before
entering His presence, I must confess a whole welter of embarrassing sins, like
selfish thoughts, motives and even actions.
This would
be crushingly discouraging, except that I have read that the closer
one gets to the Lord in communion, even small sins and imperfections become awful to one's perception.
This is not at all because Jesus is exacting or unmerciful, He is not- Jesus is
altogether lovely, He is brimming over with tender hearted mercy
and loving kindness.
But Jesus
is perfect in holiness, in love, and in obedience, and in
His light, even small imperfections are revealed- and of course,
forgiven, and hurts are revealed, and healed, and wrong burdens are revealed,
and removed.
In any
case, I am a real person, with flaws and faults and not close to the
beautiful perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet I am made His garden, where He lives and where a harvest is always being tended. Week after week, He tends this garden growing in my heart, day after day I am invited and drawn up past my doubts to where the
Lord waits for me to abandon all that hinders and to curl up
close to His heart, and to trust in His mercy and to trust in His
goodness and to trust in His faithfulness.
I lay my
head down on the desk to go to Jesus, the way immediately opened, and I
was surrounded by His love like falling into water and having the water close
gently over your head and now one is submerged in living water
and there I remembered Jacob and his limp. It’s easy to think about that only
as a metaphor, but in reality, he limped.
A limp is not a graceful thing, and
it does in fact slow a person down considerably. Each day, Israel had to take a
step, pause, step, step, pause, step, as he went about his daily
work. The Lord declared he had wrestled with God and man and had won, and given him
a new name, but he went limping.
And there is that verse, "Who is this, coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her
beloved?" (Songs 8:5) It’s romantic, but she also was limping. In the wilderness, she
wrestled with the Beloved and she wanted nothing but to be as close to Him as possible always, and He granted it. But now she cannot walk without
leaning on Him. It is lovely and full of romance, but it’s real- it means that
she is reaching for Him at every moment- please help me out of this chair, help
me across the room, help me to this person’s house. Her eyes are full of
apology, and she is often tired, but she cannot live without Him and she
certainly cannot walk without Him. She hardly takes a breath of air that is
not scented with His robes; her head is always
against His shoulder as He carries her weight.
November
21, 2017
“Here is
Your servant,” I say, setting the coffee down and making myself quiet, and for
a moment, I wonder who I am talking to.
Then I
remember- I am talking to the One who received the following crowds with
compassion even though He and His disciples were exhausted with grief and had
just sailed across the lake to get some quiet.
I need
only think of Jesus in the Gospels, at any point in the Gospels, and love for
me wells up afresh for Him. As soon as I feel this, I thank Him. I know I
cannot take credit for this, Jesus built it into me.
If Jesus
were on the earth today, I would be saving up all my money to fly to where He
was and then I would do nothing but be as close and as helpful as possible and
hope that each day I might see a glimpse of Him and I would cherish that
glimpse all day and night and record it shamelessly in my diary so that I would never forget- “Today, in the
morning, Jesus smiled at me! I think He knows who I am!”
Of course,
that’s a silly example, but it conveys the feeling that I have for Him. That’s
why, when I can come close to Him, I am sometimes transported to heights of
ecstatic joy.
It's the kind of love that contains longing, acclamation, and adoration. People direct this kind of longing, desperately and
sadly, onto singers and actors and made up characters and then they spend all
their spare time thinking about them or saving up for tickets or reading stuff
on line about them, or collecting things.
I put my
head down to rest in Jesus, “I just come to You,” I said, “I’ve been writing so
much, I’m just coming to You,” and I nestled in and threw my arm around Him. Jesus welcomed me into His presence with ease and comfort, and then my thoughts
drifted again to those people who turn to other things to long for and aspire
to, and how it is even called, “idol worship,” and how it is truly that and how
awful it was. Mostly because it’s tawdry and empty; it’s pouring
out all your treasure and receiving an empty plastic cup in return.
Especially
when you compare this to true worship of the living God. Why worship empty
vanity, when you can worship the very Son of God? Here is a
Person who is breathing and real and flesh and blood and made of living light, who
is living glory, who is flawless beauty and yet scarred and with muscles and
callouses from heavy labor. Here is One who is brilliant and has all authority
and is the source of all creative expression, a perfect living poem, song
personified, worshiped endlessly by countless singing angels, songs that would
shake the foundation of the earth if we could hear them, who is enthroned on
praise and rides the clouds and He is as tender as a Lamb, and has eyes of
fire, and spoke Aramaic and Hebrew and grew up on this earth in northern Israel in the first century, and tasted the water of wells, and the wine of pressed grapes, ate
broken bread. Here is the Captain of the countless hosts of Heaven, the Dread
Champion of heaven, who trampled down death by death and raided hell and took
the keys and holds them forever in His hand, who sits on His throne with
perfect ease, without one shade of doubt or arrogance or anxiety, who is as
settled and calm as the morning sky.
What if
you could know Him! What if you were a close friend of His! What if you knew where He
lived and could enter His house, could walk right into a room where this
glorious, living Person is, and He turns to see you and His eyes light up and
He holds out His hand.
This is
actually possible. As this is possible, as it is possible to come close to the
only begotten Son of God, to come into His presence with joy, to be welcomed
even into His arms, why ever go anywhere else or look anywhere else? What else
is there?
Everything else reflects Him, anything good is a reflection of Him. The Lord is the Reality at the very center, the perfect image of God, the source of all Life. You don’t want to worship the reflection, you want to worship Jesus Himself.
Everything else reflects Him, anything good is a reflection of Him. The Lord is the Reality at the very center, the perfect image of God, the source of all Life. You don’t want to worship the reflection, you want to worship Jesus Himself.
December
4, 2017
Soon it
will be time to wrap up this year’s journal and begin a new one. These last few
days I have been quite drunk on love. I had been, as usual, begging the Lord to
let me see Him more clearly and to understand Him better, and He has been
answering that through the Passion translation. This is not the first time He
has answered that request with a version of the Bible- the last time, it was
the Voice translation, which taught me so much that I wanted to know.
I sometimes expect Jesus to dramatically peel back the heavens or to show me some glorious vision in order to teach me about Him, but I am used to this way He answers- through the Scriptures and because of my brothers and sisters in Christ who know more about Him than I do. I am learning wonderful things about Jesus in the footnotes. Just one phrase- "if one brings a hearing ear for himself, he will hear," filled me with wonder and love. Because that is how Jesus spoke that phrase, the order of the words. Sometimes there are the actual Aramaic words, and I do not know what I love more- the literal translation, or the words of the language itself. To know that those were the actual syllables He spoke, and that is the way the words were arranged, this shines so much light onto Jesus, and I have seen glimpses of Him that almost gave me chills, they were that powerful and clear.
I sometimes expect Jesus to dramatically peel back the heavens or to show me some glorious vision in order to teach me about Him, but I am used to this way He answers- through the Scriptures and because of my brothers and sisters in Christ who know more about Him than I do. I am learning wonderful things about Jesus in the footnotes. Just one phrase- "if one brings a hearing ear for himself, he will hear," filled me with wonder and love. Because that is how Jesus spoke that phrase, the order of the words. Sometimes there are the actual Aramaic words, and I do not know what I love more- the literal translation, or the words of the language itself. To know that those were the actual syllables He spoke, and that is the way the words were arranged, this shines so much light onto Jesus, and I have seen glimpses of Him that almost gave me chills, they were that powerful and clear.
"You know,"
I said, melting into His arms with laughter.
They’re
your treasures, He said, smiling.
I have
heaps of treasure that are beyond price. My treasures to Him are how I love and serve others here, giving away my time and talents and words, but His treasures to me are abounding and always kept with Him.
If you were asked, Would you like to love on the Lord Jesus and delight Him
and fill His heart with joy unspeakable?, how could you say anything but yes and
how is it possible?
And if
they said, No but this is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, who was crucified and who rose again, and you may love Him and delight Him and please Him and give
back to Him comfort and joy for all He suffered, what could a person say in
response, but I am not worthy even to be His servant taking care of His shoes?
And that would be
true, speaking for myself, but what if that was no objection, no obstacle? Then you would surely
give your life to doing that, only you would find that your strength is
miserably small and you fail Him in so many ways, and yet you find that His
grace is never ending, and carries you along, and His faithfulness is like a
rock, and establishes you on His goodness, and He keeps on working patiently in you to bring you to maturity. But there is never a moment where you are not carried by grace like a cloud, or settled on the rock
of His ability and faithfulness. You are
as frail as a paper lantern, but lit inside with the fire of God.
*
Post Script:
December 13, 2017
“This blog post is repetitious. Maybe I should cut out a lot...”
No, keep it all.
"Thank You for dinner," I said humbly, which was off topic, but I had to thank Jesus for His care, being, in His presence, reminded of His goodness.
I look forward to this new adventure with you, Jesus replied. Now you should record this.
*
Post Script:
December 13, 2017
“This blog post is repetitious. Maybe I should cut out a lot...”
No, keep it all.
"Thank You for dinner," I said humbly, which was off topic, but I had to thank Jesus for His care, being, in His presence, reminded of His goodness.
I look forward to this new adventure with you, Jesus replied. Now you should record this.
