Summing up
I have been asked plenty of times in the past week, “So, how was your time in BV? What’d you get?”
I still feel like I don’t have anything distinct to say in that regards, but figured I would let wondering minds know.
Going into the weekend I was already feeling like “what more could You want to do in me,” considering the previous week had felt like an intensive surgical counseling week from God. So by the time I got to Frontier – driving through white out conditions have you – I wasn’t up for much more than recovery.
Going into the weekend the consistent sense I received from God was, “listen and be quiet in your words and thoughts.” A lot of that, horizontally, had to do with listening to all these other men’s stories and being pretty stealth about mine until God wanted me to speak. In that whole sense, I’m still processing what happened, what he is saying to me about all that. See, (and I don’t approach this with arrogance or self-righteousness, but more with humbled knowing) I often found myself in a position of, to use a military analogy, senior officer in regards to experience, healing, depth regarding the journey. Make sense? Here I was with men much older than me, listening to their stories and what they were receiving and how very new, very unfamiliar they were with this kind of living and this kind of Jesus. The result, God had me speaking, guiding these men, towards the end of the weekend, into the practicals of it all. The image is the feeling I imagine Easy had when Replacements showed up well past Bastonge – don’t discount them cause they are green, but be wise in what you actually say and what they can learn only from experience.
On the vertical side of things. Almost regularly, with every session, I sensed God’s affirmation on my life, on all that He had shown me, healed, shaped, restored. It was the corporate “out there” confirmation of all the ways and things God had been doing and saying to me privately. There was a drawing together of my whole life from birth to now of how He had raised me, long before I knew Him; the means He had used to grow me in who He had in mind, and that it didn’t just start at “accepting Jesus,” but long before that. And, how as absent and fearful as my dad was, there were so many men along the way who helped “raise” me into the man I am. Thankful am I. Central, though, is something I learned long ago. David was never really “discipled” by another man. That happened in his on-going, unpredictable relationship with God. No amount of another man’s involvement can take the place of that in my life and damn if I am not deeply grateful for God’s desire to be that for me as he has been all along.
All that said, I read this in Jer. 7, “The Lord God of Israel...says: Change the way you have been living and do what it right...stop putting your confidence in the delusive belief that says, ‘we are safe.’” The sense I continue to have underlying everything is, the view on living has shifted, the way I operate has/is different...probably more confident in who and Whose I am.
In “The Fellowship of the Ring” Frodo and Gandalf are talking about what Frodo will do with the Ring. Frodo says, “As for where I am going it would be difficult to give that away, for I have no clear idea myself, yet.” Later down Gandalf returns with “But you cannot see very far. Neither can I. It may be your task to find the Cracks of Doom, but that quest may be for others: I do not know...”
“No indeed!” said Frodo “But in the meantime what course am I to take?”
“Towards Danger; but not too rashly, nor too straight, “ answered the Wizard.
This has resonated with me this week in regards to all that I have received from God over the past 2-3 weeks. I, (no surprise here) have no clear idea myself, yet, but I get the sense it is “towards Danger” and not too rashly, nor to straight. It will be interesting to see what that means.
I still feel like I don’t have anything distinct to say in that regards, but figured I would let wondering minds know.
Going into the weekend I was already feeling like “what more could You want to do in me,” considering the previous week had felt like an intensive surgical counseling week from God. So by the time I got to Frontier – driving through white out conditions have you – I wasn’t up for much more than recovery.
Going into the weekend the consistent sense I received from God was, “listen and be quiet in your words and thoughts.” A lot of that, horizontally, had to do with listening to all these other men’s stories and being pretty stealth about mine until God wanted me to speak. In that whole sense, I’m still processing what happened, what he is saying to me about all that. See, (and I don’t approach this with arrogance or self-righteousness, but more with humbled knowing) I often found myself in a position of, to use a military analogy, senior officer in regards to experience, healing, depth regarding the journey. Make sense? Here I was with men much older than me, listening to their stories and what they were receiving and how very new, very unfamiliar they were with this kind of living and this kind of Jesus. The result, God had me speaking, guiding these men, towards the end of the weekend, into the practicals of it all. The image is the feeling I imagine Easy had when Replacements showed up well past Bastonge – don’t discount them cause they are green, but be wise in what you actually say and what they can learn only from experience.
On the vertical side of things. Almost regularly, with every session, I sensed God’s affirmation on my life, on all that He had shown me, healed, shaped, restored. It was the corporate “out there” confirmation of all the ways and things God had been doing and saying to me privately. There was a drawing together of my whole life from birth to now of how He had raised me, long before I knew Him; the means He had used to grow me in who He had in mind, and that it didn’t just start at “accepting Jesus,” but long before that. And, how as absent and fearful as my dad was, there were so many men along the way who helped “raise” me into the man I am. Thankful am I. Central, though, is something I learned long ago. David was never really “discipled” by another man. That happened in his on-going, unpredictable relationship with God. No amount of another man’s involvement can take the place of that in my life and damn if I am not deeply grateful for God’s desire to be that for me as he has been all along.
All that said, I read this in Jer. 7, “The Lord God of Israel...says: Change the way you have been living and do what it right...stop putting your confidence in the delusive belief that says, ‘we are safe.’” The sense I continue to have underlying everything is, the view on living has shifted, the way I operate has/is different...probably more confident in who and Whose I am.
In “The Fellowship of the Ring” Frodo and Gandalf are talking about what Frodo will do with the Ring. Frodo says, “As for where I am going it would be difficult to give that away, for I have no clear idea myself, yet.” Later down Gandalf returns with “But you cannot see very far. Neither can I. It may be your task to find the Cracks of Doom, but that quest may be for others: I do not know...”
“No indeed!” said Frodo “But in the meantime what course am I to take?”
“Towards Danger; but not too rashly, nor too straight, “ answered the Wizard.
This has resonated with me this week in regards to all that I have received from God over the past 2-3 weeks. I, (no surprise here) have no clear idea myself, yet, but I get the sense it is “towards Danger” and not too rashly, nor to straight. It will be interesting to see what that means.