Conversations, Reflections & Meditations


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Sign Guestbook \| View Guestbook Comments? Questions? [email protected]	Prayer topics Please, You Guide My Conversations With You, Lord The Church vs Cultural Trappings Please, You Guide My Conversations With You, Lord Date: February 17, 2007 I want to read the Bible... because I want to hear Your voice and be in Your Presence in that particular way (not to say that Your Presence isn't with me all the time, and that I must be aware of it and learn to see -- or at least trust -- You in every circumstance, event, etc. But I feel like I'm a bit "lost at sea" right now. It has been over a week since I was doing my "read-through" -- I "got behind" even before the "Jake book" arrived... And now I don't know "where to start." The other day I tried the "let it fall open" approach and it came to some passage in Isaiah that of course had value in it, but didn't seem to have the "relational" aspect to it that I've come to associate with seeking You in Your Word. (Of course, I suppose I'd be told that that is where the need for "discipline" comes in -- and "faith" -- just read it and hide it in your heart, and someday God will ring it to mind when you ned it" -- but what if I want You now? Oh, well, "there are dry periods, of course... you just hang in there and trust God and one day He'll finish whatever "wilderness work" He's doing in your life, and then you'll sense his presence again." But I wonder... Is that up and down, mountain/valley, winderness/springs lifestyle what You intend in our relationship? Yes, we live in a world that is "fallen" and yes we will experience suffering and sacrifice... I don't have a problem with that... but if it true that Your Spirit is in us, should we have all these "dry times" when it seems like we've been pulled apart? Yes, true, often times it is I who (like the parable of the seeds) get separated by the concerns of the world, or by failing to get rooted, or whatever distractions... is that always the cause? or maybe its like right now, I'm just not actually outright asking Your guidance and then quietly and trustingly waiting till You speak (so many words I hae written and yet I haven't asked the simple questions -- Lord, Father God, what do You want me to read in Your Word today? Please speak to me! Ok! There it is! Lord?? (Psalms... that is what I've been longing for, isn't it? Guess I'll just open to there and see where You take me?) (And yes, "in His law doth he meditate day and night" ... not just between 5 and 7 am but in all the circumstances of thecoming day... and maybe even in my dreams at night!) Okay, here I come, Father! Thank You! Eccl 5:1 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God [that's me! not the building]; to draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools; for they do not know that they are doing evil. 2. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you upon earth; therefore let your words be few. 3. For a dream comes with much business [true -- it's when my mind is "going in circles" that I dream crazy dreams and wake exhausted!] and a fool's voice with many words... 7. For when dreams incrase, empty words grow many [OR For in a multitude of dreams there is futility and ruin in a flood of words]: but do you fear God. Wow, Lord... it wasn't Psalms... just on the way... and You stopped me where I didn't expect (though that phrase "let your word be few" has been going through my mind over and over the past few days!) and yes, You spoke to me through Your Word. I do need to listen... many of my words are foolish. I have become proud about my writing... and much of what I have written lately is just empty prideful words from me... not me listening to You!! No wonder You've been holding me back from my website prayer postings -- and writing in my journal -- and sharing what I have written -- "for I did not know I was doing evil!" I've been a "fool"-- a morally empty person -- thinking I'm making a "sacrifice" -- ministry, service, worship -- by my many words (and my sometimes empty, obligatory, "devotions" -- not as often as they would be if it were not for Your kindness in speaking to me, guiding me anyway despite my foolishness -- wow! Thank You, Father! I did write some pretty rash and hasty words before You, Lord God, this very morning (I hae wondered about that sometimes, but "after all, isn't that what David did in the Psalms?" ... Oh... did I get that wrong, too... Prayer maybe isn't a "holy dumping ground" after all? Yes, bring my needs, questions, sorrows, joys, praise to You... (as if You didn't know all about it anyway) in trusting submission ... (vs my own personal indignation, frustration, desire to be vindicated, etc et)... and yes, lay it all at Your feet, take my hands off it... but in the process of that... "be not hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you upon earth, so let your words be few..." Yes, Lord, there has been an awful lot of "listen to me, I'm so wise; I want to be heard and recognized... and, yes, applauded" in everthing I have thought, said, written... And yet You have been so kind to keep pulling me back from those "rabbit trails" and lifting my eyes up (and I have resisted, I see that -- oh my! -- foolishness!) (Sorry, Lord... please forgive me...). Thank You for Your truth and Your Spirit, living Christ in me! Help me to never forget that You are God in heaven... and I am not god, nor ever will be, anywhere! ... "So let my words be few" ... Oh help me, dear Heavenly Father! My pride is such a problem! I see that I am the cause of the "dry places"!! (I'm just shaking my head, literally, in disbelief at what I truly am...) How can I even presume to say, "I'm sorry, please forgive Me" when most of the time I don't even mean it... I don't even really understand what that means at all... I just want to "get it over with"... really push it under the carpet!... and I really don't want (most of the time) to truly be sorry... and truly be wrong... and truly stop thinking about me... I seem to be hopeless, Lord... I am hopeless... Could I ever be changed? I can't change me. You say You want to change me... but I don't deserve it... When I want to change people, I want to do it so that I am in control... and so that I am happy, and I am vindicated, and I am treated with awe and respect... and I don't deserve any of those things.... But You deserve all of them... and they are totally viable reasons for You wanting me to submit... and yet that truly, really, isn't Your motivation at all, is it? You love me!!!! How can it be? How can You? (Just when I start to realize what "a worm" I am, all of my self-interest starts immediately to rise up inside of me, protesting violently against "letting myself be demeaned"... that is what I am like, isn't it?) Oh dear... You did have a purpose in waking me early this morning, while everyone else is asleep and it's quiet and maybe, just maybe, I might actually open my ears and hear a little bit of what You want to say... it's true, so much of the time I am just as hardhearted as the "Jews".... -- eyes and ears seem to be open... but never really seeing or hearing what You want to say to me -- Oh Lord! Please forgive me... please change me... please get rid of, destroy, the "me" in me... please!! I am sorry... and yes, I am ashamed. I've been so proud... and didn't even see it! I've anxiously been wanting to take notes from the "Jake book"... not so I can change, but so I can push it in other's faces and change them! I just didn't see it! I'm wrong, Lord! The book is okay... but my heart is not. I do see the truth in it... but I want it to change other people, not me. No wonder You've been holding me back, putting things in my way. (Now I'm really wanting to "get at it"... but mayb it's just "me" trying to rise up again, in protest... Lord, if You do want me to find and record those key points... please let it be in Your time, by Your leading, for Your purposes!) Please change me first. Please get rid of "me"! Please fill me with Your life... with You, Father God, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit... my Lord and God! ............. (When I first started to read this passage, right away I started to think in terms of "our church" being the house of God, and the "worship time" being the "sacrifice of fools" and the "dream" being their "vision".... and all these self-righteous, critical feelings and thoughts were rising up in me... and then Your very still, quiet, small voice gently said, "You are the house of God," and I realized that the foolish sacrifices were mine, and the any rash, proud words were mine, and the busy, foolish dreams came out of my busy foolish "me" and my own busy, foolish thoughts and ways... Oh Lord... "Let not my mouth lead me into sin" (or my pen!). I don' want to produce wasted, foolish work that You will just have to be angry at and destroy. Oh Lord, please don't let me waste the time and purposes You have designed for me to b a vessel for Your life being "lived out" in me... Please... I don't want to produce, any more, dreams and words that are just futility and ruin and emptiness, Lord. Better that I never write another word, ever again, that to produce even one more word that comes from the foolishness, pride, and futility of "me." Oh dear Lord God... Please help me begin and continue to truly fear You! (Psalm 86, 84:9-12) Thank You. Amen. Jesus, I am so in love with You. Thank You! Praise God! "Open my eyes that I may see visions of truth You have for me." Return to the top True Church vs Cultural Trappings Date: February 18, 2007 I got another email from the Tribes-of-Christ group. I remember in the past hearing preachers (native and non-native) telling other native people to give up anything that smacked of the old native spirituality. Now it seems there is a very strong movement that embraces many of those things (including sweats, etc) and "turns" them to being part of the Christian worship and walk. I wonder a lot about all this. How would that related, for example,to a secular person continuing to participate in the things that really represented his "worship" of the "god of this world" -- money, booze, whatever? (I'm sure we do a lot of that without even thinking about it because we don't see it as "religious" or "spirituality" and don't recognize that we did have -- sometimes still have in perhaps diminished form -- our own "gods"? I recognize there is a difference between cultural expression (language, clothes, social structures, art, music, housing styles -- general lifestyle, even) and religious expression (which I assume would include, in native terms, things like the use of dances, drumming, sweats, peyote, sweet grass, and the items used by the shaman with his "spirit guides" or whatever). But at the same time, there must often be a fine line and some gray areas. That makes me watch this online discussion with interest. I don't know the answer, though I have some ideas... I'm not sure if I even understand all the questions... I do think that a lot of it is wrapped up in the struggle of a people for basic surival as a community and people, for identity, for respect, for recognition as people of worth and value, etc. It is easy to glibly say, "Find your worth and value in Jesus" -- but what does that really mean? How does that relate to the way we express our cultural identity? How much ar we required to "change"? As a Christian, I have perhaps toned down some of my "fashion statements" to be modest and not to try and have people continually admiring "me" and approving of "me"... but nobody tried to make me totally change my style (ie to start dressing like people in the middle-East Christian church (and related culture) of Jesus' and the apostles' time!). But some people do dress "religiously." Same with food, etc. Does it make a difference if you are doing it out of free choice (perhaps to "identify" yourself as belonging to Jesus, just because you want to), or out of obligation (because a "church" says you have to -- and another culture, identifying itself as Christian, says you have to) or because you so closely relate your old clothes or food or cultural trappings to the "religion" you came out of (and you thereby, as Paul says, have a "weak conscience.")? Of course this brings up the whole question of freedom in Christ, another whole discussion about how that is worked out. Native people were basically forced to give up the majority of their cultural trappings by a "church culture" which did not, in many if not most cases, separate national culture from religious expression. Lord, I'm going to stop writing about this now because I don't really have any definitive answers, though I do have some thoughts (which are hard to express, somehow). I do know a few Biblical principles and examples that might related -- the question of freedom in Christ -- Gentiles not being forced to adhere to Jewish religious custom/law except for a very few specific items (which, interestingly enough, were closely related to their former trappings of pagan religion, including fornication, related to temple prostitution; meat with blood/meat, related to meat offered to idols; etc). -- there does not seem to be any specific reference to clothes, housing, etc, except as related to Godly principles of modesty, submissiveness in Christ, etc. We don't ask ourselves to make major cultural changes (though the "church" has, throughout history, done some strange things, like having "sacred languages -- ie Latin in the Catholic Church; thee/thou used till recently in Protestant churches -- and "dressing up" for church, I suppose, when we come to the Lord; probably because for hundreds of years (if not a lot longer) we have thought of ourselves as a "Christian nation(s)" and just assumed that that somehow made our cultural trappings (and our "religious traditions/trappings/rituals") "Christian" -- and therefore assumed that those of other cultural traditions are in all ways "pagan" and that those cultural/spiritual expressions must be eradicated when people from those traditions come to Christ. One thing is very clear in all this -- the church as the body of Christ, the family under the Father and the headship of Jesus, in love relationship that is based on the love fellowship, unity, oneness of Father, Son and Holy Spirit -- is very, very different than the cultural trappings and traditions that we refer to as "church" (buildings, governing structures, programs, cultural expectations, behavioural expectations, rules and regulations, rituals...). Yes, there is some overlap, and yes, Father, You patiently love and grow Your people wherever they are, but it is true that Your best, Your desire for Your family is in body (organism) living in Your life, rather than them trying to serve You out of whatever kind of religious system they develop to express it (or take control of it). I don't think there is anything intrinsically wrong with different music stylves, or building styles, or organizational structures per se... they are in themselves just neutral things... but it is our motivations, our reasons for using them, our letting them take over and control and direct and provide all that You are meant to be and provide, that changes everything and turns it into "religion" instead of just being worship of You alone, and relationship with You, and with Your body, as You really inteded... as must be. The rest is rubble; filthy rags if it takes away from You alone! (And how very, very easily we turn to the rubble and away from Your love and glory! Oh, help us, Lord! Help me, Lord!) One last thing -- I find myself wondering what this might all mean to me -- why am I being led back into thinking so much about native people again? What does the Jake story have to do with me attending "our church" And even with "our church" as it is "seeking a structure and pastor"? And why I seem to kep building a French library and learning more? And how our move in a year and a half would affect my job etc? And then I realize/remember that it really isn't about me and my future at all... but about You and Your kingdom... and just being in relationship with You and letting You work out Your eternal love and purposes, perfectly as You are perfect... and me just being along for the journey and the love, and just worshipping and serving You moment by moment as You open each new day to my steps walking in Your's... I lack words to express any of this adequately at all, but You know my heart, Father; You know my longings, and I am glad, so glad, to be Your child, so very, very grateful... and delighted to walk with You and take whatever journey path You send my way! "Forward! Further up and further in!" (I think I'm the donkey! :-) ) On to Your Word - to listen to You, to know You! Amazing grace! Amazing love! Almighty God! I love You, Father, Son, Spirit -- Lord and King! Amen! Return to the top
Main Page \| My Articles for The Life Connection \| Prayers and Meditations \| Poetry Haida Gwaii Reflections \| Education & Home-School \| Family


	Main Page \| My Articles for The Life Connection \| Prayers and Meditations \| Poetry Haida Gwaii Reflections \| Education & Home-School \| Family
Sign Guestbook \| View Guestbook Comments? Questions? [email protected]	Prayer topics Please, You Guide My Conversations With You, Lord The Church vs Cultural Trappings Please, You Guide My Conversations With You, Lord Date: February 17, 2007 I want to read the Bible... because I want to hear Your voice and be in Your Presence in that particular way (not to say that Your Presence isn't with me all the time, and that I must be aware of it and learn to see -- or at least trust -- You in every circumstance, event, etc. But I feel like I'm a bit "lost at sea" right now. It has been over a week since I was doing my "read-through" -- I "got behind" even before the "Jake book" arrived... And now I don't know "where to start." The other day I tried the "let it fall open" approach and it came to some passage in Isaiah that of course had value in it, but didn't seem to have the "relational" aspect to it that I've come to associate with seeking You in Your Word. (Of course, I suppose I'd be told that that is where the need for "discipline" comes in -- and "faith" -- just read it and hide it in your heart, and someday God will ring it to mind when you ned it" -- but what if I want You now? Oh, well, "there are dry periods, of course... you just hang in there and trust God and one day He'll finish whatever "wilderness work" He's doing in your life, and then you'll sense his presence again." But I wonder... Is that up and down, mountain/valley, winderness/springs lifestyle what You intend in our relationship? Yes, we live in a world that is "fallen" and yes we will experience suffering and sacrifice... I don't have a problem with that... but if it true that Your Spirit is in us, should we have all these "dry times" when it seems like we've been pulled apart? Yes, true, often times it is I who (like the parable of the seeds) get separated by the concerns of the world, or by failing to get rooted, or whatever distractions... is that always the cause? or maybe its like right now, I'm just not actually outright asking Your guidance and then quietly and trustingly waiting till You speak (so many words I hae written and yet I haven't asked the simple questions -- Lord, Father God, what do You want me to read in Your Word today? Please speak to me! Ok! There it is! Lord?? (Psalms... that is what I've been longing for, isn't it? Guess I'll just open to there and see where You take me?) (And yes, "in His law doth he meditate day and night" ... not just between 5 and 7 am but in all the circumstances of thecoming day... and maybe even in my dreams at night!) Okay, here I come, Father! Thank You! Eccl 5:1 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God [that's me! not the building]; to draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools; for they do not know that they are doing evil. 2. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you upon earth; therefore let your words be few. 3. For a dream comes with much business [true -- it's when my mind is "going in circles" that I dream crazy dreams and wake exhausted!] and a fool's voice with many words... 7. For when dreams incrase, empty words grow many [OR For in a multitude of dreams there is futility and ruin in a flood of words]: but do you fear God. Wow, Lord... it wasn't Psalms... just on the way... and You stopped me where I didn't expect (though that phrase "let your word be few" has been going through my mind over and over the past few days!) and yes, You spoke to me through Your Word. I do need to listen... many of my words are foolish. I have become proud about my writing... and much of what I have written lately is just empty prideful words from me... not me listening to You!! No wonder You've been holding me back from my website prayer postings -- and writing in my journal -- and sharing what I have written -- "for I did not know I was doing evil!" I've been a "fool"-- a morally empty person -- thinking I'm making a "sacrifice" -- ministry, service, worship -- by my many words (and my sometimes empty, obligatory, "devotions" -- not as often as they would be if it were not for Your kindness in speaking to me, guiding me anyway despite my foolishness -- wow! Thank You, Father! I did write some pretty rash and hasty words before You, Lord God, this very morning (I hae wondered about that sometimes, but "after all, isn't that what David did in the Psalms?" ... Oh... did I get that wrong, too... Prayer maybe isn't a "holy dumping ground" after all? Yes, bring my needs, questions, sorrows, joys, praise to You... (as if You didn't know all about it anyway) in trusting submission ... (vs my own personal indignation, frustration, desire to be vindicated, etc et)... and yes, lay it all at Your feet, take my hands off it... but in the process of that... "be not hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you upon earth, so let your words be few..." Yes, Lord, there has been an awful lot of "listen to me, I'm so wise; I want to be heard and recognized... and, yes, applauded" in everthing I have thought, said, written... And yet You have been so kind to keep pulling me back from those "rabbit trails" and lifting my eyes up (and I have resisted, I see that -- oh my! -- foolishness!) (Sorry, Lord... please forgive me...). Thank You for Your truth and Your Spirit, living Christ in me! Help me to never forget that You are God in heaven... and I am not god, nor ever will be, anywhere! ... "So let my words be few" ... Oh help me, dear Heavenly Father! My pride is such a problem! I see that I am the cause of the "dry places"!! (I'm just shaking my head, literally, in disbelief at what I truly am...) How can I even presume to say, "I'm sorry, please forgive Me" when most of the time I don't even mean it... I don't even really understand what that means at all... I just want to "get it over with"... really push it under the carpet!... and I really don't want (most of the time) to truly be sorry... and truly be wrong... and truly stop thinking about me... I seem to be hopeless, Lord... I am hopeless... Could I ever be changed? I can't change me. You say You want to change me... but I don't deserve it... When I want to change people, I want to do it so that I am in control... and so that I am happy, and I am vindicated, and I am treated with awe and respect... and I don't deserve any of those things.... But You deserve all of them... and they are totally viable reasons for You wanting me to submit... and yet that truly, really, isn't Your motivation at all, is it? You love me!!!! How can it be? How can You? (Just when I start to realize what "a worm" I am, all of my self-interest starts immediately to rise up inside of me, protesting violently against "letting myself be demeaned"... that is what I am like, isn't it?) Oh dear... You did have a purpose in waking me early this morning, while everyone else is asleep and it's quiet and maybe, just maybe, I might actually open my ears and hear a little bit of what You want to say... it's true, so much of the time I am just as hardhearted as the "Jews".... -- eyes and ears seem to be open... but never really seeing or hearing what You want to say to me -- Oh Lord! Please forgive me... please change me... please get rid of, destroy, the "me" in me... please!! I am sorry... and yes, I am ashamed. I've been so proud... and didn't even see it! I've anxiously been wanting to take notes from the "Jake book"... not so I can change, but so I can push it in other's faces and change them! I just didn't see it! I'm wrong, Lord! The book is okay... but my heart is not. I do see the truth in it... but I want it to change other people, not me. No wonder You've been holding me back, putting things in my way. (Now I'm really wanting to "get at it"... but mayb it's just "me" trying to rise up again, in protest... Lord, if You do want me to find and record those key points... please let it be in Your time, by Your leading, for Your purposes!) Please change me first. Please get rid of "me"! Please fill me with Your life... with You, Father God, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit... my Lord and God! ............. (When I first started to read this passage, right away I started to think in terms of "our church" being the house of God, and the "worship time" being the "sacrifice of fools" and the "dream" being their "vision".... and all these self-righteous, critical feelings and thoughts were rising up in me... and then Your very still, quiet, small voice gently said, "You are the house of God," and I realized that the foolish sacrifices were mine, and the any rash, proud words were mine, and the busy, foolish dreams came out of my busy foolish "me" and my own busy, foolish thoughts and ways... Oh Lord... "Let not my mouth lead me into sin" (or my pen!). I don' want to produce wasted, foolish work that You will just have to be angry at and destroy. Oh Lord, please don't let me waste the time and purposes You have designed for me to b a vessel for Your life being "lived out" in me... Please... I don't want to produce, any more, dreams and words that are just futility and ruin and emptiness, Lord. Better that I never write another word, ever again, that to produce even one more word that comes from the foolishness, pride, and futility of "me." Oh dear Lord God... Please help me begin and continue to truly fear You! (Psalm 86, 84:9-12) Thank You. Amen. Jesus, I am so in love with You. Thank You! Praise God! "Open my eyes that I may see visions of truth You have for me." Return to the top True Church vs Cultural Trappings Date: February 18, 2007 I got another email from the Tribes-of-Christ group. I remember in the past hearing preachers (native and non-native) telling other native people to give up anything that smacked of the old native spirituality. Now it seems there is a very strong movement that embraces many of those things (including sweats, etc) and "turns" them to being part of the Christian worship and walk. I wonder a lot about all this. How would that related, for example,to a secular person continuing to participate in the things that really represented his "worship" of the "god of this world" -- money, booze, whatever? (I'm sure we do a lot of that without even thinking about it because we don't see it as "religious" or "spirituality" and don't recognize that we did have -- sometimes still have in perhaps diminished form -- our own "gods"? I recognize there is a difference between cultural expression (language, clothes, social structures, art, music, housing styles -- general lifestyle, even) and religious expression (which I assume would include, in native terms, things like the use of dances, drumming, sweats, peyote, sweet grass, and the items used by the shaman with his "spirit guides" or whatever). But at the same time, there must often be a fine line and some gray areas. That makes me watch this online discussion with interest. I don't know the answer, though I have some ideas... I'm not sure if I even understand all the questions... I do think that a lot of it is wrapped up in the struggle of a people for basic surival as a community and people, for identity, for respect, for recognition as people of worth and value, etc. It is easy to glibly say, "Find your worth and value in Jesus" -- but what does that really mean? How does that relate to the way we express our cultural identity? How much ar we required to "change"? As a Christian, I have perhaps toned down some of my "fashion statements" to be modest and not to try and have people continually admiring "me" and approving of "me"... but nobody tried to make me totally change my style (ie to start dressing like people in the middle-East Christian church (and related culture) of Jesus' and the apostles' time!). But some people do dress "religiously." Same with food, etc. Does it make a difference if you are doing it out of free choice (perhaps to "identify" yourself as belonging to Jesus, just because you want to), or out of obligation (because a "church" says you have to -- and another culture, identifying itself as Christian, says you have to) or because you so closely relate your old clothes or food or cultural trappings to the "religion" you came out of (and you thereby, as Paul says, have a "weak conscience.")? Of course this brings up the whole question of freedom in Christ, another whole discussion about how that is worked out. Native people were basically forced to give up the majority of their cultural trappings by a "church culture" which did not, in many if not most cases, separate national culture from religious expression. Lord, I'm going to stop writing about this now because I don't really have any definitive answers, though I do have some thoughts (which are hard to express, somehow). I do know a few Biblical principles and examples that might related -- the question of freedom in Christ -- Gentiles not being forced to adhere to Jewish religious custom/law except for a very few specific items (which, interestingly enough, were closely related to their former trappings of pagan religion, including fornication, related to temple prostitution; meat with blood/meat, related to meat offered to idols; etc). -- there does not seem to be any specific reference to clothes, housing, etc, except as related to Godly principles of modesty, submissiveness in Christ, etc. We don't ask ourselves to make major cultural changes (though the "church" has, throughout history, done some strange things, like having "sacred languages -- ie Latin in the Catholic Church; thee/thou used till recently in Protestant churches -- and "dressing up" for church, I suppose, when we come to the Lord; probably because for hundreds of years (if not a lot longer) we have thought of ourselves as a "Christian nation(s)" and just assumed that that somehow made our cultural trappings (and our "religious traditions/trappings/rituals") "Christian" -- and therefore assumed that those of other cultural traditions are in all ways "pagan" and that those cultural/spiritual expressions must be eradicated when people from those traditions come to Christ. One thing is very clear in all this -- the church as the body of Christ, the family under the Father and the headship of Jesus, in love relationship that is based on the love fellowship, unity, oneness of Father, Son and Holy Spirit -- is very, very different than the cultural trappings and traditions that we refer to as "church" (buildings, governing structures, programs, cultural expectations, behavioural expectations, rules and regulations, rituals...). Yes, there is some overlap, and yes, Father, You patiently love and grow Your people wherever they are, but it is true that Your best, Your desire for Your family is in body (organism) living in Your life, rather than them trying to serve You out of whatever kind of religious system they develop to express it (or take control of it). I don't think there is anything intrinsically wrong with different music stylves, or building styles, or organizational structures per se... they are in themselves just neutral things... but it is our motivations, our reasons for using them, our letting them take over and control and direct and provide all that You are meant to be and provide, that changes everything and turns it into "religion" instead of just being worship of You alone, and relationship with You, and with Your body, as You really inteded... as must be. The rest is rubble; filthy rags if it takes away from You alone! (And how very, very easily we turn to the rubble and away from Your love and glory! Oh, help us, Lord! Help me, Lord!) One last thing -- I find myself wondering what this might all mean to me -- why am I being led back into thinking so much about native people again? What does the Jake story have to do with me attending "our church" And even with "our church" as it is "seeking a structure and pastor"? And why I seem to kep building a French library and learning more? And how our move in a year and a half would affect my job etc? And then I realize/remember that it really isn't about me and my future at all... but about You and Your kingdom... and just being in relationship with You and letting You work out Your eternal love and purposes, perfectly as You are perfect... and me just being along for the journey and the love, and just worshipping and serving You moment by moment as You open each new day to my steps walking in Your's... I lack words to express any of this adequately at all, but You know my heart, Father; You know my longings, and I am glad, so glad, to be Your child, so very, very grateful... and delighted to walk with You and take whatever journey path You send my way! "Forward! Further up and further in!" (I think I'm the donkey! :-) ) On to Your Word - to listen to You, to know You! Amazing grace! Amazing love! Almighty God! I love You, Father, Son, Spirit -- Lord and King! Amen! Return to the top
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