John 15, 16 and 17
H,
There is a certain
loneliness to living in God. It is an individual climb but the discipline is in
the way it connects to others. But that is another story. I want to talk about
the feeling of being disconnected from that intimacy with God brings. After the
fillip of the early days of yore, the mood settles into a kind of dance less step.
Even if we had the best theology guiding us, and we never do, there is certain “hole
in the soul” that comes with finally taking a stand in the celestial battle for
humanity and being. The more we get into it the more we realize how no one else
is. Not with that particular hint and shade of God that seems not quite in sync
with all the funk in our temples of worship. He is an all sufficient God
because He is able to take in all comers and stretch glory and grace to all
sorts and all places on our collective and individual journeys. He has given us
different gifts and different callings and a guiding light that unites us all
but He has not made us all the same and He does not seem to want that.
I think the first problem is
that we try and make each other the same. We mistake equality of substance with
uniformity of shape. We think to “lead” or “preach” is a sign of hierarchy when
God really means it as an assign of responsibility. So we have countless people
struggling to fit into roles before they have even given themselves over to the
slow dearth of self and the loving embrace of not striving to prove yourself to
the creator of the universe. We create loneliness because people are not free
to be who they are and then they act and pretend and cannot share their flawed
clay pot self with anyone. The church is poorer for it. The individual is
poorer for it. She cannot address her God with any certainty. He cannot connect
to people or to purpose. We have a soulless thing masquerading as the movement
of truth and so nothing gets done as it should be done.
The second thing is more
fatal and leads to the first. It is feeling that after the high of conversion
we are now left to our devices. It is the reason the disciples fled from Christ’s
side at the crucial moment. They has always been in danger as they travelled
with the rabble rouser. It was not new to have henchmen in the crowd. The difference
was that He was ready. It was His time. He had told them so. They ran because He
was leaving and the safety of His words and works was going to be no longer
available. Peter made one last attempt but after that he denied the Christ flat
and not once but thrice. They hid until He came to them resurrected. And then
they did nothing until Pentecost. You see what I am getting at, H? We feel the same abandonment after we
experience God. We feel the epoch but life is not lived there. We still have to
face the day to day. Like them we are discouraged by a lack of the presence. Like
them we are enflamed by Pentecost. Unlike them, because they did not look back,
we do not yet know that the Holy Spirit comes to be intimate and not loud.
When Christ said I am
sending you the companion, the friend and the comforter, He meant all that and
more. This guide would lead us to whole truth. I am not talking about speaking
in tongues. I am talking about living in the spirit. I am speaking of believing
that the essence of God now has a seat in our hearts and is talking to us every
day. This is how we deal with the day to day.
It is irrelevant what you believe about speaking in other tongues or
not, if you have accepted Christ, the Holy Spirit lives inside you. It is as
Clive Staples says, at first, merely a clue. It is right and wrong before it is
truth and depth. It is a relationship that grows in intimacy and openness. Like
all real relationships, there are no real short cuts. He has not time for
doctrine or denominations, for theological debates or nonsense views about the
nature of God. We see in part and prophesy in part but we have God’s whole
spirit seeking intimacy with us in every crucial hour. And the hours are all
crucial now, are they not?
We may want to spend some
time with that comforter even now. He knows how much I need His help in all
these places where I am dark. And everywhere else.
Tomorra.
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