No Ordinary Thaw

Another email from a friend today that I thought was pretty crazy good. “When we arrive ‘safely’ because we’ve sailed too close to the shore” i.e. we’ve risked relatively nothing, and then pat ourselves on the back for our “success?!” Wow. I’ll bet living with this guy (Sir Francis Drake) wasn’t “patty cake.”

Enjoy being convicted as I was… :-)

(Our prayer, and that of Sir Frances Drake, circa 1590)

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity; and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes; and to push us into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love.

– Sir Francis Drake

Some quotes from Leonard Ravenhill we had passed on to us recently:

Today’s church wants to be raptured from responsibility.

Testimonies are wonderful. But, so often our lives don’t fit our testimonies.

Concerning one of the new “movements” in the church that was
causing a stir among Christians:

There’s also a stir when the circus comes to town.

(I don’t think he’s trying to be “cute” or “funny” as much as to say that a “media stir” does not necessarily denote God’s approval or seal or Presence in something.)

My main ambition in life is to be on the Devil’s most wanted list.

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I have no idea who “Andrew Strom” is, but a friend passed this along to me in an email today. And it’s all absolutely true. We often paint Jesus as oh-so-loving — “no matter what, Jesus always loves and accepts” — which just plain isn’t true. But it’s the all-loving, never-seeing Jesus we have preached to us. But if we pay careful attention, we really do see much more of a dynamic with Jesus than what we would like to accept or believe. There really are many more “if…then” scenarios with Jesus than we would think, if we’re keen to the scriptures.

As with this guy for instance. Again, no idea who the guy is. But Jesus was and is certainly much, MUCH bigger, richer, more dynamic and more standard-bearing than what we are mostly lead to believe:

THE SEARCH for “HUNGER”
by Andrew Strom

A few years ago I heard my friend David S. give a teaching which changed my life quite profoundly. He was speaking about the fact that Jesus told His disciples to focus on the “hungry” people and those who “receive” the message — and literally to leave the others behind. Jesus was actually very insistent on this. He specifically instructed his disciples, “If they do not receive you in this town, shake the dust off your feet and go to the next town” and “Do not cast your pearls before swine.”

To many of us this is a very radical way of thinking. But it is actually the commandment of God. Why? Because God does not want His servants all over the world to be stuck wasting years and years on “un-hungry” people! He wants them to be productive — to bear much fruit — to be where the hungry ones are who will gladly receive their word. And sometimes whole nations are basically hungry while others are basically sleepy, lukewarm and complacent. We know this from history.
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Was out with some of the Family here where we live, enjoying each other, watching some of the young ladies we know compete and earn recognition. Here’s their little brother with Susy. She seems to be enjoying him. I held him for a while as well, and he does seem rather yummy. :-)

These pics were taken with my phone camera, so they’re not that good, but still ample evidence to prove there was some secret lovin’ and nibblin’ going on! :-)

(Click the pics to zoom)

Read this last night and thought it had huge, all-around spiritual implications… Regarding the catastrophic flaw in the Hubble telescope discovered after it was first launched into space in 1990 (at the original build and launch cost of 2.5 billion dollars):

Back in 1990, the telescope was launched with an error in its mirror so profound that Hubble’s senior engineers and program managers failed to even consider it as an explanation for why the telescope wasn’t working. With less experience in optics, Faber and Holtzman [a UC Santa Cruz amateur astronomer and one of her students at the time] could conceive the inconceivable.

“You could hear a pin drop,” said Faber, remembering the meeting two months after the Hubble launch, when they presented their stunning findings at NASA headquarters outside Washington, D.C. “Out of ignorance, we were able to think in a bigger box, because we didn’t know where the boundaries were supposed to be. Knowing nothing, we contemplated everything.”

Devastating as that diagnosis was, it “was essential in taking the next step in figuring out how to fix Hubble…”

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Had a pretty good conversation this evening with two other believers in which a number of topics were touched as we sought to edify one another. Too bad it got cut short by some young ‘uns that needed to get home, but that’s what we all needed to do. Hopefully, we’ll catch up again soon. :-)

Some of what we discussed though had to do with things like the “Universal Church” and “the wheat and the tares” and “what is a Christian?” and foundations and the SUBSTANCE of someone truly Born from Above versus someone who claims this but the Evidence just doesn’t seem to be there. (Obviously, we talked about a lot of stuff!)

Just because someone CLAIMS to be a Christian… are they? I’m talking about from GOD’S vantage point (which seems rather important — re: Matthew 7) versus going around “judging” people. Still, it seemed important to the apostles that the early church be equipped to discern and understand and “sort out” who was and was not. The scriptures for this are EVERYWHERE (Matthew 7 — “not everyone who says”, Matthew 24, John 3, John 15, 1 Corinthians 11 — “discerning the Body of Christ”, 2 Corinthians 13, 1 John 1-3). Neither Jesus nor the early apostles and christians seemed to believe that just because someone claimed to be in Him that they absolutely were. Not even churches were exempt — again from GOD’S VANTAGE POINT (which is all that matters in the end!) — from being maybe seen as “no longer a church.” Not stuff we talk about much these days, but with so much at stake, it’s important to be “shrewd as serpents” (discernment) and yet “innocent as doves” (non-”judging” — this is about seeing things as God does and acting on them and not “pronouncing” things… if that distinction makes sense?!)

ANYWAY… The conversation caused me to think of one thing (among many other things!) I’ve read over the years that has been helpful in “proper positioning” one’s heart and life to See but yet let God be God. To PARTICIPATE with God and “do His work” yet be innocent and redemptive as we Live.

It’s called The Five Chairs. It’s been a great help in being one who discerns and is better positioned to help and uphold God’s Standard yet be redemptive. Enjoy!

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