The most important change to make
Is to develop the ability to make changes
Answers, but Not Truth
We are exhausted and cynical
Running into dead-ends everywhere
Because we live in a world full of answers
But not truth
Rebukes of Today’s World
Permitted does not mean equally valid.
Not all disparity is injustice.
Civil rights are a distraction when the soul is left enslaved.
A Misunderstanding of Freedom
Two Kinds of Freedom)
At first glance, Genesis Chapter 38 seems like a strange anomaly in the Biblical record. It interrupts the narrative of Joseph right after he is sold into Egypt to tell the sordid tale of Judah’s family. Its plot unfolds like a trashy soap opera, culminating in Judah’s own daughter-in-law seducing him and conceiving twins. Once the chapter ends, we are whisked back to the main story of Joseph, just in time to hear about his experience in Potiphar’s house.
Genesis Chapter 38 only makes sense when it is viewed in the context of that broader narrative involving Joseph. I do not think it is a coincidence that it is placed right after Joseph is cast into slavery, and right before he rejects the advances of Potiphar’s wife and is cast further down into prison. His narrative and Judah’s provide a perfect contrast. On the one hand, Judah is physically free, but a slave to his immorality. On the other hand, Joseph is physically captive, but still the master of his own soul. Thus, the record is presenting two kinds of freedom and two kinds of slavery, and implicitly asking the reader, “which of these is truly free?” The correct answer, of course, is that Joseph is truly free, for though he is a slave an in prison, he is free in his inmost parts, while Judah is not.
Of course, the story is not presenting physical captivity as a good thing, mankind is meant to strive for all layers of freedom, but if a man wishes to be truly free, he must at the very least be the master of his own self. Any man who does not have moral control over his own appetites is fundamentally a slave, no matter the rest of his situation.
A Modern Misfocus)
Today, in our western culture, we have a great commotion of perceived shackles and demands for freedom. On the one hand, the white male is accused of still reaping the benefits of historical slavery and patriarchy, enjoying a higher freedom than women or most other races. On the other hand, we hear of blue-collar workers, predominantly white males, sick of being society’s punching bag for decades, sick of having their strings pulled by society’s elites. And then there are conspiracy theories that even those elites are for the most part powerless, their votes and influence bought and paid for by blackmail and bribery, shadowy corporations directing things from behind the scenes.
Everyone, it seems, isn’t as liberated as they would hope to be, and the majority of public discourse is set on the pursuit of freeing one class or another. It is an obsession that I believe our ancestors would find laughable, given that we are the freest people that the world has ever known. We are fighting over the slimmest margins of injustice, many of which are imagined, and we show no appreciation for the fact that our ancestors gave everything for just a fraction of the liberty that we now enjoy. Without devolving into complete lawless anarchy, we are about as free as it is humanly possible to be.
Or, at least, we are free physically. Spiritually and morally, though? We are a society that is absolutely enslaved to our appetites, to our devices, to our distractions, to our immorality, to our self-justification, to our anger and pride. We are simultaneously one of the freest and most enslaved people the world has ever known; and our focus for liberation is in completely the wrong area.
To Be Truly Free)
Perhaps we are so obsessed with our perceived injustices because our spirit accurately identifies that something is holding us down, but our heavy-lidded eyes can’t see past the physical to realize it is our lack of moral will. We settle on the assumption that it must be a physical shackle simply because we lack the imagination or the courage to consider a spiritual one. We are, therefore, a modern-day Sisyphus, doomed to an eternal effort that never achieves anything.
If we truly cared to be free, the great commotion of our time would be one of spiritual ministry. We would seek to convict the world of its sin as an act of kindness, waking up all to their true taskmaster, and the true liberation from it. We would strive as a community to abandon our shrines of distraction and learn how to rise to a collective moral mastery.
Then, and only then, we would be truly free.
Thought for the Day- Ignorance is a Choice
Once, the knowledge and understanding one might attain in life was dependent on the status of their birth. Today, it is readily available to all…though so, too, is distraction.
Thus, today, ignorance is a choice.
Calloused Hearts- 1 Kings 19:11-13
And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:
And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?
COMMENTARY
And the Lord passed by, and a great wind rent the mountains; but the Lord was not in the wind
And after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake
And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire
The Lord was somewhere around Elijah, passing by, but He could not be perceived. There were other loud and impressive forces going on at the same time, which were magnificent in their own way, but the Lord just wasn’t to be found in them.
Sometimes there is too much loudness in my own life to perceive God as well. I become bored in quiet moments and look for a song or a video or a notification to keep me stimulated. And maybe I will be able to find something loud, impressive, and even magnificent there…but I won’t be able to find God.
And after the fire a still small voice
God is always about us, but it is very, very rare that He uses His voice of thunder. Instead, if we want to hear Him, we will have to be very quiet and still.
I believe He speaks so softly because He does not want to be heard by just a part of us. He wants to be heard in the heart so that we are likely to heed Him. He wants us to fully be ourselves, with no other baggage to get in the way. So He will wait until we come fully into our own hearts and are our most authentic self, and then we will find Him.
Making Time for God- Luke 9:23, Proverbs 25:28 (NLT)
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
A person without self-control is like a city with broken-down walls.
COMMENTARY
If any man will come after me, let him deny himself
The fact that it is hard to prioritize God is not a mistake. That you find it difficult to do is not an indication that you are broken. Perhaps you have told yourself that it’ll be easier to make time for God later. It won’t be. It’s not going to be easier once you have your degree, or the kids are a bit older, or you’ve retired. Coming to God will always be a challenge. It has been designed that way.
Because the obstacle in your way is your own self. Coming to Him will always mean denying what you want right now in favor of what He wants. The self is always with you, and so the challenge forever remains. The sooner we accept that this battle is with the self, and not our circumstances, the sooner we can take a stand against it.
A person without self-control is like a city with broken-down walls
So yes, it is hard to prioritize God, and for that reason alone, making time for Him builds character. By devoting ourselves to Him, in spite of all the noise in this world, we are learning the essential art of self-mastery.
All of the spiritual blessings that follow acts of faith are then extra blessings on top! Learning how to govern yourself is already worthy enough of a cause. You are bending your will to higher things, and becoming a better version of yourself for that effort. You are becoming godly.
Making Time for God- 1 Corinthians 2:14, 1 Kings 19:11
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake:
And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
COMMENTARY
And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit, because they are spiritually discerned
Many of the truths of the gospel are hidden in plain sight. There is no gate or lock that prevents access to them, but they are around a corner that one has to take intentionally. For that simple reason alone, there are very few that find them.
Consider how each of these qualities hide God’s truths, and therefore make prioritizing Him a matter of conscious effort:
- There are other, louder voices that drown Him out. For Elijah it was earthquakes and fire, for us it is media and society. We never will hear Him unless we make a specific effort to mute those voices, get away to a place of solitude, and finally be able to listen to a still, small voice.
- Spiritual things can only be perceived spiritually. They are not understood by our fleshy senses, and therefore it is very easy to miss them. When we do feel stirrings of the Spirit it is very easy to later dismiss them as imagined. Believing in the witnesses we have received requires consciously exercising our spiritual nature.
- Many of the blessings of the gospel come with a delay. It may be years of treating your body as a temple before you see how much more health you have because of it. Making time for God is therefore an investment, an act of faith, with dividends paid out in His own timing.
All of these make seeing God difficult, and frankly that’s how it is meant to be. God makes Himself known to His children, but He does not force Himself on them. No one falls into discipleship by accident. If we are to have a relationship with God, the onus is on us. He respects us, and wants us to come to Him only when that is what we want to do. He thus preserves our free will and ensures that we are acting deliberately.
Making Time for God- Question
The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and we have a lot of wheels squeaking in our lives! The smartphone chirps at us, social media rants at us, the television blares at us. Life is a dashboard full of meters constantly draining towards empty, and we rush about frantically trying to fill them all.
We’re afraid of losing things, of missing out, of leaving opportunities on the table. Our lives become machine-like, incessantly servicing all the many calls for our attention.
God, meanwhile, doesn’t squeak at us at all. He’s much too dignified to stoop to that level. This shows what great respect He has for us, but also makes it easy to lose sight of Him amidst the din of the world. Still He waits, patiently, for however long it takes. He waits for us to come to Him. Usually when we do, we’re the ones squeaking now. Squeaking in pain!
Well, God has grease for His in-pain, squeaky-wheel-children. He commiserates with us, then soothes us, and finally heals us. Then we, eternally grateful, skip away happily and promptly lose sight of Him once more. We’re caught back up in the world, we’ll come back when we’ve scraped our knees again.
It’s a way to live life, and I suppose it could be worse…but also it could be better. God invites us to make Him a more permanent fixture in our lives, to give Him time each and every day to heal and strengthen us. He offers to be with us every hour.
With this study we’ll consider how to push some of the world’s clutter off of our shelves and make space for God. We’ll examine what tricks the adversary uses to distract us from the things that really matter. Before we get started, though, I’d love to hear in what ways you’ve found yourself overwhelmed by the noise of the world, and how you were able to make a time and place for holiness.
Spiritual Wanderings 