Quiet

Sunday morning. Boy sleeping nearby. He was awake to turn over a few minutes ago, but quite undecided about his plans for arising.

It is even harder for me to remember how I did fourteen, since I got a late start with this, my one child. So I err on the side of liberty. We really do not have anything we have to do today other than carry him back to his mom. If he sleeps, we miss minutes available for historic dad/dude conversations that are earth shaking and earth shaping. But they are not all like that anyway.

I guess the issue this morning is boy poverty. Since my access time with him is limited...
Well, dog. My access time with him is not limited by familial circumstances alone. I am really still fussing about perfect parenting.

Ok, Father. One more time. I trust you with my son. Here he is. My best has been good, but what you want to do with, in and through him is beyond me. I dare say it is beyond my comprehension. And I am convinced that I am well able to get in your way.
Father, I really want you to be glorified, and that my life would not hinder that in any way or amount. I stand in awe of your mercy. I want to be still, quiet enough to be able to watch what you do with my boy. In the meantime, I need your help to know when I am willfully in the way.

I guess if I would just get back to my place on your lap and rest, I would be properly positioned for this to work out best.

What I am afraid of

Sometimes it takes me time to figure out what is going on. I have to look at what I am being tempted with to figure out what I am holding back from my Father. It is so easy to stay in the habits of pride. All I need is to turn to my Father with what concerns me, and he will perfect it. I can not do what will matter in the issues that I am assaulted with. I get a chance to be reminded of how small I am, and how great my Father is.

There really is a special spiritual thing about fathers and sons. And the key stories involve fathers trusting God with their sons. Father, I am tempted to worry about my son. So all the more, I surrender my Isaac to you. I trust your plan because I want to trust my plan. I need to trust you more than I need to trust my plan. All of my plans without you seemed so well reasoned until they broke under my weight and cut me. Who can compare leaning on the arm of God with leaning on the marsh reeds of Egypt. Have mercy on my son and his mother. Grant us the grace needed to bring to you the Glory that is yours. Restore my soul. I need you, Daddy.

Rest

What a treat to have a day of rest. Not about work to do, but to say no to anxiety. To say no to poverty. To say no to fear. To say no to picking up old baggage. To say no to striving for heaven. To say no to lovelessness. To say no to shame.

Thank you Father for wanting me. And thank you for wanting everyone else home enough to send your only begotten son to show us. Have mercy on the hard of heart. Bring us back to the moment of awe. To the moment we knew there was more.

Happy New Year

Read something in the last day or so. Something about Ms. Winfrey and a new year meaning that we had another chance to get it right. If there was ever a failed humanist approach to life, that is it. The idea that man has what it takes, if he only gets enough opportunities to prove it to himself and the world. The idea that one day we will witness the life of a man who gets it right.

This is very attractive. We all also know that it would make him a god. We spend a lot of social energy looking for the human who will transcend his humanity and behave like a god worth proving that men have divinity in them. Society tracks the beautiful, because we know that beauty is a trait of the gods. We track the extraordinarily intelligent, the extraordinarily physically gifted, the ones born into generations of wealth and power.

They all fall. They all fail. They all fail to be worthy of worship. But so much hope was invested in them, that when the investment tanks, they become the objects of revulsion, derision. Ms. Winfrey has had to find a way to stay slim, because she becomes the failed god of her worshipers when she puts on weight.

Godhood for mortal men is very hard, and then you die.

But no matter how awful it is to be a human god, it is harder to abandon the illusion that it is possible. That is what it takes to be free, however. Just say, "I am not worthy of any measure of worship. The One who established the need to find One who is worthy of worship already revealed Himself to the whole world. I will only worship the One Who Is Worthy."

I worship You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You alone are worthy of all praise, honor, wisdom, authority, love, and grace. May the Name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob receive all the Glory.

Community

Social critters, us. Some of us will be in the wrong place just to be someplace.

What would it be like? Let's you and I think for a minute. What would it be like if that thing was permanently satisfied?

Do you mean finding the perfect community, realizing it, committing to it, being in it and of it?

"For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth."

We can find God the Spirit in and in the midst of the community of believers. We can find satan there, too. There is a perfect community where satan is not welcome and believers are. Seated in heavenly places.

We want the Spirit to invade our meetings. We "invoke" the presence of the Most High. We ask Jesus to manifest Himself. We live for a touch of the Heavenlies.

All the while, the veil is gone. He said, Draw nigh. He said, Come unto Me. He said, My son was dead, and now is alive. Bring shoes for his feet. Put a ring on his finger. My son turned off the well travelled road and came up the lane toward me...so I ran to meet him. This is what the Kingdom of God is like.

The perfect community where there is perfect satisfaction of every social need is right here. Seated in heavenly places.

What will it be like in human communities, and in communities of believers when everyone is satisfied before they arrive? I heard the teacher (Carl Koch) explain about the church as a camel parking lot where everyone who has been blessed brings their camel loaded with the excess of their blessing, to distribute to everyone else who comes. But he did not talk about the state of the camel leading believer. This believer comes to the meeting utterly satisfied by his community with God.

Thank you, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Thank you for Your Kingdom.

My Friend

Jesus said that we are His friends.

I wonder if there is any connection between an earthly fathers relationship with his growing son, and how we Growing Sons relate to Our Heavenly Father?

I think I have it. Jesus is our brother friend because Dad, no matter how intimate and affectionate, still has to be Dad. I need a God who is my friend, but I also need a God who is my Father. I need a father who will correct me, who will teach me painful lessons even though, and because He loves me so much. A father who indulges my foolishness does not love his child. So my Father, Who is Love, is incapable of indulging my foolishness. This is not a friend.

My boy and I have talked about this some, but I guess we will be talking about it more. When I am not indulging his foolishness, his conversations are shorter, and sometimes end abruptly.

Father, thank you for putting the vision in my heart of the day when my son will have passed out of my tutelage, and will be able to be my friend. Help him to find the friendship that he needs now, to go along with the fathering I am giving, and the Fathering he is seeking from You.

201010202139

What a delight to talk to my boy. Family contact is not as distracting as non-family contact. Dad likes family, and He says that there is good when we look away from One Thing, when we look at family. He made family a picture of the Kingdom.

The draw of One Thing never lets up. It takes deliberate choice to turn from adoration. You'd think I was saying that I am there all of the time, but it is so far from true. I can imagine a time coming when I stay lost in there for days. I used to think that required circumstances, like going for a week or a month to Kansas City. Now I know that nothing is required beyond faith. I do not depend on intimacy, it just means I am putting my faith somewhere else. When I am not lost in Love, when I am looking up the path and guiding myself with my own eyes, rather than leaning out the arm of my beloved, gazing lost upon Him, and depending my movement on His, then I am a proud adulterer or idolater.

Father, you have helped me in my earth life so much today. You have given me victory over my enemies, and you shown me how to love and pray. I keep missing...and you keep on encouraging me. Thank you.