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Friday, April 11, 2014

Pastoral Ponderings ~ A Higher-and-Deeper Testimony


          One day, God spoke to me through a Scripture that had me thinking of how I should relate to other people. It was one of those Scriptures that hit me between the eyes (or upside my head, if you will), and left me thinking that I wanted to be the kind of person that even my enemies would be able to come to for help when they were in trouble. It also left me feeling hopeful that God was up to something where he was going to bring that very kind of person into my life in a redemptive, reconciliatory kind of way. If you have followed any of my writing about the “Higher-and-Deeper” way that God works, this is what you would call a “Higher”.

          By the end of the day, life-experience had given me such a beating that my heart felt raw. The moment I was alone, I realized that I was hurting more than I had imagined. I was overwhelmed with one of those surprising tear-tsunamis, and went long into the night tossing and turning with sorrow before the waves calmed enough for me to sleep. The most comforting thought from heaven was, Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”[1] In the “Higher-and-Deeper” work of God, this is what you would call a “Deeper”. It was still there when my alarm clock startled me into the consciousness that I had actually fallen asleep.

          As I was pouring my heart out to God that morning, wondering how my heavenly Father would ever return me to joy, I felt his love open my heart to something that was obviously his work for that day. I had actually prayed about this before bedtime, that, as much as life had blind-sided me with a sound beating I had not seen coming, I believed that God would speak just as clearly again so I would recognize his will for my next step, fresh wounds perfectly considered.

          The Scripture that had spoken to me about the kind of person I should be towards others, particularly when my enemies are in trouble, is this:

“Give counsel; grant justice; make your shade like night at the height of noon; shelter the outcasts; do not reveal the fugitive; let the outcasts of Moab sojourn among you; be a shelter to them from the destroyer. When the oppressor is no more, and destruction has ceased, and he who tramples underfoot has vanished from the land, then a throne will be established in steadfast love, and on it will sit in faithfulness in the tent of David one who judges and seeks justice and is swift to do righteousness.” (Isaiah 16)

          At the time, this came across to me as God’s work to make me a person who can give counsel, show justice, and be deep shade to my enemies when they are in experiences that feel like a parched desert at the hottest moment of the day. I hope you will consider that this is the larger picture of what God was doing, that it is about his work more than it is mine, and that I started that day sincerely wanting to join him in his work as much as his Spirit would enable me to do so.

          However, when my heart had been beaten raw by life’s schoolyard bullies, I was much more conscious of my own soul-condition than giving my enemies merciful counsel to help them with their sin problems before God. Thankfully, I had learned that God is never wrong when he speaks to us through his word. Joseph being sold into slavery, and then thrown into prison, did not nullify that God had spoken to him about a day when he would lead his family. All the bad circumstances did was position Joseph for the fulfillment of the words God had earlier spoken, and give glory to God when his words were fulfilled in the most amazing of ways.[2]

          Part of our faith-journey includes trusting God’s words during the storms that tell us that the world is going to drown us before we ever see God’s word fulfilled. Kind of like when it looked like Jesus’ death was nullifying all the promises of God regarding a King who would sit on David’s throne. Such things as that are not the stumbling-stones to stop the will of God, but the stepping-stones to get to the very things God has spoken in his word.

          So, the next morning I looked up at the Higher things God told me the day before, still somewhat shocked at how far above me the previous day’s experience with God appeared. I accepted that I needed to be brought this much Deeper to take my next step. I also felt thankful that God was speaking to me in the Valley of the Shadow of Death as clearly as the previous day’s Mount of Transfiguration, so to speak.

          What that means is that I approached God’s exhortation, “Give counsel,” with the heart of a child that wanted to hear his counsel for me. How would the Holy Spirit be my counselor first, so that I would have the strength of Christ enabling me to give counsel to anyone who came to me, enemies included.

          As I cried out to God about this, I fell into this most comforting experience of wonder as I remembered the words of our God, “Come now, let us reason together.”[3] I could not escape the amazement that the most wise, and knowledgeable, and good, and powerful person in the whole of reality, would ask sinful, broken people to sit down with him and have a time of reasoning together.

          Even now, it feels almost inconceivable that God would put these words in the context of his people’s sin. His prophetic letter would confront their adulterous idolatry. God was speaking to them of the judgment that would invariably fall on them as long as they persisted in their hardhearted and hardheaded rebellion. So, at the very beginning of the meeting, he tells them that he wanted them to come and reason with him about how much better it could be for them if they would return to him with all their heart, and soul.

          While the Scripture-paragraph above calls for much more prayerful meditation, the thing God used to return me to joy that second morning was that he was intent on counseling me after the beating I went through the day before. Yes, one day, maybe very soon, some adversary may show up at my door for counsel. But first, God wanted me to know what his counsel felt like. He wanted me to have the experience of what it is like when he reasons with his child, and how different that is from the way the Worldlings bully people who won’t bow down to their idols.

          One of my favorite pictures of how someone like me fits into the work of God is Jesus’ metaphor of the vine and the branches.[4] Jesus is the vine, the source of the “living water” sap that gives life to the branches. Jesus’ brothers are the branches, receiving life from him. That life from Jesus flows through us so that it touches the lives of others in a way that can be described as bearing fruit.

          On that second morning, this worked into my life as I went to Jesus to find out how to abide in him after the previous day’s painful experience. His first focus was to take care of me. I am the branch. He is the vine. He gives to me. I receive from him. What I needed to receive from him was counsel. His counsel included the reminder of how gracious and wonder-filled it is to sit down with our Hallowed Heavenly Father and hear the sound of his reasoning with our souls.

          After this experience, I could see only the people closest to me who needed the same counsel of God to return us to joy together. But, from way down in the depths of that Deeper, I began looking up to see if God would give me any advance warning of when my enemies will show up for the love they so desperately need, or whether I will be just as surprised as they are when they show up at my door. It has actually happened before. Perhaps God is preparing me for it to happen again.

© 2014 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)



[1] Psalm 30:5
[2] Genesis 37-50
[3] Isaiah 1:18
[4] John 15

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