The Stage for Getting On With It

Okay, this is how real it gets! 

If you have ever been blind-sided by intense attachment-pain for any reason whatsoever, do I ever have a testimony for you! 

Instead of giving story-specifics, something that always seems to involve other people, I will use Paul’s example when he referred to his “thorn in the flesh” without telling us what it was.[1] That description invited everyone to identify with him in anything that feels similar in our lives, and look at Paul’s testimony of how God helped him through his situation so we can be encouraged about how God will help us through ours. 

Let me just say that my situation involves the very common experience of attachment-pain, and any kind of attachment-pain situation can relate. 

The generic applies-to-everything answer to this and every other situation in life is, God speaks to us through his word, he shows us what he is doing (usually starting with is work in us), and he invites and helps us to join him in his work. We need to know God like that every day of our lives no matter what we are going through. 

However, there is a specific and personal testimony of how God is helping me with my attachment-pain experience, and it may add some personalized details that will encourage you as well. The aim is to help you listen to what God is saying to you through his word, admit what he is doing in you and around you, and build up your courage to join him in his work no matter what lovingly-heart-searching things you must feel or express to know him in your situation. 

Context: There is something on today that heightens the possibility of encountering a sensitive and painful situation where attachment-pain has already happened. There are lots of feelings about this, and I am staying close to Father about it. There is one set of emotions in play considering what might happen to cause new attachment-pain, and another set at the ready if nothing takes place at all (a different facet of attachment-pain). 

Prelude: last night (I think as I was praying in bed), God made clear that my earthly-relationships side needs to take a backstage role to my agapè-hesed-love-disciple-of-Jesus side.[2] Jesus is not telling me to stop feeling grief in any attachment-pain I experience, but he is telling me that I need to attach to him so that, should I encounter the circumstances-of-concern, my interest is in how anyone else involved will experience God’s best for them rather than a resolution to anything that has happened between us. This orients me to where my heart ought to be because I am pursuing the agapè-hesed-love of God towards everyone I meet, enemies included. 

Spotlight: My time with God: 

1.     I began by considering how Jesus related to the things he experienced with Isaiah 53:3 in mind, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” Astounding and inviting!

2.    This means he truly knows what I have gone through and is giving me permission to use these very words to describe my experience.

3.    I looked up all the key words in that verse so I could meditate on them more in-depth. It is quite mind-blowing to consider what Jesus went through, and how it was prophesied that he would do so, which means he KNEW IN ADVANCE!!!

4.    The biggest “AHA! Moment” was considering what Jesus did next. And that takes me into Isaiah’s description of Jesus laying down his life in order to give us life. The lesson to me is obvious. There are things to “lay down in love” so they become stepping-stones to loving better rather than stumbling-stones to loving less.[3]

5.    And that brought me to another experience of this scripture: “But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.”[4] A weaned child becomes calm and quiet because they are no longer crying and screaming and demanding that they need to keep nursing. Once the child is “weaned”, the process of weaning is finished, the child is resigned to being a big boy or girl, and there is no further demand to go back. The application is obvious.

6.    All of this was still in the context of John 5 that even when despised and rejected, Jesus did NOTHING of himself, and ONLY what he saw the Father doing. That is clearly what God is working into me even while living with my own experience of similar things.

7.    I will make this the last one, that there was a thought hovering over all my meditations the whole time, and that was what it was like for Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. I believe that, in Gethsemane, the way Jesus prayed is what it looked like for him to interact with the Father over the most intense and pure sorrows and grief the human heart could ever experience and never once separate himself from the Father because he was angry, or hurt, or disappointed (I have lots of examples of people shutting down to God when they are hurt, angry, or disappointed, so this is amazing).[5] 

As you may imagine, this was way too much for me to take in this morning. It was like watching the Spirit show me all the props on the stage, explaining why each one was there, but now I will see the scene unfold in real life over the next while so that I get to know Jesus as the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief more than ever, and will attach to him in laying down my life in love for anyone he chooses, including the worst enemies who have caused me the greatest harm.[6] 

By the end of my time with God I was in awe and wonder at the realities of the word, and the personal ministry of the Spirit to overwhelm me with his wisdom and knowledge for my good and the Father’s glory. I hope it helps you get to know your heavenly Father better than you have ever known him before! 

 

© 2022 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

[1] II Corinthians 12:7-10

[2] “Agapè” is one of the Greek words in the New Testament that is translated “love” in our English Bibles. However, it is referring to the distinctive nature of God’s love. When us children of God are called to agapè-love others just as Jesus has agapè-loved us, it is calling us to love with that distinction that we are imitating and expressing God’s love rather than limiting ourselves to family-love, friendship-love, or brotherly-love. “Hesed” is the Hebrew word from the Old Testament part of the Bible that speaks of God’s covenantal love, or the distinct love God has for his own people as expressed through his covenants. This word is so deep with meaning that it is typically translated with double expressions like, “unfailing love,” or, “steadfast love”. It includes the qualities of mercy, kindness, and goodness towards God’s children because of their distinctive relationship with him. Both Hesed and Agapè combine for God’s children in Christ as they show us so clearly how God loves us and how undeniably this love expects us to pass on to others what we have freely received in Christ.

[3] John 10:17 and John 15:13 relate to Jesus laying down his life for us; I John 3:16 shows the expectation that we “ought to lay down our lives for the brothers”.

[4] Psalm 131:2

[5] Matthew 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42

[6] Psalm 27 is one of the scriptures that I have been able to attach to in my situation, and so is Psalm 119:81-88. There are others that describe similar situations, so we know we are never unique in what we go through.

The Beatitudinal Promises of Longing in Prayer

I am now old enough to know the difference between the longings of youth and the hopes of old age. I trust that I have a couple more decades to see how much further my education will go in this, but I share some thoughts on this topic because I am sure there is a reader out there who struggles with letting yourself feel longings for things that are good and real because they feel hopeless at the same time. 

Today’s question is, what does the child of God do with a heart full of hurts and longings when life-experience has trained us that most people are quite willing to block our goals for satisfaction? Do we bury the longings because it hurts too much to keep feeling hope for things that will never happen? Do we bury the hurts and disappointments because they seem to put us in a holding pattern of unfilled desires? 

Or is there a way to face longings with God that does not require denial of anything, whether disappointments or desires, but leads us to a place of peaceful rest that God is truly working all things together for good in our lives in ways we could never accomplish by anything we tried to do in our own strength? 

Ah, so you guessed which of the three choices I am going to focus on? Well, let’s aim for the bull’s eye and see how close we get. 

For context, I am going through some painful life-experiences. Lots of attachment-pain. Lots of bewilderment. And lots of triggering my propensity to fix things. Enough time has gone by that things have solidified to the point that, humanly speaking, it is hopeless. Enough said. I am sure many people can relate. 

I always begin my time with God telling Father everything I am feeling about life. It isn’t so he is well aware of my thoughts and feelings on the matter, but that I have opened my heart to him about whatever he has to say. As I then listen to what he speaks from his word, he always responds directly to me as his child, and always takes me places in his truth I couldn’t have known in advance. Here is how God met me today. 

The first thing God did this morning in my time with him was connect David’s paragraph of prayer in Psalm 119:81-88 with the Beatitudinal reminder that: 

·         letting myself accept my poverty of spirit in fixing broken relationships

·         and letting myself mourn both the hurt to me and the failures in me

·         and acknowledging in meekness that I cannot fix any of this but can surrender myself to the authority of Christ who can fix all things

·         and then fully receiving the feeling of hunger and thirst for the righteousness of how Jesus would do things if I relied on him

·         will lead to satisfaction in righteousness however Jesus chooses to fulfill his promise to do so.[1] 

With that in mind, I began prayer-journaling through this verse: 

My soul longs for your salvation;

    I hope in your word.[2] 

My “soul” is my person. The essence of me. It is where I think, feel, have desires, and feel my conscience directing me for good or ill. It is ME. To long for something from my soul means it is the deepest most real kind of longing for what is real (as contrasted to the frivolous and superficial longings for BEEPS[3]). 

“Longs” is where the battle is. We cannot let ourselves long for things we believe are hopeless. Even when I am constantly trying to figure out what to do, it is because I have a hope-springs-eternal belief that if I just do the right thing, or say the right words, or avoid the wrong things or the wrong words, people won’t reject me. As much as I have failed at it, that ALAON[4] propensity is a strong belief in my sark (flesh) that believes I can do it. Because I believe it (as wrong as that is), I keep trying to make it happen. 

But to say that I “long” for Yahweh’s salvation means that I have given up trying to cover up my hopelessness with trying harder. I have accepted that I am never going to get certain things I want by trying to get them. However, instead of believing that my apparent 100% failure rate is hopeless, I have been blessed by God to “see” with my heart, soul, and mind, HIS salvation, or HIS way of doing things. 

This means that, trying to trust God while having an inner belief that it is hopeless is not the least bit what David is expressing in his prayer. There are two things David knows that lets him fully feel his longings without despair. 

First, there is the fact that this is “your salvation”, meaning, God’s salvation. The only way we can fully give up any hope of fixing things ourselves and fully surrender to the authority of Jesus Christ is if we have come to that Beatitudinal place where we KNOW God’s salvation! When we know the promises of God in our salvation, we can let ourselves long for the fullness of that even when all we feel is a “hunger and thirst for righteousness” that has no hint of satisfaction whatsoever. The satisfaction is in “your salvation”, and since it is Yahweh who owns this salvation, it is ours in Jesus’ name! 

Second, the way that David knew to long for Yahweh’s salvation was because his experience of “your word” was filled with “hope”. Church folk who cannot let themselves long for the full experience of their salvation have an inner belief that living by God’s word is hopeless. Surprising? Find yourself arguing against the idea? All you need to do is look inside at anything that feels hopeless and ask Father what promises of his word you believe are impossible for you. If any of us cannot let ourselves long for things that are part and parcel of our salvation, we have a problem with hopelessness in relation to God’s word. 

There is something that every child of God MUST let happen in our lives. We must let ourselves feel a hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God in what we are going through that is founded on our “hope in your word”. It is by God’s word that we understand “your salvation”. And when God’s word gives us understanding of God’s salvation (not our sarky version of it), we KNOW we can let ourselves hunger and thirst to experience righteousness in any situation and that longing “SHALL BE SATISFIED”![5] 

This sharing flowed out of my time with God this morning as I processed my own thoughts and feelings on this matter. Relating to David’s prayer through the first four Beatitudes gives me a sense of what Father is saying to me, along with a good clue as to what he is doing. The second four Beatitudes tell me where God is going with this. 

I am going to join God’s work today by continuing to pray through this Scripture in my downstairs prayer time, making it absolutely personal to my situation, and letting myself long for the realities of God’s gift of salvation while feeling the loss and grief that goes with the love-territory, so to speak. 

I will attach to my longing for God’s salvation by confessing my hope in his word and living in expectation for how he will “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”[6]

And I know he will satisfy that longing!

 

© 2022 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

 

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[1] Based on the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:1-12.

[2] Psalm 119:81

[3] BEEPS is an acronym we learned from our Life Model family that summarizes addiction to Behaviors, Experiences, Events, People, and/or Substances.

[4] ALAON = Attachment Light Always On, as contrasted with ALAOFF – Attachment Light Always Off. A healthy attachment light, or healthy attachment, knows when to attach and when to rest, but many of us have failed to experience attachment like that.

[5] Yes, that is the direct promise of the fourth Beatitude, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6).

[6] Psalm 90:14. Note: the expression “steadfast love” translates the Hebrew word “hesed” which is that distinctive kind of love God has for the people who have covenanted themselves to him. It doesn’t do justice to use only our English word “love” to translate this word, so it is partnered with adjectives like “steadfast”, or “unfailing”, to signify that God will always perform his covenant and will never fail to do so. “Hesed” is the Old Testament partner to the “agapè” love of the New Testament.

Taking Back the Time

I am presently continuing through James chapter 4 in my “Beatitudinal Prayers for a Narcissist” theme.[1] I had a too-soon-old-too-late-shmart experience this morning because I set my alarm for later than usual since it is a holiday (Canadian Thanksgiving), but I forgot to turn off my workday alarm, which meant I got up at my usual time! Anyway, once I settled in at my desk for prayer-journaling, I wondered what God had in mind that maybe needed the extra time. Let’s just say that I was NOT disappointed (again)! 

This is the next section in James 4 I am praying through: 

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— (vs 13) 

“Come now” means that the thing James is addressing is a reproof. He is pointing his spotlight on something that at least some of the Christians were doing wrong. I believe this continues the theme of pride James is dealing with, where he is now drawing our attention to prideful planning, or prideful thinking about how we use our time. 

If we understand the Beatitudes, and how to pray through them, we will be able to receive this reproof with a sense of, “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. Even if we feel grief that we have really blown it in this area, we can come to God with the faith of, “blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” We can receive God’s convicting work bringing us to the end of our way of doing things and to the start of surrendering to the authority of Jesus Christ in this area as we accept, “blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” And, as we fully accept anything God is showing us that is wrong in our lives, we can rejoice in the promise that, “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” 

What I realized this morning was that, in this one partial sentence, James addresses how we think about: 

·         Time: “today or tomorrow”

·         Location: “such and such a town”

·         Duration: “spend a year there”

·         Activity: “trade”

·         Result: “make a profit” 

Let’s just say that I may be camped here a bit longer than expected, first considering what God is doing in me about it, and then how I am to pray Beatitudinally for our church, for others who are influenced by our church, and particularly the narcissists who can never accept a healthy shame message regarding something they are genuinely doing wrong. 

For now, I feel as though God is clearly teaching me something at a much deeper and clearer level within me. He is reproving/rebuking me by first leading me to see my wrong thinking and acting in this area. He is correcting me by showing me what the right thinking and acting look like. And he is training me in righteousness[2] so that I am making progress in my transformation into “the same image” as the Lord Jesus Christ “from one degree of glory to another.”[3] 

As I became aware of what God was doing with this, I also realized it felt very safe and good to receive a healthy shame message regarding the five things James addresses in this verse. Even though God is putting me under his microscope and is not going to let me get away with anything, I feel like a beloved child who is receiving a lesson with more interest in attachment to Father than to “getting it” about the lesson and knowing how to do the right thing. 

The bottom line so far is that this is about who is “Lord” over my time, location, duration, activities, and results. I am just now addressing this in my grief over a horrible loss of this year, that this is another dimension of accepting Jesus’ lordship over what happened. But it also seems that God wants me to receive something so kingdom-minded about this that the result will be that I have genuinely changed my mind regarding a wrong way of thinking and have a firm grasp on how to be the righteous who lives by faith in the area James addresses. 

Although there will be many lessons in this place, I am very sure that my answer is “Yes, Lord!” and that I am quite delighted to see the transformation that continues in my life as I make progress in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.[4]

 

© 2022 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

 

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[1] Beatitudinal Prayer is praying for ourselves and others based on the Beatitudes Jesus presented (Matthew 5:1-12) to introduce his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).

[2] As per II Timothy 3:16-17 ~ “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

[3] II Corinthians 3:18

[4] I have long been encouraged with Paul’s instruction to Timothy to, “practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress (not ‘perfection’)” (I Timothy 4:15).

The God Who Does Not Weaponize Our Sins

Have you ever felt the sting of people bringing up old faults, failings, or sins that you thought had already been dealt with? Have you ever watched the deadly and divisive dominos begin falling as their spreading of gossip and slander about these things steals, kills, and destroys relationships you thought were yours forever? 

This morning I was getting to know God in a Higher/Deeper experience relating to how he deals with me regarding my sin, and I suddenly came to this realization: God does not WEAPONIZE my sins! 

Let me show you how I got there because it may very well be the journey you need to make as well. It began with this scripture: 

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity

    and passing over transgression

    for the remnant of his inheritance?

He does not retain his anger forever,

    because he delights in steadfast love.[1]

First, the question is, “Who is a God like you?” 

The answer is, “no one!!!” 

However, the effect of this reality is wonder, and worship, and praise, and relief, and thanksgiving, and peace, and joy, and rest, that this God, the one who has no counterpart in any other religion or people, is OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN!!![2] 

Second, what is it about this only true God that is the focus of Micah’s praise and worship? 

Answer: that this only and true God pardons iniquity and passes over transgression. 

Third, what is the impact on me that the God who has made sure I know him wants me to know this about him? 

Answer: that I can face how utterly sinful I am in the glory of his presence because he does not bring up my sins to condemn them, but to pardon them. 

Here is the piercing wonder for me this morning: for God to pardon my iniquities, it means he does not hold them against me. For God to pass over my transgression, it means he does not stop and build a monument to my sins so I can never forget them. 

Not only do I say, “Who is a God like you?”, but I also add, “Who is a PERSON like you?” 

Among people, and especially among those claiming to be God’s people, there is no one like our God who only addresses my iniquity to pardon it (not use it against me), and only confronts my transgressions in order to pass them over, and to let me know he is doing so. 

And then it hit me: God does not WEAPONIZE my sins! 

I’m sure you can imagine how it feels when our sins are weaponized against us. Too many of us have had people who have turned our sins against us (even sins they have imagined or manufactured). But God wants us to know this about him, that he does not weaponize our sins to club us to death with them. 

Now, if you’re wondering how “bad” our sins are, consider these scriptures: 

·         “For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”[3]

·         “without faith it is impossible to please him”[4]

·         “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”[5] 

And yet, with such a hopeless measurement of what is sinful, God wants me to know my poverty of spirit, mourn my not-good-enough condition, meekly admit my failure by surrendering to Jesus’ authority, and let myself hunger and thirst for the righteousness of faith in the faith that he will satisfy me with the faith I long for![6] 

Application: I am going through a season of grieving that is every bit as real as losing loved ones. However, any self-dependent trying to fix what is broken is not by faith, therefore it is sin. Trying to get back what God has taken away is not by faith no matter how grief protests.[7] 

Which means that, somehow, in all my grieving and attachment-pain, God’s one concern is that I attach to him in faith, do only what is joining his work by faith, and leave everything else in his hands, also by faith, and all with the faith that none of my sins and failures are being held against me by him! 

I feel a big sigh of resignation. I am a grieving child who is loved in my incompleteness and immaturity. I am loved as I talk with Father about my childish ideas and perceptions while he already knows what he is doing with thoughts and intentions and ways so infinitely above my own. 

All of this is a wonder to me, and I go into this day truly wondering what he is going to do with this work of his: to silence my heart in its striving to fix my grief and to help me experience knowing him as “who is a God like you?” more than I have ever known him like this before. 

Now I must join him by letting go of all others and resting only in what he himself is doing. It is too big for me. However, knowing this is today’s blessing. And my childish grieving heart is comforted.

 

© 2022 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

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[1] Micah 7:18

[2] I mean this only for those people who have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior so they are born-again into the adoption that is theirs forever.

[3] Romans 14:23

[4] Hebrews 11:6

[5] James 4:17

[6] Based on the Beatitudes of Matthew 5:1-12

[7] I say this based on the book of Job where Job responded to all his losses by saying, “‘Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away; blessed be the name of Yahweh’” (Job 1:21).

Many Thoughts About God’s Thoughts About Me

 

First thought: God’s knows my thoughts so intimately that he knows the difference between my praying and my thinking, between my meditating on his word and my racing down a rabbit trail, between my surrendering to his will in patient expectation and running ahead into my preplanning propensity. 

Second thought: that I had to look up the expression, “discerns my thoughts from afar,” because it just jumped into my head. 

Third thought: looking up Psalm 139:2 expanded my awe and wonder as I read this verse: “You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.” I particularly wanted to know what “discern”[1] means in the Hebrew and smiled as I knew that God knew I was wondering this! 

Fourth thought: that the whole paragraph in context blows my mind with wonder and worship at God’s word to my heart that he knows me more intimately and personally and lovingly and caringly than any human being ever could satisfy. 

O Yahweh, you have searched me and known me!

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

    you discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down

    and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,

    behold, O Yahweh, you know it altogether.

You hem me in, behind and before,

    and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

    it is high; I cannot attain it.[2]         

Fifth thought: as I put this scripture alongside what I have been exploring in Ephesians 1 and Colossians 3, it emphasizes in blazing clarity that THE BATTLE IS FOR OUR MINDS!!! The whole armor of God listed in Ephesians 6 (truth, righteousness, readiness, faith, salvation, word of God, prayer, proclamation) happens in our minds. 

Sixth thought: God is emphasizing this morning that his attachment to what goes through my mind calls for deliberate and devoted attachment to what comes from his mind. This is seen in: 

·  The fact that his focus is what is going on in my mind[3]

·  The fact that the scriptures, no matter which ones, are all speaking truth in love to our minds so our minds will attach to God’s mind[4]

·  We have been given the mind of Christ in the church[5] which requires us to deliberately and willfully attach to Jesus personally so we can know the mind of Christ in the mind of the Spirit

·  And, as we let the scriptures invade our minds, they all lead us to “Set our minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”[6] 

Seventh thought (conclusion): whoever is winning at getting the attention of our minds determines whether our actions are the fruit of the Spirit or the fruit of the flesh.[7] Although we may irritate each other with loving challenges about what goes on in our minds, even this willingness to stay together in negative emotions is affected by who has the attention of our minds. 

Which brings me to one more thing, something I was reminded of yesterday on my prayer walk when I was praying through Colossians 3 for everyone. Although verse 3 was the one that originally drew me to this chapter (“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God”), it is so clear that the whole section[8] is Paul appealing to the minds of the believers to direct them to godly actions and behaviors. 

Which led me to this expression that so clearly is a focus on where we put our minds: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (vs 16). 

I was particularly drawn to “admonish” because it is the thing that the majority of church people (home churches included) have not wanted from me. It means, “to warn or counsel in terms of someone’s behavior.”[9] This immediately brings a replay of so many situations where my warnings have been treated with contempt, and my counsel has been utterly rejected, and with no repentance or reconciliation even after people experienced the fruit of the world, the flesh, and the devil, instead of the fruit of the word, the spirit (ours), and the Triune God they were invited to. 

As I look at what I know I am doing today (as far as anyone can know such things), I get a sense of how God is directing me to keep my thoughts on him in preparation for what I will face. I hope for divine appointments to invade my day as well because I love God’s surprises of what was on his mind for me that I had no idea about. I also expect to have to battle sarky (fleshly) thoughts in order to choose where I set my mind because these battles literally come with the territory.[10] 

However, I know I will be so blessed as I set my mind on all these things because it will increase my awe and wonder that God so intimately knows my mind and loves me through everything that goes on in there, always leading my lamby little thoughts to hear his voice and follow him where he leads. 

And, I set my mind on, “Yes, Lord!” to the glory of God and the good of his people.

 

© 2022 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

 

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[1] Discern: “to understand (cognitive) v. — to perceive (an idea or situation) mentally” (Bible Sense Lexicon from Logos Bible Systems).

[2] Psalm 139:1-6 with “Yahweh” (God’s personal name) replacing “the LORD”.

[3] Philippians 4:8

[4] Romans 8:6; Ephesians 4:23

[5] I Corinthians 2:16

[6] Colossians 3:2

[7] Galatians 5:16-26

[8] Colossians 3:1-17

[9] Bible Sense Lexicon in Logos Bible Systems

[10] The larger context of my time in the word is still Paul’s focus on our battle “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12 in context of Ephesians 6:10-20)

God’s “But as For Me” Clause

This is the verse I am praying through:

7 But as for me, I will look to the LORD;

    I will wait for the God of my salvation;

    my God will hear me. (Micah 7)

This is a summary of how I meditate on God’s word (give deep, serious, wondering, explorative, and prayerful thought), and how meditating on this testimony from God’s word has helped me this morning. 

“But as for me”

This tells me that, even in nations and churches that has so much corruption in them, and that are so deserving of judgment for the one and discipline for the other, God has provided a “but as for me” clause that allows us to be and live differently no matter how lonely (and scary) it may feel to do so. 

“I will look to the LORD”

While the world and the worldly church look to their idols, we are just as free to look to Yahweh in the name of Jesus Christ as were all the prophets who saw God’s judgment on the way, in the midst of its application, or in its aftermath. We cannot be stopped from setting our minds on the Spirit and fixing our eyes on Jesus except by our own willingness to look elsewhere. God’s invites us to be mentored by Micah and the other prophets to look to Jesus no matter what anyone else is doing and no matter what it costs us to do so.

“I will wait for the God of my salvation”

While we are mocked for this, Jesus’ servants are the ones who will not be ashamed in the end. And it is the end that matters. We all see how quickly time passes. Our lives truly are but a dream. The end of the wicked is so horrible that it doesn’t matter how much success they appear to have in their evil and idolatrous pursuits, we must not be them. At the same time, the end of the righteous is so gloriously wonderful and joyful that we can and must wait for our God to fulfil the completeness of our salvation.

“my God will hear me.”

Sometimes this is where we must put our hearts to rest. We cannot stop the judgment coming on the world, and we obviously cannot guarantee what any other church-folk choose to do, but we can rest in the confidence that our God does hear us and he will continue to do so even if we must bear the consequences of the judgment coming to others (like Joshua and Caleb, along with all the prophets, had to endure what others had brought on their people).

There are lots of thoughts of the personal application of this to our situations, but the testimony of Micah resonates for all God’s children. No matter what anyone does to dishonor our Lord Jesus Christ, the “but as for me” clause gives us an out. We have a way to walk in the obedience of faith to the glory of God, and even to the good of those people who are too afraid to follow him, by BEING who we are in Christ so that others will want to know how we walk in hope when the world around us is so utterly hopeless.

 

© 2022 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)