precious!

- Photos by Casey Batezel of Cannon Ingalls and his two sons, Zachary and Brennan.

Why We Must Think Rightly About God, pt. II

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” [ A.W. TOZER ]

Written Monday, November 30, 2009:

Today I discovered the source of much of my heartache, the fuel of much of my misery and heightened sense of insecurity as of late was rooted in what I, in the deep of my heart conceived God to be like.

These types of revelations are anything comforting.
But jarring. Alarming.

It’s a startling collision between the worlds of reality and that which I imagine things to be like.
But in the end brought me back to God, as He is in Himself, not the God I’ve created.

Because the God who only gives good things to only take them away is not safe.
Cannot be trusted. Even though my mind says, “I trust you” that very declaration betrays that which is the true condition of the heart grasping for straws and clinging to idols of false security.

The God who allows the rug to be ripped out from underneath me just when trust is given and security is found, is not a God, that I, in my true heart of hearts, can actively trust.

Sometimes it’s all about asking the right questions.
I had a conversation with someone today who pushed me to reach this place. Who pushed deeper within the conflicting tensions in my soul to help me, two hours later, after the conversation had taken place, to get to the heart of the matter.

She asked me a question that brought a deep peace within, it was as if the minute her words translated in my mind and filtered into my soul, they were hitting on something only my heart recognized. Its weight was felt. And I knew God was calling me to explore it further later.

How does our heartfelt image of God stray so far away from what we know in our heads and our minds God to be like? How do these things happen? So quickly? How did it happen in the course of the last month? Where the God we believe in becomes so far removed from the God who truly is? How does it happen? That things we normally didn’t find difficult, to trust God, to know Him and believe Him, to trust that He will take care of you, to trust that no matter what He can be trusted, how all of a sudden did this ruthless trust dissipate?

Many of the answers are found in the questions themselves.
Her question seemed to haunt me as I walked away from that conversation, knowing there was something deeper within my soul that was dying to be revealed.

“That our idea of God correspond as nearly as possible to the true being of God is of immense importance to us. … Only after an ordeal of painful self-probing are we likely to discover what we actually believe about God.” - Tozer

It was a process that was excruciatingly painful this afternoon, but a process where He has once again saved me from myself.

These revelations save us. They are at first embarrassing, yet then bring a startling peace.

I was confronted with how seeds of distrust and times of insecurity and betrayal in my past were once again haunting me. Causing me to live in a chronic state of distrust and craving security where it cannot be found. I came to realize an important lesson that I learned this summer in a time when my car broke down on the highway, a crisis that revealed what I in those moments, actually thought about God.

It brought up every fear, every struggle to trust God, every wound, every time of betrayal and abandonment in my past that I was projecting onto God. I was startled then, as I sat there in my friend’s living room during the crisis, waiting to see if my car was actually a goner, that the true crisis had nothing to do with the car, but what I actually thought about God.

That led me to a searing reexamination of everything I claimed to believe. That night I started reading Knowledge of the Holy, by A.W. Tozer, and the words seemed to leap from the page and grip my heart, that the gravest question before me was what I actually believed about God.

Today, that same crisis took shape, different issues, different type of crisis, one that has been unfolding for weeks, from a series of factors.

Yet getting to the bottom of the issue brought astonishing clarity to my situation and to the God who desires more than anything, my heart and my trust. Not the God I’ve created in my imagination, but God, the true God, as He is in Himself. Holy, powerful, full of all glory. The God who is above all things. The God who was leading me through similar lessons, but different streams. The God who I was reminded of took care of me, even when all I’d feared had happened before, as a traumatic event from a few years ago resurfaced in my mind on Saturday. The God who can be trusted, the God who is faithful. The God who is the giver of all things, the God who does not give only to take away. The God who promises and offers me a security that cannot be shaken. The God who does not wait for me to give all of my heart and all of my trust, only to rip the rug out from underneath me.

Those low views worship a view of God that is not God. They worship an idol, a god of my own fancy, whom I can control, whom I can predict and have figured out. Those views worship an image of God that is created, not what God is actually like. Those views betray the God I know true to exist in my heart, but an image my soul hasn’t been able to embrace because of my fears.

Today an incredible transpiring of events took place. I don’t even know how it all happens sometimes, some things are left to the ways of the mystery of God, the mystery far too complex to be entertained with the elements of reason. Some things just cannot be explained.

But He saved me once again. He rescued me because he delights in me. He brought me back to Himself, soul shaken and spirit crushed, to come to once again know Him as He is in Himself, not as I have imagined Him to be like. These are lessons we will always be coming back to. Our journey is not linear and it is a journey deeper into the heart of God where we He desires to grow us and mature us and to allow us to experience the blessing of living loved. The indescribable joy of living in the Father's affection and sensing His delight as we enter His presence. At the end of it all, I felt more than anything, loved. I felt known. Held and loved. Reminded of who He is, reminded of His power and might. Reminded that He is the God who sees me and knows every inch of every area in my life, the One who holds it all together and the One who holds me.

Amen.

Why We Must Think Rightly About God, pt. I

"O Lord God Almighty, not the God of the philosophers and the wise but the God of the prophets and apostles; and better than all, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, may I express Thee unblamed?

They that know Thee not may call upon Thee as other than Thou art, and so worship not Thee but a creature of their own fancy; therefore enlighten our minds that we may know Thee as Thou art, so that we may perfectly love Thee and worthily praise Thee.

In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

-- excerpts from Knowledge of the Holy. Readings and revelations in the last few days, familiar and new lessons, new set of circumstances, same amazing Creator and Father.

"What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen about its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshipper entertains high or low thoughts of God.

For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.

We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church.

Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech. She can never escape the self-disclosure of her witness concerning God.

Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, “What comes into your mind when you think about God?” we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man. Were we able to know exactly what our most influential religious leaders think of God today, we might be able to with some precision to foretell where the Church will stand tomorrow.

Without doubt, the mightiest thought the mind can entertain is the thought of God, and the weightiest word in any language is its word for God. Thought and speech are God’s gifts to creates made in His image; these are intimately associated with Him and impossible apart from Him. It is highly significant that the first word was the Word: “And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” We may speak because God spoke. In Him word and idea are indivisible.

That our idea of God correspond as nearly as possible to the true being of God is of immense importance to us. Compared with our actual thoughts about Him, our creedal statements are of little consequence. Our real idea of God may life buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions and may require an intelligent and vigorous search before it is finally unearthed and exposed for what it is. Only after an ordeal of painful self-probing are we likely to discover what we actually believe about God.

A right conception of God is basic not only to systematic theology but to practical Christian living as well. It is to worship what the foundation is to the temple; where it is inadequate or out of the plumb the whole structure must sooner or later collapse. I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.

It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believing something amounting to a moral calamity.

All of the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together and at once, would be nothing compared with the overwhelming problem of God: That He is; what He is like; and what we as moral beings must do about Him.

The man who comes to a right belief about God is relieved of ten thousand temporal problems…"

- Excerpt from Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer

true joy

True joy is not based on condition. True joy is not merely a feeling, but a welling deep within from being given something precious and rare, like the still peace after a storm.

"Real joy is sorrow accepted and transformed." -- Hannah Hurnard

peace

You, oh Lord, keep in perfect peace, those who keep their purpose firm and place their trust in You.

isaiah 26:3

lead me back to life in you

"True and substantial wisdom principally consists of two parts, the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves." - John Calvin

I have come to set you free

Free from the patterns and the mindsets that enslave. I think this is the purpose of revelations, to set us free. and with that freedom comes an indescribable peace and rest.

The Healer comes to set us free from the paths that lead us to destruction. He comes to give us life again in the places that were keeping us trapped on the wheel, like a hamster spinning around endlessly, hoping to get free. He comes and sets us free, he allows the spirit to counsel us and teach us all things, to liberate us from our mental slavery and save us from ourselves.

let go

To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do - to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst - is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed.

{ Frederick Buechner }