Yet a world that began today like it does every other day, with sunrises and alarm clocks, has a start and a finish.  Things to do, deadlines to meet; rising, working, resting—your life lives repetitively.  Daily, time shaves off a sliver of life, but the loss to you goes unnoticed.  But sliver adds to sliver, one day after another, and the weight on the scale of time begins tipping against you.  Life is running out.  The days with their daily grind have crept along, but the years have left you behind.

Temporal and eternal, finite and infinite, dying but alive, you exist in two very different realms.  You live here and there, Earth and heaven.

It’s tricky living in two places simultaneously.  Two houses, in two very different parts of the country, demand the same amount of up keep.  Double the work, double the effort, double the hit on the bank account, every decision and detail must be thought through and taken care of twice.

Yet even in this duality of working and thinking, one place always gets favored over the other.  Whichever home you treasure the most, your heart resides there indefinitely.

Lifetime is all the stuff you experience while here on Earth.  Between birth and death, your life continues for as long as you have time.  But once time runs out, life runs out too.

The very moment when this happens, everything left behind freezes as is. Unfolded laundry remains unfolded, unfiled papers remain scattered, the bank account has the same number of zeros, or simple just a zero.  All that filled your days and seemed so important comes to an abrupt halt, while you disappear into eternity.

To be in this world but not of it is to simply live in the temple God created in you.  In the days of the New Testament, the temple existed in three parts, an outer court, inner court, and, separated from by a relatively thin veil, the inner most court or holy of holies.  One time a year, God would enter the holy of holies and descend upon the mercy seat, while the chief priest made sacrificial atonement for sin.  To enter the holy place without sacrifice meant certain death.

When Jesus gave up His spirit on the cross, the veil separating the holy place from the inner court, in essence separating God from man, split in two.  With the ultimate sacrifice for sin now made by Jesus, God no longer confined Himself to a temple made by man, nor did He constrain Himself into a once a year appearance here on Earth.  Sin no longer a barrier, God got to work building His own temple, without human hands, a new place of earthly dwelling.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 1 Corinthians 6:19

When the Bible says your body is now the temple, the word used for temple means holy of holies.  Believe it or not, from God’s perspective, the most holy place on Earth is inside of you, the place where Jesus and the Spirit co-mingle with your spirit. You are the very temple made by the hands of God.

In Jesus, God has not just made you for heaven.  He has made you into the place where heaven lives on Earth.  Inside of you, eternity becomes one with time.  This means time can now be used for eternal purposes. Time becomes the way for you to fill-up eternity with heavenly treasures. All your efforts on this Earth can now count for something.  You can forever dismiss the fear of leaving behind a life full of ashes.

God’s mercy and grace and unconditional love, they all fill up the temple.  Assurance, security and total commitment greet you at the temple’s entrance.  The satisfaction and meaning you want from your Christian life can be found alive and real, waiting for you inside the temple.

From the temple comes the invitation to experience the life YOU’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO LIVE.

The Father, the Son, and the Spirit do not roam about this Earth looking for a place to dwell.  Long ago, before uttering the first word of creation, the plan was to make a second home suitable for the trinity, a place on Earth for the great I AM.  And though for a time God dwelled in a temporary house made by man, when it came time to select a permanent dwelling place, God chose you.  In Christ, He re-made you into what He wanted.  And for the holiest of all to live inside of you, in His eyes, could you be anything less than holy?

Something remarkable is happening.  In the temple God calls “you,” moment-by-moment Jesus is abiding.  He is abiding in you, while at the same time you are abiding in Him.

Mysteries from the eternal are known in the temporal.

Work done in the temporal is stored in the eternal.

All of life has meaning, because the meaning of life (Jesus) never ends.

You’ll never find what you want by looking for it in spiritual activity.  You can’t find God’s presence and acceptance in something you do.  You can never find God somewhere other than the place He found you.

To go to the temple, you simply must look inward, into your own spirit, the dwelling place of the Eternal One.  When you do, you’ll find Jesus inside, awaiting your arrival.

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God is love, yes, but not so much at my worst, at least the false image tells me so.  Blurred and shadowy around the edges, God’s love appears more as tolerance than anything.  His sometimes silence sounds like indifference, my sins and mistakes, He harshly judges. Mercy and grace get lost in the black and white commandments, a reminder that I reap exactly what I sow.  In this image, God looks nothing like the one I saw the day I invited Jesus into my heart.

The god at your worst is the worst kind of god. Impersonal, indifferent, ambiguous, you live feeling abandoned, left alone, the burden to regain god’s favor totally your own. This god may not be God at all, but at your worst moment, try telling yourself otherwise. At your worst, the god of your worst seems all too real.

Of course, this made-up god only exists as an alter-ego to the false image of god who exists at your best. The “god at your best” rewards your moral living and good behavior with greater acceptance.  This god takes notice of your efforts to please him and draws you near to him proportionately.  Your good intentions and self-effort somehow allow you to evolve into someone special, a Christian cut above the rest, shining as an example of righteousness for the world to see.

That is, until you fall into one of those worst moments—a sin, a relational hiccup, apathy toward God.  Here, the “at best god” unceremoniously falls from the spiritual mantle, replaced by the god at your worst talked about earlier.  Only when you match your sin with a heavy dose of penance, square up your relationship, and rekindle a passion for God will you exchange the at worst god for the at best.

And so goes your internal battle with good versus evil.

Don’t for one minute believe that eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a choice only Adam and Eve had to bear.  You remember the story, don’t you?  From the many trees in the garden, two were given names; one, the tree of life, representing exactly God; the second, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, equating as a choice to become like God.  One way, receiving life from the life giver, the other, choosing to become a self-made power source for living.

Rest versus work

Surrender versus striving

Christ versus religion

Although the physical trees no longer exist, spiritually, the very different results they produce remain alive and clear.  In the moment, you can choose to receive exactly God by freely giving Jesus access into all of your life.  Or, you can try to be like God, living the Christian life in your own strength.   When you choose the “be like God” route, and live the WWJD motto, the good versus evil way of living creates the “at your best” and “at your worst” false deities.  The gods of your making reward and punish, keeping you spiritually in line with a carrot and a stick.

Perhaps you can’t see these deities in your life, and maybe they don’t exist.  But if you want to know for sure, just ask yourself how easily you draw near to God after committing sin.  Not just the random acts of sin, but the reoccurring ones, repeatedly confessed before God.

In the bible, in the book of Luke, chapter five, there’s a story of Peter coming to the realization that he was indeed a sinner.  Yet, instead of asking Jesus—the very One whose presence is needed in time of sin—to come near, Peter actually asked Him to depart.  In Peter’s revelation of his own unrighteousness, the very One who could remake him into something righteous—Jesus—was told to leave.  Why in the midst of his problem would Peter tell the “answer” to leave?  Because Peter worshipped the false deities, the “at your best” and “at your worst” gods.  He saw his own failure and assumed that made him a failure before God.

Usually, you won’t even realize you have an “at your best” concept of god without first experiencing the god of your worst.  That was certainly the case for Peter. When life lives the worst, we tend to take more notice about where we stand in relation to God.  When life lives the worst, you need God the most.  But in those worst times, either of your doing or someone else’s, usually the little “g” god of your own making arrives.  You push the God of salvation away until you can make things right on your own.  Salvation in the moment now depends upon you.

A lot of Christian teaching unwittingly feeds your hunger to serve these gods.  You learn at a very early age to do good and avoid bad, that reward and punishment gets doled out based on your behavior.  Even the free gifts of grace and mercy somehow come to you by way of your good living.

But this type of teaching never gives you the Christian life you’ve always wanted.  It only serves to drive a deeper wedge between what you want and what you live.  Not until you experience life at its worst will you see the false teaching and the false concepts of God you’ve been living by.  Not until you experience God at your worst will you truly understand Him at your best.  Not until you have a Peter moment and recognize your unrighteousness will you be confronted with whether or not you stand before God on your own merit.

Not until you hear Jesus say come when you’ve told Him to leave will you understand the essence of Christianity.

It’s in your worst moments when you actually experience spiritual breakthrough.  When in the midst of your failure, you realize that you don’t have to regain God’s presence, because in Jesus, you never lost it.  Only then will you begin to live as the remade person you really are.

Jesus came to give you a second chance at life.  Yes, you cannot eat from the tree of life like Adam and Eve did.  But you can spiritually exist grafted into the tree of life, a branch connected to the true vine of Jesus.  You don’t need to strive anymore to be “like” God, because in Jesus, you have exactly God living within you.  In your best and worst moments, God is the same, very near to you in times of peace and trouble.

When you invited Jesus into your life, you left the failed way of living found in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and connected to the very life of Christ.  Why, then, would you want to return to something that never worked in the first place?  The offer of Christianity is not a superior way of living in your own strength, but rather a new way of living altogether, one that relies on the life of Christ flowing through yours.  It’s in your worst moment—your point of failure—that you need to cling to the truth of abiding.  You abide in Jesus because the Father has grafted you into the Son.  You abide because Christ abides in you.

But abiding in Jesus makes no room for false gods. You have to turn away from the “at your best” and “at your worst” deities who demand your worship, and fully embrace the life of Jesus.

Jesus is the One and only representation of God, the One and only way to God, and the One and only way to experience the life on this Earth that you’ve always wanted.

Jesus = God.

Jesus = life.

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I’m lost.  Rather engulfed.  I don’t know which way leads to light and which to darkness.  Surrounded by a mixture of not quite white and not dark enough black, I feel lukewarm.  Ordinarily dismissive thoughts, I grab on to, long enough to violently stir my emotions. What I’m thinking and feeling seems all wrong.  The words I hear sound like my words, but don’t sound like me.  I’ve never felt this intense uncertainty before.  Blinded to the truth, and no longer on solid enough ground to distinguish the lies, I slip into another reality.  I fall into blackness.

Now, I’m no longer alone, and quite aware of it.  Fear has joined me.  I want to run, but where can I go?  Fear sees through the darkness.  Fear is the darkness.  A person can’t hide from fear.  Thoughts I had while in the midst of the fog, ambiguous and inconclusive as they were, now speak in more authoritative tones.  Fear has overwhelmed me.  Fear has become me.  I’m afraid.

Have you ever been afraid, living in fear?

Fear takes the turbulent events of today, extrapolates them out to their worst possible conclusions and then calls it a destiny.  Or, in good times of happiness, waits around for the other shoe to drop.  In either case, fear looks into the future without seeing God.

Fear sits just outside your life, looking for an opening into your soul, disguised as thoughts and concerns about the future.  No area of your life—family, friends, future, work, health, retirement—goes untouched.  Once inside of you, fear uses lying thoughts to create lying emotions.  You begin to feel anxious and worried about the future.

But it’s all make-believe.

Any attempts on your part to beat back fear, at best lead to just temporary relief.  Poised, waiting for just the moment to re-enter your life, fear never allows you to experience long-term satisfaction.  You can battle fear in your own effort, quote bible verses at it if you will, but mere human effort and self-will cannot remove it from your life.  Fear is the most violent of storms the enemy sends your way.  Even when the deluge momentarily stops, the clouds never break.  Soon, the vicious attacks upon your soul will begin again.

To overcome fear, you need more than desire.  You need desperation.  Only in desperation, will you call out to Jesus.  In the earthly time of Jesus, a few of His closest friends, men well adept at dealing with the storms of the sea, found themselves desperate.  Men who prided themselves as seaworthy became undone by overpowering wind and turbulent waters.  Their boat was about to sink.  Fearful of losing their lives, they went down below and woke up a sleeping Jesus.

The story serves as a metaphor for fear.  As the storms roll into our lives, we first look inwardly, relying on our own abilities to withstand the fear that the storms bring.  We believe we can win by calling on our most recent spiritual teaching to help us.  But fear can withstand any teaching you might offer against it.  Fear withstands the onslaught of spiritual words and beliefs you throw its way.  Fear respects and retreats only when confronted by Jesus.

Jesus awoke, gave a hearty rebuke to the wind, and told the waves to quiet down.  The storm immediately went away.  That’s exactly how fear behaves when confronted with Jesus. It goes away.

But don’t expect rebuking fear in the name of Jesus to give you any long lasting victories.  Yes, confronted with Jesus, fear makes a hasty retreat, but never so far away as to allow your life to go out of sight.  Fear watches from a distance, and the moment you place something other than Jesus at the center of your life, it begins advancing toward you.

To defeat fear for good takes more than a rebuke in the name of Christ.  Once you sweep your life clean of fear, you must allow it to fill up with Jesus.  Otherwise, unoccupied by the life of Christ flowing through yours, fear will return.  And with a vengeance.

A long-term strategy to defeat fear requires that you live desperately for Jesus in the short-term, as in moment-by-moment.

A moment-by-moment, desperate reliance on Jesus keeps fear away from your life.

Fear cannot remain in the presence of Jesus.  There’s no fear in love, because perfect love casts out fear. 

Fear can never co-mingle with the blood of Jesus.

So the moment you begin to sense fear filling up your life, receive this as a warning that you’ve lost your desperation for Jesus.  Somehow, something other than Christ lives on the leading edge of your life.  By turning your back on Jesus, fear has seized on the opening.

Yet to win against fear requires that you simply put Jesus back in your moment.  Standing in Jesus in the moment clears up your future.  Don’t wait until fear overwhelms you.  At the first sign of its arrival, cry out to Jesus.  The moment the wind and waters grow turbulent, go down into your spirit and wake Him up.  Tell Jesus your soul is under siege, and that you need Him now.

Do you want fear out of your life for good?  Then string one moment focused on Christ with the next, and then the next, and so on.  You’ll never swallow victory whole, but you can eat at it one bite at a time.  You can experience victory over fear with a moment-by-moment dependency in Jesus. You have nothing to fear.  The certainty of Jesus awaits you now and in your future.

Never forget that Jesus lives within you.

You’re boat isn’t going down with Him on board.

Live like you have a God.

You do have one, you know.

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At my worst, with eyes focused inward, against the imaginary measuring stick I use to judge my self-worth, the stick never lies.  In my world of measuring value and worth by how fast, how high, how far, how many, and how much, I come up too slow, too low, too near, very little, and not enough.  I don’t need anyone telling me what I’m not, because I already know.

If you knew of these thoughts going on inside of me, I’m sure in kindness, you would lend me a comforting word.  Encourage me, applaud me, build me up; in that moment of awkwardness, tell me I’m someone special in the eyes of the Lord, that’s what you’d do.  I would certainly listen, thank you, grateful even for your exhortation.  But inside, nothing would change about me.  You would know it, and so would I.

Up to this point, I’ve written 216 words, thirty-three of them either “I,” “me,” or “my.”  The truth in a matter tends to hide somewhere within the words chosen to communicate with. The words I’ve written don’t lie; they reveal the problem.

My focus is on me.

As I listen to myself tell me what I’m not, or hear you tell me what I am, the focus still remains on me. That’s why encouragement never fixes long term the feelings that discouragement brings.  On opposite ends, both still exist in my world focused on me.

The answer to what I’m not isn’t found in what I am, but rather in Christ. 

With eyes on Jesus, I’m not looking at my holes, but neither at the places where I am whole.  I can only focus on one thing at a time. It’s either Jesus or me.  And when it is Jesus, it’s not me.

Even at my best, I have nothing to offer myself.  My best lies just the same as my worst.  I can never find a satisfactory resolution in my good and bad.  Jesus saves me from both.

Your spirit, your countenance, rises and falls in relation to the aim of your focus.  Caught in the mirage of measuring self-worth by what you can or can’t do, you’ll never see yourself rightly.  The soul needs some other focus to properly see.  The “I” in Christ stands for “not I, but Him.”

That’s the answer my soul longs to hear, words lifting my spirit to One greater than me.

Not I, but Christ.

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Today’s Christianity offers God with definable edges, the bible a text-book on spiritual physics.  One-size fits all formulas for living.  Spitting out answers to questions we aren’t even asking. Live within the boundaries of the definable God, we are told, and all of life will go well.  Safety instead of vulnerability, certainty over risk, the known rather than the unknown, logic dictates that your spiritual life act reasonable and balanced.

You may talk about living with an outsized faith, as long as you remain disciplined enough in life to never need to.  Faith exists way beyond the spiritual boundaries you’ve been given to live between. It contradicts the current Christian mindset of believing only when the facts say you can.  From inside the Christian beltway, faith is seen as a last resort for people failing to live obediently.

A few years ago, my wife, Tina, and I went snorkeling off the coast of the Bahamas.  Our guide took as to what’s called the tongue of the ocean.  Here, the ocean’s floor dramatically drops off, 6,000 feet.  On one side, the ocean water takes on the turquoise color you’re accustomed to seeing just off the sandy beach.  But on the drop off side, the color comes across as midnight black.

Safe and shallow or fully exposed in the infinite; which waters do you live in?  Which do you want to live in?

Today’s Christianity cautions you to swim only in the shallow waters, where God’s light readily shines.  Live in what you can study and know.  Try to increase your spiritual IQ.  Do anything to keep Christianity locked up between your ears, intellectualizing the relationship with God.  What you understand, you can control.  And that’s what modern Christianity offers many times, a way to control the events of life through a better understanding of God and the behaviors He wants to see in your life.  Anyway, a life diving into the deep, darkness of unknown waters lives too recklessly and out of control.  Better to live without the possibility of ever needing grace.

But somewhere in your unbounded place, where spirit and soul divide, you want recklessness.  You want out of control.  You want grace.  You want to dive deeply into the unknowable essence of God, an adventure into the mystery of the mysterious.

But if you want the adventure that comes with knowing more of Him, you’ll have to leave behind the shallow waters already penetrated by His light and swim off into the darkness.

Without any light, not knowing what waits, or where it all ends.

God never shines His light into the mysterious.

If you want to see into God badly enough, then you’ll have to come looking for Him in faith.

Faith won’t work in the light.  It only sees in the darkness.  Yet, much of what you’ve learned about relating with God keeps you well within the light of the definable boundaries of a safe Christianity.  You don’t need faith to live.

• Read your bible
• Witness
• Pray
• Avoid R rated movies
• Call Halloween a Fall Festival
• Never use the word holiday instead of Christmas
• Vote conservatively
• Homeschool your kids if you can

Yet, play it safe in what passes for Christianity, live within the pre-set boundaries, and you’ll miss the adventure.

God created your soul for heaven. An eternity with Him cannot be confined.  Why, then, would God want you living spiritually confined on this Earth?  Why not leave behind the definable way of relating with Him for the undefined?

Faith looks in places that the legalists dare not look.  It refuses to settle for a connect-the-dot Christianity.  Faith wants to color outside the lines, explore and experience the contrasts in which God reveals Himself.  Faith wants the unrestrained freedom to go find God.

Somewhere beneath the layers of an intellectualized Christianity, a life of adventure awaits you.  I dare not even attempt at guessing what you might experience along the journey.  But I do know where you’re going.  You’re heading toward the same place I am, as well as the place all those who have answered the spiritual call to an adventure of faith have gone to before us: Deeper into the mysterious of the mystery called God.

This type of life requires an entirely different way of relating with God than what you’ve previously experienced.  Education and learning may have brought you a lot of knowledge about God, but only to the extent your spiritual intellect allowed.

But to know Him, instead of just knowing about Him, God chooses to bypass your spiritual intellect altogether.  Your abilities and spiritually high IQ are of no value.  To know God intimately simply requires that He make Himself known.  And He makes Himself know by way of revelation and discovery.

Intimacy with God was never your responsibility.  You cannot have intimacy through the ability to understand and live within a safe set of boundaries.  Intimacy with God falls at the mercy of His revelation. Yet the more He reveals of the mystery, the more of the mystery you want revealed.  With His revelation comes the desire for more.

Isn’t this the Christian life you’ve always wanted, a life that desires God?  Haven’t you grown tired of being boxed in by all the spiritual constraints?  Don’t you want to trade in your spiritual life of boredom for something more adventurous?

Quit hugging the line, then, and fall off into the deep.  Just quiet down your intellect, open your mouth, and speak from the depth of your soul.  Your soul knows what to say.  Let your deep call out to God’s deep.

Away you go…

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“If we are to be aware of life while we are living it, we must have the courage to relinquish our hard-earned control of ourselves.”

-Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water

I stare out the morning window, the outline of my tired head stares back at me, wispy hair out of place, wild. The sun isn’t up yet, only the faintest, faded line of pink lingers over the trees out back. This slow rising happens every morning, I think to myself. As I wrap my hands around my warm cup, I can’t help but rush ahead into the day. Even though no one else is up yet, I’m planning and running on the inside as if things are in full swing. My feet haven’t moved but my soul is rumbling.

Mercifully, the Lord whispers His presence with me and I’m pulled back to this minute. I consider how God called the light day and the dark night, how He spoke the days into being just one at a time. He still does it that way, evening and morning and evening again. And the days roll into one another in a watercolor line of elation and planning and laughter and frustration. Sometimes it feels like my life is a gray arrow right through the center, pushing ahead to get on with the next thing, desperately wishing I could see far off ahead.

It isn’t usually the big things that cause the most trouble and doubt. With the big things, it is so obvious I’m out of control – the diagnosis, the job insecurity, the safety and well-being of my family. Instead it’s those everyday things that are covered with my fingerprints. I try to get things I already have, things like acceptance, worth, security, love. Maybe everything we do is to get one of those needs met. Finish the list – I am important. Apologize for my messy house when the neighbor comes over – I need your acceptance. Don’t let them see my weakness – I need your approval.

We are terrified of the mystery. We want our manager hats to remain firmly on our heads, skirts smoothed, shoes shined, plans lined up in neat rows. At the least, the suggestion that we are not in control is laughable. At the worst, it is offensive. I have a degree, you know.

And so I stand there next to the window, pink sky lighting up with each moment, and consider the invisible place in me where my Spirit and God’s mingle together. I used to think that a mature faith would bring with it clear pictures, thought that as I walked with God I would see life big, wide, and spacious. But that is not what is happening, and if you expect that, it can feel like perhaps your faith is shrinking. Because instead of being lifted up on a cloud to see the big picture, instead of tilting back my head and laughing at those silly things I used to worry about, I am shrinking down into a small place, a place where I can barely see two feet in front of me, much less into next week.

Everything in me wants to fight the unveiling of the anxieties that threaten to overwhelm, push them back from showing up in my day. Christians aren’t supposed to be anxious, right? I want to ignore the smoky unknown; it is counter-intuitive to let the anxieties rise up to the surface.

But we must let them rise up, so that we can release them into His hands. Speak the fear out loud, so that He can give words of truth. Don’t run away from those places where it seems your faith is small. Run into them, look around, be honest about how it feels as you stand there. And know we have a God who can handle it.

I put my cup on the table, breathe in deep the air of a new day, pray without words to a God who knows. I become aware of His acceptance of me, and not because I finished everything on my list. Truth can be a slow rising, making no difference at first. But as each moment weaves itself into the next, as we believe Him in the great right now, His truth becomes a strand woven into the fabric of our minutes. This moment living is sweet. This moment living reminds me of who is in control and who is not. This smallness is to be celebrated, not despised. I dare not trust myself with the next step. A mature faith says I am desperately in need of a source outside of myself. I always have been, but now I know it.

You can read more from Emily Freeman at www.chattingatthesky.com.

You begin life relating with people through a single pane of smooth, clear glass.  Naïve, the clear glass grants others a transparent look into your life. Yet, not too long after having someone point out a little streak of dirt, you discover the challenge of keeping the window continually clean. Eventually, you grow tired of washing this window and decide to replace the clear glass with a colored pane altogether.  Color better hides the dirt.  Others will see into your life, but they won’t see everything.

But each time a relationship shatters, the colored glass goes flying, leaving you with the job of replacing the window.  Maybe next time, a different color will keep others from seeing too far into your life, so as to keep your relationships feeling whole.  Maybe a different color will keep the next relationship from breaking.

Repeat the process of replacing shattered windows, and over time, you run out of colors to choose from. To avoid dealing with any future hurt, you may consider installing one last window and painting the thing black.  At least black keeps others from seeing in, all but closing off the prospects for any future relationships.

More than likely, though, you pick up the multi-colored pieces from all the past, shattered relationships and try to fit them together to reform a semblance of life.

Imagine waking up to a world madly in love with you, an existence where those around you want nothing more than to have a deep, meaningful relationship with you.  How much better would life live?  The pedestal others placed you on would elevate the status of your thoughts and opinions, not to mention your hopes and dreams.  People would push the pause button on their own lives, stop what they were doing to listen to you, and then lend a hand in helping you bring your highest aspirations into reality.  Even when you spoke a misguided word or took an occasional step out of line, what you said, and what you did, would receive quick forgiveness.  To gaze deeply within your relationships, you would see just what a darling you really are.

Unfortunately, the world doesn’t offer you this kind of a relationship.

But God can.

You are His darling.  He put you into Christ.  There’s no higher place for you to go.  When you speak to Him or ask Him a question, He stops what He is doing to listen, even when you talk silliness.  He gives you both the desire and the power to reach your highest aspirations.  He made you to dream, because He too is a dreamer of dreams.  When you do happen to fall out of line, He easily forgives, because after all, you can never fall out of Jesus.

This is the relationship God has with you.

But this isn’t necessarily the relationship you have with God.

For years, you’ve been living behind a stained glass window.  One-by-one, you’ve fitted and formed together the different colored pieces of past, failed relationships.  To you, each color represents a lesson learned.  To look at the stained glass window is to glimpse into your own relational past.

But don’t forget, glass allows a see-through in both directions.  What you’ve done with the color to mask what others can see about you has clouded your own view of them.  You see relationships through the same color you’ve been hiding behind.  Not only have you hidden yourself from others, you’ve prevented yourself from seeing others clearly.

And that creates a problem for you in your relationship with God.  You can’t see Him clearly either.  The view of God always looks skewed when seeing Him through your stained glass window.  Pick any color, take a peek through the glass, and you’ll see a relationship with Him that looks just like an earthly one you’ve had before:

*Seeing a father who never showed you much interest makes God suddenly appear very distant.

*Looking at a mother who constantly harped on your flaws turns God into someone you can never please.

*Watching a spouse control you, enduring verbal put-downs leads to a God who refuses to give you any security.

We tend to define our relationships with God on how we define our relationships with others.  We see God acting in our lives, as we act toward others, or as others act toward us.  In either case, God’s character comes out looking like something it’s not.

But there’s another window to the world and to God that you can look through. To see through this window allows you to see life clearly.  Through this window, the world and God make sense. It’s the window of Jesus, that on the day of your conversion, God installed inside your heart.  This window guarantees that you no longer need to hide from God, and that God will no longer hide anything from you.  Through the window of Jesus, you see life for what it really is; unfolding in the moment, working on your behalf to draw you into a deeper, more intimate relationship with God.

Yet, even with Jesus in your life, the stained glass window remains.  Of course, you cannot look through this window and Jesus at the same time.

Each moment, you must choose from what perspective you will look at life and others through.

God has a way of allowing relationships with others to reflect your relationship with Him. When you spend too much of your time relating with others through your stained glass window, more than likely, that’s how you’re relating to God. Relating with friends and family from behind the colored glass usually indicates that in your relationship with God, you aren’t seeing things clearly.

But all relationships become clear and focused when seeing them through Jesus.  So when a relationship with another endures from behind your stained glass window, God uses the experience to say something to you about your own relationship with Him.  He allows the situation, so that you will turn your gaze upon Him.  Through Jesus, when you fix your view on God, it fixes your relationship with Him. And when this happens, although not every earthly relationship will reconcile, after all, the other party may not seek harmony, at least through the process, God makes you whole.

The fix for any failed relationship is to allow the failure to fix you, to move you away from the stained glass window and instead looking at life with clarity, through Jesus.

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Have you ever wondered what God thinks when He looks down at you?  Somehow, I think He sees a bit of Himself in all of us.  He has a mind, we have a mind.  He has thoughts, we have thoughts.  He makes plans, we make plans. He expresses emotion, we express emotions.  He loves, relates, and listens, and we do too (sometimes).  He looks to His right and sees Jesus, and then looks at us and sees the same.

Sometimes I wonder what God looks like, will I even recognize Him when I get to heaven?  Speaking of heaven, when it’s my time to go, what will the trip from here to there be like?  A spiritual mentor of mine once asked God this question and was told it was like closing your eyes and waking up in another reality.  A few months ago, while in South America conducting an abiding life conference, that’s exactly what he did—closed his eyes, went to sleep, and woke up in heaven. He was only fifty-nine. (I miss him).

As a boy, God seemed vague and distant, always looking down at me with a doubtful eye, ready to lower the boom should I step out of line.  I wasn’t afraid of Him, but neither did I feel close.  In fact, I didn’t feel anything.  He was God, and I was just me.

Now, older, wiser, having rolled my spiritual odometer a time or two, I feel more relaxed around God; no longer pressured to perform for His love and grace.  The relationship I have with Him that began distant and cold has now grown much warmer.

  I can look to the future with confidence, because I have a past with God.

All that we know about God fits on the end of a ball point pen.  Sometimes in our theology, we think we have Him all figured out, our spiritual arrogance getting the best of us.  There’s a vast unknown revelation of Him waiting for us in eternity.  This side of heaven, we see only glimpses; enough to move us toward Him, but not so much revelation to distract us from walking by faith.  We presently live in a spiritual womb and await our birthing into heaven.  We are in this world, but made for another.  How can we know of Him beyond what He reveals?

The logical side of Christianity robs us of the mystery of God.  Quiet-times and prayer-times, witnessing and discipleship, ministry and ministering, they all push us toward spiritual structure and organization.  A contingency plan made for everything we might need, no time remains to just stop and wonder in His wonderment, about a God who chose you and me as a mirror to reflect Himself in.  How, when His Son became the Son of Man, He became like you and me. I’ll never fully understand, but that’s okay, because He fully understands.

The mystery of God calls out to anyone willing to listen.  There’s much more to God than what you might experience of Him in your orbit.  Not all of His revelation gets revealed in the things revolving around your world.  Not every question needs an answer right now.  Not every need has to be met immediately.  In due time, all of the currently undone will get tied together.  God has His own way of sorting your life out.

This moment is more about you just letting go and getting above your current world, to a place bounded by peace, joy, contentment, and rest.

The deeper part of God calls out to the deepest part of you. 

He wants to take you to a brand new place, where a greater revelation of His Son awaits you.

Just let go and go.

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Have you ever heard of “The Hero’s Journey?”  Every storyteller follows the same basic outline.  The main character, or hero-to-be of the story, first receives a call to adventure, put on notice that some life altering change is about to happen, sometimes aware of the call and sometimes not.

Once aware, the refusal of the call happens next.  Fear, feelings of inadequacy, or maybe the desire to remain in the status quo keep the main character grounded, unwilling to move toward his or her destiny.

Eventually, whether consciously or not the hero-in-making begins to move forward.  Once a line is crossed, signaling a commitment to the call, a guide appears—someone, or something, leading the person toward the inevitability that awaits him.

But far from realizing the awaited future, the main character must first cross over into the unknown where danger lurks.  Hitting the low point, the point of separation from the old world or way of living, the person realizes that nothing in life will ever be the same.  This revelation is followed closely by a heavy dose of trials and testing, some of which are failed, the obstacles every hero-in-training encounters on the way toward transformation.

In defeat, at a point of despair, the main character receives unconditional acceptance from someone already known, or a new person entering the story altogether.  This person plays a crucial role in the hero’s metamorphoses, because he or she completes what’s lacking in the hero.  What’s missing from the hero’s life, the person arriving on the scene offers to fulfill.

Next, temptations from the old world, or way of living, entice the hero to abandon the call, creating a gap in his mind between what was, and what will be, filled-up with feelings of hypocrisy and doubt.  This causes him to confront the ultimate authority in his life, or better yet, that one person or sin that wields the most power over him.  By choosing to lay down his weapons, so-to-speak, and no longer battle his enemy in self-made effort, the hero experiences an inward dying to self, which immediately brings a sense of inward peace.

But here, the hero refuses to return from where he came, preferring to remain in the moment of triumph instead of sharing his victory with others.  But the journey has always been about gaining the wisdom and power to triumph over a life that used to prevail over him.  Eventually, the hero returns as victor to the world from which he came, and lives transcendently, the ability to live in his old world, but be of his new one.

Before you were conceived, God imagined your life from beginning to end. He writes, not with paper and ink, but three dimensionally in time, weaving your story into a larger narrative about His character and love.  Your life plays out for all to see on the cinema screen called reality.  And in your story, you are the hero.  Not exemplifying a heroism that “saves the day,” but rather a heroism that courageously journeys toward a life of transformation and transcendence, a life of abiding in Jesus, moment-by-moment.

Most never complete the journey.  But I have a feeling you will.

Call to adventure

Refusal of the call

A guide appears

Crossing over into the unknown

The low point

Trials and testing

Receiving of unconditional acceptance

Temptation

Confronting the ultimate authority

Inward dying to self

Returning to your old world victoriously

Living transcendently, an overcomer in an overwhelming life, a person in this world but really of another

Now that you know what defines the journey God is taking you on, where does He currently have you?  You may feel far from the triumphant victor who lives transcendently.  That’s okay.  The compelling part of your story isn’t the end, but the journey you take to get to the end.

Maybe you’re in the process of dying to yourself, or enduring trials and testing, or perhaps just now hearing the call to adventure.

It doesn’t matter.  You are where you are—exactly in the place God wants you today.

But you must remember, the story isn’t about you receiving Jesus into your life. It’s way bigger than that.  If it were just about you experiencing conversion, the moment Christ entered into your life, God would have taken you to heaven.

No, the real story is about the journey of finding the life you’ve always wanted here on Earth.  A life lived in peace and happiness and contentment; a life no longer bogged down, but rather going somewhere; a life ruling over an unruly world.

Abundant living—that’s what you want.

And you can only have it when the reality of a moment-by-moment, abiding relationship with Jesus becomes your own.

Make no mistake the journey you’re on is one between you and God.  He’s already written everything; you’re just living the script.

But perhaps since our paths have crossed, maybe Beliefchangers serves as the guide appearing out of nowhere to help you along the way.  If that’s the case, I promise, as best I can, to walk with you to the end.

But before you can arrive at the place you’re going, you have to identify the place from which you’re leaving.

So where on the journey toward a deep, abiding relationship with Jesus do you find yourself?

Look back at the steps in the hero’s journey and identify where God has you.  Then use the comment section below and write what’s currently taking place, and include some of the story about where you’ve previously been.

Remember, it’s your story.  It’s your journey.  Regardless of how you might feel, your life is going somewhere.

But I want to hear about it.

I can’t resist listening to one of the Master’s stories.

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Existing, yes; living, no.

Faith?

Are you kidding me!

You don’t understand.  (Or maybe you do).

People don’t live by faith anymore.  At least not those who wander into the cave of hopelessness.  Once the spiritual eyes adjust, walking deeper into the darkness becomes much easier than turning around and heading back toward the Light.  Light brings exposure.  And no one looking for comfort in the cover of darkness wants to be revealed.

Once in the cave, the enemy speaks consoling words, warm feelings of justification by which the hopeless can snuggle-up in, safe and secure, now, surrounded by darkness. The last thing the enemy wants is for any amount of hope to spring eternal.  Hope leads to faith, and faith blinds away the darkness. Better for the enemy to snatch up the beginning of hope, for fear it might breakout into an all-out-war of faith.

In various degrees, we all choose to take cover from the world.  The disturbances that fall from the sky like a fine mist don’t seem to bother us too much.  Even if they do leave us a little wet, we can handle them.  But when the mist turns into rain, and the storms of discouragement come, we get poured upon, drenched with disillusionment.  Heading for cover presents the quickest and easiest way to get out of the storm.  And sometimes the first place we see to take shelter in is the dark cave of hopelessness.  Many times, we enter without fully knowing we have.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to take cover in the midst of a spiritual or internal storm. That’s a response God pre-wired into us all.  In fact, in the New Testament, the word for “hope” implies running and hiding. Only not into the dark cave of hopelessness, but rather into the warm, open arms of our heavenly Father.

So why do so many people choose hopelessness over God?

You’ll only seek cover in that which you trust.  Without getting too spiritually geeky, the Greek, New Testament word that translates “hope” actually gets translated “trust” more times than not.  Hope and trust convey the same meaning.

Hopelessness, then, is Satan’s and the world’s alternative to trusting in God.  You would never take the enemy up on a specific offer to trust in him instead of God. How foolish would that be!  Even the non-believer has enough sense to refuse such an overt offer.  Instead, Satan disguises his disruption to your life by sending you an invitation to join him in finding solace in the cave of hopelessness. Hopelessness is anti-trust, saying no to God.

In the past, you may have stepped into the darkness, only to step right back out again.  Pressured by the immediacy of your situation, you quickly saw the way to overcome and avoided a long-term stay in the blackness.  I’m not sure I would even call this hopelessness.

But to enter the cave and continue walking, without looking back, leads to the dead end of hopelessness.  And when a person becomes more comfortable with the darkness instead of the light, life ends.  Not the existing part, but the living part.

To live again requires a journey out of the darkness and into the light.  But a person truly in despair will never make that trip.  It’s too comfortable to remain where they are and too scary to think about moving.

But God has a plan.  If in the midst of hopelessness you’ll simply verbalize your desire for Him, the Light will come get you out of the darkness.  One word sent God’s direction, even a slight glance His way, and Jesus is on the move.

It’s difficult to comprehend how anyone choosing the path leading to hopelessness wouldn’t be held responsible to reverse course and head in the right direction.  That type of thinking contributes to a lot of people settling for despair.  They no longer feel deserving of the light, because of how long they’ve lived in darkness.  After all, darkness is what they deserve since they chose the cave in the first place.  Life becomes a self-imposed prison sentence.

The truth is, they don’t deserve the light—none of us do.

Yet, Christianity isn’t about deserving, but receiving—far more, in fact, than any person could ever hope to get.

Jesus is a rescuer.  He comes for the one who doesn’t have the strength to come.  But He needs you to ask for His presence.  If He came without you asking, the dark shadow of hopelessness would blind you from recognizing the Light.  You’d miss Him altogether.

But that doesn’t mean you need to get verbally fancy.  Just ask Him to simply come into the darkness and rescue you, and He will.

The enemy is going to tell you that it can’t be that easy.  He wants you thinking this way, because the more complicated he can make things seem, the less likely you are to listen to anything other than the consoling thoughts and feelings he’s been feeding you.

But it really is simple.  Once you ask for Him, Jesus will enter the cave and pursue after you until He ultimately finds you.  And when you place your focus on His coming and set your gaze at the expectancy of seeing His Light, the first rays that pierce through your darkness will revive a feeling that you so long ago lost.

You’ll begin to hope again.

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