Deep calls to deep

I had trouble understanding this phrase when I first encountered it. The context, in Psalm 42, is of discouragement and of the Psalmist thirst for God. Most of my life was lived at a level that can only be called shallow. It was all about me, my wants my needs my goals my ambitions. To a lesser extent this was true even after I became a Christian. But I was not satisfied, I had no peace, I knew there had to be something more and I wanted it, no matter what the cost.

Oh I knew a lot about God, I knew a lot about the Bible and I could debate this issue or that issue with the best of them, but there was something missing. I tried harder, trying to find (or perhaps loose) myself in ministry. I was driven (rather than lead) to find my destiny, and all the while deep was calling to deep. But I was not listening, not until my world fell apart with my now ex wife taking the four children and leaving. It was not my choice, but now out of the ashes of my life I was finally still long enough to start to hear the unfathomable depth of God calling out to the unfathomable depth in my soul.

Does it sound like I am bragging, saying that I am a deep person? If so let me tell you that there is an unfathomable depth within your soul too. And I know this because you are a reflection of His depth. This is just part of what it means for you and I to be made in the image of God. But is also means you and I are significant, we are valuable, precious in His sight, and we are made for better things than for selfishness. We are made for greatness.

Mike Bickle talks about seven longings of the human heart, the longing for the assurance that we are loved by God, the longing to be fascinated, the longing to be beautiful, the longing to be great, the longing for intimacy without shame, the longing to be wholehearted and passionate, and the longing to make a deep and lasting impact. Does any of this ring a bell with you? Perhaps you had (some of) these longings, but the school of hard knocks left you disillusioned. I see that school as a crossroads, I can be disillusioned or I can return to the Shepherd and Guardian of my soul. We all can. Deep is calling to deep. Can you hear it, can you feel it? It is a He, be still and know that He is God.

Guilt deficit

I have heard people say that if God is just he will weigh my good deeds against my bad. Well God is just, but does justice really work that way? “Yes mi lord, it's true that I stole $10,000, but I am good to my mother, and I help little old ladies across the street!” What would the Judge say? “Guilty, five years.” Now God has a record of all the bad things we ever did, as well as of all the good things we should have done, but didn't do. I think of this as a guilt deficit and I certainly have one, how about you?

If I am overdrawn at the bank, the only one who can help me is somebody in credit. In the end there is only one who is in credit with respect to guilt, Jesus Christ the righteous. Now the Bible tell us that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. ” What I am trying to say is that the only way to overcome our guilt deficit is to receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ as a gift. When we do we are told “Your sins and iniquities I will remember no more,” and “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” Have you received His gift?

Confess your fault to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

For the longest time I could not decide if my natural openness was a gift, or a curse. I thought it might be a curse, because many times when I had shared openly and honestly, then I would feel judged and the confessions might even come back as an accusation. There were also times when I was shamed. “You did what?” On such occasions it did not feel like a gift. More recently though I am seeing more and more that openness, honesty and a willingness to be vulnerable before others, as a gift. I need to explain.

The verse quoted at the top is one of the most powerful principles and promises of the Scriptures. Probably because of this, it is also one of the most difficult to put into practice. Part of the reason for this is the power guilt and shame holds over us. “What will people think?” “Will they still speak to me?” “Will they reject me?” And from my own experience I can tell you that there are times when that fear is fully justified.

What is needed is a safe place. The meeting surrounding twelve step programs are usually such places, and when the higher power is the Judeo-Christian God, then all the resources and promises of heaven are at one's disposal. Twelve step programs are powerful not just for alcoholics and drug addicts, but for the rest of the word who suffer and are limited by our responses to our hurts, habits and hangups. In other words all of us (unless, of course, we are in denial!). I have found the local Celebrate Recovery (CR) group (can be googled) to be a safe place, and somewhere where the above principle and promise is being played out.

There are a number of things that are essential here. The first is encapsulated in a CR saying “You are only as sick as your secrets.” David in the psalms declares “When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.” He was declaring what many of us know, that spiritual sickness can manifest itself in the body. Doctors call such ailments psychosomatic.

The second point is that confession needs to be mutual, one to another. When we have confessed we are probably at our most vulnerable, and at that point there is nothing worse than being greeted by silence. What happens when we open up to one another and receive the same back, is that we discover that we are not alone after all. It is not just me who has this problem, and a problem shared is a problem in the process of being solved.

The third thing to say is that prayer changes things, and healing often it does not occur without it (especially when the pain is deep). The title quotation is from James 5:16, but it is only the first part on the verse. The second part, in one translation, reads “The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective.” When we have confessed our sins to God and each other, He sees us as righteous, so we then qualify for the promise, which is then received by faith.

The last thing to say is that it works. It has worked for me. I have been on this journey for many years during which I have seen much healing, but it is only since joining CR over a year ago, I have come to the place where I can honestly say and mean “I am in a good place.” I am not saying that life is without problems, but I am in a good place, I am at peace and have much joy. Hallelujah Amen.

Did I enter your soul with boots?

I was caused to remember this charming phrase spoken by a Rumanian friend of mine many years ago. She feared that she had been insensitive to me in my hour of need. When our emotions are raw and we share with a friend, we are in a very vulnerable space. At such times we are in need of the kind of deep understanding that someone who has not been there can never give. What can seem to our friend like a perfectly kind and loving response given out of deep concern can feel, to the one in pain, not a tad insensitive. Recognizing she may have stepped over the line in this regard, she asked her question. What she was asking was “When I needed to tread gently, did I in fact walk all over you as it were with field boots?”

By and large we do not deal well with pain. In particular we often do not deal well with the pain we feel when a friend shares his or her pain. If we are good friends we want to help, but how to help is the problem. Over and over (and I have seen this from both sides of the issue) we want to fix the problem for them, and our first thought is to do this by offering unsolicited advice. And it is at this point that we are in grave danger of entering our friend's soul with boots.

I hate it when someone says to me “I know how you feel” (no you don't - boots). It frustrates me when people immediately give advice (boots). When I told one friend I was not particularly looking for advice he told me “I don't take my own advice, but it is good advice” (boots). Perhaps it was, or then again perhaps not, but in any case what is given is usually far easier to say than it is to do, and if you have already tried that and failed, it does not help, really (boots).

I started thinking about this recently when I was listening to a friend. He has problems that overwhelm me just listening to him. I came away thinking that I had not helped him at all. When I took this to the Lord, He told me “You heard him, and that was the very best thing you could have done.” Praying out loud with such a one, and taking the problems just expressed to the Lord, can also help, and this also lets the person know you have heard their pain. On the other hand they may not be ready for it, or they may be mad at God (boots).

It is not rocket science “A closed mouth gathers no foot.” It was not for no reason that the good Lord gave us two ears but just one mouth. James puts it this way “Be swift to hear and slow to speak” (James 1:19).

The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is life abundant and eternal.

Wages are what we get for what we do, when we choose to go against God's commands (even unknowingly), we reap the results of our actions. Sin is not a popular word in our politically correct culture, but even if we deny that this or that action is sin, we cannot escape the consequences. Oh we can blame it on others. That was in fact the second sin that followed the first. “Adam, did you eat of the fruit?” - 'The woman – You gave ...' i.e it was the woman's fault and actually God it was Your fault too, You are the one who gave her to me!'

The King James has it right “I curse the earth for your sake” (Genesis 3:17). That is different from 'because of you' in other translations. “For your sake” has behind it the provision and protection that flows from God's love. He wants us to know that when we break His law there are negative consequences (i.e. the Laws are given for our protection). We reap what we sow, and the wages of sin is death. The curse is designed to that the pain of the consequences will lead us back to Him, and to life, life in all its fulness and life for evermore (provision). This is God's gift, we don't deserve it, and we can't earn it. It is the good news of the Gospel. It's the only way to fly!

Count it all joy when you fall into various trials.

This admonition from James chapter one can seem out of sight or even ridiculous when you first read it. But it makes sense in a common sense sort of way. I mean we have all heard of the power of positive thinking, and life certainly seems to go better for those with a positive attitude. On the other hand this is very hard for those of us who have been deeply wounded by life. And putting this advice into practice can be more of a journey than something we just do and get on with.

Clearly the inner wounds that some have sustained in life are much much greater than those of others. Those who come from a stable, loving and affirming home are streets ahead of those who do not. Not that the pain is in any way comparable, but lack of nurture can be as just debilitating as abuse. But in either case there is much that others have done or not done, that helps us explain to ourselves where we are at, and why this admonition from James can seem so out of reach.

When we were children we had no defence for what came down on us, but when we are adults we do not need to let the past be our future. As adults we need to understand that our response to the wrong done to us, can be just as big a factor in keeping us stuck as the wrong done itself. So long as we do nothing but blame others for the state of our emotional health we will not heal. What I am saying, and I do not claim this is easy, is that we need to take responsibility for our responses to the wrong done. If we let Him, and if we fully cooperate with Him, God will help us to come out from under it all. There is much truth in the saying without God man cannot, without man God will not. It is only under full radical surrender that we can prove the good and perfect and acceptable will of God (Romans 12:1,2). In the words of AA “half measures profited us nothing.” Even then it is a process, not an instant over night fix. We may have to suffer more until we are ready to take the radical step. “Are we there yet mummy?”

Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.

We live in an age where integrity, faithfulness and doing right have essentially gone down the drain. If it feels good do it, is more the prevailing philosophy of life. The problem is that my doing what feels good too often impacts others negatively. For example, the ease with which we trash relationships because it is “not working for me,” pays little attention to the devastation of the children from such relationships. We excuse it of course, saying that it is better for them not to be in a situation where there is tension and fighting. It never seems to occur to us that we need to deal with the fighting and the selfishness that lies behind our “feel good” culture.

When we have suffered enough, and caused others enough pain, we may be open to the incredible mixture of love, faithfulness and righteousness that is offered to us in the Gospel. Love, faithfulness and righteousness meet supremely in the cross, where for those who will receive it, the penalty for our sin and selfishness is paid in full. Here, by taking the penalty upon Himself, God can be both just (righteous) and loving at the same time. Seeing this in the future, the Psalmist rightly declares that love, faithfulness, righteousness and peace kiss in God's incredible act of unselfishness. It should break our hearts, so we turn to Him in repentance and so receive this indescribable gift.