Who He Is

The biggest problem we have in the world today is how we view and approach God. Let that sink in for a minute.

Think of the way people refer to God. The Big Guy. The Man upstairs. Is such a casual response really appropriate? Think of the reasons people often seek God. "God, help me with ...", "God, heal me of ...", "God, give me ...", it turns God into an ATM, a medicine cabinet, or Santa. We casually approach Him with our needs, hoping He will solve all of our problems, but we never offer Him the reverence and honor that His very nature demands. God exists to serve us, take care of us, and handle all of our problems. It makes us central and God secondary.

I'm amazed at the arrogance, and I'm guilty of it in my own life. So often my prayers dive right into what I need God to do for me, how I need His help. Over the past few months I have spent a lot of time pouring out my needs and requests to God, and every time I'm reminded of how Jesus instructed us to pray. "Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.'" (Matthew 6.9-10) Prayer is to begin with God being acknowledged and honored for who He is. Prayer is to begin with a focus on God's desire and God's plan.

Galatians 4.9a says, "But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God" and that is why prayer is to begin as it does. It is not a big deal that I know God. He spoke the universe into existence. He created light itself from the words of His mouth. He invented the scent of a rose, the colors of the rainbow, the sound of water falling over rocks. God formed man out of the dust and breathed into Him the breath of life. When man disobeyed and sinned, He immediately went to work at restoring him to righteousness. He came to earth as a man, lived a perfect life, modeling how He intended for life to be lived, and then died in our place to pay for sin. He rose from the dead and sent us His Holy Spirit so that we could be empowered to live as He showed us. It is not a big deal that we know who this God is, we should, but the fact that this God knows us, loves us, and died so that we could have a relationship with Him is a big deal. It is not a big deal that we know Him, but that fact that He knows us, that is huge.

This year I have felt led to read My Utmost for His Highest. I read it years ago in college, and its been moved from shelf to shelf over the past ten years, but with my current life situation and the focus that God is trying to give me, I have felt the need to work through it again this year. On January 1, Oswald Chambers said,

"But before we choose to follow God's will, a crisis must develop in our lives. This happens because we tend to be unresponsive to God's gentler nudges. He brings us to the place where He asks us to be our utmost for Him and we begin to debate. He then providentially produces a crisis where we have to decide - for or against. That moment becomes a great crossroads in our lives. If a crisis has come to you on any front, surrender your will to Jesus absolutely and irrevocably."

This is where I find myself right now, dealing with crisis. In hindsight, I've seen how God has been making gentle nudges for years. The last few times I've read Wild at Heart and The Way of the Wild Heart I felt the need to explore the subject more, and begin the process of masculine initiation. I had no idea how, and felt like I was very alone in the process. Because of the feelings I shared yesterday it was difficult to ask for help, and so I made the mistake of trying to figure it out on my own, and ended up settling for a theoretical head knowledge of masculinity.

I don't know how many times my wife suggested that we do marriage counseling together, but again, the same feelings that wouldn't allow me to seek the guidance of men prevented me from seeing the issues in my marriage that I couldn't fix. My wife and I became more and more distant because I didn't want to take the gift of God's nudging. And so this past September the crisis occurred. God's nudging had done all that it could, but I had not responded to any of it.

Since then I have been on a journey, one that in all honesty could have happened much differently had my approach to God not been so casual, and arrogant. It has been an experience of learning who He is and who I am. On January 2, Chambers wrote, "God does not tell you what He is going to do - He reveals to you who He is." This is where we need to live.

God does not exist to solve our problems, we exist to know Him. God created us to have fellowship with Him and worship Him. He did not create us because He was bored and needed something to do, and so He made a bunch of needy humans to occupy His time. We were created to know God so that we could glorify Him. And the most amazing thing is that God desires for us to know Him. He is so far above us, and yet He does not look at us with arrogant disdain. He looks on us with unconditional love, and invites us to know Him.

It is not a big deal that we know God, but it is huge that God knows us, and invites us to know Him intimately. My hope is to come to know God more, and to exist solely to know Him and glorify Him.

"Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

To God alone be the Glory!

Strength and Honor

Daily Needs

"Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.'... When the layer of dew evaporated, behold, on the surface of the wilderness there was a fine flake-like thing, fine as the frost on the ground. When the sons of Israel saw it, they said to one another, 'What is it?' For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, 'It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.' ... Moses said to them, 'Let no man leave any of it until morning.' But they did not listen to Moses, and some left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and became foul; and Moses was angry with them. They gathered it morning by morning, every man as much as he should eat; but when the sun grew hot, it would melt." -Exodus 16.4-5, 14-15,19-21

Israel's complaints about empty bellies have reached God, and now He is about to fill them. But with this provision comes a test of faith. Do they really trust God to continually provide for them? Do they trust Him to come through over and over again?

One morning they wake up and the ground is covered with something they have never seen before. Bread has come from heaven, just as God promised. And with this provision comes instructions, only take what you need for today, except on Friday, then take enough for two days so that you can rest on the Sabbath. Here they face a choice, trust or attempt to control. If they choose to trust, then they rely upon God fully. They depend on Him to bring food each morning as He promised He would. This faith is what God is trying to cultivate in them, but in order to choose faith there has to be an option opposite faith, and some choose to try and control.

For one reason or another, some don't trust God. Maybe it isn't that they don't trust Him, but they just want to cover their bases in case He happens to be busy and forget one morning. So instead of gather what they need, some hoard and stock pile, making sure they have enough to take care of themselves. But their plan backfires, as our attempts at control most often do. Instead of waking up to manna, they find worms and a foul stench.

Men, we like control, we've said all this before. We don't like when we can't control things and have to rely on others to get the job done right. It's nerve racking to have to depend on someone else for something that you need in order to survive. But that is the just the faith that a Man of God is called to have. I think of Jesus is Matthew 6.11, "Give us this day our daily bread." As He teaches His disciples to pray He tells them to seek from God only what they need for today. He is teaching them to live in dependence upon God.

Now to clarify, faith is not an excuse for irresponsibility. I'm not saying that you shouldn't save for retirement, or your kid's college. But don't hoard everything that you get trying to build a safety net that allows you to have a false sense of security in your own resources and abilities. Let us learn to trust in God for our daily needs, because when we try to hoard we end up with worms and a foul stench.

God will provide the things that we need. Let us trust Him for our daily bread.

"Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

To God alone be the Glory!

Strength and Honor