Friday, December 15, 2017

An Uninvited Discipline - Discernment

Most of us who are serious about our relationship with God are trying to figure out what He wants from us.  We want our decisions resting on His directives.  We want our lives led by Him.  We want to draw near to His presence.  So, we read the Bible, listen to sermons, go to seminars and cry out for answers, rarely sure if what we “hear” is from God or some contrivance of our own heart.  We want to be able to know God’s voice, to discern its meaning for our lives.

How about a quick text, Lord?  Or at least a call?

We may be hungry for answers and leading from God but are we listening?  What if God has been speaking all along?  How will we be able to “know” his voice from other strange voices?  How will I even distinguish Jesus’ voice from my own?

In John 10, Jesus talks about his “sheep” hearing his voice.  It is a metaphor with big implications.  He is speaking.  The “hear” is to give attention to, understand, or give ear to the teacher.  Do we?  Just like when I have said to my children, “Do you hear me?” by implication, I mean did they pay attention, understand it and ultimately do it.  I usually ask it because I am not getting the desired response. 

Are we like that?  We really have had God’s words spoken to us and yet He gets no response.  How many times has someone said about God’s written word, “I know but…” Or what I heard in class recently, “It’s so hard.” 

At first I want to ask, “What do you desire most to hear from God?” but I must remember the end of John 10:27:  “My sheep hear my voice and I know them.”  It is an intimacy marker – “I know them intimately,” “I know what they need.”  This causes me to reframe the question: “Do you trust God to give you what you need and are you listening for that?” Do you desire what God desires for you?  Can you hear and trust any direction or answer He may give?  This is what makes discernment an uninvited discipline.  We wanted our answers our way.  That is what we are listening for. 

It is then a spiritual discipline to call discernment “obedient” listening.  Samuel’s famous line, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening,” was only made when he mistook the voice of God for someone else and, thankfully, that someone else was his mentor, who knew to direct him back to God.  To do the same, be deliberate in your listening.  A deep and deliberate reflection of the times God has “spoken” to you in the past – through His written Word, a sermon or teaching, through godly counsel or prayer – can reveal the pattern by which God has operated in your life.  If you stay familiar with this pattern, then other voices are easily distinguished from God’s.  I have often recommended a journaling exercise of significant God-voiced and God-led events in a person’s life.  To see the pattern is revealing and can prove to be a signpost for when God is speaking next.

These answers and experiences with God should include not just obvious directives, comfort and guidance but answers that include NO, which I often take to mean “better than this.”  Many a person knows, in retrospect, the value of not getting something they thought they once wanted. 

It is also important to note times of silence from God.  Waiting in silence has great purpose in giving us a chance to grow strong and to be willing for God’s answer.  Silence can draw us in and causes us to grapple with the truth God has spoken and then to enact obedience,  to step into and follow His leading.  It also behooves us in such reflections of our history with God to note how we have responded to God when He has spoken.  Have we obeyed?  Have we desired to gain the full benefit of responding to His directives and insight?  Do we trust God enough to listen for what He desires for us?


At the core of the spiritual discipline of discernment is the desire to be near to God. It is the “knowing,” in its intimacy-building intent, that should drive our listening.  The sheep who hear his voice then follow into the field.  Those who are attracted to his voice follow closely, not running ahead or lagging behind, going no further than grace allows and keeping Jesus Christ, that familiar shepherd, at the center of life.

Thursday, December 07, 2017

An Uninvited Discipline - Relationships

There is a myriad of books, Christian and otherwise, about developing healthy relationships.  My intention is not to discuss any of the “how,” which has been done from many perspectives, but rather why those pursuits are significant to our relationship with God.  Whether it is an endearing, sweet relationship (think:  grandchildren or BFF), or a difficult relationship (name your own here), that relationship can cause you to move closer to God or farther from God because it is practice ground for our relationship with Him. 

God wants us to “relate” to Him.  We can see that clearly in His relationships described in the Bible.  He walked and talked in the garden with Adam and Eve.  The Ten Commandments are relationship guides that teach us how to relate to God and each other.  There are so many relationship descriptors in the New Testament about us:  child, bride, friend and others.  Paul uses the most common of household metaphors of the goal of our relationship with Christ: “Father, out of your glorious riches, strengthen your people.  Fill their souls with the power of your Spirit so that through faith Jesus will become more at home in their hearts.  May love be the rich soil where their lives take root...so that they can know the love of Christ that is infinitely long, wide, high and deep, and may your fullness flood through their entire beings.” (The Voice -Ephesians 3:17-19)

What a loss for a human to not feel grounded, welcomed, settled and at peace in a place on earth!  What a gain to have a home!  Having a home where we are tended to and to which we tend gives a picture for us to stay and play, care and share with God.  I wonder how many people who never had a “home” cannot settle in with God the same way?

Jesus lived his life, ministry and death in the company of a network of personal relationships.  Some were not comfortable, as with the Jewish leaders.  His relationship with the disciples was problematic.  Some were daring, as with women, lepers and zealots.  He met people in gardens, houses, on walks by the sea, and in the synagogue.  He met them in enemy territory (Samaria).  He had friction within his family.  He was frequently eating with people.  He was not an isolated religious figure sitting inside a temple or on a hill.  He was immersed in relationship.

In all these, Jesus did not forget his Father in Heaven nor his purpose on earth, despite the challenge within these relationships.  I propose that if I keep God at the center of my relationships, instead of myself, I will be challenged in different ways than I intended.  It will be a spiritual discipline which will make me more like Jesus.

The first example that comes to mind is in marriage, but you can apply parenting or work relationships.  When my husband and I have a disagreement or a decision to make, do we make it based on what we want (which can be in opposition to each other) or do we make the remedy or solution revolve around what God wants of our marriage?  It is a discipline to move the center of all such discussions around God and His priorities for us, individually and corporately.  What impact does it hold to make decisions that bring us closer to God and not just to get relief or do what is easiest?  What impact does the witness have to solve problems that demonstrate our trust of God in any dilemma or decision?

This thought process also includes any relationship I may have with an enemy.  Jesus had the most powerful things to say about this kind of relationship.  In Luke and Matthew, he challenges the people of his day and us with these relationship guides when it comes to an enemy: (Matthew 5)

  •      You have heard it said, “Do not murder,” but anyone who is angry (enough to murder) his brother with be judged by his anger.
  • ·       In fact, anyone who calls another person names, “fool” being the highlight, may find himself with a day in court or in the fires of hell.
  • ·       Don’t offer your gifts to God at the altar if your brother has something against you.  Make it right with him first.
  • ·       If someone sues you, make right the offense.

And then he pushes all the harder (Luke 6):
  • ·       Love your enemies.
  • ·       Pray for those who persecute you.
  • ·       Bless those who curse you.
  • ·       Be good to them.
  • ·       Lend to them, expecting no return.
  •       Expect no compensation for their demands or thievery.

Ouch!  That is not what today’s relationship books say.  This set of directives does not make sense in Jewish law nor to our sense of justice.  Jesus explains,  “I have come not to do away with the law, but to fulfill it.” (Matt 5:17)  He becomes the consummation of the purpose of the law.  He has come to fill it with his presence, to show its deepest meaning, to have its strongest impact.  It’s what we might call “the spirit of the law,” but much more because Jesus is now the ultimate goal. Jesus becomes enough for us. In dealing with our enemies, we are not to serve our own purposes nor do good to our enemies for their sake, but for the sake of Jesus.  Basic law only serves to point to our deeper need for Him and His deeper truth.

That is what makes relationship a spiritual discipline we did not invite, but it is what we need - full relationship with Christ.  It is daunting and not what I want to do.  I may want to work on certain relationships because it makes life easier (me at the center).  I want to appear at peace with my enemies (me at the center), but keep them at arm’s length so as not to enter any more difficulty than I have to, (me at the center).  But with God at the center, the severest discipline begins.  The discipline is defined differently, enacted differently and drives me into total dependence on and obedience to God...

Which is what He wanted all along.