Saturday, May 31, 2008

Faith

Art Katz writes on page 78 of Apostolic Foundations: '...now is not now except in the light of that which comes after.

He is referring to the promises which will be fulfilled when Christ returns. In the world's view, 'now' is the direct consequence of what has come chronologically before, and modern science maintains that the present is the key to the past. From this new standpoint, however, the present would have no purpose to be, except that it be fulfilled. 'Now' would not be if there were not an 'after' to give it purpose; indeed all purposes which have ever been enacted in time will be judged on the day of judgement. Therefore all purposes should be considered only in the light of that coming day. Every good and bad motivation which has ever been played out in the universe will be brought to its rightful fulfillment on that day. Therefore the purpose, and ultimate reality of the present is bound up in that specific point of the future, and without each other, neither would exist.

The still point of the turning world is not a place which exists in the middle of this planet - a particle of matter that spins in a fixed place rather than moving in revolution around the middle axis. It is a theoretical point in space, always too perfect and precise to be occupied by any atom of matter, no matter how small.  However, faith in, and understanding of that theoretical, perfect still point is required before the imperfect particles surrounding it can come into being, as otherwise they would have nothing around which to organize themselves. This is why faith precedes substance. This is why the unseen is more real than the seen. What is seen is only that which has been built upon the foundation of unseen realities, and if those unseen realities departed, there would be found no place for the physical things. That is why, when in John's vision in Revelation 20:11 Christ returned to bring in a new heaven and earth, "...the earth and heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them."
At this point, at the end of history, the unseen realities underlying this world will change, to be replaced by a new world, and the old will no longer have any basis to exist.

It is like when a shadow is cast. In order for the shadow to exist, there must be a physical body to define it. The shadow has no substance of its own, but must appear or disappear depending on the light of its environment, and the movement of the form which is casting it. We often think of faith as the shadow - the ephemeral thing that accompanies us, and is affected by the lightness or darkness of our lives. But faith is the real reality. Faith is the physical, substantial form which makes the shadow possible, and if the placement of the form moves, the shadow must also move. The rational reason why a mountain will move when it is commanded in faith is that the shadow does not have the authority to operate apart from that which creates it. This is the basis for miracles. Jesus said that he who asks receives. Because if we ask in faith, we redefine physical reality. The dead are raised, limbs grow back, souls are regenerated - because we live in a corrupted shadow-world, but God has granted us access into the real world. We have eternal life, even now. We are citizens of heaven. We live in a reality that transcends the stuff of earth that surrounds us.

Hebrews 11:1 
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Faith is not a fleeting human conjurance, or even a human idea; it is the very evidence and substance of the things that will come into being through it. The substance of things to come owe their existence to faith, and the faith owes its existence to that which will follow, and fulfill it. That is why when one prays in faith, one does not simply ask anything of God, and expect that He will provide it. The prayer of faith apprehends the thing that God wants to do, and indeed will do, and this Purpose alone is what is prayed for. The prayer of faith becomes possible when one is truly dead and hidden with Christ in God. 

Colossians 3:1-4
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

This passage bespeaks a place of faith, existence and prayer that is totally encapsulated in the real world; not coloured by our own ambitions or subjective desires. "...Christ, who is your life..." There is nothing else except Christ that defines the life of one who lives by faith. And thus, there is nothing except the Purpose of Christ to define the prayer of one who prays in faith. Oswald Chambers, in addressing the command to "pray without ceasing" gave this radical definition of prayer: "Prayer is the breath in our lungs, and the blood from our hearts."
In order to live with such radical prayer, one must live with equally radical faith.

I believe that God waits for us to pray before He acts. He could certainly go ahead and accomplish what He knows is best, but He suffers His Purposes to be carried out through the prayers of His saints, because He wants to have a relationship with us. He wants to teach us to be like Him not solely through the example of His works, but through union in the accomplishment of those works. And that union is only birthed in a place of faith where the unseen is understood to be the foundation of the seen.

The Still Point of the Turning World.. continued

I want to add a bit more to my last post. I was listening to a message by Art Katz, and he brought up the fact that maybe the last thing that stands between a Christian and his or her walk with God is one's own sense of spirituality.. 

It's like Abraham. His spiritual walk with God was defined by his son Isaac; all of what he had been waiting for from God was encapsulated in the birth of Isaac, for it was through Isaac - and only Isaac (even another son to be born later would not be sufficient) - that everything promised to Abraham would come to pass. But God required that Abraham sacrifice his son, apparently therefore forfeiting all the promises to come through him. 

But Abraham was willing to do so, because he believed that God would even raise his son back from the dead, if that was required. In this, Abraham signified that even his own spirituality; the unique promises that set him apart from all others, and to which alone he held onto for spiritual security, he was willing to give up. The still point of the turning world cannot be reached unless one is willing to give up even that which one perceives as being synonymous with the desires of God, as only the true Purposes of God are worthwhile. 

Wolfgang Simpson, a German saint, once witnessed a windstorm in one of the dense old-growth forests of his country. Before the storm, the interior of the wood had been majestic, with the soaring trees above, and a clean floor below, uncluttered with other vegetation. Afterwards, when most of the trees had fallen, lush vegetation began to grow up. It had previously been hindered in its growth because the tall trees blocked the sunlight. His analogy, then, was that our own spiritual lives might seem majestic and stately, but it could be that this very status which we have grown used to is the thing which is blocking the growth that God wants to begin.

And in the end, God did not require the death of Abraham's son, but only the death of Abraham's own will, his own ambitions and sense of himself as himself, apart from God's desire for his life.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

The Still Point of the Turning World..

I am quite often tempted to really explore my own mind. And, of course, that doesn't sound bad at all, but I mean exploring unpropitiated desires.. one often thinks that such exploration is an opportunity to learn something about oneself, and thus the inner workings of the mind should be addressed.

And indeed, there is likely much that I could learn about myself as an individual from delving into this kind of psychoanalysis, but I have come to realize that "myself" apart from God is utterly unindividual. These would not be personal revelations that I would gain insight into; they would only be part of the universal oppression exerted upon Humankind by the Prince of this world. "Myself" without God is more specifically myself without light, without love; that is, myself consisting only of the absences of true form and meaning. Myself without God is only a number, a faceless unit - and is that worth exploring?

We shall not cease from exploration,
And the end of all our exploring 
Will be to arrive where we started 
And know the place for the first time.

...Not known, because not looked for 
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.

T.S. Eliot; 'Burnt Norton' from the Four Quartets

Perhaps my exploration to find this elusive place between two waves of the sea, where past and future are gathered, and all experience stops dancing, and one can see the motion summed up in one place - at the still point of the turning world - perhaps I have tried to find this at the heart of my own life. But this is wrong. If, as Kurtz, I would see it as it really is - I would find a heart of darkness, and I would gasp, as he, "the Horror!"

What I have come to realize is that the motion of the dance, the turning of the world which makes the still point possible, are all forces which find their source in God. My life as it really is - myself when I am real - exists now with God, as I have always existed, since before the foundation of the world. That is the still point of the turning world.

It's like when you are dreaming, and you act rather shamefully in the dream. You wake up feeling rather bad about it, but assume that you didn't have control over your unconscious mind, and so are not accountable for the thoughts and actions carried out in the dream. There is, however,  always a certain amount of mental turmoil that accompanies such dreams as they are being dreamt, which means the choice was available to not entertain those thoughts. 

If that elemental part of me had been secure enough in the will of God, it would have resisted the excursions of the mind even in its semi-conscious state. It is as John the Baptist saying "He must increase, I must decrease." If Christ increases in me, the hold of this world, and my mind, its effectual by-product, decreases.

Failure

..written somewhere around September '06..

In Acts 13, Paul and Barnabus and the other believers had come to the end of any earthly ambition. They were fasting and praying, and worshipping God. One would think that they would be out canvassing the neighbourhood, and making plans for apostolic conventions. But at this time, they did not worry at all about the work of God; it was not the cry of their hearts, because God had not given them that cry within their hearts. After Paul received this directive, though, he was in "birth pains" until the churches he discipled became fully formed in Christ. God needed that place in his heart where not only did he not care about his own ambitions, but he also didn't care about what might be construed as God's ambitions. He only had to follow God's directive to "Be still, and know that I am God." 

It's like Moses, when he tried to free his people with his own passion, by killing the Egyptian slave master, and the people he was trying to emancipate responded with scorn. He had to wait forty years, in exile, tending sheep in the wilderness; by which time he was utterly dispassionate about his life and "calling." It wasn't until God saw Moses reach this point that He called him, and it is later written of Moses that he was the meekest man on the face of the Earth, despite all of his exploits for God.

If you run with the wind, you can't feel it blowing. But if you stop and stand still, you can feel that it is not the influence of your own running that is rippling your clothes, but the influence of the wind. So if we assume we are running with the will of God, we might actually be running away from it, because all that God really wants us to feel sometimes is His presence.

The verses directly following "Be still and know..." in Psalm 46 are "I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." The exultation is a direct result of the stillness that preceded it.