Knock, Knock

I don't think I like the color change for the embedded commentary. I think I'll stick to brackets.  Less interruption to the flow--less chaotic look.

Here is the balance of July:

July 29, 2002
We're home from camp.  Only have time to record a few verses that jump out at me and why they did so as I read today:

If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me.  Philemon 18...as Christ speaks to me about someone I can't trust.
**Accepting someone's help is as good as giving someone help.  The Message 10:40 or 41...this one sadly is not in my operating philosophy at all! [I had put a big star beside this one...showed it with asterisks here.]
If you're content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.  Matthew 23:? 
[Quoting from The Message is tough as verses aren't numbered.  Re-reading my stumbling attempt to cite scripture sources made me chuckle.]

July 30
Last night we had a task force meeting about the new contemporary service at church.  I offered a book to a friend with a passage about the Canaanite woman--which is the topic for her lay Sunday sermon.  As I opened it to find the passage about the woman, my eye fell on this scripture quote:  Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and sup with him and he with me.  Rev. 3:20. 
This was the verse that came to my mind when Scott [my husband] made reference to knocking during prayer and share time [an element of church camp evenings.]  He stated that we do the knocking.  I bit my tongue and did not "correct" him, I am learning to be less contradictory--I hope--as I age. 
Later, when I had time, I actually found HIS verse.  [one of many occasions in life wherein I was happy I hadn't "corrected" someone who was not actually wrong, but who was just thinking along a different wavelength from me.]  Right now I can't find it again, but it contains the phrase "Seek and ye shall find; knock and the door shall be opened to you..."  So we have two references to knocking.  One in Revelation has Christ knocking, the other from the Gospels I think, has us knocking.  Again, a reminder that we can't be couch-potato Christians.  We have to be Christ's climbing companions.  We must demonstrate our side of the relationship.

As I look back over the conclusions I drew then, I can see my field of vision has broadened.  Back then, my "obvious" conclusion to take from that fledgling realization of this mutual knocking idea was:  I had better do my part!  Today, I am much more interested in the balance of these references and what they have to say in tandem.  Back then, the Revelation verse was in my mind, on the tip of my tongue, even ready for use in an arsenal of "verse knowledge" but  ironically was woefully unavailable to me in most ways that benefit life. 
What do I see now when I compare these verses?  When I knock, I have the reassurance that I will get a response.  But when he knocks--if I will open, I will be nourished.  More remarkably, he will be nourished--in companionship with me.  That to me now seems huge!  And ten years ago, it was invisible.
Remarkable.

Ripping Away the Pages

Yesterday's old journal page ripped right out of the book when I opened it again.  What's that all about?  Should I be fanciful and think--what once was private can now move out of its niche to bless a larger realm?  Should I be pragmatic and think--this little cord of a bookmark is going to slice every page out of this journal if I don't quit using it?  Maybe the beauty is that I'm fine with it being either way--maybe that's how I stay both sane and spiritual.  (smile)  By the way, imbedded explanatory or reflective comments are listed in blue. 

July 21, 2002
It's Sunday, about 4 am.  We leave for church camp today, and for some reason I can't sleep.  (We served as camp counselors several years.  I was also in the earliest days of what would eventually become a sleep problem.)  I could really use the sleep, but I can't sleep.  Oh well, I know You'll get me through the day, Lord.

This morning as I read Matthew 8 about the two demon-possessed men who had their demons banished into pigs, pigs that plunged themselves off a cliff and died by drowning in the sea--as I read I notice that the townspeople heard what happened to the madmen and the pigs, and they got angry and told Jesus to "get out and not come back."  What?  Did the Hebrews eat pork?  I know they didn't sacrifice pork.  So who are the pig herdsmen? (Later, I added in the margin 'Jesus had gone into Gentile territory to rest.' Which in itself is an interesting concept to meditate upon--Jesus decided to go among the heathen for the purpose of resting? Who preaches a sermon that uses THAT as a bullet point?!?)  More importantly, how could they NOT react more strongly to the changed men than they did to the changed economy?  (I wonder if today I'd be as surprised at this?  Life in my society has changed a lot in the past 10 years, or maybe it is I that have become more cynical.) Here was a reminder for Jesus, right after the dedicated following who climbed with Him for the sermon on the mount.  Did He think "I will cast out evil, but it rips away at a price.  Everything that happens affects other things around it--especially in terms of spiritual warfare.  There will always be those more disturbed by the effect than appreciative of the cause of a freedom-change."  He had to be thinking, processing information that prepared him for later, larger rejections.  Did He think that way, God?  Did he "learn" that way? 
Help me, Lord, to take no notice of what happens with my lost pigs.  May I always instead see the cleansed madmen, that I might not fail to see Your miraculous work in my world!
Where do I see myself noticing pigs first in this day?  Maybe in my thoughts that You should just turn your back on a worm like me.  My amazement that you don't turn away from me--does this reveal a seed of self-importance?  Do I really think I should be able to, if not be Your equal, at least clean myself up well enough to attend Your party on my own merits?  If I can just see how to let go of this it will be a deep freedom, I think, but it is a paradox that easily paralyzes.  Can I accept Your attitude toward me just as I am?  It on the surface seem to lack the humility necessary to please You.  On the other hand, it feels alright to say, "You made me, Lord.  You know me.  I'm free to be much less than You are without embracing shame over it, without being paralyzed by my own ineptness.  I can assume all my metal that needs purifying is in good hands with You, and I don't have to worry about it."
This is a joy.  I'm not sure I've hit the high-water mark on it yet.  It's a release to Your omnipotence I'm only starting to make.
I suppose this is where the pigs end up being more important than their Creator in my own world.

Walking in this truth is an ongoing struggle even yet in my life.  I get momentary breaks in the clouds when I see the light of this idea of acceptance of my frailty and imperfection, but I've always been such a "do-er" and an "excel-er"in life.  It's not that I want to feel better than others, but that for some strange reason the "bare minimum" for me feels a lot less gracious than what I accept as the minimum for others.  This must be some agreement I made with life about my role so long ago that most of the time I make decisions and commitments completely oblivious to its whisperings, and that leaves me exhausted.  
So You have stripped away--more and more.  Over this decade, I've lost a lot of what I was, and I see in retrospect that I should not despair of this loss. You led me this route, I expect, so that by default I might get at least a little curious about the who I am that is left.  Not quick the paraplegic I imagined in the entry described yesterday, but leaning just far enough that direction to learn a little something...  
To help me, You stripped away much of my personal "industry" so that as a Proverbs 31 woman, I don't "measure up" so well anymore.  Still, I think it is progress I'm making; only it is progress along a trace rather than along a well-known highway. 
I'm OK with that.

What Do You Think?

This was on a facebook page I follow called Exceptional Living right after I wrote the last post. This blog heaps that up double. I'm hoping I learn something about the answer in retrospect:

"In 5 years Christopher Columbus opened up a whole new world by discovering the Bahamas, Cuba, Hispaniola, and North and South America.

In just under 5 years, Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel.

In less than 5 years, Shakespeare wrote "Hamlet," "Othello," "King Lear," "Macbeth" and five other immortal plays.
...
In 1961, Julia Child graduated from cooking school with a quirky idea for a TV show. Four years later she won an Emmy as America's favorite TV Chef.

Fired from their home improvement jobs, Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus created a business model called Home Depot and went public with their idea. Just three years after losing their jobs, their annual sales were $1 billion.

At age 30, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was living in a 500-square foot apartment. 5 years later his net worth was $10 billion...

...Where will you be in five years?"

Here's where I was...almost 10 years ago:

July 18, 2002

Both my Bible study (the Sermon on the Mount) and my reading in the Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard today lead me to reflection on what goes on in my mind more than what goes on with my body.  I think:  what if I were an invalid?  My whole being would be my thoughts.  I'd have no other self-generated life.  What if that were the case now?  What if my actions didn't count for anything; my thoughts were everything?  Who would I be?  Would I be seen as the same basic person?  If I've been a relatively honest, open person with others, the answer would be "yes".  But if I've been a hypocrite, living a different external life from my internal one, then the answer would be "no". 

According to Willard in the book, it is true that "Of all the things we do, we have more freedom with respect to what we think of, where we place our mind, than anything else."  (p. 324 He also mentions a quote by A. E. Houseman, "We think by fits and starts."  And, he notes that repentance is "nothing but a call to think about how we have been thinking."(p. 325)

Psalm 16:5-11 is also about "thinking" with the goal of "staying our minds" on the right things.  Strange thought:  does the brain lose its freedom in something like a coma, or does it gain it?

What Is This?

So begins a blog specifically dedicated to reviewing a decade of God-time journals.  My plan is to record highlights of these journals, and maybe make current commentary in a different color or different font, that a thematic continuity might be preserved.  But it is nevertheless, a journal within a journal.  Whether it will end like it begins is far-distant from the knowing now.

The first and oldest journal I can pull from my journal shelf dates back to July 17, 2002.  I kept a journal before that, but sporadically, and  I never kept any of those books.  Even this one is sporadic as I managed to keep 3 years worth of reflection in this one little book.  When I recorded these thoughts, reflections and prayers, I sat on a different sofa under the light of a different lamp in a different town--and this has somewhat been my life-long story.  At least on the exterior, I've recreated my life scene many times over.  Maybe that's why I had the initial urge to find continuity in a journal.
This particular journal was small, covered in a mauve and dusty blue brocade fabric.  The pages were clean and bright and clearly lined.  You can tell that I began with high hopes of it putting order to my prayers and meditations, for I began with a firm and careful script and well-designated entries.  By the end, notes and cards were stuck between the pages, and large scribbles crossed through text that I wanted to change to refine its meaning. Some places a later added comment would run up the side of the margin to be near the text it expounded; but for the first few entries, all was tidy.
So it begins...

  
July 17, 2002
Today, I am beginning a new prayer journal, a "real" one, not just a notebook I got as a cast-off from the kids.  I splurged $5 to get myself this little book.
I asked Ron (my pastor at the time) in an email to read through a couple of my journal entries and to give me feedback.  Should I consider sharing some of what You give me either as a lay speaker or as a writer, Lord?  It was on my mind as I sat down to begin my Bible study time this morning.  My reading had me at the opening of the Sermon on the Mount.
"When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside.  Those who apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him.  Arriving at a quiet place, He sat down and taught his climbing companions."
And later, it says, "You're here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth...You're here to be light that brings out the God-colors in the world...keep open house; be generous with your lives.  By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous father in heaven."
Yesterday, Ron talked about moving away from a "consumer" Christianity to active Christ-following.  This is something he'd like to see blossom in the upcoming discernment retreat.  Today's verses are good for verifying we should do this:  when Jesus sees us gathering to give Him attention, He begins climbing, and we are supposed to make the effort to follow Him.  Then He comes to a quiet place and sees we were committed enough to climb a hill after Him...then He begins to teach.

This idea of our "responsibility" in receiving instruction and revelation (of being Christ's climbing companions--as I later came to call it) made a first appearance here, but continued to influence the way I received the balance of life and instruction from the hand of God over the years.