Passionless and Indifferent

I thought of the last story we have from the life of the prophet Elisha. Jehoash was king of Israel at the time, and he went to visit Elisha on his sickbed. He knew that without the help of this great prophet, the future of Israel was looking dim. Enemies were closing in on every side, waiting for the kill. Elisha told the king to take in hand some arrows.

And the king took them. Elisha told him, "Strike the ground." He struck it three times and stopped. The man of God was angry with him and said, "You should have struck the ground five or six times; then you would have defeated [your enemies] completely . . . But now you will defeat [them] only three times." Elisha died and was buried. (2 Kings 13:18-20)

That's it? What a strange story! Why was the old prophet so angry? Because the king was nonchalant; he was passionless, indifferent. He gave the ground a whack or two. His heart wasn't in it. God says, in effect, "If that is how little you care about the future of your people, that is all the help you will get." In other words, if your heart's not in it, well then, neither is mine. You can't lead a country, let alone flourish in a marriage, with an attitude like that. To abandon desire is to say, "I don't really need you; I don't really want you. But I will live with you because, well, I'm supposed to." It is a grotesque corruption of what was meant to be a beautiful dance between desire and devotion.

(Desire , 56-57) 

The Spirit Of The Lord Came Upon Him

The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lehi. The men of Judah asked, "Why have you come to fight us?" "We have come to take Samson prisoner," they answered, "to do to him as he did to us." Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, "Don't you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?" He answered, "I merely did to them what they did to me." They said to him, "We've come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines." Samson said, "Swear to me that you won't kill me yourselves." "Agreed," they answered. "We will only tie you up and hand you over to them. We will not kill you." So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock. As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands. Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men. Then Samson said, "With a donkey's jawbone I have made donkeys of them. With a donkey's jawbone I have killed a thousand men." (Judg. 15:9-16 NIV) 

A Sunday school story? Perhaps. Though I have never heard the lesson explained, "And this, children, is what happens when the Spirit of God comes upon a man." Yet that is clearly the lesson of the passage. Samson becomes a great and terrible warrior when, and only when, the Spirit of God comes upon him. The rest of the time he's just short of an idiot. What does this story tell us about the God who the Spirit is? And it's not just Samson, my friends. "So the Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon," and Gideon went to war (Judg. 6:34 NASB). "Now the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah," and he went to war (Judg. 11:29 NASB). "And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David," and one of the first things he did was kill Goliath (1 Sam. 16:13 NASB). I repeat my question: What does that tell us about the God who the Spirit is? 

(Fathered by God ) 

Passivity

One of the saddest of all the sad stories in the history of the people of God comes shortly after the dramatic Exodus from Egypt, as they stand on the brink of a whole new life in the land God had promised:

But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. You grumbled in your tents and said, "The LORD hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us. Where can we go? Our brothers have made us lose heart. They say, 'The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky. We even saw the Anakites there.'" Then I said to you, "Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you [Not "comfort you." Not "be with you in your distress, defeated by your enemies." Fight for you], as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the desert. There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place." In spite of this, you did not trust in the LORD your God . . . Then you replied, "We have sinned against the LORD. We will go up and fight, as the LORD our God commanded us." (Deut. 1:26-41 NIV)

But it was too late. Their decision not to fight is what led to their wandering in the wilderness for forty years. We often cite that part of the story, talking about our own wilderness experiences, embracing the wilderness saga as if it were inevitable. No, that is not the lesson at all. We have forgotten it was avoidable. The reason they took the lamentable detour into the wilderness was because they would not fight. To be more precise, the wilderness was a punishment, the consequence of refusing to trust God, and fight.

(Fathered by God ) 

The Man Minute

Do "signs" lead you to act in faith, or does faith move first, then you'll see the signs? Most often we pray for God to give us a sign, but that's pretty much the reversal of what you'll find in Biblical faith walking. 
 
Just one example: God's people are at the edge of the current at the Jordan River (Joshua 3). They can hear the water as it moves over the rocks. They see the eddy currents swirl in places where the water is deeper. The people are not commanded to stand and wait until the waters part before they cross. In fact, the Word tells us that "When those who carried the ark came into the Jordan, and the feet of the priests carrying the ark were dipped in the edge of the water, (it was then) that the waters which were flowing down from above stood and rose up in one heap ... and the priests ... stood on firm ground in the middle of the Jordan." 
 
It wasn't until they started getting wet did the waters part, which means that every person had to commit to walking into water with full anticipation that the waters would part at any given moment. 
 
Often in life you are thrust into situations where you simply have no idea what to do next. So, then, at that moment, what do you do? 

You do the only thing you know to do with the information you have at the time. When God places a burden on your heart, when God speaks to an area of your life in which He's calling you to go deeper and further still, more often than not that's all you're going to get from Him. A voice of leading, calling you onward. God doesn't grant anybody a panoramic view of life. He does that for your own best interests. There's no faith in that. You cannot mature with panoramic views. You can only grow when you glance down only to find that your boots are wet.

Following Him into the Unknown

Either we wake to tackle our "to do" list, get things done, guided by our morals and whatever clarity we may at the moment have (both rather lacking to the need, I might add); or we wake in the midst of a dangerous Story, as God's intimate ally, following him into the unknown.

If you're not pursuing a dangerous quest with your life, well, then, you don't need a Guide. If you haven't found yourself in the midst of a ferocious war, then you won't need a seasoned Captain. If you've settled in your mind to live as though this is a fairly neutral world and you are simply trying to live your life as best you can, then you can probably get by with the Christianity of tips and techniques. Maybe. I'll give you about a fifty-fifty chance. But if you intend to live in the Story that God is telling, and if you want the life he offers, then you are going to need more than a handful of principles, however noble they may be. There are too many twists and turns in the road ahead, too many ambushes waiting only God knows where, too much at stake. You cannot possibly prepare yourself for every situation. Narrow is the way, said Jesus. How shall we be sure to find it? We need God intimately, and we need him desperately.

"You have made known to me the path of life," David said (Ps. 16:11). Yes-that's it. In all the ins and outs of this thing we call living, there is one narrow path to life, and we need help finding it.

(Waking the Dead , 95)

Metaphors

The Bible uses a number of metaphors to describe our relationship to God at various stages. If you'll notice, they ascend in a stunning way:

Potter and clay. At this level we are merely aware that our lives are shaped-even broken-by a powerful hand. There isn't much communication, just the sovereignty of God at work.

Shepherd and sheep. At this stage we feel provided for, watched over, cared about. But beyond that, a sheep has little by way of true intimacy with the Shepherd. They are altogether different creatures.

Master and servant. Many, many believers are stuck in this stage, where they are committed to obey, but the relationship is mostly about receiving orders and instructions and carrying them out.

Father and child. This is certainly more intimate than being a servant; children get the run of the house, they get to climb on Daddy's lap. These fortunate souls understand God's fatherly love and care for them. They feel "at home" with God.

Friends. This stage actually opens up a deeper level of intimacy as we walk together with God, companions in a shared mission. We know what's on his heart; he knows what's on ours. There is a maturity and intimacy to the relationship.

Bridegroom and bride (lovers). Here, the words of the Song of Songs could also describe our spiritual intimacy, our union and oneness with God. Madame Guyon wrote, "I love God far more than the most affectionate lover among men loves his earthly attachment."

Where would you put your relationship with God? Why did you choose that "level"? Has it always been that way?

(The Journey of Desire Journal & Guidebook , 150)

There Is No Escaping This War

Remember, when Jesus boiled his whole mission down to healing the brokenhearted and setting prisoners free from darkness, he was referring to all of us. Our modern, scientific, Enlightenment worldview has simply removed spiritual warfare as a practical category, and so it shouldn't surprise us that we can't see spiritual strongholds after we say they don't really exist.


If you deny the battle raging against your heart, well, then, the thief just gets to steal and kill and destroy. Some friends of mine started a Christian school together a few years ago. It had been their shared dream for nearly all their adult lives. After years of praying and talking and dreaming, it finally happened. Then the assault came . . . but they would not see it as such. It was "hassles" and "misunderstanding" at first. As it grew worse, it became a rift between them. A mutual friend warned them of the warfare, urged them to fight it as such. "No," they insisted, "this is about us. We just don't see eye-to-eye." I'm sorry to say their school shut its doors a few months ago, and the two aren't speaking to each other. Because they refused to fight it for the warfare it was, they got taken out. I could tell you many, many stories like that.


There is no war is the subtle-but pervasive-lie sown by an Enemy so familiar to us we don't even see him. For too long he has infiltrated the ranks of the church, and we haven't even recognized him.

(Waking the Dead , 159-60)