When beliefs are tested the ground seems unstable. I trust this place with the Lord whether or not I comprehend the landscape. He has removed any liaison between us and is positioning me in His direct line of fire.
I am free to name the prescribed beliefs that I have trouble swallowing. As I describe my symptoms to the Lord I am trusting His diagnosis. Contradictions, disagreements, and interpretive differences are not symptomatic of a fatal flaw or a spiritual disease.
He is forming a revelation that is mine to contain and communicate as Christ in me. Subject matter and delivery style may differ but its validity bears His seal. It is important that I learn to trust Him as He is in me regardless of how or if He is received in me. The perspective He is solidifying belongs to Him. It was here before I was born and will be here after I’m gone.
The message He is ascribing is for me first before it is for others. In Luke 22:32 Jesus told Peter, “When you are converted, then strengthen your brethren.” This has been a lonely season, but my loneliness belongs to Him first, before any other. He maintains His right to comfort me. I am being with Him as He desires at this time so that ultimately it may benefit others.
I press the dark for all that He has for me and resist the craving for external agreements. I am offering Him everything I think about Him, the scope of His redemptive work, and relationship with Him. It is an offering that only He can guard and keep. His intent for me to live from His personal word to me is intense (1 Kings 13).
I’ve thought of Paul and how difficult it would be to do what he did. Paul said he did not receive the gospel that he preached from man nor was he taught it by a man. He received it by revelation of Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:11,12). Upon his conversion he did not confer with flesh and blood. He was privately tutored by the Lord for three years before meeting with Peter for fifteen days (Galatians 1:16-24). After that, he preached his revelation of grace for another fourteen years before coming back to Jerusalem at which time he brought correction to certain apostles who were sliding back under the Law. When they perceived the grace that he was given, they gave him the right hand of fellowship (Galatians 2). Now that’s trusting the Lord with your education!
It feels like a battle to trust the Lord with my education. Beliefs are easily dispensed in neat little boxes. Doctrine can feel like a judge that makes me afraid to think outside the box. I fear being labeled an unteachable, unaccountable, out of order, off the mark, erroneous, and out of fellowship rogue! Phew! That’s a mouthful!
In spite of the fear, I cannot deny that Jesus Christ is personally rekindling my love and hunger for the Word. As I study, my eyes find scriptures that confirm that my doubts and questions are reasonable even if they’ve gone unanswered. Answers will not come through the reasoning involved in drawing conclusions or making logical judgments on the basis of other people’s conclusions rather than on the basis of direct observation. The Lord is exercising His right to reveal Himself directly as He chooses. There is an unfathomable kingdom being uncovered that has so very little to do with doctrine.
(I am not opposing doctrine or saying its not relevant. I am merely speaking for myself when I say that doctrine has strangled my childlike imagination and sense of adventure. One side says this, the other says that – and they both back it up with plausible scripture. Take into account that each verse must be kept in context, as well the need to understand the culture in which it was written, the audience for whom it was intended, the prevalent heresies of the day that were being addressed…and phew!…it’s no wonder I dutifully swallow spoon fed beliefs)!
The pure love of scripture and its revealing of Christ can easily become an exegesis. I’m tired. I just want to know Him, receive His life as my own, and to walk as He walks. I want to express who He is in me without the need to explain a doctrinal position. I feel like I have no position; I’m not one to wade through the positional changes that have occurred throughout the centuries and yet I can no longer be told what to believe or how to interpret. Betwixt, I lay it down in favor of simplicity and union with Christ that translates effectively in everyday living.
God will get me where He wants me to be and open my eyes to what He wants me to see. I want to enjoy the journey and I can”t do that while qualifying my beliefs or struggling to understand one doctrinal position over another. It’s blocking my view of Him. I’d rather trust Him all around and inside and out. If another disagrees with what comes out of my mouth (or pen) then I beg they pray for my understanding while praying for their own.
The Lord offered me a solution once while I was trying to explain to others how my marriage to Mike was restored. What did we do to turn the tide? Did we start applying messages we’d heard on marriage? Did we make a concerted effort to be kinder, love without condition, to honor and respect each other? What brought about such radical heart changes?
In considering their questions, the answer remained the same…nothing. We did nothing; the change of heart came as pure gift. At a pivotal point I heard these words,
“Susan, you have two choices. You can dig around and try to find what you did to produce such stellar results, or you can accept that you did nothing, and humbly receive the gift I have given. Consider both options, decide which one brings greater peace and joy, and then rest your faith in that vein of living.”
I decided to view life as a gift I receive rather than something I control by the choices I make. Encapsulated in trust, I saw my way to living free from the fear of Susan. The result was movement – the freedom to explore, speak, move, and to just be who He is in me. That alone gave the new perspective cause for celebration!
I am revisiting the Lord’s offer now with regard to my vain attempts to fit my understanding of scripture into the right doctrinal pocket. I’m returning to simplicity by trusting Christ in me…living His life as me.
[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [ which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope] that if possible I may attain to the [spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body]. Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own. I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward. So let those [of us] who are spiritually mature and full-grown have this mind and hold these convictions; and if in any respect you have a different attitude of mind, God will make that clear to you also. Only let us hold true to what we have already attained and walk and order our lives by that.
Philippians 3:10-16 (AMP)
As I view these words in the light of union they take on new meaning. I am at rest knowing that He who began a good work in me is faithfully completing it!
Hi Susan,
I finally came to the moment where I could read what you have posted here:
I find again and again, reflections of His Words engraved in my heart as well. I especially relate to these words:
“The message He is ascribing is for me first before it is for others. In Luke 22:32 Jesus told Peter,