March 2019
MS/20 TR/1
A side -note on the concept of revelation: There are two sides to revelation. If God is here speaking and no one hears him, no revelation has occurred. On the other hand, if I have an experience which I think is the Lord, but he is not showing himself, it is only psychological ecstasy or daydreaming. No revelation has occurred. Father showed himself to me as "liquid love, and I received it. As I tell the story, the listeners may or may not experience his love. They may only receive a belief in God's love without a personal experience of that love.
MS/21 TR/2
Jesus said to the Jews who believed, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free" (Jn. 8:32). In Greek truth means "unveiling what was veiled." Father did not start loving me when he came to me. He loved me before I was born. The "truth" of God's love was "unveiled" for me that marvelous morning. It was totally unexpected. But I was still held captive to my old way of thinking that faith was all about believing "true" doctrines. "Abiding in his word" meant reading the Bible every day.
MS/22 TR/3
A disciple (yesterday's post) is not someone who merely believes true doctrines. A disciple is one who allows Truth to determine his daily life. For several years after my "liquid love" experience I thought faith was believing the Bible. God had revealed his love to me, but I had not yet understood the significance of that experience. Biblical faith automatically expresses itself in action. If one is not doing the truth, he does not know the truth (I Jn. 1:6). The Truth within the Revelation of Father's love took time to defeat and replace what I thought I knew.
MS/23
I went to church the Sunday after his liquid love hovered in my bedroom. It was the first time in several years I had darkened a church door. I knew I belonged there. I knew my future was tied to the church. I began to share the Lord with others on base and off base. A local High School group ask me to help them in their English class. That gave another opportunity to share my biblical knowledge (which was not much). Life was flowing like never before. I was no longer drifting through life wondering where I was and where I was going. My destiny was dawning.
MS/24
There was a group of GIs and their families who met off base. They were members of the same denomination I grew up in. We could not fellowship with the group that met with the Chaplain on base. We didn't think they were Christians because they didn't agree with our doctrines. The men in the group took turns preaching. My turn came and I preached from Romans 8. "There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus...." The message came across with power beyond my expectation. I knew nothing about the "anointing." I just thought I was good.
MS/25 TR 4
I stumbled many times on my way to Father's liquid love. And I have stumbled since. Many condemn themselves when they stumble. Shame takes the wheel of their life. When a child learns to walk, the possibility of stumbling comes with the territory. One who cannot walk can never stumble. It's true: The fact that we stumble only proves we can walk. You only backside when going forward. "A righteous man falls seven time and rises again" (Prov. 24:16). The problem is not falling; the problem is when you don't get up to go again. Rise and go forward.
MS/26
I felt secure in the Air Force. I was even considering making it my career. Father had a better idea. My new-found life in Christ caused me to consider the question of "conscientious objector." The Chaplin said I should write a letter to my commanding officer since I was working with Top-Secret information. That letter went all the way to the White House and back with an offer of permanent KP. I did not want to spend 20 years pealing potatoes, so I took a discharge. That brought me back to the States for the next stage of my journey: learning how to learn.
MS/27
Yesterday's post drew attention to an important insight. Our decisions are based on our idea of how we think life should go. But once we make a decision and act on it, the result is in God's hands. I was naive enough to believe the Air Force would allow me to continue doing what I was doing since I stated in my letter that I was willing to give my life for the security of our office. I was just not sure I would be able to take another's life. We make choices, but our Father directs our steps-sometimes in a direction quite different than we had planned.
MS/28
My level of consciousness was increasing as my plans were interrupted and redirected by the "circumstances" of life. The "seeping sunlight" that had greeted me the morning of the Liquid Love continued to grow brighter and reveal more and more of the reality of Father's involvement in the life of those who respond to his love. We live in a world which is estranged from its Creator. We are all strangers on our way to knowing the one who knew us before we were born. This is the essence of the journey from existential separation to eternal reunion.
MS/29
My dad died in a car accident the year I was discharged. I went home to help my mother through the trauma and was introduced to a near-by State University with a Religion Department. The local pastor encouraged me to enroll and study to "show myself approved." My first college experience (1955-56) had been a disaster, but now I had a goal. With the goal came a desire to learn all I could about the Bible and related subjects. To my surprise, I did very well an almost all my classes. But shame caused me to begin using education as a coverup.
MS/30 TR/5
My search for truth really began at the University. Father had revealed his love for me in Japan, but I had not seen that his love is the reality grounding all things. He had revealed himself to Israel at Mt. Sinai. That didn't keep them from looking to other gods for security and success. You might say Moses received revelation, the others were only present at the mountain when that revelation was given. The two sides of revelation are clear here: one side is God showing, the other side is man seeing. Moses saw; the rest of Israel had eyes to see but did not see.
MS/31 TR/6
Universities train students to see truth as accurate information. Biblical revelation is not considered. The sciences use experimentation and observation as the criteria for truth; philosophy uses reason as their criteria; religion identifies truth in several ways depending on the worldview of the group. Buddhism and Hinduism have contrasting views of the world. Liberal Christians have one view and the fundamentalists have another. This insight drove me to seek learning with a passion. I wanted to have "right" information so I would be "right."
MS/32
I soon discovered that I would have to know everything there is to know if I wanted to be certain of truth. I was looking for a way through the academic "wilderness." I reached a place where everything was foggy. Where I had been seemed to have nothing to offer (I had forgotten the liquid love). My major professor was "camping out" in the place in this wilderness where he had arrived. He had no vision of moving forward. I had to move on. I knew there must be more than what I had seen. Like Abraham, l started out "not knowing where I was going."
MS/33
Two things were moving me through this academic wilderness. First, I was confident that Father had called me to teach, and I was being equipped for that. Beneath the surface was a dynamic I was not aware of. Shame was driving me to gain knowledge to prove to others my worth as a person. Shame originated with my experience with my dad. The call originated with Father God. I was drawn into the will of God while I was driven toward the goal of acceptance. Being driven requires human energy, being drawn requires God's energy. That inner conflict creates stress.
MS/34
Another expression of shame in my life was exposed in my anxiety over carrying a Bible openly on campus. The atmosphere on a State University campus was conducive to skepticism, atheism and agnosticism. I did not drink from that cup, but I did hide my faith for fear that someone might think I was not intellectual. My fear of confrontation was another function of shame in my life. I thought I was not adequate to the task and I did not know I could trust Father to help me walk through the conflict. That dynamic was hidden from me at that time.
MS/35
The inner struggle of yesterday's post exposes one of life's ambiguities. While the spiritual dimension of my life was awaking from sleep, the natural dimension was fighting to stay in the driver's seat. It would be several years before I would become consciously aware of that dynamic. The process of growing involves many transitions in which the old strives to remain while the new is developing. That's why teenagers vacillate between wanting freedom and wanting the security of home. The goal is to make the transition as peacefully as possible.
MS/36
The years of academic striving were full of major transitions for me. Yesterday we noticed that the old tries to remain while the new is developing. Growth is a series of transitions from what we were into what we are becoming. If we are not willing to sacrifice the old for the sake of the new, we will not grow. This is true of every aspect of life. To grow spiritually we must give up our present level. This is difficult because we have already out-grown some things and we believe we have arrived at the final level of spirituality. To change feels like backsliding.
MS/37
Yesterday's post exposes a dilemma. We can be very comfortable in our present spiritual level. What we have feels good. But when we sense a need to move forward, there is always a danger of embracing some new way which only appears to be better. If it really is better, we want to embrace it; but if it is not and we adopt it, we take something in which is toxic. The fear of being wrong restricts our openness. But what if my PRESENT position is wrong? What if I only think I am right? Many are too insecure to ask themselves this question. The familiar is binding.
MS/38
To desire knowledge is not wrong. Adam and Eve in the garden were not faulted for desiring knowledge, they were faulted for trying to find knowledge outside their relation to God and to use knowledge for themselves to feel good about themselves and to look good in the eyes of others. They thought they had to disobey God to become like God. Here is one of God's tricks: I was seeking an academic fig leaf to cover my shame. God was using my shame to draw me into the center of his will, into the destiny he had for me. His plan allows for our misguided choices.
MS/39
I received a BA in Religious Studies and finished my course work toward an MA in Greek and Church History. This is the point where I met Lynda and we began our life together. During my last semester I received an invitation to start a Chair of Religion at a Junior College in South Texas the following Fall. A church paid my salary and the college gave credit for my classes. I was so serious about presenting accurate information that I wrote out my lectures and read them to the class. I was afraid I might say something wrong. Shame was still at work in me.
MS/40
I was able to complete my thesis, "A Comparative Analysis of Logos and Rhema in the Greek New Testament." The thesis was accepted, I graduated (1965) and made plans to go for a PhD in Hebrew Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. I did not yet recognize the two conflicting energies that were moving me toward more education. Shame wanted me to prove my value as a person through excelling academically. Father wanted me to be equipped to delve into the depths of his Word for the sake of many hungry Christians. I was a house divided.
MS/41
The experience at UT turned out to be the most intense academic endeavor yet. I entered a 12-week summer course in Modern Israeli Hebrew without even knowing the alphabet. We took two years of Hebrew that summer and entered fall classes where the lectures were in Hebrew. We had to take notes and write papers in Hebrew. The grace of God was so strong in me that I excelled beyond the Jewish students who had known some Hebrew through their involvement in the Synagogue. I was not yet aware of the presence of his grace. I thought I must be smart.
MS/42
Lynda and I began our journey of trusting God for finances as we entered The University of Texas at Austin. I quit my job with no promise of income from any source. Lynda was able to get a good job immediately. I began filling out forms for financial aid. Within a year we had enough to allow Lynda to quit work. I was being paid by government grants and scholarships to study Hebrew. We learned that the God who takes care of sparrows will also take care of those who commit their way to him. We call this "sparrow faith." Life with Father God is exciting.
MS/43
Even though we did not need the extra money, I began preaching at a small country church near Austin. The call to teach would not allow me to pass up that opportunity when it was offered. It has come to my attention that I worked my way through both undergraduate and graduate school preaching at country churches. I've been preaching since 1957. One's gift always finds a place to express itself. I preached on weekends even when my academic load was beyond full time. Burnout only affects those who are doing what they are not called to do.
MS/ 44
I had an opportunity to spend five weeks in Israel in the summer of 1968, the year after the "6-day war." My friend, Roy Blizzard, and I went to practice modern Hebrew. The archeological dig at the Wailing Wall had just begun. We volunteered to help on that project. We were given menial tasks since we were not part of the team. I used a sledge hammer to break up some stones that had been part of the Wall before it was destroyed in 70 AD. We also toured the land on our own. That radically changed my view of biblical history and the geography of the land.
MS/45
Seeing the real thing dispels false ideas. The land of Israel was smaller than I thought. One can walk across the land in a few days. At the same time some parts of the land were larger than I expected. Megiddo is only a small hill, but the valley of Megiddo is a large expanse of level plains. Plenty of room for the battles that were fought there. The shifts in my view of the land were easy compared to the shifts in biblical interpretation I would be experiencing soon. We think we know what the text says until a wake-up call comes. My alarm was about to ring.
MS/ 46
The Hebrew Studies program at UT was not designed for biblical scholars or theologians. It was part of the Linguistics Department and focused on the language as language. We studied other Semitic languages to understand the Semitic structures. We took a semester of Arabic, one of Aramaic, and one of Akkadian and Ugaritic. And we had a class in Mishnaic Hebrew (which is more like Aramaic). I only had one course in biblical Hebrew. We didn't study any biblical texts because the focus was on the difference between Ancient and Modern Israeli Hebrew.
MS/ 47
The last several posts have been preparation for a deeper understanding of the work of shame. Although I excelled academically, I still saw myself as dumb. I thought I had bluffed the professors into giving me good grades. I was still influenced by the words my dad had spoken to me as a youth: "You're dumb; you will never amount to anything." Today I know he was trying to encourage me with "negative motivation." Those words stuck with me and pushed me to prove him wrong. But no matter how much I excelled, I did not convince myself he was wrong.
MS/ 48
The feeling that I was only bluffing my way through college remained with me for several years. That feeling was there when I was teaching also. I felt like I was bluffing students into thinking I was smart. This "feeling-lie" was one of the driving forces pushing me to study harder than most students and many fellow professors. Some of my colleagues used the same notes every year. I had to revise mine for each class every year. Father was using my drivenness to prepare me for my destiny. It would be several years before I saw this and adjusted my thinking.
MS/ 49
Two significant events occurred the final semester of my three-year classroom study at UT. The spiritual event came by chance as Lynda and I were leaving our student-housing apartment to go somewhere. The TV was on and I went over to turn it off. Some Christian worship event was in full swing. I was captured by the close-up view of several people who were weeping for joy. I had never seen that in my church, nor had I experienced it. The dormant memory of the Liquid Love in Japan began to breath again. I wanted that. Tomorrow I will present the second event.
MS/ 50
The second event came in a letter informing me that my name had been "accidentally" left off the list of students to receive grants for the following year. All the grants had already been assigned. I had planned to spend the next year working on my dissertation. They assured me they would try to find funds for me. But that same week I received a phone call from the "Chair of Religion" at Eastern New Mexico University inviting me to join their faculty. Coincidence? The dissertation would have to wait. God's providence is sneaky. Back to the joy of teaching.