Month: January 2024

If you’re going to take the plunge and prayerfullyidentify the lies and the truths that have made up your perceptions, you must develop spiritual skills that enable you to hear God’s version of your story.   There is no abundant life without knowing how to hear the voice of the only Storyteller who matters.  

He wants to reveal your personalized redemptive version and believe me; you will want to hear it over and over again as you grow older and prepare to meet Him face to face.  Too many voices in this world attempt to nullify it.  

If God’s version of your story is the only one that matters, how do you hear it?   How do you go to the feet of your Father, sit as a child and listen?  I never knew the answer to this question until I was well into my late forties.  So  I’m going to tell you.  You must learn to live in the presence of God.  This is the secret to intimacy.  The secret to abundant life.  The secret to healing and wholeness.

You and I do that through meditation and prayer.  We are near Him as we process our story so that His ‘take’ on our lives is perceptible.  We sense His reactions to our thoughts, feelings, and events so that we have an accurate barometer for our own.  

The concepts of meditation and prayer are so much a part of our everyday Christian language that they risk becoming cliches. It’s hard to feel the impact of their great significance.  We say, ‘Read the bible and pray’ like we might say, ‘Don’t forget to say please and thank you.’  Taking them seriously is hard unless we spend our lives practicing them. 

In the next chapter, I will show you some ways to engage in biblical meditation, because as you live in the presence of God, you will sense His reaction to things as they happen. You feel His joy over praiseworthy things, and His heavy heart over what is dangerous to your peace.  You will discern His displeasure over some activities and pleasure over others. You’ll get to the point when you will often predict His responses ahead of time.

God’s voice will be a rudder, revealing His version of events and correcting other narratives you’ve always believed were true.  Scripture and prayer will re-wire the ways you think.  They will also align your feelings and slowly change you into someone who thinks, feels, and then acts like Jesus.

This is the lifestyle of one who looks to God as their storyteller.  The Holy Spirit of the Rabbi, Jesus has much to reveal.  His version of your story never ends in tragedy.  Senseless pain is never the last chapter of your life if you trust Him for redemption.  While pain is a thread in the plot line, it does not have the last word.  Glory and redemption are what dazzles.  If you can’t see any trace of a redemptive plot, know that you are not yet seeing your life through God’s eyes.  

Consider the iceberg that fatally wounded the Titanic in the Spring of 1912. By the time Murdoch spotted it, there wasn’t enough time to turn sharply enough to avoid it. When they hit, a jagged piece of iceberg under the water ripped part of the hull. 

The part of the iceberg protruding above the waterline was not the most dangerous part. It was what lay beneath. The part visible was small and unimposing compared to what was hidden. Many seafaring novices have been fooled to their peril. 

Let’s think this through further. The part above the waterline is connected to the lower part that catches the currents of the sea. What is visible above water has no power on its own. Is this not a metaphor for the inward life? Beneath the surface of our exterior lies a massive world of beliefs, lies, righteous thinking and erroneous assumptions ~ which are responses to our life’s story. These create a mindset, the very current that takes us on the ride of our lives. What others see and experience on the outside is a shallow and often artificial representation of what is really going on inside. 

It is this hidden world that God wants us to spend time on, to bring it into the Light of His presence. He will affirm what is true, expose what is not, and encourage us to act in faith accordingly. Many Christians believe that the past is irrelevant to the present because they are made new in Christ. While we are new creations, adopted children of our Heavenly Father, and destined for glory, past events still affect us. They have defined us, and the process of sanctification requires us to take each part captive, examine it, and deal with it under the direction of our wonderful Counselor and Healer. 

I am praying for you. Oh, but Jesus is also praying for you. Remember, He will guide you through unchartered territory.