The Light in the Woods

 

#11 – THE LIGHT IN THE WOODS – JUNE 2006

 

© Aubri Dennison 2006

 

6/1/06 Reflections          I came to speak with God today because I was confused and angry. He made me feel better right away, even though it was by showing me the error of my ways. This is how I know I’m not being deceived by evil; that what I’m told is a force for good. And this is how I know I’m not being deceived by my own mind; that what I’m told isn’t always what I would want to hear. But there’s something more – something so clear to me, until I try to explain it in words – that what I experience is the God who dwells in me. Without my least doubt and unquestionably fitting, like spotting a loved one in a crowd and sharing a secret look across the room, this is my God and I’m His child. All the evil in the world could dry up and blow away if God came to every one of us like this and every one was humble enough to be satisfied as God’s child. But God doesn’t work this way – what good would our love be if God had to pay for it? He wants us to seek Him out; he wants us to want Him. We have to make the first move and the rest is easy. Who wouldn’t want to acknowledge God and His unfailing love? I don’t know – I don’t understand such things.

 

6/2/06 Reflections          I feel that the joint pain, vision problems, and mental fog God has allowed to come through in me is meant to humble me and prepare me to welcome a withdrawal away from myself and earthly concerns. I hope that these shortcomings are a sign that God has begun to affect His mission for me, and the pain and anguish are purifiers that draw me out of the natural world to focus now on my divine nature and divine mission. As God empties my spirit, I hope that He will fill it with the grace and knowledge that far exceeds what I’ve lost in my body and soul.

 

6/2/06 Insights from Study            Jesus was God’s example of humans the way they were created to be – before sin; with complete humanity and complete divinity. There was a moment when He held His hand out to me to show me the way – and I took it. Nothing has been the same since then.

 

6/4/06 Reflections        Pentecost is a special day for me. I tend to focus on the Holy Spirit the way other Christians focus on Christ. Jesus worked in one way and the Holy Spirit in another way. Jesus is our example for right living; the Holy Spirit is the messenger for knowledge and grace of God. Together these two manifestations of God define Him in a way recognizable to humanity even thought we cannot experience here on earth the full measure of His divinity. Our senses couldn’t handle so much glory — they would be like an overloaded circuit; like trying to turn on a light and getting a bolt of lightning instead. God, as the Holy Spirit, gives bits of intimation according to the measure in which we are ready for them. Small glimpses of glory to come, plus infused knowledge of the God dwelling within us. This is why I can’t let those who claim the Bible as the only source of God’s word convince me that I’m devil-inspired when the Hoy Spirit moves in me. That’s counter-productive Christianity – closing avenues God has created to commune with humans, including those who have no Bible.

 

6/4/06 Insights from Study           “Hold the consul of your own heart, for no one is more faithful to you than it is.” Sirach 37:13-15

 

6/4/06 Insights from Study          The symbols of the Holy Spirit are like elements of God’s creation. Water (source of living water, Baptism), Anointing (sealing, establishing a relationship), Fire (transformation and purification), Cloud and Light (revealing God yet protecting us), Hand (inspiration of the Word, blessing, missions), Dove (indwelling, peace through right-living)

 

6/4/06 Presentations       I love how in small ways God can make a point with me even when I am not listening.  I got up one time and walked right into my incense holder, spilling gravel all over the floor.  Before, I would have raged over my bad luck.  But today there was no anger and no railing against my fate.  I just quietly cleaned up and moved along. Later, when I put a stick of incense in to burn, I noticed it worked much better – I didn’t have to grind the stick in, and, once in, it stayed in better. Over time the larger grains of sand had worked up to the top, making it too unstable for holding the incense stick. What fell out when I knocked over the burner was these large grains. End result – what was left was the good sand and a better-working setup. Maybe this was an acknowledgment of God’s pleasure at my progress in “living the walk”’. Maybe He just wanted to let me know He’s with me. Maybe it was a parable to illustrate that God works to our good, even if it sometimes appears the opposite. Or maybe the meaning is that what’s important is quality rather than quantity – that we have to sort through our beliefs, throwing out the ones that have been time-tested and found wanting, so that there’s room for what works. Maybe it’s a metaphor – the burner is my spirit and the large grains the things of the Earth that have to be thrown out to empty my spirit so it can receive the good works of the Holy Spirit. Or maybe it was like the parable of Jesus telling us to sit at the lower table so the host might invite us to a higher table instead of our sitting at the high table and having the host tell us to go to a lower table to make room for someone nobler. Either way, the small incident with the overturned incense burner made a large impact on my reflection. Even trials are a gift when they bring us closer to the triune God. There was definitely a feeling that God wanted to tell me something with this incident. The fact that He didn’t come to me in a burning bush made me imagine all sorts of possibilities – the point is, He was in my mind where He belongs.

 

6/7/06 Reflections        Very often I’ll be thinking of something and reflecting on that, and afterwards during the course of the day I’ll read something someone has written about the exact same thing. Because this happens so often now, I don’t chalk it up to coincidence; it is, rather, a “Nod from God”. I’m sure that these things are always happening, but until we desire to see things God’s way we don’t notice them as spiritual manifestations. I don’t have to prove they come from God – if they make me more spiritual God’s work is being done. We should take out our spiritual gifts now and then – look at them with new vision; hold them up to the light and recall their giver so as not to become complacent with the effects of virtue and grace.

 

6/7/06 Insights from Prayer          For reasons of His own, God doesn’t often provide the big miracles that would easily and instantaneously cause every witness to convert, even though we believe global conversion to be His great desire. The way He works is that He gives every one of us a chance to help him perform small miracles; working through us He offers Himself, then works again through those who accept him, on and on. He lets the devil do his work against this process, because once we’ve succumbed to the dark side we appreciate more fully the light of God when we at last find it. And our own light shines brighter and is more noticeable by others. God works one person at a time, and we needn’t feel bad by cherishing our participation in all this – it isn’t prideful to see God working through us and experiencing gratefulness for our role. Imagine – not only seeing the will of God, but being the will of God!

 

6/8/06 Reflections          Prayer is the most important devotion. The Bible was given to us to show us the underpinnings of faith, but it’s the direct communication with God that brings that faith alive. This is why all men are able to walk toward God, not just those with Bibles. To lift one’s soul up to God and tell him our troubles is instinctive; from there we develop and advance. Prayer is always available to us, as is God. There is no one who can stifle our prayer, or stop it from reaching God once it is prayed. But there are many worldly things that can keep us from wanting to pray. Doubts and hopelessness can either stop our desire to pray or bring that need into focus, but pressure from human-centered cultures, our pride, and our inattention to the real driving force behind life, will put our natural propensity to pray on the forgotten back-burner. That is when we are fortunate to have a Bible to open up, because every page is food for thought, and fodder for prayer. It can kick-start our devotions or bring them back onto the right track. It’s good to study the Bible overall so we know where to go for the help we need, but better to live the Bible daily, proactively, starting with prayer for guidance. God will let us know what it is we need to find out and to do, and the mere fact that we go to Him personally and directly is the thing He desires.

 

6/8/06 Reflections           It’s a human frailty but one I don’t know how it’s possible to get around except by total trust in God – I need to have a clear set of beliefs with no grey areas and no blank spots. I want my doctrines organized and cataloged and kept in slots where I can take them out when I need to use them. But my knowledge of God isn’t cut and dried; everything starts a debate inside me, and the more I reflect the more confused I become. This in spite of the fact that I know enough to place my faith in God instead of in my cognitive faculties. There are things the way He’s willed them to be and things the way I want them to be, all swirling around in an unpalatable soup. I need God’s help to be content with the faith He’s given my by His grace, and what He will continue to give me if a show my desire to receive it. I need Him to quiet my raging thought processes so I can experience the basic, over-riding joy of His love. I need His help to trust that the knowledge He’s given me is sufficient for His purpose. And I need Him to merge my will with His so that I can rest easy knowing that His desires are being met in me.

 

6/9/06 Insights from Study         I hate it when people pick apart the Bible to validate themselves, then criticize others for picking apart the Bible and coming to a different conclusion than they did. This situation tells me that God doesn’t want us to pick apart the Bible at all. We read it lightly, for sense and connection, and then apply it to our lives. Not smart enough to do that without someone interpreting for you? Hardly. If you desire it, God will give you the grace you need – with the Holy Spirit, the inspirer of the Bible, as your interpreter, you won’t go wrong. Whatever limitation the Bible has, it can be overcome by tuning into God for guidance.

 

6/12/06 Reflections          If we don’t remember prayer favors it’s not because they’re unimportant but because God is more important. Don’t ignore His favors, but don’t make them the reason for your prayer, except as intercession so that others, in enjoying the “lightness of rightness” can be persuaded to come into closer union with God.

 

6/18/06 Reflections           I’m coming to see that Jesus’ death and resurrection wasn’t the end of His ministry. Christ lives on in us as the bodily manifestation of God. That’s why we’re summoned not only to live as Christ would live, but also to teach as He did by word and example. This is possible through the working of the Holy Spirit in us, just as it worked in Jesus and the disciples. What atheists miss is the regard God has for his creation; especially man. They see God as a tyrant, and think that power over the world must reside either in humans or in God – so God must be eliminated as a consideration. They think that since the existence of God can’t be proved by science it’s safe to deny it; all that’s left is to convince any believers that they have created the thought of God under delusion. But to believers there’s no power struggle – God created the universe and can do what He pleases with it. But what He pleases is to give humans free will to decide for themselves and to allow them to use it. He is a positive force in human development, not a negative one. He loves us and wants what’s best for us. But it’s God, not science, that knows what’s best for us. That doesn’t mean He forces himself on us – He wants us to come to Him willingly. That’s why He only shows Himself in small, individual ways; not with fire and brimstone. It’s a method we have to look for, not get hit over the head with. How often man uses God’s own method to discredit Him! Arrogance gets in the way of knowing God. Knowing God is its own reward.

 

 

6/17/06 Insights from Study             I don’t believe either in the God atheists don’t believe in – obstinate dictator grinding man under with total submission to fate, inescapable suppression of free will and hopelessness for self-determination. The God I believe in not only created man with the freedom to choose, but is the sole guardian of such right. He desires that we do what’s right, but doesn’t force us; he doesn’t see humans as his enemy in some sort of cosmic power-struggle. Secular humanists are trying to usurp divine power (there but not necessarily used) by going around it. This is not only needless, but it also denies them the supreme support they could use in advancing human proprieties. They don’t want to believe in the God they imagine Him to be, so they try to kill all human devotion. On the other hand are the believers who are trying to witness for God – the real God, who is loving and forgiving but demands our input and has given us a free will to provide it. You can have your free will. It’s arrogant to deny one’s own creator – as if because I don’t want His influence it doesn’t exist.

 

6/21/06 Reflections             I think I may be starting to understand the dichotomy of Jesus’ role and whether it’s over or continuing. It may be both. He came, delivered His message, held Himself up as an example, and satisfied for us the wages of our sins. This mission is over, but its purpose isn’t. God has said “Now I have promised man heaven through Jesus’ life and death, but I hold man responsible for his individual actions in light of the fact that all he has to do to claim his salvation is to accept it”. Our role is to be in partnership with God to help all men accept their salvation; to put the desire in their hearts to be with God, and to act in thanksgiving for that favor. In this, Jesus is still watching over us and helping us.

 

6/21/06 Insights from Study           Listening, without self-regard and without judgment, is the best thing you can do for someone who needs a healing you’re powerless to give. Through this, God works his miracles, for them and for you. In this way the sufferer learns to appreciate being able to bare his soul to you and from there it’s a short step to his baring his soul to the Lord in prayer. Once he asks, he will receive. And God will have made your sacrifice fruitful, as you have done for your neighbor what God has asked you to do.

 

6/22/06 Insights from Prayer       There’s a basic joy that doesn’t come from having or doing – it comes from being. Being aware of God’s love for and presence in me.

 

6/23/06 Insights from Study         I have to keep this in mind – that God welcomes our prayers of intercession and petition and wants us to be bold in asking Him for favors. Otherwise such prayers would seem obnoxious and unappreciative.

 

6/23/06 Reflections                Jesus is God’s spirit in a human body – with no less importance does God now dwell inside each of us and call us His children. Only with Jesus, God allowed sinlessness and perfection so that He could be a perfect example towards which God wants us to look. And yet we are also like Jesus, for God uses our bodies to house His spirit and to help to do His work on earth.

 

6/25/06 Presentations           Two more natural presentations. The first was seeing a snow cloud in the southern distance, but this one was the most purplish blue I’ve ever seen and my husband said he never saw one like it either – it was an awesome color. Later we found out they got 20” of snow to the south of us, so we figured, that must have been our cloud. Then that night there was a bright moon; it was very cloudy and very windy. The wind was coming right in to the boathouse. The clouds were passing quickly in front of the moon. On the snowy ice of the bay in the moonlit dark, the cloud shadows were forming and racing over to the boathouse one after another with different shapes and levels of darkness. It was like being attacked by banshees forming themselves out of the shadows. At first I thought it was the wind blowing snow around in waves, but the snow was too heavy for that and I realized these were cloud shadows in the moonlight. The spooky thing was that the wind was way harder at cloud level than at tree level, so this whole thing was going on in complete silence, which isn’t what I would have expected, making it all the more eerie. Watching cloud banshees or screaming along on a roller-coaster — wasn’t God clever and loving to provide us our senses so we could enjoy such things?

 

6/29/06 Insights from Study          I suddenly have so many things I can look into; so much research I can do – I have to remember to keep the old ways if they work. This journaling works, because I can look back at my own words to see how my doctrine is developing and refining.

 

6/29/06 Insights from Study           What a wonderful thing it is when we meet and interact with Jesus during the course of our day, and yet we seldom recognize it. He could be anywhere, for His workplace is everywhere. Any person we meet could be there at that particular time and place so that we can “do unto the least of our brethren”, and yet we seldom see this as the opportunity we should. Even when we respond as we should, we often don’t see the opportunity as the gift it is. And as often as we disappoint Jesus in not responding toward our neighbor as we should, we are still in the presence of a great gift. To learn and to do better the next time is also a wonderful opportunity we should be grateful for.