Perception or Reality?

"They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse." - Emily Dickinson

I ran across this quote today and it got me thinking about our perceptions of God vs. reality. Reality is that God is indeed everywhere. Perception often tells us that he is reclusive because we don't "feel" his presence. We almost universally react not to what is truly real but our perceptions, our felt reality. Our actions are dictated not by what we say we believe or consciously would agree too, but rather by what we subconsciously believe - what our experiences have taught us is reality. Two of us may hear the same person give the same political speech and one may feel moved to action while the other distrusts the speaker’s sincerity and perhaps morality. How do we get our emotional/perceptual reality in line with our intellectual reality? Or actually the better question is “How do we realign to God’s reality?” In some ways I think this duality is reflected by Paul in chapter 7 of Romans when he talks about the good he wants to do and the evil that comes so easily.

One of my favorite artists is Charlie Peacock. He poses this problem this way in his song Heaven is a Real Place.

Oh for the eyes to see beyond this flesh and bone
To my final destination, to the city I’ll call home
Well it’s crazy to pretend and try and act like
I’m one of the locals
Every body knows that I’m really just a tourist
not by accident but by my own choice
Still so much of the time I live like this spinning
ball of land and ocean is my reality complete
Would you say a prayer for a change in me
This is what I want
This is what I need

I want to live like heaven is a real place
I want to live like heaven is a real place
In my everyday time and space
I want to live like heaven is a real place

God didn’t give up on the idea of Eden as
some misguided episode
The garden has given us place to the city where the
walk of God with man will be resumed
May my whole life reflect my belief that Heaven is
where I’ll spend eternity
That would be something, something to see
Till death is swallowed up in victory


So what is the answer? How do we experience this perception change? In the Old Testament we are told that when Moses went up the mountain to receive the 10 commandments He asked to see God’s reality and when he came back down he glowed with the fading radiance of God. In 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul talks about this happening in our lives when he says "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. This comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." Tim Hughes puts it this way when he says "The more we gaze at Him as we worship, the more like Him we gradually become. BEHOLDING IS BECOMING!"

The answer brings us back again to Romans 12:1-2 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” The solution is intentionally, daily focusing on the Father. It comes from daily seeking His face, His presence, His touch. It is in this daily focus we are bit by bit shaped, bit by bit molded, bit by bit changed into the people we were created to be. The reality of this world fades and his surpassing glory – the true reality takes it’s place.

Father, mold me and shape me. Cleanse me with your fire. Sanctify me and may my reality be your reality. Amen

Seek His Presence
Dan

My Dad!

Wow what a busy month. I haven't got a chance to write much. God has been teaching me some awesome things I hope to get up soon.

Today I ran across a great picture of my Dad. This was taken several yeas ago when he was out west fighting a fire. I thought I'd put it here to share with all of you.

Keep Growing
Dan

Transformers - more than meets the eye

God wants to transform your life. Did you know that? As I have let the Father step by step take over my life there are some areas that are very easy to let him step into and cover with his grace and his strength. There are other areas which I struggle with in a cyclical fashion. There is a Chris Rice song “Clumsy” that my heart identifies with every time I hear it.

I’m coming to grips with the reality of sanctification and regeneration as processes not as completed acts. I look at the ideals laid down in scripture and at time feel so unworthy and then I am reminded that God’s grace covers my weaknesses and I am strong because of Him not by myself – AND THAT’S OK! I am in the process of becoming the person I was created to be – I am not there yet nor will I achieve it on this earth. All I can achieve is to continue in the process and to revel in grace.

For many years Romans 12:1&2 have been verses I have tried to live my life around. Phil. 2:12&13 parallels it and the concept is this: by presenting my self as that living sacrifice daily (working out my salvation with fear and trembling) I am continually being transformed into what I was created to be (God works in me to will and to act according to his good purpose).

Transformation is real and it is possible but it is also rarely instantaneous. The scars of our own sins and the sins of others go away slowly (if ever in some folks). To be transparent, many of my scars come in a way from being raised in the church. I never felt I could be quite good enough to earn people’s love and respect let alone God’s and so I learned how to appear holy and yet lived terrified on the inside that people would find out that I was not this perfect person I tried to project. This irony is that as I began releasing the expectations of others many of the hidden sins began falling away. I was being held in captivity by my own self imposed isolation. The voids that the sin had once filled were replaced with relationships.

I think that while we are exploring the past and some of the issues that have brought us to where we are we must work even more actively on building the spiritual disciplines into our lives that will transform us. Our church worked through “The Purpose Driven Life” last year. I was not hit with new truths or lightning bolts form heaven but my life was refreshed and reinvigorated because I was reminded of the basics. I had learned Warren’s "purposes" years ago from a Navigators illustration called “The Wheel”. It depicts a life in spiritual balance. I think we underestimate the simple truth of things like the wheel, how having all of these things in balance creates the spiritual environment in our lives where we can grow and be transformed. Perhaps this is the real truth of Romans 12 and Philippians 2 – if our focus is on Christ it creates a spiritual openness to the transforming power of God in our lives.

May you let God’s transforming power run wild today!

Dan

The Million Dollar Home Page

I ran accross a really fun web site today. There is a kid in Britan who is going to the college this year. His brother had just graduated with $30k in debt and he decided he didn't want to do that. Late one night he came up with a plan. He created a home page with 1,000,000 pixels. He is selling the pixels at $1 each (in 100 pixel blocks) to business as ad space. If you click on a pixel you are taken to the company's site. His site went live on August 26th - just over a month ago - and he has already taken in well over $250,000! Awesome man! Not only will he have paid for his school, if he plans right he will have seed money to start his own business when he finishes. To see his site click here.

Fun Stuff
Keep reading

Dan

The Culture on Us

Culture, I've got culture on me!

A friend recently sent me an e-mail pondering our cultural influence on the issue of anger. As I was reading it mind flashed back to my theology professor in college. He said it very simply, “The core of sin is selfishness.” Madison Avenue and the marketing culture has perfected tapping into this “hidden” sinful selfish nature we have. “That’s nice” becomes “I want that” which turns into “I need that” which turns into “I deserve that”. We then break out our credit cards and buy the object of our desires because it will make us happy, fulfilled, smarter, thinner and (insert adjective here). Not only are we left with something that does not meet our true needs but we get to keep paying for it long after the item of our desires had been left by the wayside in a closet or the trash.

Madison Avenues messages are wrapped around “entertainment” on TV and in the movies that compound our problem. In years past TV and Movies tended to try to express the “ideal”. We saw perfect families, well groomed children, hard working moms and dads all in situations that were wholesome, moral and uplifting. Some people saw this and said I want that – if I only had that perfect situation I would be happy. Other people watched that and said this is not truth. I don’t see anything I relate to here. This doesn’t match my life. Many of the people in this second group are behind much or our current media. They have chosen to depict life “accurately”. We now see the broken, immoral, hurting existence that many of these people experienced. One of my wife’s favorite shows is ER. I hate watching it because each time one of the characters begins to find a healthy growing relationship the writers feel the need to tear it apart. I suppose it makes more dramatic television but it is also symptomatic of what I am taking about.

So what is the solution? What is the antidote to the messages we are bombarded with. We are told on one hand by our entertainment that life sucks and then you die and then Madison Avenue steps in and says but if you only have this, look like this, smell like this, drive this car and live in this neighborhood your life will be perfect. If “the core of sin is selfishness” the antidote is living outside oneself.

In Philippians 2:3 & 4 it says “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

There is something miraculous that happens when we get our eyes off our own situations and onto others. We begin to become the people we were intended to be. The selfish core of us begins to weaken and we begin to become the vessels of grace and love and hope that God intended. Sin keeps our eyes focus on us and separates us from those around us in the process. When we begin to focus on the needs of others along side our own we begin to find ourselves connected in relationships. We find that what really matters in not the stuff but the people.

God Bless
Dan

Rules for life

A friend sent me a link to this it was good enough I wanted to repost it here. I don't know if this can really be attributed to Bill Gates but it's good none the less.

Bill Gates' High School Address

Bill Gates gave a speech at Mt. Whitney High School in Visalia, CA in 2004 about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1 - Life is not fair -- get used to it!

Rule 2 - The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 - You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 - If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 - Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping -- they called it opportunity.

Rule 6 - If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7 - Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8 - Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 9 - Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10 - Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11 - Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

Fall is here!

Last night we went out to my parents and had dinner. My Dad is still a farm boy at heart and loves harvest time. For several years he has had a pumpkin patch. Last night Deb and the girls and I helped pick pumpkins and gourds and all those fall things. The girls had a great time as you can see by the smiles. It is so cool to see them building memories.

Go out and build some family memories of your own.

God Bless
Dan