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Perceptions of law in the natural mind 9/6/2008 6:21:53 AM
A reader poses some thoughts and a question:
Hey do you think that the only thing an unbeliever can see when a child of God speaks to them is law? ... I have realized TODAY that there are only 2 kinds of thoughts and two kinds of people [worlds] One is the darkness and the other is the light.
Yes, and it's no wonder that only confusion and/or judgment could result when attempting to reason the expression of one according to the other. Those who are of the world can only reason according to the world. The principles of the world's logic are the same as that of the law, so that even if someone is not reasoning directly according to THE law he still sees things according to the same principles. While many times I've sensed that an unbeliever is hearing or seeing gracious realities from me, I cannot ignore the fact that those things are being forced into a rigid framework. It indeed takes the Spirit of God to break those realities free from the categorization of the old mind. The world can talk about grace and love, and yet their understandings are inevitably linked to the same system by which one is deemed better or worse than another.
I understand the unrelatability you speak of. There have been many times when someone will seem to pick up on a bit of life that I've spoken, but I have come to realize - after continuing on with how that bit related to the whole - that too often that bit was being forced into another perspective altogether. You know, it's that bittersweet awareness of knowing that someone who starts out praising my "insight" may end up condemning me once they realize I don't hold it according to their framework of performance and judgment. Sometimes I just let people take what I say however they want, without giving them any more. Partly, I know that only God can make it real to them, but I also know that it would be less painful to deal with the reactions.
Jim
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Recent reply regarding God's control 8/26/2008 5:47:27 PM
Tim, you ask:
"What part does prayer play in your decision making?"
First, let me thank you for daring to ask me this direct question. :) I'm going to share some thoughts that may well have nothing to do with what you were thinking, but I want to make a point about what prayer is or may not be.
In the religious sense, prayer plays no part at all in my decision making; in the living reality that it is, prayer is part and parcel of who I am in him in every way.
Now of course, I realize that might irritate more than answer, but I couldn't give you any real answer by suggesting that prayer - as we learned to perceive it - plays a vital role. I suspect that some of contemporary decision-making prayer has more to do with a sense of religious obligation than with truly communicating with the God who is our life.
We too often want simple tell-me-what-to-do answers so that we will do the right thing, and so that's how we usually ask what we ask for. How could that be anything but right? However, right easily displaces life. We want to know what to do so that we feel confident in doing it, don't we? It seems to me that
some of the way we've learned to pray and then listen for God's leading might be more akin to consulting a fortune-teller or some kind of human counselor.
What if what we really need, especially for making decisions, is wisdom? And I don't mean a specific here's-what-I-want-you-to-do type of wisdom. More like this:
For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you, and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.
(Ephesians 1:15-21 NASB)What if my prayer sounds less like tell-me-what-to-do and more like give-me-insight-into-my-true-reality? What if my decisions flow out of the wisdom that has been given in answer to that prayer?
Jim :)
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