Philip’s Musings

We really do….we need the experiences….. we really need those experiences that come as we walk with God. It’s how we discover what life is really all about….why we are here on planet earth….why were we put here now instead of 1000 years ago….why did we have to go thru all that stuff from the past….is there actually a future?

Most of the world and much of the church just doesn’t get it. We’ve reduced any relating to God to deal-making…if you do this then I’ll do that…we live trying to control God…control our lives and pray “my  will be done on earth”…we just don’t get it.

Satan is the only one who understands… he knows that if I walk with God and have those experiences with Him….I will discover all those answers and not give a hoot about my will being done…I will even stop trying to control God and make any more deals based on what I think God is looking for…like being a good little boy….whatever that means…   

I read this from Eldredge this morning as I am musing about this…guess what he is talking about…how we cut deals with God… I really enjoy the things he says.  

“It really doesn’t matter what the particular group bargain is—doctrinal adherence, moral living, or some sort of spiritual experience—the desire is the same: taming God in order to tame life. Never mind those deep yearnings of the soul; never mind the nagging awareness that God is not cooperating. If the system isn’t working, it’s because we’re not doing it right. There’s always something to work on, with the promise of abundant life just around the corner. Plenty of churches and leaders are ready to show you how to cut a deal.”

Start walking more regularly with the One who is actually in control of everything…. and even has a plan for our lives…. things might just start to change….life might just get really, really exciting… like it is supposed to be.

More on that next time.

When we spend each day walking  with the Lord… we experience  the Lord….we learn to hear His voice…see His amazing love for us…one experience after the other…His provision…His protection…His direction….His open doors…His closed doors…He goes before us in everything….He provides answers for things we haven’t even asked Him about yet!

All just as we walk along thru each day with Him….. Doesn’t even matter then what kind of day it is any more…is it bright and sunny….rainy and cold…a blizzard…doesn’t matter…’cause we are walking with Him  through each day.

Now it didn’t start out that way for me…after I first met the Lord, I thought every day would be just brilliant sunshine and 70 degrees…then it hit 100 degrees in my life…you could fry an egg on the pavement!  There were clouds and there were storms and sometimes it got so dark you couldn’t see a foot in front of you….but they all just drove me into His presence… looking for answers….

It’s different now….He is present  all the time….doesn’t matter what kind of a day it is…remember… “it will be a day like all days…filled with those happenings that change and alter the course of human events“….

…..and He is there…. with you… right in the middle of it all.

That’s why I close my daily prayer with this….

“Having done all…I now stand. I enter into your Sabbath rest…to wait upon you and watch you work in my life and sphere this day. I look forward to all you have in store for us. We are dangerous to the evil one because we walk with Jesus and are determined to do what He did………He said greater things will you do than I have done. So be it!”

I would invite anyone visiting for the first time to read 3 of the pages to your right.

Why these musings will explain how I got involved with blogging

Philip’s Story will give you an idea of where I am coming from.

Good to have you visit will lay some groundwork for all that will follow.

Everything else…..just daily thoughts and stories, running from one day to another….. starting at the beginning will help it all make sense….. kind of a journey thru my life that I started recording here back in mid-December 2007 ……..I sincerely hope you will enjoy the journey.

I sure have!

We have all kinds of substitutes… we’ll do practically anything except just spend time walking and talking with God in the Garden of our lives…I mean anything.  People are really good at staying busy…there are a zillion good things to do…ways to occupy our time….ways that are good…plenty that are bad….and tons that are just totally ugly.

Ask me how I know this? I’ve spent most of the last 40 years staying busy for God.….instead of spending time just walking along with God. Eldredge addressed this recently,

“Communion with God is replaced by activity for God. There is little time in this outer world for deep questions. Given the right plan, everything in life can be managed . . . except your heart.

The inner life, the story of our heart, is the life of the deep places within us, our passions and dreams, our fears and our deepest wounds. It is the unseen life, the mystery within—what Buechner calls our “shimmering self.” It cannot be managed like a corporation. The heart does not respond to principles and programs; it seeks not efficiency, but passion. Art, poetry, beauty, mystery, ecstasy: These are what rouse the heart. Indeed, they are the language that must be spoken if one wishes to communicate with the heart. It is why Jesus so often taught and related to people by telling stories and asking questions. His desire was not just to engage their intellects but to capture their hearts.”

You know…He still wants to do that…wants to capture our hearts….we need to stop some of our activities and take time to be with Him...engage Him…walk with Him…and things will start to change dramatically….in our hearts.

‘Cause where it all happens is in our hearts…not in accomplishing things.

So this silly ancient song one my Aunt’s sang when I was a young’un…comes on racing thru my strangely wired brain…..“put your shoes on Lucy, don’t you know you’re in the city….”…..  

The Philip variation would sound like…..“put your shoes on people, don’t you know you’re in a battle….”   that’s why God tells us to put on all his armor in Ephesians 6….. and shoes are a very important part of the armor. This is a version I really like.

“As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.”  

What makes me ready is my walk with God….that’s why shoes are so important… if I am not experiencing things every day as I walk with Him…. I have absolutely nothing to proclaim…. doctrine will not cut it….what we say out of our mouths has to line up with the way we live every day… there is no longer any room for the Preacher Man to proclaim thou shalt not commit adultery while he is out there committing adultery and then proclaiming… well…. I am only human…. What that means is the Preacher Man needs to put on some shoes and start walking with Jesus.

It’s my daily 24/7 walk with Him that produces intimacy with my creator…it produces experiences that are not taught…they are caught…. as I walk.

So I pray every day…it’s a part of that daily prayer link over on the right….I pray it every day…like this.

“Help me to begin by putting on all your armor, in order to be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil and prepare myself for the battle today. I once again……gird myself with your belt of truth (my Lord Jesus, You who are Truth) you alone are the one that enables me to see all the lies and deceptions of the evil one.

I put on your breastplate of righteousness to protect and guard my heart from the enemy’s arrows that would try to destroy or steal my heart.

I put on Your shoes (all the teachings and experiences from 40 years of walking with You), that is what enables me to go forth, prepared, to preach your gospel of the Kingdom, your gospel of peace, love, restoration, reconciliation and intimate relationship with you………

So I feel prepared….all the time…ready to give an answer for the hope that is within me… it brings me peace…has put love in my heart….has reconciled me with God and restored my relationship to a place of greater intimacy with Him every single day until I leave here for an even greater experience of intimacy….

Anyone can have that intimacy with Him….all I need to do do is want it….ask Him for it……then just put on some shoes  and…. start walking…..

I left you with a hmmmmm…yesterday.

It had to do with…..“Those 12 guys walked with Him…talked with Him….listened to Him as He taught them what to do….watched Him as He did what He taught them to do and then He sent them out to do the same things themselves….

Maybe we need to be discipled ….. so we can be sent out too?… so we can begin to do what He did too?”

Actually, the Lord is looking for a whole lot more than our doing what He did…. He left here saying:  “greater things  will you do than I have done”. 

This would only be possible after He ascended and poured out the Holy Spirit in order that His very Life could be in us and He  could now do those greater things in and through us.

We only become a container of His life. We messed up that whole understanding and felt it was us who would be the doers of great and mighty things…. amazing how much we want life to be all about us….just give me a 30 second pause in a conversation and I can immediately turn the conversation around to me and my wonderfulness….   

That’s because we play a head  game instead of a heart game.  We figure everything out in our brains…learn all about God….and end up knowing about  Him…instead of knowing Him.

Discipleship is the way God has ordained for us to learn to know Him… know Him intimately and personally…hear His voice…obey that voice…  experience Him every moment of every day as we walk  thru life.

Walking… it is what we do…we walk thru life… we have been created to walk and talk with God in the Gardens of our lives…..that is why He included shoes in the list of armor we need to put on every day….in order to be able to fight the battle.  Remember the battle we keep talking about?  The one we have been born into?  The one we need to fight every single day of our journey?

I can’t imagine how we think we can do that barefoot…    

We’ll look at that next time.

Maybe it is time to bring back this word….discipleship…forget the mentoring/training/teaching thing and once again start calling this process what Jesus called it…. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” 

The making of disciples  requires a whole lot more than sitting 20 people in a room and talking to them…it takes a committment…an investment….it requires my time…energy…resources…one on one stuff…

Jesus referred to the 12 as His disciples…. He spent most of His time with those 12 guys….even more with just 3 of them….did things with crowds too but most of His time was spent with just a very few people.

How come is it that Philip prefers standing in front of thousands….?

Those 12 guys walked with Him…talked with Him….listened to Him as He taught them what to do….watched Him as He did what He taught them to do amd then He sent them out to do the same things themselves….

Maybe we need to be discipled ….. so we can be sent out too?… so we can begin to do what He did too?

Hmmmm….

I do…..  and I understand

Once we have listened to some words about how to do something….and followed up by being with someone…watching how they do what those words talked about  doing…then it’s time….it’s time to get up on the old bike…push off… and try to ride it myself….

Rarely do I get it  the first time around…it is always best to have the one who is discipling me right there with me as I try to do it myself… watching me do what I am being trained to do…especially helpful if I fall off the bike and scrape up my elbow or my knee.. 

Have your ever noticed how much we all enjoy being adjusted… corrected… told he we just messed up…and now do it over and see if we can get it right this time…don’t you just love that….look forward to the next correction?      

It is a necessary part of the process….I need to learn to embrace correction… it is the only way to eventually grow up. Some place during the discipleship process I need to understand… I will never understand  if I think I already know everything….  

This is so important regardless what it is that we are learning to do.  In our instant everything world….we do not want to take the time to do that… our egos can’t handle it anyway….’cause if I am not better at doing absolutely everything  better than you do it…that would mean I am actually not God and how could I ever be able to handle that….  

If I want to learn how to walk with God… the discipling process towards that end will bring me through an ongoing series of all 3 steps… where I must learn to embrace what I call the discipline and instruction of the Lord….leaving my narrow little Peter Pan World and decide to grow up instead…..   

As I go through this process….I start to understand  more and more all the time….by doing  it…. it begins to go deeper and deeper into my heart and I can now actually understand it.

Sometimes, it seems…. tomorrow never comes… especially when I say something like…. “We’ll look at that next part tomorrow.”

Does that happen to you?  You know….like “talk to you tomorrow”…or  “let’s look at that tomorrow”.. or “why don’t we deal with that tomorrow.”…?

And tomorrow never seems to ever quite get there.  Story of my life…. 

We were talking about:  “I hear and I forget… I see and I remember …. I do and I understand.”

I was specifically referring to the second part of that and getting beyond just teaching with words….

See and you will remember….now we need to teach with more than just words… by exampling what we were talking about…Now I invite you to watch me as I do it….be with me…spend time with me as I live my life…as I do what I do each day…and…as I do what I do, I am also training you to do what I do…doesn’t matter what that is…ride a bike…swing a bat…follow Jesus…it works the same regardless what we are training people to do…

As you watch me and learn….hopefully you are watching someone who actually knows what they are doing….I can assure you that there are many things you do not want to watch philip do….  

On the other hand…I think I can teach you how to cook….how to market and run a Bed & Breakfast….and…. I really believe I can help you to have a vital… living relationship with God….

So come on along then…

hopefully tomorrow... and I’ll take you to part 3 where….

I do….. and I understand

 Yesterday I quoted an old African proverb.  Our daughter and her family are moving to Rwanda…so I have this Africa on my mind thing going on… 

“I hear and I forget… I see and I remember …. I do and I understand.”

Philip’s version of that is a little different.   We need to hear…very true…there are words that need to be said….but it cannot stop there…cannot stop with the verbal instruction…that is only just the beginning….or we will forget.  Unless of course you are like my friend Jeff who remembers absolutely everything…that is scary…it is quite an unusual gift…in all my almost 74 years he is one of two people I met who have that particular gifting.

The rest of us folks…we will forget.     

So we have to go on from there.  The words will depend on what we are being discipled to do…if it is plumbing…or training to be a carpenter, electrician, painter, landscaper or follower of Jesus….the words for those things will be different….but the process is the same.  The next step in the training process is much more important than the first step…more important in our training to do anything…..regardless what we are learning to do.   Displeship is training someone to do something….by watching it being done.

Right now our elementary schools are training boys to become passive…to stop acting like little boys and be sweet and nice and non-confrontational or aggressive and….passive.  When the little boy does not respond and continues to act like a little boy…then we give him some Ridlin!

When I train a male person…I start with the words that it is perfectly normal for you to act male since that is the way you have been wired…God made you a male….we have a society that wants everyone to be equal…so there will be neuter gender…males are taught to act like females and females are being taught to be more aggressive…er…uh…like males.

There I go again….but….we will be discipled to something….unfortunately the words  are not always correct…I was taught things…so many things… so many wrong things in how to follow Jesus….then I was further trained incorrectly during the next step in the process….watching others do it.

The proverb said See and you will remember….Watch me as I do it….be with me…I will do what I am training you to do…watch me and learn….hopefully we are watching someone who really knows what they are doing.

I mentioned that is a process….that it is called discipleship….it works…I can be trained to do it right….and I can be trained to do it wrong.

We’ll look at that next part tomorrow.