Ep.344: Unburdened.
Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.
John said,
This how we love God:
by keeping his commands.
And his commands are not burdensome.
(1 Jn 5:3)
God’s commands not burdensome? Really? The Ten Commandments are a light load? Even after Jesus elaborated them?
For example, one commandment says, “Don’t commit adultery”. Jesus added, And that includes even fantasizing about sex (Mat 5:27-28).
Jesus said, Hating your brother, is like murder! (Mat 5:21-22).
He also said, “If your hand offends you, cut it off. If your eye offends you, gouge it out” (Mat 5:29-30).
If I apply Jesus’ standard of amputating body parts to my mind, because of the things I think about, I’d need a frontal lobotomy. Which would solve some of my problems, but create others.
Bible interpreters say, “Jesus didn’t want a bunch of amputees. He used hyperbole to make a point.”
Perhaps. But the hyperbole doesn’t make the commands lighter. It adds weight to already weighty commands. So what to do with John’s opinion that Jesus’ commands aren’t burdensome?
Listen to the rest of John’s statement:
His commands are not burdensome,
because everyone born of God overcomes the world.
This is the victory that overcomes the world,
even our faith (1 Jn 5:3-4).
Strangely enough, my faltering attempts to keep the commands make me believe that yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Somewhere beyond me, and growing within me, is a gift of God that disciplines my mind, reforms my desires, and shifts my values.
The spiritual life isn’t measured by whether God meets my expectations, like the store survey that asks, “Did we exceed your expectations?” Rather, God is like a life coach who asks, “Do you know what you really want?”
The psalmist said,
Delight yourself in the Lord
and he will give you the desires of your heart (Ps 37:4).
I know the desires of my flesh: food and sex and entertainment and comfort. But the desires of the heart are deeper.
In CS Lewis’ novel Queen Orual says, “you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years . . . Till that word can be dug out of us, why should [the gods] hear the babble we think we mean?” (Till We Have Faces, ch. 4).
Do you know the speech that lies at the center of your soul? What is your heart’s desire?
Let’s pray.
Our father, I still find your commands burdensome. I like my comfortable, middle-class life in a rich country. I am not sure how to leave it all and follow you. But your call rings in my ears and tugs at my heart. It changes my mind and directs my journey.
I hear people speak of finding their passion. But passion is too shallow a word for the desire of my heart. You are my heart’s desire. I want to please you. To imitate you by loving others. Even to lose my life, if that will help me find life in you.
May your spirit challenge my shallow desires, and draw me to find the riches of my heart’s desire.
Amen.
I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.
YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube
Ep.343: Is God Hiding? Podcast.
Ep.343: Is God Hiding?
Ep343: Our Unseen God.
Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.
John says,
Whoever does not love their brother or sister
whom they have seen,
cannot love God,
whom they have not seen.
(1 Jn 4:20)
Our invisible God presents a problem for my prayers. I had hoped for years the problem would disappear as I grew in faith and matured in relationship with God.
But it didn’t work that way.
One of my favorite authors on prayer, Father Thomas Green, said that when he was young, he expected his faith would be firm and settled when he grew old.
But as he aged, he discovered that faith didn’t become easier–it attracted new difficulties.
My experience is like his. Having been dragged–kicking and screaming–into old age, faith is still a struggle. I’d like a rich harvest of settled insights and obvious decisions, but my faith is still a garden that needs watering and weeding and protection from frost and a fence against carrot-eating rabbits and cabbage-munching deer.
Not that my faith is of the carrots and cabbage variety. But the proofs of Christianity, so strong and convincing in my youth, are weaker now. The grand design of the universe used to reveal God’s greatness. Now it sometimes seems a muddle of incomprehensible dark matter and speed-of-light expansion, held loosely together by formulas I don’t understand.
Faith is a choice. A reasonable choice, given the other options, but still a choice. In prayer I often wait in darkness for the God I cannot see.
Dark matter exerts an unseen force in the universe, preventing it from spinning out of control. Faith is the dark matter of my spirit, holding my life in the life of God. It is the unseen gravity that keeps my life from spinning out of control.
As John who says,
Whoever does not love his brother
whom he has seen,
cannot love God,
whom he has not seen (1 Jn 4:20)..
The strongest apologetic for God is not rational proofs of his existence, but love among his disciples.
Let’s pray.
Our father, whom we do not see, you taught us to know you and love you by knowing and loving each other.
Jesus invited us into his circle of love, saying, “As the father has loved me, I have loved you” (Jn 15:9). And, “By this the world will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn 13:35).
Deliver us from our obsession with rational explanations. Free us from the need to see and prove you. Liberate us from simple but false explanations of who we are and who you are.
There is a cloud of unknowing between you and us. As we face the darkness of that cloud, shine your light in our hearts. Give us grace to know you by faith, and to love others as you love us.
Amen.
I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.
YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube
Ep.342: No Fear? Podcast.
Ep.342: No Fear?
Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.
I recently read an internet list of the 10 most common fears. It included arachnophobia–fear of spiders; claustrophobia–fear of enclosed spaces; and aerophobia–fear of flying.
Though I’ve dealt with fear all my life, the list wasn’t much help. My fears were never as pointed or definable as “fear of spiders” or “fear of flying”. Mine was a spirit of fear, an assortment of nameless fears that churned my stomach and twisted my view of life.
For years, I had no name for my problem. Then one day in college as I stepped into the winter cold for a 20-minute walk to my dorm, I realized, “This feeling that I feel so often is fear!”
It was a relief to have a name for it. But what was I afraid of? I was afraid of people. I was afraid life would overwhelm me. That I might fail as a student, and as a human. I feared I’d slide into a pit of hopelessness and despair.
What to do about fear, now that I had a name for it? I read John who says:
There is no fear in love,
but perfect love casts out fear
because fear has torment.
(1 Jn 4:18)
The only perfect love I knew was God’s love. Would that be strong enough to dislodge the fear?
I mentioned my experience to one of the elders at church, who said, “There’s another solution to fear. Look at Psalm 57.”
When I am afraid I will put my trust in you.
In God, whose word I trust.
In the Lord, whose word I praise.
In God I put my trust,
I will not be afraid.
(Ps 57:3-4)
Love and faith. Solutions to fear. But they didn’t help me overnight. They are signposts that point me in a lifelong direction, teaching me that the churning fear in my stomach is not a true assessment of danger, that the paralyzing obsessions in my mind are false guides to reality.
I can live in an alternate universe, where God is in control, where trust replaces fear, where love wins forever.
Let’s pray.
Our father, we have had much to fear since Adam fell. We are locked out of the garden, we pull weeds east of Eden. Violence and wars dismay us; hurricanes and wildfires damage the earth; conspiracy theories and obsessions corrupt our society.
But we trust in you. Though you shut us out of Eden, you invite us into your family. Though angels with fiery swords block our return, you send your son to pull weeds with us and show us the way forward.
May faith free our minds. May your love quiet our obsessions. May trust in you drive out our fears. May we walk confidently as your children.
We trust you will have the final say, that our lives and our world and the new world to come will be rooted and grounded in love.
As John says, “There is no fear in love” (1 Jn 4:18).
Amen.
I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.
YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube
Ep.341: God is . . . What? Podcast.
Ep.341: God is . . . What?
Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.
Finish this statement with one word. God is . . . what? What comes to mind for you? God is good? God is holy? God is father?
John tells us,
Whoever does not love
does not know God,
because God is love (1 John 4:8).
God is love, one of three remarkable “God is . . .” statements by John.
The other two?
“God is spirit” and “God is light”.
The first statement “God is spirit” was delivered to the woman at the well, who had had five husbands, and was now in a sixth relationship. Jesus said to her, God is spirit. It is not where you worship that matters, but how. Worship in spirit and truth (Jn 4:24).
I would have advised to Jesus to speak simply to the woman, tell her something she can understand, perhaps something appropriate to spiritual immaturity. Instead, Jesus gave her an advanced lesson in worship–worship God in spirit and truth.
Did she have any inkling of what he meant? Do you know how to worship in spirit and truth? The woman’s takeaway from her encounter with Jesus wasn’t, “At last. Now I have a credible theory of worship!” Her takeaway was, “Jesus is amazing. He knows all about me.”
John also says “God is light” (1 Jn 1:5). Light is a metaphor for God. Maybe it points to holiness and purity, or maybe to transparency and vulnerability. Have you ever thought of God as transparent? He lets us see right through him?
A more scary thought: I am transparent to God. His light shining through me exposes what I hide and what I highlight about myself, my truths and my falsehoods.
John’s third statement is, “God is love”. John says we should love others because God loved us first (1 Jn 4:16, 19. 21).
These are remarkable standards for following God.
God is spirit. Worship in spirit.
God is light. Walk in the light.
God is love. Love one another.
Let’s pray.
Our father, as smoke from summer wildfires darkens my city, I worship you as God of light. Clear the smoke from my eyes. Help me walk in the light as you are in the light.
We welcome your light as the spring sun that warms the soil and grows our gardens. We respect your light as a lighthouse that warns of disaster. We fear your light when it interrogates our sins. We endure your light when it comes as radiation to burn away our cancer.
O father, speak to us in love as well as light. May we be glad when you say, “Well done”. May we believe when you forgive our sins. May we receive from you the healing of memories and the transforming of relationships.
O father, teach us to worship. Our culture worships the body. Free us from the cult of body-building and makeovers and sports and sex.
Remind us that we are embodied spirits, and that you are pure spirit. Teach us to worship you in spirit and in truth.
Amen.
I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.
YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube
Ep.340: Us and Them. Podcast.
Ep.340: Us and Them.
Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.
John divides the world into “us” and “them” saying,
They are from the world.
They speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.
We are from God.
Whoever knows God listens to us (1 Jn 4:5-6).
Perhaps in John’s time it was obvious who “us” and “them” were. Those who served Jesus were “us”. Those who didn’t were “them”. Plain and simple.
But today’s religious landscape far more convoluted. If John visited today, I’d ask, “So, what do you think? Look around and tell me who is ‘us’ and who is ‘them’.”
John isn’t likely to drop by, so I put the question to you. “Look at all the churches and groups using Jesus’ name. Tell me who’s in and who’s out of God’s circle?”
Would you include evangelicals like Baptists and Alliance? Mainline liberals like United Methodists and Anglicans? Pentecostals? Seventh-Day Adventists? Jehovah’s Witnesses? Mormons?
Perhaps when John says “we”, he means individuals, not groups or denominations. Are “we” people who share a common experience like “born again” or a common doctrine like the Apostles Creed?
John says
Whoever knows God listens to us.
Whoever is not from God doesn’t listen to us.
This is how we recognize the spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood (1 Jn 4:6).
Yes, there is a spirit of falsehood in the world, and a spirit of truth. Jesus said, “I am the truth” (Jn 14:6). He didn’t describe truth as orthodox doctrine or good behavior, but as a person–himself. Our path to truth? Get close to that person.
What separates truth from falsehood is not always the facts, which can be interpreted and disputed. Nor is it simply the goodness or badness of those involved. It is often the spirit behind the words, the spirit of the stories, or the spirit of the allegations. Some spirits resonate with the spirit of Christ, others don’t sound like Jesus at all. And some people’s spirit just confuses me.
I’m cautious with John’s statement that whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever doesn’t know God doesn’t. Many people don’t listen to me, but I don’t immediately write them off as “them”, not “us”. Distrust can be created by something in my spirit. Or something in the spirit. Or something in both of us.
How do we recognize the spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood? In his gospel, John says “When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13).
Let’s pray.
Our father, beyond the boundaries of the explored world, an old map says, “Here be dragons”.
That’s how I feel when I reach the limits of my doctrinal and rational knowledge, when I face the unknown ocean where we must discern the spirits. Where truth is not a rational argument, but the person of Christ. Where the way to truth is not more and better study, but the leading of the spirit of truth.
O father, forgive our sins of the spirit. Cleanse and reorganize our inner lives, that we may know your spirit, and love his truth, and follow his leading into all that is holy and righteous and good.
Amen.
I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.
YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube
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