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

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

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

Ep339: Test the Spirits.  

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

John tells us to test the spirits. He says,
    Don’t believe every spirit.
    Test the spirits to see if they are from God,
      because false prophets are everywhere (1 Jn 4:1). 

Yes, false prophets are everywhere. Right wing and left wing politicians, cultural warriors in church and society, media that promote inclusiveness or traditional values. Who to believe? 

One approach to John’s statement is to adopt a narrow focus. Perhaps he is speaking only about religious prophets who claim to represent God.

I prefer a broader approach. Eight billion of us are alive because God breathed into our bodies of clay. Not all of us are prophets in the narrow sense. But we are all prophets in a wider way, in that our spirits express something of God who sustains us and something of the evil that plagues us. 

John provides a test of spirits when he says,
      This is how you recognize the Spirit of God: 
          Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh 
                           is from God:
          Every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus
                          isn’t from God, but is the spirit of antichrist (1 Jn 4:2-3).  

In John’s black and white view, there are only two qualities of spirit: the Spirit of God, and the spirit of antichrist. As I try to discern the spirit of people I encounter, I find it helpful to ask, Where is God at work in this spirit? Where evil is at work? 

Paul speaks about the spirit of preachers. He says some try to stir up trouble by preaching Christ out of envy, rivalry, and selfish ambition (Phil 1:15, 17). Others preach Christ with good will and love. 

Paul’s advice? Not to test the spirit of preachers or try judging their motives. He asks, “What does it matter? Here’s what is important–that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is being preached” (Phil 1:18). 

Let’s pray. 

Our father, as we walk in your world, we see weeds and wheat growing together in churches, societies, and lives (Mat 13:24-30). Jesus said, Don’t try to pull all the weeds, or you’ll wreck the wheat with your work.

Like the wheat fields, our personal spirits are full of weeds and wheat. As are those who preach the gospel, engage in politics, or blog on the internet. 

Give us grace to see the facts and discern the spirits, to recognize and distrust the spirit of antichrist wherever it grows. To recognize and work with your spirit, wherever he is at work. 

May the wheat in our lives grow, and the weeds be weeded out. Bring quickly the time when you will reveal all the spirits, when you will gather the wheat into your barn, and throw the weeds into the fire. 

Amen. 

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.  

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube