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I can’t escape conversation. Even in what may appear to all but you know who as silence, there are often words swirling around inside me. And likewise, and not unusually, I appear to myself as one invited to, and in, a great question and answer forum, hearing questions rise.

And right now, in this very moment of tapping keys to suddenly cause words to appear before me, (and perhaps in some later, before you) arises this one: “Where do I go from here?”.

And now that is consigned to my past, and right now, to perhaps your future…(which is now)

Oops, here it is again: Where do I go from here? I was wrong…again! Not so past as I thought.

Making the unknown known is some work! (Good thing it’s not left to me or my work)

Ahh, here is where “we” are going. See, I am finding out in this now, just as immediately as you are finding out in yours. We are all (O! the presumption in “we are all”?) walking in a way we know not. Walking into what is unknown to us.

One writer said this of another:

 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. (That’s in the Bible I have)

Now, I understand this may not sit well with some, in my assignment of “we are all”. For I can and do already hear something of a din arising in the so called forum that might seem to disrupt what was determined to be a (more orderly?) question and answer period.

Opinions are now rising, being tossed to and fro in seeming odds against each other. Some called believers are shouting “To hell with your “we are all”! for not all men have the faith, and surely not the faith of Abraham, much less Jesus Christ!” and “You have no idea who is going to read this!” And for me, some of (who only seem) the mass of faceless believers have faces, I think I know some of them, have met some of them.

But their faces are only in my memory, as again and likewise “we all” only see the past. Even when looking face to face in the natural. In the natural, all we know (or believe we do) is in the past…words utter(ed) (it takes time for sound waves to reach our ears from the utterer), things seen as looking at, (it takes time for light), and we are, in the natural always and only in capture of things past. And no matter how “fresh” a memory may seem…

But anyway…and nevertheless, we are quite convinced we have a “now” in which we see and hear as things really are. (My own memory would never play me false, would it? After all, it is my own…!)

Likewise I hear a din rising from what appears “another side”. “I am not a believer, I don’t believe your hoo doo, or in some invisible sky daddy, so don’t include me (or us) in your “we all”. And surely not that silly book written by mostly ignorant, superstitious, and unwashed nomads and tribal folk. This is 2025 dammit! Who do you think you are, anyway?” and often “You so called believers are always so presumptuous, pompous with what you say and think you know about everything and everyone to even include the likes of me (or us). You talk like you know or have known…everybody! Pompous fool!”

And “You writer, appears as the most pompous and presumptuous I have ever heard!”

“You don’t know…me!”

Yeah, seems anyone expressing anything…should expect push back. Even if in their own head.

“No, the sky is not just blue, it is cerulean blue!” Corrections abound. (Say cerulean blue 50 times and see how queer and meaningless it sounds…even to one’s self)

Oops did I say queer? (Another quadrant of the forum is being heard from!)

“Hey! that’s our word!”

All of us (did I say “all” again?) trying to appropriate whatever this thing is we commonly call reality to our own ends, whereas it most often seems the greatest and only most common thing we find is an each seeking to be uncommon. Whose words, whose reality (kinda belies the very notion of reality by assigning it a “whose”, doesn’t it?) is/are reliable? Is it really (what does really mean, anyway?) up for grabs?

Listen, if you can. Briefly, if you can. I ask as favor, imploring. For I know I am asking a lot…and more than a lot. At least to a man I can and do readily concede is out of his mind if that be your judgment. I can no longer be afraid of the crazy (or the judgment of it) than I can of my own shadow. It follows me, relentlessly. Too used to it by now. (Maybe I kid myself? Wouldn’t be the first time)

Listen it is 2025! (or so it seems, anyway) And there are discoveries of microbes, cells, atoms, quarks, neutrinos, Higgs Boson(s), forces and fields, weak(s) and strong(s), electromagnetic waves, photons, Fermi paradoxes, musings over gravity and space (and mutual effects), vast spaces uncovered of these things we call “matter” on a level so profound we wonder if even matter exists at all as ever once thought. (And my fondness abounds for a thing called “string theory.”) All these things and so many others those dusty footed nomads knew nothing about (or at least they didn’t say).

And all these things mentioned (of which there are boundless others), I know less than zero about in understanding to convey to any adequacy…except to mention them. Just as I can say “theoretical physics” without prohibition, yet knowing absolutely nothing of it.

I hear it! I hear…”See! See! We always told you thunder and lightning was not as some hill dwelling sandal clad goat herder thought…’the voice of a god’. Or angel. Or that spontaneous combustion deserved wonder and attribution to some miraculous appearing from another realm you claim as under your purview! We know! We now know!

We are not superstitious, but scientifically and rationally informed as to the nature of reality and things, not like that shepherd or so called prophet believed or wrote, with not even any basic understanding of things mentioned…atoms, cells, the Krebs cycle, electrical activity. And the “nature of matter” being so enigmatic that we now say (and without fear) to even that they in their benighted ignorance (and all who find something of their “stuff” to hang their hat or so called faith upon) you ‘had and have no idea…no idea at all of how things really are…’ ”

“Nothing is nor ever was as it seemed to YOU in your silly, ignorant, and superstitious interpretation of it, or holding to it”

Wait.

Some other few are now rising. I can’t describe their camp even though (perhaps especially so and even because) I count myself as there. Somehow indescribable and resistant to all description of any how…yet I am there.

“Wait”, is said. “Wait”.

“This is all we have been saying in ultimate of deconstruction, even to your own words ‘Nothing is nor ever was as it seemed’.”

This, your seeming claim is no less ours from even our own outset. Nothing, no thing is…as it seems. There is and remains a hidden nature as to all things are as yet, in seeming. Perhaps like you my mind says and interprets solid when I hit the table…or wall, or fall to the ground, but as to the nature of the table (mostly space) and myself also, no less, I find my own mind in one sense lying to me about what solid really means as it appears to it. (And how fond I am of Lord Rutherford’s reaction by staying in bed!)

A brilliant man of peerless exploration, experimentation, and discovery in his work of finding how vast are spaces in things we perceive as once “solid”. A brilliant man (also called “the father” of nuclear physics) reduced for a time in fear possessed by his discovery. Terrified of getting out of bed for fear of falling through the floor with what he now knew. Everything I once thought solid is mostly empty space!

Yes, knowledge can be very very scary. Even the brilliant are not immune. And though I am not seeking to make a point, neither am I ashamed of what another wrote:

For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

O! But doesn’t that seem contrary? Doesn’t it seem that the better would always be to the knowing of stuff? That to the knowing of more stuff is the better overall? How could sorrow be in it? Is some superstitious work at work…smuggling sorrow in?

I have met many (purely anecdotal of course) who claim faithlessness, or atheism or agnosticism as home base, yet who claim some oft unspoken intrepitude [sic] for meeting life or reality head on without crutch. This thing of faith to which they assign as only superstitious belief and practice. That likewise they are often not unwilling to say or ascribe to as a mere result of a fear generated response.

That “they” are the more fearless, intrepid, devoid of that nothing they assign as faith in “other’s god(s)” or God’s being, but assign as that form of comfort crutch created by the timorous (of which they are not, surely) to face what few would deny as life’s uncertainty(s). Not to even here mention death. It seems often there may be enough pomposity to go round.

It’s almost as if, if there really be sides, each side is prepared to say “O! but you do not know what I labor under (My god asks much of me!), and/or contrarily, “You do not known how much fearlessness is required of me to live bare faced and alone looking into the future. And at death” (Rare is the man who is not inclined to somehow publish “See how hard I am at work!”)

And I must also wonder at those who, not unusually say how at home they are (in their fearlessness) with the notion of death. It must only be “the others” that find some fear/terror there to construct a crutch as only possible motive for a thing called faith. For, if so comfortable in, or with that notion of their own non being so final, so ultimate and so rapidly approaching (I tell you, there is nothing after!)…why shun its practice now by being silent if one is so at home with it?
Am I being catty?

Perhaps there is more to being, especially being in consciousness or what appears so…or what we claim as so…than seems? Yes, nothing is, no thing is as it seems. Even nothing.

Who really is made able to enter, not the unconscious…but the absence of it? If that is the true and overall estate of (what some might call) reality, (it has no and holds no consciousness) then one is already there, no? I mean…who escapes…reality? And if reality is ultimate, and what we are all inescapably in, and is no less the absence of consciousness, then you (perhaps) alone O! man! are surely upsetting it by thinking! Unless you are prepared to say you do not…think. (Ha!) Am I being catty, again?

Or even more absurdly (and I have nothing against the absurd when worn properly) one is prepared to say “reality is in flux”. Or even, “in flux to each.” Then, of course, one could not ever presume to base their notion of reality as a “real” and ultimately true thing as holding no consciousness. For some consciousness is required to even say that.

Everyone I have ever met or had exchange with (anecdotally) seems to have it. But here again I am. Nothing is as it seems.

This Jesus confessing man once said, (at least as I am told and have read):

One day you are going to find there are only two men alive in the earth, you and the Lord.

I have no doubt this is odious to some. (Look! A Jesus smuggler!)
And though I believe this is surely true of the believer, I hold some hope for even those who (seemingly) presently deny.

It may become of some import to know who (when applicable) and what, is real.
You might even find some question of what appears your own consciousness, your own mind. Even in that thing one calls their own mind. Are thoughts…really real? What are they? Is my mind so called, or consciousness, a real thing? Do “I” have it like any or every other, as it seems? When I say blue, do they see red?

Does anything I think I say to another…ever really conform to what I believe I am communicating? What some may even say they are hearing? Is communication actually a real thing…as it seems?

Ultimately, like our once view of what a seemingly solid thing really is as opposed to our experience and the way our mind constructs it to an ourself, might my mind have any other interpretations of, and even of itself…wrong? Misleading? What if all is wrong in my understanding about everything…what do I know? Is anything according to what I think “to know” means…as knowable? Maybe some they are lying about atoms? How would I know? Or maybe I misheard it all. Is there any they, at all?

What do I know?

If we summarily dismiss all this as folly, as mere teenage or dorm musings after a few bowl hits (See, I assume communication as a real thing), with “at least I know my own mind” and this which is coming from that mind (of the writer) is folly, then if it is yours, your mind; it is yours to control in all, no? Letting in only what “it” chooses, excluding all it finds foolish, lie or just plain stupid to it. Exquisitely judging by power of what will be to it. Then show your exercise and control by forbidding any next nightmare or even unpleasant thought. (I have yet to meet anyone who says they enjoy them) After all it’s your mind…and why would it ever do that…to you? Am I flirting with being catty?

Is Jesus an unpleasant thought to you? (too much?)



But this brother said as he said. In your earth of questions, in which I have little doubt words also swirl, and many questions too, the only man able to give answer to another man (even in his mind quite directly in a true now) is that, as yet, invisible man. If He answers you, His answer is a call. He spurred you to even ask. And His call is firm. Even out from all that is familiar to you, seeming home to you, and to walk in a way you know not. It sounds hard, right…”how do I go where I don’t know where I am going?”

Peace to you, because everyone is. You already know of it, are even quite sure of it of “others”.
The man who hoped to, even thought he would, break his best golf score had a heart attack on the 16th hole. (He may have lived). Or if too dire for you, the woman who won the lottery. It matters not what or how one chooses to view such, you already know (or do you not?) how life changes suddenly from what was apparently one direction to another.

We may like to say or think “I know”…”I know where I am going and what I am going to do…” Even “I know what I do”…often thinking we see or know all outcomes of such doing. What we most rarely consider in what we may think is, or view as, the immediacy of our doings, is a trail of consequences always farther reaching than we can know or imagine. But, we take the odds in our now.

Yes, how much we wager on odds! Odds are “I will make it to work”. Odds are “I will come home from work”. Odds are, odds are, odds are “things are real, and will be…as I think”. As I think…until. Until whatever, or whomever causes us to question even our very own thinking. Even being. What is it? These things over which we have made so many assumptions, presumptions, even as to what can be…and will be. Even and including…what cannot.

What is?

We may find ourselves in some extremis of darkest ignorance before light comes.
And light is to come.
The light is the coming one.

Then we “know” as no one can either explain, elucidate, illuminate or describe how desperately we need to know…what, if anything, is real. We can surely put that aside, do and have, to some later considering in our seems (that seem good enough) our odds (that seem enough in our favor) by being occupied in a mimicry we have bought as life.

Yes, and I am as good (or bad) a mimic as ever was. And, yes, I can still do it, not denying. But the most easily verified truth remains, proven even daily…sometimes even moment to moment “I do not know what I am doing. I do not know where I am going” as often as yet I may remain so very inclined to think otherwise.

Too frank for some, I know.

But this I have also found…it is not too frank for one man. It is only before He who shows it so irrevocably and consistently true, that I truly don’t know what I am doing, that also allows me to confess it without shame. He alone is not ashamed of man’s not knowing, making and having made full provision for it in Himself. I have met a man who communicates it. Believes in communing, even if or when, all else is found scattering. Yes, communication is possible.

I dare not deny His provision, even plea, for what “knows not what they do”…God forgive me, and God forbid me. I am always moving into the all I do not know, regardless of how I pose myself. And in posing myself I am no exception nor hold some magic exemption. I posture a lot. Just as a mimic would. And the “all” I do not know is that which, and even that He of which, and whom is, all of reality. But funny…moving into that better man leaves me absolutely no claim of being any better. But it may of a liar, be able to fashion an honest man, a real man. And truth in the inward parts.


One might rightly ask “but how do you know?” It is the only thing I do know, I cannot escape reality. Despite my array of crumbling seems, and all the seems thrust upon me for which I cannot blame any other in their thrusting. They gave what they had to my willing acceptance. I bought into the odds. With all I had and was. After all, I could win at this! But there is a better man, and He alone is the one who provides me all relief from trying to be one. Or now, even think myself one. Truth is always enough.

Oddly, and for a long time, and too long a time I actually was convinced I was better, being made better to some end that I might (for my own pleasure) enjoy being better. A kinda bestial blend of Christian Narcissus , enjoying my own reflection in a pool, happy as can be at who I see there. Am I now immune from being found stealing peeks? God knows, and God forbid I lie! And, even more importantly, God forbid He stop catching me at it with reproof.

The odds were surely on trying, God knows. But someone did the impossibly sure for man; and only sure thing. He ran himself quite purposefully to death, and yet, not as suicide. The life that kills Him is the life He is, but something had to get out of the way for its seeing as that life going beyond death. He not only paid a ransom in full for sin, but no less took that sinful thing with all its predilections for and to it (sin) with Him to the cross.

There’s not much I can do (nothing, really) if all you smell is a rotting corpse about me. It’s a sure thing I must be, to some. And sure things are always better than the best odds. Even and especially if and when it even confirms the unseemly, as unseemly. (It is unseemly for a man to stink so much!) Yes! yes! Be provoked to look elsewhere for fragrance!

But it is not even that “I like” a sure thing, or am found in preference of it. I do, for sure, but there is something other. I can’t escape it. Reality…is real. And there is in and of reality, a better man. And He is not me, no matter the tightest of bonds irresistible in place. Drawn tighter (if it be so) only proves this all the more clearly, I am not Him. Yet in that perfection He has and is, He has no less made it perfectly OK to not be Him. Of Him is abundantly sufficient.

He allows another, has made provision (even in His own body) for another to be as real as He. It is enough to know…real. It changes us…even if we feel we must take to our bed to avoid falling through the floor for a time.

“Knowing the terror of the Lord,” someone said, “we persuade men.”

If you have gotten this far, perhaps a few extra paces? I am not sure what’s next, myself. But I see a shadow in hope of its materializing. That communication is now, and not merely as a possible thing but a quite real thing…and to take place.

And that is kinda it. Shadows becoming, and to become, substance. Real.

Just as I said every man is walking into the unknown (though he might protest he knows, and knows how things will, or must be) we are. In “the Bible” quote referring to Abraham we find a man with an attitude, particularly that attitude of accepting that as true. Someone called him out to even let him know by telling him, you are being led in a way you know not. He is called the father of faith for that, his acceptive reception of that. But even this was not of himself, he was called to and for this.

The man who remains convinced he always knows where he is going and what he is doing cannot receive it. Convinced of what “will be”. Even though he is walking into the very same unknown to himself. He simply is that, the man denying his walk into the unknown, because he is self assured of what he knows, and by his own will and purpose, what is “to be”. No man is immune to that except the one who walked perfectly and purposefully to His own end.

But just as there is some resistance to using such a broad and narrow brush simultaneously, there is often resistance to another thing. The thing of “what you don’t see”. Or by extension, the thing you can’t prove. And in particular for this conversation “the invisible friend” or “the invisible sky daddy”. As I said in Abraham’s walking as common to all (not really knowing where any of us are going, in toto) so is this matter. The religious might like to “keep it to themselves” for advantage of sorts, I cannot. Or cannot anymore…my own advantages having been thrown in my face by the reality…even to some staining, far too many times. They are dung. Yet I have hope in a cleanser.

But we all are in “dealing” with the invisible, and particularly invisible persons. Perhaps even of all “things”, persons are the most invisible to us of all things and in all our dealings. And it has only been by God’s grace of being drawn into a man I couldn’t see, and learned what little I have of Him, that I see this so clearly.

It doesn’t matter of whom “other” I might speak here, for quite mostly all other people are often a great mystery to me. But I feel free to talk of wife. Someone it seems a poor choice in all, not for whom my own wife is, but for the fact it seems (and is often widely accepted and acceptable) of all people a man would know his wife “best”. He may know his children, or think he does, and many others. But I choose wife, not necessarily as prime example, but for me as one (my wife) who will bear me using her as example. My kids may be strong, but my wife is strong in the Lord.

(But the wise will find it is really only me I am talking about)

I “deal” with her according to my knowing of her. She is corporeal, so to the protesters she is provable. But how often has been and yet often is, in dealing with this person I can see, feel, touch, know, had many experiences with (and therefore prove to the “rational”) another appears, almost as from out of nowhere. There’s a something or a someone going on there “inside” (well beneath exteriors) that is really there.

My thinking of knowing her so often is shown as not matching up as precisely as I think, that it has not been less than more than several occasions I have heard “You think you know me” or “you really don’t me at all, do you?” I may be a terrible, if not the most terrible husband as ever has been, God knows. Maybe it’s right for any and all to say “you need to be a better husband, you suck”.

But that’s not really the lesson, or for me, my lesson. It’s that even standing 5 foot 2, of so many pounds, (provable enough?) I am always dealing with that invisible “thing” inside. A person…a real person as real as me…but invisible. Knowable…but also unknown.

And even so often misunderstood…by me. I now have no problem at all with dealing on the grounds that “persons”, even all persons, are as invisible to me, as she. And to be fair (if only to myself) even what “comes out” from this invisible thing as words is often mystery…when, or what does “I am fine” ever mean what I think it might? Especially if I find it repeated by my further investigation by “I already told you, I am fine”.

But, even for me, that is low hanging fruit. But I think you get it. Maybe.

Of course I am only telling on myself. My inadequacy and often error in failing to read. But here’s the thing, this thing inside that (provable for some) shell is dynamic, real, even though I am pressed to admit how invisible is that thing to me. I “see” it with some knowing, but far short of its sum. Something is always going on I can’t and don’t see, changes here, revisions there, a consciousness contained (it seems) but which is itself…invisible. The she that is the she is, is of that consciousness going “on” inside her, even that makes her that her…is invisible. (And I do not doubt her reality, do you?) And how much more of a thing might be invisible?

Dare we say…spirit? A thing deeper even of all and ultimate constituent.

Ahh, I learn…persons, though invisible, are real. Oh, we can generally identify a body or a face as that of a person, even say we know a person by those things. “It has a human body, human organs” therefore “it is or was a person.” We have now advanced down to DNA, not only for a classification but now to more specificity as to person, where once fingerprints were the best we had.

And despite this, all this and these things, we still hold to something other than the body and even its minutest constituents “it’s who you are ‘on the inside’ that is the you you are.” Or I am. The things quite intangible, and things intangible of character, demeanor, dispositions, intelligence, and so on. And those things, always being impacted by thoughts, experiences, even thoughts and experiences of others, things of seeming no control to that occupant that “show” who that person is. I only see any by their manifestation of something I don’t see…to me.

And such is dynamic in that sense; which is why today’s wife is both not yesterday’s, nor may be amenable to yesterday’s dealings or knowledge. “I thought you told me you like roses”? or “Oh, you don’t want pancakes today?” We are always being changed, in changing, but also in some peculiar way maintaining the same identity. Even if to others we may seem a completely different person. “I dont’t get it, she was such a bitch in high school…or he a bully…or timid…”

Walking into the unknown does that. Meeting unknown experiences, coming across once unknown thoughts or considerations, or some information previously unknown. We are all doing it. Even if we deny it, this, our being in flux; seemingly static to ourselves because, “I know myself! I know who I am, dammit!” Identity held in place, but everything else…swirling.

“This is me,” or…”this is me with amnesia” even.

And how rarely might we concede so much just seems to “bubble up” from somewhere in ourselves, an even unknown and unsee-able place somewhere, even and particularly (to us) within ourselves, unbidden, unsought…but now breaking through to our consciousness (or mind, if you will)…that we even seem to “self change”?

“Why I never saw it that way! Nor could I, till just now!” What are often called epiphanies. A light goes on, where once a bulb for lighting was not even seen, or known. How much of we ourselves…is even unseen to ourselves? Small wonder then, we are all some mystery to one another. For we are mysteries to ourselves, not even knowing why if pressed as when pressed we might say “I told you, I know who I am, dammit!”

Spirit, soul, and body. Spirit ineffable and irreducible. What we might call true or truest of nature (and most often resisted as to being real). Soul, which even the most hardened may deny as being a “thing” of itself, nevertheless understand in some way, that when they are dealing with a person, any person, (yes, even themselves) they are dealing with an intangible being in expression with, and or for, communication.

Some may think only of mind, so be it. But that in itself is intangible enough. Just to be able to touch another’s mind or be touched by another is no small feat. Yet, and nevertheless, this thing, if even reduced to mind is always, and in some way, under a bombardment of assault irrefutable…being directed, buffeted, informed (even by own thoughts rising from an unknown place) and situation and circumstance. I say assault because if stillness is peace to it, it yet and often finds itself nevertheless made subject.

To be awake and alive to circumstance also brings with it many unbidden things. “Does that old man wearing that T-shirt really believe himself ‘#1 Grandpa’? Does that old lady also garbed really want me to do a something? ‘Ask me about my Grandchildren’?” Is Crest really “the best toothpaste?” And on and on…even if one is happening to read this (or write it), for I, no less am being changed, and under some bombardment of thought and thoughts, circumstance(s), interruptions unanticipated, requests made as from outside for my attention and attending…and myriad other things. Nevertheless (I am persuaded) you are partially, if not totally convinced the man who wrote the first sentence here is the same as the last one writing the last sentence.

Yes, I am me, but I am also not so sure something hasn’t changed. Something intangible…even to me.

Body? The thing of material so often held as proof of being? “Show me God and I will believe” sort of thing? “Even if you can produce, or He would, some sort of smokey shadow out from nowhere…it would be enough,” some might say…”anything, anything at all (so called) verifiable to the senses”.

The weakest of all things, really, isn’t it? “One miracle, just one miracle…to be seen…if He really wants to make Himself known as so many say”. Or seem to.

That so called consciousness in demand of such proving has not yet learned (perhaps refuses to?) what a mystery it already is…and even to what would be called “itself”. How “it” has it, (is it in a hydrogen atom? Any number of groups of them and their multiple ascending conglomerates?) Where it comes from, where it abides, nor of restrictions to itself and allowances.


Even as to that “it” that has it when saying “I have consciousness”. Who are you? Are you the consciousness? ( I won’t call you God, but you might) Your consciousness? Some thing that has it? If so, who or what is the thing having? We could go on and on, no doubt about invisible and mysterious things. Like persons. What and who such is. What it means to say I am…this, or that, or such and such, or so and so.

One day you are going to find out there are only two men alive in the earth, you and the Lord.

Then maybe, and if so, you may discover you have always been dealing with the unseen to you, even particularly when not knowing it. Even your own “self”.

Who ascends?

This fellow, once blind, needed a second touch. The first left him only seeing men as trees walking.

And no more than that.

Yes, you and I are not the same. But hey, I’m not even the same as I was. Even five minutes ago. How far exactly might that time be divided down, as the unknown is moved through by each, or any?

A moment? A twinkling of any eye?

What is a moment…that it might become momentous?

Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.

Yet, Pharisees can be changed.

Blinded by the light.

You gotta admit, (or maybe ya don’t) how easy it is to get carried away with power.

I can no more deny this of myself in particular than I can deny the disciple’s experience. It happens.

And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name.

Joy is a wonderful thing in its buoyancy, especially if one has even known the dread weights so commonly experienced upon the soul. Relief, but more. Happiness, but more. An estate of being carried along above considerations of care, worry, or doubt, but more. And there is a power in joy to lift, to elevate, to have even some imparting of a clarity often rare…even to some extent of (for us) how things should be.

It becomes less of a seeming mystery (if any remains of it) that:

The joy of the Lord is my strength.

Also kind of hard to conceal and/or disguise. Simply because in that estate there is no care for such things as necessitate concealment or disguising…or even a tamping down. Joy is always surprisingly surprising. And mostly, and often, it only suffers by any trying to define or describe it, like a thing that vanishes when put under the microscope of logic.

Or, like an autopsy by examination, we may be able to say what killed a thing, but never find what made it alive in the first place. And we may be too often expert at stopping things for examination, not knowing it is our own ways of examination, or own ways of finding things out, our own ways of looking at and after things, is the very thing that robs sight of essence. Think butterfly pinned in display case for study.

(And God knows how tedious a man can be made in explanations! Ha!)

It may make a smart (to himself) man look stupid, or a stupid man look stupider. And if made aware of that estate, as if looking more the fool now being aware as being under the eye of others, the worse thing he may do might be the only thing then more present(ed) he sees to do, recover from it. For it is a very complete strain and drain upon the convinced joyless who are often not uneager to cast an eye of judgment upon it.

(Think David’s dancing and his wife Michal’s words, and both his response…and her reward.)

But for those (is it few?) not given over to such convincing, a hunger may be stirred. Or a curiosity that may engender to genuine interest if allowed full course.

Is that us? God knows.

Joy and source of it is for an “us” (if born of the spirit) particularly defined. Not for some inherent enforcement of restriction as is commonly assigned defining, but even contrariwise, for entrance into its, or a, fullness. Jesus says this:

These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.

These things have I spoken to you…

Which things? We might ask. Only those immediately prior? (No one necessarily wants to be accused of bad exegesis, even if the joyous don’t much care about accusations) Some things? All things(?) to some encompassing as might justifiably include, and be justified by our neither exempting nor excepting:

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

If we do not except, but rather accept that all of the Lord’s (is it our Lord’s?) words are of, and to, spirit and life, then even what may at first appear rebuke or reproval is/are no less so. We may do well to remember this bit of scripture in that regard:

The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.

It may appear contradiction of sorts, my (or any man’s referencing) of the Lord’s will and desire for our fullness that seems in contradiction to the above verse quoted. The logic would appear to support against the hungry soul…if the Lord fills us all. And God forbid I or any speak in such manner against the Lord’s will and intent for us as believers. Or that in any way the fullness of Himself that He gives is ever in any less measure than the all of Himself…from most novice to most aged saint. God forbid.

Yet, we learn.

Perhaps even that there is a necessary maintenance of a hungry soul that does not belie the promise of fullness. And we may also learn it is not we ourselves, nor of ourselves, that such maintenance is ministered in order to fulfill a promise of blessedness as even in:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.

We tend to, or more, like to feel filled, less so (it often seems) hungry and thirsty. For there we feel some impelling to do something about it. Do some work, take some action, find some food or drink, to alleviate or come to such “blessing” as we might describe being filled is.

Yet, hear the peculiarity, if you are made able.

The hungry and thirsty (in this case for righteousness) are already pronounced the blessed. And so what appears a great paradox is unveiled…it is the hungry and thirsty only that can receive the promise of being filled, and, if believing, do. As even indicated by hunger and thirst. Now the hungry soul that finds sweetness in even the bitter (or seeming so) morsel. And though not supported by man’s logic, is the only estate healthy for the disciple.

Every word. Every word is spirit and life. Rebuke. Reproval. Being contradicted by the Lord. Being told one knows not, or even knows nothing, by the Lord. Being told one is glorying in what ought to be shame…when by the Lord. You are being a presumptuous and spiteful wretch…when told by the Lord.

My own list is innumerable and for you would be an insufferable listing, but I assure you (as God is witness) that if it be for your health God must make it known to you, He would, and will. No one escapes being some form of example to, and for, the man in God’s clutch.

Yet, even that some of the things a man “like me” might enumerate as heard spoken to remain spirit and life spoken…when delivered of the Christ of God. We often make so much of certain things, perhaps even forgetting (or is it the not like remembering?) that even such as “get thee behind me Satan” in the Lord’s address to a man, is made spirit and life to him…because of whom the Christ of God is.

He alone is the deliverer, keeper, preserver, and glory of those that are His own, and they are appointed to know both it (salvation), and Him.

Yes, even the one whom, even as a disciple may find he has “let” a certain work through him to even rebuke the Lord.

Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.

And I am far more inclined (even if it be just me, persuaded) it is only the mercy of God that reveals to us those places where we have sought to be the Lord’s counsellor and the folly of it.

And if there be as any who might seemingly (to me) “pearl clutch” and exclaim “O! But I have never done that nor ever would, that would be just crazy!”, I wonder if we have the same Lord. And communication if even possible between us, will be very very difficult.

But the good news is communication with me, as from me, or of me, is of absolutely no matter.

Nevertheless, I will testify of a man who has done all I cannot, could not (and would not) in His joy and the joy as set before Him, to endure the cross. Knowing so little of both it and Him, but with a hunger for what appears (to me) as righteousness (even Himself) and yes, even liberty (which is of Himself) I sense no inhibition to confess the many times when faced with this thing I know so little of, the cross, I have balked, stuttered…yes even stammered (in some form of advising)

“Lord, there’s gotta be another way”.

“Lord, this is just too much for me”

Yes silly child. All is. When will you be glad I got it?

And, I too, am stunned by power.

It may be foolishly, God knows. Making a stupid man look even stupider.

But God forbid I lay any burden upon any other to have to be “smart”.

So that even rebukes and corrections (of far too many to mention) have been changed in tone and hue by He who makes all things new…and even (even particularly) unto the way of spirit and life.

And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name.

And a few verses is later spoken:

Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.

“…in this, rejoice not,”

Maybe at best described as a mild rebuke? But perhaps not.
Because power over “things” has a way of turning a head.

Thanks be to God His cannot be turned from His own.

In His beholding them from where He is, and His beholding them in that to which He has moved them, redeemed as to and into Himself…where names are written to be discovered as never forgotten (even upon His hands)…and where “heaven is”.

In Him.

Where all joy is.

It is a hard, if not impossible thing for any man to deconstruct to his own logic the ways of God. Hard in that it is the “hard way to go”, the very frustrating way to go, the way he goes till he touches all that is impossible to himself.

And even this, in saying, must seem unpleasant to the man who is yet caught up in his own logic and reasonings. For to him, as yet, the impossible seems the more unpleasant to receive and acknowledge.

And till then he must ask, will ask, will resist the notion in all, that the impossible to him could possibly hold any comfort or assurance. For to the hard thing he may feel challenged and summon all his reasonable strength, try harder, somehow convinced that by enuff application he may still have “chance” at winning, at gaining…perhaps even conquering. Do we think God does not know what is in man, and “how” he operates?

No man has ever won checkers or tic-tac-toe against God, much less (for allegory) chess. One cannot even begin to “see the board” unless given sight.

And we would be remiss to say (or think) “come let us reason together” is some past event, done and over “once I come to Christ”, for it is only to the believer, for the believer, in the believer (in Christ) that such is even first believed possible. No man can (or would or could) “do it” apart from first being gifted with the reality of God’s being, that mercy is real and amenable to and for “reasoning” with God, and that such end is not fruitless.

Already the wiser may see what appears paradox. “If all is impossible how or why even enter into such?” Yes, it seems so. But here is where such a thing as this is (for the man’s benefit) tested…exposed, made clear, even to be established to himself…even if entering with what may appear only the slightest of all persuasions “Jesus Christ is not fruitless”.

What a man can do…is able to do, actually is always “in doing” (as God knows) is in presentation of his own reason. Unbeliever and believer are alike in this…even if the believer readily acknowledges some informing of the extreme limits of his own (the unbeliever will think his own “exquisite”, precisely and only because…it is “his own”)

But once we have had our previous table overturned by Christ, we enter (even if it merely seem as only inkling at times) “nothing is as it first seems”. And God always knows what any and every man “knows” or thinks he does.

Therefore the believer enters, not with “I have some chance at my winning here in reasoning with God” (for if he does…this will be addressed) but simply “I lay out all my own understanding(s) to as much limit as I find able, (which every man does anyway) but with the hope that no man but the man in Christ has, that God will answer with what the man “does not know”.

Do you see how simple the impossible is, now? Even comforting? It is “impossible” for the man to NOT have his own understanding(s) (as every single man born has) and as likewise impossible for him to NOT be, who he is! He’s already bound in the impossible! Will he struggle there, endlessly, or find a rest promised? God knows.

This is why a believer told others, even continues to tell others, “cast not away your confidence…” in the face of all impossibility to yourself when encountered. You are already in it, and have been, with all regarding yourself and what one knows of one’s self. For that confidence can even “stretch” (as the apostle’s learned) to the most of all impossible for the man…(as who only knows himself) “before I was to myself, I am known”.

Therefore only the believer can say with any confidence, as even said by another (and not reserved to some “guru” like attainment)

But by the grace of God, I am what I am.

How could I have “been” before I even knew myself as myself? Yet, so it is…and there is the greatest of comforts found when and if that “impossible to me” (or man) is fully embraced. What or where “was I”…before I was? O! but I know this seems impossible to say, speak, or even consider…but all are ever before the “I am”. (Not as prior to, but before as in position before…the Maker of all things)

Jesus told some…”And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?

The living are “before God” always, for He is not the God of the dead. And only the man in Christ (as even Jesus the Christ Himself knew and spoke) knows himself…alive. Not merely now…”in time”…but before it was, and certainly before the man “was” to even himself. In the beginning…God. (And no less “in” whatever any man may imagine as “end”) Alpha and Omega.

How blessed is the man to have found, even if it be only (at the first) one “applecart” overturned “I am not as I appear to myself, for I am not right, but a sinner in desperate need”…to follow this Lord who first (in great mercy) showed this!

How much more…do I “not know”? Why…I now see…it is impossible for me to know! Ahhh how the impossible for us becomes a great comfort! It is impossible for me to know “what I do not know”…all I can do is “dump” before God all I think I do know (as every man does anyway…always dumping what he thinks he knows). But the believer has this irrefutably inside “I am always before God when I do”. (Some laughed at Donald Rumsfeld’s once exposition of certain matters, but there was a “knowing” there being made clear of the “unknown unknowns”…for we don’t know of what we do not know)

This was started in some hope of addressing a thing of all seeming impossibility. But it has strayed…for “I did not know”. How that God, as beyond watchmaker has to each fashioned a “life”…or even (if you will) “a reality” to each and every man of such gears interacting, in relationship interlocking from first man Adam to all others who have ever been with such precision and relatedness that none can escape of themselves. A precision beyond grasp in both magnitude and effects, all simultaneous and perfectly designed impacts and effects. So that each has “their” reality…what they believe they know…even as independent to themselves…or “their own”.

Would any say no? Might some say “I am not affected by anything other…especially “my” knowing…my knowing is pristine, pure, uninfluenced…and ‘exquisite’. I am the clearest and cleanest of slates ever written upon by only pure intellect, experience, and reason”

Or, even if taken to some place of concession…”OK, I’ll admit hunger or wounds (like having one’s leg traumatically amputated in a motorcycle accident) does ‘somewhat’ affect my thinking (or winning the lottery), but as for other men, and especially the dead…they affect me not at all”. I am what is full only of self generated, independent, and immune in all, to other’s reason.” Even what might be called “their reason” for being.

I am…sound. (Which has its own interesting applications if considered)

Says the man denying the effects Aristotle, Jefferson, the Caesars, or “The Jeffersons” TV show, or Bob his neighbor down the road (who always leaves his trash cans out “too long” after pick up) upon himself…much less Jack the farrier who lived and died obscurely (at least to himself) in 1604. Every ripple by every stone ever cast into the earth…or rising up from it…a man is in “owing to” and obligation to, and “interlocked” till released. Even that first rat (and microbe) carrying plague. And even all the “unknown” plagues that never were.

Of course you could tell such a one (and would or might) Jesus is the unlocking from Adam and each and every motion as ordained in hope by another. To perfect frustration. Freedom has only one meaning in the Lord’s mouth. Total. Free indeed…is not short of that.

But do not be surprised (nor shocked) if told you are presenting the impossible. Or mocked for it.

The believer must laugh if he senses allowance. Not only at the imagined estate (as no doubt once he even held, recognizing a man he once knew) but also in great joy for what he now knows is made His through Christ…”Come, let us reason together”. A God not only approachable…but waiting.

The thing is that even in such laughter (if it be allowed) if he remains in his earth, as in his tent (longing to be clothed) he cannot but likewise concede to all his “unknown unknowns”. What is known “may be” actually known by the man, but what he does not know he does not even know is also, and no less; and if he does not concede to “it” he must also then consider his knowing exquisite.

But, (and and) God has a way. To make Himself known…as knower. Of what man does not.

Someone said it this way:

Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

It is not necessarily an evil thing of itself to say “I know the knower” if able to likewise embrace:

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counseller?

It does appear…impossible. To embrace all a man does not know…he does even know he does not know.

But for one single man…who…despite his “seeming” being as well known remains in a great obscurity in, (and the how of His ability do this)…it is not done.

One man wrote:

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

Every man (and all creation) is absolutely pinioned by the word of God. Only one man came to free what resists it in all rebellion and all display of denial. To even reveal joy and such liberty as is made freely given in submission and surrender.

Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?

Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.

Sue for terms of peace. They are surely surprising…always.

Come, let us reason together.
Says the one it is impossible to conquer, or escape.

Returning then to this matter of attitude regarding the scripture(s), compounded into what we call the Bible, their benefit(s) to us and precious nature, what do we do when we find in particular something written there, or at least in particular part that we call an epistle…something that says “this is not the Lord”, but a man’s expressed opinion?

But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.

“speak I, not the Lord”. (which a few lines before Paul speaks of matters by instruction as “from the Lord”, and not of himself.)

I am not, (again) looking to, or for, contradiction except as might be toward some particular stance or attitude that may neither serve us, nor the faith of the son of God, well.

To blithely say “I believe the Bible as it is, all of God’s word(s), without exception or need of interpretation (have you ever heard that?) and (in some sense)…even a particular sense…”see it as written in stone.” Unchangeable, unopen to query or question…even so that in many forms it is considered a sort of heresy to even consider…question. And if we likewise “own” that epistle as part and parcel of it, you may see something in need of understanding or resolution. Lest we be quite ignorant of “owning” all we say we own to such a full throated endorsement. No, I am not saying anything shows contradiction or is in need of resolution due to deficit…except perhaps our own attitude/relationship with, and to, the scripture(s).

You see the issue. It is plain. In the Bible is plainly spoken by a man in, and of, a particular place…”this ain’t God/the Lord…speaking…just me”. No, to me it’s not a big deal in the sense of it being a contradiction to anything but an attitude that appears facile, if not superstitious, in the handling of the scriptures. And though I do not agree with another opinion once shared, nevertheless it is plain by it that this matter of “what is” to be a true attitude about this thing we call the Bible was set quite a bit more to some doubt by one appraising, and is reported to have said of James letter, calling it “an epistle of straw”.

If I have anything to say here it is surely not in matter of doctrine till it be raised as such, and to such, but attitude and expression of faith. And no doubt…some have felt free to raise it to matter of doctrine, even dogma in many statements (so called) of faith by denominations, particular churches or gatherings, etc. And God knows how such a thing as might be called “having faith in the Bible” is so easily (and often, I am persuaded) equated to having faith in Christ, or that particular faith called (yes, even in the scriptures) “the faith of the Son of God”.

I am not so naive as to imagine this is of some subtlety, for if believing the scriptures (as inclusive of an entirety that is from Genesis to Revelation) one must confront the Christ of God, Jesus, and find no place as claim might be made that such is damaging to the faith. God forbid. Again, God forbid.

Yet there remains that very particular matter spoken by Jesus of those who had some assumptions (even presumptions) in regards to the scripture(s). It bears repeating, as none of Jesus’ words ever do not bear repeating:

Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.

It should at least be plain it is possible (at very least) to have some mistaken notion about the scriptures, particularly in regard to that eternal life only Christ provides. No claim of “but I believe all the Bible” or any such, or even holding such out as a matter of faith (as being equated to the faith) can possibly avail. If the (or any fellowship) is predicated upon, even as by a restriction to an assent of anything “about the Bible” as in “before one is acceptable” he must have this prescribed attitude in regards to the scriptures, for this is “our” statement of faith…little do such understand the vanity of it. No oaths taken to it, nor upon it, nor by it, mean anything. But then again, no such, of even the Lord, mean anything.

(As in “I swear to God I am not a liar!”)

The church is all who are born of the spirit of God through Jesus Christ’s ministry of life to those whom He wills, and there is nothing except that spirit that both testifies to, and provides entrance. No matter how sublime anything other may seem or be esteemed as salubrious, may even seem of some necessity as assurance to any or other, to either add, or demand for qualification, and no less, to acquiesce to such either shows childish naivete to matters of the spirit, a deceitful spirit, or just simple ignorance. Only spirit is spirit, and only spirit is given…to recognize spirit. The unfortunate matter in all of this is that it is not unusually those who either call themselves, or are recognized as leaders, so often endorse and practice such measures.

There is a statement of faith, in truth the only one that is given to man of God that suffices to all matters spiritual and of spirit. It can neither be added to, nor detracted from. And every man entering is learning he is being tested for the reality of that first testimony made…not to the end that he be disqualified, but that it might be proved in his very sight (and to the Lord’s delight) that it come forth as purest and most valuable estate when holding to that very first of testimony.

No man can commend himself by any display of any discipline of his own making. Nor can he hold any other to it. God knows whether he is faithful to any discipline he has received to himself and rejoicing in the liberty there provided. Be assured, if it is not of God, he will only be ever seeking to shuck such off and on to others as burden first experienced in and of himself.

And not in smallest part this is why I have no issue at all with Paul’s inclusion in his letter of his own opinion, even stating it so. His hope only that, as if found as one faithful (do any believe he is/was?) others might, if able to glimpse what came not as by command but by recommendation to something he had found not only expedient, but a relief, they might know the joy he knew.

But then again, one might find how very often he was about that…being a helper of joy, seeking to take nothing to himself nor for himself, and not even lording over by position or calling even as, and as though, he might, or could.

It is, as some already know (as I do perhaps too well) quite a tempting place to occupy as one “laying down the law”. Surely that does not exclude such esteems by others as toward a one who “brings the word of God” to any or any congregation.

One writer was quite convinced of this estate:

And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. 

That word of necessity is in all belonging.

But, something often happens quite unanticipated when the name of Jesus is either used or appended to anything. It is then up for heaven’s judgment as to all motive and intent(s) to either purify or judge unfit.

And fire will be experienced by all.

And now…this testimony is “up for judgment”.

Lord, be pleased to show mercy.

Two posts ago there was mention of certain things in the writings, that is in the scriptures, that were mentioned. There was no claim there that these two, at least, presented any contradiction. At least not as contradiction of the writings themselves, but not without some note of their being in contradiction to certain attitudes about the writings, particularly as often expressed.

And God knows I am not seeking to undermine anyone’s faith, nor cast even the slightest doubt as has been encountered by the many who (often identifying themselves as atheists) care to bring up multiple places where they see, or say, the Bible contradicts itself and is therefore worthless. Here I am only addressing fairly common attitudes and predispositions that may be shown as less than fruitful. At least as far as I am persuaded, God knows.

In this matter, this saying of Jesus is of utmost saliency:

Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

And surely not without mention of this also:

‘Ye search the Writings, because ye think in them to have life age-during, and these are they that are testifying concerning me; and ye do not will to come unto me, that ye may have life; (Young’s Literal Translation for clarity)

In the first quote of above there is no translation that shows “the” for your in “Is it not written in your law…” (Italics mine)

What Jesus could have said is always moot, for He says what He says. And it is not without note that in that particular exchange some were contending with Jesus over the matter of blasphemy, and that such blasphemy by Him was both indictable and provable by their reliance upon the law and scripture(s). They believed that they were right in saying

For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. (For they all believed they were properly schooled of the scriptures in regards to this, and probably not exclusive of this:

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: (And I am not here seeking to make anything relative to Christ’s divinity nor deity, as germane as that might seem) No, simply His referencing of another scripture…which he then ascribes as in “your law“. Do I doubt Jesus’ relationship to that scripture as though He were distancing Himself from it by saying “your law” instead of “the law”? Not at all.

And as surely as Jesus well understood the assumptions (and more…presumptions) of those who, believing themselves so adherent to, and expert in the scriptures would then use them as means of accusation against Him, He was by plain statement saying if you say “these are yours (and bound to them) then you are no less bound to all of them”. Jesus was not trying to wiggle out of their accusation by use of another scripture, but plainly showing both their own ignorance of, and cherry picking (for their own ends) of the scriptures…Jesus even allowing them a full ownership in saying “your law”. But if you claim some ownership (as Jesus well knew they did) than you are under obligation to own all.

If understood in the light, the second quote says so much more (about ignorance, presumption, reluctance, resistance and stiffneckedness)

‘Ye search the Writings, because ye think in them to have life age-during, and these are they that are testifying concerning me; and ye do not will to come unto me, that ye may have life;

Oh, but Jesus is far too bold here if one can see it. The “all” upon which you (or some present then, or even present today) stand for discovery of eternal life both testify of me (Jesus)…and that no less, this thing you seek and you believe you will find in there (the scriptures) is all of present in me and to any who will come to me…”yet you do not will to come”. In short…despite your many protestations, so called efforts of diligence in seeking…”I know” (Jesus is saying) “You really ain’t after that at all as made plain by refusing to come to me”.

Yes, Jesus is bold. He knows motives and hearts, in all, without exception. In fact in so many other places He makes plain the more plain to Him reason for all that so called effort, diligence and feigned seeking, “you get to look like experts and lords…lording it over God’s inheritance, loving chief seats and greetings…and esteeming yourselves amongst one another; Jesus Himself describing/outlining/delineating one of the chiefest things in prevention of belief:

How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?

Yep, looking good before one another (by whatever metric found attractive) is as much a snare as ever it was, is, and will be. And if you haven’t found yourself not immune to its charms on your own, susceptible even, still with a little “like” (or worse and God forbid, demands, even requests) for amens, one might wonder what man does that one believe Jesus came for to save? Do you not yet even know in yourself in slightest how the merest of acknowledgments from man can then be wrought into the grandest of idol’s temples? Does one not see it?

Have as much care for amens as one is made able (by the cross of Christ alone!) as for derisions. For until that cross is both seen and to whatever extent known, a man is so easily moved by them. Care for neither.

If there be any agreement in truth, or any truth…it is all God’s work. And even if there be derisions, if one is made able to accept it as same hand ministering all things to the believer, derisions too will have a fruitful work also.

Listen if you can. I write as one who has known the biggest suck up among men, seeking their favor. I have also known no man greater than that same man who is more given to self pity when meeting any resistance, contradiction and/or rebuke. I know him…intimately. But and yet, there is no boast of any knowing such a shameful thing…even in its extremity of chiefliness. Compromiser. Bold till blood is called for.
Crown of creation till true Creator batters down gates, walls, and battlements with one slight breath. One who has even (it would be appropriate to here laugh uproariously) used the scriptures in some vain imagination to keep Him at bay:

“This couldn’t possibly be your assault Lord because…”

Yes, if you are able, I needn’t ask for, request, tap my toe in anticipation…for your laughter is a welcome thing, not a sought for thing from you. Yes, please…laugh at him…all you want…and can. You will be doing that man all the favor. But if you cannot or will not, peace to you.

And I at best, though wearing a fools cap, am only, and again only at best, made to be a helper of another’s joy.

If a fall in blind pride, like a man slipping upon a banana peel, is appointed to that joy…yes…it proves the Lord is faithful.

If presumption’s pedestal begins to totter precariously and a man is beheld falling as like from his own erector set, yes, glory to God for His all seeing eye. Not sparing his sight of any man’s own work.

For we can do nothing against the truth, but for it.

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

Before going too far with what is written above, and as with any writing (or speaking) that might by pretense, presumption or some unnamable (as in inexplicable) source be found in presentation under what we might call spiritual, every man is pressed to a form of judgement in their regard. Some easily and quickly dismiss all such as useless and vain, not believing there even be any matter(s) of spirit (or spiritual) to discuss. At least according to their response in word. For only God truly knows the mind and heart.

Others, perhaps in some sort of convincing or persuasion that, to them, there are things going on not easily explained nor understood according to some simple mechanisms material, may be called, or call themselves seekers…reaching out beyond the so called physical/material to find substance there. They perceive a curtain blocking or impeding, but not without some persuasion there is something going on beyond or behind it.

Still others may yet maintain, in some religiosity, that there is indeed an all taking place (in some estate of being and by such a Being) in that beyond, but, and and, they are content in whatever form of the religiosity and religion they embrace; that all in that beyond (even the Being of that beyond) is bound to and by their doctrines, dogmas, practices, tribal grouping(s) (is even “itself” in being supported by them) and in necessary support of, their own religion. In short, they support…the god that they believe or confess, supports them. They present a mutuality and necessity of this support.

And no doubt the above is a most facile and superficial (perhaps juvenile) of treatments and description. Boundaries of (my) definitions may be far more fluid than seemingly implied, with some bleed through in any man of what appears at first, my firmness of description. No doubt. For any man is not, just as no man is, bound by my considerations and opinions of him, no matter how I may perceive of any man.

But if I count myself at all (or am to be counted) as amongst those claiming such liberty as claimed (or even glimpsed, merely) in Christ, it would be the utmost of folly to lay claim to such a thing (as given, delivered, provided) as exceeding in its nature of the One providing.

“Whom the son sets free is free indeed” (as another’s work)

For any man claiming any freedom may well be shown the fool if thinking, even while in such liberty, he can lay any claim to of ownership, or leverage by such, the very God he confesses has made him free. Do you see? The man cannot be freer nor have more of liberty (if such a phrasing can stand) than the One providing or making him free. He is yet bound therefore to the very measure by which he ascribes such binding to the Lord, or only alive to as much liberty as he can see. Or has been made real to him. Only a “free” God can make free men, and perhaps not inconsequentially, only a free man can worship (in spirit and truth) such a free God.

This should not (am I allowed to say “should not”?) be strange speaking to any man in Christ. At very least…as far as I am persuaded. Especially if we have ever mouthed, or even considered (even most barely considered) some words written by one often acknowledged as wise amongst us:

In the freedom, then, with which Christ did make you free — stand ye, and be not held fast again by a yoke of servitude; Gal 5:1 (Young’s Literal Translation for clarity)

Christ in His freedom alone, makes one free. It might not be a bad question, therefore, “just how free is the Christ I (or anyone) confesses?” He cannot be restricted by our restrictions, surely, but can we be (are we even called to be) as free as He? If His freedom alone is the measure…we can never exceed, surely, but (and if) we find some lesser notion, the only matter can be a matter of our own sight and God forbid it be blamed on, or laid to His withholding (among His own). Unless we do not yet believe this as made true to any, and such any as sought diligently to broadcast it to all:

And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

Remembering (and even being forbidden by spirit to forget)

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;

Before (we might even ask “how far before?”) that to ourselves we knew, the Christ of God prayed for us. What do we have that we have not received…even as result of that Christ…being that very who who is the Christ in His work? Or…does one think anything they have, they have come to of themselves? A man can receive nothing except it be given him from above. (Italics mine)

And so returning again to the inescapable matter of judgment(s) mentioned at the first do any receive such judgments as from above? The one denying there be anything coming from above or beyond has his own estate. The one measuring by some possibility may well only be left in doubt. And the one left only to measure by what his own religion both prescribes and proscribes can never know anything of either the liberty of our Christ and His Father, who is God over all. Until delivered he is all but left to be bound, and is he himself a minister of such bondage, even as Jesus spoke of some:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

The bound can only minister bondage. No man can give more than he has. And at (what he might call) his best of self, his best of striving in that estate, even in all effort…will only impart to one (other) self only another self just as, if not more bound, in result.

“I can of mine own self do nothing…” Jesus said.

And no less likewise did He say (surely inclusive of those words immediately above)

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Yes, even those words “of myself I can do nothing” have and are spirit and life to the believer.

How much so, only the believer can either know or yet be informed.

Reject or accept, cast out of hand as folly, superstition, wonder over (as seeker) as possibility, or reject as being unacceptable to any religion and its religious strictures that lay bonds upon any for adherence; it matters not at all, ultimately…except, except as God alone chooses their ingrafting.

No man can convince another, nor is equipped to for any convincing of another, that the self is even insufficient to be…itself. It’s judgments are unsustainable, its view so limited by the very self it exalts, its works no less; that will and must, always appear right in its own eyes. And of which it must eventually, no matter how diligently it might be resisted by the most religious of piety, if scratched deeply enough will always betray its coming from…self.

Who can save such? Who alone?

For we know, if we have been convinced, that today’s most stridently religious man full of all persecutions may be tomorrow’s esteemed apostle. Today’s one swearing he knows Him not at all, no less. And the one wondering as seeker just “reading” may be tomorrow’s Ethiopian eunuch.

And all will be stood, if, and as ordained to be, upon its Head.

The tables are turned, even overturned in all, by spirit only.
Even and especially, all our merchant’s table.

And the church alone is ordained to pass into eternity in hold of life.

May she see where she is. Even now.

I understand the word happy in terms of a spiritual estate holds some disfavor. And it is surely true that to be blessed (as the text more accurately reads except for the KJV) may often be other than an experience of what one might call happy. Blessed at all times may not be happy at all times. But we might no less appreciate that, if it be an instruction (or at least encouragement) to be “joyful in tribulation(s)”, we are no less left with some impetus to investigate how this is to be so.

We might easily say “joy is a far deeper estate of being than mere happiness, blessedness no less, far deeper than just being happy which appears a quite ephemeral thing in its coming and going of experience.” Sometimes happy, sometimes other or sad, but the joy of the Lord is steadfast. Yes. And I couldn’t agree more. But what man ever seeks after unhappiness? Yes, we discover this life often has what appear as layers, and that any, if not most and all experience, always points to something deeper. And we might no less agree this is always (as all things purposed for us and to us by God) to the knowledge of the Son of God as He is in truth, though even if admitting we see through a glass darkly.

So, if there be any offense in what appears a blessedness being conflated with (at least some) experience of happiness, I cannot but be willing to bear accusation of error in causing that offense. Would one be pushing that envelope to say “he is happy to do so”? I believe I would be lying full throatedly to say anything other than this: “this life in Christ has shown me more usually, if not always and in almost every circumstance…wrong…about the way I have perceived things.” Even if I say I have some knowledge of, or understanding of, that things are “different” in Christ, I have little to no testimony that until shown, I have ever known how very different they are.

If, with one saying I declare “God is merciful”, I cannot exclude my experience(s) of His showing Himself far more merciful than I knew. Patient? Likewise. Kind? Loving…caring, attentive, powerful, without lie, uninhibited by my opinion, Knower of all things deeper and deepest in such thoroughness as to cause one like me to appear to myself as one knowing nothing at all? I fear (if I may) to occupy some other estate would exclude me (and any like me) from salvation. For I find a prohibiting that keeps me from far straying from this:

“Forgive them Father, they know not what they do”

Is it forgiveness for only what is made able to admit to being that “not knower”?
Does that admission itself then confer some sort of betterness that the man could now say “yeah, I used to not know what I was doing…but now…now I know all my own intents (and they are now right, by golly!) about everything”? I cannot tell you all the times such thinking has blown up in my face. But, even there I may be far more wrong than I know. Is there still mercy? For the man who (perhaps) should know better? If not…what is mercy then? Unless there be some happiness reserved to the man who ends up being shown wrong about everything (to whatever extent it pleases God to show) what is salvation…then?

A man may get hung up on seemingly (to some) small things, even matters seemingly overlooked or he has never found mention of by others…but to him stands out like either a sore thumb or a glaring light in a darkness he seeks to navigate. Or they may be things he has never yet found highlighted by others because…admittedly…the man hasn’t read nor heard every man in every generation speak. So, if reading it in the scripture (for at least one man said it, wrote it) it now goes off like a flash bang grenade in his mind. This seems small, but is it? A man wrote it himself, and of himself.

“…and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.” 1 Cor 7:40

Paul writes it after offering his opinion as to what might be (according to him) “best practice” amongst widows in the Lord. Earlier in the same chapter he says another curious thing:

But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: 7:12

I will not seek to tackle here and now what is rather perplexing, and must be, among any who make claim all the scriptures are most plainly all the “word(s) of God”. For here are recorded in the scriptures themselves words written by a man (called to be an apostle if one receives him as such) that he specifically states are not “of the Lord” but of himself. It should not be hard for any to see at least, some need of resolution.

And to the some, or any, or many (for only God knows who may eventually read this) that may too quickly think this is some attempt to either overthrow the faith of some, or cast troubling doubt to any, God forbid. And again, God forbid. I am unashamed to be found as one who himself has labored amongst layers, and entirely unconvinced that any peeling back, (or deeper looking) when plainly presented as required, is ever anything less than salubrious to any other saint.

Of course I cannot force this to any, having no dominion over another’s faith, but neither can I deny, if the scriptures can indeed not be broken, as I am persuaded, what I read. They are written to an end. And if it be not solely for the, or a, coming to Christ (of which the Lord claims they testify), and the knowledge of Him, I care for no other use of them.

And God here also forbid any denial I may be too familiar myself with a man who loves to present himself strident. A man who often thinks himself a petite pope.

And if able to forego (for now)

But to the rest speak I, not the Lord:

I would prefer to focus upon:

“…and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.”

What are our first thoughts here? Need we have any? Dismiss them? Surely we could, made even all the more convenient if considering the overwhelming foibles plain to the man now writing. With a sort of “who does he think he is to direct any’s attention to anything? This guy’s a total mess! Far better to leave off (or maybe shelve) anything he has to say about anything” Yep, very little there with which I cannot easily agree…but for this, those words are there.

Would our first thoughts be “Hey wait a minute Paul…’…and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.’? Really? After all you have written, after all your labor(s), after all your testimony (and our oft quoting you to some necessary incumbency to be felt by all believers)…really…this is what you got? “…and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.”? You sure look(ed) like one who thundered as from Sinai, one who laid it all out, one who came behind in no gift, one who not only is able to be a “good example”…but even precisely purposed to be so…c’mon man…we need a little more solidity than “I think also”!”

B-B-B-But (do I have a stuttering tongue?) what if this too seeming confession of a too great humility before the saints is precisely that very humility of Christ worked into a man…that actually makes him a faithful witness? Layers. Layers. What if what only at first seems a less than surety…is the very thing that is itself the surety? Oh, but we may like our leader(s) to always thunder…not knowing that the very appeal of that is that we too might then partake…especially if we covet some form of being esteemed…as leader or otherwise?

Oh, yeah…Jesus warned about a certain leaven to be careful of in looking after and loving the chief seats. Loving greetings and acknowledgments in the marketplace(s). Yeah, titles, positions, esteems of men, being able to, so “wisely” in one’s own eyes advise others. Tell others…”how to do”. What…”to do.” Do you consider, would you consider a man might find “man but that vein really runs deep, don’t it Jesus? Wow! What could ever go ‘under that’ to unseat it in such a great representation of its presentation of worthiness?! Yeah! It sure seems…glorious!”

Man, all I can say to you or any is I know a man who falls there…every single time. And a man who does not. And the man who does not…is not me.

But hey! You already knew that.

(But I am just beginning to find that out)

What may be easy for you to see…what may even be easy for you to do…is all of the impossible for me.

I always coveted wanting to be a man of substance…what a foolish thing for a vapor to aspire to…(but I am just beginning to find that out).

My only hope is that even a vapor can be moved…by a stronger wind. And rise.

And see true substance. It is enough.

If continuing with this matter of surprise and being surprised (or shocked, depending) that is, being moved from that place in which we thought we knew, to something other and astounding, we would be (or I who maintain it, at least) quite foolish to imagine there are no testimonies to it from others.

And though I am more than content in, and even pressed often to acknowledge, my experience(s) in the faith of the Son of God are rife with them, even to such point of saying “My faith most usually proves me wrong”. And if I were the only one so, I could not help but think myself exceptional.

And likewise I cannot deny there is an earthy and natural impetus to that, that the man in Christ may discover about man; he rarely considers himself common. He wants to have a chief seat (if not the chief seat), be singularly acknowledged (for what he considers the singularity of himself) and rise above what to him is often “the common mass of men” however he describes them. From rat catcher to brain surgeon, few might deny there is a natural inclination to seek after distinguishing one’s self. Or even embracing some notion to themselves that they have achieved that. Yep, it’s silly to say for its ubiquity, we are all already with a built in sense of being special and motive to see it known amongst others that we not be lost in the crush.

Yeah, I’d be a fool to say I’m immune to it even if able to describe it, or just because I can see it. I may be more striving to be exceptional (and using many ruses) than I know at all, and wouldn’t that be a big surprise? That thinking I know something of vanity so well, only to have that fool’s crown won to myself! Yet I think some might be able to hear something of this intimated in this clever quip once found:

“The problem with the average man is that he does not believe himself average”

And, if understood in certain and particular term of it being problem, then one might as easily understand this bit ascribed to TS Eliot:

Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them.

And just because I (or any one) as a believer might have some appreciation of our Lord’s embrace of the cross…even marveling at it (even His harmlessness in it) and His work of humility in embracing it, does not mean that in one’s self he yet knows the full extent of that thoroughness.

By way of fair disclosure, I have been employed as an actor for almost every moment of my life, and so, if auditioning before the chiefest of Directors calling for a certain thing I might merely be the fool who says…”Sure, I can do humility”. (As I can do happy, or sad, ecstatic, depressed, exultant, terrified, bold, timorous; I have a whole arsenal equipped for whatever a scene calls for)

But, as one may find, this Director is not at all impressed, nor even discouraged by such a one seeking to show off his wares, “Don’t worry, I well get from you precisely as I desire for the part” And if we have a part, even as member of this body, we will encounter elders who can see through our rusing (on page or in person) and, if needing even more direct direction, that Director is not too timid to step right on to our stage, in the midst of what we may think our most excellent performance and say: (again as TS Eliot may bear quoting)

“That is not what I meant at all; That is not it, at all.”

For as another has written:

Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

We may know a little bit about a couple named Ananias and Saphira and their attempt at doing generosity. Or, a man may discover he doesn’t have to look to ancient pages.

“Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” Another wrote who, generally amongst us, is not described as ignorant. But he, still able to say:

“Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.” (No matter what garlands we may seek to heap upon his head in our somber ceremonies or from pulpits spouting with many thunderous quotes)

Thankfully, such a one also wrote:

“But by the grace of God, I am what I am” Settled as it were into knowing himself as nothing more than a made thing in the hand of another, against which nothing can exact or avail by any feigning, and to which nothing can be added for attaining by striving.

And so as to this matter of surprise, I used to think such a thing as that:

“But by the grace of God, I am what I am”

was reserved to the savant, the expert practitioner, the “guru” of the faith (if you will), and only utterable by the most advanced in true piety as to almost be beyond reach. Imagine my surprise to discover it is the confession of a common man, knowing himself to be common, even common as dust…being swirled and moved only by a gracious wind. Something (or better, someone) in working him up, had whittled him down, dissolved himself within as to himself to knowing himself as nothing, that his testimony would always be to that grace. And the giver of that grace.

So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.

“neither is he that planteth any thing”

Was he…”putting on a show” and doing humility?

I’m persuaded he, that man, encountered many surprises in discovering who God is, how He works, and what He might do to, or with a man. Was he doing ecstatic when he said/wrote:

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

What might have been (does it need considering?) his frame here in hearing answer to this question:

“Who are you, Lord?”

Or we might consider others, who, even already being told of all that would transpire were not reproved in their surprise and being found:

And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?

Or Peter’s discovery after yielding in some obedience, (though they had already been told at the ascension)

While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.

along with this:

Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God? When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.

they held their peace, and glorified God

It appears a not unusual thing for some? many? all? to be surprised at things.
Even such things of glory entirely and previously…unexpected.

Even that, no matter what a man may think he knows, have in any experience he may consider as having been in the Lord, or of the Lord…God always shows Himself…greater? I am wrong and content to be, therefore, about the greatness of God, for God forbid I shut myself off, (or any other) by either attitude or some silly and abject poverty of pomposity…from surprise.

Oh, yes, I cannot deny I can be set for shock and not even know it, thinking myself far more open to the all that God is in Christ by some vanity of my thinking, or thoughts of attainment, or even “years” of what might be (even erroneously) of following. God knows…I may not yet have even started! Is that “OK” with me?

How could it not be?

If it be what God knows?

Is God’s knowing…enough?

If not, what else could be?

If one is too old for surprises, or too wise to be surprised, or knows too much already beyond bearing of further surprise, God knows.

As only God knows.

But still…this:

Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.

If one like me, who in last writing(s) has made so much of the matter of surprise, is without some testimony in himself of it (just as having the testimony of Jesus Christ within is all life to a man) then such a man without testimony is just an empty jangler and clanging cymbal. And I cannot deny that may well be my estate, God knows. Just a box of pebbles when shaken that makes some noise. As said, God knows.

But rather than seek to enumerate for proof(s) the many places of surprise (and yes, shocks, too) that might appear persuading…or even “go to the scriptures” to establish any seemingly righteous justification (which is never forbidden), I am rather found persuaded to say only this:

There has been for me no place of, what I am persuaded is Christ’s intervening in “my life” (from first confession and onward), that has not been without some great surprise and perhaps even more frequent…shocks. If there has been any advancement at all, (for only God knows) not one step forward has come apart from some inherent reproof (and often rebuke) of a once present estate to (if one can receive it) goad me ahead. I have to be prodded. I have to be…moved.

And that might be one of the greater shocks/surprises of which I have been made aware. Of myself, I am entirely inert. And oh, of course, I didn’t always think myself so. I was a doer of stuff to myself. Even when surprised on an evening that I expressed my being unimpressed being “around all these Jesus people” and what so called “God was doing” I later found myself blubbering like a baby and confessing Jesus Christ as Lord, yes…even after, I retained a strong sense of my ability and abilities.

Yes, I was surprised at the one who had no problem raising his hand when questioned from the front “Is there anyone here who is not excited about the Lord?” shooting it up to singly distinguish himself…but later finding himself quite broken down. Yes, I easily agreed something happened that night. Even something surprising to that man/child/boy. But of my own ability I was (or so it seemed, yes only seemed) not dissuaded at all.

And I could speak of several intervening years of experiences and adventures in disregard…which…quite shockingly led to a place of such desolation and despair that this man/boy knew beyond doubt something of this (and such) terribleness had been so precisely aimed at him, that he could not deny. It was too perfect in its precision, accuracy, execution…and reduction. Something “else” happened. Someone else…was happening to him.

No doubt any could find place to quibble about true conversion vs some false equivalency of it that such as God does not deal so harshly with His own, and that that man/boy who, even if walking in such forgetting of that night of blubbering years ago might think of it as some form of “conversion experience”, it never really was so. I couldn’t agree more with one’s right to see or say so.

But this man was there. And he remembers as surely now as when this and these words happened to him, rising as it were from inside himself from a place both unfamiliar and completely unbidden; but as surely true as they were in both their perfect clarity and no less perfect phrasing:

“To him who has more shall be given, but to him who has not, even that which he thinks he has shall be taken from him”

“which he thinks he has”

Both shock and surprise…and all at once. A man too perfectly described of all presumption that was himself…but…hearing! Even hearing of such a man from a place he knows he could have never “said it to himself” from. Of course no presumptuous man could ever show himself of such gross presumption, for it is his very (and total) inclination to remain unaware and deny anyone able to add to his conversation(s). The man so perfectly right to himself…being displayed as so totally…wrong. Who could do…that?

The time it has taken to relate these things so far exceeds what that man knew and experienced in that instant (like the twinkling of an eye) of surprise. Yes “that man” is all wrong and deserving of being totally stripped…but…the one telling him so…is “inside”. Shock and surprise? Surprise and shock? I have entered something I know I cannot relate to any fulness to anyone. Suffice it to say (though their have been innumerable missteps, misapprehensions, bull in china shop reactions undeniable, and yes…even more often displays of presumption made plain), yes, suffice it to say, there was a sea change…if you will.

That man needed to know that who of who would “still speak to him” while so self occupied as to not even recognize the speaker’s reality. Yes, that thrilled him beyond any “feeling bad” about being such a wretch…(and wretch undeniable and beyond description). See, this cannot be explained. That man has (still and often) “felt bad” (it is also undeniable) to even a cringing at times at himself and his ways, but that speaker has never…ever…left him without hope. And that is the inexplicability of it.
How the great wretch (even greatest) is given hope.

No, it is not by denying his wretchedness, no it is not by some clever “letting himself off the hook” for he knows how he squirms like a worm there plainly to himself, and it would be and is an undeniable right of to any to ask, or to further seek to pin down such a worm by whatever additional probing seems called for by any, and of why such a wretched thing…could have hope.

I am not unfamiliar of how talk of wretchedness may seem (in these present days) and among the some who confess Christ…as either unfitting or unsettling. To some, no doubt, it must appear as wallowing…perhaps even some heretical denial of being cleansed. Yes, surely, I cannot deny how it may appear. Likewise I cannot deny it can have the appearance of a penance, another heresy of self flagellation whereby “feeling bad enough” is looked upon as some expiation (in heresy) of what only Christ can do to “let one off the hook” (so to speak).

Yep, I get it. Nevertheless the worm calls for being pinned down, the thing to be examined requiring a necessary stopping of all its own motions so that proper exam, or fullness of what is contained within of motive can be either accomplished to exposure, or discerned for right fitting disposal, or seen.

Yikes! We might even ask the Christ if He knows anything about this!

Jesus…do you know anything about being opened up completely so that what was inside…would be “let out”? Do you? What comes out of you…when being “pinned down” like a worm?

Yes…a reason for thieves and worms to have hope. Mercy. The only hope for thieves and worms. Thieves of glory and worms loving corrupt and dead things for their sustenance, preferred above the heavenly. Mercy.

I am a bit unashamed. But God knows this does not mean I too, haven’t been unsurprised by how abundant is that being of unashamed (estate) and can be to such a worm. It is remarkable, astounding…even breathtaking. Death and life…and all at once. A worm that by all logical accounts should feel so bad at being displayed a worm to a complete and utter silence…has the temerity…even the boldness to speak.

Perhaps we could even ask Paul? What was “having that same spirit of faith” that bid him speak? Did he overemphasize Christ’s work toward even the chiefest of sinners to be unpalatable? Too much talk of grace, man! When do we get “to do”? What do we “have to do” to do? A worm in its motions.

Yeah…been there, done that. “I wanna be like that guy, or that guy, or that guy up there giving such great sermons or words that lift, or rightly advise, or caution and warn.” I wanna have what they have.

I said that once to that brother I previously mentioned and recognized as an apostle…(at least to me.) I watched the ease with which all in conversation was always brought around to the Christ of God, his Lord. How that with such joy this fellow seemed consumed with nothing but that…no matter how many other things seemed apparent to situation or conversation. I saw it too many times. And far too many times to be unimpressed by it. So many times that eventually I was reduced to beggar undeniable, position of admission of an envy made unavoidable to saying “I want what you have” a plain supplicant exposed.

(Others once said to a man “give us this meat to eat”)

“I want what you have”

Without hesitation or even time for thoughtful phrasing came this:

“To have what I have you will have to lose what I lost”

I see now (even with some surprise) he was prepared to that statement/question/request and for that question.

I understand, as we all must come to, any and all matters if idolization are dealt with according to their need. But I cannot overstress the spontaneity, and to me, rightness of the exchange. I had no coveting of his position, he had already been removed from a local assembly, even one he had helped establish.

Asked to leave/booted/adjudged to be of such error that the other leaders/elders (of which he was “once one”) caused his departure. And which he bore in joy with no recriminations for any. He was either already then, or shortly thereafter, to endure the same (but now “local” to me.)

It was common knowledge and held by all I ever met of that first congregation, that it had grown out of home meetings (his home) and fellowship. And now returning to “my” area (where I met him) in which he had some roots of both nativity and remaining family, he would also be booted again.

A man “out of order”. “Teaching” from his abode, some question of abusing hospitality (his own mother’s) and generally to be “someone else’s problem”. Basically…”you gotta go home, get your own house in order (especially in regards to his marriage and wife) stop presenting yourself as one of some calling…and basically ‘get yer mind right’ and go get along with the prior elders who had put you out.”. You have no place here. And it was there in having no place, I was joined to him.

He remained a wild man. And that is what I most probably and consciously didn’t know I was seeing, but wanted, nonetheless. A man unhindered by polity or convention of situation or conversation…for him it was “always about Jesus”.

Yes, I was provoked to jealousy. No, I find no shame in that…regardless of all my subsequent misunderstandings and necessary rebukes and chastening’s born of what remained of presumption. Find the road, for Christ’s sake, find the road…the Lord will attend to any missteps along the way…if it is indeed, His road. Don’t worry (besides as need be, you’ll find rebuke(s) for that, too). In one way…one may learn that is indeed His road, by the many necessary chastenings.

That is how one (perhaps like me) is able to say unashamed, and if found to have any progressing, not one bit has come from “Hey you’re really doing things right”…or…”keep going, doing as well as you are doing”. Ha! Nope. If anything has come (and come as either surprise or shock…and often both at once) “it” has come by…”you don’t see as well as you think, or know, or even speak (or write).”

“And I will show you and prove it to you”…shock and awe! If I speak of mercy, as though it could be summed up…redemption, salvation, any so called mystery of grace or faith…NO! (or yes) “you don’t know the half of it!” Look and see!

I am not unusually found a poor beggar playing dress up in a King’s robes. Still, and even to myself. The moment there is any entertaining of my own rightness (OK…maybe moments after, dare I admit to days or years after?) I find myself in any admiration…I have given Heaven perfect ground coordinates for carpet bombing.

What one might appraise as to be to another’s shame, I cannot help but admit…I’m very terrorized of lying in this place. But my boast (as I hope) is always of Heaven’s response to such a fool…even if such boast seem…delayed. And (God help me), may it even be when such bombing causes such a one to be so disfigured among men…and beyond bear-ability or belief.

Yes…faithful are the wounds of (and from) a friend.

May we all die and be consumed of, and by, what is friendly fire.

We all, who believe, sense and know that fire is coming, as it has already been kindled quite perfectly in the earth, by another.

May we answer His from Heaven by being rightly consumed.

Our light in the natural is only a simile, a metaphor, a type and shadow found in this creation, of the true light. And that light is of all impact, it will utterly crash into all and anything that is not made transparent to it, allowing fullest penetration.

What is able to make and cause any to stand in that day, is set for the demolition of all else.

He’s coming.

Even declaring to those who can hear…

“Behold, I come quickly”…

and surely sooner than I know or could say.

And we are moved.

Our considerations of matters spiritual, or real, knows no bounds. We are not inhibited from anything, nor prohibited in any matter of question if born of sincere desire. Though this, in itself, is no small matter of which we often find ourselves in question “What is sincere desire?”

Where once we easily thought ourselves sincere in all undertakings, our coming to Christ has revealed (as part and parcel to it) at very least something of His sufferings accomplished on our behalf, and in obedience to His Father, that is displayed as price or cost to a soul that another soul be made free of lies and/or insincerity. One soul enters darkness that another may receive light. We dare not discount or make less of this profound work, even if described in so few words. “He bore His soul unto death”. He entered (and conquered) every bit of it, fully bearing Himself to it, with no drawing back nor defense of self displayed.

In the most extreme of terms with no apology for their deserved extremity, He conquered death…all, and fully, in Himself. And now those in Him, are to know, no less than His resurrection testifies, this same work being done in themselves…as gift.

There is a too wonderful intertwining here of both His death and His resurrection, for the profoundest considerations of each (which in truth are inseparable) testify to both deepest of depths and highest of heights. In that sense “all” is covered. No one has or could descend lower, no has or could ascend higher. And its marvel is eternal.

And each testifies of each, always, (and God help me here to not reduce marvel) as in the natural a quantum entanglement is apprehended. (Though by this writer only most barely of such) Each testifies of the “other’s” estate of being. One’s “up-ness” is irreducibly (and immediately) tied to any observation of the “other’s” down-ness.
Yes, as the heavens declare the glory of God, so do “smaller” things. For we are in the “same” and only God of all creation.

But I did not want to poke around in the periphery of matters, of which the deepest of physics is only itself so. (Nor would I have any led astray to thinking I know much about them). Nevertheless, there can be no adventures and/or explorations of our God in His magnificence (who is spirit) that is contradicted in, or by, His creation. We may at times, think we see something of those in the natural, but if and when our sole reference is God…all other seeming contradictions dissipate as the once opaque morning mists. He is full of all reason as to why all things are as they are, and even all reason particularly in those times when we are being led to believe otherwise. Not one sparrow falls ignored. Not one hair un-numbered.

And so, if speaking of hair and aforementioned grace to relax, be at ease, be unconfounded to frustration at our own inability to anything…anything at all, we could also consider turning just one hair from white to black, as Jesus spoke of. Or growing hooves or that second head as also previously mentioned. Actually, it is only the believer who can find any comfort in the impossible to himself, and perhaps contrary to all intuitiveness, is appointed to.

And, if I may dip a toe back into the natural, not one loving and doting parent would be unfamiliar with the notion of surprise, that is, to take or provide their beloved child with such a matter of joy prepared for them, but of which they are convinced that child could not even begin to imagine as end. “Yes…it is the circus, children!” as the car is parked to squeals of delight.

I have known apostles…met some, read and heard of others, and had the distinct pleasures and pains of one stopping for me, to pick me up, carry me, and being unashamed of association with me and all my childish presumption(s). A man knows, as only the man who is going through it knows (uncaring of opinions rendered) when his soul is being knit to another. He also knows nothing is more out of his own hands. Resist, and it is proved. Accept or submit…and it is proved.

And I mention this only to this end, regardless of opinion. Apostles are bold. They are wild men. Or if not yet, they will grow to be, for some are yet in training…to a singleness of eye, as their calling relentlessly motivates. Yet they know it is not only for themselves, this singleness of eye, nor to themselves is such keeping. But they are “first” in the sense the man in the crow’s nest first spies land or obstruction, but would be in complete dereliction of duty if keeping such to himself.

And apostles are also first to learn of stripes and severe chastening’s if, or when such knowledge is mis-apprised as something for themselves only…or as a personal delight…only. They may see delightful things without any prohibition of joy, but there is a greater good served by their learning to unabashedly holler either excitedly “land ho” or with great caution “hard a’starboard, rocks ahead”.

Their seeing is for all, and silly would be the man who, if reading Paul (or any other apostle’s words) with any desire at all (born of spirit) thinks Paul wrote simply to show off. Or surrendered to “I guess this ain’t for all of us”. It is not unworthy to admit to lack of understanding, but it would be far more remiss to adjudge that any insight or revelation given is only to be held in our communion by a more special few. Freely you have received, freely give…has either indeed been burned into their soul(s), or will be. And I mention this (and

Such a one I knew. And I mention this (and him) to such end that, and as an apostle his insights/revelations were for those to whom he understood himself as sent. He was surely…sent to me, though I know of others who have known him. And I have no doubt at all, that as one knew of such knitting together of souls mentioned, so did the other.

Remember Paul’s words if you need reminding. Though he is most generally read today with much (rightly due) respect…and thought fit for general application and acceptance (though I also fear with some presumption by some)…remember his own words in respect to himself and his calling. For to either be ignorant of them, or to discount them as folly now (when he appears so esteemed among so many) will only prove presumption if not held, or presumption if discounted.

“If I be not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you: for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord.”

Paul laid no claim to being an apostle to all, even were he ordained so. And even no man who might receive him to himself as such “I am fully persuaded Paul writes for and to me in truth” Or even “all the church” (as I am persuaded), Paul never took it to himself. Strangely (to some perhaps) this is precisely a “why” I am persuaded of his verity. Not because “he’s in the Bible!”, not because every other confessing member of the body might tell me “YOU have to accept Paul’s words and leading”, but because something almost too true rings forth from that man. Just like his Lord. He knows to whom he was sent. He knows of souls being knit together, though he bore with much pain and sorrow…even such work. Just like his Lord.

Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?

Yes, it is not the man who commends himself…(with titles, positions, garb, etc.)

For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth.

And there is a discipline for some coming, chastenings for others “on the horizon” who would seek to bind others to Paul’s words when not being knit to them, themselves. And only God will show any man whether Paul is “commended”, and it will not be because he can find them in a book “everyone must heed to”. You…are not (as neither am I) a pope. The call of Christ is to God through Christ and woe to the man looking for the upper hand in the assembly.

I fear I have gone a bit afield. But as an apostle we do find Paul (once we are convinced he is true) handling the word of God in liberty, but not license. He is free to draw connections, make declarations unbreakable to those of same knit nature, and not obscurely seen (as though it is too weird to say) as a wild man. Some outside thought him off his rocker…while at least a few inside (I say few as concession) esteemed him not as one to “take a stand with”. (Burn your pulpit if you do not know this. If you do know, you have already burned your pulpit.) Too bold?

And so this apostle who once appeared to me in flesh also knew his liberty in touching the scriptures for enlightening. And as one knit to him by many proofs I understood some, paid less attention to others…and even found some perhaps unsettling and perhaps even presumptuous (as so many were willing to dismiss him “out of hand”)

But some come back to me now from accompanying him (and he accompanying me without shame) through a life of meetings, travelling, shopping, sharing meals, watching TV, walking streets and entering prison(s). I remember his expansion upon this:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:

But with this understanding he had been persuaded of in spirit that God alone will either commend or disavow:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: (and let us surprise him!)

And let us surprise him!

No, none need find anything here by compulsion. And I am persuaded to say what this brother would most often say to the often blank faces he met when saying it

“Do you not know this?”

And as though too relentless in boldness, he would follow hard upon with these words: (for apostles are bold when grown):

“Or…do you know better than this?”

And, yes, he always held a smile for any who thought they knew better.

But, as I say, impacts are a reserved thing according to recognition. One man hears thunder, another the voice of an angel, another yet hear that voice on High above which none exceed.

Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.

How and what we hear is how and what we hear…not at all what we say of “how and what we hear”. This is a rebuke to some as it must be to myself. But it is also a great comfort when appreciating one cannot unstop his own ears, open his own eyes and finds that peculiar comfort in the all that is impossible to himself.

One may think (if one has had some walking) of all the silly questions posed him as a believer by those who would seek to make the “impossible” an uncomfortable place for him.

“Can God make a rock so big He can’t lift it?” Huh? Huh? “Come on, theist…come on…”

or the even funnier: (of which I am fond for my own peculiar disposition)

“Can God make a chili so hot He can’t eat it?” huh? huh?

So many questions…some of seeming deeper resonance “If God is all good and also all powerful…but there is evil…that means…”

For some this is the kiddy end of the pool…some being so overwhelmed by a thing of far greater wonder and ineffable phrasing. Can God start with dust, and from it, make something like Himself? Even grow from what is not at all like Him in any way…(even steadfastly resistant to being so) and assuredly NOT HIM, yet grow it up to know Him? And not only so, but to know Him no less than His own sent Christ…knows Him?

If so…how? If so…why? If so…what might one find out?

Perhaps that he is far more knit than ever he could have once appreciated?

And even be surprised by it.

I used to think I know better.

Father forgive them, they know not what they do.

Maybe I still do.