Chronicles of a Chosen Son

CHRISTMAS...LIGHT INTO DARKNESS

2011-12-25T19:37:00.000-08:00

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."
John 1: 1-5

OK, so, being a blogger, I guess I have to write the obligatory blog entry about the true meaning of Christmas. Or, well, maybe I don't. I sincerely hope I never get to the point where I feel obligated by anything but the prompting of God to write any blog entry, let alone one on Christmas. However, I kind of feel that sense at this moment, which is why I'm doing it (a master of the obvious, as always). I have had the immeasurable privilege of spending my first Christmas ever with a wonderful wife who has made just about every experience I've been through in the last 8 months richer (if sometimes more challenging due to not being able to consider just myself any more).

One of those experiences was being in the hospital back in early December due to a serious leg infection related to my diabetes (which will be in a coming blog entry). I am familiar with hospitals; I spent many days in one due to the emergency abdominal surgery I endured back in 2005, and the three subsequent abdominal surgeries over the next two years. Being in the sterile and not-very-cheery atmosphere of a small hospital room puts a lot of things into perspective, especially when you finally get out. I of course thought about those patients in there who would be spending much longer in those little rooms, and...those who would never return home again, or even if they did, never get better again. Health is just one of those many blessings that, for whatever reason our Lord has, He does not distribute equally or fairly (at least in our human estimation). Why for instance, did little Alexandra Scott, the heroine of Alex's Lemonade Stand fame, live only eight years battling cancer, while notorious mob super-boss Carlo Gambino, responsible for hundreds of murders and maimings, billions in stolen money and thousands of drug and gambling-ruined lives, live comfortably well into his 80's? I certainly don't have the answer for that, and neither do the most renowned theologians; however, I trust my Lord that He does, and that He will make what is out of balance and unjust down here right again in His own way in the final judgement. That's a subject that in and of itself I'm not going to tackle here. It's just something that my hospital stay made me think about and ponder; why was I going through what I was going through while people who had eating habits and exercise habits just as bad as mine in better health than me? And why were those who ate and exercised better than me doing worse? If you read my earlier blog entries about suffering and how it strengthens our walk with the Lord by drawing us closer to Him, builds our character in Him, and enables us to comfort those going through the same things, you have part of an answer right there; but not the whole thing. That belongs to God only, and will be known by us when we leave this existence.

That leaves us with only our childlike trust in two things; that Abba knows best, and that Abba will not let us suffer forever but will make things all right eventually. It is that latter part that has gotten my attention this Christmas after hearing a wonderful message on that very topic, using the very scripture I cited at the beginning; that God brought His only all-powerful Son into our fallen human world to bring light to the darkness that had fallen.

Judea was not a happy place when the time of Jesus' birth came. Israel had not been a great unified nation like it had been under David and Solomon since the days after Solomon when several bad kings divided the kingdom by setting up shop in Samaria rather than Jerusalem. And since the Assyrian conquest of that northern portion, Israel had known no complete freedom as a sovereign nation; after that came the empires of Babylon, Persia, Alexander's Greece, Selucia, and Rome. There had been no word from the Lord since the prophet Malachi, hundreds of years earlier. The flame of the Maccabees under the Seleucids quickly died out under the Roman steamroller. And so the coming of Christ was to a nation with no great prophet or indigenous leader, rudderless, whose destiny seemed wholly controlled by Roman procurators and semi-pagan Hasmonean kings, not by the priests, prophets and Davidic kings of old. In fact the line of David had faded into obscurity, and now lay in the hands of an ordinary Joe (whose name just happened to actually be Joseph). Any indigenous authority rested with a cadre of aging priests and scribes who knew the Torah inside and out but had long ago lost touch with its spirit, and had become sclerotic in their spirituality and blind to the Messianic hope. Without that hope sin reigned supreme, with the exception of a very small faithful remnant of folks such as Simeon and Anna the prophetess who patiently waited for their Deliverer.

Into this world "in sin and error pining" came that baby born in a feeding trough used by animals. Not a very auspicious entrance for a Savior, was it? He would have many such unremarkable entrances and humiliating exits, culminating in the one hideously appalling exit that would bring about that awaited deliverance. But in the Heavenlies that entrance was grand indeed; the archangel himself announcing His arrival; the hosts of angels celebrating, the brilliant star marking the location, etc. But for most folks life just went on in its same miserable cycle; only a privileged few were invited to that first Advent party; a ragtag band of shepherds and a trio of Zoroastrian astrologer-nobles from parts eastward. For everyone else it pretty much meant the onerous burden of yet another Roman census, designed to gouge yet more taxes out of them. More misery and oppression.

From the very start the little King had enemies; Herod who tried to murder him and who murdered hundreds of innocent boy toddlers instead was only the first. For Satan knew He had come and was determined to put a halt to His mission by any means necessary; after all, His coming meant Satan's eventual doom. But for those whom God gave the privilege of revelation into the true purpose of His coming and enlightenment into the true meanings of the old prophecies, such as aforementioned Simeon and Anna, and later a certain John, His coming meant the deliverance they had long awaited; from sin and the endless cycle of guilt and sacrifice and directionless wandering as a non-nation and a non-people separated from their God by a vast gulf. Some would of course later see His coming like that of Moses as a physical deliverance from Rome and, upon finding out this was not His mission at all, would call for His crucifixion at Pilate's palace. But to the weary masses of God's Chosen struggling under both the physical yoke of Rome and the spiritual yoke of Satan, His coming represented one enormously overriding thing: LIGHT. A great, brilliant light...made all the more brilliant by the surrounding darkness. But only those with eyes to truly see could would be able to perceive that light, and, more importantly, allow that light into their own darkness. But there were also those who, like Pharaoh, hardened their hearts or for whom God ALLOWED their hearts to be hardened (see Romans 1; God will sometimes give us over to our sins and depravity if we persist in them with no hint of repentance), and therefore were blind to this light. Jesus in his adult years called out ruling authorities for this willful blindness countless times. Yet even some of them, like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea could see. But too many times Jesus actually was hindered from healing or ministering due to the willful blindness of the crowds; people who refused to let His Light in (I am in now way advocating the rantings of the Healing/Prosperity folks about "activating your faith" like some on/off switch when I mention this; I'm simply saying that Jesus didn't force His way into anyone's life; you either accepted or rejected Him, which is everyone's choice in the end, isn't it?)

And so those sullen and stiff-necked ruling authorities sought to murder him on several occasions, but because the time was not yet right Jesus supernaturally slipped away from his would-be assassins. No secret, anonymous death for Him; it had to be public, humiliating and excruciating to fulfill the old prophecies and to complete the redemption of humanity from its sorry state. After all the attempts by man and Satan alike to extinguish the Light it looked at the crucifixion like it might just happen for good this time. It looked like the darkness had finally won. Indeed after Jesus breathed His last darkness did fall. But something else happened; the veil was torn from top to bottom in the Temple. The Light penetrated the Holy of Holies itself, and God's light came out; something that had never happened in the entire history of the Tabernacle and the Temples. And, incredibly, after Jesus departed for the Heavenlies, the Light became even more powerful; it became available to EVERYONE who accepted it, not just a privileged few.

And so the church grew like wildfire as the Light shone in an ever-widening arc across the planet. And even when the church became dark itself due to being infected with pagan superstition and worldly political power, bright areas of light shone brightly and were never extinguished despite Satan's best efforts (unfortunately one of his most effective weapons has always been religion; pseudo-Christianity that is all Law and Power and no Love and compassion). And today, Jesus' church continues to be an awesome source of Light to a darkening world, for those who are chained by addictions to darkness and who desperately seek the Light, or those who have simply seen His Light and find the darkness...well...dark.

May the Light that shines at Christmas not die out when the tree and lights come down and the toys are put away. May it penetrate the dark and cold of winter as well as the heat of summer; may it penetrate all the hidden, cobweb-ridden dark places of our hearts and expose them to the healing Light. May we come to that Light not in fear but with joy, which is why He came to that stable in the first place, isn't it?

Peace,
Tom Sebring

ON TURNING 50

2011-10-11T19:12:00.000-07:00

Hello again! Here I am after another too-long hiatus. It seems that the demands of work and married life make frequent blogging a bit more difficult that it was when I was a bored and single gent. Indeed, I have just gotten back to work from the three day Columbus Day weekend; one would think that I should have had lots of time to catch up on this blog. But love prevailed; my wife was feeling sick from a reaction to her new insulin, so I sat up with her for long hours on Saturday night (we had been to a college reunion that whole day, so that's where that went). Not much got done, but a lot of loving kindness was expended, and, to me, that trumps the to-do list every time. Never ever do I look at time with my wife holding her and comforting her as a waste; indeed, doing otherwise when she needed me would be the real waste.

Well, on to my main topic; back on September 14 I had my momentous 50th birthday celebration. My wife threw an awesome party in which several of the same people that came to our wedding also came to the birthday bash. Seeing old friends at a big party is always an occasion for a certain amount of healthy and unhealthy nostalgia. Therefore you might be expecting me to launch into some long-winded speech about my life up until this time; all the worldly and spiritual wisdom I've accumulated all these years, and all the trials and tribulations I've come through. Well, I have experienced all of that, for sure. But it would seem to me to be an enormous exercise in narcissism to simply concentrate on my life and my wisdom and my trials, ad nauseum. True, this blog is about me, so one can't expect me to NOT write about me, but I just have an aversion to excessive navel-gazing when it comes to occasions like my 50th birthday.

Many people look upon this part of their lives with dread. To some it simply means one more year where youth becomes more and more distant, and death becomes just one year closer. The aches, pains, declining mental sharpness and receding/graying hair simply reminds many at my age of that fact that, in some ways, it's all downhill from here. This is the time when, for many, the legendary Mid Life Crisis hits. Floods of regrets surge forward, and frantic efforts to make up for lost time commence. I must admit that some regrets do surface once in a while; I haven't done as much with my life as a lot of people my age, it's true. But perhaps, if I think that way, I'm missing something really big. Perhaps, when I say I haven't done anything with my life, I am using SOMEONE ELSE'S standards to measure that supposed achievement figure. Worse, I may be comparing and contrasting my life to someone else's and finding myself wanting. Wanting for financial security, for friends and family, for a love life, for creature comforts, for a fulfilling job, etc., etc. This is the slippery slope downward to both self hate and envy, both poisonous to one's well being and both definitely NOT Christian virtues. Add in all that crap with the physical signs of aging, and you can add Fear to that unsavory stew. Words like CANCER and ALZHEIMER'S can strike paralyzing fear into the heart of the middle aged man or woman who has not come to terms positively with one's age and its effects, or come to terms with God about what He is doing in the midst of it all.

So how does one combat this assault of fears and regrets that come with the mid-year birthdays? By doing what one does to combat all things fearful, hateful and harmful that come from Hell; GIVE THEM TO THE LORD. OK, that sounds nice and trite, doesn't it? It certainly does if you do not know your Lord and have the kind of relationship with Him that allows you to be real with Him and love and trust Him with all your heart, soul, mind and spirit. As I have come to know Him slowly but surely, in my own stumbling way, as that kind of Lord, who listens to my every praise and complaint, my every laugh and cry, my edifying words and my less-than-edifying words, then I have come to this point of mid life curiously lacking in crisis, but thankful for ALL that He has given me in this time of life. I have a wonderful wife who has brought me more joy that I have had for most of my life, and I still have a good job despite the economic horrors going on for most Americans. It's true; God can take those things from me at any time; He has the right to do that. But why, oh why, would I want to focus on that possibility?
Would my time not be better spent simply enjoying to the absolute fullest what I DO have, NOW? Yes, it is very wise to plan for the future; but if one spends so much time on the future and concentrates so hard on delayed gratification that that one neglects the present to the point of spiritual and emotional starvation, then one is not living but dying. That person is fast becoming an Ebenezer Scrooge, constantly putting away and putting away, never enjoying the present!

One of the really nice things that has been happening as I have neared this mark in my life is that I have spent less time fighting inevitable realities such as work, relationships, finances, and my own personal shortcomings, and settled into becoming more accepting of the things I can't change, as that old saw by St. Francis goes. It certainly does not mean I don't continue trying to improve and better myself in ways that I can or that the Lord has given me grace for; but I don't do quite as much beating of my head against the wall as I used to. Like Paul, I've began accepting some of the thorns I've been dealt and adapting to them to the best of my ability. I believe that this is part of the process of gaining wisdom; simply living life and living it for a considerable span of time. I don't think there really is any other road to wisdom, really. It is always unfortunate that dementia often masks the accumulated wisdom of the elderly among us, and, even more so that, when the elderly do display that wisdom unhindered by brain disease, that the youth of our culture so easily dismisses it as irrelevant and hopelessly out of date. But there is not so much that is terribly different between our world today and, say, the world of the Depression era, in terms of human virtues and vices. There might be a vast gulf in the available technology and applied knowledge between those eras, but people as people weren't terribly different. You could certainly pit the folksy musical talents of Woody Guthrie against those of Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen, or the cinematic shenanigans of the Marx Brothers against that of directors the Zucker brothers (the Airplane movies), and many other such comparison. Of course I won't go into all the differences in moral standards or available recreational substances that make those two eras very different; that's a whole novel in itself. But the main point is; the wisdom of someone who lived through that time can have a heck of a lot of relevance to our time if we can all just get beyond the trivialities of musical taste, fashion sense, and technology savvy and LISTEN to them.

Okay, I don't pretend to have accumulated all the wisdom of, say, a 90 year old. But I can certainly offer more of it than I was able to when I was 30. And, I must tell you, it is a joy just to be able to tells someone in your life that is hurting, "I've been there", and MEAN it. It certainly wasn't a joy to have been through that hurt, but, on the other end of it, so much healing can come forth from my heart to another's by my having experienced the trial they are now going through. I don't have to cure their pain or make it disappear; just my understanding and listening ear can provide great comfort. Paul speaks of being able to comfort others with the comfort we've been given; well, how could we do that if we hadn't been through a painful episode ourselves? And so our suffering in this life gains great meaning after the fact; it helps us to get someone else through, and it helps us to get beyond ourselves and see the benefit of our lives to others in an increased capacity, as Jesus' example shows in the Gospels so many times.

One of the most important lessons one learns when one has live awhile is the lesson Paul spoke of in his letter to the Philippians; forgetting what lies behind and pressing on to the High Calling of one's life in God. I won't go into this too exhaustively except to say that I certainly have a LOT of past to forget about. That's the downside of living longer; the longer you live, the more past you have that you need to put behind you. Yet it does not give me a lot of anxiety these days; that increased sense of acceptance I spoke of previously has helped me not to fret so much about my past deeds and misdeeds (not that I dismiss them; I just don't fret about them). And it gives you an advantage in God's economy of things; the more past you need to put behind you, the more of His grace to do so you experience, and the more you experience that knowing of Him that is the real center of your life in Him. The verse about being forgiven much and loving much becomes a living reality. And, even better, as you learn to forget and forgive your own past, you gain the grace to do the same with all the significant others in your life.

And so I hope I have given a mercifully short viewpoint of the many aspects of reaching the age of 50, without too much pontificating. In my early blog entries you can read more about the particulars of some of my more recent life experiences; to learn about the ones farther back; well, I guess you would just have to get to know me, or I would have to write an autobiography. But for now, I am content with simply living my life that remains ahead, forgetting the past while learning from it, and forging ahead in the Lord. May we all stop dreading our birthdays and see them as milestones in our journey Home.
Peace,
Tom Sebring

MIXED FEELINGS

2011-08-09T19:02:00.000-07:00

Sooo...I have finally freed myself from the Demon TV and the Beelzebub Facebook long enough to get back to my blog...thank the Lord! Actually, it is rather lame to blame those things for my own procrastination, isn't it? I suppose I could be really, really lame and blame married life...but I don't think the Spirit would let me get away with that, seriously. I, and I alone, am responsible for my own stewardship of this writing gift that He has given me...and it is my sin and my sin alone to neglect it.

But enough beating myself up...that's actually not pleasing to God either. And it's certainly not why I've come back to this venue. The idea that has been rolling around in my head and heart for the last month or so has been the concept of mixed feelings. You know, that dilemma one finds oneself in when one can't quite decide how to feel about something. There are some events that happen and some ideas one runs into where, if one checks the Scriptures, one seems to find conflicting opinions and directives concerning the event or idea...or at least one seems to find conflicting opinions by various interpreters of the Scriptures as to what they say about the matter. Before I lose you, dear reader, let me elaborate on what I'm trying to get at here.

I think the best recent example that comes to my mind at this time is the killing of Osama bin Laden. OK, first of all, let it be known that I had nothing but support for this action and its results...I have never been nor will I ever be a pacifist...at least not to the extreme that I would advocate a kind of national turning of the other cheek that would expose innocent people to death and mayhem. Never did Jesus ever directly advocate pacifism...but I suppose that's for another blog, isn't it? Anyway, When I heard the news of his killing, I felt a profound sense of...relief. I can't lie and tell you I didn't also have a sense of justice and satisfaction at the news as well...but the revenge thing is something that, as a believer, I try my best to keep at arm's length. I just could not bring myself to the dancing in the streets and the "USA, USA" chants that exploded across the news on that day...yet I totally got where those folks were, particularly the 911 bereaved folks. I had a little more trouble getting where the pacifists who bewailed the killing were coming from...but I couldn't hate them either. I realize that we can't just go around assassinating whoever we feel like across the globe...but I do believe that there are some people who are just so dangerous that killing them is justified in that it saves countless other lives...which is why I also supported the killing of the drug lord Pablo Escobar. Who knows how many Colombians and Americans' lives that killing saved. To me, such an action is actually an act of great mercy...not to the one assassinated, but to his potential future victims. And the God that I know is all about mercy; did He not cause tyrants such as Naaman, Herod Antipas, and Nero to come to untimely ends to spare His people further death and mayhem? Yet he spared other tyrants, for reasons only He knows. Hence the mixed feelings; when it comes to our own emotions and opinions, there is rarely ever a pure feeling of one kind or the other.

Revenge is one concept where people cite different scriptures (out of context, mostly) as proof texts to support their pet ideologies or denominations. Some would go to the Psalms and Proverbs where the writer expresses satisfaction at the destruction of the wicked, or to Joshua where God commands the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites to the last man, woman and child. Others would go to Ezekiel who writes that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked and to the gospels where Christ expresses His love for all people, sinners included, and His repeated commands to forgive your enemies. Where does this leave me as a believer? Well, it leave me exactly where He wants me...DEPENDENT ON HIM. God does not force any of His children to think or react in a conformist, uniform way to any of the issues of the day...I believe that He fully understands that our opinions are shaped by our hereditary temperament, our upbringings, and other such involuntary factors that HE IS THE AUTHOR OF. It is certainly dismaying sometimes to see the results of our different outlooks on God, Christ and the Scriptures...thousands of denominations. But is this really so bad a thing? It seems like most people who say they long for Christian unity long for unity under THEIR doctrine and theology. Sorry folks, but that's more like theocracy...Iran style. Unity of doctrine and universal ecumenism will NEVER happen until we get to the New Heaven/New Earth...when we finally are freed from seeing through the glass darkly and we can see EVERYTHING.

Mixed feelings often also reflect not just a moral dilemma such as revenge vs. mercy, but the dilemma of "just do it" vs. careful consideration. I'm thinking now particularly of the ouster of Gaddafi from Libya. To tell the absolute truth, I'm really not sure what to make of this. On the one hand, I am really, really, really glad to see this maniac out of power. Gaddafi in my opinion was one of the most dangerously unstable dictators of the entire African continent, if not the world. Certainly a lot of good both for the citizens of Libya and for the world at large will come of his ouster from power. But some of the same questions raise their ugly heads as did in the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns; When Gaddafi is gone, who takes his place? Do we know anything about these rebels that have ousted him? Reportedly, some of them from the Western part of the country have strong Al-Qaeda ties or are outright Al-Qaeda members. Not so with the rebels from the east; will they clash in an endless civil war like the factions of Iraq? If the easterners win, will Libya become like Pakistan, an Al-Qaeda hideout and a base for mayhem in Europe and America? Both liberals and conservatives are asking these questions, and not getting too many answers.There are those that say the president has delayed way too long in getting involved personally, and those that say that this is totally appropriate, that he is "leading from behind". Is this like another Bosnia, where inaction by the U.S. and the U.N. led to thousands of innocent deaths. Well...lots and lots of questions, hence the mixed feelings. I can't bring myself to celebrate Qaddafi's overthrow just yet until I see what happens to Libya in the longer story.

All of this is one big reason why, though I have strong conservative opinions, I realize that liberals often aren't the total ingrates and addled old hippies that conservatives make them out to be. For every thoughtful conservative such as George Will or Charles Krauthammer, there are thoughtful liberals like Fareed Zakaria and Bill Moyers. Conversely, for every inflammatory conservative like Anne Coulter or Mark Levin, there are inflammatory liberals like Michael Moore or Janeane Garafalo. Conversely, there are thoughtful and compassionate preachers like Wayne Monbleau, David Jeremiah and Charles Stanley; there are also inflammatory preachers like Jeremiah Wright and John Hagee. Folks, I realize that good strong debate is part and parcel of what makes our country and our faith great; but when it becomes just a shouting and name-calling match that borders on fisticuffs, then I tend to tune it out. Whether this makes me a fence-sitting moderate remains to be seen; I just really don't enjoy engaging in unproductive debate that strains at gnats and swallows camels; i.e, misses the big picture of things entirely. And for me, that Big Picture is THE LORD. No matter what politicians, preachers and military men might say or do regarding this or any other world scenario, HE is ultimately in charge and sovereign. And I have to believe that He is aware of all sides of every story; the sides that the media, despite their best or worst efforts, cannot or will not report accurately. He knows both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He knows both sides of the economic dilemma that our country faces. HE KNOWS ALL THE SIDES. Therefore, I have to believe that there are many situations where it really does not matter to Him which side I sympathize with. I know that statement can really ruffle feathers everywhere, from those that insist that choosing a side shows commitment and moral fiber, and not to do so shows weakness and spinelessness. And it's actually true that some situations demand choosing a side, and that God has His very definite preference; otherwise, the scriptures would never have been written. To believe that you cannot know what God's preference is on ANYTHING or know what scripture is really saying to me borders on agnosticism. But it seems that too often we use the scriptures to attempt to bludgeon our fellow humans, even our fellow believers, into submission to what really is OUR opinion and not necessarily God's. Therefore it is my belief that mixed feelings on many issues is a completely appropriate response and, if not, certainly a forgivable oversight on our part. Our God is big enough and gracious enough to accommodate us and our imperfect perceptions and ideas, as long as HE is the center.

Peace,
Tom Sebring

THE GREAT METAMORPHOSIS...FROM ME TO WE

2011-05-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

Well, it's me again...I actually have found some time to do another entry! With all the tasks that come with adjusting to married life involving finances, work, and just organizing our living space, it's often not easy to just take a step back and view the awesome and wonderful journey I've been on for almost a year now. It still seems a bit surreal, the fact that I am now married after having waited with as much patience as I was able to, with God's grace, for this day. I suppose there are those out there that would have said to me, "Tom, why in God's name would you want to get married at this stage in your life? Why don't you just settle into single life and live the rest of it out in peace and quiet and service to the Lord? You could probably be more useful to God that way, rather than having to undo and unlearn everything to adjust to married life this late in the game". Or perhaps it was me saying that to myself, or the fleshly part of me just wanting to coast my way through the home stretch, like I was already in a rocking chair or something. But knowing my Lord, He has never been one to let me off quite that easy. This burning desire to experience married life has persisted through all of the most hopeless moments and all of the near-misses and disappointments, when I thought it was becoming a remote possibility at best. Yes, there were some less than noble motives driving that desire at times; the physical advantages of marriage, et al, but those have increasingly taken the back seat in recent years, replaced by the intense desire to REALLY experience what Song of Solomon was speaking of; what this union of Christ and His Church really was all about. Even though I have experienced that to some degree in my own walk with Him, and the awesome organic church life I have experienced, and knew in my heart that even single saints can have that; that God leaves no one out of His divine love, I knew that God wanted to take me so much deeper into that reality, HERE AND NOW. Marriage to another was the only doorway to that deeper aspect of God; to sacrificial love and union to another the way God designed it from before Creation itself. Being single for life, despite circumstances at the time, was just not His ultimate plan for me. The funny thing is, a couple years earlier I had began to become somewhat comfortable in my singleness; not having to provide for another as well as myself; knowing my dumb mistakes would only hurt me and not a significant other; having a fair amount of financial security but knowing I could survive a job loss if I had to, etc. But more recently the burning desire had gotten more intense, perhaps driven by the attempt to re-unite with an ex-fiancee a couple years ago, along with the realization of my approaching 50th birthday and the fact that the clock isn't exactly standing still. I still really, really wanted this, but for different reasons now than in earlier years when the motivations were more fleshly and more insecurity-driven. I knew that I knew that I knew who I was in Christ, having walked with Him for 25 years, marriage was going to be another step in my spiritual evolution; another doorway into a secret passage of God's essence; another undiscovered country.

Well, now I've been married a month, and I have pretty much made it my purpose to totally abandon any expectations I had about marriage, except for one; that it would draw me closer to Him and build my character in Him. I have discovered that about many of my endeavors in the Lord; once I allow Him to free me from my own expectations, I am totally liberated to just let Him take me where He will, show me what He would show me, and teach me what He would teach me (and I am definitely more teachable). I am free to enjoy the journey rather than struggle with finding my own directions and design my own road map (despite what all the motivational blatherers would tell us; it's not that I become totally passive and lazy, but that I let HIM design the road map, not me). Basically I'm not really that surprised or dismayed at what I'm experiencing, due in part I suppose to some of the awesome teachings I've heard and read about marriage, and by being able to watch marriages in progress in my little church. I can also credit the slow but sure breaking of the Lord of a lot of my selfish motives, over the course of living single for 49 years and experiencing a lot of painful breakups and unrequited love over that time. I sense that at this stage of life, far from being "too set in my ways" or too cynical and bitter, God has made me more tender hearted, more sacrifice-minded, more open to His way and His methods than in earlier years.

Let there be no mistake; even after just one month, I'm finding some aspects of being married to this wonderful woman kind of an irritant (to my flesh, that is). Let me give the most outstanding example I know of thus far; she is totally not a morning person, and because of that I can really never experience the joy of waking up with her with the sunrise, or of her accompanying me on my nature walks like I've done most of my life, or my early morning times with the Lord. I've always considered the morning a sacred time in God's estimation; the First Fruits, the first day of creation, et al. But in spending time with Janice before our marriage, I began to see that this was one romantic vision (certainly not a bad one, but romantic just the same) that would be hitting the hopper. I was certainly free to still enjoy the early mornings when I could, just not with her (and thankfully this is totally OK with her). Our romantic times together would mostly entail afternoons and evenings; a big shift of my paradigm, to be sure. When by force of schedule we are obligated to be together early in the AM, let it suffice to say that she is just not the spunky, talkative, intelligent person I so enjoy being with later in the day, and I am forced to dig just a little deeper to love this woman in spite of her different AM personality, knowing deep down that this is the same Janice that I love so deeply, and that I have no more chance of changing her into a morning person than I have of changing our cat into a hamster. Besides, she no doubt experiences the same thing when, at 1:00 am, she is in her prime, while I am near comatose if not already asleep. The realization of this fact gives me empathy for her. I made a very serious vow before God, friends and church to love her NO MATTER WHAT. What kind of summer soldier and fair weather friend would I be if I only loved her when she got over her morning malaise? Even if in her morning mood she says something unkind, not meaning to, my love for her remains. I don't strike back or give the silent treatment; I endure, like Christ endured the taunts of his enemies, knowing that her real heart isn't in what might have been said. I let it go and give it to God if necessary. Wow, where in the heck did I learn how to do this? I must honestly say that earlier in my Christian walk these kinds of responses would never have come from me; I would certainly have gotten angry and said "FINE" and walked away, or said something unkind back, turning a simple moody comment into a fight, needlessly. I've heard too many couples doing this in public, and been sickened by it in my spirit, to be able to respond like that myself any more, not to mention being broken by God of a lot of that righteous machismo. I guess it comes down to this; CHRIST IN ME WON'T LET ME TREAT HER WITH ANY LESS LOVE AND COMPASSION THAN THE PRINCESS THAT SHE IS TO HIM. My prayer to God continues to be that this attitude would persist in me, even after the "honeymoon period" has long passed and the irritants become much more irritating; that we would never go to bed angry at each other, ever.

The other awe-inspiring, jaw-droppingly wondrous aspect of married life is just how much we are becoming one, in so many large and small ways. We just got a batch of checks in the mail that have BOTH our names on them, we have also gotten insurance cards from my provider that have BOTH our names on them. She is going through the process of changing her last name to mine on all her documents. We still get cards from well-wishers with BOTH our names on them. I have an almost childlike sense of joy at seeing these little things proving our oneness, as does she. I have stopped calling Lucky the cat "her cat", and started calling him "our cat". There are other aspects of marital togetherness which are inappropriate to discuss publicly, namely physical, that are nonetheless part of this whole wondrous transformation of "me" and "her" into "us" and "we". Some of this has been going on since before our marriage; we both have had keys to our separate dwellings and cars since far before our marriage; we have both slept in each other's apartments, ALWAYS in separate beds or couches, with absolutely no unsafe consequences, mainly out of economic necessity (hotels would have bankrupted me, and therefore, us, in short order, and there just were not enough friends' places available on a consistent basis). This caused some uneasiness with me at first, with the whole "appearance of evil" thing, until I re-read that passage in 1 Thessalonians 5, and found it had NOTHING to do with making sure others don't misinterpret your perfectly innocent actions, and I found that, basically, NO ONE REALLY CARED. We eventually got so used to it that any thoughts of pre-marital indescretion were very far from either of our minds; and, thanks be to God, our Christian friends, even the more conservative ones, trusted God in us enough to grant us that grace after all. Let it be said that we DO NOT in any way support living together outside of marriage in the carnal sense, nor think that overnights at each other's domiciles are a particularly good idea for very young couples, but it became an innocent necessity in our case. I have always believed that we believers should all eventually come to the place before the Lord knowing in our hearts what we have the grace in Him to endure and what we don't. All this being said, our overnights did give us some bits of practice in certain aspects of living together, and therefore avoided some surprises.

One last aspect of oneness that we've both experienced since before our marriage but that we now experience a bit more intensely, is just a very simple thing that so many couples take for granted to their own misfortune; HOLDING ONE ANOTHER. We have always, always, since very early in our relationship, strived very hard to preserve our "cuddle time". That is, our time of just holding one another in each other's arms very close, feeling each other's warmth and hearing each other's breathing; keeping the chatter to a minimum, just gazing at one another and JUST BEING TOGETHER. With marriage this has obviously become more intense and intimate, with various states of undress involved (yes, I said it), but the purpose, the innocence, and the simple joy of it has remained the same; to be together, to feel each other's warmth, to be ONE. Even if it's for only a few minutes during her dinner break (she works from home, second shift; another time challenge, to be sure), we have that snuggle time. Janice loves to look into my hazel eyes (she calls them "rainbow eyes"; she's fascinated by the multiple colors), I love to look into her blue eyes. She also loves to listen to my heartbeat, which she finds comforting; I can't express the feeling knowing that gives me.

These are some of the unexpected joys that I find in married life; because I was willing to let God annihilate some of my own expectations, He has been able to show me so many unexpected joys, and yes, sorrows as well. But no doubt our journey from me to we will continue for as long as He sees fit to keep us alive, and more surprises, as well as some storms, will be part of it as well. I'm loving this journey, even as it turns me upside down in some ways; my Lord has taught me over long years to expect nothing less from Him.

Peace,
Tom Sebring

LOVE...THE BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY

2010-09-12T18:38:00.000-07:00

NOTE: THIS ENTRY WAS ORIGINALLY CREATED ON SEPT 12 2010, BUT WAS NOT PUBLISHED UNTIL JANUARY 26, 2011

It has been a very long time since my last entry, about seven months. As I have stated before, sometimes I go a long time without any real coherent thoughts about anything spiritual in particular coming together in a way that can be expressed in written form; how often our God comes to us in inexpressible ways and with inexpressible words spoken only to our spirits, our inner man. Yet at other times the reason was simply time and energy; the demands of a full time job with an hour commute can be factored in as well. I must admit that too much time spent on Facebook and other sites is another reason, for which I accept full responsibility; it is often hard to balance what I see as a legitimate ministry of encouragement to my online friends with just idle browsing that consumes time better spent in more worthy and productive pursuits. This of course is the hazard with any online endeavors, isn't it? I could even include this blog, except for the fact that I haven't really spent enough time at it for it to be such a hazard.

But there is one other reason for which I have been absent from this blog for this amount of time, a reason that even now is just leaving me breathless and at a loss for coherent words. Beginning in about mid-June, I began a Facebook email conversation with a sweet woman I knew back in my Eastern University days by the name of Janice, whom I had attempted to date at that time, and had gotten a very kind and gentle rebuff from. Our conversation began with simple friendly reminiscing about college friends, professors, experiences, etc. It then moved on to where our lives were at present, and the 25 years of joys and hardships we had both experienced. I will of course not reveal her personal information except to say that she was previously married and had been divorced about 14 years. Our conversations became gradually more intense as we began opening up to each other bit by bit, especially after she saw my photos on Facebook from an Eastern University reunion I had attended (which I fully intended to do a blog entry on, but never quite got to, much to my regret now). It finally got to the point where we simply HAD to meet each other, to see if the other person really was for real. After several bad experiences for both of us (see my earliest entries for one of mine), we both intensely longed for a real loving relationship with someone we could relate to, who could get us, and, above all, TRUST. On Saturday, July 31, we met on the campus of our old Alma mater...Eastern University...and spent an entire day there and in downtown Philadelphia at the Art Museum (which was having an incredible Renoir exhibition at the time). The details of this entire day can be seen in a note I did on my Facebook page describing the entire experience. We fell in love with each other with what I can only describe as blinding speed. She did not, and still does not, remember much about her college days; I, however, seem to have vivid memories of just about every little conversation and encounter I had with her, including that gentle but painful rebuff. But to me it was those memories that caused me to fall in love with her so fast; it was almost like the 25 years had never happened and we were back where we were. And then, in early October, the inevitable happened; I asked her to marry me. We both knew it was coming, but I had kind of planned to make it a little more elaborate than how it actually happened. We were in a park in Allentown, and I simply felt like this was the time. I had no ring in hand; nevertheless, I felt in my spirit that this was the time; not later, not tomorrow, but NOW. Needless to say her blue eyes lit up so brightly, like I've never seen them. I did get her a beautiful ring about two weeks later; I still can't keep my eyes off it when I see it on her finger. To me it is a tangible symbol of something very mysteriously intangible, but wonderful.

Over the months that have followed we have been spending as much time with each other as our work schedules and distance limitations permit; calling and texting each other daily. And even as the initial rush of a new relationship has worn off a bit, and the new rush of wedding planning has taken over, I find that our love for each other deepens and becomes more intense in a quiet and peaceful kind of way. It's like our love is now sinking roots deep into the soil, forming the firm foundation that our marriage will be able to safely rest on (yes, we are now engaged; it was inevitable really, when we both look at it). I am continually amazed and fascinated in an almost childlike way at just how beautiful and wonderful this whole experience is; to love a woman with the same intensity that Christ loves His Church and to have that love returned. I find myself delighting even in getting my hands dirty doing things for her, such as helping her do her dishes, or purchasing tires for her car so it won't slide in the rain any more.

To me these things constitute real love, real love the way Christ showed it to us. Talk about getting your hands dirty; I don't think there is any comparison to how low Jesus stooped to bring His Bride, the church, out of the fetid mud and into the His presence; the washing of the disciples' dirty feet is the most striking example of that to me. And I find it such a joy, over and over again, to be that for my fiancee. She is continually amazed and touched by these expressions, which in turn amazes and touches me. Neither of us are perfect by any stretch of the imagination; we both have disappointed each other at this time or that. But my deep love for her so overrides all of that that those things are forgotten in very quick order. How could I possibly hold anything against her? She is practically a part of me now; my true soulmate, my one and only.

One thing that concerned me early on was the possibility that this wonderful woman would quickly become an idol; someone that would replace Christ as supreme and central in my life. Has that happened? I really can't honestly answer that, except to say that I believe with all my heart that that happens to everyone who falls in love, to some extent or other. That being said, let me boldly state that I really don't believe that God is extremely put off by that inevitable result of falling in love. I can say with further honesty that I still consider Christ the supreme and central person in my life; He is my very Life, and none of this would have been possible without him for sure. When I was single and had nothing even close to any prospects, He was central and supreme; not because I had no one else and I figured I might as well make Him central; but because He WAS central and WAS supreme. My believing that or not believing that made no difference to the truth of that fact. So I have to believe in my heart of hearts that He still is, regardless of my occasional inattention to Him due to my preoccupation with my fiancee. Even when my soul wobbles on the path, I have never felt like God has been wroth with me over that fact. His gentle rod and staff have corrected me at those times, and still do.

And so, with only about 2 1/2 months before our time at the altar; our time where we make this union that God has created permanent, I am still left speechless at times by God's love and kindness in allowing me to have this woman in my life, and to have her for the rest of my earthly existence. May our Lord allow us to show His love to each other and it to be a witness to our families and friends of His great goodness.

Peace,
Tom Sebring

GROUPTHINK

2010-06-08T21:18:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I was present at Loving Grace Ministries' "Worship in the Woods" summer retreat in northwest New Jersey, along a magnificent lake right below the Kitatinny Ridge. Like the Poconos retreat last fall that I wrote about, it featured Wayne Monbleau as the main speaker, assisted by two pastor friends of his, Peter Foti and Ken Thompson, along with a wonderful worship foursome, Beloved. It was an almost magical time of simple praise and worship of the Lord amongst a motley assemblage of precious brothers and sisters of all ages and walks of life, and no doubt many different church environments. Words cannot describe how precious a time it is to be able to leave behind not only work, the world news and domestic affairs, but religious and church trappings, and engage in simple worship and fellowship as God intended us to do. I realize that this statement can evolve into an entire discussion about church structure and organic vs. organized, but I'm not going there in this entry, nor am I sure I want to at any time, that being the dangerously divisive topic that it is. I am simply saying that I sensed a freedom in that atmosphere that seems woefully absent in most of modern Christianity, as did my fellow Christians who testified of a similar feeling. One of the things that I took particular notice of was the very different outlooks on church structure, doctrines, practices, and biblical interpretations that were present in each of the brothers and sisters at this retreat, which I gathered from the many one on one conversations I had at meals and other "down times". And yet...with all these differing approaches to the Throne of Grace and different outworkings of His spirit from within...we were all able to worship God in His creation, in perfect unity of spirit. How was that possible, given our different opinions and outlooks on so many things? I realized as I thought more about it that this was a spiritual phenomenon, not a natural or human one. We were all of one accord, as were the disciples in the upper room prior to the Pentecost outpouring. I also realized that the concept of "of one accord" had nothing to do with our individual beliefs, but everything to do with our simple surrender to the Lord, in that moment, in that place. Because of that simple surrender to His will for that moment, and to His simple love for each of us for that moment, God was able, in each of us, to overwhelm our own divisions of doctrine and practice with His simple love and peace. Therefore, since our human wills and preferences were subject to His will and preference, we found ourselves in one accord, even as we conversed at meals about our different approaches to His Throne. Imagine that!

So then, this of course begs the question, I mean REALLY begs it; WHY ISN'T THE CHURCH LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME? I think one of the main reasons lies in one word; GROUPTHINK. Tonight, when researching this topic, I went to the most reliable source for any topic online; Wikipedia. The definitive article on Groupthink I found there was ASTOUNDING, in that what it describes as the definition and symptoms of groupthink are the EXACT symptoms of dysfunction that are so very prevalent in so many American churches at this time. Groupthink is a term that was coined in 1952 by William White in Fortune magazine, and was given definition by sociologist Irving Janus as; "A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action".

If you really want to be startled, read these symptoms of groupthink as outlined in the Wikipedia article:

1. Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.

2. Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group's assumptions.

3. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions

4. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.

5. Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of "disloyalty".

6. Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.

7. Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.

8. Mind guards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.

Now granted, most of this theory was designed to describe a phenomenon prevalent in business and politics that was found to be a destructive influence in both. But I have seen firsthand some of these very behaviors present in various church settings that I have been in, and have read accounts of other believers about the same things in their experiences. Yes, folks, IT IS OUT THERE. The reader's first reaction might well be, "ummm...that really only happens in cults". But as I mentioned above, this happens IN THE CHURCH as well. Let it be said before I write the following: I am normally not one to rely on or utilize formulas and lists, due to how, to me, those things are part and parcel of dead, academic Christianity to me. Too many books and sermons consist of ridiculously complex and convoluted formulas and flow charts attempting to demonstrate divine concepts with human tools. With that in mind, let me offer a breakdown of how I have seen the above mentioned symptoms of groupthink manifesting themselves in much of American church structure and practice.

Number one: How many times have you seen certain big organizations proclaim that they are invulnerable to the forces of nature, economics, politics, etc., by virtue of the fact that they are ordained by God and that lots of people are praying? The incident with CBN where a hurricane narrowly missed their massive Virginia Beach broadcasting facility comes to mind. Of course, predictably, it was automatically assumed that that was because this organization was too important to God to be allowed to suffer the loss of its broadcast tower and that lots of prayers helped to divert the hurricane. Let me say this; it is entirely possible that this is all true. But I was struck by the arrogant assurance of this absolutely being the case on the part of the executives of this organization, rather than a proper humility and acknowledgement of His mysterious ways. How in Heaven's name can we be so self-assured that God is out to bless our every massive effort to spread our particular brand of Christianity to the globe, at the expense of every other brand? Just a brief, perfunctory reading of the prophets and the book of Job should bring a rapid end to that kind of thinking. God gives, and He takes away, and He is jealous. Also, a careful look at the life of Christ should put a damper on it as well. He is "meek and lowly of heart", and He is "no respecter of persons". I believe that God really does not pay much attention to how big and powerful a ministry organization or church is, but perhaps He is somewhat disturbed by the arrogance and self-assurance that tends to come with such entities. And perhaps, pertaining to risk-taking, CBN could exercise some humble wisdom and move that tower further inland.

Number two: If you listen to some broadcasts by large Christian organizations or go onto some Christian blogs, forums, or Facebook pages, you can see how instantly defensive some organizations or individuals get when they are directly challenged on any of their beliefs. One of the manifestations of this defensiveness is Spin; the same rather ugly phenomenon so familiar in politics where a politician or their publicist will take a glaringly obvious truth or inconsistency and twist and turn it with rationalizations until it is unrecognizable and , therefore, hopefully camouflaged. I have seen some bloggers do this occasionally. I have not seen actual broadcast ministries do it, mostly because they do not seem to give opportunity for any differing views. I would not be surprised at all to learn that it goes on in the board meetings of large churches or denominations. I am not saying that a blogger or broadcaster does not have the right to defend their position, not at all. But it would be nice if we would allow God to let us be taught occasionally by others' input, or at least to appreciate their validity in the community of believers without bulldozing their portion. And it would help to remember that God is not particularly fond sometimes of our rationalizations, but instead covets our love and our trust.

Number three: I think you can pretty plainly see fine examples of unquestioned belief in the rightness of the group in some of those loud, raucous meetings where the pastor screams and the congregation shouts their amen’s with equally loud voices. I will give a pass on this to some small southern churches, since in their case I believe that it's partly cultural. But at times the phenomenon of a church shouting their agreement and waving their arms at even the most non-scriptural and unloving proclamations seems uncomfortably close to a Nuremburg rally or a violent street demonstration. It is much too easy for us as believers to be caught up in the emotions of an experience that is admittedly, and rightly, very emotional; the worship of our supreme and magnificent Lord (we are not called to be Vulcans for Jesus). We must eventually come to a place where we know the scriptures for ourselves well enough and, more importantly, KNOW GOD for ourselves, where we are willing to take the difficult step of questioning what we hear from the pulpit or read in a book. Paul warns us to "test the spirits"; Proverbs tells us to "get wisdom". If we are in the Lord, and He is in us, we need not be afraid of questioning ourselves into agnosticism.

Number 4: This is a biggie; how many sermons have I heard on the radio or TV lately, and how many forums and threads have I seen online lately, totally demonizing any churches or individuals that do not agree with the speaker's own vision or doctrine? And most times they don't mean to, but it comes out that way. And, of course, by association, this brings condemnation upon the individual members of the demonized organizations or followers of the individual, despite the fact that they all are saved and sanctified believers in Jesus Christ (presumably), the same as us. I can't even count the scriptures that this violates the spirit of: "love one another"; "do not bite and devour one another"; "let he who is without sin cast the first stone"; "all have sinned and fallen short"; "first take the log out of your own eye"; etc., etc., etc. This is probably the most hideous and dangerous aspect of groupthink; the aspect that led a nation of 8 million to nearly exterminate an entire other nation, and other nations to destroy tens of millions of innocent lives, whether under the swastika or the hammer and sickle. I shudder to think that even the smallest fragment of it exists in the church of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. Does sound doctrine need to be taught, and unsound doctrine need to be repudiated? Of course; I suppose I'm doing that here, to a large extent. But if she has any hope of reaching unbelievers, the Body of Christ must cease and desist from the venomous internecine warfare going on now, and fix her eyes upon her Bridegroom. Our differences, when brought under the headship of Christ, can actually be our strength rather than our weakness. Or, rather, HIS strength.

Number 5: The direct pressure to conform more often takes place within the confines of the individual church rather than the community at large; however, it can take place at the denominational level as well. The small home group is especially susceptible to this, and is where this most often occurs. I have felt this myself in some home groups. When asking a question that challenges the teaching or the discussion going on, either the leader waves off the question, moves on to the next topic, or outright negates the opinion of the asker; sometimes the group as a whole does this as well. The really unholy and downright heartless result of this is that the priceless portion of a child of God is stifled and their voiced is silenced. They learn to either conform to the groupthink to regain their voice, or forever be voiceless. To me this is wickedness, though perhaps not always intentional. ALL OF GOD'S CHILDREN HAVE A VOICE. They all have something given to them by their Lord that needs to be heard or at least considered by their brothers and sisters. If the believer is immature in the Lord, and their output is not quite appropriate, LOVING correction can be given that leaves the young believer reassured that they are still loved and appreciated, even if mildly chastened. Not all young believers react positively to this, especially if there are deep rejection issues present. But this is when the loving patience of our Lord is needed by the Body to embrace them and allow them to grow into Him. Groupthink defeats this process; freedom fertilizes it.

Number 6: The self-censorship is a direct result of number 5, as indicated above. The believer who is sufficiently bludgeoned into submission by pressure from fellow believers will eventually either leave or conform. Either way, the church's unanimity of opinion is preserved, but a precious portion of God is lost.

Number 7: This also is the result of number 5. The apparent unanimity, however, is illusory, and the illusion is perpetuated by the silence of the members on any controversial topic. However, within there is often a grumbling spirit of dissent that is hidden from public view, often as a result of the fear generated by number 5 or the attitude created by number 6. This seems to work fine as long as the church is in good circumstances. But just let a real heavy duty crisis fall upon the church or small group, and the simmering dissent can explode to the surface like an uncorked volcano. This is how splits and mass exoduses happen, and how precious saints are wounded deeply. This is how groupthink can be ultimately self-destructive.

Number 8: OK, who are the "mind guards"? In the case of the church, they can be self-appointed or church-appointed. Church-appointed folks can be pastors, elders, small group leaders, board members, deacons, etc. Online they can be forum moderators, chat monitors, and bloggers. But there are also self-appointed Isaiahs who see it as their holy calling to correct every jot and tiddle of doctrine that they deem as unscriptural or ungodly, in the church or in an online setting. Some even claim that they have a gift of prophecy that gives them carte blanche with God to pursue this mission. They can exist either in churches or on online communities. The irony is that, when they come from the outside, they can actually be a POSITIVE influence in that God can use that person to disturb the groupthink in any given group and challenge people to think and test the spirits for themselves. But oftentimes these folks are trying to establish their own groupthink on a micro-scale, therefore they serve as their own mind guards; they end up hurting other saints totally unnecessarily with their self-righteous crusade approach to the faith. The main point is that GOD DOES NOT NEED MIND GUARDS TO PRESERVE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT. In fact, God often stirs up the pot and causes us to have to seek Him for ourselves! When we are pressed in to God in this way, and compelled by His Spirit to defer lovingly one to another, we find that unity of the spirit that Paul speaks of IN CHRIST, not in ourselves. When Christ is the head of the church, no mind guards are needed; He alone guards our hearts and minds.

OK, that's about as thorough a treatment as I want to give this subject. No doubt reams and reams of pages could be spent further digging into this topic. But I think I've reached the point where further writing would be speculative and judgmental. However, there is one thing I want to make very, very clear to the reader; though I believe that ALL churches everywhere are susceptible at some level, I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT ALL CHURCHES OR ORGANIZATIONS ARE TOTALLY ENVELOPED IN GROUPTHINK. Neither do I believe that those who are its unwitting victims are evil and satanic and deserving God's wrath. No church is perfect in this fallen world, organic or not, Catholic or Protestant, house or building, big or small, etc. Loving one another even involves loving those we know are trapped in groupthink. In fact, perhaps loving them more, and praying for them, rather than pillorying them in the public square, can cause them to see the Lord more clearly and allow Him to free them from this terrible trap.

May we always be free to express our Lord and be who we are in Him, and love those who are not there yet.

Peace,
Tom Sebring

SUCCESS

2010-05-09T20:04:00.000-07:00

A Christian brother recently posted, on his Yahoo group Pursuers, an excerpt from the writings of Fenelon, followed by a question, like so:

Hi Saints

This is from Fenelon "The Seeking Heart" the chapter "Temper Your Standards".

No book or prayers will help you die to yourself as much as facing the humiliation of your daily failures. Of course you must retire inwardly and be faithful to bring yourself before God. I also warn you to not let your business distract you from your spiritual life. If you allow yourself to be constantly distracted your heart will grow hard. Retire to pray when you can and live the rest of your day in love.

A side question: What is your definition of failure and sucess? What do you think is God our Father definition of failure and sucess?

Love
Don

Here is my answer, for today's entry:

Hello all,
First, a word about "the humiliation of our daily failures". I have seen in my own life that indeed it is the case that facing my failures is a vehicle that God uses to cause me to decrease and Him to increase. But it must, repeat, must be emphasized that WE CANNOT REMAIN IN THAT PLACE. Far too many believers remain in that place of shame and humiliation, of crucifixion of the self, and NEVER EMERGE INTO HIS LOVE AND GRACE. If we are living our lives concentrating on our failures rather than His love for us, then we are like the church in Galatia who abandoned the Grace of God to go back to the Law. True faith and true humility come when we not only acknowledge our failures, but acknowledge that WE ARE DEAD ALREADY to ourselves and ALIVE IN HIM. Again, God may have to subject us to humiliation to bring us to that place, but God's ultimate purpose in revealing this is not to leave us there dangling, like Jesus crucified but never resurrected, but to LIBERATE US FROM BONDAGE TO SELF LIFE AND SELF EFFORT. Staying focused on my daily failures has only ever brought me death; focusing on Christ in me has always brought me back to His Life, without fail.

OK, now to the definition of failure and success. My natural definition is that of most people I suppose; making enough money to support myself without depending on anyone else; becoming good at my job, perhaps well enough to advance in it and make more money; having a family that is stable and children that grow up successful themselves, being, for the most part, free from want.There is nothing inherently evil or ungodly in any of these desires. But in themselves, by themselves, isolated from God's love and God's sovereignty, they have absolutely no ability to give me true happiness and satisfaction such as my soul and spirit TRULY long for. So often, it is the need for the affirmation and approval of others, even loved ones, EVEN OUR CHRISTIAN LEADERS, that forms in us these earthly ideals of success and failure. And, it is when we use our own self-effort to achieve these or any other desires that we depart from the path of Christ and swerve onto the path of Adam. These desires then become gods and idols themselves, and the achieving of them becomes an obsessive bondage that drives us to insanity and to truly evil deeds to achieve them. And the failure part comes when we do not live up to either our own or others' expectations of us, therefore descending into a cesspool of self-loathing and self-condemnation, which is ironically the LAST place we ever intended to be in God, but exactly where Satan wants us. It is then that we just shut down and stop trying; why try any more when it is never good enough, when success always evades us? We must be destined to fail.

All right then, now on to success in God's eyes. It must be said first of all that success in His eyes is most times, not always but most times, DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED to our own ideas about it. Let me put it in terms that a child could understand; to God, success is LOVE. It is not money and power and friends and family and possessions; it is LOVE. And it is love precisely because HE IS LOVE (see 1 John Chapter 1). The more we love, the more successful we are in God's economy. And the love I mean is not the hippy-dippy sensual love or the conditional love the world is used to. It is the love known in the ancient Greek as agape, the selfless love that regards others above ourselves THAT ONLY COMES FROM GOD. We in ourselves are bankrupt of this love; it was forever lost to our humanity in the Fall. But because our old self nature, that false self under Satan's rule, was crucified with Christ, and we arose as new creations in Christ, it is restored to us, praise God. BUT IT IS NOT RESTORED TO OUR OLD NATURE, ONLY OUR NEW NATURE. And when we become aware of His Love in us, and it bleeds over into our lives, THEN we can love as He has loved us; BUT IT STARTS WITH HIM, AND ENDS WITH HIM. The Greatest commandment, according to Jesus, is to love the Lord God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength, and then your neighbor as yourself. It comes pretty much in this order, though it revolves back and forth a lot: God loves us, we love God, we love ourselves (because he Loves us), and we love others. Why did I put loving ourselves before loving others? BECAUSE IF WE DO NOT LOVE OURSELVES AND SEE OURSELVES AS GOD SEES US, WE CANNOT HAVE ANY AUTHENTIC LOVE FOR OTHERS. We can show others phony, guilt-driven love, but those people, if they are perceptive, can see that it isn't real and it does nothing for them, not like it is intended by God to.So this is success. The more we love, the more it is returned to us, and the more we can additionally give, and the healthier and happier we are physically, mentally, and spiritually. Ironic, isn't it? The more we acknowledge that we are dead, the more alive than ever we become, IN CHRIST. Our true success in the Heavenly Economy is not measured in how much wealth, knowledge and even spiritual experience we gain and hoard for ourselves, but in how much we lavishly pour out on our brothers, sisters and neighbors. It is not to say that it is evil to own things or have one's own experiences, but if we never allow God to pour out our very essence onto our fellow humans, we live in true poverty and true failure. May it never be.

Peace,
Tom Sebring

Heaven

2010-02-20T10:25:00.000-08:00

Again, it's been a long time since I've written anything in this blog. I am finding out that thoughts from God don't just come out of a vending machine at our beckon call; they come when His Spirit gives them out, period. It would be nice to be able to make entries every day, but it just doesn't happen that way. Time is another factor; when you work for a living, weeknights just aren't enough time to give something like this the careful and prayerful thought it demands and deserves. Nonetheless, here is my latest entry.

I have been thinking about the subject of Heaven quite a lot lately. Oh oh, you're probably saying, here comes a truckload of heresy and speculation, just like all the other things I've read about it. Well, actually, it seems that not a lot is really written about it, at least not as much as things like tithing, prayer, spiritual gifts, etc. I think that's because these aforementioned things and other more widely written-about subjects are stuff we can more easily wrap our finite minds around. Well, sorry, but that's just not good enough for me. Subjects like prayer, church leadership, bible reading, christian relationships, and the aforementioned, are important in the context of a healthy walk with the Lord, but after a while they can take on lives of their own and actually DISTRACT us from our simple devotion to Christ. We can become bogged down in the earthly to the extent that we forget how mystical and supernatural our God really is, and how inexplicable His ways and attributes really are to our human brains. And then, WHOOMP, a trial hits, and we are confronted with this inexplicably, and we instantly enter panic mode! Hey, this doesn't agree with so-and-so scripture; wow, this is not what my favorite preacher so-and-so says! This isn't what they taught in Sunday School! No, it isn't, brother and sister. It's LIFE, Life 101. You might want to re-read the scriptures and find how many times the words "trouble", "tribulation", "suffering", etc, are mentioned. Jesus even PROMISED we would have trouble. But He followed that with an encouragement to be of good cheer, as he did several other times in the gospels. One of my biggest sources of disillusionment has always been when the world doesn't meet my expectations of how I believe in my Christian matrix it should be. And I think this is the big pitfall that young, idealistic Christians or Christians brought up in a works and action-oriented atmosphere confront. The Big Reality Check hits. The Christian Fantasy of changing the world for Jesus has a head-on collision with the Fall of man. And so we discover, either in one shocking, painful experience, or by a series of smaller disappointments and misadventures, that this world we live in is truly...BROKEN. Yes, friends, the hype you've heard just ain't true. One look at USA Today or an hour of Fox News should tell you right away that something here isn't right. Granted, the news tends to condense a lot of scattered bad news into a small space, but it's out there. And then there's the stuff that you don't see on the news, but see in your daily life of work, family, marriage, health, etc, or hear about friends and loved ones going through. It all adds up to a pretty grim picture, doesn't it? John Eldredge in his book "The Sacred Romance" describes it as a war zone, and it pretty much is when you compare it to what Eden is described as being like in Genesis, or what our final destination is described as in Revelation. It's a war on several levels; nation vs. nation, individual vs. individual, citizen vs. government, family conflicts, and that's only the earthly aspects of it. Then there is old nature vs. new creation, church vs. world, etc., the spiritual side. The war is both around us and within us. And we quickly find out that, especially for the spiritual side, the stakes are alarmingly high. Literally life and death.

And yet...somewhere deep down inside, we long for something better. Something more peaceful, something more loving, something more innocent, something more beautiful. Now why in the world would we do that, when we are surrounded by all this ugly? It is true that many who are not believers simply resign themselves to the ugly, becoming dead and cynical...a truly dreadful course if you ask me. But for me...I just can't and won't do that. I KNOW that there is something better...something that does not exist here on this planet and, despite the best efforts of well-meaning ministers and politicians, CAN'T. Our nature, our fallen nature, simply cannot create such an earthly paradise. It either ends up in the horrors of communism that remain a curse for decades, or the boondoggles of various communitarian movements like the hippies that burn out quickly. Yet even those of us who are seasoned believers look at the old films of Woodstock and kind of wish it could have really happened like those young kids wanted it to. But our fallen nature intruded as always, causing hostility and eventually breaking the said movement apart. Both Eldredge and C.S. Lewis in "Mere Christianity" ask the penetrating question of why we have these longings in the first place (Lewis uses them as a proof of God's reality, while Eldredge uses them as an inspiration to lunge forward). It's because that place EXISTS.

We who are believers know that place as "Heaven". Jesus also refers to it as "Paradise". The word "Utopia" is used by non-religious people to describe a kind of heaven on earth (again, which history has proved is NOT achieve able). Other faiths past and present use various words like Nirvana and Valhalla to describe a glorious afterlife, or simply a state of perfection. These and other names all describe that place and state of mind that our souls long for; a place where there is no more pain, sorrow, violence, hate, guilt, or any of those things we have come to be sadly accustomed to in this broken world. We all know that people of different faiths have different pictures of what the perfect afterlife will be like, but what is interesting is that even individual Christians have different ideas of what God's Heaven is like. I think that, to a large extent, these different ideas are based on what each of us individually thinks of as a perfect place or perfect state of mind, according to our personalities and pursuits. A marine biologist might imagine Heaven as a water planet full of multicolored marine creatures; a naturalist might see it as a jungle planet; an architect might see it as a perfect, shimmering city full of astounding structures; a singer might see it as a never-ending concert of angel voices. Well, as it turns out, those thoughts might not be as far from the truth as we have been taught.

One of the most awesome books I've ever encountered about the subject is "Heaven", by Randy Alcorn. I cannot recommend this book more highly, even though I've had disagreements with some of his other writings. It is truly an exhaustive study of the subject of Heaven, who we are there, what we will do there, etc. Though I think he does a bit too much proof-texting at times, I believe that he provides us with a sweeping illustration of our eternal home that bursts many of the mythical bubbles that exist about it. One of the important distinctions he makes is between "Present Heaven" (the "Paradise" that Jesus promised to the thief, and the cloudy destination Paul speaks of in 1 Thessalonians) and the "New Earth" (what Isaiah and Revelation are speaking about). Present Heaven is explained by Alcorn as being a transition destination; a place located above earth that is every bit as real as earth, and where we will be with Jesus with fully intact emotions and senses (even though our bodies are not yet resurrected), but which will not be our final destination. The final destination is the New Earth spoken of in Revelation, which will, according to Alcorn, pretty much be like this planet in many ways, with some very important exceptions. This cleared up some confusion I had about the Thessalonian description vs. the Revelation one, and I'm sure there will be further confusions cleared up as I read further, even if I disagree with a certain statement Alcorn might make (he admits that he might be in error in places where he speculates). It also opens up some absolutely incredible possibilities that I will talk more about later. It's really a bit too involved to fully explain here; read the book, by all means, if you want more insight into this distinction; nonetheless, I am proceeding here with the assumption of a present Heaven and a future New Earth going forward.

Nonetheless, it is with all of this in mind that I tread very, very carefully on this ground, for, while the scriptures in actuality speak of Heaven a multitude of times, they offer only vague descriptions of what it will actually be like. The only real descriptions are found in Revelation, and even these are not of much help to our minds, since many of the visions John relates are cryptic and symbolic. For instance, John is told by the angel, "come, let me show you the Bride of Christ". What is he shown? A city. A HUGE city, about 1,400 miles long, wide and high. How can a city be the Bride? Simply because the city is the Church; us. WE are the Bride; that we know; therefore the city is representing the Church. It is huge, magnificent, made of gold and jewels, all of which symbolize purity, which we as the Church are, by virtue of His grace and no other reason. Can this actually be a portrayal of a real city that will be there for us? Of course it can. But at the same time it must be remembered that Revelation was given to John to encourage the churches enduring the same Roman persecutions that landed him on Patmos, and therefore to encourage us all forward in time. Much of the language about beasts and prostitutes represents the authorities and rulers of that time. I have always thought that efforts to label the symbols of Revelation as references to the U.S., Iran, Russia, etc., and of antichrists as some modern leader, are somewhat misguided at best. But this is not a treatise on Revelation and its symbolism, so I'll leave that topic alone I think. Nonetheless we are given some tantalizing glimpses of Heaven, some things we can grab hold of with confidence. And I believe it is really high time we began thinking more about it, not by way of a lot of cerebral speculation and wild, unscriptural conjecture, but in a prayerful and reverent way, albeit with bold faith to dare to believe that our God has such an incredible destination pre-prepared for us. It will be jaw-droppingly beautiful in every way we can possibly imagine, and in a million ways we can't. Its beauty would fry our brains to burnt crispies to look upon it in our present state of being. But the scriptures indicate that we will have glorified bodies to go along with our already existing regenerated spirits, so we should be able to take it all in with no problem, I would imagine.

So why are we so afraid and reluctant to think about Heaven? Well, for one, it's the unknown to a large extent. We shy away from dealing with the unknown because we fear it. After all, it involves death, which is the one thing our old humanity fears above all else. But what we fear is the death that no longer applies to us as believers; the death that is reserved for those that have rejected Jesus and are therefore accountable for their every sin. Which of course is actually two deaths, as Revelation alludes to. Also, we fear to speculate about Revelation because of the dire warning we get at the end of the book about adding to or taking away from it. But I have to believe that this applies only to any efforts to add to or take away from the writings themselves, by way of an alternate book. I can't believe that God would add all the plagues of the book to any person that had thoughts of Heaven that didn't exactly agree with John's writings. If he knowingly embraced them and preached them to the masses, and wrote books about it, deceiving millions, that might be another story. Which is why I'm writing this, albeit with a lot of prayer and consideration; I believe that the benefits of encouraging my brothers and sisters to think about "whatever is good, pure and holy", i.e., Heaven, outweighs any risks of heresy. I believe we as Christians, while we need to discern the scriptures as accurately as possible, also need to stop getting tied up in knots about getting our theology exactly correct. Remember, the letter of the law kills; it is the SPIRIT that brings life (i.e., Christ).

I therefore, with this grace of our Lord in mind, offer up several attributes of the New Earth that we can be 100% assured of based on the scriptures, with a few of my own thoughts added:

1. God will be the center of it, He will be the ruler of it. He will be in absolute command of every being and every thing that exists; there will be NO ONE above Him. No longer will we suffer under the rule of crazed tyrants and incompetent amateurs; we will live forever under the awesomely loving and caring rule of a God that loves us all beyond what we can conceive (This applies to both the intermediate and the final destinations).

2. He will be the object of all-encompassing worship, both by the redeemed humans that will populate it and by the angelic beings that have always been there. And that worship will be continuous and LOUD; imagine billions upon billions of humans and angels ALL shouting and praising God at the same time. A million Hillsong concerts going on at the same time could not equal that sound. If we were there as earthly humans, our eardrums would instantly be destroyed. But in our perfected bodies, no doubt that won't be a problem. And that titanically enormous sound will all be directed to one place; THE THRONE. The worship will re-define the word "glorious". And it will be FUN and JOYOUS and EXCITING, unlike a lot of our church is today. Imagine that.

3. The source of all light, heat and energy of any kind will be God, and only God. No sun or moon will be needed there for that reason. If they still exist, they will be hidden from view on the New Earth. For those who think they will miss seeing the sun and moon, I imagine that the light emanating from the Throne will be so incredibly magnificent, composed of so many different wavelengths of light, many of which don't exist in time and space, that it will more than make up for the sun and moon. It might even be brighter than the sun itself (Jesus' face itself is described as being that bright), but, again, with regenerated bodies, that won't be a problem for us either. Neither will the fact that the heat energy that might generate could be millions of degrees. A billion supernovas or a billion black holes could not generate the energy that will emanate from the Throne of the Lamb!

4. We will have glorified bodies. I think it's pretty safe to say that, since Jesus showed up in such a body to the disciples before leaving for the Father's Right Hand. What they will look like is more of an unknown, which I will get into more below.

5. There will be no more physical, emotional, psychological, or spiritual pain OF ANY KIND WHATSOEVER. This is one fact that the scriptures lay out with crystalline clarity. He will wipe away every tear. God will make sure HIMSELF, personally, for each and every one of us, that all of our sorrows are no more. All those pictures and paintings of Jesus hugging us, or hugging kids, while speculative in their imagery, are ABSOLUTELY ACCURATE in their portrayal of how our Lord will be with us in His Kingdom. To me this is one of the most joyously encouraging aspects of Heaven to think about. The brokenness of this world is the source of just about all of our pain, isn't it? So it would stand to reason that in the perfect Kingdom of our perfect Lord, we would have no pain. It still blows my mind to pieces, the idea of being HAPPY AND PAIN-FREE FOREVER. But that is exactly what we are promised in several places in the scriptures.

OK, now I will tread on more delicate ground, nevertheless with the assurance that God will NOT roast me alive if I make a boo-boo here and there. Here are some more speculative, but I think nonetheless wonderful, thoughts about our True Home:

1.. We will all be young. Now I admit THIS is NOT specifically spelled out in the scriptures, but if our bodies are regenerated, and aging is degeneration, would it not stand to reason that we would be forever youthful? Yet I think that our appearance will be a thousand times more magnificent than in our absolute prime here on earth. And this stunning beauty will be shared by those who were never beautiful here, due to defects or disfigurations of one kind or another. Furthermore, there will be no retardation, blindness, deafness, or paralysis. NO defects of any kind. For with any defect we would not be worthy to inhabit this place; but HIS blood shed for us and HIS body broken for us opened up the way for us to BECOME perfect with HIS perfection. The perfection in Him that we now enjoy in our spirits, even as we suffer in this life, will become PHYSICAL perfection in the New Kingdom.

2. We will be reunited with each other. Revelation doesn't really speak as much about who will be in the New Earth with Him as it does about the angels and heavenly beings that will be there, and about how our tears will be wiped away (although it does mention several times who will NOT be there, but tossed into the Lake of Fire). Paul in 1 Thessalonians gives us a brief glimpse of the Present Heaven when he speaks of the dead in Christ rising first, then the living in Christ, to meet Jesus in the clouds (from what I read, it seems that the New Jerusalem will be contained within that Present Heaven, but then come down to the New Earth). Neither of these descriptions tell us about being reunited, and recognizing one another, but they do hint at us arriving in Heaven as the church, as His Body. Whether this contradicts people's stories of seeing a light and walking toward it as individuals, I don't know, and won't speculate on. But the scriptures do not mention, as some writers have suggested, that we will dissolve as individuals into a collective Bride of Christ. I believe with all my heart that I will inhabit the New Earth as a fully functioning New Redeemed Human; the same me that I am here, only fully regenerated and perfect, never to degenerate and age again. What Ponce de Leon was searching for in Florida, I will have as a free gift from my awesomely loving and holy Savior.

3. Nature will be restored to an absolutely pure state; rain forests, mountains, praries, deserts, rivers and streams, will all be restored. Imagine no pollution and degradation of any kind. Will we be free to exploit it for our own use? I tend to doubt we would even need to, since most of the reasons we exploit natural resources here have to do with food, clothing, and shelter, all of which we will have free of charge from our Lord beforehand. But even if we did exploit it, being regenerated, holy beings, we would do so with the utmost care and reverence, being in the very presence of its Owner, and having such overwhemlming love for that Owner that despoiling or squandering His new creation would not be remotely thinkable, like the way I believe we should think of it HERE and NOW. I can't even concieve of what a nature walk or a hike would be like in the New Earth; you could hike for ten thousand years (which would not add up to much considering we'll be there FOREVER) and still not see it all. And, since our bodies will have supernatural capabilities, I don't see why bodily space travel (at speeds many times that of light, of course, since time and space will be no impediments) wouldn't be possible. Perhaps Mars will actually be a nice place to visit and not a barren place. But now I speculate.

4. We will be like children. Yes, I said children. Now why on earth would that be? Wouldn't we be like bulls in a china shop? Of course it must be noted that when we think of children here on earth, we understandably think of how selfish, undisciplined and careless they are here on earth; in other words, childish. But this is not what comes to my mind at all. What comes to my mind when it comes to Heaven are all of the best and most precious attributes of small children; their insatiable curiosity, their lack of inhibition, their simple worldview, their almost divine ability to trust. We will be like that. Even if we look like adults, and darn good looking ones, we will be like that in our souls and our spirits. In fact, it will be IMPERATIVE that we be like that; remember what Jesus said about needing to be like a child to enter into the kingdom of Heaven. Well, there you go. Made to order. I would not be surprised at all to learn that daily activities, far, far from just worshipping and singing (although there will be lots of that, and it will be FUN and EXITING like much of church here isn't), consist of things like rolling down a hillside, blowing dandelions, skipping rocks, playing duck-duck-goose and London Bridge and tag, having story time (Imagine someone like C.S. Lewis or Joni Earickson-Tada reading to you), and dancing in a circle holding hands and singing children's praise songs. And having ETERNITY to do it. If everything you needed to know you learned in Kindergarten, well, imagine it being in session FOREVER. Perhaps in our Father's house are many Romper Rooms. And the greatest part, of course, is that He will be loving us and being with us the whole time.

OK, I could go on and on for...well...eternity with all the fun and awesome and joyful things we will see and do and be in God's New Earth. But for now we endure this existence with all its pain, loneliness, injustice, and ugliness, all things that sadly characterize being an adult human being here on the first earth. But deep within me stirs this joyous presence; this life of Christ inside me that a dear brother described once as a "spark of eternity". His Life in me creates that Heaven within my soul that stands firm against the fiercest brutality of the Lord of Hell, and is that quiet little Japanese garden of the Spirit that my soul retreats to when troubled. It is in that way that I find Christ to be my "ever present hope"; my lamp, my compass. And the awesome thing for me is that because He lives in me in that way, I have a strong foretaste of that New Earth within me even on this old earth. May we who know Him all find that taste of Heaven, that childlike spirit that is His gift to us, and live by THAT life and that life alone, until such time as it becomes our all-encompassing reality in His New Earth.

Peace,
Tom Sebring

WHO AM I?

2010-01-03T17:52:00.000-08:00

Well, a new year is here, brothers and sisters. And most of us will be making a lot of resolutions, many of those being the same resolutions we made last year, and the year before, and the year before, etc. And, therefore, this year presents yet another opportunity for us to fail, yet again. To many of us the failures have piled so high that the making of resolutions has become just a meaningless ritual, a way of deceiving ourselves into a false sense of power over the things in our lives that hold us in bondage and hold us back from what God wants for us. I'm not necessarily talking about addictions here (although those are certainly a more extreme kind of bondage), but just habits, patterns, and ruts that we are mired in and can't seem to get out of. I myself have my share of them, and have spent year after year trying to overcome them by my own human strength and, of course, failing time after time.

So the question then arises; why does God permit this banging of our heads against the wall to go on and on, year after year? If these things we are stuck in are sin, as they often are, why doesn't God either punish us with horrible calamity, kill us outright, or simply blow the offending bondage out of the way and deliver us instantaneously? Well, for myself I have come to see that it is for one overriding reason; a matter of such immense importance to God that He would permit me to stumble for a length of time to discover it. That reason is; TO DISCOVER WHO I REALLY AM IN HIM, AND WHO HE REALLY IS IN ME.

So, who am I, really? Who am I in Him? And, just as importantly, who am I NOT? These, as I am discovering, are not questions that can easily be answered in a mere sound byte or quick paragraph. For most of us who are saved by His grace and who call ourselves His followers, it takes years and even decades to find the answers to these questions to the extent that we can say we really KNOW with any kind of confidence. After all, these are spiritual questions, with spiritual answers; these kinds of concepts don't usually lend themselves to explanations using mere human language and thought patterns. You either KNOW these truths deep in your SPIRIT, or you don't; yet, even if you don't really grasp them fully, you know in your spirit that the answers exist, and that they will come in time if you patiently seek HIM as the source of the answers. Of course I don't have years to write this blog entry, or enough terabytes of space to explain the answers in the fullness that they probably deserve, so I will try my best to reduce it to something readable and that makes at least rudimentary sense, and that perhaps might at least whet the reader's appetite to seek the Lord further to find out for him/herself, in a way that makes sense to him/her.

To begin with, Paul provides some windows onto these identity questions in several places in his letters to churches. I start with Ephesians chapter 1, which to me is one of the most magnificent passages of the New Testament in terms of showing us our standing with Christ and just what it is we have inherited by being adopted by Him as sons and daughters. Here it is, folks:

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory."

So, to start with, we are adopted by Him as sons and daughters; in fact, we have been predestined to be so. Not only that, but we are HOLY and BLAMELESS before him as sons and daughters. Now, the last sentence would seem to be speaking of something that is for the afterlife...the redemption of us who are His possession...but I believe with all my heart that the title of son and daughter of the Most High is for NOW, as is our holy and blameless standing.

Another tantalizing glimpse into our identity can be found in Galatians 2, in a passage familiar to most Christians, but not really understood:

"For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

So here Paul is speaking not of inheritance and sonship, but of just who it is who runs the show in his inner being. His old nature, that which was ruled by sin, is crucified and dead. That nature no longer lives, but the new nature that is united with Christ lives in its place.

Paul describes the character of that old nature in Romans 7:

"Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death."

and:

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it."

OK, what does all this mean? What Paul is saying is that his old nature acts 180 degrees opposite of what he knows in his spirit man is right. Why? Quite simply, because his old nature, the nature that is INDEPENDENT of God, which rose to its prominence after the Fall, CANNOT obey God in any way, shape or form, because it is controlled by sin (i.e., SATAN). This is why what Paul describes in Galatians HAD to happen; the DEATH and CRUCIFIXION of our old nature. This death and crucifixion took place the moment we were saved (that's what our baptism represented, folks; our DEATH). Yet, in our souls and our minds, this death and crucifixion is an ongoing process that often takes years to come to its full fruition (at least that's my experience; if anyone out there has had that happen faster, kudos to you, but I suspect there aren't many of you).

So, are we left as dead and crucified? Heavens to Betsy, NO! As we read on in Romans 8, we see this:

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit."

and:

"You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you."

So it is that we live not by our former life, but by ANOTHER LIFE. That life is Christ Himself, whose Spirit is united with our spirit indelibly. This is the resurrection part of the equation. We are crucified with Him in sin, and resurrected with Him in righteousness.

This familiar part of 2 Corinthians kind of summarizes it all:

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

I am a new creation; a resurrected version of myself that is united with Christ and does not draw its life from the self, but from HIM. My spirit is in a sort of symbiotic relationship with His spirit (a biological term for a mutually beneficial relationship, for you non-nerds). That's an earthly way of describing a spiritual reality, but it works for me. And another thing; these promises and affirmations are NOT, repeat, NOT just for the afterlife, for the “sweet by and by”; they are for TODAY, for RIGHT NOW. The moment we were saved, this identity became our new reality. For most of us it has just taken a lot of time to come to the reality in our finite and imperfect minds. But it has ALWAYS been true.

So, that's the answer to the question, "who am I", in as much of a nutshell as I can put it. And, quite frankly, I feel like the nut in the shell myself trying to figure this out sometimes. I don't think that it's really for us to figure out, but to LIVE. I think perhaps that if we can just combine these glimpses of truth with that of my last post (just "being" who I am rather than trying to do it), we might just get somewhere. Not that we are trying to arrive at some final place where we really KNOW for all time who we are; but that, perhaps, we might grasp our identity in Christ to enough of an extent that we stop the incessant beating of our heads against the wall trying to achieve by our efforts what He has ALREADY GIVEN US as a free gift the very moment we said yes to Him and no to ourselves as Lord of our lives. Who am I? I am HIS CHILD, HIS HEIR, and a NEW CREATION. What more can we possibly want, apart from being with Him in person in the next life? I can only speak for myself in saying that this revelation (and it really does come from revelation, not reading and hearing sermons) has been the most powerfully liberating gift from God that I have received since actually being saved (and I have heard similar testimonies from other folks that have had this revelation about their true identity in Christ, though they came about it in different ways). I'm not asking anyone to agree with it or even give it any thought on its own merits, but I'm just giving out what He has given me, as I've been trying to do here all along, and granting the reader the freedom to seek it out for themselves; to seek HIM for themselves.

Peace to all,
Tom Sebring

P.S. Some very good insights on this subject of our identity in Christ can be found in the writings of Norman Grubb, Dan Stone, Sylvia Pearce and Jon Eldredge, and in some of the messages of Joyce Meyer, Wayne Monbleau, and Steve Brown.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE

2009-12-12T11:37:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's been a long time since my last post. Well, stuff comes to me when it comes to me, I guess. What I want to talk about is something I felt the Lord impress upon my spirit through His Spirit about a week ago, when I was struggling with some minor decisions that my mind was turning into major ones, as it often does (no, that doesn't ever happen to any of us, does it?). His answer to my dilemmas was startling in its stark brevity and childlike simplicity; BE. Now, what the heck does that mean? I knew what He meant in my spirit, but it probably bears some explanation, since that word all by its lonesome self is so maddeningly simple to our minds. What God was trying to tell me was simply to be who I was; to abide, to rest in who I am in Him. To gain some further insight into this, I decided to blow the dust off of one of my old Shakespeare anthologies and find the place in Hamlet where the Danish prince of the same name ponders the simple dilemma; to be or not to be.

In that very, very famous speech, Hamlet asks, quite frankly, whether it is better to endure life's circumstances and fight them tooth and nail, or to simply give up the ghost and end it all. Shakespeare in his great genius reduces it all down to that one very simple dilemma; TO BE OR NOT TO BE. To continue to exist despite the hardship and bad fortunes of life, or to just throw in the towel. Paul, in Philippians, asked that question directly himself when he pondered the advantages of going home to the Lord vs. remaining on this earth with all its trials and tribulations. Paul was truly torn between the two, having seen his Lord as so infinitely superior to all the things of this earth and all of his learning and experience as a Pharisee of Pharisees. His choice of course was to remain, not for his own sake but for the sakes of those under his care in the churches, and for his Lord, who still had work on earth for him to do. But I would like to address this dilemma in a yet deeper way, and from a different angle; that of our life source. By that I mean simply that life source that we live the Christian life by, the source of our ability to obey the Lord and walk in His ways, and be holy and wholly unto Him. I have come to see and believe in my own pursuit of the Lord for about 25 years that this very question hovers in my spirit and soul every single day, offering me a choice. But for me, it is not so much a matter of "to be" in life itself, in fleshly existence, in my "mortal coil", but to be IN HIM or NOT IN HIM. Now what the heck do I mean by that?

In his letter to the Colossians, Paul speaks of the Mystery, which is what? "Christ in you, the hope of glory". In Romans 8 he speaks of how he no longer lives, but Christ lives in him, and that he is a new creation. In Ephesians he speaks of how we are God's adopted children, no longer strangers and aliens, but citizens. There are countless other examples in the New Testament of how we no longer live by our life but by His life. This is an inscrutable fact; our old nature IS dead, and we DO live by Christ in us.

But, as Shakespeare said, "here's the rub"; all of this is nothing but a cluster of dogmatic statements that we parrot to ourselves and each other unless we LIVE it. And how do we do that? By more self effort? Forget it! That would be a self-contradiction, trying to live by Christ's life in your own efforts. No, we have to KNOW it, not in our heads but in our hearts, souls and spirits, and that kind of knowledge comes one way, and one way only; REVELATION. That revelation may come in one sweeping tempest that blows away all of your preconceptions and ignorance in one fell swoop, or, like with myself, in a chipping and chiseling process that takes years. Often it involves a lot of frustration, failure and downright suffering, to bring us to the place where we cease clinging with desperation to our self-sufficiency and simply SURRENDER our will to His will; our ideas to His ideas, our vision to His vision. As traumatic as all of this is, it is a great blessing in disguise, for it enables us FINALLY to "enter His rest", as Hebrews alludes to. It's when I have come to this place that the meaning of "BE" becomes so very clear; all my blessed Lord really ever requires of me is....to BE! BE who I am in Him. BE who he has created me to be. BE the new creation that He says that I am. When the word "abide" is used in the King James version of the scriptures, it basically means the same thing; to BE, or to live. When it says in 1 John, "and now little children, abide in Him", God is telling us to BE...in Him!

And what about the Ten Commandments? What about all those things Paul, Peter, James and the others tell us a Christian ought to, needs to, has to, do, and not do? These, Paul in Romans and whoever in Hebrews makes clear, are the Law. But what do these two writers say about that? They say that we are DEAD to that law, and that it is now written on our hearts. Therefore, it is Christ IN US that does and avoids these things, NOT US. I find myself walking in obedience (not perfectly, of course) as a natural part of my BEING in Him, NOT as an effort that I undertake independent of Him. DOING comes from BEING. James tells us that faith without works is dead; well, our good works in Him emanate forth from our BEING who we are in Him! Folks, it's really, really that simple. There is no need to constantly belittle each other and ourselves to perform and to serve; these things should come as naturally as breathing when we are living by another life, that life being Christ Himself, our hope of Glory. Do we ever reach perfection? NEVER. Not while we dwell in these tents and live on this earth. But in our stumbling, it is essential that we keep our focus on Him, not as a God that is up there looking down on us with pen and clipboard in hand, but as our Lord living IN US, living His life in place of ours. Hallelujah! May we all come to the place in God where we can live in Him holy and wholly by doing just one thing; BEING.

Peace to all,
Tom Sebring

Affirmation

2009-10-26T22:35:00.000-07:00

OK, I am back from the second of two weekend retreats. The one this past weekend was much more sedate than the Poconos retreat, but the content was much more mind-blowing. I'm not going to write about that one just yet; instead, I feel moved to write about a subject that God has been dealing with me about for a long time, but that seems to have come to a head of sorts in these past two weeks; the topic being affirmation.

Let's face it folks; we as humans need affirmation from one another. Affirmation is defined as being validation or confirmation, or the making of a positive statement. Examples of affirmation of the interpersonal kind can be statements like "I love you", or "you're a sweet guy", or "you're a smart girl", etc. It's always important that we as children receive a generous supply of these kinds of statement from our parents, teachers, and other adults who have charge over us. It is certainly true that you can grossly overdo the affirmation thing with kids and produce offspring with inflated egos who are set up for bitter disappointment and hurt when the world outside does not give that same affirmation. It can be fiercely addictive, as I have discovered in my own life, and I believe that it is that need-become-addiction that is at the root of what we call co-dependency. Nonetheless, it is a very real need that God has created within our souls. When we suffer the lack of it as children, we as adults will go looking for it anywhere we can find it, driven by a desperate need for some kind of validation that we are really good people and that we are really loved and worth loving. We will be driven to look for it in prostitutes, gurus, and lovers that promise us love but that end up instead using us and throwing us into the street, either literally or figuratively, only adding to our grief and despair and further fueling the desperation. The resulting abandonment often leads to suicide or mental breakdown. The fact must be faced; we cannot exist alone, apart from one another. When Paul Simon sang "I am a rock, I am an island", he meant it as a satire aimed at those people who, having been hurt one too many times in love and friendship, decided to go it alone and avoid all that hurt and hassle. But several experiments have been conducted involving test subjects isolated in caves alone for several months; the psychological effects were shocking. Subjects would suffer severe depression after a couple of months and usually have to be brought back to the surface after 3 or 4 months. It is hard to imagine what prisoners subject to months of solitary confinement suffer psychologically, all in the name of "rehabilitation". I have always believed that when God said "it is not good that man should be alone", even though it was in the context of the sexual union, He meant it to apply to all relationships between human beings. Mother Teresa spoke of abandonment as being the worst human condition, worse than poverty or starvation. I believe also that those who do not belong to Jesus through His blood will find themselves subject to an ETERNITY of this very abandonment, separation from God Himself. Whether there are demons and fire in this place or not, I tend to think that the abandonment will be by far the worst of the tortures endured by those who are so accursed.

Affirmation is a need that God has given us; it makes us who we are. But how often we find affirmation in very, very short supply. Not only have some people never had it, they have actually had anti-affirmation in the form of verbal or sexual abuse, severe rejection, or simply unrelenting criticism without corresponding positive reinforcement. God knows that the unredeemed world we live in is none too abundantly supplied with affirmation for us, from our schools, workplaces, and circles of "friends" as well as the media. Even our churches, supposed havens of peace and brotherly love, can be woefully short of it (much to their shame). And even those of us in the best of circumstances in terms of friends and family find severe droughts of affirmation at any given season. This is inevitable. We will always unintentionally fail each other in this way... forgetting birthdays, anniversaries, etc., forgetting kind words, criticizing unnecessarily, neglecting to do or say those simple little things that affirm the other person. We must learn in Christ to forgive ourselves when we are guilty of this omission, and forgive others when they fail to affirm us. It is part of our growth in Him that we learn to affirm one another with more consistency, as His nature replaces our old nature by the work of the Cross.

In these times when we find affirmation from our brothers and sisters unavailable, we must quite simply find in in Christ Himself. Our inability to find that affirmation in Christ often exposes an over-dependence on affirmation from other people that has developed in our church life, or perhaps has always been a part of our old nature. Trust me when I say that this is an area that God really, really has to deal with in the life of a believer. If we are not receiving affirmation of who we are in Christ FROM Christ via His Holy Spirit on a DAILY basis, we are not really walking fully in the Life that God has for ALL of his children. This is not some mind game or new-age mantra (although the sayings of folks like Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra seem on the surface to contain similar truths, there is one ENORMOUS difference; NO CHRIST). This is the Gospel, pure and simple. This is a matter of faith. And what is faith? To put in terms a 4-year-old can understand, it is AGREEING WITH GOD. By this I mean:

Agreeing with God that I am seated in Heavenly places at the His Right Hand (Eph. 2-5-7);

Agreeing with God that I am crucified with Him and am dead to myself but alive in Christ (Gal. 2:20;

Agreeing with God that I am holy and blameless in His sight (Eph. 1:4;

Agreeing with God that He loves me (John 3:16, 1 John 3:1)

Agreeing with God that His plans are only for my best good (Jer. 29:11, Rom. 8:28)

Agreeing with God that my suffering will bring about good, and that it will not endure forever (Psalm 30:5, 1 Peter 1:6, James 1:2-3);

Agreeing with God that the work of the Cross is finished once and for all, and that there is NOTHING left for me to do but believe and walk in it (John 19:30)

And...here is the biggie...agreeing with God that HE IS GOOD (Psalm 103, Psalm 107, Zech. 9:17,

Romans 2:4; also see my July 15 post)

I could go on and on with more, but the point is this; there can be no more powerful affirmation in the universe for a believer in Jesus Christ than to know that all of the above, and more, is true. We are loved by Him, saved by Him, made righteous in Him, strengthened in Him, victorious over the Enemy in Him, on and on. Until we can come to know this affirmation FOR OURSELVES, FROM HIM, we continue to wallow in self pity and self-deprecation, loving the Christ in us but hating the person in whom He lives. The most loving and precious words from our loving brothers and sisters can bring temporary respite, but they CANNOT bring us to the healing and real belief that is needed to soar out of the mire and into His arms; GOD ALONE can, by His Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation, bring us to that place. And then, when we do get affirmation from our most trusted loved ones and fellow saints, we can receive it fully in joy and thankfulness, and, more importantly, PASS IT ON. It must be remembered that there is no real final arrival to be looked for in this process; it is lifelong. And of course, our final affirmation will come when we, standing before His Mercy Seat, are found to be written in the Lamb's Book of Life and sealed with His blood, found therefore to be faultless and blameless, and welcomed into His Kingdom.

May we find our affirmation first in our Lord, then from our brothers and sisters, and be more willing, having received it, to give it out to others than receive more for ourselves. It will come.

Peace in Him,
Tom Sebring

Three days of Heaven Part 2

2009-10-22T16:48:00.000-07:00

This continues the story of my weekend in the Poconos at Wayne Monbleau's Let's Talk About Jesus Fall Retreat; I had left the story at Saturday night, having found a single room available to get some desperately needed sleep to be ready for tomorrow's events and the drive home.

In the morning I woke up early enough to have some time to walk on the premises; though the sky was overcast and gray, there was that kind of subdued pastel atmosphere to the natural surroundings; a kind of sweet melancholy that felt peaceful yet somewhat somber. Some patches of snow still remained on the ground that gave a distinctly un-Octoberlike appearance to the landscape. My spirit was at peace even though my mind was pondering the things I was witnessing, not just in the meetings but in my encounters with other believers; here I was in a large group of Christians for the first time in years, and I was finding it a little awkward to adjust. I had no idea how hungry I was for this kind of fellowship until I got here. But like a starving man at a banquet table, I didn’t quite know where to start. But I trusted my God to lead me in His way and allow me to receive what He had for me here.

I brought my camcorder to the breakfast to get at least some record of the believers that I met here, but I only really half-heartedly made the effort. I wanted to keep on receiving what God was showing me with no distractions such as a camcorder whatsoever. Next time I might make more videos, but this was really, for the most part, not the time or place for it.

The Sunday meeting was yet one more awesome time of worship and praise to God, and words from Wayne pertaining to the Bread and the Water of Life. It ended wonderfully with communion, and then, all too soon, it was all over. Afterwards I met some people I had not met before, including one young African-American sister who just radiated a blinding light of Christ in a way I have never witnessed before, and who spoke encouraging words from the Lord to me, having never met me in her life. There was one more big lunch buffet, in which I met an interesting young sister from Madagascar and a divorced brother whose relationship struggles were somewhat similar to my own. Much good conversation in the Lord followed, and then….it was really over. With my luggage packed already that morning, I wandered the halls of the hotel for a bit and said some last goodbyes, feeling the emotion I had come to know as “post-conference blues” already beginning to set in. The drive back was somber, as I pondered again all the things I had learned there in God, still trying to process it all.

That Sunday evening the blues I spoke of became more intense, probably due to the fact that this was such an intense event spiritually, and that, unlike many conferences and retreats before, I was returning to an empty apartment with just me. I had some wonderful conversations with a couple people in my church Sunday evening which were a help in dispelling these blues. Yet I did know that, somehow, in a way I could not yet fathom, and still cannot, that this gathering of saints had set in motion things of the Lord which were now inevitable and which had waited a long time to come about. God is moving, as He always is. The wilderness might endure for yet some time longer, but the Promised Land is always at its end. I know that this will not be the last time I attend this event; I will, once more with no agendas of my own coming in but an expectation of the love of Jesus Christ, be back.

Three days of Heaven Part 1

2009-10-19T17:28:00.001-07:00

On Sunday evening I got back from what is probably the most amazing gathering of believers in one place that I have ever experienced in my entire walk with the Lord. The gathering I am speaking of was Wayne Monbleau's Let's Talk About Jesus Fall Retreat in the Poconos. Now I have said in the past that this blog is part journal and part essay on the faith as I know it; this particular entry will end up being more of the former. Also, please let it be known that I have learned the hard way over the years never to become attached to one single man or woman who ministers the gospel; Paul repeatedly rebuffed people's attempts to make him into some kind of guru or cult figure, instead pointing them away from himself and towards Jesus Christ. Would that all of the ministers of the gospel out there today would do the same. Nonetheless I have found that Wayne's message, among a precious few others, is a rare jewel of pure gospel focusing solely on the finished work of Jesus Christ and His unconditional love for each and every one of us. Knowing this ahead of time, I signed up for and travelled to this event with intense anticipation of seeing my Lord Jesus in a new and fresh way, which sounds very cliche of course, but which I must say significantly understates what I really did experience. So let me take a break from the usual topical content for this posting and give you all a glimpse into my ventures into new territory in Him for a single weekend. Again, I give no credit to myself or even Wayne and Debbie (which is the way they would want it, believe me) , but to Jesus Christ Himself.

For a long time now I have felt before the Lord that there was an intense need in my life to expand beyond my present borders in terms of church life and get into contact with more believers. The fact that I belong to a tiny house church which is composed of about a dozen people, only half of which on any given Saturday or Sunday actually meet together, due to schedules, distance and health issues. This creates a dilemma for a single brother such as myself. I find that my opportunities for consistent fellowship and relationship with my fellow believers are very far and few between. This is a good thing at times, being that it gives me more opportunities to be alone with the Lord and hear His voice more clearly in my life, as I have discussed in previous postings. But it can become suffocating being without the voices of a multitude of other believers who can give me differing views of the Lord that I might previously have not considered. And also, one thing our group discovered in its journey is that any small house-based group like ours can become very insular and isolated without meaning to; meaning that we had difficulty seeing outside our own matrix of experience with God and difficulty seeing the value and validity of others' experiences with God coming from other church expressions. And this in a group of about 30; how much more so is the hazard of my repeating that mistake in my own walk in a group of only 12. And yet, despite all of this, I know that God has us all EXACTLY where He wants us. I have no intentions whatsoever, and feel no leading whatsoever, to walk away from this tiny but very alive group of saints who are finding the Lord daily in ways we were not able to in our previous years. And yet, I know from many good and honest conversations with my fellow travelers that we all are needing to venture out beyond the tiny borders of our church world, fellowship with the rest of the brotherhood and sisterhood of our Lord and share with them and from them the riches of Christ.

It was in this spirit that I signed up without the slightest hesitation for this Poconos retreat with Loving Grace Ministries, Wayne Monbleau's umbrella organization. I had been listening to brother Wayne on the radio since the late 1980's and found him to be one of the very few voices of sanity and purity on the airwaves when it came to the gospel. I had also visited his website to purchase some tapes and noticed that the Fall retreat was upcoming soon. The day it became available I signed up; that fast. I sensed that the kind of fellowship with a larger group of His people that I was seeking was right here.

My excitement was intense as I travelled up the Turnpike to the Pocono Manor resort complex where the event was being held. With every exit I passed my anticipation grew. Finally I got of at the Pocono exit and followed the signs to the Inn, arriving with a slight rain beginning to fall. I checked into my room like I've done at so many other hotels and then milled about with some confusion looking for the place where one signed in for the event. When I finally found the sign-in table sitting there pretty as a picture was none other that Debbie Monbleau, Wayne's wife and an accomplished singer in her own right. Right away I could feel the warm radiance of Christ emanating from her heart; it was like standing next to a warm fire on a cold day. Next to her was a West Indian woman whose name I forget but who emanated that same sweet spirit. I knew then that this was going to be an extraordinary weekend. I must say that I underestimated just how extraordinary.

In that same room I met a brother named Tom who was there with a lady who I am assuming was his mother or older sister. Right away I could tell he was in terrible mental torment, fighting thoughts that were assaulting his mind relentlessly. His sobs and moans caught Debbie's attention, and immediately she began praying for him and then consoling him with words of comfort from the Lord. I conversed with him myself afterwards, and tried my best to give some words of encouragement myself, but I knew both Debbie and Wayne were more gifted in that area than myself, and that this was why Tom's guardian person had brought him (both Wayne and Debbie would pray for him many more times after that). I conversed with her as well and offered what consolation I could. I realized then that there was no use comparing my gifting with Wayne and Debbie or anyone for that matter, but that that did not absolve me from responsibility for USING WHAT I HAD to minister to a hurting brother in Christ. I had had a schizophrenic roommate for about 3 years and knew well the difficulties of ministering Christ to a tormented mind, so it was not like I had not ever been down that road. I had something to give, and I was going to give it even if it didn't seem very significant. God knew better. Only about three hours at the hotel and already God was beginning the lessons. And the blessings.

The weather had not been great when I came up, with a Nor'easter coming up the coast with a lot of rain and wind, and there was about 4 inches of wet snow on the ground up there. But the gray gloom could not dampen the glowing light coming from that rooms where the dinner and the first meeting were held.

At the first meal I met some good brothers and their wives from the NYC area who talked about their financial dilemmas (one of them was a union worker for the City)and how God was using those dilemmas to press them further into Him (I have been that route myself a couple times). I was also treated to the harmonica of Elder Glen, an African-American brother from the Philly area who played hymns and gospel songs on his harp like I have never heard anyone do. This brother goes to almost every retreat Wayne does, and never fails to add his piece of the picture with a few choice words of exhortation at every meeting (which Wayne always give the brother free reign to do; what church would you ever see that at?) At the evening meeting I was given the heavenly privilege of joining my brothers and sisters in praise and worship to the lovely music of Wayne, his wife Debbie and their longtime friend Lisa, another accomplished player and singer. The trio's harmonies were nothing less than glorious, as were the contributions of several other musicians working with Wayne. The message for the weekend was "Jesus Christ, Living Water and Bread of Life", and he cited the various verses dealing with Jesus as our Bread and as our Living Water, such as the woman at the well, the waters around the temple in Ezekiel, and the waters flowing from the throne in Revelation.

Friday night I did not sleep so well, due to the fact that my dear roommate, though he was a great brother, was also a prolific snorer. But I was determined to not let this dampen my spirits and my mission to meet believers and to take in what God had for me. It was nothing that a cup of coffee and a nap later on could not take care of. At each meal we were strongly encouraged by Wayne to sit with different people every time, and I heartily agreed. Breakfast found me sitting with a delightful trio of sisters in Christ from the Bronx who now lived in Connecticut, but who still retained that heavy Bronx dialect, and partaking of a quite extensive breakfast buffet. It had begun to snow outside, and by the time of the morning meeting it had become a full fledged snowfall. I cannot describe the magical and even holy atmosphere that was created by our Lord by the sight out of the picture windows of that snow falling on the hemlock and maple trees with their colors, while we sang songs of praise to Jesus Christ, the creator of all of this. It was lost on no one; Wayne compared it to the manna from heaven in the Sinai. I myself thought of all the songs singing of being washed as white as the snow and of Christ being purer than the snow. Our speaker this meeting was an African-American pastor named Ken Thompson whose deep sonorous voice reminded me of what Lou Rawls might have sounded like had he taken up preaching. He never screamed like some black preachers do, but nonetheless the power of his words shook the kingdoms of hell with their authority and grace.

Lunch was a huge buffet like breakfast; this time I sat with a gentle older black lady and her sweet daughter, along with an Asian lady and her husband ( I think). Afterwards there was free time for those who wished it, but I wanted to see the sharing service where brothers and sisters gave their testimonies. They were awesome; several with cancer survival stories, one with a rescue from alcoholism, and one involving a fall which should have killed the person but which instead testified to his doctors and relatives that God was real. Amen, I said.

I made a move at that time which I prayed about and felt a peace about God doing; I had my room switched to a single. God provided; one was still available. I believe that I did this for the sake of my roommate as well as myself, since we both were apnea sufferers and snorers as a result, and I did not want to put him through what I went through last night. On past church camping trips my reputation preceded me and I was always given single rooms or tents as a result of that reputation. Thought I certainly liked having a room or tent to myself, I always thought of it being more for the other person than myself. God is merciful and willing to provide for others as well as us when our hearts are in the right place. Another lesson.

I slept through the baptism service they had later, since I really needed the sleep, but was sorry to have missed it, since two of the recipients were kids. It warmed my heart knowing that God was looking out for the little ones there as well as us grownups. When I go to next year's I certainly will make it a point not to miss that.

At the Saturday dinner I had the delight of eating at the same table with Wayne and Debbie, along with Debbie's parents and two other family members. Wayne talked about how he met Debbie when he hired her on as a worship team replacement when the group Malachi was unable to perform (I remember Malachi; they were friends of mine; the piano player, Barb Yeoman, graduated from Eastern University one year before me; small world). The rest was history...or His Story, I should say. Again, Debbie impressed me so much with her gentle and loving spirit...and the fact that she and Wayne would take time to share their lives with little old me; I can't see most big megachurch leaders ever doing that. The realness and the loving hearts of Wayne and Debbie made a deep and abiding impression on my heart and soul that weekend...not because either of them were anything that special in themselves, but that Christ was so visible and accessible in them.

The Saturday service was wonderful...again Wayne spoke on the Living Bread and the Living Water that was Jesus Christ. There was more wonderful music, and we were introduced to a precious young couple, Ben and Jessica, who called themselves Constant Course when they had a band behind them. I always love to hear young people singing to the Lord and ministering unto Him as they have been gifted. They have so much of their lives in God ahead of them; awesome to think about the things God can do through them and the people they can touch with His love and grace. Afterwards it was nice to be able to go to a single room to get some good sleep, and know that Benito was going to get good sleep as well, but I still felt a little something missing in the company of a brother in the Lord. No blessing of God it seems is ever completely perfect; most of them seem to involve some kind of trade-off where we must weigh the options and discern in the spirit what the best one is in God's view. We cannot always have all the things we want or even need all at the same time; oftentimes our Lord dispenses them in increments. But in the end He is our shepherd, and we shall not want.
More to come.....

Remembering and Forgetting

2009-09-27T18:05:00.000-07:00

"Memories
Light the corners of my mind
Misty water color memories
Of the way we were"
Barbra Streisand

OK, it's been over a month since my last entry; I am realizing these days how demanding it is to keep up a blog; but I feel before the Lord that it is important to do so. There are several reasons for this; writing for me is my way of conveying God's thoughts and lessons to me out to the rest of humanity and Christendom, which, when you look at it, is no small responsibility. I don't make myself out to be some wise sage or prophet; I shun that kind of label entirely, actually. I am just an ordinary person gifted to write by an extraordinary Lord who uses whom He will to convey what He will, one way or another. I am supremely privileged but also humbled to be given this gift to share with my brothers and sisters. I only pray that my writings will continue to bring glory and honor to my Lord, and only to Him, and bring encouragement and healing whenever possible to my brothers and sisters as well. I think that the fact that an entire month has passed kind of proves that writing is not the walk in the park many might think it is, writing for the Lord even more so. I strive to make my thoughts as clear and concise as possible, and choose words painstakingly carefully, not to impress my readers with my eloquence but to be sure beyond any doubt that the thoughts He has given me are communicated in such a way that His power, grace, sufficiency, etc. are expressed fully without reserve in the way that He has uniquely gifted me to do so. To me, anything less would be like a painter cutting corners and doing a sloppy job, or an accountant fudging numbers. Using our giftings to the absolute best of our abilities as He has given them to us glorifies Him, nothing less.

OK, I guess it's time to get to the point of this entry; remembering and forgetting. Today I had a wonderful meeting in my apartment living room with myself and four other saints, which many days is about all the people from my tiny church of about a dozen we can manage to get together on any given Saturday or Sunday, due to the schedule complications all of us have. The story of how we got this small is much, much too long to tell in this, or any, entry. But let it be said that I am in the process of coming to terms and being at peace with this state of affairs in the tiny body of believers I am knitted to. After singing to the Lord, one of our main topics of sharing with one another (we usually read a couple chapters from a book or Scripture, but the Spirit led us to simply share with one another today) was our past as a body. I guess our main purpose outwardly was to bring a new brother who has just recently joined us up to speed with our long and tumultuous history; however, it became a discussion of some of the lessons we learned through the many phases we went through in the past 20 years or so, and how God has seen us through the good and bad times. Our little group has had many, many such sharings regarding remembrances of thing past over the past couple of years, and I have had many long talks over the phone with brothers and sisters about our past as well. 25 years in church life, with 17 of those years being in house church life, is not something that you can just walk away from or blot out, nor should you ever try. It is impossible to convey in mere words how precious and beautiful many of those times were for me and for all of us who were reminiscing today about them. It was through all of those times, both sweet and bitter, watching couples have kids and the kids grow up, watching old friends move away, watching one brother succumb to cancer, witnessing every kind of trouble from mental illness, to marital abuse, to substance abuse, that we as a church had bonds forged in God between us that are as unbreakable as steel cables, and that are still as strong as ever, if not stronger. Remembering not only helps us as believers, in both tiny churches and huge ones, bring new arrivals up to speed and give them understanding of who were are individually and corporately, but helps to remind us of how awesomely faithful our God has been to us to sustain us and keep us over all those years. Individually these stories of His goodness have power to inspire; corporately, they have power to shake mountains. Indeed, two of the most powerful rituals in the Judeo-Christian tradition have their roots in remembering, and both just happen to be inextricably intertwined with one another; the Passover Seder and the Lord's Supper. Throughout the Old Testament are many instances where the Lord commands the construction of altars at various locations, and the naming of those locations, as a way to cement the memory of His workings in that place forever in the collective conscience of His people.

Nonetheless, there are several terrible down sides to remembering that must be communicated to present a balanced picture of reality in God and keep our minds, and spirits focused properly. The first of these down sides involves what I spoke about in my entry "Dreams, Schemes and Time Machines", where we engage in the hideously unhealthy practice of comparing and contrasting. When we use remembering in this hazardous way, we simply are saying to ourselves, to each other, and indeed, to God Himself, "Things were great then; they suck now. I loved my life then; I hate it now. I was somebody then; I'm a loser now. I was loved then; nobody cares whether I live or die now". What we are really saying, whether we realize it or not, is "God, you were faithful then, but I don't trust you now. God, you were good then, but you are bad now. God, you loved me then, but you don't love me any more." What terrible things to say to God! Yet it is what we convey to Him, and to each other, and to the world, when we engage in such negative remembering. These thoughts are pure, unadulterated LIES from the mouth of the Prince of Darkness himself! Did he not tell Eve that God was holding out on her, that if she ate that fruit that she could gain what God was refusing to give her? Is not his most powerful, deadly and destructive lie that we are unloved and uncared for? Is not his lie that others are more loved and more blessed than us what led Cain to murder Abel, and what was at the root of the prodigal's elder brother's bitterness? How many who have taken the bullet to their head, the razor to their wrist, the noose to their neck, the step off the ledge, or the poison to their mouth been led to this awful and unspeakably tragic end by these very lies embraced, believed and ensnared by?
Folks, this is ugly imagery, but the logical end to this train of thought when allowed to run free is nothing less than what I have described.

Negative remembering can also lead to anger and thoughts of vengeance when we remember wrongs done to us. Organizations like the Mafia, the Crips or Al Qaeda have as their linchpin principals the remembrance of wrongs, and vengeance unto death as the only feasible remedy for those wrongs. Trouble is, when you have two organizations that believe the same principals at each other's throats, the slaughter is endless, as it is with rival Mafia families, the Crips and Bloods, or rival Muslim factions. God told Moses, "vengeance is mine, I will repay" (Deut. 31:35); Paul reiterated this in Romans 12:19. God has a very, very long memory; how easily He could use that against every one of us when we stand before Him in the judgment. However, because of the sacrifice of Christ, all of those wrongs we have done are blotted out, as far as the east is from the west. I think it almost goes without saying that this is the way of Christ when it comes to our dealings with our fellow human beings; to blot out remembrances of wrongs in our own lives. Easier said than done, of course; forgiveness is so often a long and arduous process that God needs to guide us through day by day, and could be the topic of an entirely separate posting. And of course it must be doubly reiterated that it is just as important, if not more, to forgive OURSELVES as it is to forgive others, and just as hard, if not more so. But our Lord is strong in us for both!

The other hazard to remembering, besides bitterness and despondency, is the almost irresistible temptation to re-ignite old fires and revisit old places, in order to recapture the good times and the thrills of those emotions. Nowhere is this more common, and more dangerous, than in the attempt to re-ignite an old love relationship. I of course now know this from very personal experience! There are the rare occasions where this can actually have a happy and holy ending, such as the re-uniting of lost siblings, or of high school sweethearts who have lost contact and found each other again, both available. But too often it leads to relationships that are not healthy or not godly, and ends up re-opening old wounds that were not quite healed. And, in the case of churches, it can lead to attempts to recapture a mode of fellowship or gathering that has long ago passed into the twilight and had its season; a particular avenue of pursuing the Lord that lost its life long ago because the cloud of the Lord moved on, as it did in the Sinai long ago.

And so it would seem that remembering is something that we need to have a strong and constant relationship with our Lord to be able to engage in with a healthy and holy perspective. This is expressed quite nicely I think in two ways; in the aforementioned Streisand song, in this passage:

“Memories
May be beautiful and yet
What’s too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget
So it’s the laughter
We will remember
Whenever we remember
The way we were.”
It is also expressed even better in this passage from Philippians:

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

As important as remembering is in our walk with the Lord, it is equally important to forget. What is it then that we should be forgetting? Well, for one, our past sins and our life before being saved. Not that there are not often good and even holy memories we can treasure from our pre-saved days; they serve to remind us that God was loving us and caring for us even when we rejected and ignored Him. But dwelling on our past life before our salvation is often unhealthy and, needless to say, can lead us back to places we should not go if we become careless. But an even more important reason to forget what is past and press on to what is ahead is quite simply this; the past is dead, it is the past. It can be remembered, but it can never be relived. Nor would we ever want to do so if we really have faith in the goodness of our Lord, and know that our real home lies beyond this mortal coil. Dwelling on the past will lead us either to the suicidal despondency I described earlier if we see our best days as being behind us, or the treadmill of bondage that involves trying to recapture what is dead and gone. Forgetting is a holy exercise when it is for the purpose of moving forward towards our Lord and His Kingdom. Sometimes suffering comes when, in seeming contradiction to the aforementioned Streisand passage, we find we must forget even what was good and pleasant when we find it dragging us backwards and impeding our journey towards Him, and we can not yet see the better things He has for us ahead; this is a wilderness, a three days in the ground, a dark night of the soul that we must all endure at some time or other. We are left with no light behind, and no light ahead, for a short season. This is so hard! But this one verse, among several others, kept me in a time of just this kind back in May:
“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psalm 30)

So saints, let us remember with God’s eyes, the times of His blessing and His teaching, and even the hard times, with an attitude of thanksgiving, humility and faith, knowing that, as I have said and will keep saying till I pass on to the other life, that OUR LORD IS GOOD. His Mercy endures forever! And let us forget that which holds us back and torments our soul, and move only forward in Him, not just towards the afterlife, but the good things He has for us NOW! HE IS GOOD!

Peace be with you,
Tom Sebring

Beauty

2009-08-21T20:06:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm back folks. It's been hard getting any thoughts in the Lord together in any coherent way in the past couple weeks; I have tried to make this a time of a little more taking in from God that putting out. He is of course faithful to the seeking heart at all times. Even when He is silent He is being faithful, for His silence is just what we need at that time, to increase our faith in Him and His ultimate goodness (remember His goodness?) My latest reading has been a book called "The Sacred R0mance" by John Eldredge. This book has been as uplifting and shattering to me as "The Shack" was back in early July, if not more. I don't entirely agree with every part of it, but the one part that struck me like a lightning bolt was where he spoke of two essential aspects of the Christian walk, and indeed of God Himself, that affect our souls to an unparalleled degree; Beauty and Affliction. This unlikely pairing has gotten me thinking, meditating, and praying to a greater degree than I have in a long time about any other aspect of God, save perhaps His goodness. And so I feel the need to talk about Beauty, that aspect of God and all things associated with Him that perhaps draws, grieves and frightens us more than any other.

So, first of all, we probably are wondering in our finite minds, why would we be grieved and/or frightened by Beauty, specifically God's Beauty? Isn't beauty something that calms and eases our souls and minds, and brings joy to our lives? Well, most certainly it is. What person does not find great peace and tranquility in his deepest parts when walking in God's creation, such as a forest, a desert, a beach or a mountaintop? What person does not enjoy entering into healthy romance with a beautiful/handsome person of the opposite gender, and all the joys of the senses and spirit that it entails? What person does not enjoy gazing upon a beautiful painting or sculpture, listening to truly beautiful music or a beautiful singing voice, or reading beautiful words? Indeed, we are created to crave beauty more than any other aspect of life. It is our deepest desire, from the deepest parts of our being, to seek beauty, sometimes with fierce abandon. And folks, let's face it; He made us that way. He made us with a fierce desire for beauty in our lives, for our senses and our souls. And I believe with every fiber of my being that the reason He created us with that fiery desire for beauty is that it could drive us with that strong purpose to seek HIM. He is the very central definition of Beauty; Jesus Christ defines the word beauty. Apart from Him the concept is null and void!

And so, one of the central theses of Eldredge's book that I give only the strongest amen to, is that when we see or experience something of extraordinary beauty in our lives, be it a natural phenomenon, a person, or a work of art, it stirs something almost painfully passionate within us, I mean deep, deep within us. That desire is what Eldredge calls the Sacred Romance; the desire for beauty that won't let us go, that at times torments us. Folks, quite simply, that desire is for Jesus Christ. When we stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon, or look into a lover's eyes, or hear an awesome symphony, we are overjoyed on one level, and crying out for much, much more on another. It is in these moments, when we are finally experiencing something we may have possibly dreamt about all of our lives, something extraordinarily beautiful and of God, that we realize that though it brings us such joy, and rightfully so (for remember He is good and will not withhold any good thing from us), it does not satisfy that burning to the degree that we, in our own human romantic fantasies, envisioned it doing. And, quite frankly, if we really know our God and our Lord, that should be of no surprise to us whatsoever. And here is the reason, pure and simple: ONLY HE, AND HE ALONE, CAN SATISTY THAT BURNING FOR BEAUTY AND LOVE WITHIN OUR DEEPEST PARTS. No artwork, no person, no nature scene, can come even close. And therein lies our dilemma, saints.

It is in this that another of Eldredge's theses comes into play; that we will never, ever be fully satisfied on this fallen, broken planet with anything that it has to offer, even when it is granted by God Himself! And it is here that Beauty becomes almost an enemy to us, in that it torments us with something we can never, ever have in this earthly life. Perfect Beauty. It will elude us all of our lives here on this planet. Because it resides only in our Lord. This is how it torments us, and, quite frankly, how Satan can use it against us; by promising what it can never deliver. No love relationship, no fantastic trip to any fantastic place, no heavenly choir piece, can deliver on the promise that God alone owns.

But here is where I part ways with Eldredge, and perhaps I am guilty of misinterpreting what he is putting across: His last chapter on Hope (a future subject for this blog I'm sure) seems to leave us with the dilemma that ONLY in the afterlife can we EVER have any satisfaction whatsoever, of ANY kind, and that it is our lot as believers to live stripped of our desires for what he calls "Lesser Lovers" (the things of this planet and our own souls), but unable to fill that void with God due to our earthy limitations; in a kind of empty, vacuous limbo that only Heaven will fulfill. To that, if that is what he is truly saying (and it might not be), I must say NONSENSE (my more visceral reaction can't be repeated here, but it means the same thing). As I stated two posts ago, I stake my very life on the Goodness of God, and HE HAS NOT DISAPPOINTED ME. Not in the Afterlife, not in the Sweet By And By, BUT RIGHT HERE AND NOW. In Colossians Chapter 1 Paul speaks of an extraordinary Mystery, a Mystery that was hidden from men and angels for millennia but revealed at last to the followers of Christ. That mystery was this: CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY. I don't know about you, but to me that says this; I HAVE JESUS CHRIST LIVING WITHIN ME NOW; NOT IN THE FUTURE, NOT IN THE AFTERLIFE, BUT HERE AND NOW. And so, even though it is absolutely true that I am vexed by the cares of this world and my own wounds (Eldredge calls them "Arrows"), yet at the same time I have Christ FULLY within me, making me complete in him. The supreme and indescribable Beauty that is Christ, and only Christ, lives within ME! This puts us into a very peculiar state of being emotionally and spiritually; what a dear brother of mine from past years once called a "Dissatisfied Satisfaction". We are not quite sure how to feel about experiences of God's love and beauty sometimes; on the one hand we are full of joy and peace and satisfaction; on the other, we can still feel this small gnawing lack within us. That spouse, those children, that awesome mountaintop view, that incredible song, have failed to deliver on their promise to our hearts to fully satisfy. At first we are vexed and troubled by this, and, if we are naive and unwise, we might be tempted to look elsewhere for a better place, person or artwork. Surely that "perfect" one must be just around the corner. But if we are seasoned in the Lord and have gained His wisdom about such things through good and bad experiences, we can just laugh it off pretty much and realize that the complete satisfaction our souls longed for was not meant to be met by ANY things of this planet, even those given by God Himself, but only by HIM. We can therefore learn to be at peace with that dissatisfaction, while not, I repeat, NOT, settling for emptiness and meaninglessness, but enjoying the Life he fully intends for us here and now. He is indeed enough!

So how is beauty grieving? Certainly for the reasons above; that we can't fully find it on this earth and that we must make do with the abundance God has for us here for the time being (which to me is not too shabby). It is when we experience that beauty and then must lose it, which we are all called by God to do at some point in our lives, that the searing agony of Beauty becomes a reality to us. And what a reality; The loss, departure or betrayal of a loved one, the loss of a precious heirloom, the loss of our own youth and physical beauty, the loss of anything that once brought beauty to our lives, wounds us deeply every time. The more beautiful the lost thing or person, the more exquisite is the agony of the loss. We can pretend to be very sanctimonious about it; "oh, that thing didn't mean that much to me; that person wasn't the right one for me anyway..." but who are we kidding? It hurts! And furthermore, God made us so those things hurt! In our suffering we fellowship with His; He certainly lost a lot of the beauty of His life in coming down to this planet, suffering the rejection that He did, and dying the hideous way that He did. And He kept loving, even when He was hated, so when we suffer that most painful of losses of something beautiful, that of a relationship, we suffer with Him in a very intimate way.

It is a part of our self nature, it would seem, to want to possess for ourselves anything beautiful that we see or experience. When we see a beautiful nature scene, we must go there, or we must live there, or we must buy a house there, or we must own that property. When we hear a beautiful musical piece, what do we do but head to the Tower Records or log onto Napster or ITunes to snatch it up ASAP. When we read a beautiful book passage, we head to the Borders or Amazon.com to do the same. And...when we see a beautiful woman or handsome man...we want them for ourselves...that perhaps being the most poisonous part of it. Wanting to possess another person like property has led to more hideous suffering, misery and even murder in relationships of every kind, but particularly in marriages and romances. Little wonder that God put covetousness right up there with theft, murder and idolatry on those two tablets of stone. I believe all of this began in the Garden, when, after eating that awful fruit, our disobedient ancestors became dissatisfied with simply allowing God to shower us with His beauty and enjoy that beauty that He surrounded us with in the natural, including that of each other, and desired to have it all to themselves, that being part and parcel of "being like God". And so, as I mentioned in my last post about comparing and contrasting, we get what we want, and it ends up being a set of shackles rather than a gift of great beauty. People, we possess something within us even angels in the heavenlies do not, and never will, possess; JESUS CHRIST WITHIN US. When I really get my arms around that gift that God has freely given me, why in the world would I want to possess earthly beauty for myself, when I have that awesome beauty dwelling within me? Why not just enjoy the beautiful things of life, like scenery, people and art, as He sees fit to bless me with (remember HE IS GOOD), and share them with others, rather than try to grab it all for myself? Again, He is really, really enough! We will always grieve the loss of something beautiful, but He will always fill that void with Himself if we just let go of that lost thing or person and let him come in.

So now, how is beauty frightening? Well, in my experience it is mainly in this way; it is terrifying, especially His Holy Beauty, in that it exposes our human ugliness. When we "behold the beauty of the Lord" (Psalm 27) in its blindingly spectacular splendor, we really look kind of shabby and disheveled at best in comparison. To me it's kind of like comparing Sleeping Beauty with a female warthog, or a Michelangelo with a Robert Mapplethorpe, or Debussy with the Dead Kennedys. We tend to react like Isaiah, who said "woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips", or like John on Patmos, who fell like a dead man at the sight of the glorified Christ, or like the shepherds on the night of Christ's birth. And rightfully so I suppose, for He is indeed a Holy and righteous God, the same One that Moses could not look at full on. Yet whenever people trembled in fear at His beauty, He always seemed to follow with "do not be afraid", showing His merciful side to assuage our fear. It is not His desire to frighten us with His beauty, but to awaken us out of complacency, and then to tenderly draw us to Him, as the sons and daughters that we are in Him thanks to the blood of Christ. God has no reservations about showing us our human weakness and the true ugliness of our self nature at times, but for me at least, He has always followed that up with showing His mercy and His goodness and His love, blotting out the ugliness. Sometimes, however, we are so mired in our own ugliness, either an addiction or a deep wound that won't heal, that we are not only terrified by His beauty, but by any beauty; in its presence we feel like Isaiah or John, exposed and ugly to the core. We cringe at the sight of a beautiful woman, or work of art, or a scene of nature, rather than let it show us Him, because we can't bear the sight of either. To this dilemma I can only say that a deep work of healing is needed; to some degree I believe that is true with all of us. We need God to remove those "arrows" and deliver us from those bondages that we are powerless to free ourselves from. He is faithful do this! I have heard more stories of God freeing His people from fear and self-hate than I can possibly count. We are indeed healed by His stripes. God has removed many such arrows from my own flesh. And so it is that we experience the pure and blindingly splendid beauty of our Lord, both terrifying and joyful, either directly through revelation, or indirectly through such wondrous images and shadows of Himself such as marriage, childbirth, friendship, creation, music, art and even food. Certainly we long for the substance of those shadows, and we have it, in that He lives in us, albeit through a glass darkly. But I myself am at peace about that; the shadows will have to do in many cases until I obtain the promised Resurrection. He is Good, He is Love, He is Beautiful!
Peace be with you,

Tom Sebring

Dreams, Schemes and Time Machines

2009-07-30T20:38:00.000-07:00

"Sunrise, sunset, sunrise sunset,
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears"
Fiddler on the Roof

Last weekend I was at the 25th anniversary bash of a very old Christian friend of mine and his wife. It was actually a surprise party put on by his daughter, who seems to have missed her calling as an event planner. It was an awesome affair, in the back yard of a nice house in a wealthy section of Philly. Some old friends I had not seen in many years showed up; a couple of people I remember as kids that were now teens and older. It's always kind of a shock to y0ur system to see how much time has gone by when you see people you have not seen in a long time. One reaction is inevitable, especially at my age, no matter how you try to avoid it, deny it, or think past it; feeling old. We look at the younger folks and we miss our own youth and wonder where our get up and go has got up and went to, as the old saying goes. We also fall prey to another trap as well, one that also tends to creep into our minds at reunions, weddings, funerals, anywhere that old friends long separated gather; comparing and contrasting.

OK, OK, this sounds like just more whining, doesn't it? But admit it to yourself, you do this too! At every gathering of old friends you compare your life, your marriage, your kids, your house, your car, your job....to someone else's. Why in the name of God do we do this? It sucks! To me, envy is one of the lowest feelings on earth; I feel like slime when I am in its grip. I can't feel the joy that I want to feel for someone else's good fortune. We are told to "rejoice with those who rejoice", but envy makes that impossible. I am not saying I was consumed with it at this affair, but I found myself nonetheless pulled into the vortex of compare and contrast at certain moments. Why do I still live in an apartment in a marginal neighborhood when these people (the hosts) have a nice big house in a wonderful neighborhood? Why am I still single (that may be a whole separate posting at some future date)? To sum it up, where the h*** is my life going? Now, this sounds like a really bad attitude, doesn't it? Well, it is. But it's our human nature, folks. It's our fallen man. It's how we react when we see how others are blessed and we perhaps are not. But there are some really important things to consider here that we can't always see when we're too busy comparing and contrasting.

For instance, how do we REALLY know how blessed someone else is? We are really good at putting up fronts and hiding our pain from each other (yes, even us Christians, heaven forbid!). It's not that we should always wear our hearts on our sleeves all the time, but a lot of us in Christ spend too much time in protective clothing that ends up being a straightjacket that robs us of our freedom to feel and be real. Not only that, but it robs our brothers and sisters of the priceless opportunity to be comforted by us in our own sufferings as they go through theirs. Transparency needs to be part of our lives in the Lord, without "casting our pearls before swine", i.e., pouring our hearts out to those who are not trusted brothers or sisters, or family. And so, because of that protective clothing, we really can't know by the smiles and hello's and handshakes and kisses what deep suffering someone is really going through. And it's often not our business, but God's, of course. Still, I often think if only we could, with wisdom and discernment, lower the deflector shields just once in a while with one another, so much healing in the Body of Christ could be occurring that isn't. We might be really surprised at how many other folks are going through what we are, and can help us, and we them.

Also, when we compare and contrast, we are failing to be thankful for what we do have, especially what we have in Christ. OK, that's little consolation when you are in deep suffering and everyone else seems to have it great. But trust me, people; at some time, some where, those other folks have paid their dues, or are going to. "In this life you will have tribulation", Jesus said. Now it just happens to be our turn. But I have never gone through any rough waters in my life where there wasn't someone somewhere who had not gone through the same, or greater, and, in doing so, offered themselves up to God and to me as a healer, a physician for my spirit, a therapist for my soul. And I don't need to remind anyone that there are always those who have it much, much worse than us, in ways we can't even imagine. Just a look at some footage from Darfur can bring that home in a hurry. And also, another thing; we often find that some of those things we longed for in our youth turned out to be either staggeringly anti-climactic in their satisfaction to us, or downright poison. And so we can be thankful for some things God did not allow us to have as well, can't we? The concept of counting our blessings seems so trite and old fashioned to us sometimes, like some starched-white schoolmarm church-lady Sunday school lesson. But I have found the exercise of counting my blessings to be an incredibly powerful portal of healing for my darkest moments; a conduit into the positive energy of Christ and His divine love.

In the final picture, it all comes down to what I was driving at with all the force I possibly could in my last post; THE GOODNESS OF GOD, and whether we really believe in our deepest parts that He is good, and that He works all things out for our good. If we do, then passing envy and jealousy of someone else's achievements and relationships, and regrets and laments for our own failures (usually imagined), anonymity and loneliness can be just that; passing. We will always have those little moments at weddings, reunions, and similar gatherings; we might as well own up to that fact and be honest with ourselves and God. Yet, they need not violently seize us and grip us in a never-ending downward spiral of bitterness, loneliness and shame, as we may fear will happen sometimes. His perfect love can cast that fear out if we will allow it to. I can say with confidence that, though I found those feelings last weekend disturbing, my God was greater, and I'm OK, and I wish those two many more good years. May the passage of time in our lives mellow us like fine whiskey, not sour us like milk left out. He is Lord of it all.

Peace be with you,
Tom Sebring

The Goodness of God

2009-07-15T19:04:00.000-07:00

"God is so good
God is so good
God is so good, He's so good to me"
Veggie Tales

There are two things that I have been running into lately in the messages I have been hearing and the literature I have been reading, over and over again. One is healing from affliction. I think perhaps that I have done that subject as a central point enough justice for the time being, at least pertaining to how it is working in my own life, though it always seems to weave its way into all of life in subtle ways nonetheless. The other is God's goodness.

This July 4 weekend I have had the uplifting and wrenching experience of reading The Shack, the literary sensation that is literally shaking both the Christian and secular world's concepts of God, grief, and how the two are intertwined in ways we still are often at a loss to explain. The book has certainly generated a lot of heated controversy with its sometimes unorthodox portrayals of the Godhead and a few statements here and there. But I personally think, in just my own imperfect opinion, that a lot of these theologian-critics are blowing a lot of hot air and completely missing the point by light-years. This book is not theology, apologetics or eschatology, people. This book instead has one awesomely, incredibly, enormously powerful theme to it that is what draws people, saved and unsaved, to it; THE GOODNESS OF GOD. Specifically, the goodness of God right in the very center of the most hideously, agonizingly awful circumstances a man can find himself in. Folks, this is the same goodness, kindness and love of God that drew men, women and children to CHRIST HIMSELF when he walked this earth, and that still draws us today. His goodness is something that seems glossed over in our hurried pursuit of "spiritual maturity" so many times. But God has ways of grinding that pursuit to a halt and focusing us back on that goodness, in His own loving way, as I have lately found.

I must say that in the past several months I have come to a greater appreciation of His goodness than I have in my entire Christian walk. I have come to see, gradually, as if emerging from a cloud, that His goodness is so astronomically enormous that it can overcome the fiercest evil and the deepest sadness that the Enemy and the world can muster.But it's how God in His goodness overcomes those things that baffles us so many times. One phrase from Zechariah sums it up fairly well: "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty". In my own life, particularly recently, it has never been by violence of either the physical or the emotional kind, nor by the assertion of my rightness in a matter or my justification in feeling a certain way, that has brought me respite from dark pain, but His Spirit flooding me with His goodness and dispelling any thoughts of getting even or feeling self-vindicated. When we are washed over with the goodness of God we no longer need to seek revenge or get someone back for an injury, nor dwell on unkind thoughts towards another or pitying thoughts for ourselves. Our self-will and self-seeking dissolve into the glory of His presence, and the cross of the moment becomes, while still painful, not as agonizing as it was when we struggled against it.

Now, when many believers hear talk about the goodness of God, they may give a great ho-hum and say "yeah, that's just baby Christianity. We need to talk more about the Cross, and about prayer, and about the church, and about evangelism", etc .etc. I must admit that was my reaction some time ago. But allow me to give the strongest possible refutation of that point of view. People, when you are as I was about 5 weeks ago, in the darkest cave you can imagine, in the most exquisite emotional pain possible, feeling like you have been speared multiple times, like the night will never end, NONE of the teachings about the Cross, prayer, evangelism, church, healing, etc. are of even the most remote value to you. One thing, and one thing only, will hold your shattered heart together; the knowledge, not head knowledge but INNER knowledge, that your Lord is good. That His goodness is greater than your pain, than your sin, than your ignorance, than your weakness. During three times in my life in particular I came to know this fact EXPERIENTIALLY: the first breakup with my ex-fiancee in 1996, my ten days of agony in the hospital in 2005, and the second breakup just this past May. It is in times like this that is is ESSENTIAL that we know that our Lord is good, and, knowing so, cling, by our fingernails if necessary, to that deep knowing in our spirit man of His goodness. And then when, like I did, we go home from the hospital and recuperate, or gradually get over that relationship, when we get to the other side of the valley, we look back and see with an incredible crystalline clarity the enormously powerful and blindingly glorious goodness of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Most of us know the verses speaking of His goodness:

"Taste and see that the Lord is good"
"For I know the plans I have for you; plans to prosper you and not to harm you"
"The Lord is good; His mercy endures forever"
For God causes all things to work together for the good"...
"I am the Good Shepherd"

But how many of us really, really BELIEVE it? I mean, believe it so deeply that nothing life throws at you can shake that belief and that faith? Folks, this is anything but "baby Christianity". This is the very cornerstone of our relationship with our Father. If we cannot believe that He is good, then everything else we might believe or know about Him collapses. All our brilliant theology, our "adult" understanding of prayer, church, the bible, etc. is just dust without the firm foundation of an unshakeable faith in His love and His goodness. It is His goodness that drove Him to love us so much that He went to a bloody cross for us, when we were completely unworthy of such love. His love and His goodness are absolutely inseparable. If you ask any battle-scarred veteran of the faith, like a Paul or a Watchman Nee or a Billy Graham, just how important the goodness of God is to their walk and where they are in God, I am sure that they would tell you it was their very lifeline to the Lord; the one promise that they could bank on with all that they were and had. So much for baby Christianity. I can say, having finally had some of the doubt about this matter removed from my own heart and spirit, what a real jump-up-and-down Hallelujah moment it is to be able to "taste and see that the Lord is good". Not just by hearing about it, reading about it, learning about it, but LIVING IT. And so, when we are back on the mountaintop, out of the darkness into the Light again, we see it and enjoy it and celebrate it all the more, because we see....His goodness. Like Paul, after a while, we can see it in ANY circumstance, wonderful or awful. It becomes a constant; a given; a part of who we are in Him. And, best of all, it becomes part of what we pour out to others when we speak of our Lord to a hurting world and our hurting brothers and sisters. It becomes part of our expression of Him, and, therefore, a truer and more authentic expression. His goodness becomes our joy becomes others' joy, and back again to Him, in the endless cycle of holy, living water flowing from Him to us and back. May we KNOW His goodness in our deepest inner being and shed it abroad.

Peace in Him,
Tom Sebring

Solitude - the Flip Side

2009-07-09T19:41:00.000-07:00

I have written a post about solitude, how it is a blessed opportunity to find God in a way that is impossible when surrounded by friends, loved ones and coworkers, and surrounded by the frenetic activity of 21st Century American life. I would even go so far as to say that it is essential to have a healthy dose of it in our walk with God, if we are to really hear His voice clearly, and eat and drink of Him in such a way that we have something real of Him to share with our fellow humans rather than regurgitated opinions of others, or old stale manna. He is new every morning, and the renewing of our minds that Paul speaks of often comes in that blessed solitude.

That being said, let me say from very bitter experience that there is a dark and unhealthy side to solitude that lurks in the shadows of the life of every believer. That dark side often comes when we impose the solitude upon ourselves rather than allow God to gently guide us there. And, as with anything we try to seize out of God's hands and make our own, we impose it upon ourselves in great excess of what God intends for us. And when it is out of God's hands and in our own, it came become a potent and damaging weapon of the Enemy who, as we know, comes only to steal, kill and destroy. Some of us are more vulnerable to this form of attack than others, especially those of us with a strong creative bent who are given vivid imaginations. I consider this a great gifting of God to express His joy, pain, suffering, and healing as it works out in my own life, to encourage others and glorify Him; but, like many of His gifts, when it is turned inward rather than outward, it can become an instrument of torture more hideous than the machinery of any medieval dungeon.

When my tiny house church stopped meeting for two years back in 2006, I found myself alone much too much, and found myself becoming isolated, eschewing the active pursuit of friendship and companionship in favor of pursuits other than God. Some of the old struggles of my pre-Christian and young Christian days began to raise their ugly heads again. Not to mention the excessive time I was spending on the computer or the TV. I pursued a lot of my healthy hobbies like birdwatching, hiking, bicycling, and playing bass with my band, but it began to become harder and harder to deal with the Great Nemesis of my Christian walk: my thought life.

I discovered that self-imposed solitude, whether it was because of being too lazy to pick up the phone, or because of being too preoccupied with my little crutches and habits, became a perfect opportunity for the Enemy to assault my thought life, not only with the typical things single guys are assaulted by such as lust, self-pity and envy, but dark imaginings that I knew weren't even close to being me but seemed to seize my mind for periods of time; insecurities, fears, self-hate, fantasy, all things that I dealt with in my pre-Christian days. And it would sometimes feed upon itself in that another reason I would not seek out people was that I felt too weird and ashamed of my thought life to fellowship with other believers, especially if the thoughts had been unholy.

Upon reading this many might think that I am in need of a therapist. But through this latest experience with the relationship, that had me, for a short time, in some of the most excruciating agony of heart and soul I ever experienced, I found out that I really had one therapist, and only one therapist, that I could depend on; Jesus Christ. What therapist could ever tell you that they have literally taken your suffering upon themselves and that they feel every iota of it as it is happening to you? What therapist could ever tell you that you are forgiven completely for your wrong thoughts and deeds, and that your weaknesses are actually not just things to be annihilated and conquered, but are open doors for Him to enter in more fully? I have no condemnation or judgment whatsoever for those who do need to see therapists for very serious and crippling mental conditions; God can use that mightily as well. But I myself have found Him to be more than sufficient, especially in this season when He is drawing me in closer than I have ever been. His healing power is nothing short of completely awesome, for body, mind and soul. And the closer I draw to Him, the more of this healing power I feel inside and out, and the less "crazy" I feel.

Watchman Nee, in his great classic "the Spiritual Man", has an entire chapter on the dangers of being spiritually passive; that is, of simply letting our minds go where they will without actively giving them over to Him and inputting thoughts that are good and holy. He even suggests the possibility of passivity of this kind opening us up to demonic attack. When I am in solitude against God's will, I find that I am certainly more prone to this kind of assault than when I either seek Him actively in the solitude or seek out the company of my brothers and sisters. Being single does not have to mean that I am in my own self-imposed monastery. I've seen a lot of single brothers and sisters become that way, and it is tragic and unnecessary. Oftentimes when I do seek the Lord in solitude, he surprises me by telling me to get out there and get with people and stop being a martyr. Truly He wants us to be where it is good for us to be IN THAT MOMENT. Paul said that he was enabled by God to be content in any season, that he could do all things in Christ. So it is with us. When He moves me to be alone with Him, I need to follow Him there, trusting that He has good things for me there. When he moves me out, I need to be with my fellow humans to find Him there.

Another reason I know that this struggle with the mind is not insanity is that, now that I am keeping in touch with friends more, I am finding out that they have almost identical struggles with their thoughts as well. Dear saints of God have related to me stunning tales of struggles and dark times beyond imagination in their alone times; people who I would never in a million years suspect of having dealt with such things, that I always thought of as the most "stable" and "normal" (whatever that means) people imaginable. I have also seen the unfortunate effects on dear friends who isolate themselves from others and who seem to deteriorate more the longer they remain isolated.

Folks, let's just get real here; we really are, outside of God, a sad and sorry lot of beings, so broken in so many places by life in this fallen world. Our minds are playgrounds for the demon hosts outside of God's power of goodness, healing and peace. "Come to me, all ye who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest for your souls", Jesus said. Our souls cannot be at rest when our minds are under assault and are not given over to Him. When we surrender our thought life over completely to Jesus and allow Him to show us what things to contemplate and meditate over, and how to see Him in all things, He can begin to turn it in His direction (although the fight will never completely cease, our human minds being what they are). Then we can be able to handle the alone times without TV noise or constant distractions to keep the thoughts away. Believe me, I claim no great victory or expertise in this; I am as weak as anyone if not weaker. But I guess that just gives God more room to be Himself, doesn't it?

One thing the scriptures make clear; despite the blessedness of solitude in Him, God says, pertaining to Adam, "It is not good that man should be alone". Now of course this was in the context of the sexual relationship, i.e, Eve, but I have always believed it has a wider meaning that includes all of our relationships; friends, spouses, family, and brothers and sisters in the Lord. In fact, I have always believed that there is a special quality of bond in our relationship to our brothers and sisters in Christ that can even surpass that of our own flesh and blood family in certain ways. Even our spouses may not get us spiritually in the same way a brother or sister in God might. When we deprive ourselves of this by isolating ourselves, we hurt ourselves and we hurt our brothers and sisters by depriving them of the portion of Christ that we alone have been given by Him. Our brothers and sisters need us, and we need them, and we all need Him; it's that simple.

The psalmist says, "How good and pleasant it is for brothers to live together in unity." The writer of Hebrews also writes that we should not forsake the assembling of ourselves together (though when your church dissolves from under you you can find yourself without fellowship for quite some time). Truly we must be together with our brothers and sisters whenever possible. Living in a neighborhood together as my church has done, or even living in community as some rare churches do, is not for everyone, certainly; but solitude self-imposed is not an answer to our problems in life. It won't make us any holier (we are already as holy as we can possibly be by His Blood), won't clear our heads (unless it is in Him, otherwise as I related it can make things even less clear), and won't satisfy our guilt (Jesus paid for that once and for all; any additional guilt is from us, not Him, and we need to give it to Him).

Solitude is a gift from our Lord to enable us to clear the clutter of our busy lives and hear His voice and touch His goodness and love. But our friends, family, spouses, and our brethren are gifts from God as well. We must never deprive them of the gift that we are to them in our selfishness, our addictions, or our guilt and shame. Love does not work like that; it makes itself available to all and believes all things. Our alone time should be a time of renewal and growth, not of withering, stagnation and torment. I am slowly learning this lesson as God shows me how to be in Him, alone and with my fellow humans. And I can only pray that my fellow humans can benefit from my hard lessons and that I can learn to love them as He does in the short time I have on this planet Earth.

Peace be with you,
Tom Sebring

His song in us

2009-07-04T13:12:00.000-07:00

Lately, as I have been learning to spend more time alone with the Lord, or have found myself alone with Him outside of my control, I have felt God's call to no longer hold back the swelling sea of creativity that He has been storing up in me for many years. This blog is one part of that I suppose; I've never done anything like this before. But I realize that God is looking for people who will express Him and be His voice on this earth. The world certainly has its voices clamoring to be heard, and its talents explode onto our screens almost every night with some reality show where desperate people sing, dance, do magic tricks, and sometimes make fools of themselves, all in the name of money, fame and adulation (they really just want to be loved, don't they? That subject could be an entire separate post...or two, or three...). But what the Lord has been speaking to me is that that's not what He's looking for. God is looking for people who will write His words and sing His songs, and let Him minister through them to a world that needs Him so very desperately. The cost of that can be heavy; God tends to take his writers and singers through a LOT of suffering before he deems them ready to speak His deep things. All of the greatest Christian writers I know of; Paul, Nee, Guyon, Sparks, Spurgeon, Tozer, Bonhoeffer, etc., are men and women who endured extensive trials and suffering to get to the place in the Lord where they were able to speak His truths with real authenticity, having LIVED them. God certainly will not reject the songs and poetry of someone new in the Lord; the excitement of coming anew to Christ and being freed from sin and the old life is very real and certainly worth singing about. But such new Christians find that they hit a wall when they attempt to offer comfort and solace to a hurting soul; as much as they desperately want to (often out of self-motives like affirmation and praise), they can offer little more that trite words and Christian slogans. Brothers and sisters, the only way to become a healer to the hurting is to BE HURT. Period. This I believe is God's main purpose in allowing those of us who minister in song and word to go through the winepress; to release His fragrance, His TRUE essence, so that the hurting soul we encounter knows before we even say a word that we KNOW, we UNDERSTAND, and that our having come through to the other side offers them a real, concrete hope that goes so far beyond trite words.

One thing you learn in being alone with God for any amount of time is how to live without a lot of adulation and affirmation from your fellow humans. I find myself wishing that those tearful, miserable reality show rejects would just realize for one second that there is someone out there who loves them for who they are inside, not for how well they hold a note or how flawlessly they do the Salsa. Ask any burned-out rock star living in seclusion somewhere how far adulation gets you in life. And ask any therapist that specializes in co-dependency how powerfully and tragically addictive that adulation can become, despite its ravages on our soul and spirit. Adulation is a trap that I still find myself falling into at times; hence the difficulty of being solitary with Him in this time. It is common to man. We want to share EVERYTHING God shows us with everyone, all the time. And God certainly wants us to do that some times; we are, after all, one Body under one Great Head, as one Chosen Sound song puts it. But if that is our main motive for writing songs, poetry or prose for Him, we will find ourselves deeply disappointed shortly, and soon find ourselves watering down His message to please the masses, or to please publicists, editors, advertisers, etc. God's children are the losers in such a devil's bargain, as are we in the long run. John Michael Talbot, in his wonderful album Come to the Quiet, relates in the liner notes how the songs on the record are but a tiny portion of the simple songs that God gives him every day, that are just for Him, no one else. Can we use our creativity in God to offer up a sacrifice of holy incense to Him and Him alone in that same way? God has been showing me how to do that, and there is no comparison to the peace that brings to my spirit and, more importantly, to how it pleases Him.

Yet we must not be discouraged by all of this from making our voice heard, but encouraged. The trials we go through and the times of solitude are a tremendous opportunity for God to begin releasing the song that is within us; our years in the Lord and our scars lend needed weight to our words and our voices. We must not let shame for our imperfect condition or our lack of a perfect voice, pen or brush compared to someone else silence that voice, EVER. When Jesus entered Jerusalem on the Sunday before Passover, the people shouted Hosanna. When told by the Pharisees to shut them up, Jesus told them “I tell you…if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out". The psalmist spoke of the trees of the field clapping their hands. All creation bows down in worship to our King. Such a privilege it is to lend our own voices to that celestial chorus. And well we should, for we will spend an awfully long time (how about FOREVER) doing just that, with joy that will outshine the most immense galaxies in the universe. God wants to use our lives in Him to express Him! And a hungry humanity needs to hear our voices speaking of His goodness.

Peace to all,
Tom Sebring

Solitude

2009-06-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

One of the things I have been discovering during this time of deep reflection in the Lord and healing from hurt is the absolute critical importance of having solitary time with the Lord. Now one would think that that is the absolute LAST thing one needs when one has gone through a breakup, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, or any very personal trial that God has brought into one's life, wouldn't one? Do we not need friends, family, just SOMEBODY there to listen to you and whose shoulder we can cry on, who gets our pain? Well, of course...to a point. But oftentimes, as I have mentioned before, God removes people from our lives when we think we need them most; they are out of town, busy with their own families and jobs, etc. We become angry at them for abandoning us, or at God for isolating us from them. We are tempted to become despondent; until we can calm down to the point where we see that our solitude, for the time being, is a reality that won't change, and maybe, just maybe, isn't meant to.

You see, even as friends and family do become available to minister to us and comfort us, we very soon discover that....they aren't enough. They can't stay as long as we'd like; they try to change the subject when we dwell upon our hurts (which is actually more help to us than what we're doing, we just don't want to see it at the moment); they are going through their own struggles and talk about those instead of ours, etc., etc. If they can't relate, they might just say "I'll pray for you", which is actually the best thing ANYONE can do for you, if we really realize the power behind that. Even if they can relate, the best they can do for you is tell you they relate and offer you comfort. But they can't make you WALK in that comfort and, even more importantly, they can't take you to the other side of the valley. One person, and ONLY ONE person can do that; Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was wounded for our transgressions and who is able to heal all wounds and pain HIMSELF. And that, brothers and sisters, is the entire point of Him bringing us to that point of solitude; to have us to Himself, to bring us to the point where we have none but Him to minister His great love for us. I have discovered that those times when I am found alone do NOT need to be lonely, even though that emotion always lurks in the background somewhere. Instead, I can let God use those times to draw me in closer to Him, and experience times of worship and fellowship with Him that I could never have surrounded by people and activity. Lately I have been taking walks with Him, both at evenings and some mornings, and have begun worshipping Him with my guitar in alone times. And I find the Lord pouring out songs and words that are amazing to me, that I could not have heard come forth surrounded by a lot of activity and people. Perhaps new songs to record? Who knows. The point of it all is that HE, and He ALONE, is doing this. How many times David found himself alone, afraid, friendless, fleeing from Saul's jealous wrath during that awful season in his life. Yet, it is because of those times that we have most of the Psalms. And I have to believe that it was in a solitary time that he found the peace from God to be able to write the beloved Psalm 23.

Jesus Himself often withdrew into a solitary place to fellowship with His Father when the crowds were pressing in on Him, as they oftentimes were without pause. He, even Jesus Himself, needed to be with His Father so He could clearly hear His Father's voice and know what it was He was to do or where He was to go at that moment. And, of course, He found Himself alone, without wanting to be, in Gethsemane, where His closest friends the 12 simply fell asleep. Yet in this time of agonizing solitude, Jesus gave His will over to His Father and was enabled to make the sacrifice for us all that enables me to write this entry today. In times of solitude we can have true breakthroughs with God and come into places in Him that have eluded us for years. We find newfound strength and courage and love for others that no friend, family member or even therapist can give to us.

Just ask any celebrity hounded day and night by paparazzi and hangers-on about the value of solitude. So many times those of us with families and demanding jobs, or even (gasp) ministries, can find ourselves almost smothered by human voices, opinions, ideas, suggestions, commands, rebukes, etc. We feel almost like Counselor Troi in Star Trek; The Next Generation, the female ship's counselor whose race had the ability to read the emotions of others, like it or not, and who often found herself overwhelmed by the constant bombardment of her mind by the emotions of others. But then, all of a sudden, like a hurricane, all those people are blown out of our lives for a season, and we find ourselves alone and nearly despondent. We discover to our great dismay that we have become too dependent on those people to keep us afloat, to help us through every little decision we make, and to be His voice for us.

Now, please understand. I more than a lot of people know the awesome, incredible value of having Christian brothers and sisters in your life to be a stabilizing factor, to be able to see things in your life that you might be blind to, and to be there for you in times of trial. Indeed, the author of Hebrews tells the saints he is writing to not to forsake the assembling of themselves together, as was the habit of some. We need to be with our brothers and sisters, as much as possible, period. But there are times and seasons when that is just not possible. During the summer a lot of people go away, which is kind of tough on those of us who are single (well, tough if we let it be). And in a tiny church like mine, saints are not in abundance. Sometimes we need to go outside of the bounds of our own fellowship to seek out good brothers and sisters to break bread with. But there are other times where we just can't find fellow saints ANYWHERE, due to unavoidable circumstances authored by God Himself. There are, quite simply and plainly, two choices in those times; to become despondent and angry at God, and wallow in self-pity and needless pain; or, to draw closer to Him and seek out His fellowship, His voice and His peace. Solitude, rather than be a time of lonely and barren despair, can be a time of tremendous gain in Christ, and a time of awesome strengthening of our spirit, our character, our peace, and yes, even our own well being. What it all depends on, what it all balances on, is how we choose to see our solitude; as authored by us or by our own bad luck, or by THE LORD. If we choose the former, we are in for a rough and wrenching voyage, more than God intends. If we choose the latter, it can actually be an awesome blessing and a chance to learn an entirely new way to fellowship with Him and open entirely new windows into God’s heart and mind. May our holy solitude with Him be a time of worship and spiritual enrichment, strengthening us so that, when we are with our brothers and sisters again, we can share with them the richness of Jesus Christ that has been deposited within us, allowing our portion of Him to be part of the great tapestry that is His Church on earth.

Peace be with you,
Tom Sebring

Healing, Part II

2009-06-22T18:04:00.000-07:00

Well, I am realizing now that this process is proving harder than I thought, and may take longer than I thought. I sensed today especially that the Lord is digging down deeper than I first thought would be the case, taking this opportunity to do much deeper "surgery" in my heart and soul than I thought He was going to. But deep down this causes me to be encouraged if not outwardly rejoice, knowing that His healing will be all the more deep and complete, and, more importantly, that I will be more closely conformed to His image, and that I will be able to encourage my fellow believers who are going through the same struggles. I am also realizing that the outcome of this may not be what I first expected, and His reasons for doing this may be different than mine, and so, naturally, I battle the irrational fears of how long this will last and how intense it will be. There is that familiar tightness in my stomach even as I am writing this. But, once again, He is in control, and I have every confidence in Him that the outcome will be for my good and the good of others, and of His name. I will not fear my loving and merciful Lord.

One particular facet of healing came to my mind when thinking about how we sometimes balk at our own healing, out of fear. A question out of John 5 came to my thoughts; "Do you wish to be healed?" This was the question that Jesus posed to the invalid at the Pool of Bethesda, where he had waited for 38 years for someone to put him into the waters when they were stirred up. Now, why in the world would Jesus ask someone if they wanted to be healed? But it was indeed a fair question; when asked, the invalid, instead of saying yes, told Jesus why he wasn't healed. Jesus' answer was to tell him to take up his mat and walk. Plain and simple. I have resisted at times this latest effort of God to do deeper healing work in me for the same reason a lot of people do:

1. We kind of like the attention and sympathy we get when we are in the wounded state. Well, I do anyway. But Jesus did not let this fellow linger at the pool; he told him straight away to get up and walk. It is certainly wonderful to have the sympathy of my brothers and sisters in the faith, and I welcome it. But it is not the reason I write this blog; my main purpose is to chronicle what God is doing in my life and let that be an inspiration to my fellow travelers in the faith, and even those who are not but who read this. When God gives the marching orders for me to take up my mat and walk, I hope and pray that I will quickly obey Him and not linger at the pool, seeking the sympathy of others in that. I wish to move on in my Lord, and I trust Him to enable me.

B. We are afraid of what lies ahead, perhaps more wounding? Well, that sometimes is the case, isn't it? After the emergency surgery I had back in 2005 for diverticulitis with a perforated colon, I ended up having three more surgeries after that; one to reconnect the colostomy, and two more to repair hernias related to the other surgeries. God was with me through all of them, and healed me each time; my brothers and sisters were as well. But I am not quite the same as I was before the surgeries; I cannot lift extremely heavy objects to this day. In the same way, I believe that the work He is doing in me now may continue for some time, and will leave me changed. But all the changes He does are for the good, making us kinder and gentler people, and making us more like Him. And yes, happier people in the long run, lest we think He is just out to do nothing but torture us constantly. Weeping endures for a night, but joy comes in the morning. This too shall pass. And if it comes again, the same truths apply.

There is another aspect of healing I have run across in my readings and tape listenings; that of the Wounded Healer. I take this phrase from a wonderful tape message by radio gospel minister Wayne Monbleau, which was not an easy tape to listen to but which told the truth. The truth being that we are often put through suffering for the benefit of others, not so much ourselves (though we do benefit from His healing and through the strength He gives us in it). This is not easy to hear when you JUST WANT RELIEF. But I know in my heart and soul that God will not have me in this forever, and that one of my greatest gifts from all this will be the ability to "comfort others with the same comfort I have been given", as Paul says in 2 Corinthians. Truly we are not in this walk for ourselves, but for Him and for others. God is faithful enough to give us what we need Himself, and through others, and so it works out for the good of everyone in the end, doesn't it? We are in large part each other's healers in the Body. That to me is a miracle in itself, and why I trust Him to bring me through. And I hope that, by His grace, I can be something of a Wounded Healer myself to all who read this. He is Love, and He is Healing.

Peace in Him,
Tom Sebring

Change

2009-06-18T19:38:00.000-07:00

Well, my healing and restoration continues at this time; I thank God for every day that I gain further distance from this episode and gain more of Him. He truly is filling in the wounds with Himself. I am also realizing that I most likely will not go back to just being my old self completely; I think that if that were true that all this pain would be completely in vain. I so want in my soul and my spirit for this to mean something and for something good to come out of it. Well, no worries; God always works out things for the good, and we are always being changed from glory to glory. There is no such thing as an experience in Him that does not change us for the good and lead to our well-being. And we also experience these things so that, down the road, we can comfort those going through the same things ourselves, and so become used by Him to bring comfort to others and become a testimony of His love and mercy.

But I am finding also that there is a deeper level of mourning that I at times feel. I related before that my small church is only about a dozen people right now, which makes it harder to find brothers and sisters to talk to. When the first breakup happened 12 years ago, I found that I was surrounded by brothers who helped me heal much faster that I thought possible. And so, along with this girl, I find myself actually missing the church as it used to be, missing my Christian friends who are no longer here, and missing the vital church life that used to be. This all makes the pain deeper if I let it; but again, even this level of pain is not beyond His healing. But the further meaning is that, along with letting go of this person, I need to let go of the past, and let go of my church as it used to be. I need to embrace the changes that have happened in my life and stop longing for what was; move forwards, not back. Retreating into the past is just that; retreating, running from the battle. No victory can be gained by running and running in the other direction away from the impending changes. A caterpillar can never become a beautiful butterfly unless it sheds its skin several times and breaks out of its coccoon. Living in the past is a kind of coccoon, isn't it? Soft and fuzzy, but a cage in which we can't move and fly like we are created to do. We are made to soar in our Lord like eagles (Isaiah 53), but we must embrace His changes to do so.

About a year ago I had a dream that I was back with a family and their little kids again in my church (their kids are now all teens and young adults; the mother has divorced and remarried). Contrary to what you might believe, I did not feel comforted by this scene; I felt exquisitely uncomfortable and even scared. The coocoon felt warm and fuzzy, but also terrifyingly claustrophobic, confining my freedom. I did not want to go through all I had to go through all over again to get to where I am now. I wanted to move forward and face the future. But that's kind of scary too, isn't it? We in our fear invent all kinds of morbid scenarios about how our lives might fall apart and we might sink into despondency and insanity. This is of course nonsense and satanic lies, in the light of all the comforting scriptures that I have previously mentioned, and the plain and simple truth that God loves us enough to have given His own Son for us. I believe that the best way of all to embrace change is simply to live in the now with our Lord and embrace Him in it, knowing that all things change and nothing of this earth is really permanent except one thing, one person; HIM. There is a chorus to an old song by Genesis from the 70's called "Ripples", that goes:

Sail away, away,
Ripples never come back
They've gone to the other side
Dive to the bottom and go to the top
To see where they have gone
Ripples never come back

This is certainly true; we can't bring back the past no matter how we try; it's like ripples on a lake that never return to where they came from. Nevertheless, to me there is such a feeling of painful, longing despair for the past that has vanished forever in those words, that I don't listen to that song too often (certainly not now). The words do reflect rather well feelings which we all feel at those times when too much change is overwhelming us, such as loss of loved ones, loss of a job, a relocation, etc. We all feel these wrenching longings for the past at these times. We may also be reminded of much of the content of the book of Ecclesiastes, which speaks of the meaninglessness of much of human endeavor compared to God's wisdom (Ecclesiastes is NOT, repeat, NOT, a recommended scripture for a broken heart, be forewarned!). Nevertheless, this represents the purely human reaction to change, which tends to be cynical and fatalistic, like the Eastern concept of karma. I don't know about you, but I really, really have no desire to dwell in that place, wallow there in pain, and believe those words. Instead, I want to believe THESE words:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
His mercies never come to an end
They are new every morning
New every morning
Great is your faithfulness Oh Lord
Great is Your faithfulness

In God, there is a new dawning to every day. There is new manna to be had every morning, as there was for the Israelites in the middle of the barren Sinai. Psalm 30 proclaims, "Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning". There is a reason why God created morning after night; it represents renewal and new hope. Change is ALWAYS a GOOD thing in Jesus Christ. Even in the pain and loss and despair that comes with change, we remember that "in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28). Or, to put a new twist on a cynical old piece of wordly wisdom;
"The more things change, the more HE remains the same (yesterday, today, and tomorrow)". If we can embrace change as His working in us to strengthen us, heal us, and make us more like Him, and let Him work, we will no longer fear it but anticipate more of Him and His love in it.

Peace be with you all,
Tom Sebring

Pressing In

2009-06-15T21:52:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been exactly two weeks since the breakup, and I felt terrible this morning, very strong this afternoon, and not so good right now. One thing I've heard about the grieving process is that it's often like a violent roller coaster, vaulting us up high one moment and plunging us down with terrifying speed the next. I can testify that that is true, although the up and down is certainly preferable to the constant down of the earliest stages, the ache all over your body that you feel when you think about that person and what could have been, might have been, should have been, yadda yadda yadda. You know this is useless thinking and wallowing, but you can't stop the blessed machine. Your sleep and appetite suffer. I've lost about 30 pounds myself. This is not a recommended way to do that, believe me. But I guess I'll take it. I have come to realize that this process is going to take time, and that God often does not rush healing when the pain itself can be used by him in many, many ways: to draw me closer to Him, to purge me and deliver me of unhealthy sinful tendencies, to expose weaknesses that were hidden, and to cause me to fellowship in His own sufferings, and to break my self will and conform it to His Will.

OK, nice and pious sounding stuff, huh? It can all sound like a crock of dung when you're in pain and you just want one thing: RELIEF!! But you realize that all your crutches like food, TV, computer games, MySpace, etc., are like a little squirt of Bactine on a massive third degree burn. Nothing seems to work. Your friends and family sometimes aren't much help either. And, my friend, that is by design. It is absolutely by design. There is one person, one person ONLY that can truly heal you down deep where you do not even know you are wounded, and love you with a deeper love than you can even conceive, and that is JESUS CHRIST. So why is it so often that those precious Christian saints you rely on for advice are out of town or busy with their own crises just when you need them most? That, brothers and sisters, is by His design as well. In such a time as that, you have one alternative left; PRESS IN. That all-over ache inside draws me near to Him, because I know that He and He alone knows my pain inside and out, without having to explain it or justify myself in it or be afraid that He grows tired of my crying out. I have been led in this season to press in to the Lord my God more than any time in my life I ever remember. So much so, in fact, that He has had to tell me to just chill out and watch a little TV at times, so as not to become too introspective or isolated. Keeping busy can help too. But pressing on in Him is the key to real healing in any situation I have found.
Why do we find it hard to do that? Well, because it requires us to be still, and when we are still, the thoughts of our trials come flooding in and we can't stop them. But I have found myself that simply repeating the name of Jesus or latching on to a verse of scripture (as long as it isn't out of context) can draw me in to Him very quickly. The pain may not go away right away or at all, or it may completely evaporate for a blessed time, allowing me to breathe a bit. But the whole point of it is that I am drawing in to Him and in doing so, I am being conformed into His image and I am allowing Him to replace that pain, not with crutches, not with another girlfriend, but with HIM. He fills the wounds in with Himself.
Now, does that mean that if we allow Him that much into our lives that He will crush us into dust and leave us desolate? Certainly, He may strip us of things that are keeping us away from Him, and He will put things on the shelf that we had front and center for too long. But He promises that He will not test us beyond what we can endure; that the plans He has for us are for good and not evil; that all things work together for the good for those of us who are believers, etc. All of those scriptures meant to comfort suffering believers are solid, bulletproof shields against the fear that the Enemy plants in our brains about how God just wants to kill us and maim us. I believe that this fear, when allowed to get out of control, has driven some believers away from God in times of terrible trial. How tragic that is! I have found in terribly dark times that He is the Friend that sticks closer than a brother, and that He is Abba Father who cares for us more than we could ever imagine. How He loves us! How that love, when we allow ourselves to receive it from Him, compels us to press in all the more in painful times.
And so I continue my time of healing in Him, with the hope that I won't just go back to being what I was, but being more whole and more healthy than ever before, because of Him, not me. In this wholeness I believe I can be the husband, father, musician, writer, worker, whatever, that God has truly gifted me to be, all with Him more at the center than before.

May He heal all our wounds, for He loves us.
Peace,
Tom Sebring

Weakness

2009-06-10T18:30:00.000-07:00

OK, well I have been seeking the Lord on what has transpired in my life over the past several months, especially the last two weeks, and slowly but surely filtering through all the confused thoughts, imaginary scenarios, tormenting memories and self-flagellation and beginning to come to a place where I can begin learning and applying the lessons that He is trying to teach me through this experience. I write any of this with some caution, knowing my emotions are still a bit raw and that I may be expressing my own inner pain more than I am His mind (not that there is anything so terribly wrong with that, as long as your audience are mostly trusted friends and that you know the difference). But since I am no Watchman Nee or Charles Spurgeon, I fully intend on this to be somewhat a journal as well as a collection of spiritual insights. After all, our emotional, physical and spiritual lives in Him are not meant to be separate compartments, but one whole unique human package made in His image and loved by Him, which is....us. Each of us is so very unique and so very loved by God with a love reserved only for us alone, we can scarcely imagine it; although if we were to begin to, just begin to, it might just make all our denominational differences vanish into so much nothingness.

I think in the early stages of coming back from this painful episode the thing that is standing out like a sore thumb more than just about anything is; I AM WEAK. Good Lord, I am so weak. The fact that I took such a risk with such lack of foresight and wisdom; the fact that I am so unable by myself to get free of the memories of it, as well as the older memories that go along with it. I have turned to the scriptures for comfort and solace, and found much of that for sure. But there have been moments when they frighten me to death.

Now, why in God's name would I react like that to God's Word, that timeless source of divine peace and comfort? Why would I be scared of God? Perhaps because I was seeing for the first time in the words of Moses, David, the prophets, Jesus and Paul just how very holy God is, and just how horribly, pitifully short I fall even in my very best moments, and how impossible it is to live this thing called the Christian Life (author Gene Edwards notes that even Jesus himself could not live it, admitting that he could do nothing without His father; no how-to book ever touches that fact). I had to fall on His mercy and His grace, the same way every believer throughout history has had to. I also saw that I could take absolutely nothing God has blessed me with for granted, even my own sanity, since I seemed so close to losing it on some of the dark nights of the soul I have been through recently and in other times of my life. Recently a wonderful young woman from Eastern Europe who has been with my church on and off over the last 15 years or so suffered a terrible breakdown brought on by the unbearable stress and depression of some traumatic life events. She has been hospitalized twice, and our church is presently trying to get her home to see her mother who lives in Italy. This episode has been a scary reminder to me that indeed, there but for the grace of God go I (it has also taken some of the focus off of my own problems, which actually seems to be helping me to get over this faster; imagine that!)

Having our own weakness revealed to us in glaring Technicolor is never a fun lesson to learn; it is humiliating as well as disillusioning. But when I look at those two words I see a purpose of the Lord at work; humility and the loss of illusions. The Proverbs and the book of Philippians speak of the value of humility, and of course the life of Christ is saturated with it. And as for illusions, I read in Isaiah about how the people loved false prophets because they spoke illusions rather than the hard truth, while in Psalm 51 David proclaims, "You desire truth in my inmost being". God will not have us be proud and live a fantasy life, because it dishonors Him and brings pain to us, whom He loves. If my God is crushing the pride and fantasy out of my life in His winepress, I have to believe that it is for my own well-being, and that somehow that crushing will release the fragrance of Christ like the alabaster bottle of perfume that Jesus was anointed with.

My weakness revealed by Him is His way of loving me; pure and simple. It is the removal of things that get in the way of me receiving all that He has for me. In my weakness I can relax and chill out a bit, knowing that His strength will be sufficient for the day's challenges. I can indeed do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Jesus loves me this I know
For the Bible tells me so
Little ones to Him belong
They are weak but He is strong

And I am one of those little ones, as are we all. Let us not forget that.

Peace be with you,
Tom Sebring

Healing

2009-06-08T19:01:00.000-07:00

Okay folks, I might have been a bit misleading when I said previously that this was going to be about how not to live the Christian life (in other words, how to let Him live it in you). Actually, this is not about how to do anything at all. It's simply about How God is living in me and doing His work in me to perfect me into His image. There is no how to involved. It's simply Him doing it and me allowing Him to. Period. End of story.

That being said, let me talk about the topic of God's healing. No folks, I'm not going to give some long treatise about the theology of healing, or cite hundreds of bible verses about it. That's not how I'm going to do any of these posts, really. What I'm going to do is relate how God is speaking to me and into my life about that aspect of my walk with Him, in that oh so simple way that He always does, and perhaps how I see Him working in others around me.

Those of you who have been reading my Facebook page might have seen that in the past few weeks I have been dealing with the awful and painful effects of a failed relationship with someone from my past. Those of you who know me well know who this person is; I will not mention names in order to protect their privacy and dignity. Nevertheless, this relationship was begun rather unwisely and ended much more wisely, as we both agreed to. Still, it left me in more pain than I have been in in many years. I can't remember such excruciating agony of body, mind and soul in almost my whole life, coupled with extreme sleep deprivation. In my subsequent conversations with dear friends and acquaintances, I have discovered this to be a common set of symptoms of a failed relationship and the loneliness and despair that follow. I have also encountered dear saints in God who have been through bitter divorces and the deaths of loved ones that have experienced this very pain, except magnified several times over in both duration and intensity. This I can't even imagine, and my heart truly breaks for such souls. Grief is a subject all by itself, of course. But what I want to get into is healing.

This may seem like a very premature time to be talking about this subject so soon into my own process (the relationship ended only 8 days ago). Nevertheless, the Lord is showing me small snippets of truth about the process. Here they are:

1. It takes time. This is a universal truth for both physical and emotional healing. I remember another awful episode in my life where I was afflicted by severe diverticulitis with a perforated colon, and rushed to the hospital in severe agony. I had to have a temporary colostomy done due to the severity of the infection. I was originally told that I would be in the hospital about 6 days; imagine my dejection when I was later told TEN days! But these ten days were necessary due once again to the perforation of the colon and the resulting need to finish out a very extensive regimen of antibiotics. How I wanted to be out of there before then! Nevertheless, my complete healing would not have been accomplished had I just walked out of there before that time. This seems to be the case for me now. The Lord has let me know that He wants to do a complete work of healing from this episode, and that it will take some time. Unlike the hospital, though, I don't have a set date for "release", and that makes it a bit harder. When Jesus arrived to heal Lazarus, it looked like he was way too late; Lazarus had already been dead four days, and certainly smelled like it. But He healed him anyway! Therefore I trust Him completely to do the work that needs to be done and continue to form me into His image in it.
2. There is no set formula for how God will do it. Of course we all have probably heard stories of miraculous healings both in the scriptures and in real life; Jesus is fully capable and willing to do such instantaneous and miraculous works of healing; physical, psychological, and emotional. But at other times the healing can take years. In still other times, such as Paul's "thorn in the flesh", no healing takes place at all. Paul prayed for this to be gone, only to be told "My grace is sufficient for you". In all healings, and even in non-healings, one end, and one end only, is in mind; that God be seen and glorified. Of course He wants us to be ultimately happy and healthy. But His way there is at times a strange one that we would not choose ourselves. He chooses it because He knows best, and because He will get the increase out of it, not us. When we surrender to our need to do it our way and be in control, we often find that His peace helps the healing process go faster and more completely. Just like the Doctor ordered.
3. Like any other aspect of Christ, it can become central rather than Him. Paul learned by having his healing denied to decentralize it that way. In this way he learned of Christ's sufficiency. It is certainly wonderful and a great testimony of His power that He heals, but it is an equally compelling testimony that someone learns to bear an infirmity in the strength of Christ, and that He shines through it brightly. As long as He is the center, all blessings that come are just icing on the cake of Christ! I have neuropathy (nerve damage) in my feet which I and others have prayed about, and I would love to be healed of that, but I realize at the same time that it causes me to be just a little more dependent on Him that I would otherwise be, and since He is always faithful to meet the need for Himself, that works out rather well I must say.

Well, that is my own take on this subject; perhaps it is nonsense, but it is all I can say at this time without being a "noisy gong or clanging cymbal" (1 Cor. 13). Please everyone; feel very free to offer your comments and additional insights. We all need to see the Body in its complete and wonderful diversity.

With Love in Him,
Tom Sebring

Welcome to the Chronicles of a Chosen Son

2009-06-06T10:12:00.001-07:00

Hello all,
My name is Tom Sebring, Jr.; you might have seen me previously on my previous blog, the Event Horizon. Well, I have decided once and for all to delete that blog, which was to be focused mainly on politics and how they related to Christianity and the world at large. This blog will be entirely focused on the Christian Life and how to not live it (in other words, how to let God live it in you, not you yourself).

There are several reasons for this. First, I have become discouraged, as have many of us with conservative tendencies, about events in the US and the world as they are presently playing out. This has forced me to redirect my faith from our political system, which I must admit I have relied on too much, and back towards the Author and Finisher of my faith, Jesus Christ. He is my true King, and He will never fail to lead me in all Truth, unlike most of our politicians with their various agendas and power issues. Second, I have found politics too distracting from my walk with the Lord in general and too fraught with human thoughts, generalities and glib slogans which are quite frankly not Scriptural and certainly not divinely inspired. Though I generally tend towards conservatism, I am seeing oftentimes on both sides of the isle a general cluelessness about the things that really matter in life or the divine boundaries God has put upon us for our own safety and true happiness as a species. Conservatives tend to put great faith in the Holy Free Market with its brutal Darwinian competition and its tendency to run roughshod over truly human concerns and plights and create a gargantuan world business/finance machine that in the end no one can really control ; liberals tend to put great faith in an illusory human utopia where everyone just gets along and where wealth and power are all equal, and where morals and even God Himself are obsolete because everyone is just so happy together. I totally give up on all of this I must say at this time. Don't get me wrong; I still love my country, which has made it possible to write these views in freedom, and I will still vote my conscience, which again tends to be conservative, but I have no illusions these days about how worthy of my faith and devotion our government and institutions are in the grand scheme of things.

I have spent the past several years seeking to pursue a simple Christian life with the help of my very dear Christian friends in our small house church based in the Philadelphia area. By no means do I consider this house church to be the end-all in terms of how a church should look, act and be; this is a pride trap that many house churches fall into, and I have seen that with my own eyes, believe me. But I believe that it does give me the ability to seek my Lord and King in a simple and gentle way that I would not have the freedom or the penchant to do were I involved in a large organized church. I have spent years in such large churches, and it became a meaningless ritual after a while, even with cell groups and the like. The church I am in now actually started as a Pentecostal Word church, but evolved into the small and simple house church I now know, via a process far too long to describe in this blog. If you ask me the name of the church I could not tell you, since it does not have a name, nor does it need one. We have our own bank account and insurance and all those dandy things, but as far as needing a name to contact us, our own email addresses and phone numbers tend to suffice. Once again, folks, I have no words of condemnation whatsoever for my brothers and sisters who worship in large organized churches. I have met many who are precious saints and whose faith I look up to. But I have chosen this road, and I have found my Lord in it.

OK, ladies and gents; that is my introductory posting on this brand new Christian blog. There will be many more postings to come I pray, the Lord willing. I encourage my Christian friends in my church as well as my friends on Facebook and Christian Cafe to comment and post here as they too feel led. Take Care and God Bless you all,

Tom Sebring, Jr.