God is God. As obvious and seemingly redundant a statement it is, we tend to forget. Do we truly walk in faith? Do we really trust God? What would we do if God "betrayed" us? Would we trust Him and continue to walk in faithfulness knowing that our Loving Father knows what is best, or would we rebel? If we read the first two chapters of Job, we see that it was God that asked Satan about Job - God picked the fight and God allowed Satan to come against Job. In human terms, that might seem like a betrayal, but Job still maintained his faith even when his wife said "curse God and die."

One of the challenges of Christianity in most of modern society is the incredible lack of persecution. We might whine and complain about how we are kicked out of government and schools, but no one is hunting us down to harm us for our faith. When someone in certain Muslim countries accepts Christ knowing that the penalty might be death, that takes a certainty of faith - an absolute conviction that Jesus Christ really is The Way, The Truth and The Life and that NO ONE comes to the Father but through Him. For us, it's a casual decision with very little social cost, and the social benefits we can gain in the church often compensate for whatever losses we might suffer in the world. Thus, it's possible that our churches are full of people who never really gave their heart to Jesus, but whose heart merely hungered for the social benefits they saw.

Children and a Good Life: A Metaphor

Suppose there are two children. One child is told that he must go to school, he must study and he must do his chores. He is intentially taught academics, character, marriage skills, parenting skills and has many responsibilities. He is afforded ample time to play, provided his work is done, but nearly half his waking hours are consumed with training and work.

The other doesn't have to do anything. If he wants to do schoolwork, he can. If he doesn't feel like going to school, he doesn't have to. No one teaches him about marriage or parenting, nor does he have any responsibilities. If he wants to go play, he can play. If he wants to go to amusement parks, he can go to amusement parks. Whatver he feels like eating, he can eat, and he can have as much of it as he likes.

To the children, who is the lucky child? Most kids would desire the second life rather than the first. As adults, though, we can see that the first child is actually the blessed child and the second child is cursed. We see that the first child will appreciate his playtime, while the second will always seek more extreme entertainment as he grows bored with his play. We see that the first child will have a fruitful and abundant future, while the second child will ultimately end up with nothing of value.

Interesting enough, I've talked to children about this metaphor, and the CHILDREN got it right. They DO understand when we ask them the right questions - or when they learn to ask themselves the right questions. Of course, it is one level of wisdom and maturity to realize which answer is right, it requires another level of wisdom and maturity to actually live out what they know is right.

Something else we realize as adults, and even the elementary school age children I've asked realize, is that the first child is blessed by parents who set the course for him and actively teach him. He has little choice. To not learn the best of lessons, he must actively resist them. The second child MIGHT still accomplish all the same things - but the second child will have to CHOOSE to do so. In order for the second child to enjoy the same level of success in life as the first, the second child will have to SEEK education, training, true information, and would have to practice good character because no outside force is driving him. In short, to succeed, the second child would need the character to voluntarily submit to the authority of the people who might help him.

We are God's Children

We are God's children, but we live in an age in which we have the freedoms of the second child. We don't have to do a lot of things. We can focus on our own lives, whatever we desire for ourselves and the things we decide are important. Just as the second child can ignore his future, we can virtually ignore Eternity and virtually ignore the generations that will follow from us.* We can accept God's salvation and do little else. The cost to pray the sinner's prayer is virtually nil.

* This concept is at the core of my parenting materials, which are not posted on this site. If anyone is interested in them, I'll sort through the material and post some of the key concepts.

Sometimes I wonder if the angels are sad for us because it is so much harder to "lay up treasures in heaven" for us. We don't have to sacrifice. We don't have to follow. The cost is low, and often, so is our committment and our faith. We can be casual about God, following Him when it suits us and ignoring Him when it doesn't, and we can't see the cost. We're the second child, and often we think we have the better life.

Like the second child, we have to rise up and CHOOSE to walk by faith, and we have to CHOOSE to accept the costs of following God because those costs are so easy to avoid. We can treat God as a convenience rather than the source of who we are and what we do. We can be who we choose (or, more likely, who the world makes us) rather than CHOOSE to cooperate with God and allow the Holy Spirit complete dominion in our Spirit (Religion, Principles, Others), Soul (Will, Mind, Emotions) and Body (Actions, Senses, Body).

When Jesus said "greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life..." the word "life" He used isn't just physical life, it's personality, it's identity - it's one's Soul and Body. Parents know that a loving parent automatically thinks differently when his or her children are involved. Events that might have been nearly meaningless before are suddenly important. What people are wearing and the music that is playing and the language used in movies might not be a big deal to an average adult, but when children are around the Mind and Emotions change, and so do the choices made in the Will.

At the highest levels of Self, we have to make choices. We can find out how much we really trust God, what we really think of Him, by taking concrete steps of faith. We can ask the Holy Spirit to move in us, to prompt us, to speak to us, to show us His vision for our lives. We can turn ourselves over to Him and ask Him if there is anything specific and concrete He wants us to do. (See What Do I Mean By "Hearing God" for more information about this.)

There are steps of faith we can take. If we want to receive specific guidance for our lives, I learned a lesson from Pastor Nathan Daniel that was transformational for me. His lesson was simple, but profound.

Nathan Daniel's Lesson

Pastor Nathan Daniel (Grace Fellowship, El Cajon, CA) taught me a vitally important lesson about "hearing God's voice." He said that if we wanted to receive God's direction, it was fairly simple. If we could go to God in prayer and honestly say this prayer, God would communicate with us. This was the essence of the prayer:

"Almighty God, I promise that I will do anything You ask me to do to the absolute best of my ability to obey, no matter what it is. Now speak, Lord."

I prayed that prayer every day for three weeks before one day, as the words escaped my lips, it stuck me... I really meant it that time. No matter what God said, I would obey to the absolute best of my ability. That's when I heard Him. That's when prayer became something more than just me talking to Him, when it became an opportunity for Him to speak to me. Hearing Him did not become a regular experience, but it was no longer this far-off "I-wonder-if-it-really-happens" thing that happens only to great men and women of God. The only question, of course, is always whether or not it is Him. (see What Do I Mean "Hearing God"?)

The Challenge

When God starts to move in a person's life, there is a tendency to expect blessings for obedience. The problem with that thinking isn't that God might not bless His obedient, it's that we have a very limited view of what a blessing can be.

Joseph was ultimately blessed by being made the second most powerful man in all Egypt, and God even gave him dreams to confirm that while he was still a teen - but what did he go through on the way there? To go before Pharoah, Joseph needed to know someone, in this case the cupbearer. He met the cupbearer in prison. Otherwise, it would have been almost impossible for a slave to meet and converse with such a high ranked member of Pharoah's Court. Joseph was in prison because he was falsely accused of wrongdoing by the actual wrongdoer. He was there because he was a chief slave, a position to which he aspired from a lowly slave. He was enslaved because his brothers sold him after having thrown him in a pit.

So where did God's blessings start? Joseph even said "What you meant for evil, God meant for good." The "blessing" started with the pit. Joseph got thrown into a pit as his first step to being the second most powerful person in Egypt. The Pit was the beginning of blessings beyond imagining for Joseph. Each step was part of the blessing, and in each step Joseph remained faithful. He told Potipher's wife that he could not sin against God, and all the way to Pharoah he gave glory to God. He did not turn from his faith. In the end, he was a wealthy and very powerful man. To what end? It was not for himself, but to save the bloodline of God's Promise.

Count it All Joy

James says to "Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations." In essence, he says that we should be joyful because of trials and tribulations. He does explain. It is ultimately so we will be "perfect and entire, lacking in nothing" (James 1:2-4). He basically tells us to trust God that He's teaching us.

God does not tempt us in an effort to get us to sin. He tests us to prove our character and to help us grow steadily stronger. When God and Satan discussed Job, God started the discussion and turned Satan progressively lose against Job. Satan moved to destroy. God moved to strengthen and prove. Job got thrown into a pretty serious pit, and his faith endured. If we do not forget the last chapter, we see that God rewarded Job greatly in the end.

Total Faith, Total Trust

It takes faith to go to God and tell Him "I'll do anything you ask" without putting any qualifiers on it. We have to trust that God loves us and He knows best. He knows our gifts because He gave them to us. He knows what will ultimately fulfill us - and His eyes are on Eternity, not the moment. Can we trust Him? Of course we can. Do we? That's a separate question. If we understand the Spirit, Soul, Body model, what we're essentially submitting here is Action.

Another level of trust is to go to Him and not only tell Him "I'll do anything you ask, no matter what it is," but to tell Him "Do anything to me you wish, any way that You wish, and I will trust You no matter what happens." You are inviting the pit, the slavery, the loss - you are inviting trials and tribulations of many kind. You may even be inviting near destruction. Being broken is so common among leaders in the faith that it is almost axiomatic that if God intends for you be a leader in His Church, that by praying that prayer you are courting disaster.

Putting Everything in His Hands

Would we be willing to give up everything for God? I've been there, and He didn't tell me to leave anything I was doing, but to add to it. I was willing to walk away from what had always been my ministry because of an accusation of pride. If I was walking in pride in my work, then I was being a poor steward. If I was truly doing what God had asked, then I was being obedient and leaving to seek financial security for my family would be sin.

Would we be willing to have God destroy everything we've built? God's done that to me, too. I lost my whole starting team and first martial arts school, then He gave my wife and me a new one that we built as a team working for Him. That was our core ministry, and God shattered it, took it all away, and buried us for a time. If we have a church, would we be willing to have God plow it under to start again? We came through that plowing under with only a handful of the people we had before, but we're bigger and more successful than ever before. God had to clean out a few people and clean up a few things, then He gave it back. Do we trust Him that much? I do, but that's largely because He did not ask me first - He just did it and I had to hang on and trust that He knew what He was doing even though I had no idea why any of it was happening. I could only watch, so I know He does this. If He had asked me beforehand, I did not have the knowledge or the wisdom to have told Him "Go ahead, plow it under if that's what You know must be done. I trust You."

Recently, He did it again - He destroyed something we had. This time He dropped us in a pit and made sure we knew He did it. To make certain we knew He did it, He spent a year building a foundation so we knew He was guiding us, then we got dumped in the pit.

A New Level of Maturity: Total Faith, Total Trust

To some, it might seem that my faith is mature and very strong - but God has shown me and I tell you that such is not the case. In fact, God has shown me through this process how much I hold back, revealing in me the magnitude of my own lack of faith and trust. This is what God showed me in all this:

I am willing to accept anything that God says as True.

I am willing to accept anything that God does as Good.

I am NOT willing to invite God to totally invade each and every aspect of my life and reshape it according to His Will. When He does it, I praise Him and trust Him, but I have not trusted Him enough to give it to Hiim.

I accepted what God did when He did it. I accepted what God told me to do when He told me to do it. I accepted God's Truth when I could ascertain it, and I have sought to understand my Lord. BUT this He has against me, that I do not INVITE God to have His way in both my life and in all elements of my identity.

So as a result of this new revelation, God is taking me to a level of maturity I did not know existed (though I imagine that most people reading this might see it as rather obvious - I simply did not know that this level was even there).

Secrets of the Vine

I found a copy of Bruce Wilkinson's Secrets the Vine. I had some problems with parts of his interpretation of the Prayer of Jabez (click on that for a brief summary of my notes), but I will say this: Secrets of the Vine is an important book for anyone to read who seeks to walk in obedience to God.

In short, Wilkinson explores the parable of the Vine and Branches. He talks about the branch that bears fruit will be pruned that it might bear more fruit. That the branch that goes on to abide in Jesus will bear much fruit. Discipline is what God does when we're disobedient. Pruning is what He does when we ARE obedient, when we ARE bearing fruit, and He does it that we might bear MORE fruit. It might hurt just the same, but the reason it happens to us is opposite.

(Adding to that, it is a common teaching that we can't do anything apart from Jesus, and if we think we can, we're prideful - but the fact that atheist and people of other religions can do much shows us that it must be an incorrect interpretation. However, if we take it in terms of abiding, the branch that abides can do nothing apart from the vine. So if WE abide in Him, we take all our sustenance and strength from Him, and the abider, because we abide, can and will do nothing apart from Jesus. Does that sound closer to an interpretation that comforms to the Reality we see all around us? The Alethia Principle means we must test our interpretations based upon ALL Scripture and ALL known Reality.)

Stepping Up to the Next Level

My prayers have now changed to an invitation. Now I pray not just a prayer of obedient, telling God I will take Action if He will tell me what to do, but I invite pruning, and I invite Him to have every aspect of my Spirit, my Soul and my Body. As it all comes into harmony with Him, as it all flows from Him and His design perfectly, then that, to me, will be abiding. Here is the essence of my prayer.

"Almighty God, I seek Your Truth and all that You have for me. I ask You, Holy Spirit, to invade every aspect of my being and lead me or change me as You see fit. I submit my Spirit to You, asking You to uproot anything in my Religion that is at variace to Your Truth, to do the same in Principles and Others, to have You, Holy Spirit, serve as my Spirit. I pray that Your Will, not mine be done. I pray that I have the Mind of Christ, that every thought be taken captive. I pray my Emotions speak Truth and manifest the Fruit of the Spirit. I give you my Body as Your Temple, to take whatever Actions You would have me take, to focus my Senses on anything You wish me to experience more fully, or to seek out whatever experiences You wish me to have. I ask You to transform my Body according to Your design and Your desire, guiding me in my complete cooperation with You to do so. Invade my Heart, seeking out anything in there that leads me in the least bit astray, soaking it in Your presence and uprooting it from whatever depths in which it hides.

"I invite You to destory as You would destroy, to build up as You would build up. I ask You to prune me according to Your infinite knowledge and infinite wisdom. Give me whatever trials and tribulations, give me whatever challenges and puzzles that will forge me into the man You would have me be. I give You my Self, my family, my posterity, my work, and I offer it to You. I will do myself that which You wish to give me as a stewardship or an exercise, and I will do with You anything You wish us to do together, and I offer myself as a conduit for anything You wish to do through me.

"I offer it all to You, Lord, everything I am, asking You to bring to my awareness those things that are my responsibility to handle, and doing by Your Power those things that You give to me. Help me abide in You, Lord Jesus. I ask this in the name of Jesus Christ. As it has been said, so let it be."

Conclusions

When Nathan Daniel taught me the prayer of submitting simply the realm of Action (the top level of Body) to God, it took me three weeks of daily prayer before I really meant it. When I did, God moved. Until then, the Holy Spirit was silent.

In this new prayer, I know in my Heart that this is where my life needs to go - but like the first prayer, it will take some time before the words come forth from my lips and I really mean it in the entirety of my being. The prayer is a little frightening, but until I know I really mean it, I ask God to help me mean it, to help me have Total Faith and Total Trust in Him.

What will God do? Will He do everything all at once, one thing at a time, or something in the middle? I do not know. God is God, and He knows me better than I know myself. The decision is all His, and I will try to grow up to be the man who really, honestly and completely means that prayer. With God's help and blessing, I shall.