Tiara Ladies Retreat 2015 Redux

Saturday Night Talk…Tiara Ladies Retreat August 2015

We are going to focus on the decisions that Much-Afraid made as she journeyed to the High Places.

We all have decisions we make every day…this morning I had to decide if I wanted coffee or tea.  Not a major decision, but one that could affect me for the rest of the day.  If I chose coffee I might be more alert.  I would definitely have to go to the bathroom sooner rather than later.  I might have acid stomach and then have to deal with being uncomfortable or go looking for some vinegar.  If I had tea would I add milk to it today or just sugar?  Would I choose a breakfast blend or go for Earl Gray….decisions, decisions.  None of them major, but they could influence the decisions I made later.  Do I eat a big breakfast or hold out for lunch.  Do I have something sweet or do I eat only healthy choices. Or do I go for a run instead of doing breakfast at all?….that was thrown in for levity to those of you who know me.

Tonight we are going to focus on decision making…what do we do when we come to those forks in the road?  You know those places where you either continue on the path you are on or you chose to turn and go what seems to be a completely different way.  These can be major decisions…not the what to do for breakfast decisions, but the decisions where Jesus is asking you to go higher up with Him and not remain in the status quo.  The interesting thing about our walk with Jesus, many times it seems He is asking us to go the complete opposite way of what He has promised.

Much Afraid had several of these “forks in the road” to choose which way to go…her companions always seemed to know the path but often she was unsure and had to call to the Shepherd for help.  And as He would tell her the way to go she would have to give something up in order to be obedient.

Let’s take a look at some of these decisions that Much Afraid made on her journey and compare them to the decisions we have made on our journey here to this mountain, not just this physical location, but to the place we are in the spiritual.

We know that Much Afraid was already a follower of the Shepherd, so that decision is left out of the story.  But when you are journaling on your own you might want to take a little time and write down what it was that was the clincher that made you choose Jesus in the first place or re-dedicate yourself to him if you were saved as a very young child and do not remember.

Back to Much Afraid…her first decision was to ask to go to the High Places where she would be given hind’s feet.  What could be some of the reasons that made her want to leave her valley at this point in time?

·         She wanted hind’s feet and to no longer be lame

·         She loved the Shepherd

·         She had friends that she wanted to be like…Peace and Joy

What were some of the things that had kept her in the Valley of Despair for so long?

·         Her family

·         Her perceived limitations

·         What she thought of herself and the lies she believed

·         The expectations others had on her

·         How difficult the journey to the High Places would be

·         She had no one to go with her

Then think, who are the companions that the Lord has chosen to go with you on your pilgrimage?  Is it suffering and sorrow or maybe loss and rejection how about loneliness?   Just know that it is not fear, or pride, or envy or any of the others that Much Afraid encountered.

I think this first choice is one that we all have to make as we follow Christ.  Many are content to stay in the valley and go about their daily activities…but for each of us there came a time when we knew that we could no longer be satisfied with the way things were….we wanted more.  We are the ones Jesus refers to in the Beatitudes as Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after Righteousness.  Know that is a God given hunger and thirst and we can never again be satisfied with just our salvation.  We may have tried to live back in that Valley again but there is no satisfaction there….Absolutely none!!!

So as we have traveled on this journey that we call our spiritual walk, how many times have you come to that fork in the road and really thought that the Lord had lost His mind?  Or in the very least, that you could not possibly be hearing what it is, and where it is, you were to go.

Our walks are as individual as each of us are.  We may have gone through similar circumstances…job loss, death of a loved one, a straying child, divorce, infidelity, bankruptcy, sickness, etc, but we are each affected differently and have our own unique things we learn through the process.  The same is true if we were to write the allegory of our pilgrimage to the High Places.  We would not necessarily go in the same order that Much Afraid…or Hannah Hurnard…did but we are definitely on a pilgrimage. There are times of rest and times of struggle, times of doubt and confusion and times of complete clarity.  Times when we must build an altar before we can proceed and times when the Lord must chasten us for not listening.

Tonight we are going to be thinking like Much Afraid in the cave…the storm is raging all around us but here we sit, dry and comfortable, waiting for the next part of our journey.  And what was the next step, but complete and utter abandonment of all of her hopes and dreams on the final altar.  Just like Much Afraid we have come this far and now it is time to take out our stones of remembrance and decide if they are worth it or not.  Do we keep these memorials or do we toss them away to lessen the weight.  And tomorrow, do we make the sacrifice….whatever you are here to offer up…or do we head down the mountain and back to the same old, same old.

Now what you came from, your walk, might have been amazing.  You might feel that you are already in a good place and there is no need to offer anything else…as you have already offered it all.  Or you might say…it is not me who has to make the sacrifice, it is someone else that is standing in my way.  Or you might think that you have come pretty far and now is the time to just rest in what has been accomplished so far.  But as I have been reading and listening to Hind’s Feet I have this thing gnawing on the edge of my consciousness that makes me know that this is a time for decisions…a turning point in my pilgrimage.

I have been on hold for the last three years…looking out my kitchen window at Chinle the schools and the hospital and the hill behind it and the mesa behind that watching the seasons change and wondering what it is I am supposed to be doing.  So I can identify with Much Afraid as she was going through the gray mists.  There are times when a shaft of light seems to break through the mist, but for the most part it is the same every day.  But yet, I know that I know that this is where we are supposed to be.  That God is preparing us in this desert place.  I am hoping it is for revival on the Nation, but we could be gone before that happens. I just know that so far this is our home.  You can picture in your mind where it is you think you are on your journey.

I want to share with you the picture I had on my drive across the Rez to get to Holbrook.  First of all, I was starving and looking forward to breakfast in Holbrook.  It had been rainy the first 25 miles of my drive and I was pondering going the long way to avoid some areas on the shortcut that have a tendency to flood.  But the drive along the 15 is one of my favorite.  So I had decided if it was dry at Ganado High/Burger King I would take the shorter way….since I was sooooo very hungry.  Well, when I arrived at the round-about the dark foreboding clouds were all behind me and it looked clear and dry ahead so off towards Greasewood I went.  I was hoping to see llamas but I did see sheep, horses and cattle on this 30+ mile section.  I was enjoying the scenery and listening to worship music and thinking about retreat and just generally going down the road.  I had just passed the Greasewood turn off when I stopped my reveling and just looked and enjoyed all the flowers.  There were fields and fields of what I always called Black-eyed Susans…but the ladies at sewing group call them small sunflowers.  There were literally thousands and thousands of these beautiful and joyous flowers. In other fields there were yellow low lying bushes and purple flowers. I started to think once more about the abundance of wild flowers this year on the Rez.  A couple of weeks ago it was purple thistles and before that is was the yellow brittlebush and there has been purple and yellow and orange and white and  even across the street from my apartment it has been green and I noticed some tall white flowers there.  This is a field that is usually just dirt.

As I looked at all the flowers I thought what an amazing year this has been and how incredible and late the flowers still are.  I remember the first spring we were in Chinle.  I kept waiting and waiting for the wild flowers and they just did not seem to come.  I had been back to the Valley and there were flowers in the desert and even in the mountains but not up on the plateau.  It wasn’t until May that I noticed some wild flowers on the road to Ganado. And then for a couple of months you would see some flowers here and there but hardly any in town.

So I thought, you know those flowers did not appear out of nowhere.  There were seeds that had lain dormant for who knows how many years waiting and waiting for just the right set of conditions in order to spring to life.  What I had seen as barrenness in previous years was just vast potential waiting to happen.  Holy Spirit showed me that my life is like that field…when the time is right and everything has been done that needs to be done then I will be able to bloom in the same way.

Sitting here and writing this the thought came…Jesus always sees us as that glorious field full of flowers!!!

What were the lessons that Much Afraid was able to learn on her journey to the High Places?

·         Accept with joy everything brought her way and the path on which Jesus leads her

·         Bear what all others were allowed to do against her and to forgive without bitterness

·         The Shepherd never saw her as she was, only as she was going to be

·         Overcome evil with good

·         As long as she was Acceptance with Joy and Bearing with Love she could never be crippled again

What are the promises that were made to Much Afraid by the Shepherd?

·         I will make your feet like Hind’s feet and place you on higher places

·         What I do now you do not know but you will know later

·         This is not unto death but for the Glory of God

·         Breadcorn is bruised but no one crushes it forever

·         Cannot I do with you as the Potter, says the Lord.

·         Oh you afflicted and not comforted, behold I will lay your stones with fair colors.

·         My sheep hear my voice and they follow me.

·         Now you will see what I will do.

·         God is not a man that He should lie, has He not said and will He not do it or has He spoken it and not make it happen.

·         Your ears will hear a word behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it.

·         When the rains come down the house will remain for it is built on the Rock.

·         His love planted in your heart will grow and flourish when all human love is placed on the altar.

So let’s take these lessons and promises…you can add to them some of your own…and think about what it is we are here to make real in our own lives.

What is it you are desiring from Jesus this weekend?

What is it Jesus is desiring to give you this weekend?

In conclusion, from her vantage point on the High Place Grace and Glory looked down to the Valley of Humiliation and realized how little she saw before when she looked up to the High Places and turning and looking the other way, she realized how much more she still could not see.

Do not give the enemy any power

September 1, 2015

Thoughts while driving home from Tiara Ladies Retreat August 2015

Pornography was brought up by one of the ladies at retreat as being a devastation to our country and she is committed to getting the message out on this horrible sin that is everywhere.  But being me and loving the Old Testament and easily set on other paths, my thoughts turned to Hosea and the things I have been sharing with the Adult Sunday School class at church.  We have been looking at Israel’s spiritual adultery and the problems they had with the worship of false idols.

An integral part of cultic worship is sexual in nature.  And the reasoning behind it is to stimulate the local deities into producing abundant harvests and needed rains and just all around fruitfulness.  As I thought about that component of worship the thought came to me that these temple prostitutes and their “worshippers/johns” were acting out or doing pornography for their false gods. They were the living videos and smutty books and sexual pictures to get these gods/demons all excited and out there making the land fruitful by having intercourse with their demonic counterparts. Every one of these cults seemed to have a male and female god that were fertility gods in one way or another.

So how does that affect us today, where most people are not out at the Ashtoreth pole, or up on the mountain or in a grove worshipping but simply sitting at their computer surfing the porn sites?  What about those many people that have come to believe that it is ok to have multiple sexual encounters prior to settling down. Or those that have become so callous to what is common to be shown in our movies, TV, magazines and even video games that they have come to believe that anything goes?

There must be something to the fact that these demons need to be stimulated and they are stimulated in watching humans sin.  So it then becomes a vicious cycle.  The person sins sexually, which gives the demon power, which makes them lead the person farther and farther into their sin.  A demonic catch 22 if you would, where power is increased in the demonic realm the more that sin is increased.  And the only way to break the cycle is through Jesus.  Obviously the demons do not want to break the cycle and very often the person involved in the sin cannot see a way out through shear will-power (there will be those that do break their addiction through will-power but the root cause will still be there and it will surface elsewhere)

But Jesus died to break those chains and when we come to Him with a repentant heart then freedom can be won and the cycle broken.  If we really understood that our sexual sins, whether actual or in thought, are like food and water and energy to the demonic, overcoming and repenting of them should become more of a priority.  Who wants to be the one that is supplying the enemy with all the equipment and armament they need in order to defeat them and the ones they love?

What soldier would take his food, water and bullets and go across the DMZ and hand it all over to the enemy that is there to kill, maim and destroy everything they love.  But that is exactly what we are doing when we continue on in these sexual sins.  You may say it is only my mind that strays from time to time, I would never be unfaithful to my vows…that may be true but you are underestimating how powerful those thoughts are in the spiritual realm.  Jesus reminded us that as a man thinks, so is he.  That even to just look at someone or think about something in a lustful way is sin.  That we are as guilty as if we had actually done the act of rebellion.  That is why it is so important that we learn how to break those ties and to take every thought captive.

But once again we are back at the very real problem that we cannot do this on our own strength for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against powers and principalities in the spiritual realm.  So then closing down all pornographic sites will not cure us.  Because the problem is not external but internal.  After all the Israelites in Hosea’s time did not have the internet and they still had the very same problem.  Does that mean we sit back and do not fight…no…but we need to go into the fight with our eyes open.  We fight to bring the captives out of the prisons made by this industry, whether boys and girls sold into prostitution and pornography or the fact that our children need to have safeguards in place to keep them from becoming entrapped by looking at these images and warp the way they feel about sex. This is a fight for the heart and soul, not just a modification of our physical life.  And since it is demonic in nature we must fight in the spiritual realm first and foremost.  As Christians we need to use our God-given authority to cast down these strongholds.