Donavon Roberson's Blog, page 4
August 4, 2022
< hope
Hope - this word carries with it the idea of confidence (or confiding in) and anticipation. Here’s the thing…it’s not just living with expectation, it’s living with joyful expectation that brings pleasure!
As I was reading this and studying this I thought that was it. Living with joyful expectation that Jesus will show up in life…that’s hope, that’s love!
But then it continues…our belief and hope fills us with joy and peace and we live life full of the very joyful confidence that we hope in! If this hope is LOVE then entering into this relationship and exchange with God is all about love…that’s the full life that Jesus has called us to.
August 3, 2022
This is Kingdom living!Zechariah 7:9“Jesus inaugurated in...
Zechariah 7:9
“Jesus inaugurated in his person the reign of God. What makes the Kingdom come is heartfelt compassion.” Brennan Manning
Zechariah uses render here, which means as a governor or law giver. This holds the idea that we are not simply inhabitants of the Kingdom but that we hold a position of authority…we are representatives! We are to demonstrate power and authority in our interactions with others just as God would…and what does that look like?
We are to administer judgments that are true, faithful, reliable, and divine. Judgements that are as though they are coming from God Himself.
Jesus talks to his followers about the Kingdom - Kingdom Living can be seen in this verse! As lawgivers (or governors) we are to render true, faithful or divine judgments that result in affection and compassion to each other. We are to walk in a way that mirrors God’s interactions with us - truth, affection and compassion.
Micah 6:8 boils this down even more clearly… do justly - love mercy – walk humbly.
This is kingdom living. This is the life to which Jesus has called his followers. This life is a life that reflects the kingdom on earth.
August 2, 2022
Jesus throwing down!
John 2:14-17 NIVSo whatever happened to the nice, polite, meek and mild Jesus?
Yeah…this is still that Jesus, just seeing another side of Him. Listen, the Bible says that we are “made in the image of God” and I take that to mean that we are made in His likeness, we have similarities with the Divine, the Almighty.
Is it just that we are creative beings as some would suggest?
Is it that we can process thoughts, work out plans, communicate, or simply experience life?
Are our emotions part of the divine connection and similarities?
Why not all of the above and more?
I think that our emotions are part of the faculties that we have in common with God. Not only that BUT Jesus “took on flesh” which means He experienced all that we do on the regular and didn’t sin. He experienced our emotions and never tried to suppress them; he laughed, he cried, he experienced anger, he experience loss and grief and love and joy and abandonment…he experienced it all and never sinned. Meaning that the “experiencing of emotions” isn’t a sin and “experiencing the emotions” didn’t lead to sin.
The profundity of that statement cannot be overstated…emotions aren’t wrong and don’t always lead to wrong.
So what is up here? Jesus walks into the temple, sees people selling items to be used in worship, and proceeds to fashion a whip and tears through the temple in a fit of rage. This Jesus that loves deeply, feels passionately, and honors God with all of His being does something that could lead to jail time in our culture today. Why did He do it?
Because of the depths of His passionate love for the Father!
Jesus saw that what was taking place was a mockery to the Father and an insult and burden to those that came to worship. Here we see Jesus angry - so there is an anger that is not “sin”, an anger that is a seal for His Father’s House and not for himself, a zeal that consumed Jesus and filled him with a rage for His Father’s honor.
Zeal: to be hot, to boil, a jealously for your loved one (spouse)
Consume: to be devoured, to intensely eat
Jesus walked into the temple, a place of worship, a place where HIs Father was honored and adored, a place where the poorest amongst us would go to find peace, resolution, mercy, grace, healing and love…and instead of finding these things Jesus finds merchants taking advantage of the situation for their own personal gain and at the expense of the Father and the followers of God. At that moment, the love that Jesus has for both the Father and His Followers is affronted and Jesus becomes consumed with an intense jealously and starts out in a rage to remove anything that threatens the wellbeing and nature of that which He loves.
Love can, and should, lead us to the care for and nurturing of others…that same love can also lead to a fit of intense jealousy that will do whatever is needed to protect that which is loved. Jesus was driven to this point…and did not sin. We are made in His image, so I ask myself, what drives me to this intense jealousy? Where is my zeal? Where is my rage for the love of the Father?
Do you even know me?To be fully known…Is that what we all...
To be fully known…
Is that what we all want, to be fully known? Actually let’s go a step further…to be fully known AND loved? It’s easy to brush over the word “know” here because most of us know what that word means. Taking the time to unpack this word a bit more and putting it into context with other verses where it is used the word “know” takes on a different meaning today.
To know carries with it ideas such as “to be aware of”, “to feel”, “can speak to”, “to be sure”, and “to understand”.
Sit with that for a bit…
Jesus is aware of me and loves me.
Jesus can feel what I feel and loves me.
Jesus can speak to my experiences and loves me.
Jesus is sure of who I am and loves me.
Jesus understands every aspect of my human existence and loves me.
Maybe that last phrase can be flipped as well, because Jesus loves me He understands me.
All I have ever wanted in life was to be known, no masks, no pretense, no drama…just know me for who I am AND still love me. Love me with my strength and my shortcomings. Love me with my success and my mistakes. Love me with when I am engaged and when I am distant. Just know me and love me…
Jesus does.
And in the context of the other verses, this isn’t a blanket “know” but a “know” that is specific to me. Just like Jesus knew each disciple intimately and met them where they were, he knew each person that came to him in need and met them where they were, he knew each person that resisted for whatever reason and he met them where they were.
…and he loved them.
Jesus saw me in each of my “places”, he was sure of me, he understood me, and he loved me. That’s powerful!
August 1, 2022
What does GRACE mean to you?
Grace.
It should be a beautiful word, though I have felt such a weight carried with this word. I have always felt this word carried an element of “ok I’m going to let it slide because I have to” but that’s not it at all.
The word grace doesn’t carry with it an obligation or sense of moral duty, the word grace carries with it a sense of “a divine influence of the heart” or “a reflection of life”. Grace isn’t obligatory or something needs to be doled out as though it were a burden, it a gift, a benefit, it is pleasurable, it is given with joyful liberality and it is worth of gratitude and thanksgiving.
Think about God bestowing grace upon us in that light…grave isn’t given begrudgingly or because it is obligated due to some grand profit and loss calculator, God gives grace to us for our benefit and because it is a pleasurable act that should be a divine influence upon our lives.
That’s breath taking…
Now think about Jesus, Himself being full of grace an truth, in that same light. I find it very difficult to believe that a man filled with this element of life that reflects the very essence of life and is an expression of joyful liberality walking around in a shroud of duty, obligation, and judicial prowess. I don’t believe for a moment that he approached grace with a scarcity mindset (ok…you get this only once but next time you have to work harder or measure up more), I believe grace was lavishly given with liberality and with a measure of joy that is beyond our comprehension or understanding…in fact I wonder if that isn’t another reason why Jesus had to walk among us, to show us the unlimited nature of God’s grace.
Oh…I like that…time to double click on that!
June 6, 2021
Focus + Consistency = Relevance(the key to a lasting lega...
(the key to a lasting legacy)
I have been thinking about Psalm 1 a lot today and had some thoughts to share and a challenge to drop…even if the Psalms “aren’t your thing”. In case you aren’t familiar with my recent history, I have been in rehab when it comes to God recently and I am working on gaining a better understand of who God is, how God interacts with us and what that means for my life. That said, my approach to the Bible is that it is a book with principles and practices that have the potential to impact all people, at all times and in all walks of life.
I decided to start with Psalms as this has always been a solid collection of writings for me that speak from the heart of the author about their interactions with God, whether positive or negative, and I have noticed that there is a great deal of honesty regarding the interactions between God and the author and at all stages of life.
In the first two verses of Psalm 1, the author indicates that the person who meditates on the law of the Lord is blessed (which stems from the root “to be straight” and carries the meaning of having multiple blessings in life bestowed on them - this brings about a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction in life). I understand this to mean that the person that meditates on the Law of the Lord is satisfied in life to the point of being fulfilled - living life to the fullest (living a legacy).
So what is the Law of the Lord? From my Judeo-Christian upbringing, I understand this to be a creed or code to:
love Godlove yourselflove othersMoving on to the second set of verses, we see that consistency and relevance are additional results of meditating on the law of the lord; there will be evidences of fruit and healthy growth on the plant. The author contrasts this with a person that is not focused on the law of the Lord and lives a life disconnected from God; they will wither and fade away, blown away like the chaff (unstable and lacking value).
The final two verses of this Psalm dig even deeper into just how little value the wicked or ungodly hold…they can’t stand up to judgement nor hold a candle to those living righteous lives. In fact, their lives are lacking value to the degree that they will perish and their legacies will perish with right alongside them.
Let’s strip this from the ideology of the church or a Christian understanding and extract principles and practices that apply to everyone, everywhere. For Christians reading this please don’t stone me or see this as sacrilegious, I believe the impact and value of spiritual teachings is that they transcend time and space.
So let me break down the power of this passage:
FOCUS: I believe that meditating on the law of the Lord means to have a law or code of honor that directs life! Whether this code is based on spiritual teaching, tribal knowledge and agreement or personal manifestation is irrelevant; having a code based on values to guide and direct life is paramount to success.
What values or ethos do I hold dear?What creed or code do I live by (with my words and actions)?What guides my behavior and shapes my being as a member of society?CONSISTENCY: The evidence of consistency in life is pretty clear - fruit! It’s all about production. It’s easy to talk a good game but, as they say, the proof is in the pudding (or as I like to say the proof is in the production!). It’s too easy to talk the talk and bullshit your way through life…at least I know it is pretty easy for me.
Where in life am I talking and not walking?What am I actually producing in life?What have I talked about doing that I have not completed?RELEVANCE: I think this is the goal for anyone that actually gives a shit, we want our lives to count for something…we want to be relevant. When your life isn’t relevant and your legacy is unstable at best, you will be forgotten and your memory will quickly drop from the minds and hearts of others; a life without meaning or value is unable to stand against the judgement of others.
How can I add more value through my life?What impact is my legacy going to have on my family?Does my life have meaning and impact on those in my perimeter?So let’s wrap this up: as I said a bit ago, I believe that most of us are seeking to live to the fullest and in so doing leave a legacy of value for others to experience on the daily, we want our time on earth to mean something and add value to others (to be quite frank, those that don’t feel this way are vampires and travelers in life…seeking only that which they can devour and take for themselves). In order to leave a legacy, it will take work: there will be times of self reflection and reaction; there will times of success and failure; there will be ups and downs and there will most certainly be joy and pain.
That is life! In order to ensure your life counts for something, follow this simple formula: Focus + Consistency = Relevance
When I experience moments where I feel my life has no meaning, it’s generally because my focus or consistency is off. I had a brother call me out with a simple question the other day…it cut me to the bone (and he was right to call my ass out) AND it simply came down to the fact that I wasn’t following through on something that I said I would do (my consistency was off). I’m not going to leave a legacy worth anything to anyone if I continue to bullshit my way through life without focus or consistency…and truth be told neither will you.
Find a code to live by, focus your effort - attention - energy on living by that code and in so doing leave a legacy that means something!
Focus + Consistency = Relevance (the key to a lasting legacy)I have been thinking about Psalm 1 a...
Focus + Consistency = Relevance (the key to a lasting legacy)
I have been thinking about Psalm 1 a lot today and had some thoughts to share and a challenge to drop…even if the Psalms “aren’t your thing”. In case you aren’t familiar with my recent history, I have been in rehab when it comes to God recently and I am working on gaining a better understand of who God is, how God interacts with us and what that means for my life. That said, my approach to the Bible is that it is a book with principles and practices that have the potential to impact all people, at all times and in all walks of life.
I decided to start with Psalms as this has always been a solid collection of writings for me that speak from the heart of the author about their interactions with God, whether positive or negative, and I have noticed that there is a great deal of honesty regarding the interactions between God and the author and at all stages of life.
In the first two verses of Psalm 1, the author indicates that the person who meditates on the law of the Lord is blessed (which stems from the root “to be straight” and carries the meaning of having multiple blessings in life bestowed on them - this brings about a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction in life). I understand this to mean that the person that meditates on the Law of the Lord is satisfied in life to the point of being fulfilled - living life to the fullest (living a legacy).
So what is the Law of the Lord? From my Judeo-Christian upbringing, I understand this to be a creed or code to:
love Godlove yourselflove othersMoving on to the second set of verses, we see that consistency and relevance are additional results of meditating on the law of the lord; there will be evidences of fruit and healthy growth on the plant. The author contrasts this with a person that is not focused on the law of the Lord and lives a life disconnected from God; they will wither and fade away, blown away like the chaff (unstable and lacking value).
The final two verses of this Psalm dig even deeper into just how little value the wicked or ungodly hold…they can’t stand up to judgement nor hold a candle to those living righteous lives. In fact, their lives are lacking value to the degree that they will perish and their legacies will perish with right alongside them.
Let’s strip this from the ideology of the church or a Christian understanding and extract principles and practices that apply to everyone, everywhere. For Christians reading this please don’t stone me or see this as sacrilegious, I believe the impact and value of spiritual teachings is that they transcend time and space.
So let me break down the power of this passage:
FOCUS: I believe that meditating on the law of the Lord means to have a law or code of honor that directs life! Whether this code is based on spiritual teaching, tribal knowledge and agreement or personal manifestation is irrelevant; having a code based on values to guide and direct life is paramount to success.
What values or ethos do I hold dear?What creed or code do I live by (with my words and actions)?What guides my behavior and shapes my being as a member of society?CONSISTENCY: The evidence of consistency in life is pretty clear - fruit! It’s all about production. It’s easy to talk a good game but, as they say, the proof is in the pudding (or as I like to say the proof is in the production!). It’s too easy to talk the talk and bullshit your way through life…at least I know it is pretty easy for me.
Where in life am I talking and not walking?What am I actually producing in life?What have I talked about doing that I have not completed?RELEVANCE: I think this is the goal for anyone that actually gives a shit, we want our lives to count for something…we want to be relevant. When your life isn’t relevant and your legacy is unstable at best, you will be forgotten and your memory will quickly drop from the minds and hearts of others; a life without meaning or value is unable to stand against the judgement of others.
How can I add more value through my life?What impact is my legacy going to have on my family?Does my life have meaning and impact on those in my perimeter?So let’s wrap this up: as I said a bit ago, I believe that most of us are seeking to live to the fullest and in so doing leave a legacy of value for others to experience on the daily, we want our time on earth to mean something and add value to others (to be quite frank, those that don’t feel this way are vampires and travelers in life…seeking only that which they can devour and take for themselves). In order to leave a legacy, it will take work: there will be times of self reflection and reaction; there will times of success and failure; there will be ups and downs and there will most certainly be joy and pain.
That is life! In order to ensure your life counts for something, follow this simple formula: Focus + Consistency = Relevance
When I experience moments where I feel my life has no meaning, it’s generally because my focus or consistency is off. I had a brother call me out with a simple question the other day…it cut me to the bone (and he was right to call my ass out) AND it simply came down to the fact that I wasn’t following through on something that I said I would do (my consistency was off). I’m not going to leave a legacy worth anything to anyone if I continue to bullshit my way through life without focus or consistency…and truth be told neither will you.
Find a code to live by, focus your effort - attention - energy on living by that code and in so doing leave a legacy that means something!
May 31, 2021
It is about time!
Well it’s about time!
How many times have you heard that sentiment in your? From a parent that has been waiting for you to finally listen to their advice? From a teacher that has been waiting for you to understand the lesson? From a friend that has been giving advice and waiting for you to follow their guidance? From yourself as you have finally figure out the life lesson you have been working on for months or years?
It’s really one of those sayings for me that carries mixed emotions; it is generally shared as a “dis”, carrying a sense of shame for having not figured out the truth sooner. However on occasion, and given the right tonality and inflection, this statement can be shared with a sense of strength and encouragement for the work, effort and energy that was expended getting to the place of understanding.
We are actually going to take a peek at another meaning of the phrase today as we pick up where we left off on My Year Without God. In my last post, I covered the difference between being religious and being spiritual; breaking down the reality that all things in are spiritual, in that they are all connected and it is the spirit that gives all things meaning and value and that the spiritual life is the life that continues to look for that meaning and value in all things.
During my year without god, I discovered another truth about God that had alluded me for years…in fact it was so counter to what I knew of God that it was hard for me to accept at first. I don’t know what you think of when you think of God but if I were to sum up my prior understanding of God in one word it would be JUDGEMENT.
I have alway envisioned God as the one that holds the biggest stick and with it I was either blessed or cursed…based upon God’s judgement of my performance to date. If my good deeds or intentions outweighed the bad deeds and intentions in life, God would use the stick to bless and allow me to prosper. If however the deeds and intentions of life leaned on the negative side then God would curse me in that moment. The sinister part of the checks and balances is that God made the rules and set the bar so high that I was barely able to reach it…so I was confident that my life would be a life filled with God’s judgement weighing heavily against me.
On the flip side, I also understood that God was a God of love, so I would be cut a little slack but I was convinced that even though I was forgiven, God was looking on me with a sense of shame at my inability to measure up and perform to the level that was expected.
I then dug into the concept of The Sabbath by reading a book entitled The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel. I had never read anything about God from the Jewish perspective and had to say that I was drawn in on in a few short pages! Heschel defines Judaism as “a religion centrally concerned with holiness in time”, a concept that he makes clear by discussing the difference between space and time; space would be anything that we construct or manipulate with our hands (those are the very attributes of God where we have been made in His image - the ability to create and reign over the physical aspects of life) whereas time is that place the truly separates us from God. We exist in time, time exists within God and according to Heschel “we must conquer space in order to sanctify time” and in so doing we truly experience God.
To help summarize the book, here is a paragraph from the first chapter of The Sabbath (this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface, I encourage you to read this book):
“To gain control of the world of space is certainly one of our tasks. The danger begins when in gaining power in the realm of space we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time. There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.”
In other words, life isn’t simply meant to be about doing but being. As the doing in life takes place in space, the being in life takes place in time and because time exists within God it is in those moments of time that we are truly interacting with God.
That which truly sets God apart from creation is time. For God to occupy space defines God in the place of “thingness”, in order to meet the thingness of God we must enter into space and we quickly find that no space is vast enough to contain God and in fact we discover that all spaces fail BUT it is when we see God in the moments of time that we are able to truly tap into eternity.
If you think back to the differences between form and space that I raised in a previous post (spirit gives life to the form and form gives shape to universal truths, the spirit that is behind the form) it becomes clear to me that interacting with God in space is form (the form of religion) and even the religious practices of our day are shrines that take space and form and can keep us from God if we stop seeking the spirit behind the practice. In order to connect to the spirit behind the form, we must step beyond what we do in the space and connect with God by being with God in the moments of time; this isn’t to say that the we are enslaved by the form of a clock but experiencing a moment in time that has no beginning or end where we tap into eternity.
As I pondered this distinction I realized that seeing God in space (form) influenced my worship to be filled with fear and trepidation. I didn’t see my times of worship as something to rejoice over, it was obligatory in nature only. Seeing God in time (spirit) opened my eyes to an event that transcends space and makes worship more worthwhile and enjoyable! I came to understand that God set apart the Sabbath as a day, a dedicated moment in time, to simply be. I am to toil and work 6 days a week and it is within those 6 days that I am master this world in all that I do but, as a beautiful expression of love, God set apart the Sabbath for me to simply be.
And then it hit me…and it was about time!
The dissonance that I have been feeling about God finally started to come together for me as I began to see that my mind was too weak to comprehend God’s sovereignty and that my spirit was too divided; and the truth is that this is something true of us all.
What I feel when I think about the love of God is divided; I believe that God has love for me (to an extent) but it begins to unravel for me when I stack my unworthiness against God’s worthiness (those moments when I stack my form against God’s form and fall short at every turn). When these moments of comparison occur in space and form, my unworthiness turns to guilt and that guilt turns to shame and my weaker mind and heart take over and I push God away. God provides the Sabbath for me to create room in my mind and heart for the spirit of God to remind me that this moment is why I was created.
As Heschel reminds us “One must be overawed by the marvel of time to be ready to perceive the presence of eternity in a single moment. One must live and act as if the fate of all of time would depend on a single moment.”
So what does all of this mean as it relates to our understanding of God, it’s simple…IT’S ABOUT TIME!
It’s up to me to take moments of time to experience life. It’s up to me to make the most of every moment that I have been given. It’s up to me to set aside time (whether that is one day a week, pockets of time throughout my week OR stay aware of the moments that unfold in my life) to experience God in spirit as I stope striving and simply be.
It’s about time and it’s up to me.
It’s about time and it’s up to you…what will you do who will you be with the moments of time that you have today?
It is about time!Well it’s about time!How many times have you heard that sentiment in your?...
Well it’s about time!
How many times have you heard that sentiment in your? From a parent that has been waiting for you to finally listen to their advice? From a teacher that has been waiting for you to understand the lesson? From a friend that has been giving advice and waiting for you to follow their guidance? From yourself as you have finally figure out the life lesson you have been working on for months or years?
It’s really one of those sayings for me that carries mixed emotions; it is generally shared as a “dis”, carrying a sense of shame for having not figured out the truth sooner. However on occasion, and given the right tonality and inflection, this statement can be shared with a sense of strength and encouragement for the work, effort and energy that was expended getting to the place of understanding.
We are actually going to take a peek at another meaning of the phrase today as we pick up where we left off on My Year Without God. In my last post, I covered the difference between being religious and being spiritual; breaking down the reality that all things in are spiritual, in that they are all connected and it is the spirit that gives all things meaning and value and that the spiritual life is the life that continues to look for that meaning and value in all things.
During my year without god, I discovered another truth about God that had alluded me for years…in fact it was so counter to what I knew of God that it was hard for me to accept at first. I don’t know what you think of when you think of God but if I were to sum up my prior understanding of God in one word it would be JUDGEMENT.
I have alway envisioned God as the one that holds the biggest stick and with it I was either blessed or cursed…based upon God’s judgement of my performance to date. If my good deeds or intentions outweighed the bad deeds and intentions in life, God would use the stick to bless and allow me to prosper. If however the deeds and intentions of life leaned on the negative side then God would curse me in that moment. The sinister part of the checks and balances is that God made the rules and set the bar so high that I was barely able to reach it…so I was confident that my life would be a life filled with God’s judgement weighing heavily against me.
On the flip side, I also understood that God was a God of love, so I would be cut a little slack but I was convinced that even though I was forgiven, God was looking on me with a sense of shame at my inability to measure up and perform to the level that was expected.
I then dug into the concept of The Sabbath by reading a book entitled The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel. I had never read anything about God from the Jewish perspective and had to say that I was drawn in on in a few short pages! Heschel defines Judaism as “a religion centrally concerned with holiness in time”, a concept that he makes clear by discussing the difference between space and time; space would be anything that we construct or manipulate with our hands (those are the very attributes of God where we have been made in His image - the ability to create and reign over the physical aspects of life) whereas time is that place the truly separates us from God. We exist in time, time exists within God and according to Heschel “we must conquer space in order to sanctify time” and in so doing we truly experience God.
To help summarize the book, here is a paragraph from the first chapter of The Sabbath (this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface, I encourage you to read this book):
“To gain control of the world of space is certainly one of our tasks. The danger begins when in gaining power in the realm of space we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time. There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.”
In other words, life isn’t simply meant to be about doing but being. As the doing in life takes place in space, the being in life takes place in time and because time exists within God it is in those moments of time that we are truly interacting with God.
That which truly sets God apart from creation is time. For God to occupy space defines God in the place of “thingness”, in order to meet the thingness of God we must enter into space and we quickly find that no space is vast enough to contain God and in fact we discover that all spaces fail BUT it is when we see God in the moments of time that we are able to truly tap into eternity.
If you think back to the differences between form and space that I raised in a previous post (spirit gives life to the form and form gives shape to universal truths, the spirit that is behind the form) it becomes clear to me that interacting with God in space is form (the form of religion) and even the religious practices of our day are shrines that take space and form and can keep us from God if we stop seeking the spirit behind the practice. In order to connect to the spirit behind the form, we must step beyond what we do in the space and connect with God by being with God in the moments of time; this isn’t to say that the we are enslaved by the form of a clock but experiencing a moment in time that has no beginning or end where we tap into eternity.
As I pondered this distinction I realized that seeing God in space (form) influenced my worship to be filled with fear and trepidation. I didn’t see my times of worship as something to rejoice over, it was obligatory in nature only. Seeing God in time (spirit) opened my eyes to an event that transcends space and makes worship more worthwhile and enjoyable! I came to understand that God set apart the Sabbath as a day, a dedicated moment in time, to simply be. I am to toil and work 6 days a week and it is within those 6 days that I am master this world in all that I do but, as a beautiful expression of love, God set apart the Sabbath for me to simply be.
And then it hit me…and it was about time!
The dissonance that I have been feeling about God finally started to come together for me as I began to see that my mind was too weak to comprehend God’s sovereignty and that my spirit was too divided; and the truth is that this is something true of us all.
What I feel when I think about the love of God is divided; I believe that God has love for me (to an extent) but it begins to unravel for me when I stack my unworthiness against God’s worthiness (those moments when I stack my form against God’s form and fall short at every turn). When these moments of comparison occur in space and form, my unworthiness turns to guilt and that guilt turns to shame and my weaker mind and heart take over and I push God away. God provides the Sabbath for me to create room in my mind and heart for the spirit of God to remind me that this moment is why I was created.
As Heschel reminds us “One must be overawed by the marvel of time to be ready to perceive the presence of eternity in a single moment. One must live and act as if the fate of all of time would depend on a single moment.”
So what does all of this mean as it relates to our understanding of God, it’s simple…IT’S ABOUT TIME!
It’s up to me to take moments of time to experience life. It’s up to me to make the most of every moment that I have been given. It’s up to me to set aside time (whether that is one day a week, pockets of time throughout my week OR stay aware of the moments that unfold in my life) to experience God in spirit as I stope striving and simply be.
It’s about time and it’s up to me.
It’s about time and it’s up to you…what will you do who will you be with the moments of time that you have today?
May 26, 2021
Not Religious but Spiritual…and what that means to me!
Recently I shared that last year was My Year Without God and I had several questions come in about that, so I wanted to take some time to unpack why I did this and what I learned from that time. I had several friends write me off right away, which was part of it honestly, and I had several friends get behind me and were excited about my journey…again to me this is what it was all about.
You ready to dig in with me? Here we go!
What really set me off on this journey, the proverbial “straw that broke the camels back” for me was a football game. Yep, I said it…a football game. Ok so maybe not the game itself but a comment that was made after the game AND I suspect that if you have ever found yourself in a place where you have questioned God or the church or Christians in general, you probably know the comment before I even say it. The comment isn’t even something that was unique to this game, it’s a comment that I have heard from several players and coaches throughout my life time of watching sports but it was this time, this game and this moment that stuck with me and started my path and motivated my year without god.
Are you ready for it?
“I want to thank God (my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ) for this win tonight. We won because of Him and without Him we wouldn’t be here right now. He gets all the glory.”
Now hear me out, some of that sentiment sounds perfectly fine and resonates with my Judeo-Christian background - I think it is a great thing to thank God for moments in life that bring about joy. Seriously, bring it on! But what if they had lost the game, would they be thanking Him then? Would they be giving Him “all the glory”? Would they have done the same had they lost because of Him?
And this had me going down a rabbit hole that was amazing:
On and on it went…question after question, deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole I went. Then something interesting happened, with every question I raised, the “good christian answer” that I was taught and that I have taught others, surfaced but it didn’t feel right. I was calling bullshit on myself and my own answers. I decided I needed to detox and take time away from the situation in order to answer the questions that were digging at my head and my heart.
So in that moment, the very first question that came up for me was this: is there a God? The answer I came to is simply stated as YES BUT…what if God was what I called something that was at play in my life and there was so much more going on below the surface? That led me to the idea of spirit…let’s not call it god yet but let’s call it spirit and see if we can find out how spirit moves in daily life.
Now I am still working through this in my mind but here are some thoughts that I have on what spirit means and what it means to be spiritual. A disclaimers as we begin, in fairness, some of the ideas I have come to are derived from Rob Bell’s book Everything Is Spiritual, a book I listened to at the end of My Year Without God.
It is fair to call me out for cheating by using a spiritual book to better understand the spiritual, however if you are familiar with Rob Bell he has been labeled an apostate by most of the church and I appreciate his fresh take on god, the bible and all things spiritual…he has a very different approach that makes sense to me and resonates with me. Lest it end there, I also read a book by Abraham Joshua Heschel, a Jewish Rabbi, entitled The Sabbath to help me understand the Jewish concept of God and how it might differ from my christian roots. To top it all off, I am currently working through a book on paganism, entitled Fire in the Dark by Jack Donovan, highlighting the ancient beliefs and traditions held about gods and man…so lest you think I settled back into the familiar, please know that I am pushing the boundaries of my understanding of these topics to this day.
Ok…so here we go, let’s talk about Spirit and what I understand Spirit to be (and why not simply call Spirit God). I needed to devoid myself of the “Sunday school answers” I was used to and find another way to talk about this. For me (and I know not everyone agrees) I quickly came to the conclusion that there is a part of life that exists in our daily lives holding all things together and giving meaning and purpose to all that exists, even if I couldn’t name it.
I think of spirit as those moments that happen in us, to us and through us that can’t be fully explain, it’s the “something bigger than ourselves” that we sense in the pockets of time that stand as a great mystery residing beyond understanding…and somehow it is this very entity that ties us all together, unites us and gives life meaning.
Maybe that is the better word or description, the great mystery, but for the sake of this conversation let’s stick with spirit and spirituality.
This description even falls short because it makes it sound as though anything not in the aforementioned space isn’t spiritual (concluding that some things are spirit and some things aren’t) but I don’t believe that to be true either. I believe Spirit is that which runs through all things, connects all things and gives life and meaning to all things…therefore, in my opinion, all things are spiritual because it is Spirit connects them all.
Rob Bell talks about the distinction between form and spirit; spirit gives life to the form and the form gives shape to universal truths, the spirit that is behind it. The catch is that we often give form to the spirit and fail to progress into the deeper meaning or essence that lies within. When we continue to dig in and see the spirit behind all things we begin practicing spirituality - the constant progression to discover spirit at the deepest level of all things.
Bell gives a great expression for how spirituality shows in in our lives, he states “You, that is the expansive, connected, struggle-overcoming you, is alive and invited to play a part in the ever-increasing awe-factory that is our universe; this is what it means to be spiritual.”
I think there is more to the spirit than any religion or religious institution can hold…I was brought up in the church and the ideology of “God” is what resonates most with me and why I am resisting the temptation to immediately draw the conclusion that “given the definition I have laid out so far, I should just call Spirit God.” That is the easy way out for me and why I am exploring other philosophies and ideologies. The truth is, I’m fine calling this entity God but I am not fine equating this new understanding of God with what I have experienced from the church. I think the church is missing out on what connects Spirit to the traditions and teachings of the ancient texts and traditions. I want to better understand that realm at the deepest, most sacred places and discover how all of this fits together - I want to keep digging into this ever expanding world of spirituality!
So let’s tie a bow on this…what does all of this mean?
I’ve come to understand spirituality as authentically embracing and engaging the greater mystery every day and in every way to become the greatest version of myself while I experience life to the fullest!
Am I a religious man? Nope I can truly say that I am not BUT I do believe that I am a very spiritual man. I am a man that sees that there is a greater mystery at play in life and in the lives of others and I can’t explain what’s going on, I am committed to spend the rest of my life engaging with that mystery so that it becomes more expansive, more connected, more alive to me in every moment of every day.
[BTW, this is part one of three because Everything is Spiritual was one of three books that influenced me greatly last year.]
