Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Being taught is one thing but unlearning is another ..

Oswald Chamber's today

July 29th.

WHAT DO YOU SEE IN YOUR CLOUDS?
"Behold, He cometh with clouds." Revelation 1:7

In the Bible clouds are always connected with God. Clouds are those sorrows or sufferings or providences, within or without our personal lives, which seem to dispute the rule of God. It is by those very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were no clouds, we should have no faith. "The clouds are but the dust of our Father's feet." The clouds are a sign that He is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow and bereavement and suffering are the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near without clouds, He does not come in clear shining.  ( how would we come to know how great His comfort is if we had not a need for comfort; how would we come to know peace if we had not trials and confusions and chaos at times..  God is truly our greatest need and through these direct revelations of His love, compassion, peace, etc, we come to realize that our hope and joy is not dependant upon life's ups and downs but on the unchanging everlasting character and grace of God )

It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials: through every cloud He brings, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in the cloud is to simplify our belief until our relationship to Him is exactly that of a child - God and my own soul, other people are shadows. Until other people become shadows, clouds and darkness will be mine every now and again. Is the relationship between myself and God getting simpler than ever it has been? (this to me is important because its one thing to be taught but it's quite another to unlearn.  Unlearning brings purity into our hearts - unlearning the misconceptions and mistaken identity if you will that we have attached to God.  He uses much in our lives as we open up our hearts to Him continually, to unlearn (not teach) the erroneous mindset religious minded belief and perceptions of who He is and His character to gently direct us into the  love of God .  He wants us to comprehend who He truly is and how wonderful, loving and gracious He is.  We only get there by unlearning our religious mindset ingrained in us all)

There is a connection between the strange providences of God and what we know of Him, and we have to learn to interpret the mysteries of life in the light of our knowledge of God.  (everything that comes our way either gets misinterpreted through our false perception of who God is or else we see things IN LIGHT of His true character and we are therefore living in a realm spiritually that is one of tremendous peace, love, hope, etc  )  Unless we can look the darkest, blackest fact full in the face without damaging God's character, we do not yet know Him.

"They feared as they entered the cloud . . ." - Is there anyone "save Jesus only" in your cloud? If so, it will get darker; you must get to the place where there is "no one any more save Jesus only."

1 comment:

Rich said...

Ruth,

Yes as so often I love how Papa is continuing to confirm the cement of His unchaging love and deep afection for me in reading Oz's writtings, so cool!