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| And streams will flow in the desert ... - Isaiah |
Visions Become Reality
The parched ground shall become a pool . . .
We always have a vision of something before it actually becomes real to us. When we realize that the vision is real, but is not yet real in us, Satan comes to us with his temptations, and we are inclined to say that there is no point in even trying to continue. Instead of the vision becoming real to us, we have entered into a valley of humiliation.
Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And battered by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.
But iron dug from central gloom,
And battered by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.
God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint. Every God-given vision will become real if we will only have patience. Just think of the enormous amount of free time God has! He is never in a hurry. Yet we are always in such a frantic hurry. While still in the light of the glory of the vision, we go right out to do things, but the vision is not yet real in us. God has to take us into the valley and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the point where He can trust us with the reality of the vision. Ever since God gave us the vision, He has been at work. He is getting us into the shape of the goal He has for us, and yet over and over again we try to escape from the Sculptor’s hand in an effort to batter ourselves into the shape of our own goal.
The vision that God gives is not some unattainable castle in the sky, but a vision of what God wants you to be down here. Allow the Potter to put you on His wheel and whirl you around as He desires. Then as surely as God is God, and you are you, you will turn out as an exact likeness of the vision. But don’t lose heart in the process. If you have ever had a vision from God, you may try as you will to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never allow it.
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| "He leadeth me beside the still waters ..." |
~ Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest, July 6, 2014
http://utmost.org/
And what if the opposite were also true? What if from "life experience" we were all susceptible to swallowing a "mythological kernel" (something unreal) around which we would then build our character/ personae, as individuals, as a people, and as a nation?.
ReplyDeleteThis kernel might be "fundamentally false"... built upon "a noble lie(s)". But from this kernel would be born in a person perceptions of all things both "good" and "bad" (ideology).
And then what if someone were to come along at a later time and expose this false/ underlying kernel. Would he be performing this group of mankind a service, liberating them from these false beliefs, or a disservice, perhaps plunging his entire social group into a state of moral chaos?
A society built upon "truth," would perhaps (I'm not certain), be "better". But so far to date, no society based entirely upon in His Truth has managed to prevail over all others.
What you describe, Thersites, might be called the problem of Free Will or that of Freedom of Choice. God, apparently, thought enough of us to give us he opportunity to learn by trial and error -- as any good parent must if he wants his children to become independent adults with a goid chance of fulfilling their potential. Without Free Will, we'd be nothing but mindless automata -- incapable either of joy or sorrow, love or heartbreak, achievement or failure -- sorry creatures with no more intelligence than a potted plant -- devoid of sense, devoid of ambition, devoid of awareness, devoid of creativity.
ReplyDeleteI'll paraphrase Winston Churchill in an attempt to be more succinct.
The Christian Worldview is the worst possible way of approaching life's challenges -- except for all the others.
We should all review C.S. Lewis's The Problem of Evil.
It isn't up to us to refashion the world to suit our (painfully limited) notions of what we think appropriate.
ReplyDeleteAs they always have, attempts in that direction are bound to prove as futile as trying to sweep the ocean back with a broom.
Instead it is our job, if you will, to do the best we can to perfect or at leas improve ourselves as individuals according to the limits of our understanding regardless of the conditions surrounding us -- or the unpleasant consequences we may have to endure for following he dictates of our individual conscience..
The paradox, perhaps, is that the "leader" who leadeth his flock beside still waters, removes them from exposure to His "shocks of doom
ReplyDeleteTo shape and use."
This makes them stupid and would seem to countervail His Will.
In other words, it suggests reasons to avoid working for "the public good".
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThe parched ground shall become a pool . . .
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The folks in California sure hope so.
No need for state water regulations.