WHERE AM I SENDING YOU?

To answer the question, “Where am I sending you?” I must ask myself, “What do I believe about the God I’m encouraging people to approach? Is God a reward enough to withstand the fearful moment? Can God, still, love those who rejected him, before?” 

After a lifetime of inner tug-of-war between doubt and trust, I have concluded that, in fact, I like God: God is good, God is faithful, God’s ways are joyous, God’s wisdom is health to the bones and water to the soul, and God’s love is life to the human spirit. We are so safe with God. And after some reading in his word and hearing testimonies I believe to be genuine, I must conclude, God is a good place for everyone who asks for help and salvation. 

I met God when I was four-years-old. But pride separated me from me, on the excuse that my pride didn’t trust his faithfulness. And if God couldn’t be unconditionally loving with me, my pride said, that indicated he’d chuck me away, eventually. It demanded I not spend anymore time with him, lest I love him more than he loves me. Since then, I come to find out that this is not possible with God. It is only true with Satan.

Jesus promises to anyone who come to him, he will “cast none away.”

But I also needed to test God. And God was gracious to entertain me, while I called on his mercy and pushed him away, repeatedly. 

Over the years, I realized that I liked God. And once he’s near, I don’t want him to leave. 

I must weigh that desire as very important when I’m deciding if I find God worthy enough for me to point other people towards. I don’t want to point people off a cliff or into the mouth of a devouring monster. I don’t like pain. And I don’t think most people like pain. So, for me, I needed to decide if I, finally, believe that God is trustworthy.

Like-able and trustworthy are not the same thing. And I believe God must be both. To me, trustworthy means both unconditionally devoted to me while also powerful to help. And to me, likeable means being kind with his words and his attitude, the absolute opposite of hurting with his words or his attitude. 

But then, I can’t have a likable and devoted imaginary friend to send people to, because imaginary friends are useless and powerless to help, anyone. He needs power. And he needs power to help, everyone. Without power, he’s not trustworthy to give me commands or speak wisdom that is built upon himself. I’m not weighing a potential friendship, here. I’m weighing a spirit against the backdrop of requirements for claiming to be God, with expectations of it performing as God, having the nature of God, the authority to be feared, resulting by the truth of his relationship to all creation, and the ability to elevate me in heaven on earth with all good benefits by unconditional ways. 

After judging the voice and presence, I believed to be of God, as devoted and kind, I needed to know in what historical name I would be sending people. To me this meant, I also needed to weigh Jesus as God. To do this, I sought the scriptures.

I started with the question, “What is the good news, Jesus? What was good about your news?” and then I asked, “What hope do I have for returning to you? Do you really want repentance? Or are people bothering you by telling other people to return to you? Are we too heavy to be wanted, anymore?”

I found my answers in the book of Isaiah. And the vine of his self-testimony spread out from there into the other books. 

I read what people did when serving pretend trinkets.

I read what they deserved.

And, I read his prescriptions; over and over, he responds by saying, “Therefore, I will heal you.”

Again and again, God calls the world to him for healing. And this made me feel assured that he is safe for everyone to return to after a season rejecting him, even repeatedly, to gain a restored relationship with him, no matter the degree of prodigal.

As I read the scriptures, I heard God’s desperate assurance as a good place to return to with a passionate grace, like a mother who has been withholding her help from an adventurous son; after her son has run over rocks, gotten scrapes and been cut by thrones in the wilderness, and has a multitude of itchy bug bites that are nearly infected from the muddy puddle water, her  patient restraint of aid expires until she scoops him up, even while he protests. She takes him inside, saying, “I know, I told you I wouldn’t help you, but I can’t, enough’s enough; look at the state of you. Are you not in pain?” And he cries and squirms and fights to go back outside. But she asks, “Why do you want to go outside, and not let me bind up your wounds?” To which the tearful toddler whimpers, “If I don’t stay outside, I’ll never get to go back, outside, and I don’t want to never go outside, again.” He sits in her lap long enough to hear her reply, “Now, who told you, you’d never get to go outside, if you came inside at night time? That’s not true. Did I say you couldn’t go outside, again?” His little whimper speaks the truth, “No.” She gets a bowl of warm, clean water and healing ointment and bandages, and asks, “Will you let me bind up your wounds. Being healed is being strong. And being strong makes for a better play time when you go back outside.” In surprise he asks, “I can go back, outside?” She confirms, “Yes, my precious son. Next time, I just want you to let me help you so that you don’t get scrapes, at all. So, can I wash you and put this on your wounds and bind them up so that you sleep sound and strong, tonight?” And he concedes, “Yes.” And she begins to gently wash the mud off his legs, saying, “Oh I’m so glad. You’re going to feel so strong tomorrow, I promise. And I will help you jump boulders, tomorrow. You’ll see how much fun you can have outside when you’re holding my hands.” And he wines and grumbles in protest of the idea of help. To which, she responds, “Now, do you want to run and play, outside, or do you want to be alone?” Confused by the question, he asks, “What?” Almost done binding his many wounds, she explains, “Do you want to play or do you want to be alone? Because if you want to play, I assure you that with me, you can jump higher and go farther. And if you get too tired to keep jumping and running and exploring then I will carry you on my back. And while you rest, You’ll be resting with all the joy lighting the candle of your heart, Then, you’ll wake strong. And I’ll get you a snack, because we’ll be home, again. But if what you want is to be alone, and what you want is to not have my help, not ever, not at all, then I must stay away to give you what you want because what you want is for me to go away more than your wanting of play. Now, I think I’m more fun than you can imagine because I have many ideas. And I am very strong. I can think of many places I can take you. So, I think you’ll enjoy playing with my help way more than playing without my help. But I want to give you what you want. So, what do you think? Do want to play, or do you want to play, without me?” 

And that is the debate we find ourselves in?

While some are still asking, “What about all the bad in the world?” 

I reply, “Do you want to live in a place that is better? That place is within God. Heaven is the place fully within God. It’s sustained on blessing, only. But he built us with enough space to hold all of him, which is where we get that need to be spoken to, our childlike definition of paid-attention-to as being spoken to within each half-breath we breathe. This need is in us because that’s how much attention happens with God’s relationship is restored within our hearts. He placed himself inside us. We just need to decide to if we like being loved that much, or if we want to go seek after… fill in the blank with evil enticements. When we get to the end of a road where evil enticements brought us and it ends in pain, starvation, or heart break, it’s an indication that we are better suited for life with God. Decide what you like, but don’t pretend that heaven is closed to you.”

You don’t have to experience the Fear of the Lord before feeling his comfort, or before being healed, or strengthened. 

But, I believe, there is a sort of life, which is free from worry for the trust in God’s faithfulness and love as the deepest roots of our reality, where more is possible by blessing. Therefore God’s relationship is considered before any observable facts that our eyes can warn us about, as to the state of safety. This leads to a bravery in life unlike any other, because God is in the air, the waves, the fire. And it is His will that decides if we die or live. So, it’s the authority of God that supersedes all repeatable facts. 

The more bravely we desire to live, the more real must God become to us; if we want more from life, we need more of God’s nearness to be spiritually visible because our imaginations will factor desires within a not-so-limited set of resources.

But, if we believe that as individual’s we’re alone in trying to set up building blocks, knowing or not knowing that all the timber available for life’s dreams are as fit for building as a deck of playing cards, wisdom will say, “You can’t. It’s impossible.”

However, with God, God finishes the sentence, “It’s impossible without me. Can I help you? Because we can do it.”

And I think, if we want OUT of the Fear of Life, we need to get INTO the Fear of the Lord because I know, having experienced, that this proverb is true, “In the Fear of the Lord there is great confidence.” And hope to try to communicate what that proverb means so that when you notice him approaching you’ll already be encouraged about this sort of fear being good

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF ENTERING HIS PRESENCE BY HIS AWESOME FEAR?

1. Hearing the voice of God, clearly
2. Recognizing the good fear from the bad fear
3. Knowing how valuable you are
4. Know how much you matter to God
5. Knowing you have help
6. Knowing power
7. Having a spirit alive – it’s the part of you that recognizes his voice as a Father and knows how to talk to God and feels God and needs God as food, without ceasing 
8. Know reality 
9. Know you have a real inheritance in this life from God
10. Have all your lack of love wounds filled up with his over-flowing love for you
11. Forget the concept of earning your worth
12. Forget the concept that a person is a barrier to you, for anything
13. Know the fullness of your freedom to come and go in this life
14. Know joy and feeling loved and feeling safe is meant to be your base starting point, daily
15. Feel royal
16. Feel your place within nature as your relationship as ruler over it, while it’s only need from you to be told by you that you love it because the angels are in charge of keeping everything else working and growing
17. Forget about what was
18. Know sustainable and deep and worthy hope for the future in this world

I believe that without this experience, we are all atheist or double-minded or weak to being bullied by our anxieties. 

There is so much health and strength that overflows from meeting the only being in creation deserving of fear, because he’s good, and his goodness places all the lies beneath our feet. 

Experiencing the Fear of the Lord is the beginning of the end of entertaining anxious thoughts. It’s the beginning of the end of fearing God might not want you.

It’s the beginning of a relationship with the Creator, the Spirit of Truth, who wants to be your Dad. 

The Holy Spirit can do, a lot. But the mind needs the experience of the Fear of the Lord to clean off all unworthy anxieties, and wash from the mind the residue of guilt, and heal the wounds, all wounds. 

Unconditional love is God’s invention by the foundation of his nature: loving unconditionally.

WHO IS SUITED FOR ENTERING THIS ENCOUNTER?

Anytime you need help, remember you know a guy. And he’s capable of all things and has been given authority over all creation: Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus is the remedy for everything.

He’s the manufacturer and if we want to feel better, he’s really interesting in helping; if we want peace, he’s there for us. any good thing, if there’s any good thing we want, he’s the provider of those things. Just because we live in a world with the option of remaining in lack, hardship, and pain for the opportunity to try to gain good things by any other way besides him, doesn’t mean that his preference for us to choose.

Are you in need? That’s great time to call on him.

Are you needing love? I think, if you’re, even, aware of a lack of love so that you can correctly identify that the pain is inside your heart where love should be filling you, that insight is from the Holy Spirit, and he’s working to draw you near so that you’re interested in feeling better, so he can supply you. And when he does, you’ll be so far away from lack or wounds, your know what healing is by being healed. He’s worthy.

I’m excited for you; I know where I’m sending you.