Listening for Yahweh's Voice

 

I recently read Why I Am Still Surprised by the Voice of God by Jack Deere. Because I was raised in a church tradition that operated under the assumption that all direct communication from God ceased once the original apostles died off, I couldn't help but be a little wary of the book's testimonies of "how God speaks today through prophecies, dreams, and visions."

And yet, the humility with which Deere wrote and the Scriptures he pointed out and the personal testimony of my own son have all worked together to leave me open to the possibility of hearing and being led by God's "still, small voice."

And then, in today's reading from THE IMITATION OF CHRIST: Classic Devotions in Today's Language, by Thomas à Kempis (Compiled and Edited by James N. Watkins), I was directed to consider the words of Jesus in John 16:13-14...

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard...He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me.

...and also the words of Thomas à Kempis...

Truly blessed are the ears that listen -- not to the sounds surrounding them -- but to the voice of Truth inside. Blessed are the eyes that are closed to outward things, but are focused on things within. Blessed are they who search inward things and study to prepare themselves by daily exercises for the receiving of heavenly mysteries. Blessed are they who long to have time for God and free themselves from every time-waster in the world. Think on these things, O my soul. Shut the doors of your selfish and sinful desires so you may hear what the Lord God will say within you.

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Truth is...I am practically a slave to time-wasters and cultural noise, but I believe the lord of the universe is able to deliver me from evil and bring his kingdom to life within me here and now...on earth as it is in heaven.

Parable of the Rotten Timbers

 

The following quote about the mighty warships of the 1700s (from The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann) set my mind to thinking.

“Most of the wood was hard oak, but it was still susceptible to the pulverizing elements of storm and sea. Teredo navalis--a reddish shipworm, which can grow longer than a foot--ate through hulls. (Columbus lost two ships to these creatures during his fourth voyage to the West Indies.) Termites also bored through decks and masts and cabin doors, as did deathwatch beetles. A species of fungus further devoured the ship's wooden core. In 1684, Samuel Pepys, a secretary to the Admiralty, was stunned to discover that many new warships under construction were already so rotten they were ‘in danger of sinking at their very moorings.’

“The average man-of-war was estimated by a leading shipwright to last only fourteen years. And to survive that long, a ship had to be virtually remade after each extensive voyage, with new masts and sheathing and rigging. Otherwise, it risked disaster. In 1782, while the 180-foot Royal George--for a time the largest warship in the world--was anchored near Portsmouth, with a full crew onboard, water began flooding its hull. It sank. The cause has been disputed, but an investigation blamed the ‘general state of decay of her timbers.’ An estimated nine hundred people drowned.”

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Truth is...I am reminded of the words of Jesus about building our houses on sand or rock (Matthew 7:24-27) and Paul's words about reaping what we sow (Galatians 6:7). Whatever a person entrusts their physical or spiritual well-being to had better be trustworthy. And guard yourself against what you think are just little things...but could eat away at your integrity until you're sunk.

Land of My Sojourn

 

A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band ends the way it began...with Rich Mullins contemplating his earthly existence, God's sovereignty over it, and mankind's need for redemption.

And the coal trucks come a-runnin'

With their bellies full of coal

And their big wheels a-hummin'

Down this road that lies open like the soul of a woman

Who hid the spies who were lookin'

For the land of the milk and the honey

And this road she is a woman

She was made from a rib

Cut from the sides of these mountains

Oh these great sleeping Adams

Who are lonely even here in paradise

Lonely for somebody to kiss them

and I'll sing my song, and I'll sing my song

In the land of my sojourn

And the lady in the harbor

She still holds her torch out

To those huddled masses who are

Yearning for a freedom that still eludes them

The immigrant's children see their brightest dreams shattered

Here on the New Jersey shoreline in the

Greed and the glitter of those high-tech casinos

But some mendicants wander off into a cathedral

And they stoop in the silence

And there their prayers are still whispered

And I'll sing their song, and I'll sing their song

In the land of my sojourn

Nobody tells you when you get born here

How much you'll come to love it

And how you'll never belong here

So I call you my country

And I'll be lonely for my home

And I wish that I could take you there with me

And down the brown brick spine of some dirty blind alley

All those drain pipes are drippin' out the last Sons Of Thunder

While off in the distance the smoke stacks

Were belching back this city's best answer

And the countryside was pocked

With all of those Mail Pouch^© posters

Thrown up on the rotting sideboards of

These rundown stables like the one that Christ was born in

When the old world started dying

And the new world started coming on

And I'll sing His song, and I'll sing His song

In the land of my sojourn

1993 - Edward Grant, Inc.
1993 - Kid Brothers of St. Frank Publishing

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Truth is..."I call you my country and I'll be lonely for my home and I wish that I could take you there with me" applies not just to living in America but to occupying Planet Earth. As Paul says in the New Living Translation of Romans 8:22 and 23, "We know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us."

How to Grow Up Big and Strong

 

The penultimate song on A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band is the hardest bit of rocking that Rich Mullins ever did...and it probably packs the hardest punch in terms of grief over how humans have steered so far away from God's ideal for them...all in the name of self-actualization.

Strong man strangle universe

He drown the stars

Blinded by the mission of a thousand wars

He fit and dominant

Not wonder why

He heed the battle cry

Strong man is survivor

He live to pound

Little wooden crosses in the bloody ground

He fit and dominant

He stand a chance

He not bound to circumstance

And the world keep on turning

And the sun keep on burning

And the children keep learning

How to grow up big and strong

How to grow up big and strong

Strong man take no prisoner

Favor no plea

He leave no gold in teeth of enemy

He fit and dominant

He rise above

He not have the word that mean love

And the world keep on turning

And the sun keep on burning

And the children keep learning

How to grow up big and strong

How to grow up big and strong

Strong man beat the plowshare

He forges sword

He take the flower and he curse the thorn

He crush the serpent

He bite the fruit

His hand is absolute

And the world keep on turning

And the sun keep on burning

And the children keep learning

How to grow up big and strong

How to grow up big and strong

1987 - Ideola Music

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Truth is...This song was written by another CCM artist, Mark Heard, but it brings to mind a quote by Rich: "If your life is motivated by your ambition to leave a legacy, what you'll probably leave as a legacy is ambition."

You Gotta Get Up (Christmas Song)

 

With the 10th song on A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band, Rich Mullins has perfectly captured the anticipation and excitement that filled our hearts as children who just could NOT sleep in on December 25th.

I thought Christmas Day would never come

But it's here at last, so mom and dad,

the waiting's finally done

And you gotta get up, you gotta get up,

you gotta get up

It's Christmas morning

Last night I heard reindeers on my roof

Well you may think I'm exaggerating

but I swear I'm tellin' you the truth

And you gotta get up, you gotta get up,

you gotta get up

It's Christmas morning

Did my sister get a baby doll?

Did my brother get his bike?

Did I get that red wagon, the kind that makes you fly?

Oh, I hope there'll be peace on earth

I know there's good will toward men

On account of that Baby born in Bethlehem

Mom and Daddy stayed up too late last night

Oh, I guess they got carried away in the Christmas candlelight

And you gotta get up, you gotta get up,

you gotta get up

It's Christmas morning

And you gotta get up, you gotta get up,

you gotta get up

1993 - Edward Grant, Inc.

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Truth is...Even as commercial and secularized as the celebration of Christmas has become, there will always be the reminder of that baby born in Bethlehem. Sure, Jesus probably wasn't actually born on December 25th, but that's not the point. The miracle of the Incarnation, God taking on human flesh to carry out his mission of sacrificial love, is worth celebrating 365 days a year.