Until I was 14 years old, I was extremely sensitive to my parent’s feelings; both parents, but Mom was more prevalent. Until I was 14, my dad worked paving many of the highways in Northern BC. He would come home for Christmas, and Mom would take us kids North to live in hotels during our summer holidays. My brother, sister, and I were raised mainly by Mom during those years. When Mom was unhappy or displeased with something I did or didn’t do, I would get uncontrollably sad, often to the point of tears. At times this frustrated her. I remember Mom telling me as I stood by the piano in our living room, “Quit crying. Grownups don’t cry.” I do not remember the reason for my tears, but I remember hardening my heart. I never cried again until I was 24 years old. I spent the next 12 years trying to discover who I was as an adult. I became careless about the feelings of others to cope. In Eagle Plains, when I got filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues, I was surprised that I sometimes wept during my prayer times.
“Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (NASB, Ezek. 36:26).
I lived in Eagle Plains for three years. I was the only professing Christian of the twelve who lived in that remote location. We were 800 km (500 miles) from the nearest shopping center in Whitehorse and would generally go to town once a year. Inuvik, the next city to the North of us, was near the Beaufort Sea and has some small stores and churches, but their prices were astronomical. All this to say, I started to fuse to God in those solitary years and still remember them as among the best years of my life.
Lessons Learned
1. Fusion with other humans is healthy for infants, but healthy adults redirect their attachment to God.
Apostle Paul told the Corinthians that if they depended on other people to hear from God, they were like infants that needed to be spiritually nursed. Mature Christians learned to hear from God for themselves and, out of the abundance of hearing, to encourage one another.
Infants
“But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not being merely human?” (NIV, 1 Cor. 3:1-4).
Mature Christians
For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged” (1 Cor. 14:31).
2. Human Carelessness may transform into Holy Indifference.
“Indifference does not mean not caring. One can be indifferent and yet be deeply passionate. In fact, since God is love and God’s redemptive work takes place through love, we cannot be indifferent in the Ignatian sense unless we love and love deeply.” The idea is to be free of unhelpful attachments (web reference).
As hard as we try to serve God, we are not in control of much. As we learn to cast all our cares on Jesus, we become free to enjoy life. We do our best to be obedient and leave the results up to Him. Childishness, or reacting to others, may transform into childlikeness, where we develop a profound trust in God.
At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children…” (Matt. 11:25-30).
3. Obedience
Thinking about God as He reveals Himself through nature and His Word helps me abandon myself to obedience, even when I do not entirely understand. The closer I get to God, the more amazed I am at all creation! Creation is overwhelmingly complex!
Some people shy away from the word obedience because they believe it has negative connotations. For example, Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered (Heb. 5:8). But Jesus thought obedience was the path forward (John 6:38). He encouraged His followers to wholehearted obedience. Jesus often compared the Kingdom of God to a vast farm. Let’s suppose God wants to train you to run a half-a-million-dollar combine in His grain field. But all your friends are doing other things, like working in the vegetable garden at the home ranch, building silos, or maybe not doing much at all. Maybe you are torn between hanging out with your friends or going to combine-training-school.
Will you trust God’s personally-tailored training program even if you do not understand all of His plans? Noah trusted God for 100 years as he built the ark, one board at a time.
“Thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did” (Gen. 6:22).
Obedience is sometimes complicated because what if we get it wrong? We might suffer for nothing. The Pharisees traveled far and wide to make converts, suffering in an unhelpful way for God (Matt. 23:15; John 16:2). How do we get it right? Paul counseled the Colossians to follow the peace in their heart and to recognize the fruit of the Spirit, which includes joy (Col. 3:15; Gal. 5:22-23).
“I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances” (Ezek. 36:27).
“By this, we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:2-3).
In summary, if our adult emotions are fused to another person, they are out of our control. The other will determine our good and bad days, leading to chronic stress. Fusing with God, on the other hand, increases our love for people and this planet, our joy, and our desire to abandon ourselves to obedience to Him.
Your thoughts?
Rick.
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