When people at work talk about "listening to your instincts," it's always an odd sort of thing to contemplate. I used to listen to my instincts, a lot. Now, as best the Lord gives me any-present ability, I hope to heed Him: He guides, in the way instinct used to. And instinct is otherwise submitted to prayer, in general.
A lot of training at work, though, discussed certain dangers which are present...with ongoing, very serious, utterly urgent pressure given (multiple times, multiple people): "No matter what, listen to your instincts: If something doesn't feel right, then listen to your instincts."
I'll have to trust the Lord, period. Even when I get confused. Even when I end up rationalizing my way into, out of, then back into a corner of absolute perplexity--at the end of it, and in the middle, and all along the way...I trust He'll ultimately have His way, and trust that He's guiding me in spite of my nonsensical contortions and floundering.
He's entirely capable.
And He doesn't usually intervene in a way that's seriously, openly apparent as being Him. But He does intercede, always. And He does intervene, regardless how apparent--interposing graceful, gracious, merciful machinations of His own in midst of my obtuse wanderings and the otherwise confusion which surrounds and presses in from all sides.
And He makes very apparent it's Him intervening, at times--in ways which are individually undeniable: Moving hands, giving speech, bringing to completion (and accord) things otherwise impossible. Pretty much every day little bits and pieces are given, apparent, as His intervention. And I know beyond a shadow of doubt that for every "tiny" evidence He allows to be seen of His machinations in my life--as made openly aware to me in those moments of His intervention--there are countless more, totally unseen, unrecognized, given unawares.
But someday, when everything is made clear, we'll all praise Him all the more for all the love He's lavished, all the grace He's made manifest unto us, and of the power and wisdom which has and makes such things as He's ordered from eternity past come into being in each our lives.
That's the thing that blows my mind, so much, when considering His order, the wisdom of His interventions, and the power and might shown in His creation: it's all ordained from eternity past.
With the precision that it takes us to engineer anything, His exceeds by unfathomable breadth and depth.
The easiest way I've been able to even marginally consider how it goes is in contemplation of extremely complex domino tricks--where the dominoes are set up in a long series, with other objects as part of the progression, and with stages built in that take it from merely planar to graduated heights, and differing types of domino constructions also included along the way...but where each and every domino, as it falls, impacts the next in an undivided and astounding progression of fluid complexity. A single domino starts the cascade of falling others--each influencing the next, unto the next, unto other objects which also influence each of the next, in a progression that's as fluid as it is utterly contingent upon the progression of the all. The very last domino to fall does so as a direct, if distant, result of every one prior having been individually impacted by one initial, yet ongoing, progressive, and even increasing influence.
(I was going to link a youtube video of one or another particularly complex domino trick, but didn't find any which seemed appropriate...for varying reasons--mostly music. They are fascinating, though.)
Along loosely parallel lines, so goes all of history, though. Each situation progresses unto the next, only having spanned across both space and time while also being compounded by internal and other external influences all the while. And, all the while, sin working such havoc in us all, in that very same fashion...while God Himself also restrains along the same line, in some vastly influential and utterly involved capacity explicitly known to Him, alone--largely unrecognized, except that He gave record of such influence in much of Israel's history...and now, explicitly as in our own who are Christ's.
But He's known how the civilizations and individual lives of all humanity would proceed, from eternity past. And interventions have been also been known and ordained and decreed from eternity past, even largely unbeknownst to us. Even as the coming of Christ was mentioned at the time of the fall, in Eden, then so had He and so has He ordained and decreed so many interventions of grace to preserve humanity from absolute (even spiritual) destruction, along the while. Individually and universally. Otherwise prayer would not be answered and lives like my own would never be spared. Repentance would otherwise never come, nationally or individually.
Along lines of contemplating the complexity of His eternal decrees, it comes to mind that...I do well to plot a day's course. Or, wait--strike that. I am utterly incapable of plotting a day's course, but used to believe I was wholly capable of doing so. And I used to exert a great deal of concerted energy toward effecting that very belief. Which did not go well for me. At all.
Just the factors involved in maintaining one's own thought life in the midst of any given situation are trying, difficult to battle, impossible to overcome apart from Christ's intervention. Then, adding external pressures and ever-changing circumstantial factors?
If it seems like a day's plotted out and comes to pass, He's been gracious. If a day proceeds according to a man's plan, He's been merciful and gracious in the immediate present. The sun does shine on the just and the unjust, alike. And like the Psalmist mentioned, the unjust who live lives of seeming ease and uncomplication?--seeming to have their every way with ease?--such ones are experiencing a fleeting situation, only, and superficial.
Yet, if in our hearts we long to honor Him and proceed with that desire foremost as our focus, He does lead us (even into greater obedience) and give us the course we should proceed along (whether we're aware it's from Him or not). The still, small voice telling us which way to go. That doesn't require harassing Him for every moment's direction, in order to proceed in His will. If we seek Him with all our hearts, He said He would be found by us. And for those who have found Him, who have come to know His voice, who are His sheep--He said we do follow Him. He's gracious. And HE is the Shepherd. Shepherds herd, tend wounds, protect, deliver, and lead...at the very least.
Pretty sure most sheep don't really think about being led, though. I don't know that they do much more than follow impulses, really: Most animals are very driven by instinct. They do what comes naturally per instinct and impulse...without necessarily sitting down to contemplate or discuss the what, where, how, and why of an impulse.
He's given us means to ascertain, though, as to whether we're being influenced of the flesh, by dark spiritual forces, or by His Spirit. Know His Word. Spend time with Him. Ask Him to help.
Because He wants us to ask. He already knows what we need, but He wants us to ask--with rejoicing hearts knowing we'll receive what's good and right and necessary for us from a Father who truly loves. I mean...we have been given all spiritual blessings in Christ. So why not ask for what we need?
It's the whole "independence"-thing which is so vexatious, anyway--wanting to be "as God," and independently capable of meeting our own needs--self-sufficient, self-reliant, and capable of discerning right and wrong per our independent perception.
He wants to give us what we need, even already having provided so much, otherwise He wouldn't tell us to ask. Reality is that we're utterly, completely, abjectly dependent upon Him for every heartbeat, every breath, and all which is of us and others. There's no such thing as "independence" from God. There's only delusion, to varied degrees.
And He is that in which and of which all subsists. He's utterly inescapable, even being ultimately ineffable. He Is.
And if He has known all things from eternity past, unto eternity future, then any time He's ever been moved by prayer or to "change His mind" it was also decided and known from such a perspective and stance as is of eternal wisdom.
He wants us to beseech Him, though. He wants us to seek Him.
He wants us to be reconciled to Him, completely...and even though that lattermost is apparently reserved for the moment we enter eternity...then, still...
He's gone to great lengths to make it possible for these things to be so.
He humbled Himself to walk amongst us, as one of us--eternally. And endured our rejection.
God, the Son, endured mockery, reviling, scorning, scoffing, malicious wounding, mortal destruction...and the penalty of our sins...to make it so that we can be reconciled to Him. In love. Through death. His death, which is our own.
Into life, which is His.
And I'd still like to wrap up about the dominos. In terms of how He's known this moment we're in, at present--known you, whoever you are, from eternity past. And loved you enough to create you, to fashion you, to mold you. And to preserve you through whatsoever life's difficulties have been--for they would surely have been so much worse except that He restrains so much, by such grace. We all would have been so much worse, except He has restrained.
And He loves you so much as to offer you His love, through Christ. Continually. And with desire that it would be an eternal reconciliation, unto healing and glorification. Into fellowship with Him, eternal.
But each and every moment He's known. He known you, me, and all the world. And He has permitted so much pain, destruction, devastation, turmoil, misery. And has even ordained it, per the curse of sin. But, even then, He's being merciful--sin is worthy eternal punishment in keeping with the infinite injustice and infinite offense and infinite grievous wreckage of spiteful insubordination, treason!, it constitutes against a perfectly loving, wholly sovereign, omnipotent God...rather than as it's being meted out, per disease and suffering, death, and then the punishment due...with, all the while of living still, opportunity for reconciliation through Christ being desired of and pursued unto us by Him.
He's far more invested in our salvation than we are or ever could be. He's gone to great lengths.
And to which lengths have we gone? He strove against sin unto the shedding of blood, having humbled Himself to take on flesh.
And I sigh, hanging my head to note not even a single day has passed without sin--even as entertaining temptation, as is so much akin and such a fine line as often constitutes crossing, just per so doing. And that's not even to mention anxiety, which is often effectively doubt against God.
But anyway. He is full of grace and mercy toward us.
Otherwise we'd all be totally bereft of hope.
And He's known our frailties. Knows them intimately. He experienced temptation. He was tried in all ways, yet without sin. Not even of giving over to temptation, as truly entertained.
He's fully fitted to both judge us and to be merciful to those who seek Him for forgiveness. Because He knows us and our temptations.
And the dominos thing is on hold, still, apparently.
But grace. Just...such grace.
And the thing of instincts, again--where are they coming from? If only per the flesh, then it's not wholly good. Despite that He does intervene and has given us somewhat of a capacity to gauge circumstances, as part of our being. Still, instincts need to be honed, purified, brought into accord with His Spirit. Even as to be brought into subjection to being led by Him.
But He does the work in us, on all fronts. We have only to ask. Even as He works in us both the desire to do His will, and then also produces the ability to proceed. To will and to do, He works. And we aren't left bereft of anything we need, in terms of godliness. We haven't been left as orphans, either--His Spirit is with and in those of us who have come to God through Christ.
So, returning to consideration of election versus free will? How can we choose something we don't have capacity to want? And, yet, He wants us to love Him--He's decreed that's our primary command. He wants us to pursue Him, even--such that He has told us He will be found by those who seek Him with all their heart.
He wants all of us to do so, though. And yet not all do. But He doesn't take pleasure in the death of the wicked. He doesn't relish punishment. He would prefer that none would perish to destruction.
He's said so.
...there's something so deeply sacred about the process of coming to know Christ that it seems off-kilter to phrase the prospect of salvation in a clinical way. I can't think of a metaphoric parallel without coming up with something derogatory or degrading to some any-thing personally sacred to me, even.
But I think that's why talking about election versus free-will is a topic that's oddly difficult for me to discuss, without going into great depth. I want to know how all things work and come together, after all. But as pertains to our relationship to God?...and for those who have come to know Him on His terms, through Christ's sacrifice unto death, enduring our punishment, and overcoming death to reign eternal? It just makes me uncomfortably nervous to approach discussion without time to go into great depth, but I've never before been able to even begin to articulate why.
Doesn't mean I'm going to cease pursuing to understand the process, though...because the process is actually significant of understanding Him. And I think desire to understand His way of drawing us is actually at the core of desire to know Him--wanting to know the nature of my relationship to Him is wanting to know His stance toward me, defined in a way which makes sense of what seems and feels and perhaps is utterly inexplicable. And it's wanting to know Him, still, moreover.
I'll keep seeking to understand these things, though, even if my present stance is to question how I could possibly even begin to understand the most precious of all gifts given unto man: Christ, Himself, and His manifest gift unto us whom He loves. Us, whom He loves so much He died even to save.
Much my whole irritation with doctrinal dogma, in general, has perhaps been around such points: I do want to know and understand His ways. Deeply. But not apart from actively and simultaneously knowing Him more deeply, overtly. But, personally, I've not been capable of maintaining balance, there--I start ignoring the forest for the trees. And eventually get I become really, really fixated on one or two trees in particular, and except for being in the forest...I completely lose track of the fact it's there, for being so transfixed.
But, then, anxiety begins to take over again...bringing to awareness of having completely lost all sense of perspective. And I find myself utterly perplexed and disoriented and despair of ever becoming reoriented to the forest, again.
Reminds me that when I was young, I used to be able to wander a particular forest without ever fearing getting lost. There were things I'd look for, to direct--appearance of long-unused trails, usually, or just a general sense of orientation to the shape of my corner of the mountain, maybe. But, while there was certainly appreciation for individual trees, it was the forest as a whole which was my joy to explore.
Along that line...a year and a few months ago, I wandered across a two-book set on a system of Biblical theology which seemed particularly promising, as safe for me--seemed to maintain perspective of the all of who God is, approaching even the undertaking of striving to describe Him in such a way as to express utmost, lengthy reverence to the fact of His undivided nature. The introduction to the book was, itself, utterly weighty in giving expansive reverence per discussing how difficult it is to contemplate God, with specific regard to His ways and expressions of being, without in any way enticing unwarranted, largely unconscious implication that any of His ways or expressions of being are somehow singularly distinct from any such others...when, rather, He's perfect in all His ways. Meaning, moreover, that none of His ways, and no description of a seeming aspect of His being, is actually separable as existent distinct from all such other expressions of His character. If there were actual division between so-called aspects of His character, then such so-called aspects of His character must implicitly consist of less than infinite perfection, likewise derogating all which He is: if any aspect of who He is were truly distinct, as separable from any else which is of Him, then some part of His nature thus is not be infinitely express. But He would be unjustifiably degraded by such a slight upon His character and being as would consider any aspect of who He is as less than perfect. So, a lot of time was given even to approach the matter of attempting to discuss Him. Two books' worth of such a discussion.
Point was: He's not to be approached with the expectation of "piecemeal" understanding, in other words. Or, it can't be done without doing dishonor to who and how He is, in some fashion. But...we're all at a loss to really grasp Him, is the thing. And is why the guy went ahead and wrote the book, despite many, many pages' worth of implying why it's actually basically inadvisable to even attempt to do so...we can only fall short, in terms of attempting to describe perfect holiness.
And as a side note, of personal relevance, it would be fair to admit that I'm still convinced some aspects of my resistance to doctrinal dogma has to do with longstanding defiance against "conformity for conformity's sake." A matter for discussion alongside the tendency regarding "trees vs. the forest," since such defiance has largely been a method of self-preservation in the midst of many, many, longstanding efforts to get me to conform to various strange things (I'm not usually very successful in refraining, but the Lord is teaching me to abide in Him).
Of the all, though, the point is just that...it's about Him.
Seeking for answers as to how He does things or why or where or how to discern is generally about desiring to know Him better, ultimately. And possible on His terms, no less.
And I've been praying for a brief while now, as to what to do with the books I mentioned. It had crossed my mind weeks ago to either give or lend them to a friend. I would like to read them, but it's just not going to happen anytime in the near future. Like, probably not even in the next year, given the weight of the introduction and my current inability to focus on reading.
I was reading a lot when those books came in, and it still took at least a month to get through the intro and some portion of the first chapter. Reading has been very dicey for a long while, now, though.
Writing has been the thing, at least. Gladly.
Enough, for now.
Just bits and pieces of further consideration, along the way.
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