Obey, Listen, and Cling

Serve only the Lord your God and fear him alone. Obey his commands, listen to his voice, and cling to him. (Deuteronomy 13:4)

Moses is sharing the commandments God had given him to give to the people - instructions that came to be known in religious circles as the Law of Moses. As he instructs them about those who would attempt to lure them away from a deep, meaningful relationship with God, he points out three basic groups: the false prophets, those within your circle of influence (better known as the family), and those who lived in neighboring communities. Do you know what he said to do when they were encountered by those 'influences' attempting to pull them away? The Israelites were told to kill them. In other words, they were to rid themselves of all those influences and sere only the Lord their God.

How do we live in a world with so many 'influences' pulling us away from an intimate relationship with God and remain strong within that relationship? For one thing, we don't entertain the fool! We stop listening to their arguments, taunts, and prompting. We turn a deaf ear to their folly, but we also must cleanse our minds from the subtle compromises that enter into our thoughts and roll around in there for a while. This is why I think God's plan for his people was to 'rehearse' scripture: "And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up." (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)

We get God's Word inside our brains, allowing it to filter through all those outside influences that worm their way into our way of thinking. It sorts out the junk, making it easier to not get carried away in the wrong direction. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we can 'confirm' the truth, and 'deny' anything that veers from absolute truth. That brings me to the question about the 'grey areas' in scripture where we don't always see a specific indication from God if a particular behavior or action is 'okay' for believers. I suggest that God gave us his Word as an outline for our safety - we can assume he knew we would encounter the 'grey areas' on occasion. He also gave us our conscience and the Holy Spirit to help us when we don't absolutely see something defined in scripture.

The conscience works in conjunction with what we learn from scripture and the influence of the confirmation of the action by the Holy Spirit who resides always within us. Get the Word in and then let it begin to guide your conscience under the tutelage of the Spirit. You won't find there is room for compromise when all three are guiding your actions. External opposing influences are easier to turn away from (be rid of) when we use the tools we are given! The key to resisting those influences is to obey his commands, listen to his voice alone, and cling to him with all that is within you. Just sayin!

Pulling Your String

Give us help for the hard task; human help is worthless. In God we’ll do our very best; he’ll flatten the opposition for good. (Psalm 60:11-12)

Winston Churchill reminded us, "Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it." No matter how we live, or where we live, or who we live with - opposition is all around us. The blood might move freely toward your toes, but it faces gravity as an opposing force in order to return to your heart. Your arteries have no valves - allowing free flow outward. They have valves on the 'return visit' through the veins because gravity would pull it all back down again if there weren't some 'chambers' to catch it and move it along with each heartbeat. If God made our bodies with the ability to 'face opposing forces', what makes us think he would make our spirits any differently?

We 'rise' because of opposition - we don't rise going in the same direction as the opposition. We might not think about it, but the force exerted 'against' us isn't really pushing us down as much as it is driving us upward. Hard tasks surround us each day - from the words we will have to choose to speak to the actions we will choose to NOT take. As much as we may try to 'rise above' the 'hard tasks' in our path, we might feel like there is nothing within us capable of risking above them. We are not far from the truth on that one - without God's help, all those opposing forces will eventually weigh us down and keep us from rising above them. Could it be that God needs us to understand the benefits of 'small pit stops' along the way, much like our blood returning to the heart has to make?

Maybe the key to overcoming and rising above isn't so much that we ask for help, but that we take small moments throughout the day to stop, ask, and listen. In that short 'spiritual pit stop' we might just find there is strength to rise, a pull toward doing what is right vs. what is wrong. Maybe God's hope is that we will call out more, listen more, and rely upon him just a little quicker each time we take a 'pit stop'. Our spirit is refreshed when we do, much like the wind catching that specific pitch of the kite's fabric at the very point where the resistance is the greatest, causing it to soar high. 

If you have ever flown a kite, you know there are times when it seems to dip, almost like it is going to crash to the earth. At that point, what keeps it up? A hard pull on the string! The kite faces the resistance once again and begins to resume the position of rising. The one holding the string has the greatest control over the kite. Perhaps we need God to give us a hard pull on the spiritual strings of our life in order for us to rise above the opposing forces once again! Just sayin!