Beginning to get a picture

As I obsess over the immediate....

My mind was really occupied yesterday about the morning experience. It is an interesting thing, perhaps even a quirk. I can get very consumed with something, and until I get through enough of it, I cannot let go.

There have been several significant ingredients in this soup I find myself in:

1. My experience at The Well. This was very ugly for the most part, however several dreams, encounter with God, and deep healing sessions helped separate the ugly and bad things from the reality of what God meant. I am sure God knew it all would happen, and took advantage of my will to provide ways of healing and deliverance for me through all this.

2. My subsequent process of letting go of any and all preconceptions about God, the Church, the Bible, etc... and stepping back. I then began to seek God about what HE says, not about what I had been "taught". Im all for teaching, receive the gift of it, heck I even DO that on a regular basis with my own business. But in Scripture it is PERFECTLY CLEAR that the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth. To ignore that is to do so at my own peril. It is far too easy for me to all others to tell me what they think (or even what they think they know!) and integrate that into my beliefs. Instead, I needed to repent of that, and start over. I probably should do that more often.

As I did, I really got confronted with my own idolatry. And it hurt! But as I went through that, I began to feel more and more free. In fact I began to see how so much of that stuff I had been taught mixed with my own inherent brokenness really facilitated the dysfunctions I experienced. My choices were all MY OWN FAULT, however the unholy marriage of my own choices, coupled with a willing system that provides a fantastic structure for dependence and dependent relationships, really got bad.

3. My prior experiences at "Churches". While I believe that 99.9% of my experiences were with well meaning, sincere people, I got a vastly different picture of what and who the Body is, and how it is supposed to work than what I see in basic scripture, let alone in the deeper ways to study cultural and original language to get past the inherent biases of interpreters. Wow. I dont recall seeing anything truly related to NT practice outside of the multiple dinners we all used to have with each other, and some slight stirrings of Holy Spirit.

4. One other thing that is beginning to come up to the surface is my previous experience within the Church growing up before I left it to pursue the world. I didn’t think much about this as it is so long ago, and I was so young. However, I think the hyper-religious envirnoment my poor parents were exposed to has some bearing on my frustrations within the Body at large. I might actually be working out something far outside my generation!

5. My good friend Randy Bohlender (who no longer BLOGS!!!! at least publicly) told me something a few years ago as I was twisting and writhing pulling out of a season of purging and healing that he felt God was going to do something in the future that would surprise me, and put me in a place where I would be dealing with this stuff.

6. I just started another fast/pray cycle, and this issue is immediately in my face.

So anyway, as I stumble around in this place, trying to get a picture of what God is saying and leading me into (or not leading me into), I have gobs of revelation and experiences that prove it is by no means accidental, or self created. It is all part of tremendous work God is doing to make me more intimate with Him, and more fruitful!