Secret Things

I am preparing to teach in a few weeks and was going through some old blog posts of mine. It's always an adventure for me to do such a thing because a lot of times I see that the Lord was speaking to me about something that I was completely oblivious to at the time.  Only now, in retrospect, do I see the connections.  It's fascinating and a very rewarding aspect of this journey I have been on.

Sea Star--Gift from Tia
Dress--Calvin Klein
Photo--Bgrace

On December 5th, 2006 I posted a picture of a sea star that I had found on a website I can't recall now.  It had grabbed me at the time, but really had no known connection or significance to me. I just knew it was whispering something without words.  I entitled the post "Suspiros" with the tag "Suspiros que acredito sem intender."
This is Portuguese for, "Whispers that I believe without understanding."  I promptly forgot about the whispering sea star until today.


Last year, in April 2010, before we went to Bermuda, the Lord kept pointing out sea stars to me.  I know, that statement might feel a little unusual to some of you.  There was a time it would have made me uncomfortable to hear that, too.  It's what is called a sign.  The best way I know how to explain my experience with signs is that the Lord begins to draw my attention to something repeatedly, and I begin to sense that there is a significance to it.  That significance or meaning does not always become clear immediately. It usually unfolds over a period of time and sometimes it unveils itself over a period of years.  Signs are rarely specific.  They are pictures.  Pictures simultaneously tell us more and less than words do. We get a broader view that is less defined.  We are aware of connections and feel meaning in a picture, and yet there are no details or explanations. We sense more than we know.


A long time ago a friend of mine wrote this to me:
The photographer, Diane Arbus, once said:
"A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know." 
I think this same thing can be said about the glory and majesty of the Lord. And probably His love, as well.
It's like the more we know, the less we truly know.



A.W. Tozer painted this beautiful image with words:
"Yet if we would know God and for other's sake tell what we know, we must try to speak of His love.  All Christians have tried, but none has ever done it very well.  I can no more do justice to that awesome and wonder-filled theme than a child can grasp a star.  Still, by reaching toward the star the child may call attention to it and even indicate the direction one must look to see it.  So, as I stretch my heart toward the high, shining love of God, someone who has not before known about it may be encouraged to look up and have hope."
The Knowledge of the Holy


On December 12, 2006 I wrote a post called Secrets:
The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this Instruction. 

(Deuteronomy 29:29 NIV/The Five Books of Moses,Shocken)

To you the secret of the Kingdom of God has been given, but to those outside everything is said in parables, so that they may be always looking but never seeing; always listening but never understanding. Otherwise, they might turn and be forgiven.

 (Mark 4:11 The Jewish NT)

How long Lord?

And He answered, “And though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste. But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.” 

(Isaiah 6:11,13 NIV)

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not suppressed it.

He was in the world--the world came to be through him--yet the world did not recognize him. He came to his own homeland, yet his own people did not receive him.
The Word became a human being and lived with us, and we saw his Sh'khinah, the Sh'khinah of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth.
We have all received from his fullness, yes, grace upon grace.
For the Torah was given through Moshe; grace and truth came through Yeshua the Messiah.
No one has ever seen God, but the only and unique Son, who is identical with God and is at the Father's side--he has made him known. 
(John 1:5,10-11,14,16-18; The Jewish NT)


Yet there is a wisdom that we are speaking to those who are mature enough for it. But it is not the wisdom of the world or of this world’s leaders, who are in the process of passing away. On the contrary, we are communicating a secret wisdom from God which has been hidden until now but which, before history began, God had decreed would bring us glory. Not one of this world’s leaders has understood it; because if they had, they would not have executed the Lord from whom this glory flows. But, as the Tanakh (The Hebrew Scripture) says,

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard and no one’s heart has imagined all the things God has prepared for those who love him.”For the Spirit probes all things, even the profoundest depths of God.
(I Cor. 2:6-10; The Jewish NT)


Today I add this Scripture to the picture:

"For my concern is that their hearts may be braced (comforted, cheered, and encouraged) as they are knit together in love, that they may come to have all the abounding wealth and blessings of assured conviction of understanding, and that they may become progressively more intimately acquainted with and may know more definitely and accurately and thoroughly what that mystic secret of God, (which is) Christ (the Anointed One).
In Him all the treasures of (divine) wisdom (comprehensive insight into the ways and purposes of God) and (all the riches of spiritual) knowledge and enlightenment are stored up and lie hidden." 
(Colossians 2:2-3 Amplified Bible)


Dallas Willard closes his book Hearing God, with this witness:
"Today, as God's trusting apprentices in the kingdom of the heavens, we live on the Emmaus road, so to speak, with an intermittently burning heart.  His word pours into our heart, energizing and directing our life in a way that cannot be accounted for in natural terms.  The presence of the physical world is, then, if I will have it so, no longer a barrier between me and God.  My visible surroundings become, instead, God's gift to me, where I am privileged to see the rule of heaven realized through my friendship with Jesus.  He makes it so in response to my expectation.  There, in some joyous measure, creation is seen moving toward "the glorious liberty of the children of God"--all because my life counts for eternity as I live and walk with God."


So I propose you take this post and sit with it all for a while.  Print it out if you need to and carry it to a quiet place...the sea shore if at all possible.  Most of these words are not mine and there is so much here that is worth meditating on.  Let the Lord speak to you through it. Open yourself to receive what He might reveal to you.  


Here is a prayer I wrote in 2006 after I meditated on these Scriptures.  You may borrow it if you like.

Photo by Bgrace

Yahweh,
You have been revealing your secrets to us for a very long time.
Why?
That we might follow You.
That we might see
That we might listen and understand what we hear.
That we might turn…
And be forgiven.
May life come from death.
May your light never be suppressed in our land…in my heart.
Help me, Emmanuel.
To recognize you
To receive you
To live with you
To see your glory, your grace, your truth
To receive your glory, your grace, your truth
You have made yourself known to all.
May You be made known to me.
May I enter into all that I cannot imagine, that you have prepared.
May You be known Adonai, through me.Here I am, send me!  


Blessings,
B