The Invisible Series

The college I went to is unique. It is a Christian college, yet also held the privilege of being the most socio-economically and racially diverse private college in America, and probably still is. It is a given that different types of people have different perspectives on life. At school, some of these differences manifested in humorous ways - such as, a friend of mine who grew up in New York City was scared of forests.

Actually, you could say he feared rural areas because they had too many trees. Another friend of mine, this one from the Midwest, was afraid of New York subways. Both friends feared what they did not know - or more correctly, they feared what they knew from the movies!

All my city friend knew about rural areas probably concerned big bears in the woods and monsters eating rowboats. My Midwestern friend's knowledge of New York City was probably limited to Wall Street, Gangs of New York, and stories of Times Square from the 1970's.

We operate the same way when it comes to our perceptions of God. The world around us is the movie from which we have gleaned inadequate and wrong ideas of God and what His world is like. We may have mean-spirited authority figures (often this includes the religious) in our lives and in our past have heard messages teeming with unholy judgments. Thus, we think of God as being mean, critical and judgmental. 

Besides, God is supposedly bigger and more powerful than anything, so it only makes sense to us that He is the archetype of such behavior. After all - He created this whole thing, DIDN'T HE?! 

We are used to having secondary motives to our own actions, selfish slants in every opinion, and a hope that we can control our lives long enough to either have some happiness, more happiness or at least survive a bit longer. We also tend to form whatever we serve - our "god" -into our image.

The good news is my friends visiting the country have really no chance of being mauled by a bear while driving in upstate New York, my friend visiting Manhattan is more likely to get lost on the subway system than robbed, and we have made God the target of far more criticism than He has given us. In fact, He is not nearly as critical as we assume. His root is love; His anger is only momentary - and primarily concerned with that which separates us from knowing His love.

The problem isn't that The Invisible God doesn't make Himself clearly known; the problem lies in our constant inability to listen to Him, or - to put it another way - our pension to listen to everything but Him.

We know He (The Invisible) has sent an Invisible Man to lead us into the entirety of Truth, who teaches us about Himself (Jn 15:26) and is always present, everywhere. He Himself is an Invisible God that displays Himself through every seen and created thing. He made Himself touchable and transparent in an only son and now through many sons and daughters, as Invisible Diety placed in obvious frailty. Each of these are clear and indisputable displays - yet each requires us to stop, listen and press through the veneer of learning, piety, perception and pretense.

Faith does not rest on what is seen. Faith is the conviction of things not yet seen, and this gift of faith opens The Invisible to us. It causes The Invisible to be seen, to become tangible to us as conviction becomes substance. This happens because we realize that true faith is not just from Him, but of Him, and as it expands, He expands in us and what we thought was intangible has become tangible. This happens spiritually, emotionally, in our minds and physically. It happens to you as an individual, or it can happen corporately - in any setting.

Since the beginning, God has been clearly seen through what is made. It is only because we give ourselves over to twistings (perversions) of pure desire - feelings that are foreign to our eternal selves - that we do not see, hear, or comprehend that The Invisible really is The Visible and revealed.

As it stands now, we only know of Him as Invisible, so we might understand which of our gods is being represented. To us, lust seems visible and tangible, yet committed love is somehow distant and slippery. Entertainment is fun and in-the-moment, while true fulfillment is unattainable or a metaphor for something else. We feel shallow relationships help us for the moment, but as trust and intimacy start to open their reality, their tangible nature scares us - so we revert to what we've always known and our current life becomes what is bearable, what is normal, what is within reason. And what is visible and apparent to us in this state is not love, not hope, not reason, not anything like what we were made for. And nothing like what we've dreamed.

Thankfulness opens our eyes. Hope brings light into our squinting and dim perception. Faith focuses this enlightened perception, turning intangible concepts of shape and color into definite lines that can then be moved by love, and love is a man who you can only come to see as you allow Him to be visible in your heart.

In the The Invisible posts, we will explore the nature of The Unseen One, and how that which we call invisible becomes vicerally palpable, touchable, and seen. He becomes intuitively obvious as we press forward and into Him.

The first post you can find right below; it was written just a month prior to this post.

Rewritten and reposted December 2008

The Invisible Man

Hey, I need to let you know - there is an invisible man in the room with you right now. He's probably standing next to you, reading with you, and he can actually do anything to you he wants. In fact, he's probably getting ready to do just that.

Now, don't freak out - He's a good guy. Actually, you and he are very good friends, but you just seem to have a bit of amnesia and don't remember all that he's done for you. Or you may not remember it because you've fooled yourself into thinking all the things he helped you with, you did on your own - which isn't very nice.

You don't believe me? Watch for evidence - kind of like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator looking for a light bending, seemingly invisible, alien or Mr. Incredible catching his daughter during her vanishing act. Look for evidence. Maybe you'll see footprints on the carpet, feel a brush of wind from his movement, his hand on your shoulder. Or maybe you just got healed of something that's been afflicting you for years. Test it out and see (no, really, try it). It's not uncommon for people to get covered by a blanket of love and peace, feel warmth like the sun on their face or to get healed - when they're thinking about him. Sometimes people know he's around just because they feel better. This often happens without even noticing he came in the room, yet they'll suddenly stop feeling lonely or may start to enjoy the other people around them.

He's good at pointing out how much more full and rich our lives are in love than we often think, and he's also got a knack for helping you see the best in others, especially those you have a hard time dealing with. It's less common to see a footprint, but hey - it could happen. Did you test your body out yet?

Matter of fact, you probably don't think too much of him. He has all power and love hidden inside of him, though at times will be pretty modest - he only brags about one person, and has been known to clam up when people ignore him. Yet, every good and perfect thing that's happened in your life has happened because he was and is present, though you don't really believe it. Well, maybe you do a little, but not really. How do I know? If you did, you'd have already been talking to him before you read this blog post.

Spirit is here. And Spirit is there, present with you. The One who comes from the deepest parts of the Uncreated Life has walked with you through every moment of your life without ever abandoning you. The invisible, invincible, all-too-easily-passed-by perfection of Spirit who is the friend, confidant and completion you've always wanted surrounds you, now. Not convinced? I know.

But Spirit is. And Spirit is waiting for you.

The Heavens

slight sparkles slice in every hue
by the millions
across universes colored and not,
frescoes of sound unsung
waiting for chords to paint themselves from

unwrapped, unfitting an ear
and beyond the reach of any eye,
7 Eyes spin with spliced sparkles
threading Truth; their strengthened journey
producing thrones for tomorrow

4 creatures alive attend the Eyes,
their own in front, above, behind
below the crystal sea of unmined belief
often thought a frescoed ceiling
wanting to come out, out of impossibility

the Breath they breathe, winds, wheels and trees
all spin with summer leaves not crumpled, or weary
as fall lingers an aside - a fringe concept of worlds ago -
wondering from where faith appeared
"when the Son of Man returns, will He find faith on the earth?"

it is in the heavens

Job 26:13, 2 Chronicles 16:9, Ezekiel 1, Revelation 22:2, Luke 18:8, Hebrews 11:14

Walking With, part II

The Glory of God is going to shake us in every place we are connected to the ways of this present age. It is not until we connect ourselves and are fully connected to the thoughts of Heaven - in body, soul and spirit - that we become bridged to Heaven's reality.

This reality of walking with is not just found in knowing healing, or in knowing the restoration of God's purposes exist in Heaven and then causing a token of them to come forth on earth. It's not just found in believing that angels interact with us and interface with our physical existence moment-by-moment and cause unseen creative expressions to become tangible - such as causing a person's limbs to grow out, a beautiful painting to be painted, or gold and diamonds to appear. We do value and pray for all of these things to be here as they are on Heaven. However, gifts are a token; God is all. Belief is conviction; God is both the only provocation of believing conviction and the only fulfillment of its desire. What we see now are only His outer fringes.

This reality of walking with is first brought forth in the thoughts of the mind and intentions of the heart, finding expression through thinking the thoughts of God and holding His posture of heart. And it is first found in how we think toward Him and toward what He loves most - people.

I recently heard it said that John (the Beloved) had such a radically transformed view of the church after receiving the revelation of Jesus that we know as the book, Revelation. What he saw in Heaven (and we read in Revelation chapter 19) was burned in his eyes and he could no longer view people through his own conceptions, but instead saw what Heaven sees. We see dry bones, but God so loved the world and knew it would change if He sent His Son to believe in, that He sent His One, His only Son, so that anyone who believed in this Son would have an unending existence inside of Him. For God did not send His Son into our hearts that we would condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. This most basic precept of the Christian faith will be formed in God's people. He's going to let us be shaken until we grab ahold of this love which is the foundation for unshakeable truth. The only question is, "How hard will He have to shake us?"

To put it another way: "Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me." (Luke 9:48) Those we think the least of - in wealth, in social status, even in holiness - are the very ones we need to receive the most.

Walking With, part I

Quite often, we miss the significance of our participation in both daily and life-altering events. "Line upon line, precept upon precept", we are building into the eternal dwelling place of God. Each prayer from a sincere heart, every scripture caught in your spirit and every breath from the Divine transforms you, the one that has inestimable significance in the eyes of the Creator.

We are on the verge of a spiritual shift on this earth that will effect the universe in the same way tetonic plates' shifting effect a continent. The Spirit of the Living God is orchestrating a move of Heaven, through yielded people, that is going to alter how we see God. And since He has made us His emissaries - His friends, His vessels, the very gates of Heaven on earth - the enlargement of our capacity to see Him and the capability of His love will open us, that Heaven may come as Jesus prayed in Matthew 5. He wants us to see the sufficiency of Jesus' blood invade the impossible - salvations on street corners, freedom in crackhouses, hope in prisons, poverty of spirit in mansions, and a daddy's love in orphanages. Wheelchairs emptied, hearts full, hospitals cleared out and stadiums packed in from revival.

Now, the shift will be glorious. However, it may not feel glorious. When God causes change, Jesus in us is exalted and our carnal nature further destroyed. His Kingdom in and around us has an increasing glory and light, while what is not His Kingdom shakes and falls through the crack in the fault line. The Glory of God is going to shake us in every place we are connected to the unrenewed ways in which this world operates. It is not until we connect ourselves and are fully connected to the thoughts of Heaven - often one line or precept at a time - that we become bridged to Heaven's reality. And only then do we experience a true reviving of life or "revival", plus some. Re-connecting with Heaven causes us to re-present God as Adam did, and as his family was supposed to. Eventually we will do this as Adam did, both individually and corporately, but with a greater degree of glory.

When Peter walked through Jerusalem with his shadow (in the Greek, that word can also mean "outshining", like a radiance) healing masses of people, the people were there because they knew Peter was going to walk along that road. We understand that, but do we realize how they must have viewed Peter to do such a thing? There was actually a significant group of people within Jerusalem that knew God was so formed in Peter that He would shine out from Peter and be so tangibly present around Peter that all leprosy would leave their body, inside and out. They knew God was so attracted to Peter's life He could not stay away, and since God was near Peter, that if they got near him they would be getting near to God and they would be healed. Their broken bones would just be set in place and healed. They believed their legs would grow back out, backs would straighten, mental torment and paralysis would leave and they would be made whole.

The Glory of God is going to shake us in every place we are connected to the ways of this world, but only in order to disconnect us from the world's ways and reconnect us with what Peter walked with. It's not just what Peter walked in, in regards to anointing, authority, or by way of gift, but it's Who he walked with. Peter was beginning to touch on something that wasn't new, but ancient. Jesus is called the "Second Adam" because He restored unbroken communion with God on earth, the communion the first Adam lost. And in His death and resurrection, Jesus established a spiritual seed that would guarantee that unbroken communion would be inherited by everyone coming after Him.

Adam walked with such communion that lovers of God will seek the gifts and authority he walked in, but not nearly as desirously as they will seek to know who God was to him. What kind of a God would invest so much in one, unproven man such as Adam? What kind of a God would invest His only Son in disproven, haughty people such as ourselves, and in such a way as to give us all things?

Adam's walk with God was so much more than just an unseen accessory to life that benefitted him by keeping his checkbook in the black and helping him trust life will turn out okay. Adam glowed. He overflowed with joy at anything and everything God did, and he did so with excellence.