Seeing with our Ears

Those of you with kids, do you remember the first time you saw your child in the womb? How did you see that precious baby? With sound. That’s what an ultrasound is. An ultrasound, according to wikipedia, “is a form of cyclic sound pressure with a frequency greater than the upper limit of human hearing, this limit being approximately 20 kilohertz (20,000 hertz)” And with it, we can “visualize muscles, tendons, and many internal organs, their size, structure and any pathological lesions. They are also used to visualize a fetus during routine and emergency prenatal care”

Do you know how scientists are looking at far off galaxies? With radio waves. They are watching with sound.

Think of how creation came into being: with a sound. Or as Moses described it, “And God said…”

I hope to unwrap this more and post on this over the next few weeks. In the meantime, I’m leaving Sunday for a week of class in Portland, and then five days in LA at Fuller Seminary for Allelon’s Summer Institute. I hope to post some while I am away, and if I do we will try to work through this idea more. I’m swamped until then and may not get to post the rest of the week.

But for now, try to start seeing life through the sound of the Spirit. A Pneumanaut would do that!

Shifting Ahead…

This is a great presentation (HT: Joe Thorn). Notice the shift East. We are living in difficult times and must regain the pneumanautical mindset to to deal with the changes and concerns of the future. We must begin to understand Random Theory and Complexity Theory (or Chaos) and begin to let the wind move us where He will, living unencumbered and free, like a kite, tied only to the Savior, the Father, and the Word while being guided by the wind (Spirit).

The Pneumanaut and Prayer…

Ephesians 6:18-19 (ESV)
18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, 19 and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.

While working on a series on Spiritual Warfare, I was using Klyne Snodgrass’ NIV Application Commentary for part of my study. In this commentary, Snodgrass states, “The emphasis on prayer, and the emphasis on all, indicates that the believer’s entire life is one large prayer to God.”

I have done a double-take on this statement. It is not something that I have fleshed out; it is something that I am pondering on many levels. How it ties together with “in the Spirit” must be fleshed as well (see below). But here is my general scribbling to what he said, and I open it up to you for dialogue…

We don’t do prayer, we become the prayer. Prayer is not something we do, it is something we become. We become the petition, we become the intercession, we become the cry of pain, we become the praise, we become the warrior.

Stop a moment and take that in. Stop and think of the incarnational statement that can make in your life.

But the thought must go further. Prayer that is truly incarnational, pneumanatical prayer, is prayer “in the Spirit”. While some commentators may see this as praying in tongues, (see also 1 Cor. 14:5), most do not. However, the focus on this incarnational prayer is certainly the Spirit. PT O’Brien, in the Pillar Commentary on Ephesians, states “Their prayers are to be ‘in or by’ the spirit, that is inspired or guided by the same Holy Spirit through whom they have confident access to the father“.

My scribbles for this are, “not our prayer, but His prayer; dative of sphere…under the influence of…not our prayer but his…under his influence and with his assistance”

When we pray in the Spirit, it is His influence and His prayer and we begin to incarnate the mind and heart of and thoughts of God. We become the prayer. We are both the prayer and the pray-er.

Could it be that the incarnational aspect of our praying and living is a direct reflection of the freedom we give the Holy Spirit to guide our praying? We must become a human glider, rising and falling, turning and spinning, on the currents of the wind. Unfortunately, we are more like the pilot of a helicopter, which, in the view of a friend from college, “beats the air into submission.” Motorized sailing means the pilot is in control - at least in his view - but a pneumanaut allows the wind to control and direct him in his praying. Doing so allows the wind to then control him totally.

The Temptation of Jesus

In Eugene Peterson’s new book, The Jesus Way, he offers a great perspective on the temptations of Jesus. This first post will introduce Peterson’s line of thinking with a bit of commentary and application about what Peterson is saying.

Wilderness time. Desert time. Time to see the way of Jesus tested against the devil’s way. Time to feel the terrible pull of temptation away from the way of Jesus and realize that it is a temptation, as all temptation is, to embrace illusion, to believe a lie. Time to become aware of the immense but hidden abyss between the way of Jesus and the ways of the devil.

Time in the wilderness guards the way of Jesus from presumption and misapprehension, from naivete and self absorption. We give close attention to what is going on in the testing and tempting of Jesus and note that the devil does not suggest that Jesus in way renounce his call, turn back to something simpler, avoid responsibility, deny the validity of his baptism, or doubt the voice from heaven. The devil is content to leave the matter of ends - the goal, the purpose, the grand work of salvation - uncontested. His tempting is devoted exclusively to ways, to the means that are best suited to accomplish the end to which Jesus is the way. Pg. 30

The temptation that satan offers Jesus is that instead of accomplishing the end God’s way, try it the enemy’s way. In doing so, through diverting the means, the end is also diverted. In diverting the end, Satan wins.

It is the same argument that Satan pulled on Eve in the garden. He didn’t ask Eve to question the ends - to be like God - because they were already like God for they were imago dei, created in His image. The argument was the way into which she would become like God. God’s way was to eat of the tree of life; the enemy’s way to eat of the forbidden tree. Thus, by diverting the means the enemy was able to divert the end. True, they would be like God, knowing good from evil, but they understood that through death, not life. Had they chosen God’s means, they would have been like God, knowing good from evil through life and righteousness.

If that is Satan’s method, then that should be something about which we should be on guard. For example, satan would tell us to obtain holiness through rules, not relationship. Too much freedom is not good. But that only makes us self-righteous hypocrites, not people pursuing holiness through a relationship with God. Therefore, we have been diverted with the means, and as a result, we are far from God’s intended goal - holiness.

The divergence from the means thus creates a divergence from the human we were intended to be. As such, the enemy is able to give just cause for those who do not follow Christ to cry foul. We are not like the one we claim; we are far different because we have adopted a means which keeps us from hitting the mark. As a result, we fail in being a kingdom of priests and become a sect of pharisaism.

I wonder how often we have fallen into this trap; diversion from the way causes diversion from the purpose. May God empower us and change our way of thinking.

The Tools of a Catalyst

This continues our look at the book, The Starfish and the Spider.

All catalysts draw upon similar tools.

1. Genuine Interest in Others. To a catalyst, people are like walking novels. Information that most of us barely listen to is pure gold to a catalyst. And we can tell when a catalyst really cares about what we’re talking about. And when that happens, we tend to open up and reveal more about ourselves. The conversation naturally becomes more interesting, and we feel that the catalyst really gets us. It’s at that point, when we feel understood, that we are most open to something new and we become willing to change.
2. Loose Connections. Most of us have interesting personal conversations with a small group of our closest friends. But a catalyst is able to have these kinds of interactions with thousands; they actually thrive on meeting new people every day. Because they are generally interested in others, catalysts find these kinds of relationships highly meaningful.
3. Mapping. When you talk to a catalyst, he won’t just be intrigued by your stories, he’ll also be mapping out how you can fit into his social network. Catalysts think of who they know, who those people know, how they all relate to one another, and how they fit into a huge mental map. They just don’t know more people, they also spend time thinking about how each person fits into their network.
4. Desire to Help. Wanting to help is the fuel that drives a catalyst’s ability to connect people. It isn’t just part of being nice; it is an essential part of being a catalyst.
5. Passion. The catalyst is the constant cheerleader of the decentralized system.
6. Meets People Where They Are. There’s a difference between being passionate and being pushy. A catalyst doesn’t try to persuade people but rather relies on a much more subtle technique: meeting people where they are. When people feel heard, when they feel understood and supported, they are more likely to change. A catalyst doesn’t prescribe a solution, nor does he hit you over the head with one. Instead he assumes a peer relationship and listens intently. You don’t follow a catalyst because you have to - you follow one because he understands you.
7. Emotional Intelligence. Catalysts tend to lead with emotions. To a catalyst, emotional connections come first. Once there is an emotional connection, then and only then is it time to brainstorm and talk strategy.
8. Trust. It’s not enough to meet people where they are and to form emotional bonds with them; a catalyst must also trust the network. With a flattened hierarchy, you never know what people are going to do. You can’t control outcomes, and you can’t really reproach a member if he becomes errant. All you can control is whether people have personal relationships with each other based on trust.
9. Inspiration. A true catalyst isn’t just a matchmaker, he is also an inspiration to others to work toward a goal that often doesn’t involve personal gain.
10. Tolerance for Ambiguity. One of the most common answers of catalysts is, “I don’t know.” They are not absent-minded. They often don’t know because there aren’t concrete answers to these questions. Being a catalyst requires a high tolerance for ambiguity. That is because a decentralized system is so fluid that someone who needs order and structure would quickly go mad.
11. Hands-Off Approach. The most difficult and counter-intuitive element of being a catalyst is getting out of the way. In a command and control environment, you can closely track what is going on, but being watched and monitored makes employees less likely to take risks and innovate. At the same time, when left to their own devices, members of a starfish organization can become frustrated with the catalyst. “What are we supposed to be doing?” they may ask. But it’s precisely this question that leads people to take charge, giving members a high level of ownership over the organization.
12. Receding. After catalysts map a network, make connections, build trust, and inspire people to act, what do they do? They leave. If they were to stay around they may block the decentralization’s growth.

Obviously, the catalyst has a role in decentralized systems, but if we notice, this kind of activity is valuable in evangelism. The tools of a catalyst are similar to the tools of a Christ-follower wishing to reach their community. When Christ-followers exhibit these qualities, combined with the Spirit, people can be led to the feet of the Savior.

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