Fit Soul Chapter 19 - Union

Hey, it's Ben Greenfield. Welcome to Fit Soul Book. This is my weekly recording of a chapter from my book Fit Soul, which you can also get for free at fitsoulbook.com fitsoulbook.com we are in Chapter 1919 today. Chapter 19 Union I've recently been reflecting upon how staggering and humbling it is that at any point during the day I can personally speak to an all knowing, all, all powerful deity who created me. That's a bit of a staggering thought really. I mean, just consider for a moment the power, awesomeness and ultimate greatness of God. Not little G God, but Big G God. Sadly, many don't fully comprehend this greatness. Allow me to give you two examples. God is an awesome being and I imagine it would be quite paralyzing and terrifying to even look at him in the Bible. Moses, a faithful prophet of God, who one would think would certainly be in union with God, was only allowed to see God's back because otherwise if he saw God's face, he would surely die. It says in Exodus 33, you cannot see my face, for no man shall see me and live. We, like Moses, have little clues about what God actually looks like. But I suspect from the clues that we do have, he's not some old man with a white beard, clad in a soft robe, sitting on a cloud and storming a harp. Neither is he a magical wispy fairy who flitters around sprinkling glitter throughout the universe. In addition, he's surely not what Hollywood portrays him to be, like the nice man in a white suit as depicted in Jim Carrey's film Bruce Almighty. In Isaiah 40, 15, 17, God says, behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket and are counted as the small dust on the scales. Look. He lifts up the aisles as a very little thing, and Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor its beast sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted by him less than nothing and worthless. God goes on to say in verses 18 through 19, to whom then will you liken God, or what likeness will you compare to him? The workman molds an image, the goldsmith overspreads it with gold, and the silversmith casts silver chains. In other words, it's impossible for us tiny, feeble humans to fully picture the power and glory of God in our current physical state, nor to fashion or carve any type of image that portrays what he actually looks like. But it's something altogether mind blowing beyond our wildest imaginations. Yet we often portray God as merely a Special friend, a magical fairy in the sky or a meek, white bearded old man. But God is dangerous. He's fierce. He's wild. He's. He's like a great roaring lion. Similar to the Aslan of Narnia that I describe in chapter seven of this book. Heck, in one article I read several years ago, an author named Doug Jones portrayed a fitting description of God's fierceness, wildness and dangerousness. He says, in our pietism, we tend to insist that God is primarily nice. Period. God is nice and nicer and nicest. The chief end of God is to be nice. I believe in God, the nice maker of niceness. In heaven, we'll all be nice. Piety. Pilate wasn't nice. He was mean. And mean people suck. This whole modern Christian litany is so tedious and tiny. Of course, other people, equally foolish, think the solution is to be rude and mean. Yeah, God isn't nice. He's rude. But Yahweh is neither nice or rude. He's dangerous and unpredictable. He's Trinity. He's fire. And fire is hard to contain. Sometimes all the advanced firefighting technology gets overcome in a canyon by a storm of flames. Sometimes people freeze next to a tiny flame. Fire's edges won't stand still. Its borders aren't easily traced. Our God is a consuming fire. God's command for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac came right from the center of flame. As H.A. williams notes, whatever God wants in our relationship with him, it certainly isn't respectability. To Moses, he was fire. To Ezekiel, he wore the symbols of ox, eagle, lion. To Jonah, he was a man eating fish. To Balaam, he spoke through donkey lips. Yahweh boasts in animals, especially wild ones, for every beast of the forest is mine. And the cattle on a thousand hills I know all the birds of the mountains and the wild beasts of the field are mine. The Lord seems to especially love horses. Have given the horse strength, he says, have you clothed his neck with thunder? He mocks at fear and is not frightened. Nor does he turn back from the sword. He devours the distance with fierceness and rage. Nor does he come to a halt because the trumpet has sounded. At the blast of the trumpet, he says, aha. He smells the battle from afar. He loves it that they refuse to stop at the trumpet. What kind of God says that? He reveals his dangerousness in hawks and eagles too. There is artwork revealing more of his style. Does the hawk fly by your wisdom? Does the eagle mount up at your command and make its nest on high on the rocks? It Dwells and resides in the crag of the rock and the stronghold. From there it spies out the prey. Its eyes observed from afar. Its young ones suck up blood. And where the slain are, there it is. It says in Job goes on to say, his young ones feast on blood. But why the detail about blood? Do we really need that? Can we just talk about porcelain doves? No. God is gloriously dangerous and noble like an eagle. Solomon recognized that the way of an eagle is in the air. It's just too wonderful. It says in Proverbs, Yahweh reveals himself in a cheetah kill. Oh, those nice, soft, delicate antelopes. It would be nice to pet them. They should be protected. Can you hunt the prey for the lion or satisfy the appetite of the young lion? Says Job. God can. He's on the run and right in the middle of the lion kill. He boasts in giving them food. He satisfies lions. Does that mean God hates deer? He's made them just for food? Of course not. He boasts in them too. He says, can you mark when the deer gives birth? Can you number the months they fulfill? Or do you know the time when they bear young? They bow down, they bring forth their young, they deliver their offspring. Their young ones are healthy. They grow strong with grain. They depart and do not return to them. It says in job 39, he loves them and sometimes loves to feed them to lions. That's the God of Abraham. A fire, an ox, an eagle, a lion, a man eating sea monster, a wild stallion and a soaring eagle. That doesn't really seem like a nice old man in the sky, does it? Doug goes on to say, God is dangerous, wild and unpredictable. He's dynamite and a kidnapper. That's the God of Abraham. The God of Abraham does not pen Hallmark cards. He's not a corporate risk manager. He's not a cruise director aiming to make our trip as pleasant and comfortable as possible. He's here to overturn tables and create people who can run alongside him. If you have run with the footman and they have wearied you, then how can you with horses? Says Jeremiah. He wants people like horses. People whose necks are clothed with thunder, mock at fear and do not stop at the sound of a trumpet. It's not about power. It's about character and tension and Trinity. In the midst of this intricate play of history, tension is normal. Triads and evil are normal. How dare we be surprised by evil? How dare we wish it away? Pining for the nursery that is not the world of the God of Abraham. Williams Again, observes, conflict is absolutely necessary if our relationship with God is to grow into maturity. And unless this absolute necessity is recognized, we we shall misunderstand what is happening to us and be weighed down by an appalling load of guilt. Or we shall press the conflict so that it can find only a sneaking and perverted expression below the level of consciousness, while we apparently remain God's good little boys, futile and ineffective half people. Wow. Well, for some reason beyond our understanding, this wild, fierce and dangerous God also allowed for conflict, turmoil, evil, thorns, thistles, poisonous snakes and spiders, natural disasters and the like. That doesn't seem like a being to ignore, take lightly, or take for granted granted, does it? So we know that God is wild, fierce and dangerous, and we also don't know what he looks like. However, and this leads me to my second point, we can catch tiny glimpses of God's greatness in the fierce beauty of his creation. In Romans 1:20, the apostle Paul states that God's nature, glory and power are clearly demonstrated in our physical world. It says, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seeing, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead. Just think for a moment about the incredible nature of the very planet you walk upon. It is precisely the correct distance from the sun to keep us all from being struck dead by a powerful burning source of star energy that in a Single second converts 4 million tons of matter into pure energy. 90 billion megatons of energy, to be precise. At the top of our Earth's atmosphere is a layer of ozone that filters out most of the harmful UV light radiated from this sun and allows for a perfect temperature and ratio of gases to sustain life. Additionally, our atmosphere contains a specific and perfectly proportioned ratio of gases that allow life to exist here on Earth. Of this sun and also its sister stars, David says in Psalms 19:1, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork. And how about those stars that go beyond the sun? Well, the number of them in the universe is unknown, since every time scientists peer deeper into space, they find even more stars. David Kornreich, an astronomer at Ithaca College in New York, gives a rough estimate of 10 trillion galaxies in the universe. Multiplying that by the Milky Way's estimated 100 billion stars results in, well, a lot of zeros. A one with 24 zeros after it, which Kornreck mentions, is likely a gross underestimation. As more detailed looks at the universe seem to show even more galaxies then Think beyond the earth, the sun, and the stars and consider the unbelievable complexity of animals. Take an eagle for example. Job says, does the hawk fly by your wisdom and spread its wings towards the south? Does the eagle mount up at your command and make its nest on high on the rock? It dwells and resides on the craig of the rock and the stronghold. From there it spies out the prey, its eyes observed from afar. It turns out that eagles truly do have incredible eyesight. The eagle eye is among the strongest in the animal kingdom, with an eyesight estimated at four to eight times stronger than that of the average human. An eagle is said to be able to spot a rabbit over two miles away. Then you can go even tinier than the eye and consider our very cellular enzymes themselves. The more scientists look into cells and enzymes, the more complexity they find. I found a wonderful description of this complexity in the book called In Six Days, where it's des Only enzymes produce the pure amino acids and sugars necessary for life. But enzyme manufacturing requires a living cell. Then there is the insurmountable problem of getting even one functional enzyme by random processes. Even if you could get all the ingredients assembled together, life is based on life. Let us consider just one enzyme comprised of a typical 300amino acids. Even if we are generous to the materialist and assume that only 150of those amino acids have to be specified for the function of the enzyme, the probability of getting a functional sequence is less than 1 in 10. We can't imagine such an improbability. There are possibly 1080 atoms in the universe. If we made every atom in our universe another universe just like ours, and every one of their atoms were an experiment for every millisecond of the presumed evolutionary age of our universe, this would amount to 10,181 experiments, still a long way short of even the remotest chance of getting one functional enzyme. That's just one enzyme. The simplest living cell must have at least several hundred enzymes and proteins. Well, you can read more about the complexity of cellular life in a whole bunch of articles I'll link to on the resources page for this chapter@fitsoulbook.com Chapter 19 that's fitsoulbook.com Chapter 19 well, this blazing sun, trillions of stars, a protected planet, eagle eyes, cells and enzymes are just scratching the surface of examples of how God's complexity and greatness shine through in all of creation. Ultimately, his image and his creation are spectacular and awe inspiring. His dangerous nature is fear striking and terrifying. Yet how rarely do we consider the amazing notion that this all powerful creator of the entire universe walks among us each day. How rarely do we consider we can talk to him whenever we would like. How much more rarely do we actually make any attempt to even do so. Despite being given the privilege of being in union with the greatest being this universe has ever known, most of us spend the majority of our lives disconnected from God or ignoring the laws he's established for our existence, order and happiness. These laws, laid out clearly in the Bible, are not suggestions or tips from a special friend. They're commandments from a Creator. And I don't know about you, but it gives me pause to consider the grave consequences of ignoring such a God, avoiding union with God, and discounting the fierce, wild, dangerous, complex, mind blowingly intelligent nature of this God. Union with God yet magically, this same all powerful God continues to walk among us mere humans. As I alluded to in the introduction of this chapter, we can actually talk to Him. To me, this concept is simultaneously breathtaking and humbling. Consider the words of Genesis 3:8, which says and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. We know that God is Spirit, so how exactly could he be walking in the garden? Because we're told God is spirit in John 4:24. Well, this verse begins by stating they heard the sound of God. Whatever form God took when he walked in the Garden of Eden, his form somehow allowed for the audible production of sound. The verse also describes the presence of God among the trees of the garden. Do you think God still walks among us? Or do you think God created this entire complex universe to please himself and bring him the greatest glory imaginable, then decided to simply walk away and never dwell among us again, instead opting to observe us from a distance while playing a harp on a far off cloud. I doubt God has forsaken us. Indeed, I know he has not. As the old gospel song in the Garden, so beautifully rendered by country artist Merl Hagard in a link I'll put in the in the Resources section for this chapter, goes and he walks with me, and he talks with me and tells me I am his own and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known. Yes, God walks among us. He talks to us. We are graciously allowed and privileged to be in union with Him. And at least for me, that's a pretty humbling and staggering thought to consider. Three ways to maintain union with God. So don't take for granted the ability to obey in daily union with the mightiest king that has ever existed, to walk with him, talk with him, and share his joy. That union is a blessing we all too often take for granted. So I have three simple suggestions for you to maintain your union with God. First, take everything to God in prayer. He'll grant you wisdom and discernment. If you ask for it, he'll give you answers. All you need to do is ask. This week, every day, even with the smallest of decisions. Consider coming to God with questions like what should I eat? Who should I ask about this problem? What tasks should I tackle first? Then simply stop, breathe and listen for the still, small voice in the silence. He'll give you directions as you practice listening for the voice of God in silence. Consider the words of First Kings 19:11 13 which magnify the significance of where God can powerfully speak to us now. There was a great wind so strong that was splitting mountains and breaking rocks and pieces before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire. But the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, what are you doing here, Elijah? Second, stop at a few points during your busy day. Once again breathe and simply survey the wonders of creation around you and speak to God. A simple phrase I'm here. Speak to me and show me what you want to teach me. Then once again, be silent and listen. God's words to you will come once again in the still, small silence. He may ask you to pray, to open your Bible, to call a family member or friend, to step away from work for a moment to meditate or worship. I've personally found the simple I am here habit a few times during the day to be a powerful way to stay in union with God. Third, be grateful and stop to thank God multiple times during the day. In chapter 12 I told you about how each night I'll fall asleep to the gentle diaphragmatic lull of my own four count in, eight count down breathwork pattern. And I'll silently be thanking God and trusting God. There'll be yet more oxygen available for my next inhale. Indeed, the the mere act of mindful breathing combined with a silent gratefulness to God for each and Every breath is a wonderful practice and one I recommend you try the next time you're say, stuck in traffic. After all, our great Creator smiles when we worship him. And I certainly think no king would complain of a subject entering their throne room for several minutes and saying with the deepest gratitude with each breath, thank you, thank you, thank you. But don't just thank him with your breath. Thank him before a meal. Thank him when you see a boy bald eagle soaring overhead. Thank him when you're stuck in traffic. Thank him when you get a good email. Thank him when you get a bad email. Thank him when a loved one hugs you, thank him in all things. Those three simple habits are all it takes to begin your journey into full daily union with God. What should I do? I'm here and thank you. Try it out each week and I think you'll be amazed and surprised at how God speaks to you when you actually speak to Him. Then stop to listen. And as you do so, consider that you are listening to the most fierce, dangerous, wild, complex being this world has ever known. For more on maintaining that constant, unceasing union with God, I also highly recommend you read a book called Practicing his presence, a 300 year old book that's never been out of print, and that will teach you how to engage in a journey that brings you closer to Christ each day. Summary Finally, I'll admit it can sometimes be difficult to find the time and motivation to stay in the constancy of union with God that you now know is so important. Regarding this I was recently reading Andrew Murray's provoking book Absolute Surrender, in which he says the keeping is to be continuous every morning. God will meet you as you wake. It's not a question if I forget to wake in the morning with the thought of him, what will come of it? If you trust your waking to God, God will meet you in the mornings as you wake with his divine sunshine and life. He'll give you the consciousness that through the day you have got God to continually take charge of you with his almighty power and God will meet you the next day and every day. Never mind if in the practice of fellowship failure sometimes comes. If you maintain your position and say, Lord, I'm going to expect you to do your utmost and I'm going to trust you day by day to keep me absolutely. Your faith will grow stronger and stronger. You will know the keeping power of God in unbrokenness. This statement from the book resonated with me because that daily, specifically morning keeping of union with God can be hard. I don't know about you, but it's hard for me to wake, suppress the urge to leap from bed and instead actually actually take the time to breathe, read my Bible, pray, and complete my spiritual disciplines. Journaling. It's even harder when I'm traveling and I went to bed later than planned due to late night dinner obligations or had a crappy night of sleep because I'm outside my home environment. And then I wake knowing I'm supposed to be at a conference or a meeting in an hour and I have so much to do to get ready. And yet I know the very best thing I can do is greet the day by greeting God. Heck, even if I set aside for a moment any thoughts of a 10 or 20 minute meditation later in the morning, or squeezing in an a.m. workout or having a few quality moments with the family, or the mere act of praying, cracking over the Bible and spending time in God's Word before my feet hit the floor is just hard. It takes time. Admittedly, not a ton of time, as 10 to 15 minutes usually suffices for me, but it's time nonetheless. And it takes trust. Trust that God will provide for me even if I don't bang out those 20 emails that I really want to get off my chest or out of my mind before I start my real workday. Trust that God will put food on the table even if I don't get those extra precious just a few minutes of work in. And trust that God will help me remember all those jumbling thoughts marching through my head that I woke up with and I want to act upon right away. Is it the same for you? Well, fortunately, Andrew presents a solution within the pages of that book. And based on the book's title, the solution comes as no surprise. Absolute surrender. He says. When God has begun the work of absolute surrender in you, and when God has accepted your surrender, then God holds Himself bound to care for it and to keep it. Will you believe that? He then goes on to write oh, we find the Christian life so difficult because we seek for God's blessing. While we live in our own will, we should be glad to live the Christian life according to our own liking. We make our plans and choose our own work. And then we asked the Lord Jesus to come in and take care that sin shall not conquer us too much and that we shall not go too far wrong. We ask him to come in and give us so much of his blessing, but our relationship to Jesus ought to be such that we are entirely at his disposal and every day come to him humbly and straightforwardly and say, lord, is there anything in me that's not according to Thy will, that's not been ordered by you, that's not entirely given up to you, oh, if we wait and wait patiently, I tell you what the result will be. There would spring up a relationship between us and Christ so close and so tender that we should afterward be amazed at how we formally could have lived with the idea I am surrendered to Christ. We should feel how far distant our intercourse with him has previously been and that he can and does indeed come and take actual possession of us and gives us unbroken fellowship all the day, the branch calls us to absolute surrender. So what does that all mean? Well, when we truly love God and have a true desire to live a Christian life, when we have truly surrendered all to God, that He will care for our each and every need, when we come to God daily and pray, yes, earnestly pray that we would have the fortitude and trust to surrender all worries, work, racing thoughts, lack of time, stress, pressure, scarcity and doubt upon Him. Then we'll stay in bed to greet God each morning and read the Bible. Not because we have to, but because every last shred of our being wants to and loves to. So I pray each day that as I grow in grace and grow in God, that He would make every morning in bed reading the Bible something I look forward to just as much as a juicy rib eye steak, a glorious sip of a fine Bordeaux, a beautiful hike with my family, a luxurious date with my wife, or a game of tennis at the park. How about you? Do you ever ponder the absolute power of God and the near overwhelming privilege of being able to converse and be in union with an almighty Creator of the universe every day? Are you blown away by his simultaneous dangerousness and love? What have you found that enables your daily wokeness to include a deep, daily connection with God first thing in the day? As you dwell on these important questions, it's also of utmost importance to dwell upon your own mortality as your physical body is going to fade away, but the soul soul will go on to exist forever in eternity. So in the final two chapters of Fit Soul this book, I'm going to present to you some important considerations regarding your own passing away from this physical world of flesh into the eternal world of spirit. In the meantime, for resources, references, links and additional reading and listening material for this chapter you can visit fitsoulbook.com chapter 19 that's fitsoulbook.com chapter 19.