God's Anger and Ours (Part 5)

Some people think God's beliefs about sin/sins/evil has changed for some reason, that when God sees a woman commit adultery against her husband, or a man kill his child, this activating event is perceived/believed differently by him than it is by us, and thus God's consequent emotions and actions are vastly different.  Even using biblical sounding language like God "raining down wrath" puts God's anger in a kind of theological category beyond what we experience.  I believe "God's wrath/fury/raining down" is anger like we know anger to be--but of course coming from a being who is perfectly powerful and able to feel and express anger in a way that transcends us.  But I don't think His anger is different from ours in the sense that it is almost opposite of ours, as if our anger and his has no correlation what so ever. 

A quote from C.S. Lewis perfectly and climactically captures what I'm saying.  It comes from Lewis' "Perelandra," where a character named Ransom is chasing a creature that is evil and murder personified--The Unman, who is a completely, absolutely, and permanently demon possessed man named Weston.  Ransom is chasing the UnMan in order to kill him.  This is the quote that captures God's anger beautifully:

"(Ransom) remembers seeing the Enemy for a moment looking not like Weston but like a mandrill, and realizing almost at once that this was delirium.  He wavered.  Then an experience that perhaps no good man can ever have in our world came over him--a torrent of perfectly unmixed and lawful hatred.  The energy of hating, never before felt without some guilt, without some dim knowledge that he was failing fully to distinguish sinner from the sin, rose into his arms and legs till he felt they were pillars of burning blood.  What was before him appeared no longer a creature of corrupted will.  It was corruption itself to which will was attached only as an instrument.  Ages ago it had been a Person:  but the ruins of personality now survived in it only as weapons at the disposal of a furious self-exiled negation.  It is perhaps difficult to understand why this filled Ransom not with horror but with a kind of joy.  The joy came from finding at last what hatred was made for.  As a boy with an axe rejoices in finding a tree, or a boy with a box of colored chalks rejoices in finding a pile of perfectly white paper, so he rejoiced in finding the perfect congruity between his emotion and its object."

The perfect congruity between emotion and object is THE POINT  I'm making in EVERYTHING I'm writing. 

With God, there is ALWAYS  a perfect congruity between His emotions and its object. 

When God sees/experiences/perceives the activating event of "sin/sins/evil"

--meaning an action that is in violation of some relation,

His belief about that event is in perfect congruity with reality,

and His consequent emotion (anger) and consequent action (judgement--His reaction to very sinful people)

is in perfect congruity with its object.

When experiencing an undeniably evil act, God's anger, and ours, is in perfect congruity.

How to have incomprehensible supernatural peace

Don't be anxious about anything, but pray about everything, thanking God, asking for good and the removal of evil, and God's incomprehensible supernatural peace will protect your mind and emotions.
~My paraphrase of the Apostle Paul's words to the church at Philippi.

Right now, as I write to you, I'm experiencing incomprehensible supernatural peace.  It's incomprehensible because none of the things I was worried about this morning changed.  (It's now 4:34pm.  This morning I was so worried I couldn't sleep.)  It's supernatural because it's from God, a direct answer to prayer.  This is how I know that I'm experiencing incomprehensible supernatural peace.

When I worry, I'm sure I do what you do:  I keep thinking about some problem that I have no control over.  That's what was happening this morning.  I'm having a deadline issue for a new job I'm applying for, and an unexpected setback in meeting that deadline.  And I can't do anything about it because it's Sunday.  So I have to wait until tomorrow; today I'm supposed to be relaxing at home.  It's one of those situations where I did everything well ahead of time to avoid the exact anxiety I was experiencing.  This morning I couldn't stop thinking about how angry I was with the registrar's office of my university.  All I need is a conferral of my masters degree...a degree I worked hard on for 4 years...in which I have 75 credit hours, when I only needed 66...in which I have about 520 clinical hours, when I only needed 500.  My financial aid is paid.  I applied for the transcripts on April 30, 2018, well in advance of grades posting...and I requested that my transcripts would be held until my degree was awarded.  I got my transcripts yesterday (Saturday), but the conferral date wasn't on the transcripts.  (How hard can it be to write something like:  Degree conferred-May 2018?  Or Degree earned-May 2018?)  That's all I need--for a new job I just got hired for, and to apply to take my licensure exam.  But I have to wait until tomorrow (Monday) to talk to the registrar about the discrepancy.

I felt anxiety.

I prayed.

I asked my wife to pray.

Now, I'm able to write you without this issue plaguing my mind.  Nothing has changed.  In fact, I received information that increased my frustration.  But I actually don't feel stressed, and I can't explain why...other than the prayer.  I'm able to enjoy writing you, to read two new books, to watch some shows on Netflix, have good conversations with my wife, and enjoy a silent solitary Sunday...though nothing has changed.  There is no natural reason I'm not feeling anxious.  No natural or logical explanation.

For me, the key to anxiety is not being able to stop thinking about a problem that is out of my control.  And as long as the problem is unresolved, the anxiety remains, or increases.  But that's not happening.  I'm not thinking about the unresolved problems. 

How is this possible? 

This is how I'm experiencing incomprehensible supernatural peace: 

I prayed.  My wife prayed.  God gave me unexplainable peace.

How to experience your greatest power

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.  King Solomon

Focused people focus people.  Your focus, where you decide to place and keep your attention, is your super power--your heart.  It is the most influential thing about you, what most impacts you and those around you.  You're using it right now as you read, if you're paying attention.  (I hope you are!)

What have you been focusing on today, or trying to focus on?

That says a lot about you, perhaps everything.

Let's ask it another way.

What do you really like focusing on?

I'm convinced that God's gifts to you and me are the things we really like.  There is a verse that relates to this, a verse I thought about in a way I've never done before:

"The joy of the Lord is your strength."

What if the joy you have, which comes from the Lord, is the very source of your strength, the source of your talents and abilities?

Think about it.

When you like doing something, focus comes naturally and easily.  Practice comes naturally and easily.  You want to keep doing what you like doing, to get good at it, so that the joy never stops.  I'm convinced that this is a gift from God, as it is written:

"So I decided that there is nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work.  Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God." 

Ecclesiastes 2:24 NLT

God is the source of your satisfaction, of what most captures your attention.  He gave you your focus.  Focused people focus people.  What is your focus?

A message from Jesus to you

Today I speak from heaven on earth by My Spirit.  One day, sooner than you think, I am coming.  Know this.  Prepare for this.  Watch for this.  But before you can know, prepare, and watch, you have to accept me for who I am.

I am the Lord.
I came to seek and save you, the one reading.  If you've accepted My salvation, then You know me already.  I'm in you.  If you haven't accepted me, I'm Jesus, the One you are rejecting.

Why are you rejecting Me?
I am Jesus, the One speaking with you right now.
I died for you.
I rose for you.
I ascended into heaven and I'm praying...for you.
This is My prayer, for you:

Father, convict the one reading by My Spirit if they are rejecting Me, and thus rejecting You.
For those who accept me, fill them with Me by the Spirit.

Surely I am with you if you want me to be.
If you don't, My absence is your choice, not mine.

I am Jesus, the Lord.

How to know your gift from God (Part 3)

"But what does this have to do with your original point, Olatunde?  Who likes to be patient?"

Those who practice patience want to be patient, which means they like being patient better than they like being impatient.  And the same is true for the impatient.  Those who are impatient like being impatient.  They like letting off steam immediately...but they usually don't like the consequences.  Remember, every good and perfect gift is from God, which means everything that you like that is good and perfect is a divine gift. 

That is how you know your gift from God; that is what you will become good and talented at through practice. Everything good and perfect liking that you have is a gift from God--by good and perfect liking, I mean you like the thing, and the consequences of the thing.  It means what you like brings no harm to the Creator, or any creature, or anything in creation. If you like something in this way, you will be naturally motivated to practice it, even if it's hard and time consuming.  The difficulty and use of energy will still be pleasing to you.  What you like in this way is your gift from God?

What do you really like doing?

How to know your gift from God (Part 2)

Say you consider yourself "impatient."  If you have a fixed mindset, it means you think this is just how you are, and that you can't change.  You think some people are born patient, and others born impatient.  But if you have a growth mindset, you realize that impatient people have practiced impatience--and have become very good at it!  The same is true with patient people.  No one is born patient or impatient.  No one is born knowing how to dance, or play drums, or anything else.  Everything we are, and everything we do, has come from learning, and practicing what we learned.

Now, we are born with different likes and dislikes.  And those likes are gifts from God, the motivations behind your actions, the actions that you practice and become good at.

Think more about this.  What's the difference, in actual experience, between someone who is effectively practicing patience, and someone who is "naturally patient," whatever that means?  Say the effective practice or experience of patience simply means listening without interrupting.  You and I are talking, and I listen without interruption.  What if I'm working on that, trying to break a habit of interruption.  And what if someone else has already established that habit.  What would be the difference, if in this one conversation, I listened without interruption?

There would be no difference. 

The act of patience is the same, for the one who is working on it, and for the one who has perfected it.  Now their internal experience may be different.  The one who is working on it may feel a pressure to speak, while the one who has perfected patience may not feel that urge.  And perhaps you would sense the urge from the one who is struggling.  But it's very possible that you wouldn't.  It is written, "No one knows the thoughts of a person except the spirit in the person."  So you wouldn't necessarily know that I'm struggling to listen without interruption unless I shared it with you.

The practice of patience is patience.  The practice of listening without interruption is the experience of listening without interruption.  

Click here for part 3.

How to know your gift from God (Part 1)

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." 

James, the brother of Jesus, leader in the Jerusalem Church

What you do well isn't your gift.  Neither are your talents.  Neither are your abilities. 

The gift God gave you is what you really like to do;

you become good at it by practicing;

you practice it because you enjoy it.

I know this from experience.

I remember discovering that I liked music.  It caught my attention like nothing else did.  It motivated me to move, and I remembered melodies easily--because I liked them.  (The strongest memories are those that are most pleasing, or most displeasing.  You try to hold on to the pleasures and avoid the displeasures.  In other words, you begin to practice finding the pleasure, and avoiding the displeasure, hoping to become good at both.)  I liked rhythms and melodies and music.  I liked dancing and playing mallet percussion.  So I did both of these...all of the time.  I liked going to drum practice, which means I liked practicing.  And I became good at drumming and dancing...because I liked doing them.

My liking music is God's gift. 

The musical talent and ability come from liking music.  

If I don't practice singing, dancing, and composing, then I can no more do these and anyone else.

There is a book that beautifully explains this called Mindset.  It distinguishes the fixed mindset from the growth mindset.  The fixed mindset means that some think we are born with certain abilities and that those don't change.  The growth mindset is the opposite.  We learn, we develop, and we can ultimately do whatever we choose to practice, as it is also written in scripture, "He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as Christ is righteous."  

You can be liberated by what I just wrote.  Think about what it means.

Click here for part 2.