Tangled.
"The nations have sunk down in the pit which they made; in the net which they hid, their own foot is caught. The Lord is known by the judgment he executes; the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands." - Psalm 9:15-16
I work at a ropes course in the spring and fall. I've done it for years, and, I suppose, as weekend jobs go, it's pretty rewarding. I get to see kids overcome what they thought they couldn't do and all of that.
Over the winter, one of the trees attached to the course fell in a windstorm, compromising the integrity of our climbing tower, so we rebuilt a new course. It's pretty spiffy. One of the new features is a 30 foot cargo net that the kids can climb to get to the top of the tower, instead of "rock climbing" their way up.
I've noticed something really interesting about the cargo net, though. When a kid gets tired, he succumbs to gravity, and his body droops down. When that happens, though, his foot becomes "tangled" in the net.
I put tangled in quotation marks because really, the kid isn't caught at all. If he were to pull himself up with his arms and put weight on the foot, he'd be fine. But since he isn't resisting gravity and his body is level with that foot, it makes him feel tangled.
The kid tends to panic, yelling, "I'm caught! I'm caught!" and it's usually something of a challenge for the staff to get the kid calm enough to tell him the "simple" fix that is just going to take a bit of muscle.
When I read this verse in Psalms today, I immediately got a visual of this, and I realized how much our spiritual lives are like the cargo net. When we are looking heavenward, we can progress onward without a problem.
As soon as we stop to contemplate the world, we succumb to gravity, and "in the net which they hid, their own foot is caught." It's so funny, because then we flounder in our faith and cry, "Woe is me! Where is God now?" when really, all we need to do is to stand back up, fix our eyes on the Lord and keep going.
Instead, we allow our foot to remain caught, and we thrash about in the net.
The net is probably something different for each of us. Perhaps it's a sin that we don't want to relinquish. Maybe it's simply not setting aside time each day to pursue the Lord.
Speaking of pursuit of God, in reading Jeremiah, I've really been struck about how diligently God pursues us. "'And the Lord has sent to you all His servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear." (25:4) This kind of goes along with what I was writing yesterday. The issue isn't that God isn't speaking; it's that we aren't listening.
In my grad class a few weeks ago, my professor pointed out the difference between hearing and listening. "Hearing," he said, "is a biological process. Listening is cognitive." In other words, provided that all is well with our ears, we can't help but to hear. Right now, I hear the trees rustling outside, the hum of my computer, the click of the computer keys, the birds outside, the cars down on the road. Listening, though, is cognitive - a mental process - because we have to engage our mind in order to decide what to listen to. Most of the time, I can filter out all of those sounds without paying them any attention. Listening is where we *think* about what we're hearing, and we decide to engage with it. (This is why kids fail my tests... I said the information, and they heard me say it, but they weren't listening.)
Anyway, God is speaking to us. He is speaking to you, right now. I firmly believe this. The issue comes with us listening, because - like I wrote yesterday - it takes a different kind of listening. James 1:19 says, "So then, my beloved bethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath."
You know what's so interesting about the verse that I started today's writing with? It truly ends with this: "Meditation. Selah."
And that fits so perfectly, because if we are to continue climbing the "cargo net of faith," without getting caught up in our own issues, we have to be listening to God, and the verse even tells us how - meditation.
How often - and seriously, answer this for yourself, because I, too, am answering it for me - how often do you stop to listen for God? I think that culture have confused the word "meditate." When I think of meditation, I picture that Tic-Tac commercial from a year or two ago - remember? The one where the yoga class is sitting in the lotus position, and they're all doing the breathing exercises and smiling because they have a Tic-Tac or something like that? That's how we picture meditation. We think it is "clearing our minds" - "emptying them."
Nah. The trick isn't to "empty" our minds; it's to set aside our own thoughts to listen for God's words.
I'm reading Conversations with God: Book One right now (among countless other things, which means my progress in it is slow). It's not a Christian book by any means, but I like reading things that are not necessarily Christian because I find that it deepens my faith - it requires me to look into the Bible to see what is Truth.
Anyway, the premise of Conversations with God is that the author feels that he began a dialogue with God - basically on the spur of a moment, over the course of a year or two - and then he published that dialogue, almost like a new Bible.
My point is this: very early in the book, he writes that God says, "I talk to everyone. All the time. The question is not to whom do I talk, but who listens?" (Walsch 3).
This I believe to be true. We see it all throughout the Bible - in the Old Testament, where the people are "stiff-necked" and refuse to listen - and the New. God speaks; we don't listen. We snare ourselves in the cargo net instead.
I don't want to give a list of "how to listen to God." I don't believe in formulaic faith. It limits God. No, wait, let me correct that. It limits US in how we interact with God.
I will say this, though. If you truly want to listen to God, you must make time for it. *I* must make time for it. For me, I'm getting pretty good about reading the Word each day. Prayer is more difficult for me. My mind wanders. I go through my Christmas list of things that I want: more love for Hector, resolution in the divorce, a restored relationship with my family, for God to work in friendships, to know God more. I'll even pray: "Lord, let me hear Your voice" - but then I don't stop to listen.
I have a book downstairs on the Christian section of my bookshelves that I've never read, but I love the title of it: Practice of the Presence of God. I love that - that we need to practice listening to God.
Sometimes, it's good to know that we don't necessarily need to have it all figured out yet. After all, we aren't at the top of the cargo net.
I work at a ropes course in the spring and fall. I've done it for years, and, I suppose, as weekend jobs go, it's pretty rewarding. I get to see kids overcome what they thought they couldn't do and all of that.
Over the winter, one of the trees attached to the course fell in a windstorm, compromising the integrity of our climbing tower, so we rebuilt a new course. It's pretty spiffy. One of the new features is a 30 foot cargo net that the kids can climb to get to the top of the tower, instead of "rock climbing" their way up.
I've noticed something really interesting about the cargo net, though. When a kid gets tired, he succumbs to gravity, and his body droops down. When that happens, though, his foot becomes "tangled" in the net.
I put tangled in quotation marks because really, the kid isn't caught at all. If he were to pull himself up with his arms and put weight on the foot, he'd be fine. But since he isn't resisting gravity and his body is level with that foot, it makes him feel tangled.
The kid tends to panic, yelling, "I'm caught! I'm caught!" and it's usually something of a challenge for the staff to get the kid calm enough to tell him the "simple" fix that is just going to take a bit of muscle.
When I read this verse in Psalms today, I immediately got a visual of this, and I realized how much our spiritual lives are like the cargo net. When we are looking heavenward, we can progress onward without a problem.
As soon as we stop to contemplate the world, we succumb to gravity, and "in the net which they hid, their own foot is caught." It's so funny, because then we flounder in our faith and cry, "Woe is me! Where is God now?" when really, all we need to do is to stand back up, fix our eyes on the Lord and keep going.
Instead, we allow our foot to remain caught, and we thrash about in the net.
The net is probably something different for each of us. Perhaps it's a sin that we don't want to relinquish. Maybe it's simply not setting aside time each day to pursue the Lord.
Speaking of pursuit of God, in reading Jeremiah, I've really been struck about how diligently God pursues us. "'And the Lord has sent to you all His servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear." (25:4) This kind of goes along with what I was writing yesterday. The issue isn't that God isn't speaking; it's that we aren't listening.
In my grad class a few weeks ago, my professor pointed out the difference between hearing and listening. "Hearing," he said, "is a biological process. Listening is cognitive." In other words, provided that all is well with our ears, we can't help but to hear. Right now, I hear the trees rustling outside, the hum of my computer, the click of the computer keys, the birds outside, the cars down on the road. Listening, though, is cognitive - a mental process - because we have to engage our mind in order to decide what to listen to. Most of the time, I can filter out all of those sounds without paying them any attention. Listening is where we *think* about what we're hearing, and we decide to engage with it. (This is why kids fail my tests... I said the information, and they heard me say it, but they weren't listening.)
Anyway, God is speaking to us. He is speaking to you, right now. I firmly believe this. The issue comes with us listening, because - like I wrote yesterday - it takes a different kind of listening. James 1:19 says, "So then, my beloved bethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath."
You know what's so interesting about the verse that I started today's writing with? It truly ends with this: "Meditation. Selah."
And that fits so perfectly, because if we are to continue climbing the "cargo net of faith," without getting caught up in our own issues, we have to be listening to God, and the verse even tells us how - meditation.
How often - and seriously, answer this for yourself, because I, too, am answering it for me - how often do you stop to listen for God? I think that culture have confused the word "meditate." When I think of meditation, I picture that Tic-Tac commercial from a year or two ago - remember? The one where the yoga class is sitting in the lotus position, and they're all doing the breathing exercises and smiling because they have a Tic-Tac or something like that? That's how we picture meditation. We think it is "clearing our minds" - "emptying them."
Nah. The trick isn't to "empty" our minds; it's to set aside our own thoughts to listen for God's words.
I'm reading Conversations with God: Book One right now (among countless other things, which means my progress in it is slow). It's not a Christian book by any means, but I like reading things that are not necessarily Christian because I find that it deepens my faith - it requires me to look into the Bible to see what is Truth.
Anyway, the premise of Conversations with God is that the author feels that he began a dialogue with God - basically on the spur of a moment, over the course of a year or two - and then he published that dialogue, almost like a new Bible.
My point is this: very early in the book, he writes that God says, "I talk to everyone. All the time. The question is not to whom do I talk, but who listens?" (Walsch 3).
This I believe to be true. We see it all throughout the Bible - in the Old Testament, where the people are "stiff-necked" and refuse to listen - and the New. God speaks; we don't listen. We snare ourselves in the cargo net instead.
I don't want to give a list of "how to listen to God." I don't believe in formulaic faith. It limits God. No, wait, let me correct that. It limits US in how we interact with God.
I will say this, though. If you truly want to listen to God, you must make time for it. *I* must make time for it. For me, I'm getting pretty good about reading the Word each day. Prayer is more difficult for me. My mind wanders. I go through my Christmas list of things that I want: more love for Hector, resolution in the divorce, a restored relationship with my family, for God to work in friendships, to know God more. I'll even pray: "Lord, let me hear Your voice" - but then I don't stop to listen.
I have a book downstairs on the Christian section of my bookshelves that I've never read, but I love the title of it: Practice of the Presence of God. I love that - that we need to practice listening to God.
Sometimes, it's good to know that we don't necessarily need to have it all figured out yet. After all, we aren't at the top of the cargo net.
posted by Heather at 8:23 AM
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