a l i v e & a w a k e

I have always loved going out into nature and being alone with God. Especially in times when my life seems to be bland, falling apart, and numb. I remember a time when I had just suffered a burnout period in my work and I needed time away from everyone. I took a solid week to hike every day on a lookout in Bancroft called the Eagle’s Nest. There are many trails and reflection point to sit, think, smoke a pipe and journal. It was in the fall and so I was visually inundated with the exploding colours across the horizon.

I had only one question that I went into that time with for myself and God, “What I am I to do?" Taking my first day I hike, I sat and I pleaded in a mantra type fashion “God, What do you want me to do?”, over and over again.

I felt no answer.

My legs were sore, my mind was blank, I was no better off and I got worried because I at least expected a conversation to start in that time. The next morning I went to the same place and chanted over and over my same mantra and than I heard a small voice. It was not the answer to my question but it was a short statement that threw me, “You’re asking the wrong question.”

I spent the rest of the day figuring out what is the ‘right’ question. Nothing came.

I went home feeling happy that a discussion was starting but more depressed because I was way behind in my search and the week would be over before I knew it.

Day 3- it dawned on me that my initial search had to do with external change and tasks. I really like tasks and there is something inside me that feels good when I can process the day with a check list and say I accomplished ‘all’ this today. What I do doesn’t hit the real heart issues though. It may be more important to know who I am and let that inform what I do. So I began that day with hope asking God “Who am I?”. This mantra by the end of the day left me with thoughts but nothing that was resonating with me. I felt really depressed as I walked home because I had come up with my best question and it still left me lacking. I was preparing myself for the rest of the week to have this despondent feeling and head back to work with no new revelation. The next day I woke up to ready to fight God.

I wanted to plead, beg, yell do what ever but not continue with this hollow feeling. I knew a bit more of who I was but I still lacked. Than He hit me, “Joe you are asking the wrong question?” By now my frustration moved to brokenness and I was ready for anything. What possible could God be wanting me to ask? 

Maybe it was like the small voice on a breeze the same as Elijah on the mountain (kind of the surroundings I was in), but I heard very clearly, “Joe you should be asking ‘God, Who are you?’”  At first I stumbled on that because I was raised in a church that made me memorize a bunch of verses and the attributes and names of God. I thought, “I know you God. Why do I need to know you more?”

I realized that I didn’t know God because if I did know God, I wouldn’t be asking or struggling at this point. The connection hit me, I know a lot about God but I don’t know God very well.
A story from the New Testament has really resonated with me as of late when I reflect on this time in my life.

Lessons from the Blind man in John 9

Jesus encounters a blind man that His disciples have pointed out to Him. They want to talk about the origin of the blind man’s sin but Jesus wants to do something else.  So He says

5 But while I am still here in the world, I am the light of the world."
6 Then he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and smoothed the mud over the blind man's eyes.
7 He told him, "Go and wash in the pool of Siloam" (Siloam means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came back seeing!
  John 9:5-7 (NLT)

Lesson

Walking away from Christ is what brought revelation-sight. Walking in obedience in a desert situation brought healing. How much time elapsed in this event?

Where was the pool of Siloam in relation to where this happened?

The Desert of the Blind man

Desert defined as the place or state that offers you nothing but your true authentic self and your God.

The Desert Fathers would go, learn and be in the desert –physically so that spiritually they would realize who they were and more importantly who God is.

I see the desert moments for the blind man being;

-Begging and calling out in a public setting

This desert seems to be much of his life. His place in life is to beg. He probably knows he doesn’t fit into the norm of society and that he is pitied and talked about. He is blind, but he could hear and perceive. The disciples don’t help the situation when they show up and make him a topical game show of ‘who sinned.’

His desert is the disconnect from the rest of the world. Nothing, if little is offered to him for some circumstances that were out of his control.

 

-Spit and mud –humility, vulnerability, and authenticity

Jesus, the one who can help has come. He is the one the blind man has heard of who can heal. He’s healed lame people, demon possessed people were relieved and there was some interesting water/wine tricks. This is the man and possibly the moment.

What do you think it was like for him to have Jesus so close to him he could here his words, maybe even His breathing. Internally he may have thought,

“What do you think He will say? Will it be a booming voice yelling in deep manly tones “BE HEALED!” Will it be a hand touching his forehead and a radiant pulsating warm will intensely heal the old eyes? “No wait, He’s doing something! I can hear something. This is it! He is…, He is… spitting?”

“He’s not just spitting a little but a lot. Does He have a cold? Is He a smoker? What is going on? Sounds like some rubbing in the dirt and ……What!!!. I think he just wiped some of that spit mixed with mud on my face!”

Than Jesus tells him to get up and wash this off his face in a pool some distance away. There was no help as far as we can see from the text to get to the pool of Siloam (sent). Can you imagine your self in the place of that man in this instance?  He is now seemingly worse off now that he has been all his life. He’s stumbled before and fallen in a crowd where people laughed, but this….mud on his face. What comments do you think people may have been whispering as he bumped and scraped through town? “Did some pigeons fly over and nail this guy?”

This is the second desert moment. Walking further and further away from the guy who everyone has said can heal him and now probably he is so far away that he could scream out his name “JESUS!” and would not be heard. Yet the journey continues.

Now it is because this blind man took this journey away from Jesus, into His desert, true sight came to him. Is it possible that sometimes we need to walk away from the very obvious presence of Jesus to dark, uncertain places that offer us nothing but ourselves, broken and blind?  It is in these places revelation can come –revelation that can come no other way but by being sent (Siloam).

What do we do when these moments come to us from circumstance or conviction (desert)? What do we do when we are vulnerable and our true authentic selves are revealed to us in hard, dry and barren places?

I sometimes, cover up my raw emotions.  I try to ‘Tylenol’ the situation like a headache. I hide, I become numb or get real busy so I am unaware. I will even find a comfortable(negative sense, true definition of comfort is French for “to strengthen much”), place to reside. Sometimes I crap on myself for being so weak and useless and just tell myself to give up. But that is not what the desert is about.

-Journey to Siloam-discipline to contemplate, obey in each blind step

Being sent is key in our growth to places that may take time or be hard to go. In this moment, like the blind man, we need to be aware of our surroundings as we feel your way through this. Our feelings are heightened which allow our other senses to be very active and alive. In the humiliation I’m sure that walk for him became a little more alive as he walked a walk that could possible change his life. There may have been a par of him that thought, “What if this works?” We may feel this seems worse off but spiritually we are walking into a new aspect of Jesus’ person, character and healing. It wasn’t until the washing happened and the journey and assignment was fulfilled that he saw. That may be the truth for us.

We may not see the revelation of God for our lives until we walk a ‘desert’ walk of sorts. It needs to be done in obedience and not just finding a desert experience for the sake of finding deserts. Only then can we have the new revelation of who Jesus is. That is the point of the blind man was to know Jesus, and physically seeing was the bonus.

-joe