Have you heard from Jesus lately?
5 Nov 2007
I had one of those days yesterday. A long dark ‘tea time of the soul’, rather than a long dark night, where I went to bed tired, and feeling the impossibility of trying to form a church community amidst the rising tide of secular consumer religion.
That melancholy led (as it usually does in my thought processes) to me asking Jesus if he knew what he was doing, then to question my suitability and capabilities for ministry, studies, teaching etc.
I woke up this morning, tired and still questioning, and on my drive to the office, found myself deep in conversational prayer, the culmination of which was to ask Jesus if he could let me know he was involved in my life and what I was doing. Just some gentle reassurance.
I got into my office, opened my email, to find a message from a friend, the other side of the world, who sent me a ‘word’, and in charismatic terms ‘read my mail’. By that I mean his email contained words and phrases from my prayer as I arrived at the office, from my extended conversation in the car on the way to the office.
It addressed the contents of my prayer so deeply and profoundly, I found myself crying, and worshipping. So today I am reminded that Jesus is alive and involved in my life, and that 20 years after choosing to follow his voice, I chose to continue to do so today.
So as I close, this reflection, I wondered, have you heard from Jesus lately? How/what and where has he been talking to you?
(ps. I’m adding this after some of the comments. I’m not espousing this as a daily occurrence, or expectation. It was a wonderful, reminder to me that Jesus can and does break through the mundane. The larger context for this post is that most of my blog is about the recovery of a mundane spirituality. Interesting that all the times I post about the absence/difficulties of God, that is more digestible, or certainly less pejorative.)
19 comments
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Comment by J Lynn Pflug
8.07 pm on 5 Nov 2007
YES! jlp
Comment by makarios
8.54 pm on 5 Nov 2007
Why, I think I’m hearing from Him right now. God is good!
Comment by The Krow
9.21 pm on 5 Nov 2007
I love those days when that happens. It amazes me. I had recently a a reminder from God three times through different people and a website of a verse which was to be engrained into my head. I find Jesus often wants to talk, it is me who turns my ears away to the business of life instead of to the life giver.
Comment by Thomas E. Ward
9.32 pm on 5 Nov 2007
Jase, where do we go when Christ seems unresponsive and our prayers go unanswered and our way is unsure and the voice of vocation is barely an echo? I read your post and felt pangs of envy. I long for a connection with the Divine that prompts me to weep and worship.
Comment by Helen
9.59 pm on 5 Nov 2007
Thomas, I know you didn’t ask me…but I think it’s really important to stay in community. It was through a friend that Jason received this encouragement.
Comment by Jason
9.17 am on 6 Nov 2007
Tom, this isn’t my daily experience, most of the time it’s more like this:
http://jasonclark.ws/2007/08/16/emerging-black-dog/
I hang onto these moments, and go to the cross daily with the absence that occurs most days.
Also I seem to find my connection to Jesus in community, more and more, seeing others connect to Jesus, connects me, if that makes any sense.
Comment by Thomas E. Ward
3.24 pm on 7 Nov 2007
Jason, thank you. The community piece, which Helen also mentioned above, may be one of the weakest dimensions of my (spiritual) life. As a pastor, I’ve struggled to connect with others in my own community. That’s a sad admission, isn’t it? Pastoral life is a weird world. It’s bizarre to be known by so many and yet still feel extraordinarily disconnected within the framework of the pastor-parishioner paradigm.
Comment by Helen
9.55 pm on 5 Nov 2007
Jase, I’m glad you received just what you needed this morning.
Comment by D.G. Hollums
10.02 pm on 5 Nov 2007
That happened to me with the Labyrinth you posted the other day. Thanks!
Comment by Jonathan Brink
12.09 am on 6 Nov 2007
Nice.
Comment by Buzz
4.06 am on 6 Nov 2007
Jason:
I’m a bivocational pastor in the United Methodist tradition, serving a small, missional church in the U.S., surrounded by consumer Christian program churches. I see very little opportunity for “growth” in the numerical sense.
I go through those ‘dark night of the soul’ and desert periods so often that I wonder if I’ll make it out of ministry alive. And then, something always pulls me back.
Recently, I have felt drained — physically, emotionally and spiritually. I was once again ready to throw in the towel when I found myself preparing to preach on 2 Timothy 4, where Paul speaks of being “poured out.” The manner in which that Scripture spoke to me was something that could only have happened through the power of the Holy Spirit. I began to identify with Paul in way that ministered to me with the knowledge that all of life is a “pouring out,” and the only life worth living is being poured out for Christ.
Grace and peace,
buzz
Comment by Jason
9.18 am on 6 Nov 2007
Thanks for your story Buzz.
Comment by brett jordan
9.57 am on 6 Nov 2007
Moments like the one you describe are great, but not guaranteed.
For me, working my way through the Bible’s stories on a regular basis gives me the assurance that God is there in the tedious, the mundane, the awful and the downright inexplicable situations of life… and that I do not always have to ‘feel’ this for it to be true…
As the old English proverb goes “Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it”.
Comment by Jason
10.00 am on 6 Nov 2007
certainly not guaranteed, and I offer this story in the context of the rest of my blog, about the mundaneness of the christian life :-)
Comment by Jon
11.47 am on 6 Nov 2007
Jase,
I struggle with this so much – In fact I was having a similar prayer time just before I turned on my computer and started reading through the feeds. I think I struggle because I really have held dear the concept that we should “join in” with what we see God doing – and quite often that isn’t a lot. Also, whilst much ministry can be mundane – sometime, some of the stuff I’m involved with seems to have more than an absence of God, but be unGod (if there’s such a word) – still, I can’t escape the ideal that Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing, and we should seek the same.
Any thoughts anyone?
Comment by Jason
9.15 am on 8 Nov 2007
Hi Jon, I think the expectations of church leaders, for successful ministry, and the expectation of church members for thrills and spills at church, conflate into the problems we’re talking about, or touching on here.
Yet I’m moved by the connections on a daily basis the the Spirit of Jesus makes in the mundaneness of life.
Comment by steven hamilton
1.13 pm on 6 Nov 2007
this same kind of melancholy haunts me, or possibly taunts me from the edge. lately, patty griffin’s song from her new CD has made me cry, send me to my knees begging for a touch from Jesus…and this thought weighs at the center of my soul: God is good and His faithfulness endures forever…
here is part of my post from last week as i struggled with this…
the song ‘Up To The Mountains (MLK Song)’ is just hitting home right now…in my journey of where i have been, where i am and where i have yet to go…and still i hear His sweet voice come and then go…telling me softly, He loves me so…and i’m just looking for a taste of that peaceful valley in the now-and-not-yet…just a taste…of that peace here and now…
lyrics:
I went up to the mountain
Because you asked me to
Up over the clouds
To where the sky was blue
I could see all around me
Everywhere
I could see all around me
Everywhere
Sometimes I feel like
I never been nothing but tired
And I’ll be working
Till the day I expire
Sometimes I lay down
No more can I do
But then I go on again
Because you ask me to
Some days I look down
Afraid I will fall
And though the sun shines
I see nothing at all
Then I hear your sweet voice
Come and then go
Telling me softly
You love me so
The peaceful valley
Just over the mountain
The peaceful valley
Few come to know
I may never get there
Ever in this lifetime
But sooner or later
It’s there I will go
Sooner or later
It’s there I will go
Comment by steven hamilton
1.25 pm on 6 Nov 2007
…been struggling with the same melancholy…
http://verveandverse.blogspot.com/2007/11/listening-to.html
Comment by Paul
8.57 pm on 6 Nov 2007
bro, thnk you for sharing and thank you for who you are and what you do!!! For what it is worth i have probably heard from jesus in your teaching, leading and friendship in a way that has really impacted how i live my life more in the last year and a half than in any other time in my christian life!
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