An Experiencing God Journal; Putting Out a Pet Peeve

You can look at the photo on the left and interpret it one of two ways. You can see it as the businessman dropping his current life on the spot to follow Jesus calling, which is the photographer's intension. Or you can see a man lurching forward in some trace-like stance after a charismatic figure, just a sudden spur-of-the-moment impulse.

I say this because of the man's stopped, ape-like posture. I know it is suppose to indicate the man has just placed his briefcase down, but it still comes too close to presenting a false picture of the passage it was taken to illustrate, Mark 1:16-20.

Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”  And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him. (ESV)

Mark is not the most verbose of the Gospel writers. His presentation sometimes reads as almost an outline or synopsis more than a narrative. It goes from even to event rapidly and often without connecting sequences. Here are the passages immediately before and after the calling to be fishers of men:

The Baptism of Jesus

⁹ In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰ And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. ¹¹ And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son;^[d] with you I am well pleased.”

The Temptation of Jesus

¹² The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. ¹³ And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted bySatan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.

Jesus Begins His Ministry

¹⁴ Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, ¹⁵ and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Jesus Calls the First Disciples

(Previously Quoted passage)

Jesus Heals a Man with an Unclean Spirit

²¹ And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching. ²² Andthey were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. ²³ And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, ²⁴ “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” ²⁵ But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” ²⁶ And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. ²⁷ And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” ²⁸ And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.

This is the highlight reel: Jesus is Baptized, Tempted in the wilderness, John is arrested, Jesus calls his disciples and he casts out a demon, all quickly noted in Mark Chapter 1, and this isn't even the whole of that chapter. But a whole lot went on between those highlights. You need to read the other Gospels to fill in the gaps.

Yet, it seems, every film version of Jesus' life I saw presented this calling of the disciples as if Jesus just strolled by a bunch of strangers one day, said, "Follow me" and they impulsively went not knowing him from Adam.

Hollywood continues to depict it this way. They certainly did in The Bible Series on History. They show Jesus just strolling down a fairly empty beach, stop on the shore and stare at Peter fishing alone in a boat. Jesus wades out, gets in the boat, tells Peter where to fish and then tells him to follow. Peter asks what he is going to do and Jesus answers, "Change the world." 

There is no sign of Peter and Jesus having met previously, no Andrew in the scene, whatever. But Andrew, James and John were involved and all these men had met Jesus previous to that moment and spent time with him. You have to go to the other Gospels, especially John, to get the whole picture. You have to go back to after Jesus came back from the wilderness being tempted by Satan. John the Baptist points him out and two of John's disciples approach Jesus. These were Andrew and John, the future Apostle. Andrew then immediately got Peter, his brother, and they spend the day with Jesus. 

The next day they meet with Philip and Nathanael and then travel to Cana and a wedding. After the wedding they go to there home town, but later travel south to Jerusalem for Passover. They spend some time Baptizing in the wilderness after Passover before returning to Galilee via Samaria and home again. Then Jesus is rejected in Nazareth, moves to Capernaum and begins teaching about the area.  He has gathered a following and one day is being pressed by the crowd, so he waded out and got in Peter's boat. He told Peter to cast his net and so many fish were caught that Andrew came to help. It was now Jesus said, "Follow me and I'llk make you fishers of men."

As they were walking along the shore immediately after, Jesus called to James and John. But it wasn't some sudden impulse. Jesus had known these men for a period of time, talked with them, walked with them, taught them.

When I read this short cutting of the calling of the first Disciples on Day 2 of Unit 1 in Experiencing God I was concerned that the author would be cherry picking verses to serve his purpose, but as we have moved on through the lessons I can see this is not the case. In fact, I am more guilty of this by taking the author out of context and jumping to wrong conclusions. 

An Experiencing God Journal: Initial Wait-a-Minute Moment

We have begun a new Bible Study at my church. It is "Experiencing God" by Henry Blackaby, Richard Blackaby and Claude King. It is a very challenging undertaking, to say the least.

Those who have known me long, or even perhaps through my Blogs, know I question everything. I think we should, especially people who profess to tell us about God. I believe this is Scriptural.


Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. Matthew 7:15 (ESV)

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 1 John 4:4 (ESV)

The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Acts 17:10 (ESV)

This not that you are questioning God, but that you are questioning if what others tell you about God is true.

In the opening portion of this journey there seemed heavy emphasis on a kind of immediate, almost blind faith following of God. I suppose I have a hair-trigger skepticism button and I never believed in blind faith. I believe in a knowing faith. I'm not sure how to define that, perhaps we can call it a trusting faith. Blind faith would be jumping off a bridge because somebody said, "Go jump off that bridge." Knowing faith would be because you knew jumping would serve a good purpose because you had trusting faith in who told you to jump.

When Peter stepped off the boat during the storm he did not impulsively jump overboard in blind faith just seeing Jesus walking on the water. He asked, "Lord, if it's you tell me to come to you on the water." When Jesus said, "Come," he went because he had a knowing faith of trusting Jesus. He had a little conflict then with what he knew he trusted and what he had been taught that he should know. What he had been taught was you can't walk on water and when he looked away from Jesus to the world he began to sink.  (Mathew 14: 25-30)

I think there is a lot of Peter in a lot of us Christians. We have a strong knowing faith in Christ most of the time, but there are still moments when we glance away and see the waves and think, "I better start swimming or I'm gonna drown," and we just begin to sink. Fortunately, Jesus always has us in his hand and isn't going to lose one whom God gave him.

So I guess I had my own little moment of looking at the waves and questioning what am I in the middle of. There was a lot of heavy emphasis in seemed on Abrams just up and going when God said go. The author asked, "How much detail was he (Abrams) given before God asked him to follow?

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. (Genesis 12:1-5)

And I though, if he didn't give a lot of detail, he did give a lot of incentive. It also said Abram "set out to go to the land of Canaan," which meant the journey ahead might not be a total unknown to Abram since we were told in Genesis 11:31-32 that Abram's father, Terah had initial set out to go to Canaan, but stopped far short and settled down. It appeared he was picking hop where his father left off. Verse 5 is a bit ambiguous saying, "They set out to go to the land of Canaan." The normal reading of that statement would be they knew from the start where they were going, which would imply God gave Abram more detail than we were given in the quotation. However, it is also possible the writer (Moses) knowledgable of where they ended up projected it back in this narrative while Abram didn't know his destination when he started.

None-the-less I was struggling with this and the author of the studies point of this kind of immediate blind following. My next thought went to Gideon and all his testing of God before he took action. (Judges 6:11-40)

But then as the early weeks of study conversed a thing called the Seven Realities was revealed and I could begin to place the events of Abram's journey (and Moses') into the context of this chart. I think it may be a bit more complex than the simple cycle of God working - God seeking a relationship - God inviting - God Speaking - Crisis of Belief - Major Life Adjustment and Obedience and Experience. Looking at these examples it would appear to me that me have a loop here, or at lease some smaller loops within the process (spoken as a former systems analyst). Abram-Abraham went through more than one crisis of belief, I think, with his most intense one involving the promise of a son when he didn't wait on God and had Ishmael by his own means. I think his true adjustment and peak of obeying and experiencing God came at the sacrifice of Isaac. 

I will also admit I probably had my own little crisis of belief in this study's author on Day 2 when he hit upon a pet peeve of mine. I'll discuss that next entry. Meanwhile, I have made a big adjustment in my own mind about this study and I'm ready for that step of faith, not without a bit of inner trembling. Encountering God fully is not something to be taken lightly.

An Experiencing God Journal: Some Early Callings

I think I was experiencing God very early on in my life. I wasn’t very receptive to him though. I didn’t like church and I didn’t like people waving their Gospel beliefs in my face. I couldn’t seem to escape either. I was forced to church, but I made deals with my parents once I was driving age. I’d go to MYF, but not Sunday morning church service. I even was elected President of MYF. Perhaps I’d not achieved this office if they knew what I was doing home alone while my folks attended Worship Services. Let’s just say I had my nose buried in some books full of pictures, very little text and certainly not depictions of Bible stories.

I remember one day walking out across a field with two friends. I heard a voice call my name plain as day. “Larry.” No one else heard it, even though it certainly seemed loud enough. It wasn’t in my head. It was a voice right there in the open air. “Larry,” it said again, but I kept walking. Three times the voice called my name.

I don’t explain it. I just tell you I heard this voice, a strong, clear voice. Was it God? I don’t know, but I know it scared me half to death. I was shook up by that voice for days and as you can see, I never forgot the instance (nor did I ever discuss it with anyone). I had a great imagination, I admit, but I wasn’t prone to imagining voices.

But it didn’t turn me away from my teenage desires and behavior. I still kept buying and hiding though magazines in my room. In fact, as I grew and married my path led further and further away from Godly pursuits. My wife and I were into pleasure and believe me in the artistic and Hippie life we lived there were pleasures to be had.

That’s when I had my second eerie experience. I was dying…well; I had certainly convinced myself death was eminent. Some sickness had laid me up in bed for days. I was pouring out sweat and had reached a point when I believed there was no hope. I even resorted to prayer, of all things.

It was then I saw the cross on the wall. It was just light formed into a cross, except there was no light. It was late night. Inside the room was dark and outside the windows was night. Yet there was a bright cross glowing on my wall. And at that moment I felt all the illness leave me. The next day I was back at work.

For days, every night, I looked for that cross, tried to figure out how light could gave played such a trick, but I never saw it again.

You’d probably say, “Hey, so that’s where you got religion?”

You’d be wrong. I went even further into darkness. I was getting into the occult. My Bible was now the Satanic Bible and my prophets were Edgar Cayce and Ruth Montgomery. If anyone ever searched out the pathway to Hell, it was I in the late sixties. I was reading to believe anything paranormal, except God. One night my friends and I drove all about Delaware County certain we were trailing flying saucers invading Pennsylvania.

Then a sudden, just as I had given up smoking cold turkey, I threw away Anton LaVey’s little black book and the Weegie Board. Had I seen the light? No, I had seen the darkness, the deep black of nothing. I became an Atheist. Not just an Atheist, an activist one. I was angry at those churches filling people’s heads with stuff and nonsense. I began arguing with ministers up close and personal.

Meanwhile, my wife and I were sinking further into depravity. What did it matter? We weren’t hurting anyone, just having a good time. What did it matter how many people were in bed together? It was just sex after all, no one need know and it wasn’t anyone’s business anyway, and we were harming no one.

It wasn’t always sex. Sometimes it was just heavy drinking, jokes and card playing. Yeah, sometimes I had to pull a friend out of a bar before the fight erupted or off the street before the cops came, but boy, ain’t we havin’ fun now?

Except we kept losing babies. Why my wife having a baby that lived beyond birth was about as possible as me believing in God.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. Romans 1:24-25

Well now, wasn’t that me? Shouldn’t God have washed his hands of me? What was I to him; he certainly wasn’t anything to me. I was just this self-centered, pornography-loving, sex-crazed, writer of horror tales who had pushed God away all his life. If you don’t believe God is love, then why did what happened happen?

I am sitting in the waiting room of a hospital. I wasn’t alone. There were a couple of other men there, happy men, because in a few hours they would be fathers. I wouldn’t be among them. I’d be empty handed again, a man seeing another doomed child die, our seventh.

Then suddenly I was alone in that waiting room…or was I.

Just as mysterious as those times before, the voice in the field and the cross on the wall, I felt something, heard something. I had heart in the beat of that baby’s heart and now I felt confirmed in what I heard, that there was a God. I knew it this time. I didn’t yet know what to do with that knowledge that would come later.

Now we are beginning a Bible Study called, “Experiencing God” and it was suggested we keep a journal. This is the beginning of my journal. I began this study with some trepidation and some Day One questioning. That will be the subject of my next entry.